JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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- Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) in Kanto region
- RCS (RCSコーポレーション), Kanto
- Salary: ¥180,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month includes performance bonus
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- Assistant Language Teacher - TOKYO - late-March start
- Interac, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥230,000 ~ ¥255,000 / Month
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- Assistant Language Teacher - Kanagawa Prefecture - late-March start
- Interac, Kanagawa
- Salary: ¥230,000 ~ ¥255,000 / Month
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aedfed
Ohno's spin on his DQ was that it was a conspiracy by Canadian officials. Right. Even his American teammates say he's a teammate in name only and will be glad to see him retire.
Posted in: Ohno earns bronze in relay, disqualified in 500 in wild night of short track
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aedfed
If we're going to get rid of sports that require little physical effort, then that would eliminate the sliding sports. They take skill and guts, but very little effort (about the same as driving too fast down from the local ski hill on switchback roads in a snowstorm). Perhaps if they had to drag their bobsleds or luges to the top of the hill as part of the timing, it might qualify as something athletic.
In the summer Olympics that would do in archery, shooting, sailing, and the horse events (unless they start giving the medal to the horse and oats to the rider).
Whether we find a sport boring or not shouldn't really be a factor (Can't get to sleep? Here, try some ski jumping). Another consideration is whether a sport is played widely in places that actually have winter.
Which brings me to curling. I agree that it's not the most exciting or athletic sport (although it requires as much fitness as the sports I've mentioned above), but it is widely played in Europe, Canada, and the US, i.e., countries where it snows and freezes in winter.
Posted in: Are there any sports that you think should be dropped from the Winter Olympics for whatever reason?
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aedfed
And replace it with what? Women's ski jumping? That's a real crowd pleaser. Or maybe mixed curling? Nope. Curling should be on its way out of the winter Olympics, too, according to some.
Like it or not, women's hockey is hugely popular in Canada and the US and draws more TV viewers than most women's winter sports. The teams from the other countries will improve as they invest more money in developing their women's hockey programs.
As far as the importance of the game to Canadians goes, sure we want the women to win (and wouldn't be any happier than US fans were when their women lost at the Salt Lake Olympics), but if they lose, it's not going to trigger mass suicides across the country. I mean it's not like the victors get to enslave the residents of the losing country.
Posted in: Canada beats Finland 5-0 to set up women's ice hockey final with U.S.
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aedfed
I realize you're being ironic, Nessie, but the goal differential is used when determining placings for the gold medal round, so there's a reason teams want to thrash their opponents as badly as possible.
Posted in: U.S. thumps China 12-1 in women's hockey
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aedfed
Comparisons to baseball and rugby don't work, because we're talking about countries that have winter, a much smaller number (I doubt we'll ever see a hockey team from Latin America or Africa). Women's ice hockey is played in all of the European countries, as well as Canada and the US. Their programs simply aren't as well developed as those in Canada, the US, and Sweden (who beat the US in the round robin section of last year's world championships).
Turfing women's hockey out of the Olympics isn't the best way to encourage other countries to continue to develop their programs.
Parity will come - look at women's curling where the Chinese are already competitive.
Posted in: U.S. thumps China 12-1 in women's hockey
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aedfed
Pure political posturing. Or perhaps he's miffed because he couldn't find a French-speaking waiter at a Chinese restaurant in Richmond.
Posted in: Canada's French-English strife flares at Olympics
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aedfed
There's no surprise that they were unable to agree on the number of deaths. Given the mass confusion at the time, there's no way anyone can say for sure how many died, or how. It's completely different from the planned, organized extermination of European Jews, Gypsies, and others by the Nazis.
However, even if you take the lowest figure of 20,000, that's still enough to qualify as a massacre in my book.
It would be best if the two governments would agree to disagree and quit using the emotions surrounding the massacre to stir up hatred against the other country for political purposes. In this case, the Chinese government seems particularly culpable, but Ishihara and his ilk are not above it in Japan.
Posted in: Japan, China still at odds over 'Rape of Nanking'
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aedfed
The photo is so obviously digitally altered, I'm not sure why this is a problem. It's when they try to make the emaciated look appear normal that most of the damage is done.
Of course, people should also be complaining because they use Photoshop to remove skin blemishes and discolourations to make the models appear perfect.
Posted in: Model in altered Ralph Lauren ad for Japan speaks out
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aedfed
Probably sounded too much like his wife/mother.
Posted in: Would-be store robber gets yelled at by employee; calls police himself
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aedfed
Sounds like walking to me.
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aedfed
Is that 希望 as in we "hope" all this stuff works now that we have it up here?
Posted in: Japanese lab Kibo completed at space station
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aedfed
During the years I lived in Japan, I cycled 10s of thousands of km, mostly for pleasure and in areas where there was little traffic. However, I also commuted to work and about town during the years when I didn't have a car. The uni where I worked didn't seem to have an issue with cycling to work and the money I was paid for commuting to a part-time job allowed me to buy a new bicycle every 3 years or so.
