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Don't say stuff like that on the internet.

For all you know it might cause some agent dressed as a Rastafarian to read if, conclude OPERATION DREIDEL-YAMULKE has gone live, snap their laptop shut and go off to kill someone.

On the contrary, I would have said that Japanese sites are most notable for the huge-wall-of-text-on-a-plain-or-patterned-background design style. For instance:

http://www31.ocn.ne.jp/~kabuky/kiminote1.html
http://www.geocities.jp/teikakaku_videocards/kako/1080732188.html

They`re a lot easier to find when I`m not looking for them. I`m talking about pages that are lightyears long and nothing but text (and probably not updated since 2003)

http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~tuner/tuner_e.html
TUNER_E
free universal tuning software/metronome.

Actually I have the 100 Mbit service with Optic fiber .. although I dont live in a big city (fukui , japan) I can get it for 50 usd a month
my provider.

I have this FTH service in japan since last month and is very nice ... my only complain is that is very hard to get high transmition rates with the service... only if you are using things in japan . The cost is about 80 dollars a month and television services can be used on demand ( for a fee of course ). A link in english to my provider .

Would it look like this?

If anything, it is actually cheaper, this as an example keeping in mind that $1 = 108 yen about(though usually that number is higher), also they offer a lot more options in case you really don't need a ton of speed.
However, I dont' know how many houses actually have broadband. I'm not sure on this, but I do believe that a smaller percentage of Japanese own computers versus Americans. With the advent of relatively decent data services on one's cell phone(email, entertainment listings etc) I don't think a lot of Japanese are actually interested in computers.
Also keep in mind that Japanese age demographics are also different from the US. Due to a very low birth rate and very restrictive immigration, as a percentage, there are a lot less youths and a lot more elderly people in Japan than there are in the US.

If this interests you, be sure to check out Erik Demaine's work at MIT, Issei Yoshino's Super Complex Origami, HOYJO Takashi, Biruta Kresling's Keikki Bamboo folds, Robert Lang's Design Secrets of Origami, Robert Hull's Origami^3 compilation. Not all computational origami looks mathematical but the methods for getting to and end are clearly designed from step one. Quite frankly I understand very little of the math, but I can appreciate the elegance of an efficient fold.

A helpful Google lands a couple dandy images for the uninformed (like myself).

The weird thing about this mouse is that it had neither a mouse ball nor an optical sensor. Instead, it had 2 cam-like wheels that spun around (only in the horizontal plane) when you moved it. There's a picture on this page. There's a better picture here, but it still doesn't show you how the little buggers rotate. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a diagram. It's DEC part number VSXXX-AA.

A large number of providers offer IPv6 support today. NTT/Verio has been offering this as a Commercial Service for quite some time, as well as through the domestic provider OCN and the OCN DSL services. As the 6bone tunneled networks go away, there is ongoing native support being added to networks. IETF and other conferences have been supporting providers that offer native IPv6 services. Aside from the always behind the ball DSL/Cable providers in the edge provider space of multicast, IPv6, etc.. you can contact any of the Tier-1 networks to obtain IPv6 services. Likely for free and not out of the 3FFE space. Build IPv6 into your kernels, ask your service providers for IPv6 and encourage them to provide these to you for little/no additional cost. Juniper and Cisco routers currently offer IPv6 in their current software releases. Now that Cisco has acquired Linksys, hopefully they will assist in providing support for these services in the edge-router space.

Broadband via cable TV is available, but cable modems are a fairly new thing over there and many apartments don't have the cable lines anyway. (Take a look at any apartment building in Japan and you'll see dozens of those mini satellite dishes perched on the balconies.) However, if you want cable TV and broadband Internet, you can get a pretty good deal by combining the two -- about 80 USD/month. You might need a local friend to help you, though, because most cable providers don't have English-speaking customer service.

If you just want the Internet access, a better option is ADSL, which has exploded in popularity over the last couple of years. Before ordering, you first need to decide whether you want land-line (as opposed to cellular) phone service. If you want a land line, get ADSL Type I, which includes phone service and Internet access. If you plan to get a cell phone in Japan, choose ADSL Type II, which provides Internet access only, but for a lower price.

The cheapest ADSL service is probably Yahoo! Japan BB, but they don't provide any English support, not even for sales. You're better off going with a company that has a dedicated English-speaking support line such as Global OnLine or eAccess. Unfortunately, these providers usually serve only the larger metropolitan areas, so if you're in a suburb or a smaller town, your only choice might be good old NTT. All you have to do is call the English-speaking sales line for NTT (the number depends on whether you live in the east or in the west) and tell them you want ADSL Type II. They'll be happy to hook you up for about 25 USD/month, and you can rent an ADSL modem from them for another 5 USD/month. Important tip: NTT will send you a CD-ROM containing PPPoE drivers that only work with the Japanese version of Windows, so you should download the freeware program RASPPPOE before you go and bring it along with you. It's compatible with NTT's ADSL modems.

There's another catch: Because NTT only provides the physical ADSL connection, you'll need to find an ISP that supports ADSL. I got mine through OCN for about 20 USD/month. They offer sales and support in English.

