Sadly, the only reason we're even getting this news is because they're safely outside the three year statute of limitations (or local equivalent) so these morons can't be sent to court and buried with some control rods in a pit somewhere.
I admit I take things like this kind of personally because my family and I live within striking distance of these incidents.
This is the sad side of a culture which doesn't question or criticize. If people want to hide their dirty laundry in an accounting or business situation, fine, but let's not hide whether or not Suzuki-san was watching the dial...
I hope they go over these folks as rabidly as they went after Horie...
Agreed. I read this and as I was getting to the artical, I was planning when to check this out. Oh. It's a manga/internet cafe. Ah well.
Still, if you haven't been to one, they are kind of interesting places. The customers are the kind of otaku who you'd find in Akiba most days (and 'otaku', now there's a loaded word...).
I used to go to one in my old haunt of Kameari in downtown east Tokyo because it was cheap, had coffee, games, manga and air conditioning (summer paradise) and if I was studying Japanese, there were plenty of people who could try to explain things to me. I don't know of an equivalent place to learn a language anywhere else.
Also, if you think you've seen manga shops, you have to witness some of the bigger ones. Manga as far as the eye can see, and tempers can fray if they're out of sequence. All in all, it's nice to see these often downtrodden places getting a bit of publicity, even if it is only rebranding.
There's as much difference in sound as an accent in NY vs. California (for the Americans on this board).Actually, since this is a Japanese company and since they've written it in their own phonetic script, shouldn't the gaijin out their learn to pronounce it *their* way?
I think there's a few of us getting pretty tired of Slashdot's ignorance of anything that isn't English.
Just a note; GIMP is an acronym that happens to be a word. Ubuntu I believe is an 'African' work. It's a little dangerous to assume any word that isn't recogniseable as an English word isn't a real word.
As for product names, I think people should name then what they like. How uninteresting is the Toyota SUV, Nissan SUV, GM SUV; Microsoft Word Processor Corel Word Processor?
I'm so lucky to be living in a modest but modern apartment here in Tokyo and get to enjoy 100Mb 'Fibre' (Hikari fibre by TEPCO), which I have running consistantly at over 40Mb down, 10Mb up, thus Bittorrent loves me. That 100Mb of course being best effort, and we all know there are many reasons why you'll never really get that.)
This is pretty common in Tokyo. Even the ADSL here is by standard well over 40Mb (though speed obviously comes in a lot below that in real life. Hell, my mobile phone has a 2.4Mb download.
OK, so bragging over, all I can say is that it can be done, and done cheaply. My Hikari Fibre is included in the rent, and none of the solutions here in Japan are expensive - 20USD a month or so. When I came to Japan originally in 1996 it was a totally different story - dial up was more expensive than the UK and access points were pretty screwed up outside of Tokyo. When I returned in 1999, ISDN flat rate was there, and by 2001, ADSL was ramping up incredibly, even in my then decrepit old place.
Some things in Japan are archaic (government, banks etc. (really, ATMs which close at 7pm...)), but the bandwidth here does prove it's the companies holding this up elsewhere, for whatever reasons. I guess they're hoping to string out their plant (copper cable/switch etc.) life as long as they can, because hey, tomorrow it'll be cheaper to upgrade right? I think here it was a case of national pride - late to 'the internet' party in the mid- to late 90's, and with rival neighbours Korea beating them, I think NTT finally got told to 'sort it out'. You have to love that 'close state relationship'!
Well, I don't offer any special insight here. I've lived in Japan for 6 years, even married a Japanese, and look forward to having kids one day. But I don't claim insight into this. It's too big, too deep, and I'm not talking about Japan, I'm talking about anyone caught up in a World War, something many of us on this forum, in all fairness, don't know shit all about.
There is confusion here in Japan on both sides about the war, the Bomb, the right , the wrong. Would Japan be here today with it or without it? The bottom line is, we don't know. Hundreds disappeard under military rule in Japan in the 1930's for speaking out against the march to war. There is no shrine to these people as they have been deleted.
Much of Tokyo was firebombed. The town where I used to live in Kanagawa-ken was razed by Allied bombing. Then again, my home town in Europe was firebombed, and as my grandmother said, the heat from the burning paper mills made the glass melt in the nearby houses. Burning people.
