Photoethnography.com Blog

Mac Pro Early 2008 - SATA DVD Drive Install

2012-05-15T18:36:31Z

My main machine is an early 2008 Mac Pro. It's hard to believe it's four years old already... In any case, the DVD drives fail about once a year due to dust build-up. I replaced the original one with a PATA drive from a donor, but the new drives are all SATA.

Here's how to install a SATA DVD drive in the 2008:

Useful info.

Deep brain stimulation using implanted electrodes to control depression

2012-04-16T02:58:50Z

"Her depression controlled her life for the next 40 years -- until she decided to volunteer for an experimental treatment. A neurosurgeon would drill two holes in Guyton's skull and implant a pair of battery-powered electrodes deep inside her brain.

The procedure -- called deep brain stimulation, or DBS -- targets a small brain structure known as Area 25, the "ringleader" for the brain circuits that control our moods, according to neurologist Dr. Helen Mayberg.

Mayberg's groundbreaking research on this part of the brain showed that Area 25 is relatively overactive in depressed patients. So, Mayberg hypothesized that in patients who do not improve with other treatments, Area 25 was somehow stuck in overdrive."

http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/14/health/battery-powered-brain/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

Karen's talk at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City

2012-04-11T21:15:36Z

Just a quick note that I'm giving a talk tomorrow afternoon at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Just landed here and it's truly like another planet. Having my own Jane Carter moment….

DISABILITY OF THE SOUL | Thursday, April 12, 2012 2:00 PM BEH S Room 114

[read more]
Event Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2012 2:00 PM MDT

A DISABILITY OF THE SOUL: MENTAL ILNESS AND PSYCHIATRIC DISABILITIES IN CONTEMPORARY JAPAN

By Karen Nakamura
Associate Professor
of Anthropology and East Asian Studies,
Yale University

For the past several years, Prof. Nakamura has been conducting research within an intentional community of people with severe mental illnesses in northern Japan. Founded in 1984 on Christian principles, Bethel House attempts to create a space where people with schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders can live within
the community.

Like other utopias, Bethel is not without its flaws but it also has much to teach us in its approach to mental illness and community life. A visual and cultural anthropologist, Prof. Nakamura's work explores through image and text what it means to live with psychiatric and other disabilities in contemporary Japan.

Digital audio recorders for interviews

2012-04-09T13:45:46Z

One of my coworkers wanted a simple audio data recorder to do some interviews. Here was my response to her:

Sorry to take a few days to get back to you on the audio recorders. I think you said you wanted a digital audio recorder that you could use to transfer files back to your computer, that eliminates several of the sub-$50 models and so the cheapest ones are all in the $50-100 range and above.

There are a couple of Sony models in this price range, but I find that Sony usually has complicated user interfaces and really bad software, so unless you're a huge Sony fan, I'd generally avoid:

Sony ICD-PX312 $52

I'd instead recommend Olympus. They tend to have simpler interfaces that are easier to use and harder to mess up:

Olympus VN-8100PC $65

There are models that go on up from there, but unless you want to record live audio (concert performances, etc.) then they are overkill.

Karen

Karen's talk at Wake Forest tomorrow night

2012-03-21T17:38:57Z

I'll be giving a talk at the Wake Forest University Museum of Anthropology tomorrow night (Thur March 22; 7pm) with the title: Crooked Nails Standing Tall: Images and Stories of Disability and Mental Illness in Contemporary Japan. If you're in the Winston-Salem area, stop in!

http://www.wfu.edu/calendar/?m=3&y=2012&d=20&w=0&v=w&id=14000

Why I can't give introductions to people in Japan

2012-03-13T17:01:52Z

I'm often asked by people who have read my articles or my book, Deaf in Japan, if I could introduce them to people who are engaged in disability or deaf studies in Japan. Unfortunately, I cannot do this because introductions in Japan are considerably more fraught than in the United States:

An introduction in Japan has two dimensions:

Guarantee: By introducing someone to one of my informants, I am serving as their guarantor and vouching for them. If there are any problems or difficulties, it then becomes my responsibility to resolve any social or financial damage that might be caused by them.
Reciprocity: By introducing someone to one of my informants, I am asking my informant to do a favor on my behalf -- to take care of the visitor and to make sure that their needs are met. The assumption is that this favor will be reciprocated by me at a later date.

