JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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To be healthy, live in the big city
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Japan's nuclear safety standards flawed, says commission chief
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Teacher nabbed for using miror to peek up girl's skirt
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From carnivores to herbivores: how men are defined in Japan
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Why do Japanese change their attitude when they communicate with foreigners?
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- English Instructor (Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe)
- Berlitz Japan, Inc. (ベルリッツ・ジャパン株式会社), Kansai
- Salary: ¥125,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month
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- FT English Teachers for Kids - Osaka
- Kohgakusha Co., Ltd. （株式会社興学社）, Osaka
- Salary: ¥255,000 ~ ¥275,000 / Month Travel Expenses, Encouragement of Japanese learning*
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- Translator
- ZAIHON, Inc. (日本財務翻訳株式会社), Tokyo
- Salary: ¥6.0M / Year Negotiable
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glycol57
With all the police and military films and TV dramas availible over the last 50 years ... you'd think even the most average of the average people would understand a few things about firearms - and which bits NOT to pull until you're sure about whether there's a live round in the thing.
Posted in: Antique gun accidentally fired in Nara home
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glycol57
Japan hasn't had a female jet captain until NOW ???
What's the matter, afraid she'll suddenly give birth during the flight ??? PMS attack ??? Won't be able to read the map ???
Come ON now !
I'd say this news was good news - except that it shames Japan for being SO far behind the times.
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glycol57
When computer-generated "special effects" for movies became affordable, plot and character often became secondary concerns and films became little but a showplace for the latest FX technology.
Very few directors have the skill and self-restraint to use computer effects to enhance films. Mostly the effects are simply a crutch, a way to make the audience forget about the bad writing, bad acting, bad directing and ludicrous storylines.
"Avatar", for example, was not a "good" film. It was just a re-hash of many similar films and stories - and its philosophical, artistic and intellectual content seemed to aim for nothing beyond the average 12-year-old. It was "all about 3-D" and nothing else.
I fear that readily-availible 3-D for film and TV will take a similar toll ... shows will become "all about 3-D". Why even bother with a plot ?
Posted in: 3D television: a new device, a new language
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glycol57
It is never a good thing for governments to meddle in religion. One can pretty much rate how good a nation is to live in by checking into how many laws exist to regulate religious activities and traditions.
Propaganda excuses aside, it is clear that France is attempting to make that country unattractive to Moslems without ADMITTING its intent. Bias plus deceit plus legal meddling ... this is not good for a nation that often bills itself as the birthplace of liberty.
Posted in: In some countries, there are moves to ban or restrict the wearing of religious clothing and symbols such as burqas, veils, head scarves, skullcaps, turbans and crucifixes in public places like schools, recreational facilities and so on. What’s your stance?
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glycol57
Terms need to be stabilized, somewhere in the three to five year range. Otherwise you're correct, it's impossible to get movement in any one direction and the vote was wasted.
However ONCE terms are standardized, term limits become important. In countries where politicians can be re-elected forever, those politicians usually manage to rig the system to help ensure THEY will get re-elected no matter how badly they do their jobs. There's also the danger of "old-boys networks" where well-entrenched groups combine their power to preserve their precious status-quo. Finally, corruption deepens as years in office increase.
The USA is a good example of why term limits are important. Even though the current crop of leaders led the nation to financial disaster - and promise more of the same - it is proving almost impossible to get rid of them via the popular vote. The old-timers have SO much money at their disposal, SUCH large organizations behind them, SO many friends in the media, SO much ability to find ways of crushing potential opponents and disrupting upstart political parties that government has become essentially their private playground.
Posted in: Should there be term limits for elected politicians?
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glycol57
This is interesting technology. Eventually - soon perhaps - it should be possible to re-create a number of extinct species, perhaps in numbers great enough to propagate the species again. The more recently extinct species will be the best candidates since their DNA will be the best condition and they will likely have close "cousin" species that can be used as surrogate parents. Long-extinct species such as the dinosaurs however ... the chances of finding enough intact DNA and re-assembling it seem rather poor. "Jurassic Park" was just a movie after all.
