Domain: japanprobe.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to japanprobe.com.
Comments · 29
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No more middle man
Let me see, china copied the castle, that disney copied from germany...
http://www.japanprobe.com/2007/05/02/disneyland-in-china/
I guess now they just decided to just bypass the middle man...
;^) -
Better pictures and video here
On one picture you can see how the visual image and the gamma radiation agree at the corner of a wall. You can see that the radiation spot turns 90 degrees with the bottom edge of the wall and how the radioactive materials kind of puddled near the bottom of the wall. It's cool to see that the two images agree.
Also there is video of the actual camera which is pretty big and not so portable. You probably want to keep it in a car most of the time.
http://www.japanprobe.com/2012/03/30/camera-can-see-radiation/
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Re:Accuracy in the article. Wow
You live 200 miles from the plant, that is 321km.
You cannot drink tap water? Tap water had a short spike, and it was never harmful for adults. You cannot eat anything because all is radioactive? This is another lie. Furthermore, if you live 321km from Fukushima, you will never have 30 times the radioactivity as before.
I live in Tokyo and Tokyo to Fukushima is 165 miles or 265 km. There were two spikes in radiation and those were still lower than in other cities. Radiation risks are mainly in the 20km zone in a cone out to 40/50km to the northwest of the plant.
The only thing I agree with you is the fact that the japanese government is not reliable at all. But that is nothing new. And if you really life here you would have known that for a very long time.
See the Fukushima radiation map here: http://www.japanprobe.com/2011/05/10/fukushima-radiation-map/
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nothing to own up to
This is a country that has a history of pointing at a deer and call it a horse, or more recently calling Minnie Mouse a "cat with large ears." So why is this a surprise?
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Re:Small Potatoes
They build a complete fake Disneyland.
http://www.japanprobe.com/2007/05/02/disneyland-in-china/
Does it include the fake "Europe" they build at Disneyland?
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Small Potatoes
They build a complete fake Disneyland.
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Re:Disney?
Yep.
Another like-minded developer made on in homage to Blizzard.More relevant than even those, however, is the entire fake mall that opened in 2009. Genuine imitation brands only! Get your McDnoald’s hamburgers, Bucksstar Coffee, and a Pizza Huh (not Hut) Pizza all under one roof! A Google search for fake mall also nets a 2007 YouTube video of an all-fake mall; I don't know if it's the same one (YT blocked by firewall).
Really, this Apple store shouldn't surprise anyone.
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Re:Japaneese Slavutych?
Japan appears so densely populated because the Japanese culture seems to be more tolerant with living closer and with less space. This lets them leave large tracts of the country (relatively) thinly populated so they can cram into their cities.
Have you ever considered the fact that Japan has already had to import the majority of their food, and that this disaster has drastically reduced not only Japan's ability to produce food which is safe to eat, but also every nation down wind? You're either going to see Japan importing even more food, or you're going to see cancer rates there skyrocket beyond any previous use of the word skyrocket within 20 years.
I'm not suggesting they have an abundance of land like here in the US.
Well, let's talk about this supposed "abundance" in the USA. I don't know if you've been watching the news, but big pieces of this country are actually not good places to build a house. In a modern industrialized society they should be inhabited mostly with giant farming robots and the people who tend them and the people who monitor the plants to decide what the robots should do. In a sustainable society it should probably be populated by semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers, but good luck with that. It's a damned flood plain. Then there's the issue of where our population is concentrated. New York City, our most populous city, is a fairly successful example, but a lot of it is built on landfill and much of it is threatened by recent changes in weather. The region surrounding Los Angeles (five counties which share a common bioregion) has an official population estimate over seventeen million, but some estimates as far back as 2000 ranged as high as twenty-five due to undeclared and uncountable illegal residence. All of these people depend on water being piped from the other end of the state or they would otherwise live in a desert. More than enough water falls on the land each year to sustain the region, but without any way to capture it, it runs off (rather quickly) into the ocean through an extensive and expensive series of channels. And speaking of Northern California there's the Sacramento Metro area which is also a big fat floodplain. You can see the same trend again and again, people want to live close to the water and don't care if the water is going to take their house away. Farmers have to be where the arable land is so they have some kind of excuse, but what are the rest of us up to?
