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serious work done making sure that all phases of the workflows creating systems "that have the potential to cause human casualty or death" are secure and error free.

Well some companies are indeed building tracks to begin neural net training live. Additionally, there's been enough failures and near misses from other car companies to begin edge testing as well.

Additionally, map makers are now refocusing on a new emerging market of maps for self driving cars. These maps differ from the typical on-line map in that they need typical pattern usage of a given intersection or piece of road that initial algorithms create too many edge cases for. Good example might be the 65/440 split in Nashville where I've seen map cars out there going over and over the exact same spot. Apparently it's confusing to self driving cars.

I think some companies are nearing the peek of the Dunning-Kruger chart and realizing that this problem is a lot harder than they expected. However, there is a lot of money if someone gets the self driving car right and so where in other ventures that peak would mean the end of research, the potential profits are driving some past the peak into the long valley.

I definitely echo your sentiment in that more testing to harden the product is needed and I think a few folks early on knew that (BMW, Ford, etc...). I think that Uber and Tesla might be going too fast, too soon on their implementations.

The rise of contract labor versus permanent employment has been an ongoing issue globally, ranging from Canada to France to Japan and even India. There are differences and nuances market by market, but a lot of it comes down to employers demanding workforce flexibility in the face of uncertainty, competition, and plenty of desperate underemployed people. France is a case where labor regulations are so tight, that contract labor is an easy loophole. Maybe the only place that this trend is beginning to reverse is in Japan, but that's simply because their labor force is rapidly shrinking.

True. Compared to most industrialized countries, Japan has buried far fewer of their utility cables, even in the largest cities.

https://japantoday.com/categor...

Since when have Oz and NZ been pro-whaling states? They're both strong anti-whaling-voices - in fact, they've been leading the campaign against Japanese whaling. I can't think of a nation today that has a stronger anti-whaling position than New Zealand. Greenpeace is doing what your people support. Hence they support Greenpeace. How is this at all relevant to the reversed situation?

I imagine most of whatever opposition to environmental organization that you may encounter in Oz comes from the wealthier/conservative classes - parts of Australia have a rather anti-environmentalist bent due to the influence of the mining industry.

The number of Japanese who oppose nuclear power is now in excess of 80%. They have seen the long term effects and costs of Fukushima, and the many scandals that have emerged as other plants are properly checked with state of the art equipment for the first time. Even the government only hopes to get back to 20% by 2030, and most people consider that to be optimistic.

What's more, they see every day that Japan can and does survive and thrive without nuclear power. In the short term that does mean more fossil fuel burning, but considering that even in 15 years time the most optimistic projections are expecting 1/3rd of all reactors to still be offline it's not like nuclear is a quick fix for that. People would rather see new technologies, like renewables and energy saving. There is very little faith in those who operate nuclear plants now.

You should be ashamed for trying to claim that obsessing about the nuclear issue distracted from the tsunami deaths. They are two separate things, and the nuclear disaster did nothing to lessen the sympathy felt for the tsunami victims. It did however pull money that could have been spent on them and rebuilding the survivor's homes away to deal with the on-going crisis there.

It is widely accepted that Japan could construct nuclear weapons in a matter of a few months at most, and maintains that capability for defence. It allows Japan to remain a non-nuclear state while still giving it the option to acquire nuclear weapons quickly if the situation escalates. Wikipedia has some information for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...

As you can see, the energy infrastructure (plants, reprocessing, handling equipment, storage facilities etc.) have a dual purpose. If Japan abandoned nuclear power it would no longer be able to maintain the necessary infrastructure without explicitly stating that building nuclear weapons are the goal. It might not sound like much to you, but it's an extremely important distinction in that part of the world.

[...] geese and other dumb animals cannot understand us when we tell them this [...]

But has anybody really tried?

Yes. Using a trained bird of prey can give other birds an unsubtle hint to stay away.

More an this topic. There is also perhaps an issue with labeling people "trolls" or "bullies". Most people can and will act differently in different contexts. There is also a continuum of human behavior all people engage in. In the case of "bullying", it is fairly human for people to banter back and forth and insult each other in what might generally be seen as healthy relationships (as Izzy Kalman suggests). So, bans on all perceived insults in a classroom or workspace may actually be counterproductive by ramping up the stress of the situations when they do happen for whatever reason.

