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TFA does not make clear whether the women were crossing legally or jaywalking.

Our laws promoting safety have a lot of redundancy built into them. This redundancy allows multiple failures before producing a catastrophic result. Limiting street crossings to crosswalks concentrates pedestrians in locations where additional safety features can be installed (red lights, painted stripes on the road). It also frees up drivers to keep their eyes on the road when away from intersections, instead of having to constantly watch the sides of the road for pedestrians who might suddenly jump into their path. Accidents more frequently happen because of infractions by each party involved which strip away each layer of redundant safety.

While it's probable the driver bears most of the blame, I wouldn't be so quick to jump to conclusions. I have to think even an irresponsible Pokemon player would, as a matter of self-preservation, at least take his eyes off the game long enough to slow when approaching intersections. This may well be a case of two women trying to save some time by crossing in the middle of the street (yes it happens even in Japan), and being struck by a driver who assumed no pedestrian would do such a thing so decided to play the game between intersections. He might even have been unable to avoid hitting the women even if he had been watching the road. Jumping to conclusions makes you no better than the assholes who beat up the driver in the above video.

You make MILLIONS of them.

In this case, it really helps if you start in Japan.

And the toilet has a dozen buttons and two knows to adjust seat and water temperature.

YMMV depending on where you go, but I only saw toilets with washlets in hotels and in the restrooms of few restaurants. Most that I saw were as simple as the standard U.S. model, expect for having "small" and "large" flush options -- a brilliant, simple idea that we should all adopt. And you will still find the simple squat type in many places. (Learn how to use 'em, and learn the kanji for "man" and "woman", and you'll be much better equipped for a trip to smaller towns or the countryside, where you won't find Western toilets or the standard international graphics at the restrooms.)

It's "cheap" only when you're far away from a train station, stores, or any sort of real commerical center... that is how real estate prices are calculated in japan-- based on distance from train station. Then of course the other matter is whether the place is furnished or not and if there's a private bathroom.

My friend lives at the apartments (We Americans will call it a "condo") literally across the street from the TBS tower in Akasaka (and next to the subway station of the same name). His rent costs $3000 a month! He can afford it only because he works for a major US financial company a few minutes away.

My other friend lives way out in the suburbs in western Tokyo... his rent is at a house but half that, only because it takes 30 minutes to walk to the train station (I counted it myself because I missed the last bus when I was there last April one night... bus stop is only 5 minutes from the house on the main road) and he's miles from any department store. It takes 1-1.5 hours by train to "downtown" Tokyo or Yokohama from his house (bus to train station to Shinjuku) and it costs 850-1050 yen to get there (depends on how much further you go). Add that to your expenses from commuting to/from work and wasting 3+ hours a day on that, a coffin hotel in "downtown" doesn't seem so expensive after all.

Further "living in Japan" reading and links to apartment searching:
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2200.html
I looked into that myself when there was possibility for a job in Tokyo earlier this year, but after all the uncertainties, expenses, and poor economy, living in one of the most expensive cities in the world (cheaper than Hong Kong, and much cheaper than Moscow) doesn't look possible right now.

If they form a monastery around the clock it may survive. The monastery need not be religious, it just needs people who are willing to carry on the original vision. I'd bet there are enough people who would be willing to donate a year, or more, of their lives to maintaining something that was designed to last 10,000 years. A sort of "carrying the flame" kind of altruism. The monastery would be devoted to seeing that we don't forget how to manufacture things and as part of its mission, it could be continually rebuilding the clock. The Japanese have some Shinto temples they've routinely destroyed and rebuilt every 20 years.

Don't take that argument much further, since Japan actually uses 100V instead of the 115-120V of the United States.

Most devices are designed to tolerate anything from 90-125V and work in both places, but claims like "At least the Japaneese use a civilized 110V AC system like us" look silly since they're patently false.

Posted anonymously since I moderated in this discussion an hour or so ago. Sorry, but I won't remember to visit this again to see your reply.

I'm sure this won't help the Panty Machines make a comeback...

http://www.snopes.com/risque/kinky/panties.asp

http://www.herroflomjapan.com/2006/09/21/the-final-word-on-used-panty-vending-machines-in-japan/

But, there are BEER vending machines, too, not just cigarette machines. I wonder if the ID sensor will be set to deny beer to kids under 20, which I think is the legal age in Japan.

http://www.geocities.jp/m_kato_clinic/mini-age-alcohol-eng-1.html

http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2037.html

Why do you think that we have a strategic petroleum reserve? That oil isn't for regulating the price, it allows a war to take place without imports. Since WWI militaries have depended on oil to operate. Oil was one of the key strategic resources and it was most certaily the reason for the direct engagement of the US/Japan portion of the war.
Paragraph 8:
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2129.html
In 1940, Japan occupied French Indochina (Vietnam) upon agreement with the French Vichy government, and joined the Axis powers Germany and Italy. These actions intensified Japan's conflict with the United States and Great Britain which reacted with an oil boycott. The resulting oil shortage and failures to solve the conflict diplomatically made Japan decide to capture the oil rich Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) and to start a war with the US and Great Britain.

