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The Japanese/American Tech Deficit
Why do the Japanese get all the coolest gadgets, while the U.S. is left with the second-tier, less-innovative ones? The San Francisco Chronicle delves into this age-old mystery and provides a few explanations for those of us who don't live near Akihabara.
Sigs cause cancer.
That article makes a lot of sense, especially about the cultural differences. The extremely tight real estate market ensures that people live with their parents for a long time, and that guarantees a higher level of disposable income. I can relate to that myself. Back in the summer of 1994, while I was working at Babbages and living at home, I bought an Atari Jaguar, and practically every game released for it.
The store manager's wife asked me how I could afford all that, and I told her that I had 100% disposable income. She freaked, and hated me forever for that comment, but it was true! I couldn't afford my own place or even a car, but I could buy all the game cartridges I wanted.
Mike van Lammeren
It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.
Such as laptops, recognized as a growing fertility risk.
Gadgets
Because they'll actually buy and use them?
Sigs are for squares. Like pants!
Why do the Japanese get all the coolest gadgets, while the U.S. is left with the second-tier, less-innovative ones?
Maybe, just maybe it's because Japanese made those gadgets.
Or maybe it's just a "grass-is-greener" syndrome.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
I live in Japan and these Credit Card phones have been out for atleast 5 months. That said, I use one and it's really handy. Riding the trains is very nice since I don't have to wait in line to buy tickets any more. Untill the tech. is adopted in more convenience stores outside of the train stations though, I'll still need my change purse.
As we all know, the japanese love to use cash anyway, so I feel like a tech like this stands a better chance at becomming really really popular in the US or Europe, where credit cards are more commonly accepted. Pretty frequent to have busniess associates of mine get into jams at nice resturants because they don't have enough cash.
In Soviet russia, only old Koreans profit from pictures of Natalie Portman stored on Beowulf Clusters.
One of my main reasons which drive me to move back to asia, for all the gadget glory.
Upon waking up in the morning, Johnny stumbles to the bathroom to answer the call of nature using the household's amazing Matsushita-brand Smart Toilet, which automatically measures his weight, body fat, blood pressure and urine sugar and sends the results to the Sokko family physician via the Internet.
how many doctors in US would really want to know that in the morning.. no, really?
...USA lags behind Europe too. Europe was quicker to adopt the digital mobile world with SMS and e-payment. USA has been the leader in big iron, Japan and Europe leaders in small, creative and applied tech.
because we spend our money on the latest and greatest weapons and warfare.
inarguably.
Any industrial designer will explain to you: it's the J-factor. A mysterious power that comes from Japanese design. If you need to ask, you'll never understand.
Well, that's what an industrial designer told me when I asked.
Collective Type Project
Maybe if you didn't buy all the games you could have afforded a car/place to live...
but then it all comes down to priorities, and for some those are not priorities.
moo.
it is a lot harder to change around cell technologies due to how spread out the US is, Japan you have a dense packed population.
if we were all packed into rhode island you would see some awesome technology becuase updating the infrastrucutre would take no time at all.
watch in 5 minutes someone will submit the story
"Japan beta-tests U.S. consumer goods"
frankly i rather they do... they spent the money on crap while we get the working model
Personally I'm glad that the USA has this conservative streak, as it acts as a bulwark against extremism of all kinds.
Could it be that I prefer to not be monitored by my toilet?
Sidebar: Our Top Japan-Only Gizmo Picks
Let's call him Johnny Sokko. A deputy assistant office manager and aspiring rock guitarist, Johnny lives in Tokyo in a cramped three-bedroom apartment shared with his parents and his teenage sister. Upon waking up in the morning, Johnny stumbles to the bathroom to answer the call of nature using the household's amazing Matsushita-brand Smart Toilet, which automatically measures his weight, body fat, blood pressure and urine sugar and sends the results to the Sokko family physician via the Internet. Over breakfast, he checks his daily schedule on his Sharp Zaurus SL-C3000 -- the first PDA to feature a 4-gigabyte internal hard drive -- and confirms he's free until noon. Great; he can spend the morning trying to beat the Puzzle Bobble Pocket high score his sister rang up on his brand-new Sony PlayStation Portable.
Meanwhile, back in the U.S. of A., John Smith rises from his bed before dawn, roused by the crowing of the family rooster. He splashes some creek water on his face, then hikes out to milk the goats. Before he returns from the barn, he checks the suspension on the family buggy and makes sure the horses are properly shod -- it's market day, and if the weather's fine, he might get the chance to ride into town with Pa ...
Not the fairest of contrasts, given that the Amish actually make up a very small percentage of the U.S. population, but the fact remains: there's a tremendous divide between the average Japanese consumer and his Stateside counterpart. Call it the gadget gap or the device deficit -- call it what you will, as long as you recognize that, where cool high-tech stuff is concerned, America is light-years behind its counterparts in the Far East.
"I've been going to Akihabara [Tokyo's renowned electronics district] for 20 years, and I'm still amazed at the vitality of the scene -- the number of incredible toys you can find there," says David J. Farber, distinguished career professor of computer science and public policy at Carnegie-Mellon University and former chief technologist of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. "You have stores that specialize in selling nothing but little robots. You have your tiny electronic devices -- cameras, music players. You have incredibly convenient kitchen gizmos. Every time I come back, I bring home something new."
Japan's trade surplus with the United States remains astronomically high, at over $6 billion; yet any regular reader of technophile Web sites such as I4U, Engadget or Gizmodo knows that the world's biggest exporter of consumer electronics regularly keeps its most innovative and exciting widgetry to itself, selling it only to the domestic market. Cell phones that do everything but make toast (although appropriate attachments are probably available from third-party accessory vendors). Gigapixel digital cameras. Laptops so tiny that "My dog ate my homework" is once again a valid excuse. And, of course, the most incredible toilets in the history of humankind.
Some of these devices eventually plod over to U.S. shores months or even years after they've become obsolete in Japan. But many never arrive here at all. Why is it that Japanese manufacturers (and, increasingly, those in Korea and China as well) have such a death grip on consumer-electronics cool? And why are Americans deprived of the choicest fruits of this technological bounty?
The answers to these questions offer an intriguing look at how culture shapes technology -- and vice versa.
May the (Market) Forces Be with You
Japan's gizmo utopia exists in part because of a happy harmonic convergence between its domestic market and its industrial sector: Japanese consumers are intensely style and status conscious, willing to pay more for better and cooler features and motivated to upgrade their core electronic devices at least annually, and sometimes even every six months.
"Japanese
Yeah it's really true, but even wierder, why do Americans put up with such slow crappy cars, instead of fast cars like here in Germany? (I drove to work this morning at a max of 190 kilometers /hour, about 120 mph) I can't figure that one out either.
"...Johnny stumbles to the bathroom to answer the call of nature using the household's amazing Matsushita-brand Smart Toilet, which automatically measures his weight, body fat, blood pressure and urine sugar and sends the results to the Sokko family physician via the Internet."
Does that toilet also have a camera in it that broadcasts Johnny's butt to the viewers of televisions in the house? Hey, maybe that Simpsons episode was quite accurate in their portrayal of Japan!
As geeky as the average Slashdotter is, the majority of Americans wouldn't be caught dead with some of the lame stuff that comes out of Japan. I mean, DDR? Perfect example.
... having lived in Japan and been to Akihabara I can tell you it's easy to have far more product, and far better quality product, in Japan because it has a massive population on a place the size of Nova Scotia.
With housing costs so high people live with family and have lots of spending money. Money to get this years new "whatever" model.
Wakata?
I didn't bother to read the article. I lived it.
no whining! europeans get 'em even later. AND your mass-produced hollywood "blockbusters" AND the new and "kewl" computer games BUT (sadly) we do get new and more absurd american copyright laws about every half a year :(
Why do the Mennonites get all the good stuff first?
I'm moving to Japan.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
How about the space defecit? You know, the fact that Americans seem to have much more room to live in? Comparing national mores is hard, subjective, and, in the end, usually pointless.
At least we can import Japanese technology. Customs won't confiscate something for not complying with FCC regulations, but they will confiscate food!
In Europe you're allowed to make and sell things that contain non-pasturized dairy products. In the US, you're not. Apparently americans aren't allowed to determine for themselves what is or isn't an acceptable risk. So the best European young cheeses and chocolates have poor substitutes as their namesakes in the US.
To make matters worse, they've convinced people here that "ultra-pasturized" means "better", even though it just means they used extra high temperatures to get it done more quickly and save money at the expense of flavor. That means the milk here doesn't taste nearly as good as it could under the current regulations. All this in the name of safety, yet at the same time, you can't get irradiated beef...
Sigh.
Japan always gets the cool cars first and sometimes they get them exclusively. For instance, the Skyline, which would by many predictions sell like hotcakes in the states and the STI. Its not just Japan either (as with SMS mentioned earlier), Australia also gets the cooler cars...think Ford Falcon.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Japanese guy: "Yes, We may have best gadgets, but you Americans have bigga penis"
Judging by all the Hummer II's I've been seeing, not so much.
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
http://news.com.com/Linux+groups+patch+image+flaw/ 2100-1002_3-5484080.html?tag=nefd.top
Johnny stumbles to the bathroom to answer the call of nature using the household's amazing Matsushita-brand Smart Toilet, which automatically measures his weight, body fat, blood pressure and urine sugar and sends the results to the Sokko family physician via the Internet.
"Your urine contains traces of an illegal subtance. The bathroom door has been locked and the police has been notified. Please remain seated until they arrive.
Thank you for using Matsushita."
1) don't really want them very badly, and
2) don't have the infrastructure to support most of them (see (1)).
The Japanese are largely status-seeking early-adopters, says the article, while most Americans just don't care. Fewer Americans are early adopters, and those of us who are into conspicuous consumption prefer non-technological money wasters, like big houses, Persian rugs, and so on.
I'd say that most Americans I've met resemble those remarks.
There. Now you don't have to waste any time reading the article.
See what I've been reading.
True, but let's put this into perspective. I mean - it's not like we don't have some cool toys of our own.
[Ours just aren't quite so damned gay...]
My wife is Japanese so we get to go to Japan once a year or so. Last year we got a 'Meowlingual' which really is very accurate on translating a cat's needs/wants/and moods. My wife mentioned that Taraka is making a handheld Universal Translator - when you speak into it - it will translate what you said into different languages or will translate what someone says into your language. Anyone heard about that?
Still Mud? Try www.phoenixmud.org!
Wow! The power of a Plastation *1* with a tiny screen! Be still my heart! Sorry, but small and portable does not automatically equate to "cool" anymore. I feel the same lack of caring I felt when cell phones started having games I played on my Atari 800. TrueEnvy Factor: 0
2. Sharp Zaurus SL-C3000:
Another dumbass tiny computer running a dumber ass OS. Who cares? Why is this cool? TruEnvy Factor: One complimentary BSOD.