And it is all too easy to call an unpopular opinion a troll. Also, for the person responding to the "troll", it is hard to know sometimes when some person saying a rude thing or clueless thing or factually incorrect thing might benefit from a response. Or even to say someone has an agenda when they maybe just made a mistake; a recent example of that:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/c...

I do feel we need better tools for online discussions though, including being able to tag message after-the-fact by crowdsourcing like Slashdot does. Here is one of many posts I've mode on that, this one when in 2010 someone reposted an email Adrian Bowyer wrote when he unsubscribed from the RepRap list:
https://groups.google.com/foru...

Still, there are no doubt people out there at any given time trying to hurt others or do shocking things purely for the shock value for whatever reason. It is hard to know what to do with the worst sort of trolling, as mentioned by someone else in another comment:
"Robin William' daughter gives up social media due to abusive messages"
http://www.japantoday.com/cate...

Such really awful messages probably comes in part out of the fact that the internet deprives people of social cues that would happen in face-to-face interactions. See also on progressive desensitization:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
"Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) is a non-fiction book by social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, first published in 2007. It deals with cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias and other cognitive biases, using these psychological theories to illustrate how the perpetrators (and victims) of hurtful acts justify and rationalize their behavior. It describes a positive feedback loop of action and self-deception by which slight differences between people's attitudes become polarized."

http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/japan-launches-rocket-with-robot-for-space-station

With all due respect to the victims and their families and friends - this isn't world news. In quite a few parts of the world, not just Iraq and Afghanistan, that's a small note somewhere on page 5 of the local newspaper.

It seems the world disagrees with you. This are all page one stories at sites that span the world.

Germany - USA: Explosionen beim Boston-Marathon - drei Tote, hundert Verletzte
Russia , (Act of terrorism committed in the U.S., numerous victims reported
Australia - US on alert after blasts shatter Boston Marathon killing 3, wounding 140
India - Boston Marathon bombing kills 3, injures over 130
Argentina - Bombs kill 3 people, wound more than 100 at Boston Marathon
United Arab Emirates - Boston Marathon: 3 killed, more than 140 injured as 2 bombs explode near finish line
South Africa - Boston terror attack: Three killed, 100 injured
Japan - 3 dead, more than 110 hurt after two bombs explode near Boston Marathon finish line

So it's not news-worthy for the body count and not for the fact that there was a bomb or two.

Actually it is newsworthy, for both reasons. Mass casualty events tend to be that way. Last I heard the number of bombs was 5-7.

And, most importantly and most disgustingly, we are still thinking in tribal norms. Our own dead and wounded are more important than the foreign ones.

Every family looks after its own first, as does every country. But as to tribes - there aren't really any tribes in the West anymore, none that function anyway. (Were the last the Scotts?) You might try that line of thinking on people from parts of the world that actually do have functioning tribes, such as the Middle East, or Africa. Your disgust will probably be taken as evidence of being crazy. It wouldn't even be a question to them - of course you look after the tribe first, it is a matter of survival. If you can convince the Arabs that making peace with the Jews is preferable to killing them, you might have a chance a reducing tribalism, but I doubt you can eliminate it.

Talking of buffers between reality, in Japan, there has recently been big uptick of teenagers wearing surgical masks at all times, not just when ill. Some comments explaining why include, "it's very tiresome to have to use my face to express my emotions." Here is the article in Japan Today

http://www.japantoday.com/category/entertainment/view/freakonomics-documentary-looks-at-sumo-match-fixing-scandal
http://blackotaku.wordpress.com/2007/11/10/the-japanese-allow-criminals-to-get-away-with-murder/

If something, buy investigating will cause national shame, it will not be investigated. The converse is said to be true also, bring up something you are not suppose to and you trouble may find you.

Nuke zealots actually think that their Magic Power Source has never killed anybody.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-07-17/fukushima-radiation-may-cause-1-300-cancer-deaths-study-finds

There's also the people who weren't hurt, but can never return to their homes or land:

http://www.japantoday.com/smartphone/view/opinions/pure-land-lost-for-fukushima-evacuees

And then there's the contamination issue:

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2012/10/2012102510561941251.html

So how does this compared to the health problems created by the mining and burning coal? You realize that coal pollution is very slightly radioactive itself? Fun trivai fact - if you extracted the uranium from 1 ton of coal and used it in a reactor, it would produce more energy than burning the coal itself.

