Something about habits.

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Posted 09 Mar 2010 — by Mashu
Category English

It’s interesting what sorts of conveniences really take off with the public, and which do not. Personally, I like doing some errands, and hate doing others. Grocery shopping and laundry, or tasks handled at a ward office, that stuff is fine. What I really loathe is managing a huge amount of paperwork. Applications are irritating, and bills are perhaps the worst. As a result, I’m always happy to speed up the process should it be possible to conduct online.

This sentiment is apparently not shared [jp] in a number of prefectures. Saga prefecture’s police department is shutting down their online system for various document forms at the end of this month, after shouldering roughly 400 million yen in startup and maintenance costs. The project went through a pre-launch prep period between 2004-2006, and was rolled out soon after. In the subsequent two year period (2006-2008), there were roughly 14,000 requests made in person at their offices, and zero users of the online service. What?

I decided to check out the site for myself: Saga Police Prefectural Homepage. Just try and find what you’re looking for. I’m not going to hound them for the archaic web design, but one attempt to use the “system” illustrated clearly to me why there were no users. You need to click on the 「申請・届出等様式提供」button down towards the bottom, which since it’s a button is not searchable, and the text is challenging to read due to the various color contrasts. Then you find yourself at the information/explanation page for their system.

Yikes! I mean, it is straightforward. They’ve got a big pile of documents online with a standard format outlining certain pertinent details about each one, plus PDF/Word file download ability. I actually do like that, but it is extremely difficult for me to imagine any scenario in which the development of this system would cost 400 million yen over the course of 4 years, with half of that being pure development. They mention server costs, but really, how did they calculate that cost? Including the total annual salary of anyone who tested it? Ridiculous!

The point of this post is actually less about online conveniences, and more about seeking quality over, well, tradition. This project is clearly something that should not have been handled in-house. The fraction of the time and cost in which this could have been handled should really be a lesson to other prefectures who are considering online development (or who are considering shutting down in the same way as Saga, or Fukushima before it).

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A quick breather.

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Posted 26 Feb 2010 — by Mashu
Category English

This week I came down with a light cold, which I’ve been fighting off largely by… working all day. That turned out to be a bad move, so I’ve taken this morning off, and will head over to the campus shortly. I was hoping to get a lot of work done here, but despite piling up a lot of books and papers, that wasn’t enough motivation. Thus off to a big red brick building to establish some focus.

I’m generally not ever at home between the hours of roughly 8am and 10pm, so I honestly didn’t really know what to expect. In the morning, the place is silent. At night, silent. Which is really quite lucky, and a refreshing change from my old apartment in Osaka, whose 6am noises would wake any hibernating bear I’m sure. That said, this place is brimming with activity during the day! Thumping on all sides, people walking around, gathering and chatting outside – I literally don’t know a single person in this place, not for lack of trying, but because I don’t think I’ve ever actually *seen* anybody inside the building! My next door neighbour is practicing his bass guitar right now. I had never seen or heard him before, and now I know he’s got interests outside of sleeping! An educational day on the domestic front.

Last weekend we hopped a cramped bus to Nozawa onsen (野沢温泉) for a bit of snowboarding. The weather and snow, just unreal. Photos to come… eventually. Progress is continuing on the mass upload, however, so my “eventually” may not be an empty promise this time.

Canal near Fujinomori.

Canal near Fujinomori.

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Photo updates/roundup.

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Posted 17 Feb 2010 — by Mashu
Category English

I’ve been slowly but steadily sorting through and organizing all of my photos from roughly the end of February 2008 until present, all of which has been conducted on Flickr. Since I’ve changed the design of Feedbackward around a bit recently, I removed the “photos” page which wasn’t serving much of a purpose, besides being an extra hoop to jump through. Fortunately this blog works very well to communicate Flickr updates.

I recently wrote up a list of goals for 2010, and while a number of them are what I’d consider pretty ambitious, or at least moderately interesting, I also chalked down “finish the photo backlog!” onto the list… that sure is dull, but will assuredly be satisfying if I ever finish it. My dream is to be able to relax on a Sunday night, take the photos from that weekend off my memory card, put them on my computer, and… actually upload them, instead of the 10-month delay that’s been going on for so long! Perhaps a pipe dream. We’ll see.

Since the site redesign, I’ve uploaded the following sets:

奈良燈花会と写真美術館

Tenjin Matsuri (天神祭)

Hiei-zan (比叡山)

A summer day in Kobe (夏の神戸への日帰り)

The day of Gion Matsuri (祇園祭)

Horyu-ji (法隆寺)

A day in Higashi-yama (東山)

All photos on Flickr and listed here run in chronological order, I’ve tried to set it up as a bit of a travelogue, and most importantly, a memory jogger for myself as I refer to these items in the future, since I will assuredly forget a tremendous amount of details.

By the way, I like codes. CJPGQ9EW79UG

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When train-fans gather, delays ensue.

