Posts on byJP

The Fujifilm Repair Centre

Sat, 29 Oct 2022 11:22:11 +0100

I've been pleasantly astounded by the quality of Fujifilm's Service Centre here in the UK. Honestly, it's likely to keep me using Fujifilm cameras at least until they change it.

I noticed a week back that my X-T30 wasn't turning on. I'm planning a trip, and this camera is 2 years old and out of warranty, so I knew I needed to suck it up and prepare for an expensive repair.

The pricing is a little confusing without context, and you can't get much more information until you register, but after a phonecall I was impressed — and even more so now I have a repaired camera in my hands, not 6 working days later.

Mostly this is because the stated price (£130 for an X-T30) covers everything. Postage (and packaging) in both directions, a renewed 1 year waranty, and any and every problem you specify, or that they notice, repaired. All with a stated round-trip time of 5-10 days (even faster if you want to spend an extra £10).

I mentioned to them that my camera wouldn't turn on, and also that I'd foolishly managed to burn some of the overlay into the electronic viewfinder by leaving it on while in webcam mode. Both of which they've fixed, but they also seem to have replaced the back LCD which only had a few small scratches.

Now, £130 isn't cheap by any stretch, and I'm sure this would be annoying if I had a minor/cheap repair to do, but I'm really appreciating the knowledge that if anything goes wrong with this camera there is a ceiling on what the repair will cost, and that the quality of the service is so high.

Fujifilm, you've made a happy customer a loyal one. Good work!

Thoughts on Postcards

Fri, 21 Oct 2022 09:50:19 +0100

I've long admired and played with #postcards. For me there's an art to every aspect of creating and sending them — designing, choosing, writing, drawing, doodling, stamping — each of which could stand books' worth of elaboration.

Art is, in my humble opinion, at its greatest when limitlessly exploring a limited space, and a postcards provide plenty of just this kind of freeing limitation. They can be heartfelt and genuine precisely because they don't immediately invite a reply (unlike practically all other interpersonal communication), they invite novelty (like Mr. Bingo's hilarious Hate Mail, or Lupi & Posavec's beautiful Dear Data) because they are so simple and (literally!) inflexible.

Even now I'm slowly building a microsite gallery¹ for the postcards my friend Claire sends me whenever she travels. Every one of them contains just one message: "Shut up, JP" in the local language. I love them.

I honestly think I'll always enjoy playing with postcards, in one form or another. If you'd ever like to tell me about your appreciation of them, a postcard you've seen or enjoyed receiving or sending, do reach out by email (I have a standing invitation)! …and if you'd like to send me a postcard you only need write me an email and ask for my address.

I completed it! You can find it at shutup.jp 😄 ↩︎

Communicating Slowly

Wed, 29 Jul 2020 19:49:19 +0000

I've built a microsite called slow.fyi. It is a single-purpose, small, and simple page designed as a shorthand anyone can use to declare that receiving a reply would be appreciated (rather than being expected).

This has seemed really important to me now the stresses of our own lives are unpredictable, let alone those of our friends we're not regularly in touch with. I've been using "slow.fyi", written literally like that in Signal, Whatsapp, emails and similar, as a way to demonstrate a lack of pressure in long or short messages I've been sending to friends. Perhaps you'll find it useful too.

The Beauty of Type

Fri, 01 Nov 2019 07:11:25 +0000

Back in July, while recovering from a nasty cold, I received a beautiful postcard from my friend Richard. It displayed an alphabet he created, each letter inspired by a different writing system of the world.

Richard's wonderful alphabet, on the front of a postcard I received from him.

The moment I saw these wonderful shapes I knew I wanted to use them in creating something new; to build on top of Richard's inventive characters. Bed-bound as I was, it needed to be digital. I needed to bring these letters onto my computer.

It seems like I've always been fascinated by the printed word, the mechanisms humans have built for sharing their thoughts further and wider. I remember discovering that cliché is an onomatopoeia-that it sounds like what it describes: the noise a printing press makes when it stamps a word or phrase so common the block must be made out of a different material. But these letters were unusual enough that I wouldn't be able to start from anything existing. It was time to learn about making a font.

