Not sure how this myth perpetuates, but its not true. Most elderly Japanese survive on government handouts (near-free healthcare, social security pensions).
Funny you mention that - mandatory Japanese health insurance premiums have been going up for years because the cost of providing care for the aging is increasing. I haven't seen a doctor for 3 years for anything, but I pay out $500 to the government for "health insurance":(
Well, sorta. The Kanto region has about 42million people at about 1300ppl/km2. Compare that to to the NY tri-state area which is about 19million people at about 1100ppl/km2. Its not exactly a big deal - you look at Hong Kong or Singapore and there is a much higher density.
Much of it IS about xenophobia, some of it is just tough luck (carers who can't speak Japanese aren't much use).
What hasn't been mentioned is what about the Japanese themselves? Nurses and carers are in high demand, there is high unemployment - why isn't the slack being taken up? Much of this is because being a nurse in Japan is a shitty job - you don't get paid or treated any better than someone working 9-5 in an office and you'd make more money working part-time at 7-11 than you would as a registered nurse or worse, a carer. Considering that many hospitals are running at a loss and the state of the Japanese social security system this is going to change anytime soon.
Broadband penetration in the country is terrible in Japan:\ Its already been pointed out by Softbank that KDDI and NTT's handling of fibre optic rollout has been patchy, inefficient and exceedingly expensive - the monthly "rental" fee for internet is outrageously high.
No its not - what they do isn't legal to start with. This is exactly how it sounds - broadcasters wanting to have total control over their shows and making Slingbox style services illegal. The Japanese TV industry is a disgusting mess - I look at the US in envy of things like Hulu, Netflix, ABC on iPad, Joost, companies that put high quality content on Youtube and all of the stuff you can watch online (including Australia and the UK with the ABC/BBC web stuff).
Meanwhile what do we have in Japan? Nothing!
Why? Because Japanese companies are scared of the internet. http://neojaponisme.com/2009/05/19/the-fear-of-the-internet/
Things are slowly getting better, but stuff like this just puts it all back a step.
"Tokyo" (or more accurately Kanto) is basically heavily built up around the main train lines - the further out you go and the smaller the area that is build up around the train lines. I live out literally in the middle of Chiba and its only a 10minute drive out into areas of cultivated fields and densely forested unused land. Even in Tokyo proper you can head out east and there is still land that is empty or undeveloped.
What is very annoying is the Japan's fibre rollout is faaar from complete and there are still many built up urban areas that do not yet have access to fibre. My own house only got it 3 years ago, and living in Saitama in 2006 I had to wait 6 months for demand to increase (which might have happened because I door knocked and got people to register interest once they found it thats the only reason why it wasn't available). "100mbit" really equates to about 60mbit on a good day, and using the craptastic "home gateway" my ISP provides is less than 30mbit.
I run Chromium OS on an old Thinkpad X41 running of a tiny micro-SD USB memory stick.
Want Chromium OS? Boot with the USB stick in, ready to rock in about 10 seconds.
Want Ubuntu? Pull the USB stick, boot normally.
Can't agree any more! I setup Nagios (with Ninja, running almost constantly on a 3rd monitor at home) and with automated alarms for things like extended downtime to sites, or for hosts, and disk space/CPU usage warnings I generally catch issues before I have a wave of users crying at me. Throw in email/jabber on my iPhone and a boss that lets me work from home, I do most of my 9-5 work away from my computer (all the real work happens at 2am when I can reboot anything on a whim).
I'm looking at joining the local gym - weekdays during the day its dead, and they have a nice pool:)
You don't seriously think that is difficult? Laser guided munitions have been around since 60's, AGM-114 Hellfire missile has been in combat use since the mid 80's.
Logged in... -.-;
Reality is that NFC payments are a novelty in Japan, and treating them as anything but is pure delusion on your part. Simply put, you cannot just take a single phone or card out of the house and be able to get by - in Japan you can't even just take a credit card - cash is still essential.
Thing is, in the US this has a chance of taking off.
What I see as the biggest issue facing IT is that too little of the management out there is savvy enough to be able to manage all aspects - managing people, budgets, tasks and technology.
Every single day I see insane decisions made which ultimately waste time, money and materials. If you want a reason why people have no work ethic, its because they know they know that the people making the decisions have already doomed everyone to failure.
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Good luck pushing a new tax through when the government changes every 12 months and can't get anything done ;)
Not sure how this myth perpetuates, but its not true. Most elderly Japanese survive on government handouts (near-free healthcare, social security pensions).