Of course, once you get into the hills you get into forest fire country, so then we start cutting and clearing and destroying our environment for the sake of fire safety... Thankfully they're actually chipping now for free in many places, rather than encouraging piling and burning. In theory, burning of poison oak is prohibited, but in practice if you're scraping your property with a blade and burning the pile you're not going to separate it out. Both approaches have been utilized in my neighborhood (near Highland Springs Reservoir) and the difference is immediately apparent if you are down wind. When a lot of burning is going on, it's a good idea to go do your shopping or something.
If you want to talk about useful land and land upon which it is feasible to rapidly build a city and then relocate a lot of people there, someplace that's actually a valid place to put those people, you should understand that the list of places is not so very long as you might imagine. The simple possession of a large land area is not enough to guarantee suitable sites.
Now, Japan may very well have an ideal location that they have somehow passed by, but I find this highly unlikely given the sizable number of Japanese expatriates.
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Re:Nuke power
Your facts are out of date, measurements have been done and data has been released. Not of the reactor, which is irrelevant to those not involved in the cleanup unless bad things happens again, but of the area around the power plant. Decent quantities of radiation (cesium-137) have been detected in some areas. Enough to essentially leave the areas uninhabitable without significant cleanup costs. I think I've read estimates of up to 200 square km being unsafely radioactive but don't quote me on that. Not instant death, of course, but you wouldn't want to live there for years or grow food there.
Detailed ground measurements are, asfaik, not yet being done (or at least not being released) however very detailed fly-overs were done (and the data released).
http://www.japanprobe.com/2011/05/10/fukushima-radiation-map/
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Re:Cheating
is an integral part of Chinese business culture and it's not funny.
Sorry, but this is definitely funny. Especially since I'm not affected by it. A lot of things the Chinese do to make money are pretty funny, in fact. It's not like it's a tragedy, if they thought it was tragic they would try to change it. In fact, one of the funniest things about the whole thing is that it is so integral, even the government rips things off. The best part is they act like nothing is going on. That's not Mickey Mouse, it's a cat with round ears! That's not Donald Duck, it's an original Chinese duck character! This is like a bad B-movie plot, but it's actually happening.
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Re:this is the thing that bothers me
Oh yeah? Back this one up with a well written, fact-based post and you'll get a +5 informative. But I seriously doubt you can do it.
Well, on one hand the state forces foreign companies to make 49%/51% joint Chinese-owned company ventures in order to have access to the Chinese market. Once foreign firms get access and have spent a considerable amount of resources getting started in China, the state forces them to manufacture a certain percent of their product in China, NOT by themselves, but it should be subcontracted out to a Chinese company (e.g., Honda China can't make, design, and manufacture all their own stuff, they have to transfer technology to some Chinese company so that the Chinese company can make it... if you don't follow their rules, the state can simply legislate your technology away, or worse). Once you've transferred sufficient technology to the Chinese company, you start wondering why no more orders for your products are coming in, and then you realize that it's because the very Chinese company you've partnered with is now making the product 100% in China without your help and "entirely of their own innovation."
http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/letter-bombs-11-coming-up-on-the-rail/So there's our economic domination. And that's just one example of it. There's lots more, and it's in the news very frequently.
Then we have border disputes. China claims or has, in the past 10 years, claimed territory of: Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan (the entire country at missile-point, no less), Russia, India, Bhutan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, Brunei, Tajikstan, and any other country that has the misfortune to be touching them that isn't on their payroll. The People's Liberation Army annually ventures into Bhutan dozens of times. The government not only holds onto old conflicts which they have dubious claim, but starts new conflicts semi-frequently. We've also seen that when the CPC is pissed about a border, the Chinese media is used to intentionally and flagrantly lie about the facts in order to stir up nationalism. They have also shown that they will put the government's hand in everything, ranging from travel agents to school exchange trips to locking up the offending country's nationals for "espionage" (punishable by death) to economic embargoes meant to force countries to bend backwards and obey. Of course, the CPC will deny any involvement in any of these actions.
The People's Liberation Army continues to modernize and deploy more force aimed directly at Taiwan. The PLA "defense" budget continues to grow in the double digit percents every year, and it's almost exclusively aimed at Taiwan and the US -- it's still less than 20% of the US def
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Re:this is the thing that bothers me
Oh yeah? Back this one up with a well written, fact-based post and you'll get a +5 informative. But I seriously doubt you can do it.
