JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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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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- Part Time Assistant Language Teacher - Kanagawa Prefecture - late-March start
- Interac, Kanagawa
- Salary: ¥9,000 / Day per 4 class shift
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timtak
Dean Rogers is right and I think that this is what Sony is planning, a new computer integrated TV. But alas, I think that Sony is planny something non-standardised, as Sony always does so it may be a TV with a playstation processor built in. I hope Sony suddenly becomes good at cooperating with standards and that there new TV comes with a Linux running computer built in, with a massive OLED display. OLED displays are beautiful and Sony is the company to get it working. Then they can take back their share of TVs, and with Linux a big nitch out of Microsoft's business as well.
Posted in: Incoming Sony CEO Hirai refuses to abandon TV business
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timtak
Western psychologist, Ellen Langer, claim that people gamble, even they know that on average the establishment wins, because they think that their choices are special, luckier, better than other peoples choices; gamblers suffer from an illusion of control. They think that they can effect the outcome of their bet by making the right decision. And for this reason, Western gambling usually includes an element of control (skill) and above all, lots of choices. The roulette wheel is typical in in that it provides the gambler with lots of ways to bet, to play a hunch, to beat the odds with a certain system.
Pachinko however involves little in the way of choice and surprisingly little skill.
The Choices in Pachinko The only important choice, as far as I am aware, is the decision on which machine (dai) to use. This is important because machines are, by law, meant to be set to have a certain odds of winning which remain constant during business hours and since it is important that some people win, parlours usually set up number of winning machines. About the only useful advice I have read on this is that since the owner wants as many people as possible to be near a winning machine, the winning machines are generally fairly evenly situated roughly in a zig zag. However, it has been my impression, and that of a frequent player, that some parlours illegally control the odds in real time setting machines to win especially when they see a new face. In other words there really may be beginners luck in some Pachinko palours because the non-beginners are more likely to play anyway and having beginners luck, as experienced by the lady in the article, helps to get people hooked. Secondly newly installed machines are sometimes more likely to be set to win to give customers the impression that rich parlours with a turn over of machines are places where they can win.
Skills in Pachinko The only skill seems to be directing the balls to the best place. Once this place has been found (and there are books and magazines on where it is) punters will sometimes use a coin to keep the dial in the same position. There is some skill in getting the balls roughly in the centre, but it makes surprisingly little difference where the balls hit. If skill were important the machines could be made more like video/computer games with moving targets but this is not the case.
The Illusion of Control in Pachinko So if choice and skill are not all that important in Panchinko, why do Japanese people become addicted? They know that the parlours are making money and that on average the machines are set so that the players loose. How can they have an illusion of control, an illusion of uniquness that they will win whereas other players will not? My theory is, from talking to a few players, and from the way in which machines don't pay much then suddenly pay out big time ("reach" and then “win time”), is that players ave an illusion of having more gut, or mettle (根性/konjou) than other players. They think that they can keep their hand steady, and keep pumping the machine until it pays out when other players would have become lilly-livered and given up. This illusion of control is partially true, just as their is a partial truth to the effect of choices in Western gambling. Addicted players do play longer, and do thus stay on to "reach" the big payouts. The difference lies in what personal characteristics each culture emphasises. Westerners believe in the power of their free will, in their ability to make unique beneficial choices that others have missed. Japanese believe that they are able to persevere, suffer, grind on, fight, ganbaru longer than others, to the point of having an illusion of uniquness and an illusion of control.
This illusion of uniqueness is furthermore not, I think, an enhancement of a particular characteristic so much as the belief in the players ability to have none, no characteristics, to be come like a rock, unswayed, to become nothing. And thus pachinko resembles meditation, and pachinko machines resemble mandelas, and one of their effects is to empty the mind of the player. This makes pachinko particularly attractive, and addictive, to those that have troubles enough already.
Posted in: Pachinko addiction a growing problem for Japanese women
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timtak
I think he is talking about the (shin?) "Tachiagare Nippon" party, with members so old that when it was formed 5 years ago, punters joked that it was or should be the "tachisagare" (stand down) party.
I would like toknow why j4p4nFTW recommends Ishihara, in more detail. He is always using English originated words (gairaigo) and sounds to be of the postwar "we can be American and beat them at it" generation, rather than having a vision for Asia.
