Toilets in Japan: Hightech and not so high tech.

Doing your business in Japan has never been more comfortable. I mean using the restroom, or toilet to be specific. That's what the toilet companies would have you believe in Japan.  The truth is a little more oblique however, and it holds true in all facets of living in a foreign country. So let's get to the seat of the matter, clean off the misconceptions, and see what washes up and what flushes away.

Perhaps you have seen in the news or on the internet that Japan has some of the most technologically advanced toilets in the world?  Yes, that's right, toilets.

Some toilets in Japan come jam packed with all the comfort features you would expect from a porcelain throne. They have heated seats, washlets, bidets, will play music, will remove odor, will massage your backside, self clean, and so many other features you probably couldn't imagine. You might think that every visit to a restroom in Japan is an adventure in the comfort of doing your business, stylishly, and with such convenience that you may never have the need to leave the stalls for the entirety of your stay in Japan.

You may be surprised when you get to Japan and visit the nearest airport washroom.  The toilets are so modern and amazing! Welcome to Japan.  Or, should I say, welcome to modern Japan.

The truth is that these toilets are so new, and Japan's buildings and infrastructure are so old, this techno toiletry is the exception, not the rule.  If you are on a visit and stick to the restrooms in the hotels and fancy restaurants, expect all the comfort Japan's freakish attention to comfort through technology can offer.  Venture to live in Japan or travel the mass transit systems, and you may find a completely different story.

These techno-toilets are nice, but the simple fact is that they are expensive, and most places are not equipped with the space or plumbing to support them.  The standard Japanese style toilet is little more than a hole in the floor.  That's how the majority of Japanese do their business, squatting.

With the modern concern for handicapped and special needs peoples of the growing and aging population of Japan, there has been a mass conversion of the old squat style toilets to more convenient western style toilets, but it is still inevitable that you will visit a toilet in Japan that has not made that conversion yet.

What can you expect? Below is a video depicting a typical mall in Japan that has made the conversion, but still sports the old Japanese style toilets.  




 Most old homes and buildings still have the old squat style of toilets and you may need to expect it in some cases. Be aware of where you are. If the building or facility you are in is old you can expect, not only a squat toilet but also, in many cases, no heating in the restrooms either.

There are conversion kits to turn old toilets into more modern western style thrones, but the cost is often not considered by the majority of Japanese who feel quite comfortable using the squat toilets, as they have since they were children growing up.

In the end, Modern Japanese toilets are truly technological wonders, but most of Japan has not actually caught up to modern ways of construction much less technology.  So while you will find some of the most amazing creature comforts and attention to convenience in newer buildings, you may also be forced to learn how the Japanese do business in the Japanese style as well.  Keep that in mind when you make that decision to live in Japan, or tread the less beaten paths of Japan's tourist centers.

Above all,
Stay Creative, It's Good For You.

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Tokyo Kids & Radiation Interview: Japan Earthquake, Tsunami, and Radiation Disaster Anniversary

Earlier this week, I had a chance to interview David moore, a concerned husband and father of two living in Tokyo. He built a home radiation lab consisting of Geiger counters, dosimeters, a multichannel analyzer for nuclide spectrometry, and a lead shielded testing tube for his two inch Scintillator. He has been testing for radiation, and radio nuclides in samples from all over Japan.  He has tested everything from food to dirt and is accurate down to 6.5 Bq. His website is http://sites.google.com/site/tokyokidsradiation/ where he posts all of his data, charity work, clean-ups, and information. He also has a community Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tokyo-Kids-Radiation/227762067240468.

Summary of the interview.

David talked about his experience in Japan during the Earthquake, Tsunami and Radiation disaster. It was amazing to hear him describe a concrete tunnel he was in during the earthquake twisting and turning like a snake.  He spoke about how, even though the Japan earthquake unnerved so many, once over, they were quick to line up for the next train and continue as if nothing had happened.

"For me, I had that, 'oh shit! I have to run away,' feeling." David admitted.

His wife, stuck in a building on the ninth floor, was forced to stay in the building by her boss, and had to walk 6 hours home across town in high heels after work ended, because by then all transportation had been closed down.