Well, on one hand the state forces foreign companies to make 49%/51% joint Chinese-owned company ventures in order to have access to the Chinese market. Once foreign firms get access and have spent a considerable amount of resources getting started in China, the state forces them to manufacture a certain percent of their product in China, NOT by themselves, but it should be subcontracted out to a Chinese company (e.g., Honda China can't make, design, and manufacture all their own stuff, they have to transfer technology to some Chinese company so that the Chinese company can make it... if you don't follow their rules, the state can simply legislate your technology away, or worse). Once you've transferred sufficient technology to the Chinese company, you start wondering why no more orders for your products are coming in, and then you realize that it's because the very Chinese company you've partnered with is now making the product 100% in China without your help and "entirely of their own innovation."
http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/letter-bombs-11-coming-up-on-the-rail/So there's our economic domination. And that's just one example of it. There's lots more, and it's in the news very frequently.
Then we have border disputes. China claims or has, in the past 10 years, claimed territory of: Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan (the entire country at missile-point, no less), Russia, India, Bhutan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, Brunei, Tajikstan, and any other country that has the misfortune to be touching them that isn't on their payroll. The People's Liberation Army annually ventures into Bhutan dozens of times. The government not only holds onto old conflicts which they have dubious claim, but starts new conflicts semi-frequently. We've also seen that when the CPC is pissed about a border, the Chinese media is used to intentionally and flagrantly lie about the facts in order to stir up nationalism. They have also shown that they will put the government's hand in everything, ranging from travel agents to school exchange trips to locking up the offending country's nationals for "espionage" (punishable by death) to economic embargoes meant to force countries to bend backwards and obey. Of course, the CPC will deny any involvement in any of these actions.
The People's Liberation Army continues to modernize and deploy more force aimed directly at Taiwan. The PLA "defense" budget continues to grow in the double digit percents every year, and it's almost exclusively aimed at Taiwan and the US -- it's still less than 20% of the US def
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Re:this is the thing that bothers me
Oh yeah? Back this one up with a well written, fact-based post and you'll get a +5 informative. But I seriously doubt you can do it.
Well, on one hand the state forces foreign companies to make 49%/51% joint Chinese-owned company ventures in order to have access to the Chinese market. Once foreign firms get access and have spent a considerable amount of resources getting started in China, the state forces them to manufacture a certain percent of their product in China, NOT by themselves, but it should be subcontracted out to a Chinese company (e.g., Honda China can't make, design, and manufacture all their own stuff, they have to transfer technology to some Chinese company so that the Chinese company can make it... if you don't follow their rules, the state can simply legislate your technology away, or worse). Once you've transferred sufficient technology to the Chinese company, you start wondering why no more orders for your products are coming in, and then you realize that it's because the very Chinese company you've partnered with is now making the product 100% in China without your help and "entirely of their own innovation."
http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/letter-bombs-11-coming-up-on-the-rail/So there's our economic domination. And that's just one example of it. There's lots more, and it's in the news very frequently.
Then we have border disputes. China claims or has, in the past 10 years, claimed territory of: Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan (the entire country at missile-point, no less), Russia, India, Bhutan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, Brunei, Tajikstan, and any other country that has the misfortune to be touching them that isn't on their payroll. The People's Liberation Army annually ventures into Bhutan dozens of times. The government not only holds onto old conflicts which they have dubious claim, but starts new conflicts semi-frequently. We've also seen that when the CPC is pissed about a border, the Chinese media is used to intentionally and flagrantly lie about the facts in order to stir up nationalism. They have also shown that they will put the government's hand in everything, ranging from travel agents to school exchange trips to locking up the offending country's nationals for "espionage" (punishable by death) to economic embargoes meant to force countries to bend backwards and obey. Of course, the CPC will deny any involvement in any of these actions.
The People's Liberation Army continues to modernize and deploy more force aimed directly at Taiwan. The PLA "defense" budget continues to grow in the double digit percents every year, and it's almost exclusively aimed at Taiwan and the US -- it's still less than 20% of the US def
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Re:Used for good here but...
And the net effect will be a whole lot of fear mongering resulting from a few pranksters who'll probably think that's funny as hell.
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Live crab vending machine
This is a close second to the machine that dispenses live crabs. (The sea floor living kind of crab.)
