I had the opportunity to go to Tokyo, Japan for a week this month for work and while there I kept a running list of observations. I was able to commute to work on the subway, which I found quite fun.

First, my observations:

• the Japanese are extremely orderly; everything is very neat and clean
• Japanese men are quite fashionable when it comes to work attire.
• Nobody talks to each other on the morning commute
• Everyone is wearing slacks, nice shoes, a dress shirt, tie, sport coat, (or suit), and then an overcoat (plus umbrella when raining). They tend to have very thin attaché cases or shoulder bags, unlike America’s giant backpacks or heavier shoulder bags.
• Japan seems obsessed with European brands. There are tons of French and Italian fashion ads everywhere featuring European names and models. The best way to sell something expensive seems to still be to put a rich-looking white woman in the ad for it — even in Japan.
• Very little jewelry for women
• Women have art and stones and sprinkles and stuff on their nails
• A large percentage of people spend their subway commute looking down at their phones
• There are not nearly as many smartphones there as in the U.S. They still have tons of long, thin flip phones.
• Johan Paris bread seems silly popular
• There are women-only subway trains in the morning because there are issues with women being groped under the guise of being crammed accidentally against someone.
• Everyone is extremely dedicated to their work. Whatever the job they do it extremely well and they consider it rude that you’d offer a tip for it (it’s assumed that they’d perform that well)
• The lack of tipping there combined with how good the service is made coming back to the states somewhat difficult. I checked bags on the curb at SFO and forgot I didn’t have cash, and the person was nice until they realized they weren’t getting a tip and then became an asshole. Highly unacceptable.
• Men don’t get up for women on the subway
• There’s quite a bit more Android in Japan then I see in the U.S. It was probably 60/40 Android to iPhone (completely anecdotal)
• The Japanese are so embarrassment-conscious that when you sit down on a lot of their toilets they make a loud sound to disguise any sounds you make be making yourself
• They have bidets on a lot of their toilets. First time for both me and my girl. Interesting.
• The cool, good-looking guys have haircuts I can only describe as Dragonball-Z haircuts
• The epitome of their male beauty seems to be very thin and feminine looking men
• Women hang all sorts of crap off of their giant, rectangular flip phones, like large teddy bears, mini purses, etc. There are lots of iPhone cases that have bunny ears and stuff on them
• Men mix black and brown in their dress, e.g. black slacks and jacket, and brown shoes and bag
• The card exchange ritual was quite profound for me. It’s not rumor or hyperbole: it’s just like you’ve heard. My main engagement I looked down for a second and looked up to see 10 people lined up with hands crossed in front of them, by rank, waiting to come do the two-handed, extended look card exchange.
• The men work with their sport coats on
• Mobile coverage was phenomenal (GSM iPhone 4S)
• The coffee was phenomenal in Japan. Starbucks mochas were highly superior to in the U.S., and random coffee shops had brutally excellent lattes.
• The smoking wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d assumed it would be. Most places in public smoking wasn’t allowed, but where it was it was THICK
• It’s very disconcerting to have someone smoke right next to you while you’re eating
• The shopping is serious there; like massive amounts of stores.
• Their malls are large vertical buildings, with the floors being the departments. We’re talking like 20 floors.
• I came away with there being an overriding sense of unified purpose to the people in the country

Things we did:

• Harajuka street. Not at peak time, but we got some of the feel.
• The walking experience. We got to see a lot of the downtown and business areas, lots of train stations during commutes, etc.
• We got smooshed into a train a couple of times, like sardines but without the extra room. No comments. No complaints. No grunts. No sounds. Just massive pressing from all sides.
• I got to have Soba noodles at a place near Hanzomon Station that has been in business since the Samurai were around. Real. Deal.
• We were taken out by our host to a no-joke Sushi/Sashimi dinner in downtown Japan. We’re talking wave after wave of various types of fishes, sides, and sake for like three hours. It was perhaps the best, most elaborate dining experience I’ve ever had.
• Upon coming in we looked out the right of the plan and saw the most picturesque view of this MASSIVE mountain. It was like a movie. The whole airplane window was full of the perfect symmetry of this thing, with a sunset orangish glow on it. I mean, MASSIVE. Like 7000 Mt. Diablos (that’s how it looked). Susan was like, what the hell is that? I immediately said Mt. Fuji without knowing even where it was, if we were anywhere near it, etc. Turns out it was. It was seriously stunning.

In sum, it was a phenomenal trip, and we look forward to returning.

::

If you’re a frequent traveler you may be familiar with a service called CLEAR which spun up a few years back and died around a year ago. It basically allowed you to go through security very quickly using separate lines.

For someone who travels a lot it equates to massive amounts of time saved, and when they went under I was very sad. Well, they’ve solved their financial issues and they’re re-launching!

