JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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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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- 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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the_harper
They've made a group member by combining features from all the other members. How long will it be before all the carbon based group members are made redundant? As kokorocloud pointed out, there's already fully digital vocaloid "pop singers" like Miku Hatsune - and they've even done "live" concerts.
Posted in: AKB48's 'newest member' turns out to be computer-generated image
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the_harper
I hope that the Japanese government is directing plenty of aid to businesses in north eastern Honshu, because I can't imagine that there's many tourists there at the moment - Japanese or foreign. However, most foreign visitors will be travelling to Tokyo and the Kansai region, so there's no reason for them to be concerned.
Posted in: If someone you know was wondering whether or not to visit Japan in the near future, but was worried about the nuclear crisis, would you encourage them to come?
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the_harper
A friend showed me Kodachrome slides he took of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. Still with fabulous colour after all these years. By comparison, retaining digital images reliably is a lot harder. Writable CDs and DVDs are not reliable over time. Hard drives break down. How long will data on SD media last - and who could afford to archive their photos on SD cards?
Posted in: How much longer can photographic film hold on?
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the_harper
@kittyjump - it's a print, not painted. It would take far too long to paint something like that. Viewed from the expected distance, it's proportionally the same as a much smaller print close up. With decent studio makup and a young girl's clear complexion, it shouldn't need much (if any) work with photoshop. She's a pretty girl and it's a nice photo. I don't see anything to complain about.
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the_harper
Agreed. Japan's best approach is to leverage ALL renewable resources rather than wasting time deciding which is best. As I heard on the radio the other day, the immediate need for renewables is to handle as much as possible of the daily peak load, reducing the need for other sources to supply this component. What the people criticising some of these renewable sources are forgetting is that if you put solar panels on the roof of a house and take its daytime load off the grid, you're reducing the load on the grid as a whole. If the panels are able to feed power back into the grid, you have even more benefit.
Similarly, replacing electric hot water systems with solar ones takes more off the grid (although a lot of hot water systems in Japan are gas). Geothermal energy doesn't have to be on an industrial scale to be beneficial - if you use it to heat or cool your house, you again remove an air-conditioning load from the grid.
Here's hoping that nano-scale antenna technology can be quickly developed to provide solar panels with 40% efficiency - double that of silicon cells.
There's no single answer but a whole series of responses needed. As Frungy suggests above, power generation doesn't have to be on the massive scales used in the past to be beneficial. Most generation systems are currently built that way for the benefit of the power companies who want economies of scale.
Posted in: Which form of renewable energy do you think is the best alternative to nuclear energy?
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the_harper
gogogo - some of us like the sound of the original synths.
Posted in: Synthesizer godfather is feted by a new generation
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the_harper
It would probably be more accurate to say "protective clothing for radioactive dust". I'm still amazed by pictures of people being put into such suits with exposed skin on their heads, though.
Posted in: Protection
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the_harper
As others have pointed out, the "suits" won't protect against high energy radiation like gamma particles or even beta particles but would stop alpha radiation. However, the main radioactive materials which have been released into the environment don't produce alpha radiation - see below. I just wanted to clarify -"radiation" can't stick to anything. Radioactive material like radioactive caesium or iodine could stick to the clothing. The exposed parts of their faces have no protection and the surgical masks won't help very much except to avoid breathing in radioactive dust (i.e. large particles). I hope that someone will accompany these people with a dosimeter so that there's some idea of the level of exposure. The main idea with these "suits" would be to provide something that can be disposed of afterward to keep radioactive dust off their clothing. According to Wikipedia, radioactive iodine 131 produces 90% beta radiation and 10% gamma. Caesium 137 also produces both beta and gamma radiation but with a much longer half life.
Posted in: Going back home
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the_harper
Men with power and influence are extremely attractive to some women, and such men sometimes find the temptation hard to resist. The fact that they don't see the damage it could do to their lives shows how much they believe in their own indestructability. By the way - associating Strauss Kahn with the other names in the list doesn't allow for the presumption of innocence. His apparent infidelity isn't proven.