3. DoCoMo "Mobile FeliCa" Payment System:
Wow. More ways to spend money. I'm sure retailers like this. Is it that difficult to slide the credit card through the little slot, and then just pay the bills at the end of the month? Have some perspective, folks. People use to have to carry cows, sheep and dughters around with them in order to effect trade. And DoCoMo sounds like a Pokemon creature. TruEnvy Factor: -2
4. The NEC V601N:
TeeVee on my cell phone. Who cares? What sort of deprived life do you have to lead to give a fook about this stuff? TrueEnvy Factor: Undetectable by modern scientific instrumentality.
5. SONY Clie VZ-90:
I bought a PDA once. Within a month I was back to a small Meade paper and pen based scheduling system and never looked back. TruEnvy Factor: Planck's constant.
6. Takara's Dream Factory
New Age hits Japan. I fear for the anime industry. TrueEnvy Factor: Three tenths of a quartz crystal.
7. Sony HMP-A1 Portable Media Player: Wish your iPod could play back movies?
No. Not really.
Sony hopes you do.
Sony would like the PIN numbers to my accounts as well.
Its new HMP-A1 PMP offers 20 gigabytes of MP3 and MPEG-4 playback goodness
*snore*
it even has a video-out jack so you can watch your flicks on a big-screen TV instead of its embedded sharp but tiny 3.5-inch screen.
Thus illustrating its pointlessness. TrueEnvy Factor: One negasphere of nonexistence.
--- Ban humanity.
Check out Dynamism for import gear with US warranties and support. Compact Impact has some cool gear to show off, and also has a showroom in the East Village (this store was previously named TKNY). If you are a New Yorker, the showroom is worth a visit, because the owner is a wacky guy who makes custom computers without moving parts.
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
Harpo Tunnel Syndrome--my wrist feels funny.
Market conditions in Japan and America are locked in a cause/effect loop. Underneath the Japanese teen rage for new devices, and the American sloth in buying a few innovations at WalMart, are the marketing machines behind the markets.
"Japan's trade surplus with the United States remains astronomically high, at over $6 billion; yet [Japan] keeps its most innovative and exciting widgetry to itself, selling it only to the domestic market."
Neither Japanese manufacturers nor American stores want to take big risks in marketing untested products to a fickle market, but they also depend on competing with their old devices based largely on "newness". So Japanese manufacturers test their devices in Japan, figuring out which are popular with whom, before they send any to the US to be sold for the big revenue.
None of that is going to change any time soon. The only way for Americans to get stuff first, as a test market, is to make it first. Like we do with content: movies, music, fashion; American manufacturers test that stuff here (even when the factories are overseas), then market the winners over there. It's not so much where the factories are, as where are the innovators and marketers, and the test markets where they can afford to fail before going global.
--
make install -not war
That article's layout is so horrible. The entire text is in One small column to the left. Lynx renders it so much better!
Tip of the Day: Click 'Print version' or whatever it's called, and it will lay the article out in a normal fashion.
Works on a great many sites which stupid layouts in fact. Having the text taking up a large %age of the screen allows you to resize it as you fit, one of the wonders provided by most windowing systems.
(x) Check here to recieve a new tip with every post.
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." (attrib. Joseph Stalin)
I have this book called '283 useful inventions from japan.' While a lot of them are great, and even simple designs that would make life much nicer in the states(like why don't we have pillows that allow proper airflow so they don't overheat?), a lot of them are absolutely useless and seem to have been designed just because they can be. I sure won't ever use the portable blatter sack. Just because they have the ability, doesn't mean they have the need.
Slartibartfast:"Is that your robot?"
Marvin:"No, I'm mine."
hey, be happy you don't live in Europe! We get the cool gadgets even later than the US and for twice the price anyways. And don't even _think_ about current movies!
The US doesn't recruit the mad geniuses the way Japan does. Japan has an aggressive program that attracts and subsidizes their research in many important fields, such as mecha research, mind control rays, cellular reanimation techniques, and psychic enhancement. As a result, we are trailing behind Japan in the tech race.
Some have pointed out that we don't have giant robots battling in the strees, gangs of psychic mutant orphans roaming the streets, and little to no defense against nude female aliens with magical powers, but I for one don't really find that to be a realistic assesment of the situation. As anyone in Japan can tell you, those problems are more than adequately delt with by the superhero cyborg schoolgirls that roam the countryside.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I think the biggest problems are the strict regulations in North America. It's good that they are protecting us comsumers. On the other hand, we don't get to buy the latest and greatest "toys" from Japan. For example, the new Toyota MR2 is not available in Canada because of our higher crash-test standard (the front bumper fails). Also, rediculous lawsuits here do scare a lot of companies. It's true that Japaneses are beta-testing for us but products over here are "less-exciting" (things are overly-regulated). Just my 2 cents.
money quote:
""The way business works here is simple," says David J. Farber. "In America, if you have a potential product, you do research, you try to figure out the size of the potential market. And if it's a totally new, totally innovative thing, where no one has any idea of the size of the market, and there's no guaranteed return on a large investment, well, forget it. No American company will touch it. In Japan, it's usually quite the opposite: manufacturers know that the home market loves new stuff; they'll take risks there, hoping that something will catch fire and take off. The only U.S. company that's doing that is Apple, and, honestly, I don't think that even Steve Jobs, in all of his infinite wisdom, thought that the iPod was going to take off the way it has.""
how about that? who knew that I, with my ibook/ipod toting ways, was such a technological zeitgeist?
sig my booty, check my website
Then again, everything is cooler... in Japan!!!
--Chag
Given the topic, I couldn't resist the opportunity to offer up the most shameless of plugs. Shinza.com is devoted to bringing the best Japanese gadgets to your doorstep. Be sure to check the popular line of ZeroShock notebook sleeves. The catalog is a little sparse at the moment, but the coming weeks will bring a lot of changes. Bookmark the site and drop by from time to time!
the Japanese usually tend to be very liberally tech-savvy. it makes sense when you look at the fact that they really dont have much space to farm with. they have to depend upon engineering/manufacturing in order to compete in the world market.
and, as another slashdotter mentioned, we've got our space, theyve got their gadgets.
And as much as people are making fun of some of this tech, don't tell me there wouldn't be a demand in the US for a pressure-activated heated toilet seat, which Japan had more than five years ago.
Of course, hearing the word irradiated beef makes one shudder... since people refuse to understand that irradiating food is one of the safest way of preserving it for long terms without the need for refrigeration, artificial preservatives, etc.
As soon as someone can how me ONE study showing ANY danger from irradiated food, and we can start comparing it against the well know risks of all the other preservation methods.
It's a pity that most people do not try to think about this, but reject it automatically.
Have fun posting.
Japan weren't allowed to develop certain weapons after the second world war, they had to develop other technological industrys.
The US however spends its money elsewhere.
The other aspect this is that more Japanese will pay for the technology. There are endless debates on /. about the cost differential between the lowest priced commodity hardware and Apple for example. How about Qualia? You need to bleed money for that stuff.
The other aspect is acceptance of the non-established. The United States is pretty damn conservative in accepting new technologies and coming to terms with them. People worry about the next Betamax vs. VHS war when the Japanese will just buy more equipment or another phone.
I'm not sure that I'd trade living with mom and dad for cool gadgets, but our tech atmosphere is a little constricting. The late nineties were nice for the very reason that money was being thrown at every possible technology. "No one ever got fired for buying IBM." There is some insight in that statement.
I don't know if you can buy/serve oxtail soup in the US, but you can in Canada. A friend of mine who has lived in the UK was thrilled to see this dish at a mall restaurant, as it is apparently illegal in the UK (mad cow concerns)!
... we do get that (dubious) privilege that some of our European neighbours lack, food-wise ... :-7
So
YS.
"Arrr! The laws of science be a harsh mistress." -- Bender
(Yes, the Segway is still being sold.)
Much of the tech wizardry mentioned in the article centers around telecommunications infrastructure. Rolling out a new generation of telecom in Japan is a lot different than rolling it out in the US. There are many more companies in the US which own the existing infrastructure and a much much larger land area to cover especially with wireless services.
No reason to bring the neat toys to the US if there isn't an infrastructure to make them work. Even Europe has a much easier time rolling out very new technologies because of it's smaller size.
Been there, done that. I still marvel at the population density.
My favorite Japanese technology is the toilet seat. I really got used to the heated seats and cleansing water with adjustable temperature. Not real fond of the $1000 price tag for a toilet seat, though.
I really hated the lack of insulation in townhomes. Hmmm, if the choice is between the latest cell phone or warm home, I'll take the warm home.
I'd really like a PDA/eBook/media player that is equivalent to my HP 4500 (bluetooth, WiFi, SDIO) but with a 4x5 inch screen at 800x600... that way I can somewhat comfortably read an eBook or a web page. The tiny screen on my PDA is useless for this, and tablets are too big and too expensive... Hell, it if only had Acrobat, Media Player, and Internet Explorer, I'd be happy...
Logic is the beginning of reason, not the end of it.
Japan: Ghost in the Shell 2
America: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Japan: "Robots. Cyborgs."
America: "Stem cells are ew! God hates technology! Stop talking on your cell phone! Step away- from the computer!"
It's the imagination. The American imagination is totally unprepared for the new world. We are still busy playing "cowboys and indians."
I may be wrong, but my understanding is that Cybernetics is just a matter of course in Japan. I doubt they'd call it that, but the fundamental assumptions and understandings, I think are commonplace there. Pretty much everyone's psyched up about technology. Some people like it, some people don't, but nobody denies that it's going to happen.
Here in the states, you talk about this stuff, and they look at you like you've just grown a third arm. "Nah, that'll never happen..." "...well, maybe, in a hundred years, but-..."
I'm amazed at how little Americans know about the state of technology. And of what Americans do know, how little it's penetrated their consciousness.
Americans don't want this stuff in their mind. They don't want to think about it. It's not even that- it's just not even in the imagination.
(That's changing; witness The Matrix, and stuff like that. But contemporary-wise: We're way backwards.)
...why do we never get the good dating sims over here?
END OF LINE
So do they have Duke Nukem Forever yet?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
The article mentions dynamism.com, who have a great range but are very expensive.
Another good source is conics.net. Crappy website, but much better prices. If you want something obscure, he is willing to buy it on yahoo auctions and ship it to you with a 10% markup.
I bought both my Sharp Zaurus (linux PDA not available outside Japan) and my Panasonic W2 (ultralight laptop available worldwide, but with lower specs and much higher price than Japan) from conics.
An article like this was on /. awhile ago. The reason the previous article said this is because the Japense are willing pay top dollar for the top of the line gadgets while Americans don't.
I'm a Japanese national currently residing in the US and seeing this article make me want to vomit. Comparing countries never does any good except generate the feelings I get when I see Bush praise god - cringe.
My country does have more gadgets. This is really just because my countrymen are more willing to implements things. Also, I believe there are more hardware engineers in Japan vs. US. In america, most kids don't dream of being hardware engineers, americans want to be software programmers, writers, actors, and musicians. But industrial and mechanical engineering are both big fields in Japan.
"The Japanese/American Tech Deficit"
Maybe we should retitle this. Why can't we be bigger consumers than we already are?