Nuke zealots actually think that their Magic Power Source has never killed anybody.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-07-17/fukushima-radiation-may-cause-1-300-cancer-deaths-study-finds

There's also the people who weren't hurt, but can never return to their homes or land:

http://www.japantoday.com/smartphone/view/opinions/pure-land-lost-for-fukushima-evacuees

And then there's the contamination issue:

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2012/10/2012102510561941251.html

I completely agree. We need to foster a system like they have in Japan, where students commit seppuku if they don't finish their homework.

2nd article should have been this one, sorry 'bout that

Maybe the game could use a few modern twists and get people prepared for things they haven't given enough thought to. Got some radio-iodine in the milk? The half-life is short. Why not process it into powdered milk and store it until there's no longer a problem? Could farmers or the department of agriculture use cloud seeding to cause pollution to be dumped in a lower impact area like over the ocean? Could some keep hay in reserve to feed the cows with in case the pasture areas get contaminated for a little while? If farmers got more behind product testing, wouldn't they be less likely to have competitors cheating with melamine?

If animals are fed diets that promote higher acidity and nastier strains of pathogens, crowding promotes spread of pathogens, and heavy use of antibiotics has made resistant pathogens more common, shouldn't the "good" farmers be pushing for more transparency leading to public outcry that helps push desirable reforms?

Does the pubic have an accurate picture of potential dangers? Can a game help make life better?

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110505p2g00m0dm005000c.html

Should farmers have plans to evacuate their cows under bad conditions? Should information have been withheld to keep them and others more calm? Could they have been keep calm while being fully informed?

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110504p2a00m0na005000c.html
earlier report
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110504004563.htm

What can farmers and others do to deal with soil problems?

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110422004322.htm
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/editorial/T110412005529.htm
pdf on dealing with salt in soil
http://www.fao.org/ag/tsunami/docs/saltwater-guide.pdf

Is farming and other industry impacting farming regulated by the right people?
http://www.japantoday.com/category/politics/view/68-elite-bureaucrats-land-power-company-jobs-over-50-yrs

and your suggestion that they used the seawater as soon as necessary is also incorrect. obviously. whether days or hours late, they turned to that last resort after the fuel rods were well exposed and beginning to melt. and the fact that it took days to fill them back up indicates how low on water they had gotten. the question we are debating, as you know, is; did anything other than a command decision prevent keeping the vessels topped off? did the fact that resorting to sea water would cost them billions of dollars delay the decision? from what i can see it did, perhaps there were other technical reasons why they couldnt do it sooner but it has never been presented that way.
btw, it looks like the first salt water injection was on sunday, two days, so my use of 'days' was indeed unfair..."hours" would be more accurate though immaterial. http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/sea-water-injected-into-fukushima-nuclear-plant-edano-warns-of-another-explosion.

MOX (Mixed OXide) is also used by TEPCO at Fukushima-3. Mixed, as in Uranium+Plutonium, the latter being much more toxic. http://www.japantoday.com/category/technology/view/mox-fuel-loaded-into-tokyo-electrics-old-fukushima-reactor http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=28211 At least the MITNSE http://mitnse.com/ folks have buried the paper from that risk-management twit at MIT with the Pollyanna paper which declared Uranium the only fuel at Fukushima, although that lie will take a while to put paid to.

Only old japanese women living in your closet. http://www.japantoday.com/category/crime/view/woman-arrested-for-living-in-closet-in-fukuoka

Really? Last I heard they pulled out of the Japanese market. This article is from 2008:

Nokia, the world’s leading mobile phone maker, said on Thursday it would stop selling and marketing its mobile devices in Japan because its market share there remained below expectations.

“In the current global economic climate, we have concluded that the continuation of our investment in Japan-specific product variants is no longer sustainable,” Timo Ihamuotila, executive vice president at Nokia, said in a statement.

http://www.japantoday.com/category/technology/view/nokia-to-pull-out-of-japanese-market

It's worth mentioning that the Chinese have had the worst social unrest since perhaps the French revolution. The cultural revolution was a populist movement, pushed along by one man who had been sidelined in the government. Lots of people died, lots of great things were destroyed. Given that, it is kind of understandable that the Chinese are wary of avoiding popular unrest.