Posted in: Ishihara says he is ready to help new political party change Japan
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timtak
That does seem very lenient especialy lacking contrition. I hope that none of the children suffered permanent damage. There seems to be a great deal of sympathy towards mothers and the woman is a single mother. One can see her on youtube at the link below, where she appears to be smiling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEAr5BfKkm
Posted in: Woman sentenced to 4 1/2 years for breaking babies' legs
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timtak
@ Crazedinjapan This may be a nice earner for the gangs. They can look threatening, provide 'deniability', and coerce business into accepting them as customers and then send a friend around "from a rival gang", who "just happend to have been bugging/watching the transaction" (or with enough evidence to overcome the 'deniability' initially provided) to blackmail the business that they know accepted their custom.
Posted in: Calling the plays on the new anti-gang law
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timtak
What with Toshiba, Honda, NEC, and other companies reporting large reductions in profits who is going to pay the tax? I am, for my sins, a public employee.
Posted in: Toshiba profit dives 70%
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timtak
I have a clean posterior.
Posted in: How foreigners’ daily lives change when they live in Japan
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timtak
Polyandry: two herbivores to one 'ogre bride'? Cheaper real estate?
Posted in: Japan's population to shrink two thirds by 2110
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timtak
I think that the tendency for Japanese leaders to "take responsibility" and the tendency for Japanese groups (including Japan itself) to not have any one person in charge are linked.
In other words Maher is contradiciting himself. On the one hand Maher wants Japanese leaders to be 'real leaders', to actually make decisions and have power. On the other hand Maher wants Japanese leaders to do the traditional Japanese thing of taking "responsibility even if it was not a mistake that they made" and, if not commiting seppuku, stepping down.
When have we seen a Western demagog take responsibility and step down? Maxwell? Clinton? They have, want, and retain power and do anything to keep it. Nixon may be an exception? Or he had not choice?
Japanese leaders are figureheads. They do not particularly want power and they do not have it since decisions are made collectively (see the research I quoted above." -11" and counting!). While Japanese leaders rarely actually make decisions, one of their major roles is to be a scapegoat and take responsibility and step down.
Maher wants Japanese leaders to be both figureheads and real power players. In your dreams Maher.
Posted in: Ex-U.S. diplomat Maher pulls no punches on Japan
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timtak
Why should anyone be in charge? We are talking about a nation, with hundreds or thousands of experts. And according to Morris & Peng (1994) http://faculty.kent.edu/updegraffj/gradsocial/readings/morris.pdf Asians are inclined to see decisions being best, normally, or appropriately made by groups with no one person in charge. Mr. Maher talks about good 'ol Japan but sounds like he has just arrived.
With regard to taking the responsibility for something even if one did not do it oneself, I don't see a change in Japan. I am not sure if it would have helped Japan if yet another prime minister had taken responsibility and resigned, for in this case a largely natural disaster.
Posted in: Ex-U.S. diplomat Maher pulls no punches on Japan
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timtak
"Stick" is one translation. The original is "muchi ga nana wari" which also means "70% whip."
Posted in: Aya Sugimoto on managing husband: '30% carrot, 70% stick'
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timtak
@MabodofulsSpicy Westerners are very good at making logical or linguistic constructions such as microprocessor architectures, software, sales systems (itunes, macdonalds), and academic theories.
There seem to be cultural factors affecting attitudes to copyright of such constructions. Some of my students clearly copy others writing more than others, especially from a certain country. I don't think that they are sociopaths and they certainly don't see themselves in that way.
One can see patents/copyright as protecting the effort and creative endevour of the developers. But one can also see it as a sort of claiming colonialism of a 'terra nullis' patch in a finite symbolic space. One illustration of this is purchasing domain names. If I purchase chugokogo.com (I did in fact) and sell it to a Chinese language school for a lot of money then how much creativity or effort would I have sold? Or have I just claimed something that no one else was using and called it mine? Patents of inventions, such as one click to buy, or of a garbage icon, contain both creative endeavour and something I call "symbolic colonialism." Westerners tend to believe that the symbolic space is infinite, and that it is okay to claim something if one gets there first. Not everyone agrees.
Posted in: Obama to protect U.S. goods globally
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timtak
The video on Youtube is linked from the article. Kusanagi, thinner than ever, pretends to be a cram school teacher, writes on a blackboard, questions whether what he has written on the board is important or not, opens a chocolate bar, dances with his elbows out sideways, says "healthy" pronouncing the "th" and shouts "ba(r)" punning the ba of I'm back (dort da, "inai inai ba-") perhaps. Like many commercials in Japan its appeal rests on the extent to which a grown man can make a fool of, or parody himself, or a respected role of a man, and Kusanagi really can.