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Posted 14 Feb 2010 — by Mashu
Category English

As reported by the Asahi Shimbun (jp), this morning starting from around 10:30, JR line trains in and around Osaka and Nara were seeing pretty unusually long delays. “Pretty” long is an understatement, I feel. A 30 minute standstill? That’s not something you see often at all. I’ve never sat waiting on a train for more than 15 minutes, I’d say. Typically long delays come from suicides/human-on-the-rail incidents (人身事故), or severe weather issues, but today that was not the case.

So what was the disturbance that forced the train drivers to stop? Apparently people were sneaking into the area directly beside the tracks, setting up tripods and essentially preparing to snap some photos. First spotted by an out-of-service train driver between Nara’s Sango-cho (三郷町) and Osaka’s Kashiwara (柏原), the alert soon went out that someone carrying a camera had snuck onto the tracks. As station attendants arrived on the scene, they found some 50 people getting their equipment set up. Naturally this caused a disturbance to the rail company employees, and as their attempts to forcibly remove the photographers from the tracks were met with resistance from a few people, a police patrol car was eventually called in.

This whole mess naturally slowed the trains down for some time. Apparently 7 lines had to cease operation temporarily, 12 lines were delayed by one train, and in total 26 lines faced delays of up to 40 minutes.

So what was the reason for the clandestine photography operation?

This morning starting from around 11:30, JR was running a special train out of Shin-Osaka, around Nara and Kyoto, and event which takes place only a scant few times per year. It was a Japanese-style train (和風列車) called Asuka, and the location the photographers gathered was a picturesque spot selected by railway/train enthusiasts (鉄道マニア) as an ideal area to photograph the train, due to its tunnel and curve, running alongside a mountain. I have to admit, a tatami mat-floored train sounds like a fascinating sight.

I can appreciate an enthusiasm for whatever it is you have as a hobby, but this one’s getting a little out of hand! That kind of delay is crazy. I was actually riding between Nara and Osaka today, but fortunately that was on my trusty Kintetsu. I know I’d be irritated standing on a hot train for 40 minutes longer than necessary. The article makes it sound as if JR was used to this sort of reception for their special train-launch events, and I imagine they would be. There must be some way to reduce the fallout of these train-fans. Of course it’s difficult to predict where the photographers will gather, but a mob of 50 older gentlemen (I’m making generalizations) would stand out, I feel.

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A clean break is a tricky thing.

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Posted 12 Feb 2010 — by Mashu
Category English

This morning the Asahi Shimbun published a pretty good article summing up a lot of the political events of the last couple days, most important (or at least headline-grabbing) being that of Ishikawa Tomohiro’s secession from the Democratic Party of Japan, which he submitted yesterday (Feb. 11).

There are voices of criticism and support coming and going in and from both directions, as to whether this is the appropriate choice or not, and how to move forward. I’m not going to get all mixed up in that debate, however. What’s also drawing a lot of heat, however, is his choice to remain in his position in the House of Representatives. Ozawa Ichiro was not charged due to a lack of evidence directly connecting him to illegal money-handling. Ishikawa (though not alone) is going down for, what is essentially some fraudulent bookkeeping. Perhaps it is just me having read story after story about politicians doing dastardly things since, well, the beginning of time, however I don’t feel that of all people in this affair, Ozawa’s secretary, the one handling the bookkeeping, should have to go through the whole sturm and drag of this public process, leave the party, and on top of that drop out of his elected position. According to the article linked above, supporters from Ishikawa’s constituency of Obihiro (Hokkaido) voiced their wish for him to remain both in the party and in his elected position.

I can understand the sentiment! I really feel this whole campaign funding affair is far more complex than just the couple people in the spotlight, but also less heinous a crime than it is being made out to be. I can understand the voters’ sentiments, in not seeing this issue as a fatal blow worthy of forsaking their candidate of choice. Forcing him out of office just creates another hullabaloo and more costs for those who had nothing to do with any of this.

The DPJ is trying, it seems, to wrap this up cleanly. Ishikawa insists his party departure is entirely his decision, since in remaining there, criticism sent his way could always be linked to Ozawa, a burden he seems to not want to force upon the party. Understandable, but a recent quote from Ozawa himself sure doesn’t sound like he’s opposed to it!「（議員）バッジは外させないが、党籍は党内情勢を見て判断する」”He will not be forced to give up his badge (as a House of Reps member), but the matter of his party membership will have to be addressed internally before any judgments are made.”

Naturally, a clean break from this mess would be a good thing for the DPJ, whose support has been tumbling at a truly unreal rate recently. I am in no way convinced that it will wrap up so nicely. There are a lot of positive, forward-looking comments from other party members, which normally I think I would be critical of as merely attempts to avoid negative press, which they may likely be, but I can’t help but hope the party does start moving forward to actually, well, making some changes, instead of having to focus on dodging criticism over illegal bookkeeping left, right and center. I hope that is how things will move forward, but I can’t help but feel this whole affair will be dragging on for quite some time to come.

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