While I will do introductions for my students and people that I meet and know, I cannot vouch for or ask favors of my informants for people that I have not met and do not know. Instead, I will usually refer people to google or use the white pages and to cold call people (or more appropriately, to use their own letterhead in a formal letter of self-introduction).

This is definitely one of more stuffy and formalistic aspects of doing fieldwork in Japan.

Fuji X-Pro1 vs. Ricoh GXR + A12-M

2012-02-24T06:29:36Z

I was at the CP+ convention last month when Fuji unveiled the X-Pro1 and played with the camera a bit. I have to say that I was very disappointed in its lens work. Basically I found both the auto-focus useless as it hunted far too much, even in a well-lit environment. I was never sure of whether the focus was achieved unless I was in EVF mode, which seemed to defeat the purpose of an optical viewfinder.

In manual focus, the stock Fuji lenses seemed to be very "detached" from the focus ring. I didn't have the confidence that I could snap focus like I could with a Leica M rangefinder.

The worst aspect though of manual focusing was that there was only one manual focusing aid -- the magnified view option. This is good but is now a bit dated.

----

I decided instead to get a Ricoh GXR base camera and plan to get an M-module very soon. I've already tested this setup and I found that the contrast-highlight manual focus option on the GXR is very fast and accurate -- as accurate as my rangefinding focus. Will report on this setup more as I get more experience with it.

Karen

----

Comparison Reviews

Sony 5N vs GXR: http://ricoh-gr-diary.blogspot.com

Panasonic GH2 vs GX1 vs Olympus OM-D vs Fuji X-Pro1 vs GXR

2012-02-13T05:30:57Z

	GH2	GX1	OM-D	XPro1	GXR
Sensor Size	M4/3			APS-C
35mm Equiv.	2.0x			1.5x
Sensor Megapixels	16			16.3	12.3
Viewfinder MPix	1.44 800x600	VF2: 1.44 800x600	1.53 800x600	1.44	0.92
RearMonitor KPix	460		610	1230	920
RearMonitor Touch	Yes			No
Flash	Yes		No	No	Yes
Mic-In	Yes	No	Yes (custom)	No
Body Weight (g)	394	272	425	450	370

Note: The GXR is the GXR A12 mount for Leica M

Video: Out of Sight

2012-02-07T16:01:59Z

Yesung Lee sent me this wonderful short animation, titled Out of Sight, made by three students who graduated from the National Taiwan University of Arts.

out of sight from kynight on Vimeo.

Watch it until the end.

Love this guide to speaking Suthern

2012-01-19T23:54:48Z

Like the author, I too am in love with the Southern accent: http://www.asiteaboutnothing.net/w_southern.html

Free… free at last! from LinkedIn spam

2012-01-19T23:27:18Z

Yay! Using the info here, I finally liberated myself from that incessant LinkedIn spam:

LinkedIn Customer Support Message

Subject: Add My Email To Do Not Contact List
Hi Karen,

I truly apologize for the delay in my response.

Per your request, I've added your karen.nakamura@yale.edu email address to
our "do not contact" list.

You will no longer receive any email from LinkedIn or our members on this
email address. If you decide at a later date that you want to set up a
LinkedIn account, you will need to first contact
us to have your email address removed from the “do not contact” list.

If you have further questions, please feel free to reply to this message.

Regards,

Jevgenia
LinkedIn Customer Service
Original Contact:
Member Comment: Karen Nakamura 01/17/2012 01:33
Please add my e-mail to your do not contact list. I have no wish to ever use linkedin.
Thank you.

Karen Nakamura

Ethics in TV Journalism - 5th grade version from This American Life

2012-01-14T00:38:04Z

My pal Eric sent me this link:

Some links for further cogitation:

I was trying to find a link to the oft-quoted dilemma of TV news crews in disasters -- keep filming the person being swept away by a river, or jump in to save them. But couldn't. Readers?

