Tag - technology

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A Tour of a High-Tech Japanese House
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The Evolution of Social Media

A Tour of a High-Tech Japanese House

Jan 23 2015
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As I have just returned from Japan I have decided to dedicate a couple of blog posts to my trip.  I will return to my usual author/book related themed posts in a couple of weeks.

This week’s post takes the form of a tour of a high-tech Japanese house.

Below is a cross-section of someone’s kitchen wall.  I have no idea what half of these do.

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The picture below is of a Japanese bath.  What more could you possibly want from a bath, except taps, I asked myself as I tried to figure out how to fill it with water.

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As I don’t have an engineering degree and only a rudimentary knowledge of Japanese Kanji, it took quite a while to work out out how to fill the bath with water of the desired temperature.

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It took me an eternity to figure out how to drain the water at the end of my bath.  I assumed that as 出 means exit in Japanese that the button on the left of the control with the symbol 出 would do exactly that.  However, despite hitting the button numerous times while cursing loudly, nothing happened.  Eventually, after considerable trial and error, I discovered that to drain the bath one must press a manual plunger on the right of the tub. Later when I went to the living room I heard the house’s resident Japanese infant swearing in English.  This Ied me to discover that the button with the 出 was a telecom system.

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Above is a Japanese lavatory.  It can initially be quite alarming when the seat opens automatically on entering the room.  Below is the controller for the lavatory.  It is not necessary to become familiar with the multitude of buttons, as it performs its one necessary function automatically.

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I was so keen to show you my magic trick involving a tap that I purchased a WordPress premium package, in order to embed this video in the post, so I do hope you click on it.

I was very fatigued after trying to figure out the technological complexities of the Japanese house, so I went to the shop to buy an energy tonic.  The shop had tonics for just about everything (see below).

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The Evolution of Social Media

Jul 06 2012
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Social media really began to emerge with the advent of Blogger in 99.  The following decade saw a proliferation of social media platforms (Friendster 2002, LinkedIn & MySpace 03, Facebook 04 & Twitter 06).  Today there are an estimated one billion social media users worldwide and with social media only being in its adolescence this is likely to increase exponentially in the years ahead. Social media has become as much a part of many of our lives as running water and electricity.  Some have even gone as far as to argue that some of us are now addicted to it.  Researchers have warned of the rise of ‘hyper-networking’; which they define as students who spend more than three hours per school day on social networking sites.  Are the adults of tomorrow becoming socially stunted as a result of this affliction; unable to communicate effectively?

Then of course there are the physical evolutionary ramifications of this ongoing transformation in human behaviour.  Close your eyes and picture what a human might look like in the future after innumerable generations of ever increasing social media usage.

Sitting at a futuristic desk in front of a holographic screen is a sedentary creature with an enormous skull; evolved for the purpose of assimilating an endless stream of information.  Beneath the desk the creature’s legs are visible, shrivelled from inactivity.  An elongated thumb extends outwards, effortlessly rearranging the information on the screen in front of it.  An alarm beep signifies that it is dinner time.  Barely a moment later a vacuum sealed bag is deposited on the futuristic human’s lap.  With several unseemly slurps that would have horrified many previous generations of humans, it deposits the processed mushy contents into its mouth and swallows them instantaneously.  It is only now that I notice the receded chin; no doubt a result of humans no longer needing to chew.

Not once during this whole episode does the futuristic human’s attention shift from the screen in front of it.

Perhaps my imagination is getting the better of me and at any rate it is about time I was getting back to Twitter.

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