If large (dare I say the whoring word) evil corporations decide to "embrace" the domain name system, what is there to stop a citizens group that is completely fed up with this from starting their own TLD? Sure, not EVERYONE would have a DNS that recognizes these names, but if enough people get fed up it would be very hard to ignore.
Arpanet was designed to withstand any single point of failure, and in the same way it can't truly be completely controlled. Call my naive, but I still believe this to hold true.
I live and work in Japan. I have a DoCoMo phone. But I get this feeling that the "story" is missing a big, big point. Over here, we don't really have the option of buying "just a phone". Technically we could skimp the 300yen (US$2.50) "i-Mode" charge (monthly charge for using the internet) and not have any of the fancy 'net stuff.
But most people could care less to opt out of it at that price, not to mention many probably don't even realize there's a charge for that, as it's usually the default. Another point is that I don't think you can buy a non-color screen cell phone either. They just no longer exist. Even the cheapest phones, around 2,000yen or even free sometimes, are color.
And finally... at least in Tokyo, you're probably weird if you don't have a cell phone. I know a lot of people that probably have absolutely no need for a cell phone, but friends and co-workers would look at you funny if they asked for your cell phone number or e-mail address and you didn't have one. Unlike the U.S., owning a color screen fancy cell phone (at least in Tokyo and other large cities) is the majority, not a small bunch of people.
That said, some people were asking what a realistic figure on monthly charges was like. My wife and I both have a DoCoMo phone. We have about 20 minutes of free time, and have a 1 year contract and "family" contract (2 phones) which brings down the basic fee by about 15%. We use e-mail, but rarely ever cross the line for additional packets that aren't free. We also only barely cross the free 20 minutes. Combined, our monthly bill is about 9,000yen. (About $37.50 per phone.) I do, however, know of many people who's single phone bill is more than ours combined.
I'll probably be moded down for saying this, but is it THAT hard to type: ./configure make make install ???
Even if you did./configure --prefix=/usr/local/apache-1.3.26 you could still easily copy over the confs from your last installation! I just updated 8 servers within an hour, and it wasn't hard at all.
In Japan, cell phone spam has been a problem for quite some time now. The problem with cell phone spam is not just being seriously annoying, but the fact that it is NOT FREE for the receiver. NTT DoCoMo, the major cell phone carrier in Japan, charges per packet of data transmission. That goes for sending or receiving mail, and surfing the web.
Spammers use automated tools to sweep every imaginable alpha-numeric combination + @docomo.ne.jp. If they don't have your address now, they'll get to it eventually, even if you don't tell ANYONE your address. The only work around to this is to have an insanely random and long user name, and even this is only a temporary work around. Unlucky people that have easy to guess user names can receive a $20 monthly bill for mail alone, and this isn't that rare of a case.
To make things worse, a new form of phone spam is becoming a problem. Phone sex services use an automated program to call random combinations of cell phone numbers. (Cell phones in Japan start with a 090- prefix.) They call, and hang up on the first ring. All phones have caller ID, so the caller wonders who it was, and calls back, only to be greeted by the voice of a sexy woman. Worse yet, the caller usually doesn't turn his/her own caller ID off, so the service grabs the phone number as "successful" and then sells a list of known phone numbers, meaning the user will receive numerous calls. And no, this is not illegal (yet) in Japan. If the receiver doesn't pick up before the first ring, there is no cost on the part of the caller. But calling back usually costs at least $0.10 even if they hang up immediately.
Worse yet, this immense spamming is over loading the mail servers for the cell phone provider, and delaying legitimate mail. I have received mail delayed as long as 24 hours once. (Mail from phone to phone is by-passed, I believe, and doesn't suffer from the delay.)
If this is of any clue to cell phone providers in the U.S., they better wise up and find out a way to stop this before it happens, because it will happen, faster than you may imagine! (If the only plan is regulation by national law, U.S. cell phone users may want to think twice about buying a mail-enabled phone!)
I feel that there are some things best left to the traditional method. At least until the new technology's advantage exceeds that of the traditional medium.
