NOTE: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 66 mm — ¹/500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
City Stroll
Shirakawago Village, Toyama Prefecture, Japan

This is a photo from or snowy New Year trip, which I last wrote about the other day in “Snowy Farewell to Gokayama Village”, which ended up with us arriving in Gokayama Village's much more famous thatched-house sibling, Shirakawago Village.

I'd originally intended to full post, but am running out of time this evening, so thought then to just post this photo. As I was preparing it (I added a slight vignette), I noticed two dark lines in the left half of the photo (mouseover here to highlight them in the photo) that I hadn't noticed before.

Can you guess what they are?

(I like the picture but hesitate to post as one of my “What am I?” quizzes, since it's even more marginal than the previous one, which garnered exactly zero guesses.)

Continued here...

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Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 82 mm — ¹/500 sec, f/6.3, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Fishing for Speeders
near the main entrance to Kyoto University

For something a bit different from my normal fare of late, here are some pictures of a Japanese speed trap I took a couple of years ago. In front of Kyoto University where lots of college kids are, well, being college kids, it's not at all uncommon to see a speed trap set up here.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 190 mm — ¹/750 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Looks Like I Got a Live One

He's actually checking the color of the license plate of a scooter that just passed. If it's white (meaning it has a 49cc engine) the driver will get a ticket. If yellow or pink (larger engines, up to 124cc), they're okay.

If you're caught, here's what you face 100m down the road, just after a slight bend...

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm — ¹/1600 sec, f/4, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
H A L T !

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 110 mm, cropped — ¹/1600 sec, f/4, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Yes, You

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 110 mm — ¹/2000 sec, f/4, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Bring It Over Here, Bub

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 116 mm — ¹/2000 sec, f/4, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Busted

And I see a scooter there too, so maybe he did have a live one in the second photo.

The first time I ever saw a policeman stepping into traffic with the big orange “Stop” flag to nab someone, it was right in front of me on a crowded slow-moving four-lane major thoroughfare in Kyoto (Sanjo St., near Higashiooji St.). He stepped right in front of my car with a seriously agitated, angry pissed off look, and having no idea what was going on other than I had apparently done something really bad, my adrenaline shot through the roof. And just like that he stormed past, intent on someone in the lane next to me, a car or two behind. Pretty much needed a change of shorts after that.

I did get a speeding ticket once, about 15 years ago, while riding my motorcycle in the countryside between Nagaokakyou and Takatsuki. I was just going with the flow of traffic, which happened to be traveling at a somewhat more reasonable pace than the 31mph limit. I found out then the other half to the Japanese approach to speed enforcement. The half I knew was that enforcement is very lax, as if no one really cares, and your chances of getting pulled over for speeding (or running red lights, for that matter) is almost nonexistent. The half I learned that day was that if you do get pulled over, you're totally screwed.

My penalty for going 9.5mph over the speed limit was a $400 fine and loss of my license for a month, though that was reduced to one day after taking an all-day class at traffic school where we learned things like “red means stop”. When it was done there was a 40-question test (provided for me, kindly, in English) with questions like “what color means stop?”. We had 20 minutes, and I finished it in three. I brought it up, and the instructors were totally shocked, as if I was throwing away my entire day by abandoning the test. They asked “don't you even want to doublecheck your answers, just to make sure?” to which I replied “I did. Twice.” They were completely dumbfounded when I got every question right.... it wasn't like California's written test, with questions like ”how many feet before an intersection do you need to initiate your turn signal, when in a School Zone that is also a Designated Residential Revitalization District? Choose from among 72, 83, 69, or 64.”

I was equally dumbfounded, that they were dumbfounded. Well, we all know that “other drivers” are morons, and so here was my proof. (Course, I was right there with them, wallet $400 lighter, day completely wasted, so I felt pretty much the moron, too.)