Dec. 9, 2004 --At Camp Buerhing in Kuwait on Wednesday, Wilson -- known as "Jerry" to family and friends -- asked Rumsfeld why the U.S. Army requires its soldiers to "dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal" to bolster armor on their vehicles.
What I want to know is if Johnny's taking a piss, how the hell is the toilet taking his blood pressure? Unless there's a cuff attaching to his ankle, I can only envision one other "appendage" from which a reading could be taken. Perhaps this explains the popularity of the toilet among Japanese males?
you know, the thing that goes around your head to keep your hair clean when you eat a bowl of noodles. Now *that*'s cool. Forget the cell phones.
Yeah, according to the article, the Japanese high tech gizmo market is driven in no small part ...
by teenage girls.
No. You misunderstand what that sentence meant; the Japanese teenage girls take their clothes off and perform various sexual acts with headless men. (*)
Then people buy the tech gadgets to watch all this.
(*) Seriously, you *never* see their damn heads. I'd guess this is because they're probably not that attractive, and it's easier to think of yourself in that position if you can't see it's someone else. I very much doubt it's because these guys would be ashamed of being seen fscking a cute Japanese girl.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Japan on the other hand is far far smaller ESPECIALLY the japan we are talking about. Lets face it, we are talking about urban japan here. There are probably rural areas in japan were people live like the more "rural" areas in america or europe.
So why do they have more gadgets? Well why is the Philips (a dutch company) not available in holland? Why is the smart made by an american company only recently available in the US? Why was the german beetle car made the longest in mexico?
We buy what is on sale and on sale is what sells but this is a dreamland capatalists fool themselves we live in.
Any western store that carries the zaurus PDA can kiss the sales of all the other PDA's goodbye. Tiny phones are alright except the average person in holland is over two meters and that is the women. Perhaps their fingers need a slightly bigger keypad.
It is a huge combination of factors that decide wich product does and does not sale. I have a pretty simple one. Caramel sauce. It is very nice, people in holland like it on the McD Sunday ice and in other ice. It is very cheap to make (burn sugar) compared to say fruit sauces AND yet it isn't sold in stores. None of the supermarkets carry it. Why do I have to go to a british store (for ex-pats) to get it?
it used to be sold as part of a range from a local maker but for some reason supermarkets have stopped carrying it.
Is there to little shelf space? Is there not enough demand? Explain the lack of caramel sauce on the shelfs of major dutch supermarkets and you got the whole gadget divide sorted as well. Sometimes products just stay in their own area. Sometimes they cross. Cookies are a good example. American cookies are constantly introduced here but never really seem to take off. Despite the fact the tastes are pretty similar. Thank god for international cities like Amsterdam were there is bound to be a store selling the foods of every culture. If you really want a japanese gadget, get it. Someone somewhere is selling it with english instructions.
I just don't buy the explantion that if there is enough demand the major chains will carry it. There is enough demand for caramel sauce and for tivos over here.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Chindogu
--Mike Boos
Is this article a joke? American's get all the coolest toys first. Now name something the Japanese have that beats dropping a MOAB from a B2. That's what I call a cool gadget.
You mean like toilets that take your blood pressure and phones that play PacMan? Nobody's asking the important question here: do we really NEED all that shit? The problem with Americans is that they're not slacking off ENOUGH. Americans have been conditioned by generations of pervasive advertising to buy all the latest gadgets and all the latest clothes, then work two jobs to pay off their credit card debt. Few people consider the possibility that they might be happier if they buy LESS shiny crap.
There may be some truth to this. Japan, after all, isn't allowed to arm itself since being on the losing side in WWII. And "defense" is the single biggest expense in our U.S. budget apart from paying the interest on the national debt. Japan still generates tons of money but doesn't have this enormous money pit to throw it into. Therefore, the entire country--the government itself--is like one of the people a previous poster mentioned, living at home with its parents and 100% disposable income. A lot of that money is inevitably going to land in product R&D, possibly by way of government infrastructure products that trickle down to consumer industries.
(Ugh, I used the term "trickle down".)
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Most Japanese people don't file these scammy lawsuits against manufacturers, making the total cost of development and rollout much, much less than in the U.S.
"But your honor... where does it specifically state NOT to use my video phone as an artificial heart? 2 million."
The reason MD never took off was because it is a terrible format. Even hi-fi magazines had listening tests that showed cassettes with Dolby S were better than Sony's ATRAC system.
-Nick
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
I first met Dave Farber in ~1992. I was taking the train from DC back to New Jersey, and there was this old guy sitting across the table from me with the smallest laptop I'd ever seen, a cellphone smaller than a brick (Moto flip-phones were still amazing back then), and an alphanumeric Skypager. We started talking, and I recognized his name from various sources - his IP list was much smaller back then, and he'd been one of the advisors to the recently-formed EFF, and I was doing cypherpunk stuff with some of the same people. The laptop was an IBM Japan model, with Japanese keyboard, about six pounds, and it was quite a while before anything that light was available here. (And yes, it was a black rectangle design like most of the newer Thinkpads, but black was still cool back then.) He'd been toy-shopping at Akihabara.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The writer betrays his lack of understanding of the Japanese market, let alone culture. He blunders forward with the usual stereotypes, and totally fails to understand the fundamentals. The issue has nothing to do with "tribes," disposable income, or small housing.
Japan is a small country, where fads rise and fall much more rapidly than in a larger country like the US. This means products tend to compete over much smaller market sectors, with much shorter market lives. Think about the Tamagotchi. Bandai couldn't keep up with demand, they built new factories to keep up with demand, but by the time the factories were ready, the fad had died. Bandai went into bankruptcy.
Japanese markets are like a pressure cooker, products have short lives, and incremental improvements are added to produce new products to replace the old ones. This philosophy of "continuous improvement" is known as kaizen. Products in Japan evolve more rapidly than in other countries.
Japanese consumers are also better educated than other countries. There is a whole industry of magazines devoted to the most miniscule details of every product on the market. I remember seeing one fashion magazine that spent 20 pages just discussing the quality of stitching in men's dress shirts. And Japanese computer magazines are the same, they put US magazines to shame. Japanese consumers will not put up with anything less than the best products, driving the kaizen cycle even faster.
Japanese corporations are quick to take advantage of the home market. There are thousands of consumer products released in Japan that never make it to the international market, and this is intentional. Japan is the test market. Sometimes a product will go through several improvements before it's ready for larger world markets. Products that flop in Japan aren't even considered for internationalization. Japanese consumers are the beta testers of the world.
Can somebody tell me why we should care about it? Seriously, if Japan has cooler toys, more power to them. Who the fuck cares? Are you really upset because you cannot get your e-mail faster? At this point of time, Americans behave like crowds of cattle when it comes to shopping.... Would you like to put more spin onto that?
I certainly do not. Stuff is not what we should care about because as long as we do so, we will always be unhappy with something. Remeber, grass is greener on the other side. I can't believe that this bullshit makes to Slashdot nowadays. Seriously, it sounds like a bunch of stupid teenage girls who complain about boots, dresses and shirts that do not fit.
I can get upset because U.S. students lag behind in math and science, but not because somebody has a cooler DVD camera. Give me a break... P.S.: It is not what you have, it is what you do with it.
They get all the cool shit first because THEY FUCKING MAKE IT. Jesus!
Next question!
Hey ... wait a minute...I think I've heard that before....hmmm, where was it...OH YEAH! It's ripped almost verbatim from Alton Brown's new book.
I totally disagree about the food. I've been to Europe a couple of times on vacation and the most dissappointing thing was the food. I always, -always- heard about how good the food is in Europe.
It was OK - but not as good as at a the US restaurants I frequent (Not McDonalds, but certainly not upscale/5*). Sure there are some great things you can get in Europe that you can't get here, but I'll take:
1. US variety of food (Chinese, Indian, Spanish, Thai, Italian, Mexican - oh god, Mexican, Japanese, Cajun, Korean, etc.) All relatively close to my house (in the suburbs). All good.
2. Everything seems fresher in the US. Again, maybe its that I was a tourist, but thats just the way it was.
3. Service. We met some friends who had a (well-behaved) 2 year old. The restaurant would not even take our order.
I honestly think that when people talk about good food in Europe, the're comparing restaurants to McDonalds/BK/Pizza(gag)Hut/etc. Comparing apples (sit-down restaurants) to oranges (fast-food) is pointless.
Yes, let's.
No amount of technology could sufficiently drive such a dismal reality from my mind. Not that Johnny Sokko would necessarily say that. Nevertheless I'm grateful that where I lived enabled me to escape it entirely.
The USA is an empire. About half of its territory was taken by force during the "civil war" after said territories tried to back out of the union of supposadably soverign states. The fact that they were retaken by force shows that states are no longer soverign. To be more honest the US should rename the term "State" to province or perferstructure or something, but it enjoys pretending that it exsits now, how it was always supposed to, and makeing such a drastic change in terminology would force the admission that this was not the founding fathers' intention.
Little Brother, watching the watchers
Really, how annoying of a phrase that is used often now on /.
sigh.
coohhh.
bzztkrrt.
ugh.
Slashdot just fulfilled its mission statement:
/. , let this be its last story.
News for Nerds
Stuff that matters.
As this is the culmination of all that is
My observation is that Japanese companies tend to use their domestic market as their paying beta testers. What this means is that the latest gears will go through revisions/improvements base on domestic market feedback before being unleashed on North America. The gest of it is that we'll always be a year or two slower than Japanese domestic market.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
...welcome our new nude female aliens with magical powers overlords.
No, really, I do.
Or, the superhero cyborg schoolgirls would also do.
I for one welcome our new [insert main topic] overlords.
Many of the new products released in the Japanese market would run risks of legal action if released in the US. Any new product or innovation stands the chance of having to run through a legal gauntlet in the American court system. Look at things like Creative's Rio and the court battles they had to go through to release the first consumer MP3 player stateside. As long as the *AA and other copyright owners hold a legal cudgel over the US technology companies if they create a device that *might* infinge on a copyright, then the innovators will have to reside offshore.
I don't know anybody that actually believes that saying overly much. To some degree, I buy it simply because it's so easy to be a teacher since the payrate is so low.
It all comes down to why they became teachers.
I also say "Radio Shack: you have questions. We have blank stares." This is a similar thing: they stopped paying electricians enough to work at Radio Shack and replaced them by barely trained cell phone salesman monkeys. Anyone capable of actually answering my questions who is working at Radio Shack isn't doing it for the money.
I'll stop thinking that no one with a marginally good grasp of engineering works at Radio Shack when they start making a decent wage. I'll start thinking that teachers have as good a grasp as working professionals in the fields when they pay them a decent wage.
Oh, except any history teacher who prefers to be called "Coach." Those, I think, don't really know anything about history, and never will.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
What cool gadgets? Pretty much anything that is available there is available here, and most of it is made in China now anyway. Japan's economy has been in a slump for so long--and might dive again soon. In order to lower costs the Japanese have culled back on their tradition of lifelong employment and resorted to outsourcing. That's why even their animation is coming from South Korea and India now.