David had actually lived through the two major natural disasters of the century. Not only had he lived through the Japan earthquake, but also lived through the Katrina Hurricane Disaster in New Orleans. He explains how people cleaned store shelves and horded everything they could in both disaster.  The Japan disaster food hording wasn't so bad, he explained to me. "In my home town, a man killed his sister over the last bag of rice," during the Katrina disaster.

After the initial shock of the earthquake and tsunami the Nuclear power plant in Fukushima was on the news.  Plant Dai Ichi in Fukushima had three nuclear meltdowns with reactors spewing radioactive particles into the air.  David explained to me how the school he worked at, on his advice as the nuclear meltdown began, and for the safety of the children, canceled classes for their protection.

As the nuclear situation got worse, their care and safeguarding efforts grew.  They had taped up their windows, created a decontamination area in their entry hallway, and wore masks anytime they went outside the house.

As time passed, and they grew more and more discontent with the lack of radiation information being reported by the news and government, David's family began reaching out for information.  He brought some dirt that he had measured with a simple dosimeter from an area around his home to a Nuclear Scientist at Tokyo University's Isotope Center, Dr. Shozugawa.  The good doctor initially measured the dirt with a scintillation probe and was surprised by the level of contamination.  The doctor requested to take some of the sample to test further.  After some time the doctor reported back to David that the dirt was in excess of 22,000 Bq of cesium. That is when he and his wife realized they had to work to protect their environment and children on their own, because the Mayor of the town dismissed his findings. David put teams together and began doing cleanup/radiation decontamination in his neighborhood.

David began building his own Radio Nuclide lab and with the help of many people from FaceBook Groups like Tokyo Radiation Levels, Japan Food Safety, and his own community, Tokyo Kids and Radiation, he was able to calibrate his equipment to detect as little as 6.5 Bq of radiation.  THe process wasn't easy as most radiation detector making companies were charging up to 3.5 times the value of their equipment in Japan. Unfortunately, these companies are still gouging the market and an underground of radiation testing equipment sales is a movement of it's own in Japan. David explains how he detects radiation, how a scintillation probe works, how gamma spectrometry works and other information you may find useful in building your own lab.

After months of building his data, and website where he posted that data, and thousands of dollars - he began to draw a picture of the situation in Japan.  The Japanese agricultural economy was going through a slow suicide, and it is still happening.

Overall, this interview was very insightful and informative.  If you want a first hand account of the stress of the march 11th earthquake, tsunami and the stress of the ongoing nuclear disaster, this interview will provide that.  I hope you like the interview and hope that you will support TK&R and other groups like it in Japan.  They are growing in number and need all the support they can get.

You can find the Podcast on iTunes. Search for Grinning Studios, the episode is number five. Or you can listen to it online: http://grinningstudio.blogspot.com/p/podcast.html

If you like the podcast, please leave a review on iTunes.  5-star reviews will get a 5-star shout-out on the next show.

If you want to support the Grinning Studios blog, and what I do to promote creative people, please make a donation.  There is a donation link in the right sidebar.  You can donate one dollar, five dollars, one Million dollars - or any amount you like. Or buy me a Redbull to keep me up and posting.

Thank you for your support!  I couldn't do it without you. 


David Moore from Tokyo Kids & Radiation, 
Stay Creative, It's Good For You!

Speech Jammer researcher and creator, Kazutaka Kurihara: Interview

Today I received the answers to my E-mail interview questions about the Speech Jammer from creator Kazutaka Kurihara. Before I go into the interview, I wanted to talk about those that envision this device as a "freedom-of-speech smart-bomb."

Like any amazing research or device, the intended use for it's research is not, and never was, to rob people of their rights or to commit crimes against humanity. It may be cliche, but the parallel of this work to Einstein's E=MC^2, metaphorically speaking, is that Einstein did not intend to create a nuclear weapon when he made the paradigm shifting equation.

With any new knowledge and device, there are intended uses and there are those people that will abuse such devices. It is not the researcher's obligation to nerf your world, but to grow the understanding of science and technology for all its good intentions and uses.