Posted in: Why do famous men with power and influence (Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tiger Woods, Bill Clinton, for example) risk everything with their sexual behavior?
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the_harper
Maybe it was the moment that the photographer caught, but Emi looks the least comfortable of all the ladies in the image. Having said that, the materials in the yukatas are very nice.
Posted in: Yukata Magic
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the_harper
Yes. Given the high risk in that location, it's worth ensuring that safety changes are made in light of the situation in Fukushima. At a minimum there needs to be assured power supplies to cool the reactors in the event of an earthquake or tsunami.
Posted in: Do you think Prime Minister Naoto Kan made the right decision when he asked Chubu Electric to shut down the Hamaoka nuclear plant which stands in an area where a magnitude-8 earthquake is strongly projected?
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the_harper
Great to hear a positive story about how tsunami defences worked somewhere and a whole community benefitted.
Maybe in low lying areas there should be a requirement for buildings spaced at regular intervals which could survive a 15m tsunami that could be used as temporary refuges? Then people in low lying areas would have somewhere to go. Building everything to withstand such an event would be cost prohibitive, but at least people should have an escape route.
Posted in: How one Japanese village defied the tsunami
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the_harper
The size of the vessels really brings home the power and height of the tsunami - to be able to lift them above their wharves and banks and dump them on the shore.
Posted in: Roadblock
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the_harper
Another victim of the isolation that contemporary society brings. Very, very sad.
Posted in: 'Talent' Miyu Uehara dead after apparently hanging herself at home
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the_harper
That's amazing to be able to find things at a depth of four kilometers. Here's hoping that there's data and it provides clarity of the cause!
Posted in: Investigators find black box from 2009 Air France crash
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the_harper
It's understandable that nobody expected the scale of tsunami. Perhaps at that time, many people were keen to save their car from the water and forgot that getting themselves to a higher point was more important. But then, many people would have been so far from anywhere 15 metres above sea level that the only hope they may have had to get there was in a car.
I lived in Japan for seven months and was never given any sort of training for what to do in an emergency - whether an earthquake, tsunami or typhoon. If there had ever been an announcement over the emergency loudspeakers, I wouldn't have known what was being said because I spoke no Japanese. Should I have made more effort to find out what to do? Yes. Did my employers have a responsibility to ensure that I was supplied with adequate information? Also yes.
I hope that in the aftermath of this disaster there's a better effort to provide appropriate information and training to everyone. Maybe a leaflet should be given to tourists as they arrive? Japanese authorities may forget that many foreigners live in countries where earhquakes and tsunamis are unknown. Certainly anyone coming to work in Japan should be provided with more information on what to do in an emergency or disaster.
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the_harper
@Fadamor - at least one issue which you haven't mentioned is the lack of containment for the spent fuel. Storing such huge amounts of spent fuel in the same building as the reactor itself also seems to be a poor design. There also needs to be a mechanism to prevent the buildup of hydrogen in quantities that could cause the kinds of explosions we have seen. Obviously if the reactor core didn't overheat in the first place, the hydrogen wouldn't have been an issue, but in the event that large quantities of hydrogen were relased, the explosions caused a lot of damage to infrastructure that could have been avoided if the hydrogen was safely vented.
Another recommendation for any future reactor design would be that it must have a passive cooling design to prevent meltdown in the complete absence of power.
It's surprising that it has taken to long for an investigation to be launched.
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the_harper
Reminds me of some of the road bridges I saw from the train between Nagoya and Takayama, but a train bridge of this design with a bend in it is unusual! Looks like it would be a nice trip!
Posted in: Back on track
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the_harper
The rationalisation makes sense under the circumstances. I wonder when they fly the 747 between Sydney and Narita? I've flown that route with Qantas and it was a 767.
Posted in: Qantas cuts flights to deal with fuel costs, disasters in Japan, NZ
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the_harper
How ironic that of all the colours Ford might not be able to offer would be black, given the story about the Model T.
Posted in: As Japan shutdowns drag on, auto crisis worsens