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Re:I like it
I don't wish to attack any airline pilots; I've known a few throughout my life and they're usually very friendly. In fact, in the last flight I had in Indianapolis, the flight was delayed by an hour and a half due to a cracked panel near the wing, during which time we all were sitting in the plane waiting for news, and the pilot personally bought the entire plane popcorn for their trouble. I do wish to attack the airlines management, however.
I've flown to and from Japan more than half a dozen times in the past two years, and all I can say is that compared to the US, air travel there is quick, pleasant, and usually cheap. In Japan, air travel must be competitive with bullet train travel, so it might compete in terms of price, ease, and timeliness.
- There, flight attendants are still friendly, helpful and polite (they're actually trained on how to best smile).
- The food is still pretty good, and they often even give you metal silverware!
- JAL has been offering a series of outreach programs where they bring in thousands of gradeschool children and show them the science behind flight, show them neat physics lift experiments, let them sit in a real cockpit, etc..., because you need to make children excited about flying if you wish to have a future.
- Security is comparatively lax and comfortable -- after all, it has to compete with the bullet train, where you take whatever you want, stick it in as many suitcases as you can carry, and lug them onto a train where nobody stops you to inspect them, ever (and I might note that no trains have been blown up due despite the almost non-existent security). It's always unpleasant to arrive from Asia to the Land of the Free and be treated like a criminal in O'Hare. I feel bad for the tourists who know little English but are asked questions by angry-looking security and have to fill out tons of English-language customs forms, since no other foreign language forms are offered (in Japan, you could get the customs forms in several languages).
- The airline companies still work relatively for the people, not for the people's money . By that I mean that when I was on my way back permanently to the US after a year studying abroad in Japan, I had (if I recall correctly) a 41.5 kg suitcase, which is 1.5 kg over the 40kg limit for international flights at the time. The airline (JAL) was very friendly and let me continue on without any fees or any trouble since it was such a minor weight overage, and due to my circumstances (being a student who was carrying everything he had back to the US).And it probably helps that Japanese companies aren't like American companies that treat their employees like servant class and executives like aristocracy (United CEO $40 million salary, JAL CEO $100,000)
http://www.japanprobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/ceo.gif
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=united+airlines+ceo+salary
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=jal+ceo+salaryIn fact, if you cut just the CEO's salary to $1 million per year (more than enough money for a huge mansion and a Bentley), you could raise all of United's 7800, or so, pilots' salaries by $5000 each.
Unfortunately, with the United States' archaic 25% foreign control and 49% foreign investment cap on airline companies, we'll likely never have a superior Asian airline come in and displace the old, greedy, out-of-date and ready-to-die US airline companies, much like nearly happened with the US auto industry. We'll probably just continue to prop up the current airlines with billions of dollars of taxpayer money (and by prop up, I mean continue laying off pilots and underlings while raising CEO salaries).
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Re:Dealing with the Chinese
No, you didn't gain any insight from this because you stumbled across the relevant points but managed to miss them in your understanding.
Most of what you say is true, but it doesn't change the fact that the Chinese are total copiers. They have no qualms about it, whatsoever. When the Chinese enter any industry they do it by outright stealing IP. When they got into machine tools they started kicking out tools which were such a faithful reproduction of the originals that they had the same flaws. This is because they were utterly unqualified to make the tools themselves, and so they had to depend on popularity to tell them which tools to copy for export. They had none of the necessary skills to actually make their own; they didn't copy because it was easier, they copied because it was the only way they knew how to be competitive. The same is true today, because they have put the majority of their effort into copying. It's not the Chinese companies putting out the snazzy new silicon. In fact, most of the time that there's a hot new chip in China, it was copied wholesale from a US design which was fabbed in China. I worked for a company which had this happen to them several times. The same, of course, is clearly true of software.
China's authoritarian society is working against cultural and scientific development. I suspect that what enabled scientific development in China in the past was low population density. It's also the only reason they're not ruling the world by now, so I'm all for it. But don't pretend that China is capable. It is not. It is capable only of making bad knock-offs (even the counterfeit Cisco gear doesn't work right — I guess the Chinese counterfeiters can't afford solid capacitors) which are ultimately inferior. (Winnie the Poo, and Shrek too!) And many of the largest Chinese companies were all but created by foreign interests.
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Re:As someone who works with outsourced Chinese la
Ding!