Posted in: TV commercial of the week: Ippon Manzoku Bar and Tsuyoshi Kusanagi
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timtak
And there was I thinking that everything is so cheap. Deflation spiral, 100 yen shops, shouchuu by the bucket load priced like water, and lately online shopts like where one can get Chinese produced merchanise imported for peanuts due to the super strong Yen. And real estate, if you like the countryside, is so inexpensive it makes me feel guitly. Sometimes houses are given away for free. Japan is consumer paradise, unless of course you want foreign stuff like high calorie pizza. Durr.
Posted in: Six things that foreigners feel are overpriced in Japan
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timtak
scotchegg wrote
Posted in: British PM stokes war of words over Falklands
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timtak
This is the second time in a few days that JT gave prominence to bum related minor news (the other being gold smuggled in rectums).
Posted in: Bum's the word in Japan security scans
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timtak
This means that about 2.4% of deaths each year are due to suicide in Japan.
Posted in: No. of suicides surpasses 30,000 for 14th year in a row in 2011
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timtak
Come to think of it having a European mum or access to European DNA back in 1970 suggests either a European, a hit man like LostinNagoya says, or someone very powerful that perhaps even the police would rather leave alone. RIP to the victims..
Posted in: Setagaya family murders remain unsolved after 11 years
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timtak
He was fluent at Japanese but he behaved as if he were about to leave the country forever, leaving behind every kind of evidence: his clothes, shoes, blood, waist pouch (and hence waist size) fingerprints and, in the cistern, a stool (showing the food that he ate). He also had scars on his hands.
So, I am sure that the police have ruled out friends and family members, and people known to the victims. The police only need to meet suspects, and say "show me your palms" (let alone look at fingerprints).
Yet the crime bears the marks of a dispute: excessive violence to the victims, lack of interest in monetary gain, and lack of repitition as would be seen in a serial killer.
There were no repeat crimes of the same time, in Japan at least, so it seems unlikely we are looking at a pathological 'I get kicks from killing' serial killer.
He spent 8 hours going through the personal information of his victims and no one knows why. He left their bank book and seal untouched. He left all the credit cards at the scene. He left an envelope containing 60000 yen untouched. He removed no possessions (other than replacement clothes). And yet he went through all their personal information, methodically, going through it and then dumping it in the bath. He left the victims'most personal information - their cards - arranged methodically. He was well into information, and ice cream, amongst all that blood.
Posted in: Setagaya family murders remain unsolved after 11 years
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timtak
@darkbob The murderer did not use the Internet much and used only the mouse, not the keyboard, visiting sites that were in the favourites of the browser. He created a folder perhaps on the desktop. At one point he visitied a drama company that the family frequented/liked and may have tried to book tickets. At another time he clicked some links on the father's company home page to take him to a chemistry related university research centre site. In other words the sites probably have had less to do with the profile of the murderer than the profile of the father who was murdered. I thought initially that the murderer had used the Internet more, but anyway, the fact that he used it at all, the spending the whole night in the place eating ice cream while going through the information about the deceased suggested to me a person that lived in the information world, rather than in the real one. I.e. the murderer's behaviour struck me as being that of a major geek. The father was too having written a book chapter about the Internet and, reading the wikipedia article today, I see that the father had an Internet persona ("kotehan").
The police are flummoxed because it had all the marks of a hate crime but no hate was found. The best they could come up with was an inculcation with youths, including skateboarders, that used the adjascent park at night. The skateboarder theory is not bad because it might explain the "American sand" that was found in the murderers waist pouch - sand from the grip tape used on skateboards perhaps (Other theories include an abrasive used in the rinting industry, or someone who goes to American beaches). But even so, would a skateboarder stab a family to death because they had stopped him skateboarding in a park? So where is the hate? There were two geeks in the house that night and hate can develop online too.
It is true that an unidentified man (about 30 then, 40 now) had treatment at a station in Nikkou, and the possibility that it was the murderer has not been ruled out. In any event the murderer is very likely to have scars on his hand or hands to this day. Easy to spot. So, do you know a tall Japanese speaking guy who always wears gloves? Alas, in this weather, most people wear gloves.
@USNinJapan2 I think that the statute of limitations has been removed for murder. Yes, last year.
Posted in: Setagaya family murders remain unsolved after 11 years