Author: tokyokevin

  • Weekly Break Time 2

    A videographer for WREN Studios paid 20 models to kiss another model on film. Beautiful to look at. Then VICE, a documentary company, did the same thing with normal people. I find this much more interesting. Do you? Here is another one, much longer, using people from New York.

     

     

  • Weekly Break Time 1

    David Letterman, the biggest late night TV comedian, is retiring in one year. The night he announced his retirement, he had a new band on his show (March 27). This band was not well known. It is now. After the group was put on YouTube, it “went viral” meaning it acted like a virus and grew very very quickly, with almost a million people watching. The new band is called Future Island. Look for more of them in the future. They sang the song Seasons (Waiting on You). Lyrics.

     

  • Einstein on Education

    Here is a quote by Einstein, whose birthday is today.

    This school with its liberal spirit and teachers with a simple earnestness that did not rely on any external authority, made an unforgettable impression on me. In comparing it with six years schooling at an authoritarian German Gymnasium, I was made acutely aware how far superior an education that stresses independent action and personal responsibility is to one that relies on drill, external authority and ambition.

  • Snow Day in Tokyo

    Not really, but i am going to take the day to do grades from home. No  classes anyway.

    Testing out my new Galaxy Note 3. I now am fully mobile.

    image

  • Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History

    I started listening to this podcast a couple of weeks ago. I can’t get enough.

    I remember driving all over Japan a few years ago, listening to the series about the Byzantines by Lars Brownworth, a prof,  who is doing one on the Normans. Driving around the US last summer I listened to How the Irish Saved Civilization, by Thomas Cahill.
    hh_headerBut now this new guy (for me), Dan Carlin, talks about lots of different kinds of history. His podcasts are long, 3-4 hours, but engrossing. I’ve listened to #48, about heretics and a trial in Munster, Germany just after Gutenberg and Martin Luther. And #41, about how the Dark Ages weren’t really so Dark, and how the Goths were a lot more civilized than most people think. Covers from the fall of Rome in 472 up through Charlemagne in the 800’s.
    He’s got a much more conversational style than Brownworth, and jumps all over the place. He is at the top of iTunes Podcast list, for a good reason. I just wish I had more time. Next for me: #49 The American Peril. He also does series, such as the ones about Mongolia and the Khan. Well worth the listen.