Wednesday February 15, 2012

motytrah's past comments

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    motytrah

    While Lost in Translation did get permission from the Hotel, the commentary with Sofia Coppola made it clear that many of their outdoor shots and all the train shots were done with out permission because of all the red tape. They'd trim the crew down to just a few people and told the actors to fade into the background if the J-Cops came sniffing around.

    Posted in: Filmed on location in Tokyo...not quite

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    motytrah

    Many posts have brought up the western Little Miss pageants that are fairly common in the west. While quite distasteful on a lot of levels, I think there is one clear difference. Those pageants are targeted to be family events. They are attended by friends and family. They may be creepy on a number of levels, but if a bunch of middle aged men show up drool over the kids they'll quickly be shown the door.

    What get's me is in Japan, Companies and Landlords spend substantial amounts of money to ensure they don't have descendants of "Unclean" people. Yet they have no desire to find out of they have Pedo's hanging around.

    From my standpoint, the issue with the Jr. Idols isn't a problem that needs gov't regulation, it's something that needs good old fashioned impolite consumer pressure.

    Posted in: Innocence lost: the dark side of Akihabara

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    motytrah

    My wife was a judge for the Recount. I know paid election workers who were in the Franken camp that did the election and the recount. The actual recount, including going over the ballets that had objections, was handled in under a month (weeks if you look at the actual amount of work time). The law is actually very specific about how to handle the recount.

    The delay was purely because of the court procedure. The lawyers got very rich in this contest. And Coleman may be on the hook to pay a fair chunk of Franken's legal fees.

    Franken is a flawed candidate. His own workers have said as much in private. But that doesn't take away the fact that he's not dumb and extremely shrewd. On the other hand Coleman was a democrat he switched sides to the republicans. So it's not like he's the second coming of St. Reagan.

    From the standpoint on why Coleman lost the recount a lot of people think it's because of the people from the Republican Base (which came from around the nation to work the recount) were sub-par. One Franken worker described them to me as a bunch of "home schooled idiots" who got "way too emotional about every thing". As a result they were dropping the ball because they'd focus in on a single thing while the rest of the recount was passing by.

    Posted in: Minnesota court rules for Franken in Senate fight

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    motytrah

    Boring? The cell phone companies have some of the best uniforms out there.

    Article Unavailable

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    motytrah

    There are Nerds in the West who are just as introverted. In particular ones that have Asperger syndrome. Then again, there are a lot of Otaku who aren't introverted at all.

    Say what you will about them, but they make up a multi-billion dollar market group world wide.

    Posted in: The Otaku Encyclopedia

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    motytrah

    He's twisted, but not to the extent of a Takashi Miike films.

    Posted in: Suicide pacts, cults and violence shape director Sion Sono

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    motytrah

    Three minutes? Nope. You go down the line, only put effort into things you can see and grab in that instant. I parked in a garage that got hit with a smash and grab once. My car and two others were spared because we had "alarms" in the cars. In my case the alarm was just a blinking light, but it was enough to make them move on to the next.

    Posted in: 75 cars found with their windows smashed in Hakodate

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    motytrah

    Prius isn't a good GCV. It's electric motor isn't big enough. You have to accelerate insanely slow. It would be nice to see a Li-on Prius with electrics rated for 45+MPH. Weight of the larger motor would be offset by the much lighter Li-on batteries. But cost would certainly be greater. That being said, with 180K units per year they certainly have the quantity to carve out a "Premium" plug-in model that would cost much less than the Conversion Pruis and perform much better.

    Posted in: Toyota gets 180,000 orders for new Prius hybrid

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    motytrah

    The 787 will be a much more comfortable ride. They'll be able to have more pressure in the cabin (less ear popping) and much higher humidity.

    The problem with the A380 right now is it's so very big at a time when airlines are having troubles filling seats. The A380 fulling loaded can make massive amounts of money for an airline. An A380 lightly loaded can loose massive amounts of money for the airline too.