Monitoring Tokyo's radiation levels

2012-01-09T14:48:42Z

I've been spending the past couple of months in Tokyo. Worried about the radiation, I brought my DRGB-90 russian geiger counter /dosimeter that I had bought a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, the DRGB is a rather old analogue design and the readings at low (natural background radiation) are rather imprecise. I modified it so that it could hook up directly to an application on iOS called Geigerbot that is a sophisticated click-counter. Set up correctly, it can give you precise microsievert per hour readings. It also interfaces with Pachube which allows historical readings. Now Geigerbot can use the microphone on your iPad/iPhone to detect the geiger counter's audible clicks, but it will of course also pick extraneous external noise.

I wanted to directly interface my DRGB-90 with my iPhone so I could have more precise readings. Unfortunately, the DRGB doesn't have an external speaker jack or any other outputs. I wrote up an article (that I've since moved the actual hacking instructions to another blog) that talks about how to hack it. For this blog, here's the data coming out of the DRGB-90 + iPhone + Geigerbot.

It shows that radiation levels -- at least in my apartment in Tokyo -- is around 0.15 uSv/hr. This is actually lower by a full BED than background radiation in many places in the United States, which averages 0.23 uSv/hr. I haven't taken the unit mobile yet to see if there are any hotspots, but for now I feel less worried about the situation at least in terms of background radiation. I'm still concerned about food as a set of recent revelations make it clear that government and corporate monitoring has been less than ideal in this regard. Unfortunately, measuring food contamination is extremely difficult and not something a consumer can do herself. For more info, see safecast.org.

Call for Entries - Jean Rouch International Film Festival

2012-01-09T06:48:32Z

From my mailbox:

Jean Rouch International Film Festival
CALL FOR ENTRIES

Please, pass this on to your colleagues, friends and students

Dear Friends,

We are very pleased to announce that the 2012 Jean Rouch International Film Festival is now open for entries. We remind you that the deadline to submit a film is 15th April 2012.
This deadline is for all films completed after 1st January 2011 .
You will find the online entry form on our website via:
http://www.comite-film-ethno.net/festival-international-jean-rouch/2012/entry-form.html
We are looking forward to receiving your film submissions.
With our very best regards.

The Organizing Committee
Barberine Feinberg, Françoise Foucault, Laurent Pellé.

The Festival Jean Rouch, previously known as Bilan du FIlm Ethnographique, was created in March 1982 by anthropologist and filmmaker Jean Rouch.
Over the past thirty years, the Festival’s aim has been to showcase the most innovative and relevant trends in ethnographic filmmaking and visual anthropology, and to promote dialogue between cultures.
Organized by the Comité du Film Ethnographique, this international film festival is held in Paris (France). Each year, it brings together filmmakers, academics, students and producers, in an attempt to promote discussions and debates amongst ethnographic film practitioners and their many public, and to favour the diffusion and the distribution of the films.
We welcome documentary films without restriction to theme and length.

Comité du Film Ethnographique
Festival International Jean Rouch
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
36 rue Geoffroy Saint Hilaire - CP 22
75005 Paris
festivaljeanrouch@gmail.com
http://www.comite-film-ethno.net

___________________________________________________________________________________

Scam: Beverly Hills Time "review"

2012-01-02T04:05:25Z

As a faculty member of an Ivy league, I get a lot of crazy e-mails. This one seemed legit at first:

Dear Professor,
The Beverly Hills Times Magazine is considering running an article on the hypotheses, biography, and pictures located at [redacted]. We are asking for your assistance because your extensive expertise was brought to our attention. …
Our main goal at this point is to determine whether there is any established scientific evidence that tends either to support or invalidate the hypotheses. We would also consider publishing one of your own articles as trade for your contribution. We are interested in opinions from multiple fields of expertise. If you do not have time please feel free to forward this to a colleague.

but there were too many red flags. I decided to see if there was any legitimacy to it, and it turns out that there isn't: http://icbseverywhere.com/blog/2010/03/how-to-live-forever-or-i-get-email/

While not a phishing attack, malware, or a Nigerian prince with the last name of Nakamura, it's still a type of link bait scam. Avoid.

And don't feed the trolls.