JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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Teacher nabbed for using miror to peek up girl's skirt
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Japan's nuclear safety standards flawed, says commission chief
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To be healthy, live in the big city
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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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gonemad
Engineers have a much better understanding than managers about the inadequacies of the target specifications and the corresponding consequences. They kept silent. As such, the engineers who designed the plants are as much to blame as their managers.
Posted in: The thing I'd come to believe was good and useful to society turned out to be useless and caused everybody trouble. I feel a deep sense of remorse.
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gonemad
sfjp330, can you come up with something new which is not outdated since a long time?
That was more like until 20 years ago, wasn't it?
Couldn't you come up with something more ridiculous? The proponents of free trade asking the state to force competitors to sell their products?
You can still find a similar ratio for some cars today. The reason is not trade barriers, but high distribution cost relative to the number of cars sold. And high markups.
Posted in: What do you think are the main reasons why U.S. car sales are so low in Japan?
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gonemad
It is a combination of many reasons that US cars don't sell well in Japan. The prevaling unwillingness of US makers to provide localized versions of their cars (you can see the same in other markets). The lack of line-up in the smaller car segment, which is the dominant market in Japan. Logistics costs which have to be amortized over only a small number of cars, thus making them unproportionally expensive. The lack of a wide dealership or repair shop network. A tainted image due to a long period of quality problems. A relatively small, but very competitive market, which doesn't seem to be attractive enough to US makers to spend major efforts to overcome the above mentioned issues.
The reasons are not import duties (0%) or non-tariff barriers. The latter only exist in the fantasies of populist politicians. Again, I invite anybody to prove me wrong by concrete examples.
Posted in: What do you think are the main reasons why U.S. car sales are so low in Japan?
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gonemad
What does it matter? Compare it to consumption tax. Consumers have to pay the same independent from whether the product was made domestically or abroad.
No, it is the equivalent of a tax. It is raised from any airline independent from where they operate. A tariff would be applied to non-European airlines only.
Which ones concretely?
Posted in: Aviation industry warns of trade war over EU carbon tax
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gonemad
sfjp330, come on, why do you repeat that nonsense again? It's not long ago that we discussed the reasons, none of which has anything to do with protectionism (or quality, as others claim).
Posted in: What do you think are the main reasons why U.S. car sales are so low in Japan?
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gonemad
Lots of nonsense comments here. The article doesn't give any details about the contents of the contract between Proview Taiwan and Apple regarding mainland China and whether Proview Taiwan was owner of the rights at all. Yet everybody jumps to conclusions quickly...
Posted in: Chinese city seizes Apple iPads in name dispute
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gonemad
It is a tax imposed on all flights to/from European airports. As such it is not at all extra-territorial. If anyone suffers from this tax, it is European airlines and European citizen, but certainly nobody outside the EU.
Posted in: Aviation industry warns of trade war over EU carbon tax
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gonemad
In a thermocouple the generated voltage increases with the temperature difference. Is there any possible failure mode which leads to an increase in the voltage? I can't think of any, except when it is not a simple thermocouple but some active circuitry is included. But then, the resistance measurement doesn't make sense any more. Something doesn't fit together here...
Posted in: TEPCO blames high reactor temperature reading on broken thermometer
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gonemad
There are other Japanese companies selling TVs, but not successfully.
Posted in: Incoming Sony CEO Hirai refuses to abandon TV business
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gonemad
On a more positive note, Olympus still posted operating profits, which has become rare among the major Japanese corporations involved in consumer electronics.
Posted in: Olympus reports Y33.08 bil net loss for 9 months to December
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gonemad
MaboDofuIsSpicy, I can't make any sense of your comment.
The mirror is needed for phase detection autofocus, which has the advantages of higher speed and use of an optical viewfinder (both increasingly offset by technical progress) as well as the capability of focus tracking. Especially sports and nature photographers will therefore continue to use SLR types of camera while for consumer cameras the future will be mostly mirrorless cameras.
Posted in: Mirrorless digital camera
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gonemad
That sounds more like some countries who do not want to see a precedent in the world attack the fiscal sovereignty of European states. When you fly to/from European airports you have to pay this "tax". Pass it on to passengers who are flying on these routes and that's it. In which way does the EU attack the sovereignty of China or the US?
Posted in: Airline industry split widens over EU carbon tax row
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gonemad
No, I don't say that. Of course makers will explore the potential of a smaller flange back distance to build smaller cameras and lenses. But contrary to what you wrote before, that means you can always use lenses designed for SLR type cameras on mirrorless cameras, because they have a longer flange back distance due to the mirror. All you need is an adapter between the lens and the camera which makes up the difference in flange back distances. In simple cases they are just a kind of metal tube, in more sophisticated cases they contain some electronics which allow to make use of all the electronically controlled features of modern lenses like aperture control, autofocus or image stabilization.
Posted in: Mirrorless digital camera
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gonemad
GW, just the opposite is true. But the question is whether you want to use big clumsy lenses designed for SLR type cameras when you can have much smaller and lighter ones.
Posted in: Mirrorless digital camera
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gonemad
They'll find it again in 40 years under the floor of an old house...
Posted in: Firm loses potassium cyanide equivalent to 2,500 lethal doses
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gonemad
So what are the criteria defined by the law to allow an extension? A suitcase with money?
Posted in: Cabinet OKs bill to cap nuclear reactor life
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gonemad
An IMF paper from last year, which seems to be the basis for the repeated recommendation and which contains some interesting international comparisons: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2011/sdn1113.pdf
Posted in: IMF urges Japan to triple consumption tax to reduce debt
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gonemad
@ Robert Dykes:
Yes, deep in the ocean it was one of the strongest. At Fukushima it was strong, but absolutely not unusal. Several earthquakes of that strength happen every year in Japan.
From what we have learned in the last year, we can say that for Fukushima Daiichi and Genkai (Saga) the answer is no. For other reactors in Japan we can't say because nobody dares to publish the data. For several rectors in France, Germany and Switzerland the answer is no as well, they are not designed to withstand earthquakes which can be reasonably expected in the areas where they are built. Cutting corners on safety is not limited to Japan because of the huge cost "savings".
Well, it depends how you define human error. In Fukushima you cannot blame the operators who were handling the plant at the time of the disaster. If you take negligence during the design and construction into account, then you are right. Are you aware that all the estimations for the failure rates of NPPs do not consider human errors? We know from other areas that human errors account for a large part of accidents yet for NPPs we exclude them systematically.
You can do that when you build a reactor from scratch (at huge cost, btw), but after the reactor is built you can do very little.
A fast switch to alternative energy would be a huge economic stimulus, much better and with much more lasting effects that all the government stimulus programs in the last two decades. Alternative energies are cheaper than nuclear, but you have to invest into a new infrastructure. Japanese companies could use their technology in combination with manufacturing scales driven by the domestic market to become strong international players. But yet again it seems Japan is missing it's chance due to lack of vision.
Posted in: Fukui 'Nuclear Alley' conflict: reactor danger vs economic reality
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gonemad
Many of the characteristics listed above are completely different from what my wife uses to tell me about blood types. But as long as she tells me we are a good match, I don't care about the scientific basis...
Posted in: The importance of blood type in Japanese culture
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gonemad
ssway, the second part of your posting shows you have no idea of what you write about, but nonetheless you use strong words. Disgusting, to use your own words...
Regarding food contamination, yes, that's a real problem for people who have to eat it everyday over years. But it's nothing too much to worry about when you just do a short travel to Japan. Certainly less than most of the deseases which you can pick up in so many popular travel destinations. Let's keep things in perspective.
Posted in: Mission accomplished for travel volunteers