You're a new addition to the MEME Team. How long has it been? What are you really good at?
It's been almost 3 months since I started my career at Meetup as a UI Engineer. I've been very excited so far! Very luckily, I got involved in the project thanks to my JavaScript skills. My work is featured in this week's release... it's so cool to see people using what I built and, if what I coded makes them happy, I'm happy too. As a by-product of the project, I ported a Flash-origin animation library to JavaScript. We will release it as an open source project, soon-ish... That's also exciting.
I spent most of 2007 in Japan and I often wonder why in the US, we don't get those awesomely automated, multi-functional luxury toilet seats. Do you think there's a specific political reason behind the West not catching up with this technology?
There was a crazy Japanese toilet story on Digg very recently. Well, Japanese people pay more attention to the little things in your daily life, in comparison to what/how Americans do. So those things have somehow evolved drastically. I'm not judging, just pointing to a cultural difference.
But you know... about THE toilet (we call it "Washlet"), I think it's a matter of time. One of my friends who works at an architectural firm told me that his celebrity client's apartment in New York has one. Beside this off-the-record rumor, you can find lots of stories on the Internet like... Madonna loves it, DiCaprio bought one and so on. I heard the No.1 "Washlet" manufacture in Japan, ToTo, tried to open a show room in the city. I also heard a story that a Japanese restaurant in East Village has one as well. So it won't be too long!
Would the word otaku be appropriate to describe someone that is really into javascript?
There is some vocabulary to describe those people. "Otaku" tends to connote that the person is into animation and comics, I think. Even though you can say like... "Densha Otaku." Densha means train, so by going together, it translates as an extreme fanboy of trains (Yes, trains are one of the most popular fetishes in Japan. Look at how many entries you can find on ja.wikipedia!). So I would say "Otaku" is sort of equivalent to a nerd.
"Mania" is another word to describe a person who's into something. As opposed to a maniac in English, this word is almost neutral. "Ensu-" is kind of an old term, describing a geeky person, which is shortened from 'enthusiast' in English, but I guess people younger than 40 rarely use it. In the computer industry particularly, we use "Hakka-" which means 'hacker'. So you can call me JavaScript Hakka-.
Where are you from in Japan? Tell me one thing you miss about home and one thing about New York that you would miss if you were to leave.
I was born in a city called Yokohama, which is one of the biggest cities in Japan, located south of Tokyo. Then our family moved to Chiba, which is east of Tokyo. Very often, I say Chiba is equivalent to NJ. People fly into Tokyo International Airport, which is located in Narita, Chiba. They are so excited to arrive at Tokyo Airport, but technically, they are in Chiba. You can see the similarities with Newark Airport, right? There are a lot of resort places in Chiba too. Don't get me wrong, I like both Chiba and NJ! :D
I don't really miss things from home. Oh, one thing I might have missed is the slow time around New Year's day in Japan. One of the stereotypes associated with Japanese people is that they don't have lots of vacations, right? They do work hard in general, but when I was little, New Year's holidays (from Dec 28th to Jan 3rd) were so quiet. All stores are closed, not many cars were on the street. People are just sitting around the "Kotatsu" (a small table with an electric heater underneath and covered by a quilt) watching TV shows. Luckily I had a chance to stay in this past New Year's while in Japan, six years since the last time. But, you know, it was not that slow anymore in reality.
I guess what I would miss from New York City would be... people and friends. I have traveled to a lot of cities in Europe, and city life isn't that different from city to city in my opinion. What makes New York very unique is people. Very fortunately, I have some good friends here... but wait, one thing I love here is small talk. Random people on the street, on the Subway, even in the elevator, people talk to strangers! I would miss that for sure.
Continuing with the cultural stereotyping... Japanese people have very good taste when it comes to music. What have you been into lately?
I was once in a band in High school, music is always with me, but I never wanted to be a DJ. I'm not sure this will meet your expectations. :P I still listen to Led Zeppelin, Miles Davis, Caetano Veloso etc... These days, I use Pandora.com and Lala.com. You know Pandora, right? Lala.com is something like iTunes on the cloud. Pandora brings back Brand New Heavies, Phoenix, Elliott Smith... And it sometimes plays new likable songs, stuff from The Beautiful Girls, The Hush Sound, Death Cab for Cutie, etc.
At random, here's what I've been into lately: Ego Wrappin', Kyoto-based female-vocal Jazz duo from Japan. Kirinji, male-vocal pop-rock duo from Japan. Pizzicato Five's "we love you P5~". Also, The Zutons are a good British rock band and ultimately, Tahiti 80 is sort of my '90s French pop obsession.
Davide is on Meetup's Community Support team.