... if I had to choose between a "cool" electronic toys and a 5 bedroom house sitting on 5 acres, I'd chose the latter without a second thought.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Because this is the country where we have to put stickers on pop machines that say if you pull this pop machine over on yourself you might die, where we have to print DO NOT DRIVE WITH SUN SHIELD IN PLACE on the back of cardboard sun screens and PULL TAB TO OPEN because sure as you're born there will be some idiot trying to cut the top of the can off with his pocket knife and he'll slip and cut himself.
Yes, we've really become that stupid. Just look at who we elected president any time you're tempted to doubt it.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I think that you have to differentiate between "make" and "sell". I routinely buy cheese in Mexico and bring it accross the border legally. I can even sell it legally. The border officials I've dealt with have never given a hoot about the cheese that I bring across. One even commented was that the cheese I was bringing in was his favorite. I've done some research on the subject, and importing dairy products is surprisingly easy and has surprisingly few restrictions (a permit and a quota), and I don't believe that pasteurization is a requirement for imported products.
Having said that, I am would not be surprised that making cheese here in the US may be subject to totally different rules.
There are some stores that specialize in selling imported European cheeses. If you miss European cheese that much you may want to research and give one a call.
This is tangential, but:
FCC regulations are actually notably more lax than the comparable CE regs for consumer electronics. A lot of this may be due to the high density of population in europe/japan as compared to the US. That is, when you have a more product-dense environment, you have to set the bar higher for emissions. IAAEEICPD. (I am an electrical engineer in consumer product design)
The root cause of Japan's superior gadgetology is Japanese culture, and Japanese tech infrastructure:
1: They buy the super-cool gadgets and phones in large numbers, while Americans are relative Luddites. High literacy, education, and high pop. density amplify the fad-effect.
2: Very roughly, Japan has ~1/3 the total US population, in about the same space as california. For radio-based services, like cell/SMS, you can reach many times more people with the same equipment.
To wit: We have corridors of cell coverage along our interstates in many places, but also have ten-thousand-square-mile swaths in the mountains and deserts where there are no towers and no people at all.
In Japan, on the other hand, you would be hard-pressed to throw a dart into a map and land on a square mile containing less than 100 people. Even greater concentrations of population in cities exaggerates the effect.
Japan's population density was 327 people per square kilometer in 1990. The US is more like 30 people per square kilometer --
1) Take a business plan built around distributing a wireless service, or having a physical retail presence within N miles of M people
2) Increase population density 10-fold
3) ???
4) Profit!!!
Damn; irradiation was the 'GM' food of its day. I was watching an old episode of Red Dwarf (the first one, I think, made in 1987). They were going over a list of supplies, and one of the items was an "irradiated haggis".
And I realised I'd totally forgotten about that fiasco; irradiated food died a death. I remember complaints about the loss of nutritional value, but let's face it; *no-one* was going to buy food that sounded like it might be associated with *anything* radioactive.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I know this means nothing in the grand scheme, but I know a guy that lives in the US but travels several times a year. One thing he's found is that he can drink European milk but American milk gives him problems, I think he said it was due to something in the US pasteurization methods.
Try to get stability control or all-wheel-drive on a Japanese sedan in the US. With few exceptions (stability control is starting show up as an option on a few Toyota models) Japanese automakers keep the good stuff for their luxury lines in the US.
Overseas you can get advanced features on their mainline models.
For cell phones I see why the lack of infrastructure in the US limits importation, but I don't understand what the deal is with the cars.
In the US, the older generations often seem to stumble with technology. I'm not trying to stereotype, but think of the VCR 12:00 clock issue.
Do the older generations in Japan adopt the technology gadgets, or do the units mostly exist in the hands of the younger like in the states?
(Yes, I know there execeptions, and I know that older folks carry cell phones in the US).
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
Maybe I'm off on this, but perhaps the vast majority of Americans have no use for things like portable PlayStations and other such toys.
The article also mentions investment in technological infrastructure and heavy subsidies to the tech industry. I won't get into subsidies here, but I can certainly get into infrastructure.
Infrastructure is easy to build in countries with high population density. The cost of the infrastructure per person served is low. This is why many European countries have wonderful rail systems and why countries like Japan have high-speed cell networks and high broadband penetration. The population density is higher, and the distance between major metropolitan areas is shorter.
Compare that to the United States. Here we have vast spaces of sparsely populated land. It is not very costworthy to put in cell towers in the middle of South Dakota, for instance, or deliver broadband to ranchers in the Salmon River valley in Idaho. Even if 100% of the people in the area served bought the service, it would be either too expensive for the customers or be a money-losing venture.
So, in the end, what we have are pockets of populations (urban and suburban areas) that actually do have access to all of the infrastructure needed by 'cool' gadgets. You then run into a cultural difference.
Personally, I don't have much of a need to carry video games with me wherever I go. I carry a Palm Zire 31, and I use it to keep my address book and calendar This is the only gadget I carry. I don't own a cell phone, and will avoid having one for as long as possible. I used to have a cell phone, but I quickly got rid of it once my contract expired.
I, for one, do not like being able to be contacted 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. "Just turn it off, you say?" Well, my option is better, and here is why: If you don't own a cell phone, everyone understands that and they don't actually get to pick up the phone and dial. They are never bothered by you not being at your home number. If you have a cell phone, on the other hand, and they dial you and get your voice mail, they are pissed off because they couldn't reach you. You have a cell phone, after all!
Then there is the matter of people just annoying the crap out of me with their cell phones. I am a slightly older (late 20s) college student. All these ill-mannered children (the freshman/sophomores) I have to go to school with leave their phones on in class, and some actually answer them in class. Furthermore, if their phone rings during an exam, I just want to strangle them. Oh, and there's nothing like trying to go to a nice restaurant with my wife, and having some moron on their cell phone in the next booth talking so loud that most of the other people in the restaurant understand what the conversation is about.
Oh, and there was the guy who took like 500 flash photos with his digital camera in a restaurant, from a table away with the flash aimed right in my direction. I almost went to jail that night...
All this has really made me relatively anti-gadget. Especially anti-phone gadget. Not that I don't own cool stuff. I have a digital camera, and a laptop computer, etc. I just don't need them on me all of the time.
Sorry if this sounds like a rant. Well, I guess it is, but I'm just trying to make the point that Japan is Japan, and here in America (and all you people who think that the United States and it's citizens who have been calling themselves 'America' and 'Americans' for hundreds of years should change because you can't make a contextual distinction can shove it...) we don't all necessarily want the gadgets, nor is it cost effective to provide for all of the United States to have the infrustructure for all of the fancy internet-enabled ultra-high resolution spy-camera radio communicator walkie-talkie GPS PDA cell phones.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
I am a Japanese and therefore very proud of skilled hardware engineers and their products from my country. However, there is still one area in the technology industry in which the United States is undoubtedly far ahead of Japan: operating systems for personal computers. Although we do have some OSes in Japan, the most notable example of which is BTRON designed by Dr. Ken Sakamura of TRON fame, they are not comparable to their American counterparts by any measure in terms of functionality and the size of user base. Even though I would be hesitant to characterize products from Redmond as excellent, I use PowerBook G4 and OS X myself and I just love them. Even most Linux/*BSD hackers are either originally from the United States or have U.S. citizenship. The current state is really a shame for Japan, but it has deep roots in structural problems in society that stifles creativity and the abysmal state of the software industry in the nation with ridiculously underpaid programmers who suffer extremely long hours. Although I wish the situation would be otherwise, I do not think it will change in the foreseeable future.
stop making excuses for the lazy behemoth that the phone companies had become in the US. densly packed or not, that's not the point at all; It's not that NY or Chicago or Bay area or Los angeles is any less packed than japan, and just by exploring these highly contentrated areas you can still cover the majority of the population.
did you know that I get FOMA (3G) coverage way off in the boondocks in japan, in the middle of a ricefield? Heck, Gunma is like the redneck country in Japan - there are not even enough railroads in a country famous for public transportation so that the prefecture has the highest car-ownership in the country - but don't worry, you will get fantastic coverage pretty much everywhere you'd want to go.
heck, I go hiking in the middle of a mountain and i still get mova (mobile internet) coverage so i can check train schedules while i am still on the top of a mountain.
don't be silly, "densly packed" is just an excuse; do you work for the phone company or something?
My life in the land of the rising sun.
So what the article is telling us is that Americans are crappy consumers compared to the Japanese. If we'd only spend all our money on new, expensive, and mostly useless gadgets every six months, we'd catch right up to them.
C'mon people! These megacorporations want to help you, but you need to put in some effort first! Where's your national pride?
[insert witty quote here]
Cool gadgets mean that the terrorists won!
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
www.apple.com
See you in 2005.
Peace,
-Steve
Any inventor of a better mouse trap knows what I'm talking about. Make an invention in the US, advertize it in the papers, and it won't be long before you get a bunch of letters threatening to sue you. Not only that, but the nature of us patnets makes it impossible to integrate. If you make a car with ford like brakes, and a GM like engine, don't be supprised if you get sued by both of them - nope anyone who really wants to make a usefull invention has to absolutely start from scratch.
In japan, some of this is overcome with government micromanaging of business and regulation, and other parts of these problems are overcome with less agressive patnet enforcement (on foriegn patents epsecially)
"In Europe you're allowed to make and sell things that contain non-pasturized dairy products. In the US, you're not"
Not entirely true... I can go down to my local co-op and get quite a few dairy products that are not pasturized... and occationally I can find non-pasturized cheeses in the local specialty foods stores.
Not entirely true...
You are correct. If something is aged for long enough I believe that you are then allowed to import it.
Unpasteurized dairy products are historically linked to many dangerous bacterial infections, such as Brucellosis. Europeans are not immune. Human Listeriosis Outbreaks Linked to Dairy Products in Europe
The average American McMansion has around 2500 sq feet and practically an acre of land. I doubt most people in Japan have that much real estate. After all, didn't Japan pioneer those hotels that are just little cubes you can barely fit in? Yeah, Americans like their technology, but they loved having big houses and lots of land even more.
This is my sig.
Nice troll.
The FDA regulates how food is made in the US. However, it does not regulate what food you bring in to the country. I've brought food in, many, many times without problems.
The USDA does regulate what you are bringing in to make sure you don't bring in any fruit or vegetable or basically any product that can be used as a seed. The situation they are trying to prevent is where you plant a weed that grows uncontrollably and destroys a significant amount of crops or other plant life.
You can sell European-made cheese in the US with no problems. That's the reason why OBGyn's tell pregnant women to ensure that any soft cheeses they eat were made in the US.
To make matters worse, they've convinced people here that "ultra-pasturized" means "better",
You mean like the Europeans have convinced their citizens that "Genetically Modified" foods will cause mutations in people who eat them?
I suspect you're just trolling.
Mmmm.. Donuts
I've been to Europe a couple of times on vacation and the most dissappointing thing was the food.
Your results might depend upon your expectations and willingness to explore, or simply we visited different parts of Europe. For example, my personal all time favorite restaurant is a tie between two: Lyon de Lyon in Lyon, France and Atelier in New York City. But that is for the multi-course tasting menu (with a wine paired to match each course); if you go to either place for just a steak, you are likely to be unimpressed, especially for the prices.
