Jim Grisanzio

Just some random images of Tokyo from the bus on the way to Narita last week.

Four random shots looking out of Digital Garage in Tokyo.

Some images from Mobile Monday Tokyo this week …

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A quiet and lazy night on the streets of Tokyo tonight …

Everybody is so busy out there. Are you?

Why do people in cities rush all the time? Train stations in Tokyo are utterly frantic places. It’s difficult to walk slowly and mindfully among the cortisol-soaked masses buzzing by in every direction. But why? Out in the country among the trees no one worries about saving two minutes – literally — by diving on to that express train. Why the hurry? Are we that inefficient that we can’t take it easy getting from place to place?

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I guess things are getting wild out there in Tokyo this year as the new year approaches: Tokyo times: Stressed-out salarymen going off the deep end at year-end parties. Be careful where you eat. It can get messy. I’ll stay at home this year.

Here is an excellent Q&A with Akiba from Tokyo Hackerspace about how hackers in Tokyo are coming together to help people suffering from the massive earthquake in Japan on March 11th: Hackerspace Happenings: MAKE Interviews Tokyo’s Akiba. Especially heartening is that hackerspaces from around the world are contributing as well. Here are some comments from Akiba about community:

We had a discussion yesterday about hackerspaces and community resilience. Hackerspaces foster a maker culture where you’re encouraged to take apart, modify, and build things …

One of the things that really struck me was how fast the other hackerspaces responded to our call for help and support. Within one day, we had offers coming out of hackerspaces in Oklahoma, Arizona, Detroit, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Germany, Singapore, and many other places …

So hackerspaces not only contribute to community resiliency by having the capability to make and modify things as needed. There is also a network of support from other hackerspaces that can respond almost immediately to a cry for help …

In Tokyo Hackerspace, we’re putting together a plan to have designs specifically for disaster situations and that are ready to go immediately. They’ll all be OSHW/OSS and we’d like to start an effort to work with first responders like search and rescue organizations to train them on how to use the technology. That way, first responders can set up mobile charging stations, set up wide area portable intranets, and have a variety of tools at their disposal based on the situation …

The points Akiba makes about community are most important. To me the topic represents a clear way of thinking about the world and our place in it.

In modern societies too many people are too used to core problems being solved by governments or non-profit organisations. But those resources are never enough when things really break down under the stress of a major disaster. Sure, hundreds of millions of dollars are being donated in a global effort to help people affected by this earthquake, but we are well into our 3rd week now and far too many people are still suffering. That is inevitable given the scope of this particular disaster, but it should also be a reminder that we are all vulnerable.

The real lesson in every disaster is that people — all people everywhere — need to be as prepared as possible to care for themselves, their families, and their local communities in those critical weeks immediately following the initial hit. That helps reduce the burden on the first responders so they can better attend to those who are injured and can’t care of themselves in the short term. People who build things, people who participate in communities, and people work in fields that support the health and well being of others seem to understand this quite naturally. Hackers included. Obviously.

I spent most of the day at the Tokyo Marathon yesterday. Really nice time. Warm and sunny all day. Good friends. Hundreds of thousands of people walking around the city with not a single piece of paper on the ground (and no garbage cans, too). Runners snaking their way along the race wearing every piece of clothing imaginable. Just fun. I was there to support the iRun by Joseph Tame, where he strapped on some iPhones and an iPad and offered the world a live digital venue with which to join his run to support children with cancer in Japan. Images of Joseph running here. All of my photos from the marathon here.

I am really looking forward to seeing Joseph Tame (here, here) run the Tokyo Marathon on Sat Feb 27. He is not just running, though. He will also be streaming his run live via some iPhones and an iPad strapped to his body, so viewers can run right along with him every step of the way. See two videos here and here. So creative. I have never run a marathon, but maybe this will inspire me. My best pic of Joseph. Japan Times article. Tame on Twitter. One week to go. Will take some pics.

I went to the TBTPE event last night. Every light in the house was orange, which I had no clue how to deal with, so I just went with black and white images. Hundreds of people from 18 tech communities in Tokyo came together for the year end party to raise money for Beers for Books. A great cause. A great night.

Here are 101 images from the O’Reilly Make Meeting 06 at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. More Make and Hackerspace images here. See Oreilly Make Magazine here.

The 2010 version of Tokyo’s Biggest Tech Party Ever (TBTPE) will be on December 6. This is an annual charity Bonenkai for Beers for Books, which is an organization that raises money to fund reading programs for children in developing countries. Many international tech communities in Tokyo will be coming together for the event, as they did last year. If you are interested, register and come along. It will be big …

Here are some images from the Tokyo Linux User Group meeting last night at Digital Garage. Edward Middleton spoke about deploying Gentoo servers with chef, Andreas Kieckens talked about developing a gamers site, and Tomoyuki Uchida presented on Open Network Lab. Get involved in TLUG here. All my images from TLUG meetings from the last few years here.