As a hobby, I shoot stop motion clay animation. (My wife makes the figures, I shoot them.) We started out using Hi-8 video. That sucked, so we tried DV. A bit better, and non-linear editing was wonderful. Then for the fun of it, we tried Single-8. (That's 8mm FILM, not video. Yes, those old cameras. They still make film for these beasts!) Guess what? There's not a chance in hell we'll return to DV! Colors, shadows, depth, it can't be rivaled.
Recently we've been contemplating a new method, although the cost is a bit ridiculous, and the need is non-existent. We want to try 35mm. However, we don't have a 35mm camera, not to mention we can't even afford to do things in 16mm. The idea, however, was to use an EOS 1D (Canon's professional digital camera) to shoot all the frames, perform non-linear editing, special effects, and have it printed to 35mm film. My guess is that it will kick butt compared to any HDTV or DV format, while costing much less than shooting and editing with 16mm. Of course, this could only be accomplished because we are using stop-motion, but it's still a cool idea.
So... could someone tell me exactly WHY a digital "film" would be better, as far as the viewer is concerned?
Kitchen PC's have always attracted my attention, since I spend a lot of my spare time cooking or brewing beer. I love to cook, it's one of my favorite hobbies (next to eating, perhaps!) and so when I see kitchen devices, I'm pretty harsh unless it gets it "right".
So, let's look at this baby. Waterproof, shatter proof, so far so good. TV tuner, very nice. DVD so you can listen to music, not bad, although un-necessary for me since I have an MP3 server. But this is seriously missing the point, IMHO. Why would I want a TV tuner? Yeah, it would be nice to watch TV while cooking, but I like watching those cooking shows. And the recipe tends to fly by too fast! I want to record the show as I'm watching, rewinding, pausing, and so on. As for the keyboard, it's nice to be water proof, but I just don't want to move a bulky keyboard around when my hands are covered with dough, oil, sauce, what not. Flat panel screens should be touch sensitive, and ave an on-screen keyboard! And when it comes time to wash it, think about it. How easy do you think it would be to remove gunk from between the keys, versus removing the LCD and washing it like your other dishes, with it's flat surface and all? (No, I'm not asking for a dish washerable LCD, just removeable and hand-washable.)
I think the problem is that the designers still look at these as peecees. Yes, it would be nice if it were a real PC since us geeks could easily customize it to do what we want. But most importantly, this is a tool, a kitchen appliance. Focus should be on that aspect, not "what cool feature is available on the PC market today?" Computers were meant to be tools, not self-conclusive devices. And that's what I want in my kitchen!
A year ago to the day I was in Istanbul, on my way to Italy. In Italy (Florence, to be exact) I had the luck to visit an exhibition of Da Vinci, complete with models. This bridge was the most impressive, both mechanically and historically, due to the fact that I crossed the Bosporus bridge over the Golden Horn just a few days back. The design was so far ahead of it's time (although at the time I thought it was just about ready for today for construction in ALUMINUM) I had wondered how many other Da Vinci projects would yet see the light of modern technology, far after Da Vinci had passed.
His ideas are bizarre at best. Yet we already have the Helicopter. We now also have his Bridge. And some people think he was the father of photography. I have seen his paintings, his sketches, and models of his projects. They never cease to amaze me.
Perhaps he was a genius. Perhaps he was a lunatic. Either way, I wish someday I could have the insight that he had, and be as absolutely "crazy" as he was.
I'm glad that this didn't pass, but how long do we have until a similar one IS passed? I don't mean just the RIAA, NO private corporation should have rights to just hack a system. Heck, not even a government should!
I would be mighty pissed to find that all of my 3300 songs, which I can prove as being legal any day, were erased one unsuspecting day. Even though I do security work and generally make sure my machines are pretty damn secure, I would still be very, very upset if I kept getting port scans from the RIAA, especially since I would have no legal action to take against them. Never mind that I'd probably get into a lot of trouble if I tried to retaliate!