It's extremely likely that this project was designed and built in China, and the Chinese aren't exactly known for their respect for copyright. Things like this happen all the time, and they don't see it as "wrong" like Americans do.
Ex: http://www.japanprobe.com/2007/05/02/disneyland-in-china/
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Re:Examples?
The root of the problem is not privacy, it is discrimination, human rights problems and how Japanese unwilling to deal with it. Here we go again: Google Earth maps out discrimination against burakumin caste in Japan.
This is 2005: UN Independent Investigator Raps Japan for Discrimination. Quote: "An independent investigator from the U.N. Commission on Human Rights says he will report that discrimination in Japan is "deep and profound....Mr. Doudou Diene told reporters in Tokyo he found no strong political will to combat racism and discrimination. He also noted what he called a strong xenophobic drive among the Japanese public. This xenophobic drive is expressed by associating minorities, certain minorities, to crime, to violence, to dirt," he said....Mr. Diene said the worst discrimination appears to be the problems a Japanese social outcast group, KNOWN AS "BURAKUMIN" face with finding housing and employment. He called their condition "shocking and terrible," and said their plight would be included in his preliminary report.".
Another example: Racial Discrimination in Japan. Quote "Japan is not usually synonymous with racism in Western media, unlike Mississippi or Soweto, but its society is pretty racist nonetheless....Also, the Japanese landlords do not normally hang out a "For Rent" sign at an apartment building. They go to a "fudosan"- a real estate agency to help them find tenants. However, try and check out some signs near your local "fudosan"- you can usually see those that say: "NO ANIMALS, NO PROSTITUTES, NO FOREIGNERS." Lovely, isn't it?.";
and another: "JAPANESE ONLY" SIGNS IN MISAWA, JAPAN;
and another: U.N. Urges Japan to Stop Discrimination against Korean School Children and Education;
and another: Japanese Discrimination Against Women;
and another: Housing Discrimination in Japan;
and another: Foreigners in Japan say openness all talk. Quote "I went to almost 25 real estate agents trying to get them to show me apartments," she recalled. "Finally, one of them took me aside and said, 'Japanese don't like to rent to foreigners. Many Japanese actually hate foreigners....Without a doubt, Japan is the most discriminatory place I have ever lived in";
Wikipedia: Ethnic issues in Japan
Which makes me wonder, are non-Japanese allowed to buy Japanese products?
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Re:'Street level' a bit misleading
At least a few with loud enough voices to get into the newspapers have a problem with it. Whether that means anything demographically significant enough to put a stop to it though is anyone's guess. It is true that there is a cultural expectation that other people avert their eyes from "private" areas, even when viewable from the street. It's also true that Google's been a bit hamfisted when it comes to the occasional cultural faux pas. For these reasons, Google Street View has a bit of an intrusive image, since it allows others the ability to see into windows without the repercussions of actually being there, losing face, getting reported to the police as a suspicious person, etc. However, I have also met some people that think it's worth the price to be able to see the streets you wish to visit beforehand. It makes giving directions a lot easier...and you can find out what places there are to eat before you get there. Additionally, Google blurs out faces automatically and also offers the ability to request one's home to be excluded from the service.
I'm grossly generalizing based on anecdotes, (and I wish I had some real data on this topic...I wonder if there has been polling on this?) but it seems to me the older generation places more of an emphasis on privacy, while the younger generation is more likely to be impressed by the convenience and utility of it. Of course, the former perspective seems to make it into the news more often...
Google photos raise privacy issues in Japan
Google crosses line with controversial old Tokyo maps (not quite related, but interesting nonetheless...)
Some Japanese concerned about Google Street View
Group demands shutdown of Google Street View Japan
More sensational news from Japan about the dangers of Google Street View -
Re:'Street level' a bit misleading
At least a few with loud enough voices to get into the newspapers have a problem with it. Whether that means anything demographically significant enough to put a stop to it though is anyone's guess. It is true that there is a cultural expectation that other people avert their eyes from "private" areas, even when viewable from the street. It's also true that Google's been a bit hamfisted when it comes to the occasional cultural faux pas. For these reasons, Google Street View has a bit of an intrusive image, since it allows others the ability to see into windows without the repercussions of actually being there, losing face, getting reported to the police as a suspicious person, etc. However, I have also met some people that think it's worth the price to be able to see the streets you wish to visit beforehand. It makes giving directions a lot easier...and you can find out what places there are to eat before you get there. Additionally, Google blurs out faces automatically and also offers the ability to request one's home to be excluded from the service.
