notes.husk.org

The Guardian: Japanese workers face smile...

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 19:12:15 +0000

The Guardian: Japanese workers face smile scanner (via iamdanw):

“Each morning, according to reports, the 500 or so employees of the Keihin Electric Express Railway Company have to beam stupidly into a camera hooked up to a computer. The machine then analyses things like eye movement, lip curvature and facial wrinkles, and rates the overall quality of their smile on a scale ranging from 0 (suicidal) to 100 (delirious).

Apparently, should the computer deem workers to be too gloomy it flashes up helpful advice like “You still look too serious”, or “Lift up your mouth corners”. It then prints out a personalised “ideal smile” for employees to carry with them and refer to should they feel their spirits flagging at any point during the day.”

Cameras from This Is Japan 1957, available at Press: Works On...

Fri, 18 May 2012 05:27:24 +0100

Cameras from This Is Japan 1957, available at Press: Works On Paper.

Storage tanks, Yokohama (from Google Maps satellite view).

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 20:10:08 +0100

Storage tanks, Yokohama (from Google Maps satellite view).

Motorway interchange near the Yokohama port, Honshu, Japan...

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 20:07:10 +0100

Motorway interchange near the Yokohama port, Honshu, Japan (35°27’ N, 139°41’ E), by Yann Arthus-Betrand.

"Figuring out why New York City subway trains seem to be playing Leonard Bernstein proves a much more..."

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 17:42:53 +0100

“Figuring out why New York City subway trains seem to be playing Leonard Bernstein proves a much more difficult task. Juan Harvey, a messenger waiting yesterday at the 66th Street station, said he has heard the song and believed it is ”some kind of a plot by the Japanese to brainwash us all.” This would be an intriguing line of inquiry, except that the new No. 2 trains are manufactured by a Canadian company called Bombardier. Informed of this, Mr. Harvey said that he did not think the Canadians would want to brainwash us.”

- Randy Kennedy, reporting for the New York Times in 2002, in a story titled Tunnel Vision - Three-Note Mystery Haunts Riders on No. 2 Line. (Thanks, Chris.)

Peak QR Codes: SXSW 2011

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 16:50:30 +0000

South By Southwest this year was plagued by QR codes. The two-dimensional pixel squares seemed to be anywhere that was even vaguely flat: on plenty of posters, but also on t-shirts and the sides of buildings. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were even temporarily tattooed on people’s arms.

I’m sure that this will be the high point of QR codes, though. The thing is: they don’t work. Not technically, but socially: I didn’t see anyone scan one in, and neither did anyone else I’ve asked. (Did you? Call now for your reward: some QR code scanning software!) After all, when you’re running between breakfast tacos, panels, lunch, talks, barbecue, cocktails and beer, the last thing you want to do is stand around and wait thirty seconds - or more - waiting for your phone to figure out what the URL you’re looking at is.

Even in Japan - where QR codes are still common - they’re dying out, at least in the obvious use case of encoding a URL, which (as the article points out) had special challenges. In the US, where you can have a nice, memorable URL, they make almost no sense at all. If you want your company to be a mystery, great, but obscurity is probably more likely than people saying “I found out about Product X through this exciting code!”

Next year, the fad will have ebbed. There’s one possible reason that won’t happen: if Apple adds QR code reading to the Camera application (as opposed to just an API method) then it might be even worse. Really, though, I hope they quietly die off.

Shinjuku. Tokyo (via pijus): the Sombo Tower, as mangled for use...

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:18:30 +0100

Shinjuku. Tokyo (via pijus): the Sombo Tower, as mangled for use as the background of husk.org/blog.

Jim O’Connell’s photo of Kisho Kurokawa’s Nagakin...

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 19:38:26 +0100

Jim O’Connell’s photo of Kisho Kurokawa’s Nagakin Capsule Hotel, from a story in the NYT about its pending demolition.

Directing traffic on BBC NEWS | Day in pictures.

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:20:38 +0100

Directing traffic on BBC NEWS | Day in pictures.

Japanese war planes perform aerobatics during celebrations...

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:59:17 +0100

Japanese war planes perform aerobatics during celebrations marking the 150th anniversary of the opening of the port of Yokohama: BBC News: Day in pictures.