I know there are a lot of artists out there that are less than pleased with the RIAA, but I wonder how many of them know exactly how far the RIAA is willing to go in order to (supposedly) protect their own private interests while using the artist's rights as an excuse? I'm waiting for the artists to become more vocal on this, but I suppose that won't happen anytime too soon...
As much as I love my country (U.S.A.), these sorts of things make me wonder if the protesting Arabs don't have atleast a small hint of truth when they say they will fight against the evil capitalists.
Re:Good or bad... - in all seriousness
on
HP Buys Compaq
·
· Score: 1
As much as I'd like to mention how the DMCA probably means very little to those that live overseas, the DMCA has done a good job at doing exactly what it was meant to do. Intimidate people into fearing the release of anything. I can almost hear big brother jumping up and down in joy, planning another party for tonight!
Re:Floppies
on
Case Tweaking
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I agree here. No need for floppies.
I purchased a G4 Cube a few months ago (before I heard of them going out of production), and was a bit worried about the lack of floppy. But other than that, it was THE machine, so I just figured I'd buy an external one if there was a need. Besides, I have another older Mac and AMD box with a floppy drive.
Well well, pleasant surprise. As floppy-phobic as I was, I haven't had the need to use a single floppy since I purchased the Cube. Now that I come to think of it, I don't even remember when the last time was that I used a floppy, PERIOD, except for the OpenBSD boot disk. (Which souldn't be a problem either if I would just buy the distro with bootable CD.)
So why don't I need floppies? Well, they seem to cost more than a CD for manufacturers that want to bundle drivers etc., so no more floppies for that! And with a new machine, back-ups don't go on floppies anyways. What, back-up my graphics etc. chopped up into bits and pieces and scattered over 2000 floppies? I don't think so. And in all honesty, I don't know ANYONE that doesn't have an internet connection, and that includes my grandparents, so file transfers are not a problem either.
Just my 2cents.
I agree with this to a certain extent. At work, we have these chairs. The mesh is GREAT in the sense that you don't get the sweaty-ass (tm!?) and sweaty-back. My last job involved about 4 hours of sweaty-ass/back daily.
But $700!? I work at a start-up SIPS company, and we have about 120 of these in the office. Now I wonder how much the DESK costed... and I wonder why those in the corporate group that only use Word and Excel have the same $4000 laptops running W2KPro as us consultants... Yes, there are about 120 of these laptops that come standard with the desk, in addition to whatever other computers us "consultants" REALLY need.
Honestly, I love the chair, I love the desk, I love the fancy designer lamp on my desk, and I love the laptop (minus the OS). But this article sort of makes me worried over what I'll be doing in a year or so....
But back to the point. I like the chair. It's a pain in the ass to adjust, sort of, but honestly speaking, how many of us just loved to play around with all the adjustments for the first week or so after we got them? Within that first week of tinkering with it, I got my settings right.;-)
I can't believe there's a news article about these watermelons...
First off, no, their not genetically engineered. If the method is the same as the one I know (developed by a guy I know), after the plant flowers and grows into a tiny little melon-wannabe, a clear acrylic case is fitted over it. As the fruit grows, it's forced into the shape of the case. I believe part of the reason the suckers cost $82 is due to the fact that the failure rate is rather high, resulting in deformed looking, very esthetically unpleasant melons.;-)
The article says "Japanese farmers", but I wonder if it was based on the works of a guy I know. Although I won't mention the name here, he's a self proclaimed agriculture researcher (Japanese), that has been working on these square melons for atleast 22 years now. (That's when I first heard of them, in '79.) He has also worked on things like square eggplants, but I don't know if those ever took off. The tomatoes did, but were not economically viable... go figure. (Actually, I remember we all laughed at the idea back then too, since even in Japan an $82 square melon is more of a joke than a fruit product!)
you must be American to be such a disrespectfull asshole.
Am I an asshole? Maybe. But that'll depend if you're my boss, or my friend.;-)
As to my identity, I'm American by nationality, 50% Japanese, 50% Scandinavian by blood. And I've lived in Japan for 20 years now. HA!
So now, tell me what qualifies you to label me disrespective of a "different" culture? I'm sure, by your words, that you've worked in Japan and stood up to sh*t much longer than I have!