The obsession with Hiroshima and Nagasaki from a suffering point of view is a morbid curiosity about the technology, not the event. Ask the people of Dresden. Of Coventry. It's been used to show the Japanese people as victims. Indeed they were during that raid, but not just from the Bomb, but from their own government, from the act of War. Many Asian people suffered under Japanese beliefs of superiority - something I see the echoes of. It's not nice, it's not pretty, but it's real.
We cannot judge 60 years ago, but as it says on many memorials, never again, and in the [paraphrased] words of Thomas Paine 'may I live in a time of suffering so my children might know peace'. We might think our lives are hard, but virtually none of us have watched people burn to death, been a party to the genocide of millions and hid behind our own fears. I glad I don't have to live with that, I'm glad I don't need to make those decisions.
I only noticed this story via the BBC RSS feed as it had some extensive strikethroughs - nothing massively interesting, but it shows that they do indeed have editors! Shameless plug of my blog here with pics:
I'm a Linux enthusiast, but a Windows Administrator to pay the rent, and whenever I ask about how I can do 'Group Policy' type things in Linux, I only ever get vague answers, and encouragement to write scripts and such. Is there an over-arching enterprise level Linux management system for desktops? Certainly from an enterprise level admin (600+ users, 1000+ desktops) this is what's missing from my arsenal of answers to my Linux hating collegues.
I agree with the above post; if the Linux community wants to get desktops into enterprises, then it has to start beating the incumbant not just on software/security but on how it functions as a whole system - giving the people what it wants. I've liked Linux for about 7 years as I just couldn't afford Windows at the time, but sometimes I can't shake this doubt that too many in the Linux community like it being 'the underdog' because it makes them feel special.
As a non-programmer, but a Linux user, and generally intrested in 'the way things are done', I wish the above post had a higher rating, and a few more answers.
Just on the topic of enterprise adoption, we're looking at firefox, but we also want to be able to apply active directory policies to it. We've seen some sample policies based on betas, but they don't seem to work on the release version. Now, I *know* this is possible, but unfortunately we haven't had chance to dive into it.
If anyone is using policies to administer/lock down Firefox successfully, I'd be happy to hear about them.
Actually, there's a whole load of theories as to why Japanese ideas of cuteness and style have extended this way, and sorry, it's probably not because they're in awe of caucasians, though yes, there are racial overtones.
Many believe it's because many Japanese feel they have small eyes that large eyes are condsidered attractive - witness the popularity of Ayumi Hamazaki, or look on virtually any billboard in Japan.
It's the same psychology for Marvel super heroes from the US - they're lean and muscular, not overweight people struggling around Wal-Mart. (Sorry, I just watched 'Super Size Me' so I might have gone too far there), but you know what I mean'.
Basically, it's escapism, that which is not what we are.
I saw this here in Japan last year when it came out as I like the man's work, and I like 'steampunk', so I thought it would be a good mix and whilst the setting and the look is fantastic, the plot does indeed get a little drawn out. The attack on London scene is amazing though. Summary: good film, but not earthshattering - had it not been from 'the guy who did Akira', it might've seemed more impressive - twisted logic I know.Like trying to follow up a hit album.
I give them credit for quite a few insider references though, such as that at the beginning of the film, outside 'Steamboy's' factory there is a pub called 'The Rover's Return', made famous in the British soap 'Coronation Street'.
It's definitely worth seeing, but Akira it is not, which is fine IMHO - I liked Akira, but there are many more hot manga and anime to be read and watched. OK, I'm lucky to live in Tokyo so I see much of it first hand, and whilst Steamboy got good reviews, it's usual for magazines and newspapers here to rave about big releases from ackowledged animators. Personally, I thought Appleseed was maybe a little better, Innocence (Ghost in the Shell 2) a little worse (nice song, nice characters, but a very twisted plot, but maybe it will be simplified for the 'West' like the original Akira dub was.)
However, you might want to miss Casshern, by Hikaru Utada's husband I believe...a bit of a triumph of style over any kind of plot.
I'm a Tokyo resident, and yes, have been watching the JAXA programmes for a while, as well as some of the national pride (and nationalism) which surrounds them. Infamous Tokyo mayor, Shintaro Ishihara mocked the Chinese for using old technology just days before the Japanese rocket exploded. Hmm. I guess old is OK as long as it works right? (The nicer irony was that that rocket was due to launch 2 spy satellites over North Korea).