On the other hand, in Southern France we still enjoyed ourselves when we just stopped into different restaurants that hit our fancy, some of them little hole in the wall places. The food was definitely fresh (I prefer seafood, and am extremely sensitive to any spoilage because I can smell ammonia starting in very low concentrations).
European restaurants definitely have different ideas of service than American restaurants, but I ascribe this to a cultural difference. More European restaurants are simply much more concerned about the total experience they offer to their patrons, and I'm not surprised some simply have a blanket no-toddlers policy. Whereas I've noticed American restauranteurs are generally willing to take a chance on all comers, and only confront parents if their children are really obnoxious; they usually politely ask the parents to restrain the children for their own safety because of all the hot plates running around, for example.
Most of my points of reference come from Southern France, Rhine Valley Germany, Belgium and Holland, so I'm curious what part(s) of Europe you had experience with.
and I'll say it again. The only reason Japan and Japanese have these sweet 500$ cell-phones is because they see it as a perfectly good investment every 6 months to a year. They relish the new phone with new features, or one that is slimmer or cooler than the next.
/rolls eyes
In America we want a 99c phone. That's why we get hamstrung in these ridiculous 3 year or more service contracts. If you actually spend the same amount of money that Japanese do on phones, you'll quickly find you have very similair or the same phone.
Seriously, there is no "reason" why they get cool gadgets and we don't. It's not like there's a huge creature in the Pacific that feasts on cargo ships. We just don't want to pay $400 some odd bucks up front. We prefer low monthly installments.
This also explains the year-18 month lag in tech. We just wait for it to get cheap. (Which is ironic, because we Americans as a whole try to piss money away faster than we can earn it.)
By sheer size of population alone, there are far, far more early adopting geeks to sell to in the far east that all speak pretty much the same written language.
If you come up with a gadget that appeals to 0.0001% of the population, it might be worthwhile to develop/manufacture/market it in the far east than in the west, simply because the 0.0001% corresponds to a far greater number of people.
Many posters have said, ``Everything is cooler in Japan.'' This is bullshit. The rural areas of Japan, where about one-third of the people live, are so different from the cites; you'd think it was a third-world country.
My wife's family, who live about 70 miles north of Tokyo, built a new house a few years ago. The new house has a toilet with a heated seat (necessary because, since there's no central heating nearly anywhere, including in the cities, your butt would freeze to the seat in the winter), a bidet and a fan to dry you after you use the bidet. Before that, all they had was a hole in the floor. The wastes would drop into a tank below the house and every few weeks a guy would come by with the ``vaccuum car'' to suck out the contents. He would sell it farmers who would use it on their fields. Stinky! They now have a flush toilet and a septic system, but most of their neighbors still have the latrine-style toilet.
My brother-in-law just got DSL at their house this year. Not exactly ``cool.''
Thank God I'm an atheist!
Just to clarify, it's raw milk cheese that's been aged less than 60 days that is illegal to sell. That said, the way the law is written, lax enforcement, and general misinformation about what raw milk cheese is (and if Goat cheese counts) means that I can still get the stuff at my local Whole Foods. Also, in the northern states anyway, there is always the option of skipping accross the border to Canadia for some cheese love.
No battles to the death are recalled. Mumpsman can hit to attack and cause brainsmashing.
I'd heard somwhere once that a large part of the reason for this is that on average, the Japanese consumer is a lot more tolerant of immature, or not ready for prime time technology. I guess its just for the cool factor. But what it boils down to is that they basically beta test a lot of stuff for us, so that Americans get the quality they demand.
"The problem with internet quotations is that many are not genuine" -Abraham Lincoln
iPod.
They cannot not make the iPod mini fast enough to meet Japanese consumer demand....but the iPod isn't Japanese. Just goes to show that anyone anywhere can create some very interesting gadgets. While it's true that the US has less than Japan, I don't know how many of us need usb aroma therapy....
The only good thing they really have on us is cellular service, but there are a lot of reasons it's hard to do in the US, and honestly, I'm not entirely confortable with my phone doing a lot more things than being a phone....
Monstar L
Did I just see someone mention hummers and penis in the same post?
*checks URL*
Maybe I was just spoiled by growing up in New Jersey, which is one of the more technically advanced areas of the US, but the part of Japan which I was in didn't seem all that advanced.
-b.
Argh. It should be spelled Léon de Lyon.
Part of the local culture? Maybe, but it's still disgusting to have lots of disposable cash by sponging off one's parents. Talking about being dysfunctional.
-b.
Dunno where you are, but it's here in Virginia. For a while I was getting irradiated hamburger from the local supermarket. It was about 10-20% pricier than regular ground beef, but being able to enjoy a true "rare" burger every now and then it was worth it.
My usual store stopped carrying it-- the meat manager said it wasn't selling well enough. It was obvious when they put it on sale at a lower price than comparable unirradiated and still didn't sell near as well. There's another chain in town that still carried it last I checked, but since their prices are higher for most of my regular weekly groceries (frozen veggies, pre-cut salad mix, Purina Bachelor Chow, etc), I don't go there very often.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
In Europe you're allowed to make and sell things that contain non-pasturized dairy products. In the US, you're not. Apparently americans aren't allowed to determine for themselves what is or isn't an acceptable risk. So the best European young cheeses and chocolates have poor substitutes as their namesakes in the US.
Not so. Unpasteurized milk and cheeses made from it are widely available at high end and natural grocery stores. You might have trouble finding such things in Des Moines, but in any real city you shouldn't have a hard time finding either the original european product or a close substitute of American orgin. There are also a bunch of crappy equivalents of the these products, but you can get the good ones if you look
To make matters worse, they've convinced people here that "ultra-pasturized" means "better", even though it just means they used extra high temperatures to get it done more quickly and save money at the expense of flavor. That means the milk here doesn't taste nearly as good as it could under the current regulations.
Again, you are spreading misinformation. The only thing that I see routinely ultrapasteurized is heavy cream. And the reason for doing that is to extend the shelf life, not to reduce costs. I don't often see ultra-pasteurized milk in stores because the normally pasteurized stuff is cheaper.
All this in the name of safety, yet at the same time, you can't get irradiated beef...
On this one, you are correct. There is an irrational fear of food irradiation (I miss irradiated milk, which was better than ultra pasteurized milk if you're going to buy milk that doesn't need refrigeration until its open).
I like my beverages with warning labels!
reading through this thread i notice people constantly noting our 'cultural differences' with japan as the cause for our lack in gadgetry. when you think of japan, yes, you think of a 'culture.' they are a defined nation who live a certain way. now think of european cultures, the french, the german, etc, once again they are all defined. now think of american culture. can you think of anything positive in it? we lack a culture, because this country is simply too mixed, and too large, to have any kind of definition.
i'm sure we have a large population of gadget and fashion obsessed individuals who wish to express themselves by how they look and what they carry, i'm one of them. but there's too many bush lovin' country rednecks out there too.
i'm starting to forget the point i was trying to make, but it's somewhere along the lines of... there's too many people in this country with varying cultures themselves, spread out in this vast land, for there to be enough demand to market a product to this entire huge ass country. it simply not not needed for america as a whole, like it or not.
I'm not trolling, but the guy should stick to writing guides to Cinemas or whatever.
While I'm sure most of his information is sound, he forgot a very important piece of information. The development of better tech toys over there is due to the fact that after the surrender of Japan to US (or Allies..whatever), Japan was restricted to domestic/consumer products. Any military development was frowned upon/stopped due to the fact the US was now stationed there.
An example was after the invention of the Transistor by Bratten/Shockly/Bardeen (sp?), 2 electrical engineers running a radio store took that concept and made ICs to make radios and started what is now called Sony.
So you see, Japan was forced to emphasize domestic consumer goods by the US since developing anything related to Military was a no-no. Thus the head start on everyone else, and why North America is always a couple of years behind in certain aspects of the tech toys.
There are a lot of "new" gadgets that suck and never make it to the US. Maybe Japan just filters out the crap gadgets. Also I believe the US is more finicky about technology. It's not so much of consumers buying things to be on the cutting edge, but more of consumers wanting what everyone else wants.
And let's just face it. The american culture is not really into technology. Text messaging is on all phones, but it's not very popular compared to other countries. People would rather use a cell phone as a mobile version of a land line phone.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Because of the population density in Japan is significantly higher in the US there is less room for stuff... and for stuff that you use with more room.
So you wouldn't have a huge market for 52" projection screen televisions and full living room furniture sets because no Japanese household would find that to be an efficient use of (their limited amount of) space. So they prefer technological solutions: small, miniturized things that can be easily packed away into the corner. This also goes towards the Japanese interior design aesthetic which is for clean minimalism (where rooms are indistinguishible/modular and everything is cleverly hidden in wall/floor storage to be broken out at need).
How much stuff does an American suburban household have that a condo/apartment dweller wouldn't need? A lawnmower, weedtrimmer. And then the luxury items: BBQs, pool tables, swimming pools, decks, boats, RVs, ATVs. Even in dense American suburbs these are common. Your McMansion. There is space and an inclination to be out in it.
For this reason the Japanese are very interested in high tech and Americans less so. Koreans, Taiwanese and Europeans somewhere in the middle.
What is music when you despise all sound?
Perhaps the reason is that these technotoys are being test marketed in the home territory before the survivors are inflicetd on the rest of creation. I lived for many years in a US city that was well-known as a place to test the market for middle America consumer products. Some were hits, many were misses and never showed up in the mainstream of consumer products; they just quietly folded their tents.
I was born and raised in California. When I was a young adult, I moved overseas for 10 years. When I returned about 6 years ago, one of the first things to strike me was Americans' tolerance for mediocrity, both in products and services. Just as long as they can get a ton of stuff that work good enough without having to read the manual.
That tolerance, coupled with a pervasive belief that America has the best of everything, from political systems to health care to consumer products (many Americans hate it when I give counter examples--really rocks their world view), suggests a fertile ground for technological stagnation.
Tell me to piss off if you like. I couldn't give a toss.
I have a cliché and I can't refrain from posting it: the japanese obsession with technological gadgetry even pervades their sexuality. Not that their sexlives are technologized, but they're "fetishized". The fetish is in sexuality, what a gadget is in economic behavior.
Now ask any h**ker who's ever worked in Japan, and she'll tell you that the Japanese are into things such as sniffing feet, touching zippers, cutting toenails and making origami from panties. Everything is fragmented, the person is reduced to an assemblage of sexual gadgets.
There must be something very deeply anthropological about this fetishization of ordinary life. You can't explain Japan's gizmobsession simply by referring to demographics, social space-time factors or other such sociological schemes. There must be something deeply ritualistic in all this, stemming from the traditional mind of the Japanese.
Ah well, maybe it's too much of a cliché and maybe it says more about our Eurocentric obsession with the East. We will never really know.
If I remember correctly, that paid off the last time Japan attacked us. We ended up overcoming our adversaries and helping out our European allies who were naive enough to think that after WW1, the world was a more modern, civilized place where warfare was a thing of the past.
It's not true that Japan always gets the toys first...The Nintendo DS was released in the US before Japan. They did this so they can catch the US's Thanksgiving buying rush for Christmas. They released it in Japan on Dec. 02.
