JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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Why do Japanese change their attitude when they communicate with foreigners?
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Confrontation
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U.S. Navy investigating how parts fell off aircraft near Atsugi
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California court to decide if SeaWorld whales are illegal 'slaves'
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5
Kuroki reported pregnant 2 weeks after denying relationship with Akanishi
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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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gonemad
We are doing a lot of things every day which somebody can consider a waste of power. Who is Ishihara to decide which one is waste and which one isn't? If voluntary energy saving is not sufficient to compensate the shortage then raise prices and let people decide by themselves where to save their money. How about a special tax on electricity which is used to contribute to compensating the victims of Fukushima?
Posted in: Pachinko parlors and vending machines use up 10 million kilowatts of power a year, which is just about the amount of the Fukushima nuclear power plants.
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gonemad
DAB, DAB+, FM? Is there any worthwhile radio station in Japan? And 16,000 radio stations from the net? It seems a large number, but I haven't found yet a single station among them which matches to my taste and has good sound quality at the same time. When younger, I used to listen to radio a lot. These days, I have completely given up on this medium.
Posted in: Internet radio player
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gonemad
Pornography is banned. Strong words are banned. Violence cannot be banned. I don't want to enter the subject whether it is appropriate for the state to ban things in order to protect children, but there is an apparent imbalance here. Let me ask a provocative question: is the root of this imbalance the fear of certain people that their holy books would get banned in the process?
Posted in: U.S. Supreme Court overturns ban on video game sales to kids
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gonemad
Where have all these shareholder's cries been in the last years? At least some of the sloppiness of Tepco about safety has been know for a long time. Has it been addressed in previous meetings? It's the shareholders who control the company and thus bear ultimate responsibility. My amount of pity with those who lost their investment is very limited.
Posted in: Shareholders slam TEPCO at heated general meeting
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gonemad
Zenny, first of all, they cannot shutdown any government agency they like as you write. What they can do is a DoS on most (not all!) government or corporate website. That is no serious threat, as the worst which can happen is that the site is down for a limited time. No data gets "lost". They can break into some sites, which is the serious threat. Here we can see how vulnerable many important sites are.
I do not want to defend these groups. Not at all. But I still prefer that the responsible people become aware of the size of the threat through some "fun" hackers than through serious attacks by Al Qaida or whoever else.
Posted in: British police arrest 19-year-old over cyberattacks on Sony, CIA website
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gonemad
Zenny, I don't really mind about their motives. What I can see is that they have not caused any serious damage - yet. I'm not aware that they sold any of the information they obtained. But again, that is all not relevant from my point of view. What is important for me is that instead of only some engineers it is now the decision makers becoming aware that network security should not be treated as a third-rate issue.
Posted in: British police arrest 19-year-old over cyberattacks on Sony, CIA website
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gonemad
Just one more example of why nuclear energy is "cheap". And please, don't forget who is the real culprit: those who want the lowest electricity bills yet are unable to control their government. Wherever you look, it's the same pattern. Idiocy is the foremost characteristic of mankind, isn't it?
Posted in: U.S. regulators weaken nuclear safety rules
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gonemad
Although I do not support their actions, I find these groups extremely useful. The damages they cause are very small compared to those which "real" criminals and secret services around the world are causing. Finally network security has moved into the spotlight and companies as well as governments are starting to take it as serious as they should have done since long time.
Posted in: British police arrest 19-year-old over cyberattacks on Sony, CIA website
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gonemad
I think some major reasons are missing in the article. One is Sony's diminishing product quality and especially the bad service. That started sometime around the mid 90s, so there may well be a relation to the leadership of Nobuyuki Idei. The second is that Sony has too long stuck to proprietary interfaces and formats when all the world was going to use open standards. Then there was the story about the rootkit on their CDs, which seriously tainted their image. I think that Sony still produces a lot of attractive hardware(!) in terms of specifications and design, but they lost a lot of trust among customers which are now shunning to return to that company.
Japanese companies in general, not just Sony, are struggling with software, which is becoming increasingly important. Almost no products consists of hardware alone any more. It is a major threat for the Japanese industry as a whole.
I think impact of the recent cyber attacks are a bit overestimated. A lot of other companies are being hacked and as a consumer you cannot be sure as to which company is next. It's by far not limited to Sony. Furthermore I do not think that the loss of credit card data will have a direct financial impact on Sony in terms of damage compensations. The CVC has not been stolen and the rest of the data has to be considered public anyway. Typically hundreds or thousands of companies have this data for a particular card.