Another point that needs to be taken into consideration is that the Chinese power structure is not all based in the national government. Just as in the US there is a constant struggle between state power and federal power, in China there is a struggle between the national government and regional governments. One method the national government has as a power lever is manipulation of the people; they are capable of fomenting unrest when they want to foment it (as during the Correfour riots. Some have speculated that the riots were aimed not at the French, but at the city governments to remind them who is in control).

Verizon FIOS tops at 50Mbit/20Mbit down/up for $139/month according to their site.

Now compare that to this from Japan.

"KDDI Corp will launch a fiber-optic communications service with upload and download speeds each of up to one gigabit per second on Oct 1. ... KDDI will charge 5,985 yen in basic monthly fees for Internet and telephone services, down 1,155 yen from the current price."

Yes, they said lowering the price. XE converts 5,985 yen to $66.29 USD. $66 for 1Gbit compared to $139 for 50Mbit.

In everything, from the bottom all the way to the top, American internet speeds and price absolutely suck.

While I agree with your assessment that US schools and society should foster interest and acceptance of more hard science and engineering, and seek to reduce the attractiveness of careers like being the next basketball or hip hop star, using the Japanese method of schooling does have its own set of drawbacks.

http://www.japantoday.com/category/kuchikomi/view/childrens-depression-and-suicide-a-worsening-problem

I think something in the middle between the US methods and the Japanese methods of childhood education might hit the sweet spot a little better.

If that means some short attention span theater stockholder doesn't make enough this quarter..who cares...

I think it is far more important, for the longer range view of humanity in general, that the emphasis is more placed on just being happy and having enough, rather than the great race to see who can accumulate the most electronic digits in some server some place, to be at the top of an unhappy and dysfunctional dystopian society, by being the most strict and ruthless and to use your word, "demanding".

I, for one, to follow the meme and to use an example that everyone here would understand, have absolutely no desire to be part of a society of either extreme (which unfortunately both extremes exist today and ARE being pushed heavily towards); either some zombied/brainwashed out Borg "you as an individual have no worth, and must conform and do exactly as you are programmed to do for the collective" type society, nor a "profits above everything else" type individual greed is king no rules and get out of the way or you are dead Ferengi type society.

Got no use for either, but sadly, those are roughly the two main political tracks on the planet now. Kinda sucks.

If cities would allow no-holds-bared competition, every city would end up looking as if it were overrun by a herd of rabid gophers. It is simply not feasible to have 20 companies run wires/fibre/what-not all over the place.

You mean like these: 1, 2, 3, or 4? Or these: 5, 6? Darn, I wish I had those links, last week another /.er posted links to city views with a bunch more cables.

A saner idea, which some cities have implemented, is to place a whole network of city-owned conduits (essentially weather-proof empty pipes) which then can be leased for a nominal fee by anyone who wishes to run a fibre or some other wiring through them to a customer. Probably even more efficient would be for a city to run optical fibre to all households and simply lease that fiber to whatever competing businesses the residents wishes to be connected to.

It is better than what we have now. A Broadband Utopia does like you say, run fiber to homes and businesses then leases access. Here's the link to TFA.

Falcon

Japan's fingerprint screening system can be fooled by putting tape over your fingers. Seriously.

The Ministry of Justice said they'll have to "review the procedures" because there's "still some trial and error going on". I guess one can always hope they'll see the light, but it looks more likely they'll just say "Grab people's hands and make sure there's no tape on them."

But that is an interesting pic. I wonder what species that is.

Maybe these?

GPS nav has already led unthinking people to their deaths.

For example, http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/413038 Later reports, (can't find, sorry), said that the driver ignored/did not 'see' roadsigns EXPRESSLY FORBIDDING the route. They're now installing a height-restricting gate.

It seems that 'professional' drivers don't bother to prepare their routes using maps any more.
The better maps, and later on route planning websites - Michelin springs to mind, but there are others - have always allowed drivers to see hazards such and weight, height, width restrictions, or steep gradient, and thus plan to avoid them.

Even the better GPS software (iGo...) allows only limited constraints, such as 'don't use unmetalled roads'.

So, yet another example of new tech being treated as a replacement for proper competency instead of as an adjunct to it...

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!

