Neil Hopcroft

A digital misfit

On the Happiness Patrol – a reprise

Tonight I failed to find Paranoia[0] so I strolled up the hill to the biggest spectrum analyser I’ve ever seen[1] and went inside for a pizza. Of course, this is back to Roppongi Hills, a place I’ve likened to Paradise Towers in the past. This time its scarier, there is an art exhibition going on which involves the word ‘happiness’ being plastered everywhere in big pink letters on a red background.

I got some more USB gadgets today, a handy battery charger and a phone charger, both just use the USB power line and don’t identify as devices. Its an interesting idea using USB as a universal power supply, I’d been thinking there must be some way of doing something like that, and was wondering about having a whapping great stepdown transformer in the corner pushing out well regulated 12v DC (or maybe 5V) and having everything run from that, it would save having to buy a transformer with *everything*. Maybe this is the answer, perhaps there is a market in massively multiway USB hubs? I’ve already collected 10 devices here (11 if you count the ugly one) and I’m not even trying.

[0] the cafe, its in all the guidebooks and websites, with pictures and maps and addresses, it just isn’t there, shame, it sounded quite good
[1] it doubles as an office block – the graph of the analyser itself is around six stories tall, but I don’t know what its analysing


2 comments

  1. Er, dare I ask what the ugly USB device is ?

    I now envisage your desk with some sort of humped, snarling creature roaming it, Japan save only from its ravages by the cable that keeps it chained…

    • Its this, but the pictures on the website hardly do its ugliness justice, I’ll see if I can do better and submit that as a bonus entry into your photo competition…which, incidentally, looks exactly as I was hoping it would, a nice selection of words, not too many of them, not too abstract but not too concrete either, I just hope I can submit some appropriate pictures.

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