I just had the realization that in my work I never focus on the product and improving the product but on the method to use to improve the product. If that makes sense. Won’t elaborate much now but I think this is a big realization that might shape the next…x-some-years. Hmm….
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I was on a roll and now it has been a while. But it is Saturday moning, I am sitting here at my computer avoiding all the work I have to do this weekend. Just for a bit more…then I will get going.
This Wednesday is the start of an event at Miraikan, a science museum in Tokyo. Everyday from Wednesday to Sunday there will be two large screen presentations of artwork from Kazuo Oga, an art director and background artist for Studio Ghibli films (My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, etc.). The theme of the event is “human and nature” and they hope that by showing nature scenes, people can reflect on beauty outside of the concrete fortress and strive to preserve the nature we still have.
After these presentations the museum likes to receive questionnaire responses so that they can judge the effectiveness of the presentation, both enjoyment-wise and for the visitors’ learning and reflection.
Way back in November one of the organizers saw a system I developed during my internship and was interested in using it as a novel way for people to reply to a questionnaire (this is how I managed an internship extension). So, we’ve redesigned the application and this is what will happen:
After the presentation people will be asked to come answer questions about their experience. In the “questionnaire space” there will be leaf shaped cards scattered around. Each leaf is printed with one question and QRcodes for replying to the question, and reading other responses. In Japan most people can capture QRcodes with their mobile phone cameras and the codes can be decoded into text: in this case an email address (to send an email response to a question) or URL (to go see other responses). Some questions have multiple choices for response and a visitor can choose by capturing the code next to their choice and sending an email to the address inside.
Doing this we can present the responses back in real time. We will project a tree/leaf-themed visualization of responses being returned. Sure – this might create bias but my view is that questionnaires are super biased anyway and we are hoping that given a novel way to answer them, people will be curious, have fun, be engaged and generally be more interested in the feedback they provide.
This weekend I have to work on that visualization. I have made several versions already and most of the back-end is in place and good but we’ve been going over redesigns for the interface and I have not yet had the chance to implement them (or have not yet taken then chance…yikes!) I am a little scared about not being prepared but it is weird, another part of me is pretty calm and confident that everything will come into place. I think that I have possibly finally lost the tendency to panic and feel really anxious before big events / demos / presentations. I will try my hardest and even if something goes wrong people generally understand.
I am more nervous about the first day – the directory of our laboratory is friends with a director at Miraikan, Mamoru Mohri and he arranged a chance for us to meet him. Okay and guess what – this guy has been in space! I am meeting an astronaut! I had not thought about it much before but since this meeting was arranged the amazing-ness of space travel has started to dawn on me. It is an experience that few have and it is utterly (you can send your kicks by mail) out of this world.
Fun!
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We needed games to play on our trip so before heading to shibu onsen I hit the store that has everything you need to be cool and impress your friends and found this groovy novelty jenga. “Gum avalanche” it is called and the blocks mimic packs of Lotte brand gum – Black Black, Cool Mint, and Green Gum.
Now that I have you here, I can go off about mundane things. Like my 薬 (kusuri) (medicine) buying experience tonight. On the way home from the trip, this was last Monday, I was sitting on the train, did two stretches and then something in my upper back snapped. The next morning I couldn’t lift myself from bed. Had to steamroll my body over the edge and stand up using the bed to support me. That was a hard day at work. It was getting gradually better over the week and then on Friday morning, I couldn’t get out of bed again. The pain woke me up this morning as well but for most of the day it has been okay…possibly because I have not spent too much time at a computer.
Anyway – oh…sorry…actually I didn’t intend to write six sentences on my pain. I’m going to be horrible when I’m 80. Like, posting form shots of my hunch back so you can feel how crooked I have become on your solids display.
I went to the drug counter and explained my problem and the woman recommended some medicine. I was suspicious though. It was not medicine from behind the counter and the packages surrounding it were labeled with many As and Bs and Cs and Es. Was she trying to sell me vitamins? 1750円 vitamins? Yes.
I told her I wanted something stronger. In my head I was thinking that I wanted knock-me-out medicine that I could take tonight and wake up twelve hours later with a drool stain on my pillow from which I could forecast what they will serve in the cafeteria on Monday. She recommended that I go to the hospital but I wasn’t going to buy that cause I could see shelves of possible relief behind that counter. I told her that I would like to try medicine now and if I still felt pain in a few days, I would go to the hospital. There was some more discussion and hesitancy to go for things behind the counter but then she finally realized I wanted something strong and now and she asked me if my stomach was good. Yes, it is. The hesitancy to sell stronger medicine, even when stocked, is interesting.
I walked out with a pack of Ringl. Just took one of the little turquoise capsules and thinking about how unsatisfying vitamins would be right now. Which is funny because it is not even about effectiveness – it is satisfaction. Like I need a box with warnings and an ingredient list with many words I don’t know. It is unknown territory, mystical, and I feel more satisfied because to make my pain go away, it must take magic.
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We went to a really old pachinko parlour and I thought that that night could have been the night but no, I am still a pachinko virgin. Five hundred yen each bought us saucers of small corks and time with the rifles, trying to shoot things off of these shelves:
I figured out that if I aimed for one of the bottom guys I could always hit a block from the middle shelf. Some of the blocks had cheesy 1970s portraits glued to them – kept going for this kid with a green shirt and shiny side-parted blond hair. Walked out of there with two trophies: a blue honey-dew melon-sized bouncy ball and a small hello kitty cloth bag.
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The street ahead of us curved and as we walked past the curve I spotted this:
and my body jumped a little. It was “kaonashi” or “noface” from Spirited Away. That moment was so surreal. Then I looked at the surroundings. The statue was placed in front of a very large ryokan hidden by its front wings and trees:
It did remind me a lot of the bathhouse in Spirited Away. Was there a connection? With some Internet searching later I found that several people had similar opinion and it is said that this is one of the ryokan that inspired Miyazaki.
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