I live in Tokyo and there are of course, tons of vending machines in my neighborhood... the beed and cigarette machines shutdown around 10-11pm and turn back on sometime in the morning hours. When I leave for work in the morning, they are back on. Here's another story about ID's and vending machines: http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/421419 --- This sounds more feasible than the whole facial recognition thing. Anyway... I never see kids at the vending machine, I live in a fairly quiet neighborhood and most everyone is respectable... including the kids. I would imagine in other areas, ecspecially Adachi ward, smoking and dinking is a big problem for underage kids.

Try the Toyota PM (Personal Mobility) Circa 2003.

http://www.viewimages.com/Search.aspx?mid=51436188
http://www.japantoday.com/jp/picture/1008

.

Yep, and they definitely are Kentucky Fried Chicken here in California. I just saw some a few days ago, but it did have me wondering when they switched back to Kentucky Fried Chicken from KFC. Yeh, "We do CHICKEN RIGHT"... Sure, tell that to the chickens...

What's next from KFC? DFAJ? Deep-Fried Alien Jerky?

But, maybe the Colonel will panic when I set up my 130,000 tiles visible from space, saying "COME AND GET US!". But, I guess the department of homeland insecurity will balk or arrest me for that one... I could get 20 years for conspiring to and inciting of an alien invasion.

-----------
Speaking of 20 years...

"Mid-flight sexual play lands U.S couple in trouble"

http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/390426

THAT couple could get 20 years based on made comments to the flight attendant...

Read your own quote. What exactly does "introduced to the Japanese market in April that year" mean to you? Sony put the product on the market in April, 2003. Samsung and JVC are the ones that didn't get to the market until 2005.

Unfortunately "introduced" does not mean that it was placed on the market in this context. Unfortunately whoever used that word in the wikipedia article did not know what it means. As the sibling said, the standard had not even been formalized in 2003. It was literally impossible to sell a Blu-Ray player because Blu-Ray didn't mean anything. In particular they were still fighting over which codecs would be supported in both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray at that time.

Your own link contradicts itself and you did not take this as a reason to go do some additional research? here is an article (in macworld of all places) about how Japan and the US will share a region code when they come out "later this year" - it was from August 17, 2006. Here is an article from Japan today on August 30, 2006 about how Blu-Ray Discs and Players are to go on sale "from November" and also that "Nishitani said Sony plans to release Blu-ray players in the United States around October, but a launch date for Japan has not yet been decided."

YOU CANNOT TRUST WIKIPEDIA AS YOUR ONLY REFERENCE. I sometimes do refer to Wikipedia, and even cite it as a sole reference, but I either know what it is saying is true, or I tend to doublecheck somewhere else to make sure it is not full of shit.

In other words, you are a dumbfuck. Please go away and do not return. Thank you. BTW I may flame, but I'm correct, which puts me ahead of your sorry ass.

Well for everyone who says don't learn Japanese or Japanese is too hard, or other such nonesense. It is a difficult language to learn but not impossible if you are motivated enough to spend the time doing so, but it can be fun at the same time. Learning Japanese is a great endeavor and I wish you luck.

Most naysayers have very little practical experience speaking/reading/writing Japanese.

As for me, I'm probably not as good as I should be.
Now, I'm not fluent, but speak pretty decent Japanese, I can write about 1000 kanjis and can read nearly 1500. I've been studying for quite some time though. Also my wife is Japanese, and I've dated a number of Japanese women and I've lived in Japan. I speak with her nearly daily in half Japanese and half English. I've also worked for nearly 3 years in Tokyo.

Depending on where you live, I would recommend taking some classes to get your feet wet, FIND Japanese friends. If you are single, find a Japanese girl, many of the girls I dated wanted me to learn more and were happy that I wanted to learn and studied Japanese. So they helped ALOT! My wife also happens to be a Japanese language teacher, but she is too strict with me, so I gave up on her giving me formal lessons, though the informal ones are the best.

I'm still learning and I'm nearly 40, but I'm always finding out new things.

The two really difficult things about learning Japanese are the particles and Kanji. The best way for me was to really learn the radicals and learn how to 'break' 'up' the kanji into small components, this way you can easily recognize much more complicated kanji.

Speaking and Listening are just a matter of using it. Watching Anime can help, but watching Japanese TV/movies and dramas with or without subtitles can beneficial too.