In all honesty, I don't disrespect Japan. I actually like it so much that I'm a permanent resident. That doesn't mean that there are a LOAD of things to rant about, which have potential to ruin Japan. Of course, I'm not pretending that the U.S. is perfect. You get the idea, I hope.
Either you're a mid-aged Japanese IT manager with no clue, or you've never worked in Japan and are talking out of your fscking ass!
Most Japanese offices (not ALL, but MOST) are so fscking backwards by all modern standards that they'd drive you crazy. The things that happen here are way beyond that of Dilbert and friends, and more like a twisted nightmare from a scene in Alice in Wonderland.
You REALLY think that all the employees look forward to those picnics, baseball games, company sponsored vacations and mandatory drinking with the boss!? Most people under 40 would rather do something else in their private time than pretend they actually enjoy it. The only reason they attend and pretend it's any fun is out of fear that they will be labeled a "non-team player" or someone who breaks the "wa" of the team. Don't fool yourself! Most of the younger ones in their 20's agree that only the "ojisan" really enjoy this, because the "ojisan" have spent their entire lives slaving away for the company, and have no clue as to how they could enjoy their private time beyond corporate sponsored events, which includes playing golf with the Bucho or maybe a client.
That said, the abuse of corporate power is enough to blow anyone away that's not prepared for living in twisted human rights. There are all sorts of laws that protect employees (although not even close to those in the U.S.) but they are rarely put to work. For example, it's not unusual to start working for a company without signing any contract. Asking for one will usually result in funny looks. That doesn't mean there isn't a contract though. Company rules and contract contents will change according to whatever the employer feels like. And don't even think that labor unions work in Japan either, since the union leaders are usually in bed with the company's management.
Going to the authorities with complaints about illegal employment practices usually isn't worth it either. The authorities will agree to issuing a letter to the employer demanding compliance with the law, but it'll probably get you fired. Sure, you can sue your employer, but do you know how much that costs?
Of course, I'm just a stupid, blunt and demanding Gaijin, so what do I know!
Slashdot Mirror
If large (dare I say the whoring word) evil corporations decide to "embrace" the domain name system, what is there to stop a citizens group that is completely fed up with this from starting their own TLD? Sure, not EVERYONE would have a DNS that recognizes these names, but if enough people get fed up it would be very hard to ignore.
Arpanet was designed to withstand any single point of failure, and in the same way it can't truly be completely controlled. Call my naive, but I still believe this to hold true.
I live and work in Japan. I have a DoCoMo phone. But I get this feeling that the "story" is missing a big, big point. Over here, we don't really have the option of buying "just a phone". Technically we could skimp the 300yen (US$2.50) "i-Mode" charge (monthly charge for using the internet) and not have any of the fancy 'net stuff.
But most people could care less to opt out of it at that price, not to mention many probably don't even realize there's a charge for that, as it's usually the default. Another point is that I don't think you can buy a non-color screen cell phone either. They just no longer exist. Even the cheapest phones, around 2,000yen or even free sometimes, are color.
And finally... at least in Tokyo, you're probably weird if you don't have a cell phone. I know a lot of people that probably have absolutely no need for a cell phone, but friends and co-workers would look at you funny if they asked for your cell phone number or e-mail address and you didn't have one. Unlike the U.S., owning a color screen fancy cell phone (at least in Tokyo and other large cities) is the majority, not a small bunch of people.
That said, some people were asking what a realistic figure on monthly charges was like. My wife and I both have a DoCoMo phone. We have about 20 minutes of free time, and have a 1 year contract and "family" contract (2 phones) which brings down the basic fee by about 15%. We use e-mail, but rarely ever cross the line for additional packets that aren't free. We also only barely cross the free 20 minutes. Combined, our monthly bill is about 9,000yen. (About $37.50 per phone.) I do, however, know of many people who's single phone bill is more than ours combined.
I'll probably be moded down for saying this, but is it THAT hard to type:
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/apache-1.3.26 you could still easily copy over the confs from your last installation! I just updated 8 servers within an hour, and it wasn't hard at all.
