Random photos of stations I have visited

[mojo]

 

Sagamino, bridge over the motorway.

 

 

I like how this sign is made up of the word "danger" in many different languages. In Japanese you often see it written in Hiragana, presumably so that people who are bad at kanji still understand it.

 

 

Bike park at Minami-Rinkan station.

[Tony Galiani]

I need that No Parking sign for our campus!

Tony

Edited December 19, 2023 by Tony Galiani
clarification

[cteno4]

Thanks for the manhole covers! So interesting and something that’s easily missed walking around, but once you see them they then stick out.

 

jeff

[mojo]

Some more unedited videos from yesterday.

 

 

 

[mojo]

 

Today I accidentally went to Oyama. I've been trying to look for interesting angles after seeing someone much better than me do it.

 

 

Kazo seems to have some connection to fish, maybe local produce. The paving slabs have been laid out to make a fish and some waves. The manhole seems to be honouring the fire department.

[mojo]

 

Interesting DIY joystick. I've experimented with this construction method before - layers of laser cut plexiglass to sandwich a PCB - but it's hard to get really good results and tends to limit the amount of depth you can have. Seems okay here though. Maybe good for a keyboard/keypad.

 

Notice that the "joystick" doesn't actually have a joystick. It has buttons for up/down/left/right. When these appeared a few years ago they were controversial. Most games were designed with a joystick or d-pad in mind, and some of them had bugs if you could do things like push in two opposing directions at the same time. Even the non-buggy games were radically altered. For example, a very slow move that requires rotating the joystick through 270 degrees is now as fast as you can press four fingers down.

 

In the end most pro events seem to have settled on allowing them if the joystick itself blocks opposing inputs, but there is nothing that can be done about online play.

 

 

Back to Kazo and then on to Hanyu station.

 

 

[mojo]

 

Not sure who or what this is, but someone put a mask on her.

 

 

They had a decent amount of model train stuff.

 

 

More angles.

[mojo]

 

Tatabayashi Station. I had to wait there for nearly an hour for the next train. Once you get out into the rural areas this becomes the norm. Not sure how it will affect my trip to Niigata, if I get that far. Car is sounding more appealing, but I'm pretty tired and could spend the money on other stuff.

[mojo]

 

Sano. Things went a bit wrong here. I meant to visit Hard Off as usual, but managed to miss the bus. I have some difficulty with busses in rural areas, especially when they are not numbered. What is written in Google Maps is often not what is written on the bus itself.

[mojo]

 

Because the bus service is more than an hour between them, I decided to just move on.

[mojo]

  

 

Angles.

 

    

 

The first one was taken with the camera in normal mode, the second two with "night sight" turned on. They will look better when I edit the RAW files, but I just thought it was interesting. The second one is the most realistic. The sky is a bit bright, but the rest of the scene is similar to how it looks in real life. The last one is far better lit than in reality.

 

I wish I had recorded this walk, but didn't. It was a nice area with a mix of houses and businesses. I got on the wrong bus, but it went kinda near where I wanted to be so I just walked the rest of the way. This is in Oyama.

[mojo]

 

They had some nice train stuff, including a very nice HO model. The robot shinkansen were amusing I thought. I've been after a SCSI MO drive for a while, and caved in.

[mojo]

 

Some more Oyama.

[mojo]

Final bit of Oyama and a video. Give it an hour for YouTube to finish doing whatever it does.

 

 

 

[Gunzel]

8 hours ago, mojo said:

The manhole seems to be honouring the fire department.

I think it’s actually a fire hydrant under there. They are pretty common in various different designs all over Japan. 
 

I have a few too many MO drives, sadly most of the NOS media I found on my last trip was Y330 a disk or more. 
 

I’ve found most bus drivers in Japan pretty helpful in guiding me to the right stop and bus, just best to approach them with the address and map in Japanese. It’s a pity HARD OFF doesn’t go for the Ekimae locations 😉

[mojo]

I did actually ask the bus driver if it was the right bus, but he said no! I'm pretty sure it was now. Maybe he misheard me.

 

Today was supposed to be easy, but wasn't. Very cold too.

 

 

Any idea what this is? Something to do with metrology?

 

[mojo]

 

8" floppy drive...

[mojo]

 

Found some interesting rail related Laserdiscs. I was tempted but I don't have a player yet - the ones I bought will go in frames on the wall. I do want to get a player though. Kinda regretting not getting them now.

 

 

Another Tron LD, but not the one I'm looking for. Was quite tempted anyway.

 

[Gunzel]

5 hours ago, mojo said:

Any idea what this is? Something to do with metrology?

I think they’re just balance scales in a protective case. And the weights live in the drawer. 
 

i really like the design aesthetic of that old NEC gear, but it’s probably a rabbit hole I don’t want to go down. Same with laserdisc’s. 
 

Have you seen vcrshop.com? They have some laserdisc players although they are not exactly cheap. I bought a VCR from them because finding good condition S-VHS ones in Australia is very difficult. 

[cteno4]

6 hours ago, mojo said:

Any idea what this is? Something to do with metrology?

Yep old fashion double pan balance. I have one from the turn of the 20th century from my grad school lab when it was getting tossed.

 

jeff

[cteno4]

Mojo,

 

love all the detail photos and photos of the more mundane bits of streets, buildings and infrastructure. It’s so good for modeling ideas and usually all the photos are of just the pretty scenes, not 98% of real life! Google street view can give you a lot of it, but usually a bit of distorted views.

 

much appreciated!

 

jeff

[Tony Galiani]

I am going to echo Jeff here.  Really like going through the photos.  No urban scenes planned for my current project but lots of inspiration for the next time I try one.

Thanks.

Tony

[mojo]

Thanks for the very kind words everyone. I was worried that the photos were too mundane and boring, but I guess not! These are scaled down versions of the originals, so if there is anything you would like more detail on just ask. I'm shooting everything at 50MP and in dual JPEG and RAW formats. Luckily I found some 100GB BD-R discs cheap, I think mis-priced by a factor of 10 or something, so I might stand a chance of backing it all up.

 

Anyway, yesterday I also did Enoshima again, so I have a few photos from there. I think it wasn't quite as fun as the first time, and it gets really cold up there. Still good fun though. I am thinking about Yokohama tomorrow, doing a slow day and getting a bit of shopping in. Normal shopping, I mean. They have some lovely cat stuff here.

 

Anyway, Enoshima...

 

[mojo]

[mojo]

 

Today I started at Oizumi.

 

 

An LD I couldn't resist. There were some other interesting ones there, the selection was decent.

 

 

I was very tempted but didn't buy it in the end. Why do I love failed technology like this?