Stay Creative, It's Good For You.

Sincerely,
Grin.

Kazutaka Kurihara is the researcher at The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Ibaraki-ken who devised, designed and tested the Speech Jammer Gun.  Read more about the Speech Jammer Gun in my previous post.

Speech Jammer original post.

Kazutaka Kurihara E-mail Interview:

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Grin

What is the SpeechJammer, and how does it work?

Dr. Kurihara

A: The SpeechJammer is a system to disturb people's speech. In general, human speech is jammed by giving the speakers own utterances back to them at a delay of a few hundred milliseconds (called DAF, see below). This effect can disturb people without any physical discomfort, and disappears immediately when the person stops talking.. Furthermore, this effect does not involve anyone other than the speaker. We utilized this phenomenon and implemented two prototype versions by combining a direction-sensitive microphone and a direction-sensitive speaker, and enabling the speech of a specific person to be disturbed.

SpeechJammer Prototype1

SpeechJammer prototype2

[What's DAF?]

It is thought that when we make utterances we not only generate sound as output, but also utilize the sound heard by our ears (called "auditory feedback") in our brains. Our natural utterances are jammed when the auditory feedback is artificially delayed. It is thought that this delay affects some cognitive processes in our brains. This phenomenon is known as speech disturbance by Delayed Auditory Feedback (DAF).

---

Grin

You seem like a very creative person.  Some of your projects are quite interesting.

What was the inspiration for the Speech Jammer; what gave you or your team the idea for this research?

Dr. Kurihara

A: One day, at a science museum, I came by and enjoyed a demonstration about Delayed Auditory Feedback (DAF) at the cognitive science corner. When I spoke in to a microphone, my voice came back to me after a few hundred milliseconds delay, and I could not continue to speak any more. That was fun! (BTW you also may try this at your nearest science museum, because this demonstration is so popular.) They say it is one of the well-known characteristics of the human auditory system. Then I thought "Oh yeah, it can be applicable to some other domains!"

Around that time, my research interest was about developing a system that controls appropriate turn-taking in discussions, and I was looking for technologies to allow the enforcement of discussion rules for participants. Then I came up with the gun-type-SpeechJammer idea utilizing DAF. That's the destiny.

I soon consulted a friend of mine Dr. Koji Tsukada, "the gadget master," who had once demonstrated a "Directional Speaker" to me that could convey sound a few tens-of-meters with a very sharp direction sensitivity. I contacted him, because direction sensitivity was one of the key features that SpeechJammer should have and I needed a strong partner who was good at hardware. After I explained my idea to him, he agreed to join my project. It was a marriage between science and gadgets!

---

Grin

How many people worked on this project together? 

Dr. Kurihara

A: Two. Koji, the second author of the paper, and I.


 

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Grin

Can you tell us a little about how you worked together?

Dr. Kurihara

A: I came up with the idea and Koji prototyped the devices. Finally we wrote the paper together.

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Grin

Did you think you would get such a strong response from the news and online?

Dr. Kurihara

A: Never.

We are really surprised at the response we are getting.

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Grin

When people contact you about the Speech Jammer, what do they most want to know?

Dr. Kurihara

A: Let me list the major reactions:

* Journalists asked us the mechanisms of SpeechJammer and who I would want to to shut up. (Grin: xD Haha!)

* An Israeli consultant in Defense asked us very specific details of the effectiveness of the device.

* Media Artists asked us to hold some exhibitions with them.

* people who are inspired by SpeechJammer provided us with some future application ideas.

* And of course, many people wanted to buy a SpeechJammer device.

---

Grin

Has the response you have been getting favorable?

Dr. Kurihara

A: To some extent. But, they tend to add some dystopian future visions caused by possible abuses of SpeechJammer. I have some comments on that issue. I will elaborate in my closing answer.

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Grin

My website alone receives 20 hits a day from google keyword, "Speech Jammer Buy."  Have you thought about commercializing this product as it seems there are plenty of people that want to purchase it?