I'm grossly generalizing based on anecdotes, (and I wish I had some real data on this topic...I wonder if there has been polling on this?) but it seems to me the older generation places more of an emphasis on privacy, while the younger generation is more likely to be impressed by the convenience and utility of it. Of course, the former perspective seems to make it into the news more often...
Google photos raise privacy issues in Japan
Google crosses line with controversial old Tokyo maps (not quite related, but interesting nonetheless...)
Some Japanese concerned about Google Street View
Group demands shutdown of Google Street View Japan
More sensational news from Japan about the dangers of Google Street View -
Re:'Street level' a bit misleading
At least a few with loud enough voices to get into the newspapers have a problem with it. Whether that means anything demographically significant enough to put a stop to it though is anyone's guess. It is true that there is a cultural expectation that other people avert their eyes from "private" areas, even when viewable from the street. It's also true that Google's been a bit hamfisted when it comes to the occasional cultural faux pas. For these reasons, Google Street View has a bit of an intrusive image, since it allows others the ability to see into windows without the repercussions of actually being there, losing face, getting reported to the police as a suspicious person, etc. However, I have also met some people that think it's worth the price to be able to see the streets you wish to visit beforehand. It makes giving directions a lot easier...and you can find out what places there are to eat before you get there. Additionally, Google blurs out faces automatically and also offers the ability to request one's home to be excluded from the service.
I'm grossly generalizing based on anecdotes, (and I wish I had some real data on this topic...I wonder if there has been polling on this?) but it seems to me the older generation places more of an emphasis on privacy, while the younger generation is more likely to be impressed by the convenience and utility of it. Of course, the former perspective seems to make it into the news more often...
Google photos raise privacy issues in Japan
Google crosses line with controversial old Tokyo maps (not quite related, but interesting nonetheless...)
Some Japanese concerned about Google Street View
Group demands shutdown of Google Street View Japan
More sensational news from Japan about the dangers of Google Street View -
Re:Do they run vista?
http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=4811 So, uh, fuck your theory eh?
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Re:I really dont care for olympics
and with all the shitty stunt china pulls, in tibet, in darfur, suppressing bloggers, olympics are all the while less attractive.
Add beating Japanese journalists, and new sidewalks already falling apart to the list. We already know their environmental initiatives aren't sustainable, but when it comes to construction and the press, they aren't even trying. -
Re:Thanks to the US
LOL,
The Japanese are known for wasting both time and money on useless ventures. It is almost a Halmark of being Japanese!
Hmmmm where shall we start....
http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/420236/all
http://inventorspot.com/articles/melody_road_gives_whole_new_mean_8235
http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=622
This Fingerprinting and photographing are not designed to prevent terrorism. Terrorism in Japan has been traditionally conducted by groups that are exempt from the fingerpritning process.
This is being done specifically to track foreigners, especially the foreigners who live here. Some of it is being done to prevent illegal immigration.
Personally, living here, it impacts me as I have to travel a lot throught the Asia Pacific region, and now immigration is going to be a royal pain. I stopped going through the US because my Japanese wife needs to get fingerprinted and photographed there, but unfortunately, leaving Japan right now is not an option for me.
Shoganai ne! -
Re:National security?
> I'd wish for a tit-for-tat arrangement
Considering how 'free trade' isn't really working from the point of view of the US or any other already-wealthy western nation, I'd wish for it too. Rather, I /do/ wish for it. The Asian exporters aren't engaged in trade as much as they are in currency transfer or something to that effect. They're willing to sell us everything but buy next to nothing from us. Because of all the attention China's getting these days, the Japanese are very quietly slipping under the radar, but this is an old game which they invented and are still playing very well.
And, citing your example of reciprocal immigration inconveniences, the US isn't the only country playing that game: http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=2281 . -
Stuff like this
Stuff like this makes me not feel so bad that China has a government owned Disneylan.. err Shijingshan Amusement Park. http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=1678
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They also have Shrek
Have a look at this page. They have Shrek as well. I think he is fairly recent. http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=1678
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Scary...
Now here's a menacing image: http://www.japanprobe.com/2007/01/fake-donald-duc
k .jpg
I remember having childhood nightmares that began a lot like that...