Posted in: Cyberattacks just part of Sony's woes
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gonemad
This question comes much too early and is not precise enough. Fukushima is anything from stable and still almost anything can happen. We don't even have enough information about the damages to the reactors or the whereabouts of the molten fuel so all we can do now is some more or less educated guesses. Making comparisons based on such guesses isn't particularly useful, is it?
When you ask about "worse", what does it refer to? The amount of radioactive material released? Then it seems Fukushima is worse already now. The human damage? In terms of deaths as an immediate result from the catastrophe Chernobyl has been worse so far, but in terms of long-term health problems it remains to be seen. In terms of economic impact, probably Fukushima will be worse, although there is not much data available for Chernobyl and we should not forget that it was one of the final nails in the coffin of the former Soviet Union.
Posted in: Do you think the Fukushima nuclear disaster is worse than Chernobyl?
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gonemad
gogogo, you don't cook your meal for 3~5 hours. With normal cooking times, you will never get your phone charged.
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gonemad
Have this thing boiling on the stove for 3~5 hours in order to charge your keitai? Apart from being extremely inefficient, who has the time to supervise it for so long time?
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gonemad
Talk about a confusing article. It seems the journalist who compiled this didn't understand anything. Actually, the English press release from NEC is equally confusing, containing outright funny passages: http://www.nec.co.jp/press/en/1106/1302.html
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gonemad
A grand coalition is really the worst thing which could happen to Japan now.
Posted in: What do you think of the idea of a grand coalition between the ruling DPJ and opposition parties?
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gonemad
When we look at the power grid, the usual way of deregulation is just to sell it to a couple of private investors, which can keep their own regional monopolies. So all we get is an exchange of one monopoly against another. While not completely impossible, it is largely impractical to run several lines of power networks in parallel through the country, especially when it comes to local distribution to consumers. This is why all the deregulation efforts failed. Users cannot switch from one network to another without incurring significant investment. We can see similar results in other infrastructure types like water supply. Although not the most efficient theoretically, when the infrastructure is kept in public hands, there is at least a limited control through political pressure. In a private monopoly, there is no control and the company can charge whatever their investors deem suitable for their yield.
The opposite is the case for electricity generation. Anybody with a piece of land and some capital can build a power plant, from small-scale to large-scale. Except for some transport losses, electricity can be carried over long distances. There is little to no danger of formation of monopolies.
Conclusion: keep power networks in public hands, at least the local ones. Wide-area networks, which can be replicated more easily by competitors, may be open for private investors. Leave power generation to private companies.
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gonemad
Patriotism is not a value either. Teaching patriotism is akin to brainwashing children into feeling as members of an artificial group which they have had no freedom to select by themselves. It will turn into destructive nationalism for children which don't develop enough self-esteem.
Patriotism has no place in school curricula, just like religious proselytization or being a fan of the local baseball club. Schools should teach about the concepts of these things, though.
Posted in: Do you think that teaching patriotism should be part of a school’s education curriculum?
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gonemad
This is just reviving a plan which was started 10 years ago already. Nothing new here, so these people know what they're doing. Wait some years and you will see that this becomes a competitive advantage for Germany. Ignore the whining of the die-hard proponents of nuclear power and go ahead!
Posted in: Germany decides to abandon nuclear power by 2022
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gonemad
You may add the US to the countries which are phasing out nuclear power. While there is no plan to shut down the current plants, they haven't built new ones since decades and as far as I'm aware there are no plans for new plants. Sooner or later the existing plants will reach their end of life, probably much earlier than the Swiss ones. If nuclear power were really so cheap, I wonder why of all companies it's the ones in the US which don't get it...?
Why do so many countries continue to use nuclear energy? Tell a small child not to touch a hot plate and still most of them will only learn it after they burnt their fingers themselves.
Posted in: Does Fukushima show a split in philosophy between Asia and Europe?
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gonemad
True, there is no simple answer. But over the decades, there have evolved certain standards as to what should practically be considered dangerous. When politicians, who have no scientific knowledge, dodge these standards opportunistically it creates unrest and mistrust.
Posted in: People want a simple answer: Is it safe or is it dangerous? But given the state of radiation science, there is no such thing as a simple answer.
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gonemad
No. Even more, the most important feature is missing in all of them: fine-grained control of access rights for every app. I won't use any smartphone until I can decide by myself whether and when an app is allowed to access the address book, GPS or whatever.
Posted in: Do you think smartphones are becoming too complicated with too many functions?