I wish JAXA all the best, but I don't think it takes a lot to figure out that this is more symbolic than anything else, and certainly isn't business driven which is a shame, because the X Prize etc., seems to have made more people get interested in space again, on a commercial, private level. Japan is feeling the Fear with a rising China right now, and is desperately trying to flex itself again, but you only have to look at stories like the Livedoor vs. Fuji TV to see the internal conflict Japan's industry has.
Also, the word 'tsunami' seems to get bolted onto everything now in an attempt to get funding. I just hope some of it gets spend on the tsunami victims.
Well, I feel old now...all these elite hackers owning me, and knowing far more ASCII than I do. Some people will say these kids can't communicate correctly and say it's laced with poor grammar and spelling, but just maybe it's better to call someone a griefer online, than what I do which is grab a random bystander in a bar and shout "You bitch ass motherfucker!!"
This phishing is overrated - I've made millions from funneling money from Nigeria, and I intend to invest that in cheap MS Viagra patches from Hot Suzy@texaspokersmoker.tv.
I've been here in Japan for a while now, and I have to say that right now, it's not really ready for filthy gaijin tourists, but it's home-based tourist system is quite evolved, but is hideously expensive because people will pay (or more likely go to Hawaii). It was cheaper and easier for me to take in a weekend in Seoul than in Osaka from Tokyo. Having said that, BBC did a nice story on how horrific London can be too (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3931277.stm).
A TV programme a few months ago highlighted the issue: on-set guests listed their favourite tourist spots: Fuji viewing, Kyoto, Nara, kamakura, whereas the foreign tourists they found all listed other things like: Akihabara, Shibuya, Hiroshima, Nagano for snow sports.
There's definitely a difference between what people may want to see, and what the Japanese Govt. may want to show them. From that then (and the long way around I know), just what info will these PDAs have? 10 reasons why Kyoto's architecture isn't as bad as it looks, or a recent update of Akihabara prices at kakaku.com?
Either way, as someone who's been here 6 years, i really do recommend it, and though it's relative, you can do japan 'cheap', so if you've got the desire to come over, just get that ticket, it really is a lot of fun.
Slashdot Mirror
Sadly, the only reason we're even getting this news is because they're safely outside the three year statute of limitations (or local equivalent) so these morons can't be sent to court and buried with some control rods in a pit somewhere.
I admit I take things like this kind of personally because my family and I live within striking distance of these incidents.
This is the sad side of a culture which doesn't question or criticize. If people want to hide their dirty laundry in an accounting or business situation, fine, but let's not hide whether or not Suzuki-san was watching the dial...
I hope they go over these folks as rabidly as they went after Horie...
Agreed. I read this and as I was getting to the artical, I was planning when to check this out. Oh. It's a manga/internet cafe. Ah well.
Still, if you haven't been to one, they are kind of interesting places. The customers are the kind of otaku who you'd find in Akiba most days (and 'otaku', now there's a loaded word...).
I used to go to one in my old haunt of Kameari in downtown east Tokyo because it was cheap, had coffee, games, manga and air conditioning (summer paradise) and if I was studying Japanese, there were plenty of people who could try to explain things to me. I don't know of an equivalent place to learn a language anywhere else.
Also, if you think you've seen manga shops, you have to witness some of the bigger ones. Manga as far as the eye can see, and tempers can fray if they're out of sequence. All in all, it's nice to see these often downtrodden places getting a bit of publicity, even if it is only rebranding.
Yes, The Japanese can say 'We' (or Wii). In Katakana it's written 'U' 'I' and then a '-' indicating an extension of that final 'vowel' sound.
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/wii/index.html
There's as much difference in sound as an accent in NY vs. California (for the Americans on this board).Actually, since this is a Japanese company and since they've written it in their own phonetic script, shouldn't the gaijin out their learn to pronounce it *their* way?
I think there's a few of us getting pretty tired of Slashdot's ignorance of anything that isn't English.
Just a note; GIMP is an acronym that happens to be a word. Ubuntu I believe is an 'African' work. It's a little dangerous to assume any word that isn't recogniseable as an English word isn't a real word.
As for product names, I think people should name then what they like. How uninteresting is the Toyota SUV, Nissan SUV, GM SUV; Microsoft Word Processor Corel Word Processor?