The biggest danger was always other bicycles. I never knew where they'd come from. The worst collision I had was a head on with a bicycle on a dark, rainy night. He had no light, and was peddling against the flow of traffic with an umbrella blocking his view of what was coming towards him.
My attitude was that all the other vehicles and pedestrians had one mission -- to kill me -- and cycled with an appropriately defensive attitude. I also looked for streets were less congested and offered cars/pedestrians fewer opportunities to kill me.
One of the good things about cycling in Japan is that it's possible to keep up with the flow of traffic on streets where the speed limit is 30 kph. The drivers are generally aware of cyclists and very few set out to make life difficult for cyclists on purpose. There weren't any sidewalks where I usually cycled, so I rarely used them.
Posted in: Tokyo residents pedaling to work in increasing numbers
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aedfed
One of the things I loved about living in Japan was that I didn't have to drive. Sure I had a car, but I could walk to the supermarket, cycle or walk to work, cycle to many local destinations, and take the bus or train for holiday trips (much more relaxing than driving). That left the car for jaunts with the family to places too out of the way for public transport.
I liked the fact that Japanese drivers were generally courteous, although they did some incredibly stupid things. The one thing I hated was having to think, "Now where will I park?" whenever I set off in the car.
Posted in: Why I hate driving in Japan
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aedfed
Of course anyone famous who dies under unusual circumstances without a pathologist or doctor at their side, must be the victim of a conspiracy of some sort, right JFK, Elvis, Marilyn, Janis, James?
Posted in: Carradine family takes action on investigation, photos
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aedfed
Dramamine is not an antihistamine. It's an anti-nausea medication, so it does nothing for ears or sinuses. It does, however, make you very sleepy, which can be effective.
I've never been on a flight where I was next to a kid who was a real terror. My own was always well behaved, partly because of his personality, and partly because we made sure he was well entertained. For babies who are still nursing, nursing them during takeoff and landing works wonder for ear pain. The sucking seems to pop their ears naturally.
The biggest issue we had was the effect of lower air pressure on the little one's bowel function. It always seemed to cause a BM on the way up. Not a problem on international flight where the washrooms are larger and have a change table. On internal flights, where the washrooms are small with no changing tables, we usually had to wait until the plane emptied to change him, otherwise the smell would have emptied the plane on its own.
Posted in: In-flight madness with the kids
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aedfed
At the universities I taught at in Japan, the only way you could fail a student with no questions asked was to demonstrate that they hadn't attended class. One of the ironies is that the more "prestigious" universities in the cities had bigger attendance problems because the students are living on their own. At smaller regional universities, students are more likely to live at home and their moms make sure they get up and at least head towards university.
With an iPhone, even if the lecture's a bust, at least you can surf the Web and entertain yourself that way.
Given that they're in the school of informatics, maybe the whole point is to see whether they students can develop ways of spoofing the GPS system so it shows they're in class regardless of where they are. That would be worthy of an A.
Posted in: Tokyo university gives away iPhones to nab truants via GPS
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aedfed
Well, the Burakumin Liberation League can't be too upset with Google. They still use them to provide the site search on their home page.
Posted in: Old Japanese maps on Google Earth unveil 'burakumin' secrets
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aedfed
All of these ranking systems (there's more than one) are somewhat deceptive. A university is made up of so many different faculties and schools that lumping them all together and saying this one is best isn't very useful. It's more accurate to examine the faculty you're interested in entering and seeing how it compares to others. Or you may have a particular professor you want to write a dissertation under, in which case, even if the university's reputation isn't the highest, you'd choose it because of the professor.
Posted in: Japanese universities dominate top 10 spots in Asian univ rankings
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aedfed
At a lot of companies in Canada, the sexual part is left out and it's simply called harassment. It doesn't matter whether you're male or female, so things such as bullying would also be covered.
My complaint about it is summed up quite nicely in these sentences,
At my current workplace a female colleague has expressed discomfort over the fact that a male colleague in the next office changes from street clothes into jogging clothes in his office. His door is closed when he changes, but it bothers her. Using the definition above, he could be disciplined for sexual harassment if she chose to file a complaint.
It doesn't matter whether a sensible person would or would not be offended. It's all to do with the sensibilities of everyone else. When you're in a multicultural workplace the potential for offending someone is unlimited.
Of course, at my last job in Japan, I was on the company "sexual harassment committee" with a man who'd been caught having sex with an underling in his office. Needless to say, we didn't make a lot of progress as a committee.
Posted in: Dealing with sexual harassment in the workplace
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aedfed
So if they succeed in attacking the White House, do they make the JT list of conspiracy theories?
I mean, who'd believe that Al Qaida could attack the White House. It must be another example of the US Government attacking itself or it's own people . . .
Posted in: Pakistani Taliban chief threatens strike on White House