Alex Brooke

The Weekender 40th Anniversary party was a success. We had a great turn out at 57 and I think all had a good time. Keita, Ethan and I did a live set that wasn’t too bad although we were told to “play something a little more up tempo”. The guests were polite enough to not throw bottles and I think they even clapped at one point. Yes, even a bunch of reggae hippies can connect with the urban hipsters of Tokyo.

Guy Perryman did a great job on the decks and MCing the prize give away which at one point seemed as if it might get out of hand. All behaved however and the police didn’t have to be called.

I was interested to see that most of the party-goers were young urban hipsters in their 30s and 40s perhaps a little younger than the traditional demographic of the Weekender. Are things changing?

All in all I had a great time and I’m pretty eager to get another party happening. Any takers?

You can check out the Weekender Website here. Check out the latest 40th Anniversary issue. And here is the Weekender Facebook group.

I’ll write and update here when party pics are posted.

6 presenters; 20 slides; 20 seconds; 1 evening to listen, meet and mingle.

From 11-13th of November, Web Directions East hosts a series of prominent and inspiring web professionals discussing all things web.

For the opening party on 11/11, Web Direction East teams up with Tokyo 2.0 and PechaKucha to host an evening of six PechaKucha presentations from conference presenters and members of the Tokyo 2.0 community.

So mark the date for a dose of sharp, energising presentations, and the chance to network with conference presenters, attendees and T2.0 locals alike.

20秒のスライドを20枚使った6人のプレゼン！パーティーに参加して出逢って楽しいひと時を過ごしましょう！

11月11日〜13日まで、Web Directions East はWebの超一流プロフェッショナルが素晴らしくそしてインスピレーションを与える講演をおこないます。

11月11日に予定していますオープニングパーティは、Web Directions East、Tokyo2.0、Pecha Kucha Night が 一体となり、PechaKucha Night形式で開催いたします。
WDE09に出演する豪華スピーカーとTokyo 2.0のメンバーとコラボレーションパーティーになります。

このパーティーはWDE09のスピーカーをはじめ、Tokyo 2.0メンバー、参加者とのネットワークを広げるチャンスです。
今から予定を押さえておこう！！

Upcoming Events
From November 5 – 7th TEDxTokyoLive presents TEDIndia.

In association with Tokyo Hacker Space (11/5&6) and Keio Media Design (11/7) a unique opportunity to experience a live stream of TEDIndia The Future Beckons. more

Visit Tokyo 2.0 at: http://www.tokyo2point0.net. http://www.tokyo2point0.net の Tokyo 2.0 にアクセスします。

Brain Machine Workshop A Success

According to Karamoon, the Brain Machine workshop at the Tokyo Hacker Space was a success. Check out  some amazing pictures here. You can also see some pictures of Brain Machine workshop I went to at the make fair earlier this year here. The Tokyo Hacker Space run courses for anyone interested in tech, software, hardware and just about anything else they can think of. I’ll be going down there to check out what’s going on and perhaps make a video about it for Learn Japanese Pod.

Learn Japanese Pod

We’ve been getting back into the Learn Japanese Pod saddle after a long summer break. I was getting a few emails asking me what the hell was going on. Fear not, Waka sensei is back to teach you some new and useful Japanese phrases. We just put Fun Friday up and lesson #96 is almost ready to go up.

I’ve also installed moodle onto the Learn Japanese Pod server with a view to developing some Japanese language learning courses. Apparently it is quite a powerful system although I still need to study the documentation into how to use it. I started a thread on this topic for people to discuss and contribute to this project.

Tokyo Guitar Guild

The Tokyo Guitar Guild was a group I set up for guitarists in Tokyo to network, play together and teach each other a few tricks with their axes. The good news is I have managed to find a space in 青山一丁目 Aoyamaichoume where we could meet. If you are interested in coming, please send me an email @ mail(at)alexbrooke(dot)com or contact me here. The location is fantastic and I am thinking of using it on Saturdays.

I’m also thinking of doing some guitar tutorial videos. If you have any suggestions or requests please contact me.

Poster Competition

If you want to get your hands on a cool “Do it at home” poster from Japan Rail go to Japandra to find out more details. A big thanks to Sandra who appeared on last week’s Fun Friday.]

That’s all for now folks.