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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 38 mm — ¹/160 sec, f/4.5, ISO 900 — map & image data — nearby photos
$240 Audio Recorder
suspended over a stream by a $9 tripod and a rock
Mountains north of the Kitashirakawa area of Kyoto, Japan

This cold I've had for the last week and a half seems to be getting a bit better, but it's been a killer, flip-flopping me between sleeping all day due to lack of energy, and wanting to sleep all day but not being able to due to insomnia. A few days ago I was an absolute zombie from having not slept for two days, but got enough of a second wind that I decided to try to get out a bit into Nature, to see whether that would refresh me a bit.

I brought the Zoom H4n high-quality audio recorder that I mentioned in yesterday's post, to try to practice with it a bit, heading to a mountain trail that runs along (and sometimes through) a small stream, far away from any sounds of the city. I wanted to try recordings of the babbling stream with various audio-recorder settings, so I could get a sense for how to use the unit.

The picture above was one of the first tests. I had forgotten to bring my headphones, so I couldn't tell what kind of result I was getting. I recorded at uncompressed 96kHz 24bit-per-channel stereo (far higher quality than CDs), but it didn't really matter... it was just a stream.

For what it's worth, here's the recording I got from the setup above (as a one-minute mp3)....

I was hoping for something a bit more subtle... maybe something I could listen to in my insomnia to lull me to sleep, but with the microphones so close, this seems a bit too river-rapids and less babbling brook.

But I didn't know what I was getting at the time, so tried various setups...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/125 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
A Different Setup

These pictures were at the real start of the mountain trail (I had taken the scooter over the bumpy remains of what had once been some kind of access road up to this point), and I decided to venture in a bit.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 29 mm — ¹/160 sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Small Bridge
of spongy, rotted, moss-covered logs

The logs didn't look like they'd support the weight of a large bird; I decided against traversing the short bridge, opting to jump over instead.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 42 mm — ¹/160 sec, f/3.2, ISO 900 — map & image data — nearby photos
Reverse Angle

The path was fairly non-existent at times, but the ascent was mild and the going easy... a pleasant stroll on, as it turned out, the first warm day of spring, with temperatures in the upper 60s (20C).

Eventually there was sort of a clearing, with diverging paths and a sign post..

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/160 sec, f/9, ISO 3200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Clearing
sort of

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 60 mm — ¹/160 sec, f/3.5, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Sign of the Vines
dating from November 1983

The little clump of trees had vines dangling down all over, and hanging from some of the vines or branches were wooden commemorative plaques left by hikers. I've seen many before at other places (the top of Mt. Daimonji and even at the highly unchallenging Shogunzuka overlook), but there were only a few here, from a preschool in the south of Kyoto that apparently makes yearly field trips here.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 55 mm — ¹/160 sec, f/2.8, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
2007
with faces and drawings by the kids

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 48 mm — ¹/160 sec, f/2.8, ISO 450 — map & image data — nearby photos
2006
the large branch it had been hanging from had fallen, so I propped the plaque back up

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/160 sec, f/10, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
2009
cute

2008 was probably there somewhere, among those in lesser states of preservation.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/160 sec, f/10, ISO 4500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Reverse Angle View From the Sign

I'd come from the (hard to discern in this photo) path on the left. The path on the right almost doesn't look like one, but according to the sign there's something or other 1.1km away along it. I didn't intend to go that far, but took it a bit and came across one bit of white in the otherwise overwhelmingly brown and green forest....

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 66 mm — ¹/160 sec, f/7.1, ISO 3200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Just This One Tree
was covered head to toe with this fungus

Back to the main trail along the river, the entire way it was spotted with clumps of moss of all kinds, here, there, and all over everywhere. It was pretty, though none of my photos capture it.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 52 mm — ¹/160 sec, f/10, ISO 4000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Fallen Log #1438

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 58 mm — ¹/160 sec, f/10, ISO 5000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Fallen Log #7201

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 58 mm — ¹/160 sec, f/5.6, ISO 5000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Gnarled Moss

Wandering further along the trail, I came across another fork in the path and another “bridge”, this time over a narrow but quite deep (15-feet?) chasm that I would not want to have fallen in...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 27 mm — ¹/160 sec, f/5, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
Bridge of Dubious Stability

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 38 mm — ¹/160 sec, f/2.8, ISO 220 — map & image data — nearby photos
Be My Guest

I decided to give it a try and immediately regretted it. The “railing” is worse than nothing because it is not even as sturdy as it looks (and it looks completely unsturdy), so it gives a false sense of safety, as minuscule as it may be. The logs were just as rotten and spongy as those before, but this time they were three times as long, and actually spanned a dangerous void. One foot ventured out onto the bridge about the same distance, and sanity caught up with me and I decided to take the other path.