Funny you mention that - mandatory Japanese health insurance premiums have been going up for years because the cost of providing care for the aging is increasing. I haven't seen a doctor for 3 years for anything, but I pay out $500 to the government for "health insurance" :(
Well, sorta. The Kanto region has about 42million people at about 1300ppl/km2. Compare that to to the NY tri-state area which is about 19million people at about 1100ppl/km2. Its not exactly a big deal - you look at Hong Kong or Singapore and there is a much higher density.
Much of it IS about xenophobia, some of it is just tough luck (carers who can't speak Japanese aren't much use).
What hasn't been mentioned is what about the Japanese themselves? Nurses and carers are in high demand, there is high unemployment - why isn't the slack being taken up? Much of this is because being a nurse in Japan is a shitty job - you don't get paid or treated any better than someone working 9-5 in an office and you'd make more money working part-time at 7-11 than you would as a registered nurse or worse, a carer. Considering that many hospitals are running at a loss and the state of the Japanese social security system this is going to change anytime soon.
Broadband penetration in the country is terrible in Japan :\ Its already been pointed out by Softbank that KDDI and NTT's handling of fibre optic rollout has been patchy, inefficient and exceedingly expensive - the monthly "rental" fee for internet is outrageously high.
No its not - what they do isn't legal to start with. This is exactly how it sounds - broadcasters wanting to have total control over their shows and making Slingbox style services illegal. The Japanese TV industry is a disgusting mess - I look at the US in envy of things like Hulu, Netflix, ABC on iPad, Joost, companies that put high quality content on Youtube and all of the stuff you can watch online (including Australia and the UK with the ABC/BBC web stuff). Meanwhile what do we have in Japan? Nothing! Why? Because Japanese companies are scared of the internet. http://neojaponisme.com/2009/05/19/the-fear-of-the-internet/ Things are slowly getting better, but stuff like this just puts it all back a step.
"Tokyo" (or more accurately Kanto) is basically heavily built up around the main train lines - the further out you go and the smaller the area that is build up around the train lines. I live out literally in the middle of Chiba and its only a 10minute drive out into areas of cultivated fields and densely forested unused land. Even in Tokyo proper you can head out east and there is still land that is empty or undeveloped. What is very annoying is the Japan's fibre rollout is faaar from complete and there are still many built up urban areas that do not yet have access to fibre. My own house only got it 3 years ago, and living in Saitama in 2006 I had to wait 6 months for demand to increase (which might have happened because I door knocked and got people to register interest once they found it thats the only reason why it wasn't available). "100mbit" really equates to about 60mbit on a good day, and using the craptastic "home gateway" my ISP provides is less than 30mbit.
Exactly - what do you think "get the sack" means?
When I go to China I turn on the VPN on my iPhone and tether to my laptop, skype, facebook and twitter away :P
What do you think fines are for?
I run Chromium OS on an old Thinkpad X41 running of a tiny micro-SD USB memory stick. Want Chromium OS? Boot with the USB stick in, ready to rock in about 10 seconds. Want Ubuntu? Pull the USB stick, boot normally.
I think you are mixing privacy and security...
Can't agree any more! I setup Nagios (with Ninja, running almost constantly on a 3rd monitor at home) and with automated alarms for things like extended downtime to sites, or for hosts, and disk space/CPU usage warnings I generally catch issues before I have a wave of users crying at me. Throw in email/jabber on my iPhone and a boss that lets me work from home, I do most of my 9-5 work away from my computer (all the real work happens at 2am when I can reboot anything on a whim). I'm looking at joining the local gym - weekdays during the day its dead, and they have a nice pool :)
You don't seriously think that is difficult? Laser guided munitions have been around since 60's, AGM-114 Hellfire missile has been in combat use since the mid 80's.
Logged in... -.-; Reality is that NFC payments are a novelty in Japan, and treating them as anything but is pure delusion on your part. Simply put, you cannot just take a single phone or card out of the house and be able to get by - in Japan you can't even just take a credit card - cash is still essential. Thing is, in the US this has a chance of taking off.
What I see as the biggest issue facing IT is that too little of the management out there is savvy enough to be able to manage all aspects - managing people, budgets, tasks and technology. Every single day I see insane decisions made which ultimately waste time, money and materials. If you want a reason why people have no work ethic, its because they know they know that the people making the decisions have already doomed everyone to failure.