Paragraph 6:
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/a ureview/1981/jul-aug/becker.htm
At the outbreak of the war, Germany's stockpiles of fuel consisted of a total of 15 million barrels. The campaigns in Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France added another 5 million barrels in booty, and imports from the Soviet Union accounted for 4 million barrels in 1940 and 1.6 million barrels in the first half of 1941. Yet a High Command study in May of 1941 noted that with monthly military requirements for 7.25 million barrels and imports and home production of only 5.35 million barrels, German stocks would be exhausted by August 1941. The 26 percent shortfall could only be made up with petroleum from Russia. The need to provide the lacking 1.9 million barrels per month and the urgency to gain possession of the Russian oil fields in the Caucasus mountains, together with Ukrainian grain and Donets coal, were thus prime elements in the German decision to invade the Soviet Union in June 1941.3

Did you think that the war was just about some land in Poland?

Hi. Sorry to help him burst your fantasy bubble there pal, but you are so ignorant and you picked such bad examples that, well, I couldn't resist:

Tell me, is there a serious cultural movement to ban birth control in Japan? (I'm going to laugh at you if you say there is.)

If by "birth control" you mean "the pill" (and not, say, abortion) then you might be surprised to learn that it was not available in Japan until 1999.

Any gay people crucified on fences over there? No?

Homosexuals in Japan may not adopt or marry. While a fantastically unrealistic concept of homosexuality is tolerated in Japan, sometimes even esteemed, real homosexuality is almost always kept very discreet and is considered shameful by most. The disparity in "acceptance" of homosexuality between the rural and urban areas is even more stark than your colorfolly-worded description of the same issue in the US.

Any other ignorant fantasies about Japan you'd like shattered?

(I enjoyed that more than I should have, sure, but slapping morons is so fun.)

Exactly. IIRC, the line from Kumamoto to Oita across the Kyushu outback is a pretty long stretch of diesel-only: map

Really, the absolute best way is to take Japanese courses. I studied many years, but learned more in my first semester of taking university Japanese classes than I had in all the time on my own.

If you just can't take classes, at least buy a good set of textbooks. I recommend Genki for starting out.
A good companion book would be A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar, and later the Intermediate book. And of course a general dictionary, but since I haven't found one I really like I'll leave it to others to suggest one.
If you have a palm pilot, PADict is a useful tool, especially for looking up kanji.

And of course, listening and speaking is important.
For listening, anime and games are common enough. Japanese dramas and variety shows are also fairly easy to get.
Speaking is the hardest part. You could practice by writing a penpal, Japan-guide is a great place to find one. Perhaps you could get your penpal to install Skype.

If you're ever able to, spending time in Japan really is a great way to learn. I've been in Japan for 6 months now, and I can tell I've improved a lot. Feel free to browse through my Japan blog.

Kanji are the chinese Characters that the japanese use to write words.

because you don't know how to type in "kanji" and "example" into google, here is a link with some simple Kanji: http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2046.html

lots of greets, your snob :)

Interestingly enough, and partially on topic ;)
the Richter scale is not used in Japan. Instead, they use the shindo (lit. "shake degree") scale. There is no 8.5 on this scale, as it only goes to 7.

http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2271.html
a guide to japanese naming conventions
"Not seldomly, the gender of a person can be guessed by the ending of his/her first name. First names ending with -ro, -shi, -ya, or -o are typically male first names, while names ending in -ko, -mi, -e and -yo are typically female first names."

So, they intend to use these in large scale applications. I wonder how that would work out on a train that has to climb a long grade, then decend for miles. On the decent, the batteries charge up quickly, then the power is available for the next upgrade.

I can see where they would want to show these batteries off in cars and trains before bringing them to our favorite Toshiba Laptop.

Concerning laptop power, don't we have fuel cells being tested in laptops that would do better than these batteries?
Those are supposed to last all day.