Every once in a while I'd see a different situation in which I could test the recorder. Here I'm way up on a rise pointing to the fairly-far-away stream, hoping to get a softer sound, and maybe some birds...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 50 mm — ¹/160 sec, f/2.8, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos

None of the results were great, but it was fun and quite pleasant. I'd like to go back again some time when I'm well rested.

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For something a little bit different, here's a free audio book, “イノシシ” (“Wild Boar”), story written by seven-year-old Anthony Friedl. Unabridged reading for you today by the author himself.

I'm really impressed with the quality of the recording, both in technical terms, and in Anthony's clear reading voice. More on the recording later in this post.

The Story

First, here's the story (unabridged! :-)), with my attempt at a translation:

This morning before school, I asked him to draw a picture to go along with the story (though he says it's not a “story”, it's a “silly”), and here's what he came up with a minute later:

“Wild Boar”
illustration by the author

I'm not entirely sure why he wrote this... I think it was for some school project. It was what happened to be at hand when he decided to record something, as I describe in “The Recording Session” below.

The genesis of the story, besides the imagination of a seven year old, is that when Anthony is heading out on his own, Fumie bids him farewell with a “Watch out for wild boar!”. On his trip to school each morning he has to cross four streets, and navigate sidewalks filled with people and bicycles, so of course we worry — first graders are not known for their attention span, even when their own safety is at stake. But she knows that if she bids him farewell with “Watch out for cars and bicycles!” that it'll soon become an ignored part of the morning pattern, rather than an active reminder, so she figures that making it silly will keep it fresh while still evoking what little attention we can expect from a kid his age. It seems to work. Wild boars... who would have thought? Brilliant.

The Recording Session

I've got a project cooking for which I need to do some high-quality audio recordings, something I know nothing about. A week or so ago (before a nasty cold stole a week of my life) I bought a Zoom H4n Handy Recorder, which is an amazing little device, much better than the last time I bought an audio-recording device (a cassette deck 30 years ago, I suppose). It's got tons of features that I have no idea how to use, but it's simple enough to press “record”, “stop”, and “playback”, so Anthony had fun playing around with it, recording the washing machine, his toys, interviewing Mommy, etc.

A few days ago, in a lull of relative health between the worst part of my cold and a subsequent bout of hellatious insomnia, Anthony and I were playing with it, and he decided he wanted to read something with it. So, I set it in a bowl on the dining-room table that allowed the built-in microphones to point up at him, and he grabbed something and read it. That's the recording above.

(He then read another somewhat longer story he wrote, “cockroach underwear”, which I will spare you.)

As I said, I'm really impressed with the quality of the recording. (If you're not, grab whatever audio-recording device you have lying around, and record a kid at the dining-room table, and see what kind of clarity you get.) It's the Zoom unit... it's just amazing. I've got a studio microphone on order to use with it, but even the built-in microphones are pretty good. Then there's Anthony's reading voice... so clear! I couldn't read that clearly.

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Here's a helpful tip...

If a lingering cold and a sudden intense bout of insomnia has made your nights (and hence days) a living hell of misery and anguish, going through your medicine cabinet to collect two of everything marked “nighttime”, “sleep aid”, or with warnings about operating heavy machinery... may not be as good a solution as it first appears. This Noah's Ark of drugs will indeed help you finally get sleep, but waking up then becomes problematic. Furthermore, long after finally waking, your brain continues to live in a groggy haze not unlike that of the sleep-deprived head-cold misery you were trying to relieve in the first place.

This helpful tip brought to you by Me and Charles Darwin.