./configure
make
make install
???
Even if you did
Ladies and Gentlemen...
All your citizens are belong to us!
In Japan, cell phone spam has been a problem for quite some time now. The problem with cell phone spam is not just being seriously annoying, but the fact that it is NOT FREE for the receiver. NTT DoCoMo, the major cell phone carrier in Japan, charges per packet of data transmission. That goes for sending or receiving mail, and surfing the web.
Spammers use automated tools to sweep every imaginable alpha-numeric combination + @docomo.ne.jp. If they don't have your address now, they'll get to it eventually, even if you don't tell ANYONE your address. The only work around to this is to have an insanely random and long user name, and even this is only a temporary work around. Unlucky people that have easy to guess user names can receive a $20 monthly bill for mail alone, and this isn't that rare of a case.
To make things worse, a new form of phone spam is becoming a problem. Phone sex services use an automated program to call random combinations of cell phone numbers. (Cell phones in Japan start with a 090- prefix.) They call, and hang up on the first ring. All phones have caller ID, so the caller wonders who it was, and calls back, only to be greeted by the voice of a sexy woman. Worse yet, the caller usually doesn't turn his/her own caller ID off, so the service grabs the phone number as "successful" and then sells a list of known phone numbers, meaning the user will receive numerous calls. And no, this is not illegal (yet) in Japan. If the receiver doesn't pick up before the first ring, there is no cost on the part of the caller. But calling back usually costs at least $0.10 even if they hang up immediately.
Worse yet, this immense spamming is over loading the mail servers for the cell phone provider, and delaying legitimate mail. I have received mail delayed as long as 24 hours once. (Mail from phone to phone is by-passed, I believe, and doesn't suffer from the delay.)
If this is of any clue to cell phone providers in the U.S., they better wise up and find out a way to stop this before it happens, because it will happen, faster than you may imagine! (If the only plan is regulation by national law, U.S. cell phone users may want to think twice about buying a mail-enabled phone!)
I feel that there are some things best left to the traditional method. At least until the new technology's advantage exceeds that of the traditional medium.
As a hobby, I shoot stop motion clay animation. (My wife makes the figures, I shoot them.) We started out using Hi-8 video. That sucked, so we tried DV. A bit better, and non-linear editing was wonderful. Then for the fun of it, we tried Single-8. (That's 8mm FILM, not video. Yes, those old cameras. They still make film for these beasts!) Guess what? There's not a chance in hell we'll return to DV! Colors, shadows, depth, it can't be rivaled.
Recently we've been contemplating a new method, although the cost is a bit ridiculous, and the need is non-existent. We want to try 35mm. However, we don't have a 35mm camera, not to mention we can't even afford to do things in 16mm. The idea, however, was to use an EOS 1D (Canon's professional digital camera) to shoot all the frames, perform non-linear editing, special effects, and have it printed to 35mm film. My guess is that it will kick butt compared to any HDTV or DV format, while costing much less than shooting and editing with 16mm. Of course, this could only be accomplished because we are using stop-motion, but it's still a cool idea.
So... could someone tell me exactly WHY a digital "film" would be better, as far as the viewer is concerned?
Kitchen PC's have always attracted my attention, since I spend a lot of my spare time cooking or brewing beer. I love to cook, it's one of my favorite hobbies (next to eating, perhaps!) and so when I see kitchen devices, I'm pretty harsh unless it gets it "right".
So, let's look at this baby. Waterproof, shatter proof, so far so good. TV tuner, very nice. DVD so you can listen to music, not bad, although un-necessary for me since I have an MP3 server. But this is seriously missing the point, IMHO. Why would I want a TV tuner? Yeah, it would be nice to watch TV while cooking, but I like watching those cooking shows. And the recipe tends to fly by too fast! I want to record the show as I'm watching, rewinding, pausing, and so on. As for the keyboard, it's nice to be water proof, but I just don't want to move a bulky keyboard around when my hands are covered with dough, oil, sauce, what not. Flat panel screens should be touch sensitive, and ave an on-screen keyboard! And when it comes time to wash it, think about it. How easy do you think it would be to remove gunk from between the keys, versus removing the LCD and washing it like your other dishes, with it's flat surface and all? (No, I'm not asking for a dish washerable LCD, just removeable and hand-washable.)