Now the most intriguing application ... re-creating proto-HUMANs - Neanderthals and homo erectus in particular. Both survived until comparatively recent times so, with a little effort, enough good DNA for a number of individuals should be possible to assemble. Either through love of science, or a little cash incentive, finding surrogate mothers shouldn't be too difficult.
One question though ... not being strictly "human", would Neanderthal 2.0 have any civil rights - or would it become a legal "slave species" ?
Posted in: Scientists bring mammoth blood back to life
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glycol57
I've "walked around with a knife" for 40+ years. Wonderful almost-all-purpose tool and, in a pinch, potential defensive weapon. Everybody should carry one, even if it's only one of those little Swiss Army Knives with the built-in sissors and toothpick. A knife and a means of producing fire are the original basic survival tools and still serve well today. Never be without them.
Posted in: Man fatally stabbed at Mie residence
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glycol57
The US Republican party has become just as irresponsible with the publics money as the opponent Democratic party.
They just waste the money in somewhat different ways. They are both "part of the problem" instead of "part of the solution". Deep and widespread corruption, incompetence and 'representatives' who represent anyone BUT their constituents. The 'Tea' movement should have started decades ago, but nobody was paying enough attention and left the government to run on autopilot. Big mistake.
As for taxes ... this has become a moot issue since both parties regularly circumvented the tax base and borrowed money directly from China and others. If government spending is to be controlled, if the nation is to live sensibly within its means, both taxes and borrowing must be addressed with equal vigor.
Posted in: Palin rallies tea partiers with anti-tax message
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glycol57
Obama can make all the demands he wants, but he is not the king of the USA. The legislature will do what it wants.
The original plans were bad, the ten-times-rehashed plans are just as bad or worse. They need to start from scratch, and proceed in a different direction. While Americans want "free" medical, they are also rightly worried about the government having most or total control of something that can affect them on many levels. The US government doesn't exactly have a stellar reputation. It WOULD abuse the power and WOULD badly mis-manage the health system.
Better to regulate the individual 'industries' that factor into the price of a medical procedure - insurers, makers of medicines and equipment and the general "stuff" that's used, hospitals and - importantly - lawsuit artists as well. It is done with other privately-owned 'service' companies ... electricity, water, trash and such ... so it can be done with "medicine" as well.
Using that approach, prices could be kept down, choices would still exist and government power would be restrained.
Posted in: Obama demands vote on health care reform
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glycol57
Re-writing history for fun and profit is hardly anything new ... but it's best to wait until all the witnesses have died of old age.
Posted in: Veterans criticize Cameron for A-bomb book defense
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glycol57
Toyota management must admit the horrible, horrible truth ... that the problem is electronic in many cases. Replacing or reprogramming the vehicles "brain" will be expensive, but it needs to be done.
The "vehicle-management systems" on many modern automobiles are very complex ... they attempt to maximize performance, fuel economy and emissions reduction based on the input from many sensors. Of late, one of those "sensors" is the accelerator pedal, no longer directly attached to a carburator or standalone fuel injection device but "fly by wire" instead. The position of the brake pedal may also be monitored.
Taking all this information and arriving at a "best" setting for the engine at any given second requires a fairly complex computer program. Unfortunately, as we've all experienced, computer programs are the very devil to de-bug - even smallish ones. Crashes and glitches are common even in "mature" software.
Testing every possible combination of sensor inputs to see what the computer will output is not impossible, but it will take a team of experts and some time.
Oh, and sensors break sometimes, give no info or the wrong info.
So what seems to have happened here is that there are certain combinations of conditions - speed, load, temperatures, oxygen levels ... and yes, brake and throttle position - that cause the program to make an error. "Slowing down" becomes "apply more throttle".