Dr. Kurihara

A: Our current prototype has many, many problems for practical use. It is just at the early stage of research. So I am sorry to inform you that currently this device is not available for everyone.

---

Grin

Your research paper is well written in English. Do you write all your papers in English as well as Japanese?

Dr. Kurihara

A:  Almost all of the projects are written in the two languages. But, we tend to publish a project in Japanese earlier. So there are some time lags. (And more practically, international academic conferences are usually more difficult.)

---

Grin

Is this project finished? What will you do next? 

Dr. Kurihara

A: This project has been pending, but recent increased attention might boost us to step forward.

Besides the SpeechJammer, I have been recently focusing on my CinemaGazer project among many other projects.

https://sites.google.com/site/qurihara/top-english/cinemagazer

It is totally different from SpeechJammer, but has some of the same root philosophy. Modern society unavoidably requires us to receive too much information: including speech, text, and movies. So I think that we have to establish some technological support so that recipients can actively control the comfortable flow of the information they receive. This project will be presented at AVI'12, an academic conference, this May. You can read the preprint article and watch a demo movie from the above link.

Koji has been creating many, many simple gadgets to improve our daily activities. For example, AwareHanger is a context-aware hanger that can detect laundry status automatically and inform users via multiple media (e.g., sounds or Twitter), and EaTeremin that entertains you with various sound effects determined by what food you are about to eat.

AwareHanger:

      http://orange.siio.jp/~nanami/project-en.html

EaTheremin:

      http://orange.siio.jp/~azusa/projects_04.html

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Grin

Is there anything else you would like to say about this project for anyone interested?

Dr. Kurihara

A: Let me talk a bit about the philosophy of SpeechJammer. I love freedom of speech, of course, but this freedom should be equally given to everyone. As I wrote in the paper, one of our goals is to prevent "the louder, the stronger" situations: "Fair discussions are essential for resolving conflicts through communication. We have to establish and obey rules for proper turn-taking when speaking. However, some people tend to lengthen their turns or deliberately interrupt other people in order to establish their presence rather than achieve more fruitful discussions. Furthermore, some people tend to jeer at speakers to invalidate their speech. These are typical abuses of speech that allow "the louder, the stronger" to gain control of the proceedings."

I agree that this technology might be abused by bad people. But think about the future when everyone has a portable type SpeechJammer device built in their cell phones. If someone abuses this device against you and takes advantage in talking, you also can use it against them. Different from the conventional weapons such as samurai swords, and pistols, SpeechJammer is "dialogue-left", i.e. it causes no killing or harm but leaves room for discussions after switching the devices off.

We live in the twenty first century, when it is said that communication is the most important means of resolving conflicts.  We hope SpeechJammer is used for building the peaceful world.

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Grin

I also hope that creative individuals will find a productive use for this technology.  Time will put its use into place, and testing and research will provide understanding of its proper use.  Thank you very much for your time.  I really appreciate your work and ingenuity.  Stay creative, It's Good For You.

Dr. Kurihara

A: Thanks and keep in touch! 

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Speech Jammer: The - Shuttup! - Gun

UPDATE 3/8/2012
You can read the interview here.

UPDATE 3/6/2012

I sent an 11 question email interview to Dr. Kazutaka Kurihara.  He has many projects and I just could not interview him on all of them.  I decided to stick with the Speech Jammer project with an option to talk about all of his, and his team's, projects on my podcast.
End UPDATE

Recently, I got in contact with a research scientist at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Tsukuba, Ibaraki-ken. His name is Dr. Kazutaka Kurihara, and he and Dr. Koji Tsukada are the brainchildren of a recent invention we all wish we could use on those annoying babble chatters on the train, in the office, elevator, or lobby, or mother-in-laws that just won't shut up!

The device is called the Speech Jammer. As you can see by the image on the left from, Dr. Kazutaka Kurihara's website, it is designed to stop those annoying, interrupting, and long winded chatter boxes by cutting off their speech and boggling their minds. The person in the image I believe is none other than Dr. Koji Tsukada. Please visit Dr. Koji Tsukada's research website and see what other projects he is working on as well.