The Macintosh has about the same percentage of market share in Japan as in the U.S. (in other words, not much), so you can expect the same level of support and availability over there that you'll find here. I expect it's entirely possible to hook up your Mac to a Japanese ADSL modem, but don't expect much technical support if things go wrong. (I had no trouble connecting through my Linux laptop once I got the Roaring Penguin configuration set up right.) As for 802.11b, coverage is almost non-existent, although just about everyone over there does email wirelessly through their cell phone. Text messaging and services like DoCoMo are far more popular than the Internet in Japan, at least for now.

You should visit the ISP Japan FAQ for more details. You might also want to check out my Japan page for tips on living and working in Japan.

Click me!

I actually used some of these, these and these to build
some of these. They
tried to stop me by using these
and these
but I did not give in!
I know a guy and he helped me to bring these in so we could design and design some more and build some of these and these and fight everyone off and scary the rest.

So finally, I could use more of
these and these and these to get my freakingly cool nuclear powered microprocessor.

Babelfish translation of the text (brace yourselves):

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Babelfish translation of the text (brace yourselves):

As for the black color conversion iMac flat panel, the work of the Suyama senior of the Suyama tooth research which already adapts in disassembly paint of the numerous Mac. The greedy search to side Mack of work of tooth course skill manufacture each time is surprised. We have become the good opportunity where information of medical technology with respect to HP by your you expand the width of interest with the information whose it is few usually to touch, it covers public and private matters and when conversing with the person on the eye even, it has utilized as the information where is useful. And the case of information of analog record MP3 conversion, astringent phase such as tune selection. As for me the Japanese of the sixties pop (as for me liking the singer, hill ??, it does) with only recurrence of the CD being you have not heard, you enjoy even with this. What looked at the activity of the in the first place Suyama senior by your will try customizing with reached conceivably with opportunity. You gave the opportunity where Mac heat accelerates more and more.

> From the article, it's unclear how deep in the network the fiber goes; anyone have more information on that? I'd like some fiber to my apartment, but it's rather far from Japan right now ...

I live in a medium-sized (900,000 people) urban centre in central Japan and I have about as much hope of getting fiber to my door in the next ten years as I had getting Internet access in 1990. Which is nil. You'll get your fiber long before I do!

The article is only talking about a pilot project in an urban centre. That probably means less than 10,000 subscribers in Tokyo and Osaka with the rest of the nation being rolled out about the year 3085.

Basically, Internet access sucks in this country--both in price and in lack of bandwidth. And fiber just isn't going to happen any time soon!

True, NTT has one of the most advanced ISDN infrastructures in the world. Hell, I can walk up to almost any payphone--even in between two rice paddies--and "plug in".

But ISDN is part of the problem. NTT has invested giga-yen into it and they will do their damnedest to milk it for all the revenue they can--including delaying offering new services that would make ISDN obsolete.

You can get 128K ISDN dial-up connections to your ISP from anywhere in Japan but if you want a 24-hour connection (that avoids the 3.3 yen/min toll charges on local calls) you have to sign up for OCN Economy. The name is ironic: They charge 32,000 yen (US$298 ) per month for it. At least they throw in 8 IP addresses.

Never mind fiber, when they roll out ADSL they are only going to be able to charge about 4500 yen, eroding their ISDN revenue base and pissing off a lot of corporate customers who signed long-term (3 year) contracts for OCN Economy. Watch: Before ADSL goes nation-wide, NTT will at least half the price of OCN Economy.

NTT introduced another pilot in November 1999: a flat-rate ISDN service for 8000 yen per month. This one, aimed at non-corperate users, doesn't include the cost of your ISP and I'm not even sure if it has a static IP address. In May they expanded it to cover several more wards of Tokyo and also Osaka City but this service is still a pilot (30,000 subscribers) and not outside of the two urban centres. Walk into a local NTT in my city and ask about this or ADSL and they hand you a pamphlet for OCN Economy saying that it is the lowest priced service they offer.

Similar pilots are underway with ADSL with plans to roll out nation wide in less than a year, but I've been hearing these kinds of announcements for years. I've learned not to get my hopes up.

Looking on the bright side, even if I can't get ADSL before 2002, when NTT lowers it's prices on OCN Economy this year, I will at least be able to get it for less than I am paying now in dial-up charges: My current NTT local-call toll charges to my ISP are between 15,000 to 25,000 yen a month!

On another front, I was supposed to get cable Internet access a year ago. I went to my local cable company the other day to get a status report. They said my area was pushed back--slated for 2002. They didn't seem to think there was any need to hurry, the high cost of upgrading their equipment being the main excuse for the delay. I talked directly to one of their technical staff and explained to them how ADSL was going to beat them to the market. They hadn't even heard of ADSL! I got the impression that they simply don't understand the concept of competition, having been granted a monopoly on CATV services for their region. Anyway, they charge about 80,000 yen for installation.

So what about fiber? NTT is talking about offering their "Medium/High-Speed IP Service" this year, in areas where they already have FTTH (fiber to the home). So what homes already have fiber? Not many even in Tokyo. And a year ago NTT's projection on a nation-wide network of fiber feeder cables was 2010.

I say "Dream on...!".