Man and Ultraman

I don’t get to see much TV here, not having one and all. And anyway it’s all in Japanese, don’t you know. But this spot reminds me of two things I really miss: 1) a good Guinness and 2) good commercials.

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I had big plans last Saturday. They involved getting up early, climbing aboard something with both wheels and an engine that was heading northeast, and not getting off until I had reached the mountains of Hakusan National Park – Hakusan being one of the three highest peaks in Japan, conveniently located just 32 miles in a straight line northeast of Fukui. Trouble is, there are no straight lines that lead there, it being a mountain and all, and I wasn’t sure exactly where I was going or how to get there without a car. The other trouble is that I slept late on Saturday (and when I say “late,” I mean late, like 10:30 am, not what unserious late sleepers mean when they say late, which is usually something sad and ridiculous like 7:30 am. If I say I slept “really late,” then we’re talking about a noon situation. Homey don’t play when he’s talking about sleep.) Combined with the fact that, for astronomical reasons I’ve yet to get my head around, the sun sets here at 4:55 pm, this means I was suddenly looking at a window of daylight exploration time, once I arrived at wherever I was going, that was in the very low single digits.

A change of plans was clearly in order. Instead of the remote and freezing wilderness of Hakusan Park, I soon found myself aiming at a far less ambitious goal: the Ichijodani Asakura Clan Ruins on the rail line just a few miles to the southeast of Fukui.

Short description, since you’re doubtless begging for one: wedged into the crease of land where the flats east of Fukui burst into huge wooded hills, the site is mostly just the remnants of the castle town that was home to five warring lords of the Asakura Clan, which ruled the region for about a century, from 1470 -1573. When the Asakura Family was defeated by Oda Nobunaga in 1573, the town was burned and its castle reduced to smoking rubble, which frankly seems to be the fate of a lot of castles, since, by their very existence they’re basically daring anyone and everyone with an army to try and reduce them to rubble. About 40 years ago, the nearby townspeople started excavating the site, since their village has absolutely nothing else going for it (trust me). They uncovered the shape of the whole town, including a house belonging to the lord, samurai residences, temples, houses of merchants and craftsmen, streets, etc. Unfortunately, all that exists of this grandeur today is a few low rocks in the shape of buildings and the former front gate, which I strongly suspect is not the original, because why wouldn’t they burn it, too? You’re going to burn the castle and every building in town but leave the front door untouched? I don’t think so. See castle logic above.

Anyway, it made for a relaxing afternoon and some nice pictures. And I didn’t even have to put up a tent.

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Obviously the big brains at Google were reading M&U yesterday. This morning, they make official the worst kept secret in Mountain View: Google is getting into the phone biz. Only one day after I wax ecstatic over freeing myself from cell phone enslavement – a result of my old carrier, Sprint, having no game in Japan – I read this at Wired:

Contrary to reports that surfaced during months of breathless speculation, Google isn’t making cell phones, nor does it plan to put its name on the devices equipped with its software. Instead, it will work with four manufacturers and 29 other companies that have formed the Open Handset Alliance to help launch Google’s mobile software, expected to be available in the second half of next year.”

Nor am I safe on the other side of the world, as The New York Times notes:

Mobile phones based on Google’s software will be manufactured by a variety of handset companies, including HTC, LG, Motorola and Samsung and be available in the United States through T-Mobile and Sprint. The phones will also be available through the world’s largest mobile operator, China Mobile, with 332 million subscribers in China, and the leading carriers in Japan.”

Google already controls a creepy amount of my personal and professional life. Calendar, Gmail, my blog reader, online documents, my entire library of personal photos and videos, a long history with maps & Google Earth … to say nothing of the terabytes worth of my web searches they’ve doubtless got archived away in a cabinet somewhere. Surely it’s only a matter of time before I’m sucked into its latest scheme to completely take over my life. When Google finally wakes up and becomes the omniscient, all-powerful superbeing it’s destined to be, it’s either going to make me its lapdog or pull me apart limb by limb.

Technology’s a double-edged sword, isn’t it? Each new advance seems to come with a factory-installed downside, just to keep the world from becoming too nice a place. It’s always been thus. Take fire, for example. Great for cooking, keeping warm, and keeping wolves out of the cave, but surprisingly unpleasant when applied directly to the skin, plus your hair smells like smoke all the time. The wheel? Ideal for carrying stuff around and getting quickly from point A to point B, but it also gave rise to the backseat driver and unicyclists. Nuclear power? Perfect for ending world wars in a hurry, but then there’s that inconvenient international arms proliferation thing and the ever-present possibility of species-wide extinction.

But few technologies have spawned as many drawbacks and foul consequences as the cell phone. Scientists talk about the possibility of us someday creating superintelligent robots who, if we’re not careful, will enslave us and turn us into bleating livestock. I say that day has quite clearly already arrived. People wonder how we got anything done before the arrival of instant and ubiquitous voice communication. The real question is how we manage to get anything done despite it. It used to be you could get by perfectly fine without a cell phone. Now – forget the debate over their usefulness – people look at you as if you’ve got a third leg growing out of your forehead if you tell them you don’t have one. You’re ostracized from society. “You don’t have a cell phone? How are you supposed to text message anyone?”

I’m not coming down on cellphone users. I’ve been using since 1998, and my most recent regular fix was coming from a Blackberry 8703e. For better or worse, Sprint does not provide service in Japan. So my Blackberry is gathering dust in a drawer at the moment. But back in the U.S., I could SMS with the best of them. Yet I also never crossed the line to the dark side, by which I mean yakking at top volume on my phone in public.

For many cell phone users, a short, quiet conversation is no conversation at all. For them to feel that they’re getting their technology’s worth, they have to share long, outrageously stupid conversations with not just their friend on the other end but with the entire room – or train, or movie theater, or restaurant, or bar, or elevator, as the case may be. This is not news to anyone who’s left their home in the past nine years, of course. What is news, however, is that there’s a solution available to us victims. Unfortunately it’s illegal. Technically.

The New York Times wrote yesterday about the growing black market for cell phone “jammers,” tiny, cheap devices that with the push of a button can shut down cell phone signals in a small area and silence those chatty Kathys.

The jamming technology works by sending out a radio signal so powerful that phones are overwhelmed and cannot communicate with cell towers. The range varies from several feet to several yards, and the devices cost from $50 to several hundred dollars. Larger models can be left on to create a no-call zone. Using the jammers is illegal in the United States. The radio frequencies used by cellphone carriers are protected, just like those used by television and radio broadcasters.”

The problem, according to some, is that it turns everyone’s cell phone into a temporary blinking paperweight, not just the abuser’s. Naturally, the Verizon spokespersons of the world are screaming bloody murder, as if civilization will collapse instantly if anyone, anywhere is kept from using their cellphone for even a moment. And what about emergencies, they insist? But you know what? That’s exactly how we got into this mess. (Remember the “phone in a bag” you kept in the car for “emergencies”?) I hate to break it to the good people at Sprint, but emergencies pre-date cell phones. We’ve been solving them just fine for millions of years. And as someone who’s recently been freed of his dependence on said technology, I can testify to the fact that my world has not yet crumbled into ashes.

Though people do look at me funny. Still, you can bet I’ll be asking Santa for one of these doodads this Christmas.