:)
My personal theory on the tech deficit: Americans are cheap, and Japanese have more disposable income, because owning a home is nearly impossible versus renting. I have no numbers to back that up, though.
BTW, if you want to see how commercial Christmas can become, visit Japan in December. You can't avoid the Christmas lights, music, and sales, even though the population is less than 1% Christian.
Maybe it's because the Japanese think of these innovations as means of making their lives more powerful while we dismissfully label this things with geek-ghetto terms as "gadgets," "gizmos," or "widgets," which suggest novelty and bling-bling value but not necessarily usefulness.
Cf. OED: gadget -- "c. transf. and gen. An accessory or adjunct; a knick-knack or gewgaw."
I know. I know. They call you geeks and nerds with your gadgets as a term of *affection*.
I'll wave to you with my giant foam hand on geek pride day!
There are plenty of innovations that are simply "good ideas", and are not based on consumer gadgets but mysteriously cannot be found anywhere else than Japan.
... )
Examples:
Mugtop coffee filters
Carry handles for plastic bags
Vending machines with hot and cold drinks
2D barcodes (see QR Codes)
Replica plastic food for restaurant displays (think about it
Electronic/RF restaurant menus for staff
ATMs that can accept coins and cash
A fast and efficient rail network
Computer-generated traffic relay displays at highway service stations
I can continue, but the point is that these are not technological innovations. They are about the innovative use of existing technology. The US and Europe are not very good at the latter and even worse at the former!
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
Out of all of the posts in this thread, of course I don't think most of them have read the article (par for the course). If they did, someone would have posted about the simple fact that they are comparing technically savvy Japanese with THE AMISH!
The people they're using for comparison in the USA specifically do not WANT technology... just pathetic journalism. Then there is the admission that "yes, we know this is extreme and inaccurate" (paraphrased). How can you represent the entire US by using the Amish as an example. *sigh*
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I wish I had mod points. This is on the mark. Needs to be modded up.
The US has huge debts, both personal and governmental (the government's debts can be divided into what we've already spent and what we have promised to spend). People regularly spend money they don't have (credit cards) or money they are counting on as investments (home equity) on God knows what. So now we're supposed to spend even more so that we can get nice shiny gadgets that are bleeding edge now and will be dull as a pebble in six months? That feeling of "look, I'm so cool." is somewhat more transient than the "joy" of sitting on a sewer grate watching the US and world economies dissolve in a rain of debt.
If buying new gadgets doesn't add more debt, then money is coming from somewhere - the gadget we "should" be getting would be displacing whatever we're spending our money on now. No net gain there.
Bankrupting yourself (or the nation) seems like an awfully high price to pay to get cool new gadgets.
I've been to Europe a couple of times on vacation and the most dissappointing thing was the food. I always, -always- heard about how good the food is in Europe.
... when I went to NY and my NY friend took me to restaurants she said had great food, I thought it was only average.
"Europe" is too amorphous. I can't argue with you, because there are indeed regions in europe where the food is bad. I'll have to hope for the best that you're not one of these people who've visited britain and then think they know what european food is like.
All I know is
For the best food in europe I would have to advise france, and in second place, italy.
.. I went to Japan for 10 days with my girlfriend, and spent 8 of them in Tokyo. Sure, I saw plenty of gadgets, went to Akihabara, the camera stores, looked at all the cellphones that folks were using on the JR.. and overall wasn't that impressed. Two things stood out for me. First, it seemed like nearly all the cell phones I saw were quite similar to each other, and were on the whole larger than I'd prefer; they've all been optimized for text messaging. I looked through nearly a dozen different small phone shops, and it seemed like they all carried the same thing.
e ws), and there are plenty of ways to get it over the ocean.
a nd-chips-and-various-low-level-gadgetry was, indeed, quite cool and unlike anything I've ever seen here in the bay area)
Second, I didn't see anything that I haven't seen from here via the web. I figured that if a company has the resources to design and build a lustworthy gadget, they're more than likely going to have the budget to market it internationally. If not, we're going to see it soon enough online (http://www.google.com/search?q=japanese+gadget+n
So: I didn't see much there that had me instantly smitten, and what little I did, I've seen before.
(Though I will say that the deep-dark-akihabara-maze-of-wires-and-connectors-
Europe and Japan have had state-run telephone companies that charge ridiculous rates for land lines. With wireless came competition and cheaper phone service; which of course brought investment for differentiation. Contrast this with the US, where one can call local numbers for "free" with basic service (from 15-30 dollars a month). Our local coverage here extends about 90 miles in all directions. I do own a cell phone, but I get the cheapest service because it's simply a portable phone for me, and not a replacement for my Qwest line (which is also my DSL).
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
Not so. Unpasteurized milk and cheeses made from it are widely available at...
Look at those cheeses again. Are they aged? Read my comment again. Also, just because a young, soft cheese doesn't say it was made with pasturized milk on the package doesn't mean it wasn't.
Again, you are spreading misinformation. The only thing that I see routinely ultrapasteurized is heavy cream. And the reason for doing that is to extend the shelf life, not to reduce costs. I don't often see ultra-pasteurized milk in stores because the normally pasteurized stuff is cheaper.
I was just at the grocery store last night. (Roche Bros. in Acton MA if anybody cares) All of the milk, even the organic milk was ultra-pasturized. I'm willing to accept that things may be different where you are, but around here the dairys seem to choose the method that only takes a few seconds rather than many minutes.
Hey, at least we have uncensored Pr0n. Woohoo, Go USA!
WOW. I do believe that Europeans have better chocolate. No doubt! Milk is subjective, I prefer that cremier style you speak of, not everyone does. But to compare overall food quality and taste as being better in Europe ! My god what a farce! Also, Americans can't decide what an acceptable risk is , compared to Europeans? WOW that's a good one! Did you ever hear of Socialism ? Yeah....his post get +5 Insightful ?
"I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator"-Adolf Hitler or George W Bush?
Americans value bargains and deals over quality.
So what, you don't need to eat all that food but I can buy a mountain of food for $7 at hometown buffet whereas a nice meal at a good resturant buys me a small plate of excellent taste.
The American picks the quantity over the quality, because we feel good about the deal we just got. And thats also why we're so supersized and fat. Its all about value. In Japan it's quite the opposite.
I do not think we need more federal control over local issues. I just think that putting federal control over everything does not fix all of our problems.
Also, Americans can't decide what an acceptable risk is , compared to Europeans? WOW that's a good one! Did you ever hear of Socialism ? Yeah....his post get +5 Insightful ?
Apparently the moderators can distinguish between facetious commentary and serious commentary.
It's funny, Laugh.
The "smart toilet" stories about Japan are mostly a myth. Yeah, they exist, for about .000001% of the population that owns one.
When I lived in Japan, I was astonished to discover how primitive most toilet facilities are. I read an official government survey that said that about 40% of Japanese homes have NO hookup to a sanitary sewer, they don't have septic tanks either, they have "honey wagons" that come and suck out the shit from a holding tank once a month. An average home's toilet is more likely to be a "flapper," than a smart toilet. A flapper is not much more than an outhouse with a ceramic toilet on top, with a little flap on a spring that flaps shut once you take a dump down the hole into the holding tank. I lived in a house with a flapper, I had to take a bucket of water from the bathtub and dump it down the hole in order to flush. And let's not even get into the squat toilets..
Japan's infrastructure, even the sewer systems, look like a third world country. Sure, Japan has a few high-tech infrastructures like telecom, but that's only because of the power of monopolies like NTT to mandate a whole new infrastructure in one sweeping movement. More basic infrastructures, like sewerage, goes neglected, because nobody can make huge profits off it.
Most Americans are used to a more multi-cultural society than they have in Europe, and while of course one expects to eat French food in France, the idea of eating nothing but French food is distinctly odd. When I'm in France I'll have to eat at the Arab dives or the terrible Vietnamese restaurants now and then, I'm just not used to limiting myself to one style.
Japan is a fantastic, rich, first world country to visit (I've been there a few times), but I don't believe the Japanese see it that way.
Japanese people still have the remenants of their 1960s attitude that they MUST CATCH UP AT ALL COSTS. New is good and flashy technology is great. This is an attitude you find all over East Asia, since before the 1950s these countries were all seriously behind the west.
The US and Europe on the other hand have more of an old-world arrogance, and nothing to prove about their technology or 'modernness'. Conversely, there are many in the west who have a much more conservative approach. Our 1960s love of the new has been replaced with suspicion, and a desire for retro and traditional goods.
I love Japan and don't intent to criticise their approach and attitude, but I really think they should get over their need to modernise. They're seriously destroying their country by paving over mountains, covering their coastline with concrete defenses and lining all their rivers.
If you want to read a much better account of this, check out 'Dogs and Demons' by Alex Kerr:
http://www.davidappleyard.com/japan/jp13.htm
Buy a quality steak, give it to the butcher and tell him to grind / mince it. Take home, make patty, cook and eat it.
Ground beef is nasty stuff. You wouldn't want to see the room where ground beef is produced.
Does that make your deficit tripple?
Not saying that all those on school boards should be, as with any elected office, but the fact that these are typically locally elected members means that the community can still kick them out if they do a bad job. Ever try to fire anyone in the Federal Government? Or better yet, has any burocrat ever listened to you? Federalize the system and the very same people that control policy now, aka the lobby groups with money, will control the schools as well. Is that really what you want? One lobby gets powerful enough and poof, evolution is gone from the biology books. Probably a bad example, but...
My gradfather served on his local school board just after consolodation from one room country schools to larger districts. He was a farmer, but they fired bad people and did the best that they could. Many of that generation, like my parents, were the first in the family to attend college. What made school boards, and many other organizations back then, more effective was that people in the community gave a damn about the community. They didn't run for school board to hold an office, they did so because of a genuine desire to make sure their kids and others' kids got the best education that was possible with the resources.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
It would work in a heartbeat, if it weren't a violation of copyright laws, written by and for the recording industry. Ever wonder why you can't rent a CD here in the States?
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#109
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
So much great tech gets thrown into the garbage in Japan they have a name for the people who seek out the trash - Master of garbage. Gomi no sensi is a Japanese term for people who "find" great working stuff in the garbage. People in Japan will buy a new tv simply because their tv is 1 or 2 years old. Novelty (new) means something different there, it's closer to "original" than "trendy". It drives the culture and the economy - newer = better. Very far from the cliché of the Japanese as "copycats". I've lived there and I recommend it highly.
In America people say "if it aint broke don't fix it". That attitude is why "early adopter" (ie: trendy bastard, yuppy scum, geek) has a borderline negative connotation here.
We have an agricultural attitude here about almost everything - "built to last". As a culture, most Americans yearn for a fictional "leave it to beaver" past and will not buy a new anything until the old one is dead. Most Americans are simply more conservative than they/you think they are. Look at how most Americans choose whom to vote for for president. (I'm a New Yorker, I'll skip that one for now...) Something most slashdotters forget - you are not typical Americans.