Last Friday I was joined by Daniel, Yukki, Jim and Sandra at the Pink Cow to record the Fun Friday for Learn Japanese Pod. I don’t know what happened but we achieved a record with over 1900 downloads in the first 24 hours it was put on line. You can check out the episode here.

It was definitely a fun Fun Friday as Sandra told us about her recent Japanese poster give away competition. Claytonian won the latest poster but she is giving more out. If you want to find out how you can win a crisp clean poster from Japan, check out her blog at Japandra.

Another point we talked about is the Japanese Lounge event at the Pink Cow which will be held on Sunday 18th October 2009. You can see traditional Japanese music including shakuhachi and shamisen performances. Entrance is free so you really have no excuses not to come. If you are interested in coming please sign up to the event on Facebook.

Looking forward to seeing you all on the 18th.

This is a great video about Tokyo Hackerspace by Joseph Tame from Pokya fame. This explains what they are doing and some of the cool projects they are involved in. Don’t forget the up coming workshop for the Brain Machine, a device that Karamoon demonstrates in the video. All very interesting stuff and a well made video. Enjoy.

最近地球大使館という持続可能生活に基づいた農園に泊まってる。畑で羊の餌をあげたり雑草をとったり有機栽培についてを勉強したりする。農家のふりをするけどわからないことばかりだからみなの足を引っ張ってるだけ。でも楽しい。

今週末にBIG PARTYするので是非来てください。もっと詳しい情報はここです。

I’ve been having an awesome time hanging out at the Earth Embassy in Yamanashi and pretending to be an organic farmer. I’ve mostly been pissing off the other farm volunteers by mostly getting in the way and generally being the crappest volunteer ever.

Still it’s an education and the other people here are a great laugh. You can usually find me somewhere in the fields saying things like “This is delicious, will it kill me?” and “you can smoke that? No way!”.

The mornings are spent doing the chores, cleaning out the cafe and feeding the sheep. I hit the computer and work on the website for the Earth Embassy.

I’ve also made a few groups on various social networks to connect to people interested in coming out here and volunteering. Here are some of the groups I have made.

Twitter: http://twitter.com/theearthembassy

Mixi: http://mixi.jp/view_community.pl?id=4504162

Asoboo: http://asoboo.com/groups/1172

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/groups/1174417@N24/

We’ll also be having a huge outdoor music event this weekend at the Solar Cafe. Check out more information here:

http://alexbrooke.com/party-in-yamanashi/

Enjoy

The other day I talked to  Karamoon about making an English teacher’s collective loosely based on a Barcamp-esque model. Recently with the economic downturn, the pros seem to be outweighed by the cons of working as an employee for Englsh teaching companies.

The reoccurring problems I have encountered as being an employee for English teaching companies in Japan include but are not limited to the following points:

1) You are an employee.

In most English teaching companies, managerial decisions are made by sales people and managers who actually have no experience of English teaching. Rules and regulations tend to be arbitrary, unhelpful, demoralizing and petty.

2) Crappy teaching materials.

Companies understandably want to cut costs by not investing in materials development. Most companies get by with really bad textbooks pushed on them by publishing companies from Europe which don’t understand the Japanese market.  Students don’t seem to mind but it can be demoralizing as an English teacher.

3) Pay

Since English teaching agencies have infested the market, the number of people taking a cut increases and pay levels decrease.

4) Pandering to the student

If there is a problem with a student, many English teaching companies will automatically side with the student no matter how mentally disturbed they are. It is assumed that the teacher is wrong.

At this point you may be thinking, “this guy is just some stupid, bitter, burned out, lazy English teacher with an axe to grind”. And you’d be right. I am. But admitting it is half the battle.

It would also be unfair to not mention the obvious point that English teaching companies can usually provide a stable and steady income of which I have benefited from in the past.

However, this is not the case now with the financial meltdown as we have seen that corporations were never your friends, especially now.

So what’s next?

This is only experiment but I was thinking of organizing a teacher’s collective. You’d start small with about five teachers who promise to meet regularly, find private students, teach and cover other lessons. Students would study directly with the teacher so the middle man would be cut out reducing costs.Teachers would be responsible for providing good quality material which could be shared and even put into a database.

It would be organized as a collective with no one person with a controlling stake as such. There would have to be some kind of Barcamp-esque mission statement, purpose or constitution to focus and push the group forward. It should also help to avoid the problems I mentioned above.