    The 787 is a smaller plane. It holds less people than a A330 or 777. It competes with smaller versions of the 767, though it's range is fantastic. Test flight is next week.

    That being said you ride the 787 in style, I would expect the first planes will serve premium long haul routes. Depending on market conditions the tickets might even be slightly more expensive.

    Posted in: Dreamliner

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    motytrah

    TV has a long way to go in Japan. It's still quite acceptable in J-Drama to smack around a woman who talks back to her husband.

    There were some signs in 2004 with Atto Hōmu Daddo (At home Dad), but even then most of the series mad the mother out to be bad for not being at home with the kids.

    Though, I will have to say, if you watch "I Survived a Japanese Game Show", the Americans act more like their stereotype in Japan than not. That's of course when you take a fairly uncultured western person and drop them into Japan with out even a guide book.

    Posted in: Television perpetuates outmoded gender stereotypes

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    motytrah

    People buy houses in Japan for the land. They have no issue knock down the house and building something new. I guess I'm not suprised.

    Posted in: Tokyo's iconic buildings being lost to zoning laws

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    motytrah

    TGV doesn't have the sustained speeds in real world conditions. There are too many points on it's routes where it's under speed restrictions. It's not that TGV is a horrible train. It's a bit dirty compared to the Japanese trains and more expensive, but generally you get where you need to go.

    Article Unavailable

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    motytrah

    Visiting Pearl Harbour has more to do with WWII vets being up in arms. Native Hawaiians actually like Japanese tourists better than mainland tourists.

    Posted in: Emperor, empress to participate in wreath-laying ceremony in Hawaii

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    motytrah

    I flew 10 segments in Business class last year. Saw an infant once, and it didn't make a peep. On a NRT-HNL flight there were some pre-teen J-Kids behind me, the parents were sitting behind them to keep an eye on them. For the most part they just played their Nintendo through the trip. It helps that a Business class seat has 60+ inches of pitch. There's no way for them to kick my seat.

    A little walk about the plane to see Coach section, man, that's where the jumping and screaming kids were.

    Posted in: In-flight madness with the kids

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    motytrah

    I was under the impression that people in Japan bought houses based on location with the rising the building and building a new structure.

    Posted in: Would you move into a house or apartment if you knew that a murder or suicide had once taken place there?

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    motytrah

    Let the share holders decide. There should also be a regulation that makes institutional share holders that have a business interest (such as banking, loans, etc.) abstain from voting about salary.

    Posted in: Are you in favor of government-imposed caps on executives' salary packages?

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    motytrah

    Movie was really good. Writing was great and while there was some time travel aspects to is, it side-stepped a lot of the bad plot cliches that killed the TV series. The interesting thing about it is I know both hard core and non-trek fans that are seeing this movie multiple times. It seems to grab people both as an action movie and a Trek movie.

    Best thing to happen to Star Trek was getting rid of Rick Berman and Brannon Braga. Those two ran the franchise into the ground with some of the worst schlock to hit movie and TV screens.

    Posted in: JJ Abrams and youthful cast breathe new life into 'Star Trek'

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    motytrah

    He didn't really save lives per se, he just made it easier for the crew to figure out where the fuel was going and come up with the best plan. They obviously could see on the instruments that something wasn't right. He saved the crew a lot of time and made it so more passengers could make other connections. Without that they might have dumped fuel and landed in the middle of no where until they could figure out what was up.

    Posted in: U.S. airman spots aircraft fuel leak at 35,000 feet on Narita-bound flight

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    motytrah

    I reckon the US and Japan will have to fight it out to see who has the most nerds.

    Per capita I would reckon Japan, but in total, the US has more.

    Posted in: U.S. Pokemon lovers to challenge Europe and Japan

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    motytrah

    Interesting. Could be a sign that KAL isn't happen with the dominate player in Sky Team - Delta Airlines. Delta's acquisition of Northwest Airlines (the number 3 airline in Japan behind JAL and ANA) could be putting stress on the relationship.

    Posted in: JAL codeshares with Korean Air on Shizuoka-Incheon route

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