I am not saying its perfect in Japan and bad in America, far from it. But I will say travel anywhere, anytime you can, broaden your mind. Its all good.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." ~The Honorable Daniel Patrick Moynihan
A good financial education would have taught you about the "magic" of compounding and the time-value of money.
J :www.free-financial-advice.net/compounding-effect. html+compounding+financial&hl=en&lr=lang_e n) for an initial primer -- PLEASE!!!! (because I don't want you to be one more person whose children I have to put through college and retirement I have to pay for due to your lack of understanding why effective saving means saving early and saving often!!!!!!!!!!!)
You might start here (http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:yZvteZoGfrA
And said McMansion is usually located way out in the middle of nowhere on former farmland. It takes 10 or 20 min. of driving just to get to the nearest decent grocery store, and 1/2 hour to an hour each way to work. For the same price, I'd take a 2 bedroom apartment in a city or a smaller house in a medium-sized university town where there are interesting things to do within walking distance and the locale is designed for humans, not cars.
-b.
Of course that's psychological.
a higher engineer to lawyer ratio?
Sorry to offend, but good for them.
The inconsiderate 95% portion of the population have ruined it for those few good parents who can control their little monsters.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Look at those cheeses again. Are they aged? Read my comment again. Also, just because a young, soft cheese doesn't say it was made with pasturized milk on the package doesn't mean it wasn't.
I could have a bit of a bias because I live in a bit of California (Santa Cruz, which is about an hour south of San Francisco for those unfamiliar with California geography) where the artisnal foods movement is big. I can think of a couple of places where I can get cheese made with raw milk (a fact that they advertize). This is also the case with milk. California has different requirements for milk sold in the state than the rest of the U.S. so ultra pasteurized milk is rare here (of course, milk fortified with additional milk solids to meet state protein requirements is common, so there's a good and a bad). But, at least in some parts of the US, you can get raw milk. My big gripe is that ever since Odwalla sold a bad batch of orange juice and started pasteurizing its juices, it's been harder to get unpasteurized orange juice around here.
I like my beverages with warning labels!
DVD videos are still mostly unheard of in Japan -- their video stores stock VHS movies.
(Harvey pats IdleTime on his wittle head)
Now run along an play, son.
--- Ban humanity.
The former is a historical event. The latter is corporate hoohah.
--- Ban humanity.
The Japanese culture encourages a lot of consumerism and wastefulness: where do all those obsolete cellphones and other electronics go? The expiration of the product is not important. The money spent on cell phones goes right back into the technology industry. You can export electronics; you can't export suburbs.
"Welcome to California" == "Slam on your brakes"
ABC needs to fire their Monday Night Football sound effects guy (effects volume crushes the commentators), and quit with the damned animations. No wonder we have a nation of ADD afflicted freaks.
If I recall the U.S. invented virtually all the technology in your cool gadgets (yes, even cellular technology), we invented personal computers, and the internet.
And you're bragging about SMS?
I'd laugh at you, but you're not worth the effort.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I live in Vancouver with a high asian population, I work with many students from the university and I have found that both asian and indian students tend to live at home. The social norm is that you live at home till you are married and only then do you move out into your own home. I think even then it is socially acceptable for you to live with your parents. So these students are living cheaper but are expected to participate with family stuff. They cook, they clean, they have family obligations that they work very hard to maintain. The white north american kids that I know if they live at home aren't as integrated with the family and more strongly value independence. They seem to want it both ways, they want the cheapness of living at home but maintain their independence as well. There are costs and benifits to both.
I did the city thing for a while but eventually the noise just drove me nuts. Yeah, walking around outside to get to bars is nice in your twenties. But, now that I'm old, I prefer to putter around in back yard than I do to go out. For commuting to work, I have a 2004 Pontiac GTO and take twisty back roads. Believe me, I don't mind the drive at all!
This is my sig.
Take off your pants for great justice
The Amish don't really need sugar sensing toilets because their diets are not composed of unhealthy over processed junk foods.
FCC Regulations.
I've never heard anyone use that phrase to describe public school teachers, honestly. I always hear about what a sacrifice they're making for the good of the children, how underpaid and undervalued they are, and what dedicated individuals they are.
I think that society has a pretty good view of teachers.
It's all the bureaucracy and moron *parents* that are screwing everything up.
I lived in Yokohama for 6 years and never saw anything like you've described. Even going all the way out to the Sado islands, I never had any problems finding a normal toilet.
The holes in the ground, sure, but even they flushed.
Where were you where "smart toilets" were a myth? They were *everywhere* when I was there.
Actually, the best food is found in Asia. (even western cuisine)
You are so wrong it's not even funny.
9 7/ article1.html
The Japanese save more money and spend less than Americans. They may seem to buy more crap, but they actually save more money.
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/sipa/PUBS/SLANT/FALL
Only 15 percent of Japanese families own computers, for instance. In the United States, this figure stands at 40 percent. Likewise, appliances such as modern laundry machines, clothes dryers, dishwashers, and ovens are largely unknown.
Since World War II, the Japanese have resisted the consumerism that engulfs Americans, and Japanese households have enjoyed some of the highest savings rates in the world. But this is changing. In 1984, the average savings rate for Japanese households was nearly 20 percent. America's rate for the same year was only eight percent. Within only ten years, however, both Japanese and American savings rates had dropped. By 1994, Japan's fell to 14 percent while the American rate plunged to four. During the same period, savings rates in countries such as Great Britain, France, Canada, and Germany either remained stable or increased. By American standards, the Japanese savings rate is still high. But Japan remains one of the few countries mirroring America's downward slide in savings rates. The Japanese are clearly buying more than they used to.
Thanks alot slashdot moderators, you make slashdot suck.
Japan and the USA are the world's two remaining super powers.
Japan concentrates on making the world's best consumer goods. America concentrates on making the world's best military goods.
When you want to entertain people and improve their lives, buy Japanese things.
If you want to kill people, buy American things.
As a result of truly horrible and brutal war, the Americans decided to include the Japanese in their sphere of protection. In return the Japanese agreed not to fuck with people anymore.
It has been a good working arrangement for the past fifty years.
But the Americans now spend far too much on military goods and they have lost their ability to make innovative and popular consumer goods. Americans are always looking for someone to fuck with, because their military-based economy demands it. They have structured their economy so that they simply can't go more than ten years without a major war. They don't really have any choice anymore. They have to go out and fuck with someone, anyone, anywhere, for any reason.
The only way to deal with the situation is to do whatever you can to convince the Americans to destoy your enemies and leave you and your customers alone.
Fortunately for the Japanese, the Americans have started a major war with the Arabs, many of whom have been infected with a brain-rotting virus called Islam. Since there are so many of them, the Americans will be occupied with this war for MANY years into the future. This war will continue until they run out of money (and since they have 20000 atomic bombs, your money is their money), run out of expendable people to fight the war, or just get worn out until they leave and the last helicopter is thrown off the side of the last aircraft carrier. Which is how the Vietnam War ended and is how the current Islam war will likely end about ten years from now.
Although no one will actually come out and say so, most countries are glad that the Americans decided on Islam as the 'enemy du jour'. As a result of their brain-rotting disease, no one can trust the Arabs not to send their children out to blow up their shopping malls and day-care centers. They are happy to have the Americans deal with the situation.
They can concentrate on making world-class consumer goods without distraction. It's a good situation for everyone except for the American weekend-warrior National Guard who find themselves in situation they can't get out of, can't understand, and can't believe is actually happening to them. Well, they signed up for it and then re-elected the guy who sent them there. It has to be what they really want.
Better them than us.
"Japan's trade surplus with the United States remains astronomically high, at over $6 billion; yet any regular reader of technophile Web sites such as I4U, Engadget or Gizmodo knows that the world's biggest exporter of consumer electronics regularly keeps its most innovative and exciting widgetry to itself, selling it only to the domestic market. Cell phones that do everything but make toast (although appropriate attachments are probably available from third-party accessory vendors). Gigapixel digital cameras . Laptops so tiny that "My dog ate my homework" is once again a valid excuse. And, of course, the most incredible toilets in the history of humankind."
One factor is the american obsession with BIG.
BIG cars most notably.
But also BIG TVs and such.
But not so much around my parts.
Oddly enough, the "Japanese" sushi bar across the street is the only place in town that serves it -- go figure.
argan0n
MD players may have sold for $400 at the outset, but the price quickly dropped to $200 or less. And player/recorders were available both in stereo-sized versions and in pocket-sized versions. Also, blanks were (and are) readily available.
The problem with MiniDiscs was timing. They were just starting to gain momentum in the US when MP3s exploded in popularity. If the option is a MiniDisc players with 74-minute discs (MDs store 74 minutes of audio in compressed format, so they're comparable to CDs but with the quality of good MP3s) or an MP3 player, most people opted for an MP3 player (I'll speculate on why later). And this was despite the fact that all this happened before the iPod was released and average MP3 player storage was around 128MB.
Personally, I like MiniDiscs. Tracks can be named, rearranged, and deleted. Discs only store 74 minutes of audio but they're tiny, which made them a better choice than CD walkmen or even solid-state MP3 players if you're willing to carry around extra discs. And being able to record in digital format cheaply and portably (compared to a DAT walkman--I still haven't seen a pocket-sized MP3 recorder) is a great feature, provided you are willing to live with the 74 minute limit.
What may have really killed MiniDisc was Napster. Unlike Japan, CDs can't be rented in the US, but Napster was easy to use, similarly free, and had everything you'd ever want. And why bother trying to figure out how to convert MP3's to audio to write to a MiniDisc when you can buy an MP3 walkman? Sure they couldn't store as much as a pocketfull of MiniDiscs, but there aren't many folks out there willing to go through the machniations of data conversion just to use a specific device. And now with iPods and similar devices selling fairly cheaply, there is little reason to invest in what has become an obsolete technology.
Plastic Ninjas, Fake Nurses, and other Chindonya Stories
Perhaps I'm just jaded, but I don't think the Japanese gadgets are so great. It took me several days to get used to the bizarre new toilets after they remodeled the rest rooms at my office... Actually, I blame the French for that specific problem.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
On a whim and out of curiousity, I once bought a half gallon of organic milk. Normally milk goes to waste in my fridge, going bad in 5 days while it would take me 7-8 to actually finish the smallest of containers. This organic milk, on the other hand, lasted the whole week it took to consume. Strange thing, I thought, must be something they add to the feed of conventionally fed cows. Then I found a cheaper organic milk, tried it out, and voila, it went bad after 5 days just like my ordinary conventional milk. When next in the store, I read the containers. All the milks were merely pasteurized except for my spontaneously bought organic milk -- which was ultra-pasteurized. My conclusion: If I don't have to buy two containers of milk per week, spending 25% more for organic ultra-pasteurized milk is saving me 75% on milk.
I have to look really hard to find ultra-pasteurized milk. I can't tell the difference, but I only like skim anyway (due to childhood lactose intolerance, I didn't really grow up accustomed to the taste of milk). I'm not convinced that ultra-pasteurization really means better, only that it's worth paying a premium for in order to save myself money.