I think the problem is that the designers still look at these as peecees. Yes, it would be nice if it were a real PC since us geeks could easily customize it to do what we want. But most importantly, this is a tool, a kitchen appliance. Focus should be on that aspect, not "what cool feature is available on the PC market today?" Computers were meant to be tools, not self-conclusive devices. And that's what I want in my kitchen!
A year ago to the day I was in Istanbul, on my way to Italy. In Italy (Florence, to be exact) I had the luck to visit an exhibition of Da Vinci, complete with models. This bridge was the most impressive, both mechanically and historically, due to the fact that I crossed the Bosporus bridge over the Golden Horn just a few days back. The design was so far ahead of it's time (although at the time I thought it was just about ready for today for construction in ALUMINUM) I had wondered how many other Da Vinci projects would yet see the light of modern technology, far after Da Vinci had passed.
His ideas are bizarre at best. Yet we already have the Helicopter. We now also have his Bridge. And some people think he was the father of photography. I have seen his paintings, his sketches, and models of his projects. They never cease to amaze me.
Perhaps he was a genius. Perhaps he was a lunatic. Either way, I wish someday I could have the insight that he had, and be as absolutely "crazy" as he was.
I'm glad that this didn't pass, but how long do we have until a similar one IS passed? I don't mean just the RIAA, NO private corporation should have rights to just hack a system. Heck, not even a government should!
I would be mighty pissed to find that all of my 3300 songs, which I can prove as being legal any day, were erased one unsuspecting day. Even though I do security work and generally make sure my machines are pretty damn secure, I would still be very, very upset if I kept getting port scans from the RIAA, especially since I would have no legal action to take against them. Never mind that I'd probably get into a lot of trouble if I tried to retaliate!
I know there are a lot of artists out there that are less than pleased with the RIAA, but I wonder how many of them know exactly how far the RIAA is willing to go in order to (supposedly) protect their own private interests while using the artist's rights as an excuse? I'm waiting for the artists to become more vocal on this, but I suppose that won't happen anytime too soon...
As much as I love my country (U.S.A.), these sorts of things make me wonder if the protesting Arabs don't have atleast a small hint of truth when they say they will fight against the evil capitalists.
Yeah, well, "All restaurants are Taco Bell"!!
As much as I'd like to mention how the DMCA probably means very little to those that live overseas, the DMCA has done a good job at doing exactly what it was meant to do. Intimidate people into fearing the release of anything. I can almost hear big brother jumping up and down in joy, planning another party for tonight!
I agree here. No need for floppies. I purchased a G4 Cube a few months ago (before I heard of them going out of production), and was a bit worried about the lack of floppy. But other than that, it was THE machine, so I just figured I'd buy an external one if there was a need. Besides, I have another older Mac and AMD box with a floppy drive. Well well, pleasant surprise. As floppy-phobic as I was, I haven't had the need to use a single floppy since I purchased the Cube. Now that I come to think of it, I don't even remember when the last time was that I used a floppy, PERIOD, except for the OpenBSD boot disk. (Which souldn't be a problem either if I would just buy the distro with bootable CD.) So why don't I need floppies? Well, they seem to cost more than a CD for manufacturers that want to bundle drivers etc., so no more floppies for that! And with a new machine, back-ups don't go on floppies anyways. What, back-up my graphics etc. chopped up into bits and pieces and scattered over 2000 floppies? I don't think so. And in all honesty, I don't know ANYONE that doesn't have an internet connection, and that includes my grandparents, so file transfers are not a problem either. Just my 2cents.
I agree with this to a certain extent. At work, we have these chairs. The mesh is GREAT in the sense that you don't get the sweaty-ass (tm!?) and sweaty-back. My last job involved about 4 hours of sweaty-ass/back daily.