Yes, India today!=Japan in the 1960s. India today, trading with rest of the world at "somewhat" more even terms, is where Japan was in 1890s. Japan - with never under the colonial rulers sucking away its wealth - started developing industry and infrastructure for the Japanese people and reforming its society to create even playing field for industries that wanted to grow since 1860s. http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2130.html Yes, WW2 was a huge setback to thriving Japanese people and they did quite well to be where they are today. However when one generation has seen days of wealth, it does inspire the next generation to build an even greater empire. Not taking anything from them - they are probably the one of most hardworking ethnic groups. India, OTOH, had its first big war of independence against the British in 1857 and became a soveriegn country and started working for itself in 1947. Those very reforms that started as early as 1860s in Japan, started around the turn of this century in India.

Whether India can do that, or even if it is willing to do that (They throw away their best engineers, who graduated from a massive, publicly-funded university system! Does this sound like a sane government to you?), remains to be seen.

Given this historical context it seems to me India has done reasonably well in last 15 years and probably more quickly than other most other countries (including Japan) that I know of. I happen to be an engineer from these publicly funded university system you are alluding to, and I dont know where am I being "thrown". At the risk of sounding presumptuous, let me add that engineers from these schools have played a big role in this.

Japan's entry into WWII was motivated in part by a desire for Manchurian oil.

A major theme of the Cold War was control over Mideast Oil.

The oil wars parent mentions are referenced here

That said, there is still a lot to be said in favor of oil, as you point out. I prefer to blame human nature rather than black gold.

Well, according to this, Japan (as a unified country) is about 1600 years old. Slashdot.org is roughly six years old. A weighted average of slashdot.jp -- 8 characters slashdot, 2 characters jp -- reveals that slashdot.jp is 325 years old. Aren't statistics grand?

IMO, the success of Japan in the technological industry has to do with crafsmanship and work ethic that were developed during a relatively stable period prior to the introduction of Western cultures in the 19th century.

I was born and grew up in the country and I must tell you the work ethic of people there is just incredible. I have a friend who got a master's degree from a prestigious university and works for a well-known company as a hardware engineer. He works from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. 6 days a week and gets crappy $25000 a year without getting paid for overtime. He stays in the job just because he loves what he is doing and takes pride in things he creates.

He is just one of the great, hard-working engineers who make Japan such a technologically advanced country, those who truly love technology and who cannot care less about what they get in return. This is what makes Japan so unique. It is most definitely not about money. (I smell something very American in your post.) Otherwise, how can you explain the fact that Japan was such a poor country after WW2 and is now one of the biggest economic powers in the world?

Actually there are three main religions in Japan - Shinto, Christianity and Buddism. There is also a very high level of tolleration between different religions - something many other societies in this sorry world could learn from.

Many Japanese count themselves as being in two or more of the above religions -(ie. a poll on religions while I was there in 1995 had a total much higher than 100%). There is a saying I heard once, "Japanese are born Shinto, Marry Christian and die Buddist."
See Survey - Religion in Japan for more info.

Finally, the high-speed rail travel is only moderately successful even in its ideal arenas of rail-crazy Europe and Japan

Shinkansens have been racing from one end of Japan to the other since 1964. One train can carry more than 1000 passengers. Business men use it as a fully equipped mobile office while they move around the country in comfort. How anyone can trivialize this as a 'moderate success' amazes me. Lucky for us, the Japanese have happily ignored this kind of short-sighted objectivity and gone about their lives while others wait for traffic to clear and hope the next offramp isn't under construction...

High speed rail in Japan has reduced the need for airports and the infrastructure that goes along with that mode of public transportation. This may be an easy point to miss, since it seems to not be conspicuous in it's absence.

Go to Japan and ride one of these for yourself...it's an 'E' ticket (more fun than you can imagine...).

If SONY wanted to use the Firewire name they would have either used the English without modification (like USB) or spelled it phonetically using katakana. The real reason SONY didn't want to use the name was that SONY has a HUGE (I mean HUGE!!!) NIH complex. [NIH = Not Invented Here].

i know im going to get it for responding to a troll but here goes... you are so WRONG WRONG WRONG... first of all you are calling their cartoons 'goofy' in the wrong place... also of course they are overcrowded... welcome to earth but the differnce is that they have learned to manage their population issues in a very efficient way... also your genital comment was just completly dumb... im not going there... and as for saying japan chooses your career??? WTF r u tlaking about... japan has one of the most open career systems around as they look completly at merit of an individual... they may look differently than western culture does but they really do try do judge simply on your own possibility to succeed... and it is NOT all work work work in japan... face it... they have faced some really huge issues and solved them quite well... i think america has a lot to learn from them... just look at our telocom system... nuff said...

This is how Pachinko bars in Japan get around the law against gambling.