Check out this series of books for learning Japanese:

http://genki.japantimes.co.jp/index.en.html

Some good dictionaries:

http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/wwwjdic.html

http://linear.mv.com/cgi-bin/j-e/dict

Learning Kanji:

Guide to Writing Kanji & Kana Book 1: A Self-Study Workbook for Learning Japanese Characters (Tuttle Language Library) (Paperback)
ISBN: 0804833923

Find Japanese friends (girls)
http://friends.japantoday.com/

Just don't tell Japanese girls you are into Anime, they will generally run the other way.
Finding Japanese girls who are really into Anime, are well not as common as you would like or would think. Nearly all the girls I've dated thought guys who were into Anime or Manga were gross.

So I told them I'm only into Studio Ghibli, then they think your cool. :-)

Also, consider taking a break from doing IT or whatever you do and go teach English in Japane for 6 months to a year.

Good Luck

More about this angle from Japan Today, and another story suggesting beer has the same health benefits as red wine.

Here's a link that does not require registration:

http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=8&id =353473

The article also mentions the time he spent in a U.S. internment camp.

If showing sexual content and harsh language to children leads to the lowest birthrate among teenager, then we should do that...since we have the highest teenage birth rate. Japan's is 4, ours is 64, and this data comes from unicef.org, not exactly a obscure or untrustworthy source.

http://www.unicef.org/pon96/inbirth.htm


And do you know how many abortions are there in Japan?

Here it says that abortion in japanese teenagers has more than quadrupled. This article, even though it's old, states that abortion is under-reported.

...but that you have no idea that not only do people in Japan have less sex...


Guess that if you're talking about knowing japanese culture, you've heard of "enjo kosai" and its reality, or not?

The administration of President George W Bush cut the $27.1 million budget requested by the Corps of Engineers for improving the levees in 2005 by more than 80% to $3.9 million, although Congress finally raised the grant to $5.7 million, compared to $10 million in 2001.

The $100 million 2005 budget requested by the Southeast Louisiana Flood control project was slashed to $16.5 million by Bush and Congress finally awarded $34 million to the scheme, compared to $69 million in 2001.

[Not much different from the US with "click here to install hot coed screen savers". The points of origination and destination are always the weakest, especially the people.]

Except that the destination, in offshoring, is orders of magnitude weaker. And so is everything in between...

[The sure fire ticket of IT was another in the cycle of sure fire jobs, that eventually weren't, just like the aerospace boom of the 80's.]

Actually, it was the last of them. I remember one telemarketer woman that called me and that I talked into getting into tech support in 1996(?). She was a single mother of two and earning 6 bucks an hour plus a paltry commish. She heard my pitch, ditched her job and came over to my employer - Countrywide internal support - which paid us $15/hr to support company workers and their PCs. That was a two and a half fold income increase for her, and she eventually made it into software testing. Not bad for a 33 year old single mom from da h00d.

I wonder if you realize the magnitude of what we've lost now that talented people like her will never be tapped because the barrier to entry to anything but McDonald's is completely closed to inexperienced newcomers.

[The internet has cause much more issues with IP theft. It's something that individual companies have to take into account when they make their decision. Sometimes offshoring helps, as it gives them a presence in the region. A company with a plant in China, can put much more pressure on the goverment. Also, as industry grows in those areas, they will lobby for increased protections. I'm sure Bollywood is asking for more and more protections as they now stand to lose more money with IP theft.]

As I pointed out, Cicso lobbied and sued in China for protection and China told them to screw off. The internet can't lead to stealing whole car designs; look at China's Cherry QQ and compare it to Chevrolet's Spark. Inside and out, it is a knockoff.

IP theft is a lot easier when a Chinese spy can tap the factory itself than tapping a computer on the internet. All the internet security in the three universes and infinity and beyond is, as I said, irrelevant when you can get the information - *ahem* - factory direct.

[It reminds me of the "buy american" campaign during the early 90's recession. Of course it didn't work, because people didn't want to pay more for american made products. In the end even though people weren't buying american, we didn't slip into a depression. We continued to innovate and create higher value items]

Actually, we didn't create higher value textiles, electronics or cars - the three major things that got offshored. All the higher value clothes, consumer electronics and cars, come from Taiwan and other offshored nations.

We gave all of that up, and now the next generation of cars - hybrids - aren't even being made here. GM and Ford are light years behind Toyota in that regard, such that Toyota is being forced to raise prices in order to save Ford and GM! See: http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=3&id =342227

Cars, computers and cell phones are still the highest value products, and all of it is being made overseas. In fact, Japan gets even higher value products than we do. You would cry if you saw the PDAs, cell phones and even computers that they sell over there. So exactly what higher value items did we "innovate"?