;-)
But $700!? I work at a start-up SIPS company, and we have about 120 of these in the office. Now I wonder how much the DESK costed... and I wonder why those in the corporate group that only use Word and Excel have the same $4000 laptops running W2KPro as us consultants... Yes, there are about 120 of these laptops that come standard with the desk, in addition to whatever other computers us "consultants" REALLY need.
Honestly, I love the chair, I love the desk, I love the fancy designer lamp on my desk, and I love the laptop (minus the OS). But this article sort of makes me worried over what I'll be doing in a year or so....
But back to the point. I like the chair. It's a pain in the ass to adjust, sort of, but honestly speaking, how many of us just loved to play around with all the adjustments for the first week or so after we got them? Within that first week of tinkering with it, I got my settings right.
I can't believe there's a news article about these watermelons... First off, no, their not genetically engineered. If the method is the same as the one I know (developed by a guy I know), after the plant flowers and grows into a tiny little melon-wannabe, a clear acrylic case is fitted over it. As the fruit grows, it's forced into the shape of the case. I believe part of the reason the suckers cost $82 is due to the fact that the failure rate is rather high, resulting in deformed looking, very esthetically unpleasant melons. ;-)
The article says "Japanese farmers", but I wonder if it was based on the works of a guy I know. Although I won't mention the name here, he's a self proclaimed agriculture researcher (Japanese), that has been working on these square melons for atleast 22 years now. (That's when I first heard of them, in '79.) He has also worked on things like square eggplants, but I don't know if those ever took off. The tomatoes did, but were not economically viable... go figure. (Actually, I remember we all laughed at the idea back then too, since even in Japan an $82 square melon is more of a joke than a fruit product!)
Am I an asshole? Maybe. But that'll depend if you're my boss, or my friend. ;-)
As to my identity, I'm American by nationality, 50% Japanese, 50% Scandinavian by blood. And I've lived in Japan for 20 years now. HA!
So now, tell me what qualifies you to label me disrespective of a "different" culture? I'm sure, by your words, that you've worked in Japan and stood up to sh*t much longer than I have!
In all honesty, I don't disrespect Japan. I actually like it so much that I'm a permanent resident. That doesn't mean that there are a LOAD of things to rant about, which have potential to ruin Japan. Of course, I'm not pretending that the U.S. is perfect. You get the idea, I hope.
Either you're a mid-aged Japanese IT manager with no clue, or you've never worked in Japan and are talking out of your fscking ass! Most Japanese offices (not ALL, but MOST) are so fscking backwards by all modern standards that they'd drive you crazy. The things that happen here are way beyond that of Dilbert and friends, and more like a twisted nightmare from a scene in Alice in Wonderland. You REALLY think that all the employees look forward to those picnics, baseball games, company sponsored vacations and mandatory drinking with the boss!? Most people under 40 would rather do something else in their private time than pretend they actually enjoy it. The only reason they attend and pretend it's any fun is out of fear that they will be labeled a "non-team player" or someone who breaks the "wa" of the team. Don't fool yourself! Most of the younger ones in their 20's agree that only the "ojisan" really enjoy this, because the "ojisan" have spent their entire lives slaving away for the company, and have no clue as to how they could enjoy their private time beyond corporate sponsored events, which includes playing golf with the Bucho or maybe a client. That said, the abuse of corporate power is enough to blow anyone away that's not prepared for living in twisted human rights. There are all sorts of laws that protect employees (although not even close to those in the U.S.) but they are rarely put to work. For example, it's not unusual to start working for a company without signing any contract. Asking for one will usually result in funny looks. That doesn't mean there isn't a contract though. Company rules and contract contents will change according to whatever the employer feels like. And don't even think that labor unions work in Japan either, since the union leaders are usually in bed with the company's management. Going to the authorities with complaints about illegal employment practices usually isn't worth it either. The authorities will agree to issuing a letter to the employer demanding compliance with the law, but it'll probably get you fired. Sure, you can sue your employer, but do you know how much that costs? Of course, I'm just a stupid, blunt and demanding Gaijin, so what do I know!