I'm so lucky to be living in a modest but modern apartment here in Tokyo and get to enjoy 100Mb 'Fibre' (Hikari fibre by TEPCO), which I have running consistantly at over 40Mb down, 10Mb up, thus Bittorrent loves me. That 100Mb of course being best effort, and we all know there are many reasons why you'll never really get that.)
This is pretty common in Tokyo. Even the ADSL here is by standard well over 40Mb (though speed obviously comes in a lot below that in real life. Hell, my mobile phone has a 2.4Mb download.
OK, so bragging over, all I can say is that it can be done, and done cheaply. My Hikari Fibre is included in the rent, and none of the solutions here in Japan are expensive - 20USD a month or so. When I came to Japan originally in 1996 it was a totally different story - dial up was more expensive than the UK and access points were pretty screwed up outside of Tokyo. When I returned in 1999, ISDN flat rate was there, and by 2001, ADSL was ramping up incredibly, even in my then decrepit old place.
Some things in Japan are archaic (government, banks etc. (really, ATMs which close at 7pm...)), but the bandwidth here does prove it's the companies holding this up elsewhere, for whatever reasons. I guess they're hoping to string out their plant (copper cable/switch etc.) life as long as they can, because hey, tomorrow it'll be cheaper to upgrade right? I think here it was a case of national pride - late to 'the internet' party in the mid- to late 90's, and with rival neighbours Korea beating them, I think NTT finally got told to 'sort it out'. You have to love that 'close state relationship'!
Well, I don't offer any special insight here. I've lived in Japan for 6 years, even married a Japanese, and look forward to having kids one day. But I don't claim insight into this. It's too big, too deep, and I'm not talking about Japan, I'm talking about anyone caught up in a World War, something many of us on this forum, in all fairness, don't know shit all about.
There is confusion here in Japan on both sides about the war, the Bomb, the right , the wrong. Would Japan be here today with it or without it? The bottom line is, we don't know. Hundreds disappeard under military rule in Japan in the 1930's for speaking out against the march to war. There is no shrine to these people as they have been deleted.
Much of Tokyo was firebombed. The town where I used to live in Kanagawa-ken was razed by Allied bombing. Then again, my home town in Europe was firebombed, and as my grandmother said, the heat from the burning paper mills made the glass melt in the nearby houses. Burning people.
The obsession with Hiroshima and Nagasaki from a suffering point of view is a morbid curiosity about the technology, not the event. Ask the people of Dresden. Of Coventry. It's been used to show the Japanese people as victims. Indeed they were during that raid, but not just from the Bomb, but from their own government, from the act of War. Many Asian people suffered under Japanese beliefs of superiority - something I see the echoes of. It's not nice, it's not pretty, but it's real.
We cannot judge 60 years ago, but as it says on many memorials, never again, and in the [paraphrased] words of Thomas Paine 'may I live in a time of suffering so my children might know peace'. We might think our lives are hard, but virtually none of us have watched people burn to death, been a party to the genocide of millions and hid behind our own fears. I glad I don't have to live with that, I'm glad I don't need to make those decisions.
I only noticed this story via the BBC RSS feed as it had some extensive strikethroughs - nothing massively interesting, but it shows that they do indeed have editors! Shameless plug of my blog here with pics:
http://www.nanikore.net/?p=364
I'm a Linux enthusiast, but a Windows Administrator to pay the rent, and whenever I ask about how I can do 'Group Policy' type things in Linux, I only ever get vague answers, and encouragement to write scripts and such. Is there an over-arching enterprise level Linux management system for desktops? Certainly from an enterprise level admin (600+ users, 1000+ desktops) this is what's missing from my arsenal of answers to my Linux hating collegues.
I agree with the above post; if the Linux community wants to get desktops into enterprises, then it has to start beating the incumbant not just on software/security but on how it functions as a whole system - giving the people what it wants. I've liked Linux for about 7 years as I just couldn't afford Windows at the time, but sometimes I can't shake this doubt that too many in the Linux community like it being 'the underdog' because it makes them feel special.
As a non-programmer, but a Linux user, and generally intrested in 'the way things are done', I wish the above post had a higher rating, and a few more answers.
Just on the topic of enterprise adoption, we're looking at firefox, but we also want to be able to apply active directory policies to it. We've seen some sample policies based on betas, but they don't seem to work on the release version. Now, I *know* this is possible, but unfortunately we haven't had chance to dive into it. If anyone is using policies to administer/lock down Firefox successfully, I'd be happy to hear about them.