A Speech Jammer? Where do I get one? There are only two prototypes at the moment, but hopefully after my interview with Dr. Kazutaka Kurihara, or if I can get an interview with Dr. Koji Tsukada, they can be persuaded to get this thing into production so you can buy it!  

Just how does this thing work? The device accomplishes silence-of-the-lames by picking up the offending speech through a directional microphone, and feeding it back to the offender at a delay of about 0.2 milliseconds. This delay causes auditory feedback and induces a kind of stuttering behavior, but sadly, no pain or physical discomfort.  The speaker loses track of what they are saying and will have difficulty thinking about their next words.

The Speech Jammer is an amazing... um, tool, and I invite you all to visit Dr. Kazutaka Kurihara's website, where he even has a video of how it works. Also read his PDF paper that explains the project and research in detail. With any luck, I will post an interview with him over the next few weeks, and with a little more luck, I will convince him to talk about all of his amazingly creative projects on my podcast. I would like to see him get more funding for his inventive projects.

Stay Creative, Dr. Kazutaka Kurihara, it's guguguood ffu fufu ... ummm... for yayaya you! xD

Space Elevator: Going Up? Only in Japan. Science Future

Space Elevator - Future Dreamed by Scientists.

Keeping with my theme of "Stay Creative, It's Good For You," I found this story irresistible. Japan company, Obayashi Corp, says a space elevator could be realized by 2050.

Why hitch a ride on a rocket when the Russians have already shown us how buggy and failure prone they can be.  Then there is the Challenger and the danger of re-entry that claimed the Columbia shuttle.  Going to space (and coming back) is dangerous.

One alternative to strapping explosives to your back and exploding into space is the idea of a space elevator.  This curiously science-fiction piece of architecture may soon grace the Japan sky - or should I say Space - line.

Obayashi Corp is going to stay creative by trying to get this off the ground, and they aren't shooting for the sky; they are shooting much farther.

The proposed space elevator will be stretched into space with cables made from carbon nano-tubes and held aloft by a yet to be designed counter-weight 96,000km above the earth's surface.  It is kind of like tying a rock to a string and swinging it around your head.  Now imagine your head as large as the earth.

The benefit? Safer and cheaper travel to an orbit outside of the earth's atmosphere and a port for further expansion into space.  The challenges?  The elevator will travel at a mere 200km per hour, meaning a week long elevator ride to get to the first pit stop at 36,000 kilometers up.  Perhaps the view will be fantastic, no doubt, but seven and a half days of elevator music and there will be a space horror before the second day.

Joking aside, the idea is insanely advantageous and creative.  Excellent gumshoe! Stay Creative Japan, It's Good For You!

Read more from Channel News Asia.

Wedding Technology.

Last weekend, my wife and I had our wedding in Japan.  My family couldn't be there but, undaunted, I decided to bring my family to the wedding via Skype.  They were able to join in the celebration from thousands of miles away. It was fantastic! I am amazed at our day and age of technology.  It reminds me of what one of my science teachers told me once, "Just because it can't be done, doesn't mean it won't be done."

Did someone tell Orville and Wilbur right that humans will never fly?  Did someone tell Henry Ford he could never make cars better than a horse carriage?  Did someone tell Thomas Edison Artificial Light without fire was impossible?  Did someone tell Nicola Tesla he could never supply power to the people better than Thomas Edison?  And last but my current favorite, Did someone tell Steve Jobs that he could never make hand held computing for the masses?  If you answered yes to all of these questions, give yourself a cookie.

It isn't about what can't be done, its what can't be done right now.  What can't be done right now, is tomorrow's next innovation.  So when I say I want to talk to my great, great, great, grandfather - regardless of his being dead a really, really long time - it just can't be done right now. But, maybe my great, great, great grandson will be able to talk to me.  If I am intrepid, maybe I can take some of those generations away from the wait and let my Grandson talk to me after I have passed. That is my dream. 

Call me crazy, but It can be done, just not right now.  Cheers to technology and the future!

Link of the day is devilsworkshop.org from where I got the picture.