Would this work? Is this just some airey fairy communist like manefesto that is doomed to faliure? Just how lazy and unmotivated are we? I don’t know, however I do feel obliged to attempt to provide a positive alternative when bitching and complaining about something. Plus, I would like to say I at least tried not to be bitter, lazy and stupid.

I read a great one today on twitface (oh you kow what I mean). “The king of pop is not dead, Mark King of Level 42 is alive and well”. But that hasn’t got much to do with todays post.

Recently I have been wondering about what direction to take my Learn Japanese podcast. At least I know crappy, semi pornographic anime isn’t my thing.I started my Learn Japanese podcast to be a resource for those wanting to study the language and learn about Japan and it’s culture. However, I get the feeling that most people are more into the podcast for the entertainment value. And that’s fine with me because it means I can turn up the goofing around and turn down the overly serious gramar lessons. Plus, I never really learned to speak Japanese from text books, more from falling off bar stools in izakayas across Tokyo. So one way we depart from the normal language podcast is the Fun Friday episodes we (try to) put out every week. They feature, news, views, Japanese bands and general banter related to life in Japan. We just put up the latest episode which features music from Natccu and Yugo Sato two awesome acts from Japan. Incidentally I was introduced to Yugo by a good friend and general music know-it-all who runs the Tokyo Werewolf website which covers the underground music scene in Japan. Ethan is a talented guy, someone, give him a job, please!

In the future I’d like to concentrate more on the music scene here and interview artists and play their music on Fun Fridays. You never know, we might even learn some Japanese accidentally during the process.

Another project I am working on is a new website called Blow Your Speakers. I am doing this with a good friend, DJ, master brewer and all round talented fellow called Stone. We dig around dusty records, make mix tapes and stick them on the site. This site is dedicated to Stone’s talent for finding awesome music and me pretending to be a DJ when really I am an HDJ, hard disk jockey.

So check out Blow Your Speakers and our latest mix tape.

The picture above is of my trusty iPod digital recorder and a Ramune flavored Kit Kat. If you want to find out more you’ll just have to listen to the latest Fun Friday.

Hello Geeks. Flash geeks to be precise. Today I attended Spark which is a monthly meeting for like minded flash programmers to share, learn and hang out in Tokyo. I was introduced to the group by my good friend Mariroom who is involved with Adobe  Japan and Flash.

The reason I wanted to get the word out about this group is to build some bridges between the Japanese and English speaking communities involved with flash and tech in general. Some of the members are eager to learn English and I’m sure there are plenty of people abroad wondering what some the latest Flash programmers and designers are doing in Tokyo these days.

I believe Colin Moock did a skype conference with the Spark members before I turned up. If you don’t know who he is, he’s like the Darth Vader of Flash Programming. I mean that in a nice way.

Check out their main site here: SPARK

Hopefully I’ll be hanging out with some of those guys and gals again and seeing if we can’t come up with some interesting projects perhaps involving flash and some kind of language exchange.

After the meeting, I got back on my Specialized Rockhopper and somehow cycled home without getting killed on the crazy roads and sidewalks of Tokyo…

Geeking out on circuits

I was very impressed by the Tokyo Hacker Space meeting last night held at the Pink Cow in Shibuya (9th June 2009). The meeting went well with around 20 people and some of them had really done their homework in trying to make this a reality.

I’m purposefully going to be a little vague as it maybe a little early to discuss the details of the meeting. Also, I’d like to wait for other members to digest what was put out there and respond before I comment on proposals that might change in the future. Suffice it to say, a comprehensive and well thought out proposal was made regarding a space that could be used as well as the financial framework to run the whole project. Excitng things are happening in Tokyo and it would be great to be involved with such a diverse and intelligent group of people.

What’s my interest in all of this? I actually only have a very rudimentary knowledge of computing and anything that needs to be plugged into a wall. However, as a musician, I would be interested in collaborating in some art – music – tech crossover projects. If the latest books are to be believed, it’s not enough to make things function, they have to look pretty too. These books are of course written to make artists and musicians feel better about themselves.

Before I digress, here’s to Tokyo Hacker Space becoming a reality. Again, I will write more one more responses have come in regarding last night’s meeting.

Next meeting Meeting at at Respekt Cafe 2f 7pm Tuesday June 16th 2009