I downloaded a trial of the excellent Glyphs font-design application and began to build something that might honour my friend's creation, at least as much as the bedridden delirium my cold had cultivated would allow. I scanned the postcard, used clever software to draw around the outside of the characters, split them up, then used Glyphs to tease these unusual shapes into the parts of the font anatomy I was learning about. How much of that "F" is a descender? Is that a swash on that "Z"? How much energy did I have for ligatures? These shapes were so eccentric, where on earth should the cap line go?

Just as the evening started to draw in, I completed this font I call Caspian. I used it to send my friend a couple of artsy postcards but I also wanted to do something more.

A script named Caspian

I decided to build a microsite that would try and recreate the weirdness of its inception, referencing Bowie's album Hunky Dory, which was playing almost solidly while I tweaked and moulded those letters. I made a website which plays the songs I listened to while in bed, typing the lyrics as they're sung, in the pretty font that is Caspian.

Thanks Richard, for the diversion while I was ill, the beautiful postcard, and the opportunity to make something eerie and beautiful.

Miriscience

Wed, 24 Apr 2019 15:12:03 +0100

It was early March, 2018 when I realised I’d found the answer to a question that had been niggling at me for decades. That answer itself took only three years of pondering, but the question took what felt like all of my then 29 rotations to clearly define.

The moment of clarity came during a swing dance festival camp in Herräng, Sweden. I’d met a person who, like all unforgettable people, was the distillation of a personality trait I adored: she was forever in awe of the world around her. I found myself in need of defining that state of knowing wonder, to better understand that part of myself, and to look for it in others.

Lake Blåkaren in Herräng, 2015

If you’ve ever said something unexpectedly insightful in conversation and watched your friend’s perspective shift, seen their eyes widen in step with their mind and a spark of curiosity ignite, then you’ll know the kind of “child-like wonder” I mean.

…But there lay the problem that nagged at me those final years; why did wonder have to be “child-like”? Humanity has always envied excitement and awe, especially in our kids, so why, I struggled to understand, had my language segregated it away from adults with such a diminutive term? I started hunting for a more apt word.

Stories are all the better for being able to take time at their own pace, so I’ll abbreviate the thousand odd evenings perusing dictionaries, exploring with friends and toying with distant new languages (learning them extremely badly) just enough to get an honest feel for their “awe-ful” phrasing; my desire to find this word continually reinforced by my inability to describe it succinctly.

One evening, chatting to another inspired soul over that perennial marvel the internet, we turned to etymology and the origins of the words we were already using for inspiration. Here it was that we found two charming words and portmanteaud them (yes, you can verb anything); it became how I describe that inspiring friend and so many others. A word you’re probably familiar with by now, given the article you're reading: Miriscient.

There’s a chance you feel an earlier familiarity with it; its two root words have other children sat firmly in two aspects of the world often seen as opposites; if you’ve ever heard stories of miracles or the progress of science, then you’ve met the offspring of the Latin words mirus, meaning wonder, marvellous, amazing, and scio, to know or be aware. In this way I think of miriscience as being an awareness of the marvellous things, of knowing wonder.

I also find it marvellously appropriate, and appropriately marvellous, that the deeper roots of mirus sit in the proto-indo-european word sméyros, meaning to smile. And smile I absolutely did when I finally had a name for the feeling that has, and no doubt always will, dominate my worldview.

Sayounara Japan

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 02:40:07 +0000

さようなら！ Sayounara! Goodbye Japan!

I'm in Narita Tokyo Airport at this very moment. Our flight's gonna leave in half an hour. And… this is it! It's a great shame, it's been an amazing trip. But I hope to come back soon. See you soon!

English T-Shirts

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 01:15:20 +0000

I love staring at the t-shirts they have here, written in English, but obviously have very little meaning. I can only imagine what it's like for Eastern people in Britain!¹

Looking at the nonsense we have on our T-Shirts in their languages ↩︎