littleforeigner

Apr 8

Pangea Day, May 10, 2008

In a world where people are often divided by borders, difference, and conflict, it’s easy to lose sight of what we all have in common. Pangea Day seeks to overcome that - to help people see themselves in others - through the power of film.
On May 10, 2008 — Pangea Day — sites in Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai and Rio de Janeiro will be linked live to produce a program of powerful films, visionary speakers, and uplifting music.

In this video a Japanese troupe performs the Turkish national anthem (though I would skip the less than peace inspired comments). See more anthems here.

Apr 6

Youth center a bit like an army camp; MUST be getting old as starting to think “it’ll do the students good”!

Little run b4 kimi ga yo and dinner.

Bike parking Kirikushi Port

2 days on Etajima with the uni

Mar 22

1700 Japanese babies. Another great picture from Okinawa Soba’s collection on Flickr.

This picture was made over 120 years ago by Japanese photographer REIJI ESAKI of Tokyo. It is a collage “head shots” made from baby photographs taken in his studio over a three year period of time. He cut out every one, pasted up this collage, and photographed it with a full-plate camera….offering copies for sale starting in 1893.

View the full size image here.

Mar 20

With Arthur C. Clarke in mind. Is my computer mocking me?

Mar 19

Yesterday was one of those days when I REALLY love the Internet. When it works exactly how it is supposed to. While checking the Flickr feed in my RSS reader, in among all the shots of the Peace Park and Miyajima, I found a gem of a Meiji Era photo of women in kimono enjoying a stroll in what looks like Shukkeien Garden. I shared it here on the GetHiroshima blog yesterday.

Clicking through to Okinawa Soba’s Flickr page, I found a huge collection of quite amazing photographs, which it turns out he spent years collecting - all uploaded in great quality and under Creative Commons licences. I listed him as a contact, which he must have noticed while online in the US, took look at some pics in the GH Flickr account and posted a nice comment on one. Seeing this, I fired off a quick message complementing him on his collection. I later received a very nice reply in which, mouthwateringly, he wrote that what he has uploaded so far is “only the tip of the iceberg”!

I highly recommend spending some time looking through the 200+ pictures; really are fascinating and Okinawa Soba’s comments make for good reading too!

Through another of his pictures I can accross this discussion on the risks and issues involved with uploading private photo collections to sites like Flickr. I appreciate the concerns, but can’t help feeling that the benefit of sharing historically valuable such as this far outweighs the risk of being ripped off.

Bravo to Okinawa Soba!

Mar 18

Hug A Speaker

hug a speaker flyer

Tomorrow I’m DJing with the mighty windcheater at Hug A Speaker at MUGEN 5160. It’s a pre-holiday night, so if you fancy a bit of reggae, dub, breakbeat and dubstep, feel free. There’s no charge and women get their second refreshing beverage gratis.

The other DJs - Filter Kings, Jah Love Is Sweeter and Doikle - will be playing reggae, but windcheater and I will be going more uptempo, but trying to our set keep dub infuenced. I’m quite keen to see how MUGEN’s refurbishment looks.

Here’s a windcheater mix to listen to on the way to work.

Mar 17

Lhasa unrest

Boing Boing has a good round up of links relating to the current unrest in Lhasa and updates on the flow of information in and out of Tibet. They include a link to a site posting translations of microblog posts by Chinese netizens on sites similar to Twitter.

Here is one entry

What you are destroying is the very place that you live in. Aren’t you followers of the Living Buddha? You think this is something your Living Buddha instructed you to do, to destroy the very place that you live in? I think that most of these people haven’t thought about this, and that most of them have been deceived by the words of certain people who would see the motherland split! But if you just think about it, just who was it that made Tibet the developed place it is today? Who set up the bridge between Tibet and the whole world? And who is it that sends qualified people each year from every sector to educate the children of Tibet with knowledge and culture? AND who is it that sends aid from every developed city in the motherland each year to assist Tibet? I think you seem to have forgotten all this……