There have been similar problems before ... most lethally with the Boeing 767 airliner which, under a certain mix of conditions, would spontaneously reverse the thrust on one engine causing an instant crash. Finding and fixing that problem was very expensive as well - but HAD to be done.
And after all this ... it may be time to re-evaluate just HOW centrally automated we want our automobiles to be. Losing a little efficiency is OK if it prevents the kinds of problems we are seeing in Toyotas.
At the very least, link the gas pedal to a butterfly valve that cuts off almost all of the engines air when the throttle pedal is completely up. Using that, even if the "brain" says "accelerate like mad", there won't be enough air to make the engine run above an idle.
I recently refused to buy a new motorcycle with a "fly by wire" throttle/control system because it did not have such a fail-safe feature ... buying another companys model with a "less sophisticated" engine system. I explained why ... but I don't know if the dealer passed it along to the company.
Posted in: U.S. still hearing complaints about fixed Toyotas
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glycol57
And don't forget "denial".
The USA is desperate to believe that everything is OK in Iraq, that they can remove their troops, and the crushing financial burden, very soon.
Clearly this is not the case. America is STUCK in Iraq for a very long time to come. Alas, politics requires playing a game of "Let's Pretend" .... a faux-reality which will lead to lots of errors that can only prolong the conflict.
Posted in: Suicide blasts in Iraq kill 30
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glycol57
The oceans were hardly empty a couple of centuries ago before whale hunting went big-time, now were they ? Thing is, whales just don't reproduce very quickly, so even hundreds of thousands of years of unfettered breeding did not put a burden on the oceans biotic capacity.
In any event, while I'm sure Japan havests whales "correctly" insofar as international law is concerned, just because it's legal to do something doesn't mean it's good to do something. With whales, "good" has to do not only with how many there are, but whether it is humane to hunt something proven to be so intelligent. With, say, bluefin tuna, the impact of fishing on the overall population determines what's "good" ... and things aren't looking so good there.
Face it, inside of a century humans have largely used-up what used to be called the "unlimited bounty of the sea". Yes, we all like fish and other seafood, but we've liked it far too much for far too long. I'm afraid that most seafood will be relegated to an expensive delicacy - and most of that will be farm-raised. That's the future, and a future that's not far off either.
Time to retire the whalers ... or at least find them some other kind of jobs. Seems those big ships could be modified for collecting undersea minerals or something ... maybe as cargo carriers ... oil exploration vessels ... tourist trade ........... waste not want not, as the old adage says.
And ... opportunity knocks - for some enterprising Japanese company that invents "Synth-Fish" made by reprocessing/restructuring mostly vegetable protein and oils.
Posted in: Japan says its whaling is conducted under international accord
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glycol57
"Terrorists" - quasi-organized fighters with a political cause operating under no flag - fall between the cracks in the USAs legal system ... and not just the USAs. They aren't exactly "military", but they aren't exactly "criminals" either. Existing law covers one or the other because, up until now, that has been good enough for practical needs. No longer.
There ARE people called "legal theorists" who study law in the abstract and have been helpful in creating a logical, appropriate legal codes. It is time to put these people to work again. These 'offenders of the third kind' need to be more clearly defined and any special treatment needs to be well thought out and consistent and largely agreed-upon between nations.
I think that because the current crop of terrorists are heavily motivated by religious ideals - ideals shared by a significant number of other people - there has been hesitation in making new, terrorist-appropriate laws. The fear is that you'd offend all Moslems.
But 20,30,40 years ago, there were lots of terrorists of an entirely different stripe such as the "Red Brigades" and such. Shining Path is still relevant in south America today. Militant communists, neo-fascists, racists and even some "animal rights" fanatics all do things which qualify them as "terrorists". So, good GENERAL laws against such behavior that cannot be accused of singling out persons of a particular religion or political/class/racial/ethnic tilt ought to be possible to craft. The sooner the better.