Every single thing in Japan was invented here (US)... They just "improved it" (AKA, made it talk and flash with more lights). I wouldn't worry that they are ahead of us because they tend to stick with preinvented ideas.
Ri-Ri-Ri-Ri-Ri-Ri-Ri-Ri-Ri-Ri-Ri-Ri-Ri-Ri-Ridicu lous.
Another journalistic pile of crap trying to derive great meaning from so very little. I remember an article of this sort from the early 80's predicting the entire center of technological innovation was soon to be in Tokyo with the USA at the periphery. Do you think they might have missed a few details in that prediction? Here is one of the most mind-numbing sentences from this article:
..."
"America has its share of early adopters, but they tend to be the exception rather than the rule;
If they were the rule rather than the exception they could hardly be called early adopters, could they?
I'm not going to argue that there are some preferences that seem to be culturally ingrained. For instance I remain mystified why almost all my neighbors and friends feel a need for a military attack style vehicle for their day to day transportation needs. Judging by the stories I see in T3 magazine and elsewhere it seems like the Japanese are more willing to part with their money for small clever bits of electronics.
But wherever you find yourself there is an abundance of gadgets that compete for your money and attention. I suppose it is related to having three children with their gadgets and desire for ever more but I don't see a dearth of options. The only example from the list of seven at the end of the article that causes any excitement for me is the PSP. Can I stand to wait six or seven weeks? I suppose having a fully deployed HDTV system and a PCI receiver board in my PC for viewing and capture could serve as a distraction. Couldn't do that at all in Japan until very recently and still can't outside a few of the largest cities.
Japanese youth are very status oriented. Meaning they want big name items, big brand name items. Shoot, Japan is a giant test market for soft drinks. I finally find a Fanta drink I like, and its replaced by a new flavor in a week.
Japan is highly misunderstood in the US. Quite frankly its a wonderful place to live, and a hell of a lot more friendly then most of the US.
The RIAA fined my dog for barking too much like the Back Street Boys. They later came back and shot my dog for looking
In the US it's directed by the Pentagon and Eisenhower warned against it. It's principle was: "If it kills more, we buy it."
Gadget fanatics with unlimited spending power have been driving the technological progress in the US since the 50s. When national security is on the line, the customer pays any price. That's why companies could afford to risk doing expensive R&D. Until the PC-era (80s) computerisation was a 100% military sponsored gig.
In Japan you have now customers who will buy any new expensive digital sh*t, provided that it's small and blinks. That's a small prize for progress.
P.S., the european technological progress in the middle ages was also fueled by two key customer groups: luxury trade (furs and spices) and the military to protect them.
Fight Frist Psoting!
Browse Slashdot with 'Newest First'!
Hum... just for reminder, since parent seems not to live in Japan.
There is no country in the world where quality is as important as in Japan. The consumer will immediatly sanction any company that dares to sell something that is somehow crappy. The recent case of Mitsubichi Motors is the best proof of it. Recently, Mitsubichi did not recall a motor with a potential defective behaviour. Eventually some non mortal accident happened. As an immediate consequence, almost all activities of Mitsubichi (the largest bank in the world) have seen their sales revenues fail. Mitsubichi people are living without their bonus, no matter if they are in Mitsubichi Motors, Electric, the bank or wherever.
Ah, by the way, the customer service in Japan is just amazing. You never return things because you never need to. I know it is difficult to understand, but Japanese trust Japanese. As a consequence, when my wife order my French Wine from an internet retail ec site, we get delivered, and we only pay far latter, in a convinient store, when it happens that we can. You only need to bring your bill to Family Mart or something like this. This level of trust is impressive for an european like me.
Anybody that dare to say that Japanese are not quality concious, brand aware, consumer service minded to the utmost is obviously somebody that never left Texas...
I dont understand one more time how this could be modded up??? But well here is Slashdot.
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By the way I apologies my dear US friend, I'm French...
trillions of dollars spent on viagra and enlargement pills.
I don't think culture has that much to do with it. Imagine you're American have $20,000 to spend. You could buy a car and drive the highways and cruise for chicks. You could redo the cabinets in your kitchen or add an enclosed deck to your home. You could buy 5 acres of land out in the country. Now imagine you're Japanese and have $20,000 to spend. You could buy a car and have no place to park it. You could add an extra square foot onto your home. The Japanese just don't have as many spending options as Americans do. Americans can buy most things a lot cheaper. But electronics cost about the same. So as a Japanese person it makes more sense to spend your money on electronics because you get good value for money. An American has more opportunities to get good value for money buying other things.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
and after 25 years, America still does not have a high speed train between any two major cities.
Tokyo City center --> Osaka city center (552.6km/343.369721 miles) in 2.5 hours. Envy Factor: 5
"You think the allies won because of "better guns"?
There was a lot more to it than that, man. Strategy, luck and countless thousands of men all played a part in winning WW2."
Rrrright. Good strategy and thousands of men without guns. That would work just great.
People like you are absolutely clueless. Maybe you could show me where I said we won with "better guns". Nice try setting up a straw man. Too bad it didn't work out for you. Idiot.
What's all the abuse for? You trying to be tough?
...suggesting that superior weaponry won WWII. Perhaps I've missed something.
Rrrright. Good strategy and thousands of men without guns. That would work just great.
Eh? I said: "Strategy, luck and countless thousands of men all played a part in winning WW2."
Played a part.
People like you are absolutely clueless.
Thanks for the insult. I hope it makes you feel like a big tough man.
Maybe you could show me where I said we won with "better guns".
Perhaps I misunderstood. Sorry if that's the case. You were replying to a post that stated:
because we spend our money on the latest and greatest weapons and warfare.
To which you responded:
If I remember correctly, that paid off the last time Japan attacked us.
Nice try setting up a straw man. Too bad it didn't work out for you. Idiot.
Do you ever wonder why noone talks to you at parties? Or don't they invite you?
Cheers
Stor
"Yeah well there's a lot of stuff that should be, but isn't"
even better - a hammer and balls
You can't handle the truth.
and those of us who are into conspicuous consumption prefer non-technological money wasters, like big houses, Persian rugs, and so on. :)
how about fast car and hot chick
tech goodies in japan are lightyears ahead of the us and canada. im not gonna bother pointing out examples as anyone can come up with incidental data. the short of it is japanese manufacturers have to give the public better gadgets, or be unemployed. the japs really vote with their wallets. in america everyone is patiently waiting for intel to raise their proc's by 0.01 g hz or some hokey threading tech or other marketing scam (these are not innovations, but fixed bugs and bottlenecks that intel touts as breakthroughs). there is not enough competition here so tech companies take their sweet time releasing products. just loot at how slowly pda ram is goin up. instead they pack em w crap like bluetooth/wifi. by now pdas should be full on video mp3 devices. and if you think pda's dont need memory, fine, look at how shitty AND expensive graphic cards are these days. before a 30 $ card was top of the line and could play any game. now that there are only 2 major card makers, each with products priced pennies apart, price fixing seems like the only option. so the only things you should really buy thats canadian or american are socks and underwear.
It isn't quite correct to say there aren't 99 cent phones here in Japan. When I got my cellphone here six months ago, I asked if the phone couldn't just be free, and they said "Yeah, if you choose the model from earlier this year". And now, cancelling the service, they say I can keep the phone. Free. Having used it less than a year I pay $30 cancellation fee, but that's it.
Granted they do get enough people wanting hugely expensive latest fashionable cellphone models, and that helps support the industry. But my "older model" still has more features than the best thing I've seen in the states. Email, camera, etc.
As the economy here slips back into reverse, the pressure will come back for ordinary people to tighten their spending habits. This will shrink the fashion-pursuing segment of society that has famously supported Japan's small-gadgets economy. On the other hand, lifestyles remain compact [small cars, small apartments, etc.] regardless of the economy, and that means Japanese society will NEVER turn to emphasizing the big wasteful crap products. They will just get their small gadgets made cheaper in China.
The American economy and the Japanese economy both pay pretty insane prices for different things--for instance, there is no real "bottom end" in the American housing market; there is simply no such thing as sub-$400 housing in most areas, no matter how low quality/ small size you are willing to tolerate. Also, underregulated mega-corporations in both countries are allowed to shit on consumers in different ways--like those three year minimum phone contracts that were mentioned.
And people have mentioned the American patriotic duty of spending every last dollar the minute it is earned--if not sooner. And there's the incomes--like even the lowliest waiter here getting $7 an hour. All these things are true, but none of them are the whole picture. I think our countries are really not so different overall; the differences are in random details.
It's true what they say, that teachers are more respected in Japan/ Asia. And that is not entirely a good thing. Teachers almost never get any feedback from students, and they don't expect it, so they never improve their communication skills. Western teachers find themselves "respected" to death, unable to get students to even bat an eye in response to a discussion question. And Western students find themselves unable to learn from teachers who can never grok a question.
On the other hand, "learning by rote" is exactly what the Asian one-way educational paradigm can still do. Don't under-rate rote learning: Half a brain can do a whole lot of learning, from processing enough rote data. That is exactly the method that is used by most of these countries that blow us away on achievement tests.
The people who make noises like, "But we teach creativity! We teach children social skills, and character, and love of life!" -- not that it is impossible, but those people are almost always just sheltering their own failures behind a smokescreen of subjectivized variables. You know I am talking about Western education [oops-I-misspelled-daycare] systems.
There is another factor that I don't see being said yet, that a safe/ stable/ prosperous society makes the average student *far* less willing to put out heroic effort. Japan is affected by this syndrome just like the US: In an over-educated society kids yawn & fidget their way through a dumbed-down, drawn-out educational system just to qualify for mindless McJobs. What's to love there?
My Chinese international student friends love this fact about Japan & the US: They end up looking so brilliant [and lets them get all the good scholarships] when the local students they compete with are so lackadaisical about studies. [You know, the same would be true in the US, except that internationals are categorically shut out of most scholarships.]
Tell me about it. We went to Costa Rica a few months ago, and the milk there is orders of magnitude better tasting than ANY milk I've had in the states. Same goes for the beef, chicken, and pork. When you don't feed steriods and other chemicals to your livestock, they come out tasting like they should.
The argument, and it's a very valid one, being trumpeted by the irrational paranoid "radidation is bad, think of the children" idiots, is that the meat industry is full of many abhorrent greedy people who like the idea of selling meat packaged and handled in disgusted feces-filled E.coli-laden surroundings.
o/~ Join us now and share the software
Been there, done that. I worked several years in food service before going to IT, and the only reason I still eat hamburger (or out, for that matter) is a demonstrated massive resistance to food poisoning.
I also studied nuclear engineering before doing the food service, and have no qualms about irradiated food. Irradiated burger isn't THAT much pricier-- maybe as high as $4 a pound, instead of $3 per pound. Quality steak is a lot more (locally, anyhoo), and I'm not that fond of rare burgers. Given my druthers, I'd rather have the quality steak unground, especially given my (low-end) IT salary makes burgers more sensible.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Hmm, I remember seeing a diagram that showed that debt interest was more than 50% of the total budget, but my memory may be flawed... that may have been a projection.
:-)
Still, I'm right about DoD being #2, according to your numbers.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.