Actually, there's a whole load of theories as to why Japanese ideas of cuteness and style have extended this way, and sorry, it's probably not because they're in awe of caucasians, though yes, there are racial overtones.
Many believe it's because many Japanese feel they have small eyes that large eyes are condsidered attractive - witness the popularity of Ayumi Hamazaki, or look on virtually any billboard in Japan.
It's the same psychology for Marvel super heroes from the US - they're lean and muscular, not overweight people struggling around Wal-Mart. (Sorry, I just watched 'Super Size Me' so I might have gone too far there), but you know what I mean'.
Basically, it's escapism, that which is not what we are.
I saw this here in Japan last year when it came out as I like the man's work, and I like 'steampunk', so I thought it would be a good mix and whilst the setting and the look is fantastic, the plot does indeed get a little drawn out. The attack on London scene is amazing though. Summary: good film, but not earthshattering - had it not been from 'the guy who did Akira', it might've seemed more impressive - twisted logic I know.Like trying to follow up a hit album.
I give them credit for quite a few insider references though, such as that at the beginning of the film, outside 'Steamboy's' factory there is a pub called 'The Rover's Return', made famous in the British soap 'Coronation Street'.
It's definitely worth seeing, but Akira it is not, which is fine IMHO - I liked Akira, but there are many more hot manga and anime to be read and watched. OK, I'm lucky to live in Tokyo so I see much of it first hand, and whilst Steamboy got good reviews, it's usual for magazines and newspapers here to rave about big releases from ackowledged animators. Personally, I thought Appleseed was maybe a little better, Innocence (Ghost in the Shell 2) a little worse (nice song, nice characters, but a very twisted plot, but maybe it will be simplified for the 'West' like the original Akira dub was.)
However, you might want to miss Casshern, by Hikaru Utada's husband I believe...a bit of a triumph of style over any kind of plot.
I'm a Tokyo resident, and yes, have been watching the JAXA programmes for a while, as well as some of the national pride (and nationalism) which surrounds them. Infamous Tokyo mayor, Shintaro Ishihara mocked the Chinese for using old technology just days before the Japanese rocket exploded. Hmm. I guess old is OK as long as it works right? (The nicer irony was that that rocket was due to launch 2 spy satellites over North Korea).
I wish JAXA all the best, but I don't think it takes a lot to figure out that this is more symbolic than anything else, and certainly isn't business driven which is a shame, because the X Prize etc., seems to have made more people get interested in space again, on a commercial, private level. Japan is feeling the Fear with a rising China right now, and is desperately trying to flex itself again, but you only have to look at stories like the Livedoor vs. Fuji TV to see the internal conflict Japan's industry has.
Also, the word 'tsunami' seems to get bolted onto everything now in an attempt to get funding. I just hope some of it gets spend on the tsunami victims.
Well, I feel old now...all these elite hackers owning me, and knowing far more ASCII than I do. Some people will say these kids can't communicate correctly and say it's laced with poor grammar and spelling, but just maybe it's better to call someone a griefer online, than what I do which is grab a random bystander in a bar and shout "You bitch ass motherfucker!!"
This phishing is overrated - I've made millions from funneling money from Nigeria, and I intend to invest that in cheap MS Viagra patches from Hot Suzy@texaspokersmoker.tv.
I've been here in Japan for a while now, and I have to say that right now, it's not really ready for filthy gaijin tourists, but it's home-based tourist system is quite evolved, but is hideously expensive because people will pay (or more likely go to Hawaii). It was cheaper and easier for me to take in a weekend in Seoul than in Osaka from Tokyo. Having said that, BBC did a nice story on how horrific London can be too (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3931277.stm).
A TV programme a few months ago highlighted the issue: on-set guests listed their favourite tourist spots: Fuji viewing, Kyoto, Nara, kamakura, whereas the foreign tourists they found all listed other things like: Akihabara, Shibuya, Hiroshima, Nagano for snow sports.
There's definitely a difference between what people may want to see, and what the Japanese Govt. may want to show them. From that then (and the long way around I know), just what info will these PDAs have? 10 reasons why Kyoto's architecture isn't as bad as it looks, or a recent update of Akihabara prices at kakaku.com?
Either way, as someone who's been here 6 years, i really do recommend it, and though it's relative, you can do japan 'cheap', so if you've got the desire to come over, just get that ticket, it really is a lot of fun.