Posted in: Politics snarls Obama's terrorism policy
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glycol57
Laws and political correctness do not change human nature. There is a vicious, sadistic streak in Japanese schoolboys, just as there is in American schoolboys, French, Spanish ... and god save us from the British.
Rather than pretend otherwise, acknowledge the truth and be prepared to recognize dangerous bullying when it's going on and intervene before there is serious injury.
Posted in: Four youths arrested for beating student unconscious
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glycol57
War involves bullets flying around almost at random, bombs and shells falling. It is simply not possible to prevent civilian deaths while prosecuting a war inside a large city. Technology and more attention to detail have decreased the percentage of unintended deaths over the years, but there's no such thing as a bullet that recognizes a Taliban or al-Qaida fighter from his less-committed cousin.
So, the hard choice, push on and just shut up about civvie casualties or quit entirely and let the Taliban and al-Qaida do what they want anywhere they want ? I guarentee there's a world of difference between Shinto and Sharia law ... a very unpleasant difference. So choose. Support the soldiers who ARE doing their best, or give up, dress your women in sackcloths and start cutting off body parts. Oh yea, no more beer either.
Posted in: Civilian death toll climbs in Afghan offensive
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glycol57
This situation has become fairly common in the USA and even europe. So many jobs have disappeared - and even college graduates may have zero immediate prospects.
The "family home" was the norm in the USA until after WW-2. Three or four generations would live under the same roof. This saved a LOT of money over todays situation where everybody is supposed to have their own apartment or house (I'm not sure WHY it's "supposed to" ... likely something the real-estate industry promoted).
But poorer times are re-creating the "family home" and "nuclear family". This may be a GOOD thing in the long run, improving socialization while providing a support mechanism for each individual.
Of course there are 'returnees' - and then there are 'bums'. The latter expect to be supported instead of contributing what they are able. The income from several low-paying jobs, brought together in the collective household, can be more than enough to sustain all.
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glycol57
I have to agree with those who complain that these kinds of studies have been done many times before by perfectly competent scientists.
The only gap in the equation may be a difference in how much exposure the researchers ASSUMED individuals would receive and how much exposure they actually GET in typical usage.
As noted, cell phones seem to be almost a natural body part nowadays. Might as well just have them glued permanently to every kids head at birth and remove the "off" switch. Statistically marginal effects from lesser exposure might reach significance if near-constant exposure is factored in.
The long-term effect of cell phones and similar technology on SOCIETIES though - I think somebody already put their finger on it when they invented an entity called "the Borg". Humanity already seems to be Borg version 0.2 and counting ...
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glycol57
I suppose the govt could encourage marijuana over alcohol ... stonies rarely make trouble (well, unless the supply of chocolate cookies runs critically low) :-)
A bit more direct to the story though ... what we have here is someone being congratulated for doing the right thing - what he should have done. Perhaps those who stood by and did nothing should have been the real subjects of the story instead ... ? Apathy and ethical indifference rots nations from within.
Posted in: Man saves woman from train after she falls onto tracks
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glycol57
This is a wise move, although I'm sure not all institutions can afford to offer "nursery service".
Technical expertise and intellectual skills are NOT anything Japan, or any nation that must now compete with China and India, can afford to throw away. Conditions that pushed women with children out of the workplace, well, it was totally wasting their educational and training investments. That's bad business at the very least.
The flip side of this is that companies and institutions offering child-care must be careful that women do not start to abuse the services. If they assume nobody is paying attention, some will dump the kids off at companycare and go shopping or to social affairs instead of going to work. Also, as soon as the kids are old enough to be picked-up by some existing State programs, the company has no further obligation to play babysitter.
Having children IS a choice - and one that complicates lives. Instititions and corporations can take some of the complexity out of the equation, but they should not be expected to make it all go away. Those who do not want to bear any of the burdens of parenthood, well ... excellent contraceptives ARE availible nowadays.
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