Yes, you have proven that people go for what is cheap. There's no argument there. But that does not prove that we're going to create "higher value products".

[The middle class in China has been expanding, as this happens there will be more push towards democracy.]

Democracy won't happen in China, no matter how big the middle class is. Democracy in the US is being wiped out by wealthy people, why would wealth create democracy somewhere else?

[A 1950's manufacturing job could support a lower stan

And, Lord knows, this was a slashdot-specific story, and you certainly couldn't have gotten details anywhere else before you opened your mouth.

And do note, they're employed there, they don't have to work there. They may not live anywhere near Akhibara (this wouldn't be at all unusual, lots of people commute to work in Japan, some have multi-hour trips). They took the job knowing what it entailed. You never know, they might actually like the job and what they do. That'd hardly be degrading.

You've also assumed that all the otaku like that kind of thing, but that's not correct either. Not every cafe is like that, they cater to different tastes. Someone else pointed out an article on Japan Today that's more accurate and less biased. One of the cafes it talks about the waitresses all wear long full skirts and elegant maid-style uniforms. That's not very degrading.

You should also note that wearing a uniform for work is a common practice in Japan. In fact at most places the employees change at work. Fancy/cute uniforms are quite common for females in many job areas. And we can't forget the extremely common school uniforms females have to wear from middle school up. Some elementary schools have uniforms too but it's less common.

i present for your enjoyment, the Akihabara home page, plus an intriguing article entitled: Akihabara becomes geek sex paradise. :-)))

They just might not be so externally obvious as the ones in the US.

I don't think Japan, which has had at least as big a shake up as the US, has seen the rise of a large religiously motivated subculture.

There was an interesting, albeit cursory, article touching on this recently in the free mag Metropolis that's worth a look. Let's not forget Aum Shinrikyo and the Tokyo subway gas attack. And it's also worth mentioning that pseudo/quasi-religious groups like the Raelians have a visible presence here. The big difference between here and the US seems to be that the more problematic religious groups in Japan are all relatively new.

There has also been a lot written about how quickly Japan has changed and the dizzying effects of history being lost so quickly -- the tangible history of family heirlooms, old houses, even mountains and rivers, literally disappearing before your very eyes. Most of this writing has been in Japanese, naturally, as it's part of the dialog here internal to the country and its culture, but there has been some in English. The only title I currently have to mind is Dogs and Demons by Alex Kerr, admittedly a honky, but one that grew up here. If it's any indication of his credentials in terms of Japanese society, he is the first non-citizen to win Japan's Shincho literary prize for works written in Japanese, so I take his writings on the country with a smaller grain of salt than for most other gaijin authors.

However, I will certainly grant you that the US is undergoing its own peculiar reaction to so much change. I've often found myself thinking along lines similar to clive_p's comment, that part of the religious character of the US is built atop a set of beliefs and creeds that proved too extreme and inflexible for Europe. Though religious refugees certainly don't account for all US immigration by any means, I wonder how much this might have to do with the current kerfuffle?

Just my ¥2 to add to this discussion...

Japanese beat us to it

has been around for quite a while. People just think its a lot like nudity, thats all. Try woodstock or martigra for references.

And of course, there is even a japanese company selling spray on stockings, so I wouldnt call it future technology. But I'd definitely like to see more of it.

Don't forgot that the European observers were not allowed to enter some polling stations - somebody hiding something?

Yup, Iran is pleased with this outcome...

Anybody else?

Koizumi retracts stated support for Bush's reelection

Saturday, October 16, 2004 at 08:17 JST
TOKYO -- A day after saying he hoped U.S. President George W Bush would be reelected, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Friday effectively retracted his earlier remark after drawing fire from the opposition and forcing his aides onto the defensive.

"It's not good to interfere in another country's election. Japan-U.S. relations are important and Japan will firmly develop the alliance no matter who is president," Koizumi told reporters the day after saying he wants Bush to retain the presidency. (Kyodo News)

The PM of japan has since retracted his support of Bush.

I think both Japan and Australia, as well as Poland have declared support for Bush as well. I'm sure we could find more.

--trb

I have not yet seen it announced.

Watch out Apple!

(linked image is Safe for Work...)