I am very eager for this to hit SFO and other major airports. ::

I finally replaced my quite-lame primary piece of luggage (a massive Samsonite bag of very low quality) with a medium-sized piece from Tumi’s ALPHA line.

This is a purchase that I’ve been wanting to make for about three years now, and it actually does improve the travel experience now that I have. I do enjoy Tumi’s offerings, and my laptop brief, wallet, and toiletries case are all from them.

I also got a number of accessories with this main new piece, including some shoe bags, a set of hangers, and a few individual compartments for shirts, underwear, socks, etc. The biggest advantage, however, is the fact that my new bag has a dedicated garment section that allows me to transport slacks and shirts without wrinkling them.

Overall it was a major upgrade to my current bag, which is missing most zippers and handles off of it. Plus, I have been wanting to make the motion to a smaller bag, as it will force me to pack smarter. ::

When I was in the Army I had the opportunity to go to the Middle East for six months. There’s a whole litany of things you have to do to get ready for such a deployment — shots, paperwork, etc. One of those things was getting new dog tags.

One of the most interesting things about dog tags is that they include your religion on them. I was flirting with Atheism at the time and decided to get creative with what I put for my faith of choice.

Naturally, I put “CROM”. Crom is Conan’s God from Conan The Barbarian — one of the few movies that my buddy Tim and I watched hundreds of times during our high school years. These movies are burned into our souls. They define us.

I was quite sure I was going to get written up for putting “CROM” as my religion, but it never happened. They didn’t scoff when it wrote it on the form, and they happily pounded it into the little pieces of metal for me.

I was so proud of those damn dog tags, and from then on Conan became even more a part of my permanent personal culture. Anytime someone would put out an idea that I didn’t like I’d say:

Crom laughs at your four winds!

I quote from him regularly. The lamentation of the women…two snakes facing each other…etc, — it’s all classic stuff.

The pinnacle of the whole affair came in Egypt when I had these dog tags dipped in 18 carat gold. It was quite inexpensive, but it made the whole Conan thing even cooler in some lame yet cool way (see Manowar). Most of the gold came off of the tags over time; all that remained was the gold in the recessed protection of the lettering.

Good times.:

I’m in South Florida for a week long engagement. Blogging could be a bit light, depending on how the project goes.

If you know of any good Cuban or Puerto Rican food in Miami that I should try, do let me know.

So I’ve been at DEFCON in Vegas for the last few days. It’s been a rich experience and I’ve made a couple of observations.

DEFCON is a Social Networking Event DEFCON makes all of the audio and video content available (for a price) afterwards, meaning you can watch all of the presentations as if you were there anyway. What you can’t do is mill about and catching up with your with your friends and colleagues from all over the country (or make new friends and colleagues). That’s invaluable, and it should be the main reason for attending these types of events.

You Can Tell a Lot About a Person by the Shirt They Wear Most people wear regular shirts — polos, t-shirts, etc. — that have no writing on them. Those don’t count. What I’m speaking of is those who are trying to make a statement by calling attention to themselves with text or images on their shirts. Among those you can tell who is most skilled by the shirt they choose. Simple rule: if the shirt they choose represents an old meme that died a long time ago, they’re most likely followers with very little creative power. If the shirt they’re wearing is something really obscure, they’re likely leaders.

Examples: There were many guys walking around with the binary shirt — the one that starts with “There are only 10 kinds of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don’t.” This was a cool shirt. In fact it still is a cool shirt. But the only reason to wear writing on a shirt at a con is to have others read it. In other words you’re calling attention to yourself on purpose. And in the case of a hacker convention, the goal is to impress.

If your method of impressing a convention full of hackers is to support a joke that was old a few years ago, you’re not a thought leader. These people are likely to be followers who simply mimic others and do very little on their own. Not because they wear a shirt with an old joke on it, which is fine in other settings, but because they thought it would impress the DEFCON crowd three years later.

Now, contrast that to people like Dan Kaminsky and H.D. Moore. They both wore shirts that had cryptic icons or text on them. Unknown icons or text. In fact, there are likely to be very few people at the whole con who knew what those shirts meant — and that’s the way they like it. They’re trying to make a statement just like the guys with the binary shirt, but the difference is that they are actually succeeding by wearing something obscure and interesting. You would never catch any of these thought-leaders promoting a tired meme at a con.

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p align=”center”>In other words, the elite group create and promote new memes, while the followers are attracted to the well-established and therefore stale ones.

It’s like in the writing world. Good writers find new ways to say things while poor writers use cliches. The thing is, cliches are still good writing. The only reason they are bad choices is because they’ve been overused — just like the binary shirt meme.: