While I agree that there is a lot of information being lost in the media grinder, and that the handling of Fukushima should be made into the poster child for clusterfuckitude, I would say that this is an example of (some) Japanese politicians taking some of the more rigid aspects of Japanese culture to task.
Also, contrary to what the GP is trying to say, this is not about making the technology appear safe and blaming human error. It even says this in the summary, "We cannot rule out the possibility that a small-scale LOCA (loss-of-coolant accident) occurred at the reactor No 1 in particular."
This reaction is the opposite of what has historically happened in Japan when this sort of issue arises. The ex-TEPCO execs and their government cronies are being lambasted in the press and on the net for being given cushy jobs and TEPCO is being nationalized. Hopefully, harsher measures will be applied (if the furor doesn't die down).
Hopefully, those responsible for the human errors will be made to pay for their mistakes, and those technological shortfalls will be shored up. If they can't be fixed, we'll have to find a new way of getting power.
Why do my moderator points never come when I need them?
a) Philanthropists don't pay for Japanese whaling. It's paid for by corporate investment, government tax breaks, and profits from the sale of whale meat at such popular restaurants as Gansokujira-ya (http://r.gnavi.co.jp/g584700/lang/en/) In this way, it's quite similar to other food-based industries around the world, like the beef industries in the USA and Australia.
b) There are many good excuses for making despicable things acceptable. Luckily, the sustainable whaling taking place in the Southern Ocean isn't despicable. I mean, seriously, it's probably the only sustainable "fishing" market on the planet. Why would anyone complain about it?
c) Finally, whales can't talk, so asking them what they think probably won't result in any useful answers.
I live 240km from Fukushima. Though I'm far from the irradiated area, my claim to fame is the black-ish rain I had to walk through to get to work a few days after the earthquake. Anyway, I believe that nuclear power should be a part of our future power generation strategy, but because of the potential dangers surrounding nuclear power in a seismically unstable region, the industry should be heavily regulated.
So, I am very happy that there are enough regulations surrounding nuclear power to increase the cost of energy production.
That's a bit misleading. You say that the PS3 is in last place worldwide, and then you say that the 360 is the fastest selling console right now. Then you make the conclusion that the 360 is increasing its lead on the PS3.
However, you left out the part from TFA that mentions that it's the fastest selling console in the US. You can make no conclusion about worldwide sales figures based upon the sales figures in the US. You can't just mix data samples like that.
I don't care about the whole console war or anything, I just like my statistics to be honest ones.
The benefit of the system depends on your distance from the epicentre. I routinely get earthquake warnings up to 15 seconds before the actual shaking starts.
Though I should note that I got no warning from the March 11th quake. My phone battery was dead.
You really have to work on shortening your revolutionary slogan. Try something catchy like "Corruption Shmorruption!!" or "Stupid Government, We Hate You!"
110,000 yen is about one week's wages for the average public servant. How much do you make per week, and how would that change the price of your prototype (which you haven't built yet)? Would it still be "way fucking cheaper" than his?
It would be very reasonable to assume that this researcher spent a week on fine-tuning and construction, no?
No, the site was set up to show the idiocy in reporting outside of Japan. We are all well aware of the potential danger to people living here, and we aren't depending on either the government or hysterical journalists for our information. My friend set up this site, so I'm intimately familiar with his motives.
Most of the highlighted articles are pure panic-mongering, and some of them are based upon scientifically impossible, and suspiciously sourceless, data.
We are basing our opinions upon the data ~ F5-ing the shit out of Geiger counter websites ~ and the data says there is nothing to fear for now. The outside media are basing their opinions on guesswork, and the guesswork says that fear sells.
I don't know what I wrote that gave you the impression that I am a Japanophile. That sort of name-calling seems to be used not just people who worship the place (which is undoubtedly weird), but for anybody who defends the place. In fact, you should have got the opposite impression due to the fact that I already wrote that I dislike going there (for the reasons I wrote above).
Your impression of the area smacks of "ex-foreigner who never really fit in" rather than "savvy Japanese dude who saw through the hype". I apologize if I assumed too much, but reread your comment and you can probably see where I'm coming from. Finally, the post I'm responding to here only enforces my opinion, considering the total "Japanese perverts!" tangent.
p.s. Uniqlo is the Salvation Army of Japan. It's supposed to be cheap crap.
p.p.s. The new Akiba Yodobashi is pretty roomy, actually.
full disclosure: My office is 15 minutes from the area, so I shop there sometimes at lunch. I avoid anywhere that has porn or anime, so maybe I just haven't been to the same places as you.
Now, I don't want to seem confrontational, but your initial post implied one of two things
1) You had gone to the tourist traps, and therefore didn't actually see any real stores, or
2) You went to Akiba - an area famous for anime, games, and nerds - expecting to find a deal on a big-screen TV that was usable in the US, and when people looked at you funny because you were trying to buy (in Japan) a big-screen TV you could use in the US, you got annoyed that they thought you were kind of silly to expect that sort of thing in a place catering to nerd-geeks?
If you really are native Japanese, then you would have known before going that nerd mecca probably didn't have what you were looking for.
It sounds to me like you went there just to find fodder for this thread.
Or you made a blatantly incorrect post on a forum of nerds who really know about this sort of thing, and when you were called out on it you started lying to gain some sort of nerd cred.
I wouldn't call it a troll, but I certainly wouldn't call it informative either. The OP implies that he/she actually knows quite a bit about the area, when the information in the post shows otherwise to anyone who lives in the area AND speaks Japanese.
"Most of Akihabara" is certainly not overpriced stores with snobby sales staff. I'm sure some shops are like that, particularly the duty-free rip-off shops, but nowhere else I've been is. It is a specialty area with specialty goods for - as was so eloquently put above - people who live in Japan.
Only if you count the cyborgs. Otherwise, there's only 12 million, plus another 20 million in the surrounding metropolitan area.
There really are a lot of cyborgs, though.
That's because it's essentially a tourist trap, both for tech nerds (who live outside of the country and don't know any better), and for anime geeks (who know better but can't stop themselves).
There are good shops there, though. It sounds like you went to a bunch of shops that had "Duty-Free" written on the signs. Just like everywhere else, those types of shops are the worst to buy from. You need to hit the backstreets that run parallel to the main drag to find good deals.
That being said, anyone who's looking for electronics buys online from kakaku.com now. It's cheaper, and you don't have to run the manga-nerd gauntlets surrounding every cosplaying female-equivalent in Akiba.
It says that during the experiment they took out the background spectra, so the Deuterium probably wasn't naturally occurring stuff. And the guy who did the experiment seems to have published in quite a few proper journals, so he's probably not a complete quack.
Slashdot Mirror
While I agree that there is a lot of information being lost in the media grinder, and that the handling of Fukushima should be made into the poster child for clusterfuckitude, I would say that this is an example of (some) Japanese politicians taking some of the more rigid aspects of Japanese culture to task.
Also, contrary to what the GP is trying to say, this is not about making the technology appear safe and blaming human error. It even says this in the summary, "We cannot rule out the possibility that a small-scale LOCA (loss-of-coolant accident) occurred at the reactor No 1 in particular."
This reaction is the opposite of what has historically happened in Japan when this sort of issue arises. The ex-TEPCO execs and their government cronies are being lambasted in the press and on the net for being given cushy jobs and TEPCO is being nationalized. Hopefully, harsher measures will be applied (if the furor doesn't die down).
Hopefully, those responsible for the human errors will be made to pay for their mistakes, and those technological shortfalls will be shored up. If they can't be fixed, we'll have to find a new way of getting power.
And d) what does your comment have to do with a research institute being funded at the University of Tokyo?
Why do my moderator points never come when I need them?
a) Philanthropists don't pay for Japanese whaling. It's paid for by corporate investment, government tax breaks, and profits from the sale of whale meat at such popular restaurants as Gansokujira-ya (http://r.gnavi.co.jp/g584700/lang/en/) In this way, it's quite similar to other food-based industries around the world, like the beef industries in the USA and Australia.
b) There are many good excuses for making despicable things acceptable. Luckily, the sustainable whaling taking place in the Southern Ocean isn't despicable. I mean, seriously, it's probably the only sustainable "fishing" market on the planet. Why would anyone complain about it?
c) Finally, whales can't talk, so asking them what they think probably won't result in any useful answers.
Fair enough. I wasn't trying to be nitpicky myself, I just didn't understand your point.
That's a bit nitpicky, don't you think? GP refers to the rebel in the post."Digital" is assumed here, no?
I dunno. It looks to me like BF3 probably has a lot more stuff (little facial animations,etc.) going on in the background.
The COD4 graphics are very dated.
I live 240km from Fukushima. Though I'm far from the irradiated area, my claim to fame is the black-ish rain I had to walk through to get to work a few days after the earthquake. Anyway, I believe that nuclear power should be a part of our future power generation strategy, but because of the potential dangers surrounding nuclear power in a seismically unstable region, the industry should be heavily regulated.
So, I am very happy that there are enough regulations surrounding nuclear power to increase the cost of energy production.
Expensive nuclear > cheap coal.
That's a bit misleading. You say that the PS3 is in last place worldwide, and then you say that the 360 is the fastest selling console right now. Then you make the conclusion that the 360 is increasing its lead on the PS3.
However, you left out the part from TFA that mentions that it's the fastest selling console in the US. You can make no conclusion about worldwide sales figures based upon the sales figures in the US. You can't just mix data samples like that.
I don't care about the whole console war or anything, I just like my statistics to be honest ones.
The benefit of the system depends on your distance from the epicentre. I routinely get earthquake warnings up to 15 seconds before the actual shaking starts.
Though I should note that I got no warning from the March 11th quake. My phone battery was dead.
...you could just turn that feature off.
You really have to work on shortening your revolutionary slogan. Try something catchy like "Corruption Shmorruption!!" or "Stupid Government, We Hate You!"
110,000 yen is about one week's wages for the average public servant. How much do you make per week, and how would that change the price of your prototype (which you haven't built yet)? Would it still be "way fucking cheaper" than his?
It would be very reasonable to assume that this researcher spent a week on fine-tuning and construction, no?
You have a very nice blog, but perhaps it would have been better to go directly to the source?
http://eq.wide.ad.jp/index_en.html
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/monitoring/index-e.html
Sorry I'm late.
I'd love to see a source for that claim that hasn't been taken from Japan's equivalent of The Sun.
I'd love to see a source for that claim.
No, the site was set up to show the idiocy in reporting outside of Japan. We are all well aware of the potential danger to people living here, and we aren't depending on either the government or hysterical journalists for our information. My friend set up this site, so I'm intimately familiar with his motives.
Most of the highlighted articles are pure panic-mongering, and some of them are based upon scientifically impossible, and suspiciously sourceless, data.
We are basing our opinions upon the data ~ F5-ing the shit out of Geiger counter websites ~ and the data says there is nothing to fear for now. The outside media are basing their opinions on guesswork, and the guesswork says that fear sells.
You're right, I shouldn't have said "cheap crap". (Especially considering that almost all of my clothing comes from Uniqlo.)
I meant that it is comparable to the SA because of its price and selection.
I don't know what I wrote that gave you the impression that I am a Japanophile. That sort of name-calling seems to be used not just people who worship the place (which is undoubtedly weird), but for anybody who defends the place. In fact, you should have got the opposite impression due to the fact that I already wrote that I dislike going there (for the reasons I wrote above).
Your impression of the area smacks of "ex-foreigner who never really fit in" rather than "savvy Japanese dude who saw through the hype". I apologize if I assumed too much, but reread your comment and you can probably see where I'm coming from. Finally, the post I'm responding to here only enforces my opinion, considering the total "Japanese perverts!" tangent.
p.s. Uniqlo is the Salvation Army of Japan. It's supposed to be cheap crap. p.p.s. The new Akiba Yodobashi is pretty roomy, actually. full disclosure: My office is 15 minutes from the area, so I shop there sometimes at lunch. I avoid anywhere that has porn or anime, so maybe I just haven't been to the same places as you.
Now, I don't want to seem confrontational, but your initial post implied one of two things
1) You had gone to the tourist traps, and therefore didn't actually see any real stores, or
2) You went to Akiba - an area famous for anime, games, and nerds - expecting to find a deal on a big-screen TV that was usable in the US, and when people looked at you funny because you were trying to buy (in Japan) a big-screen TV you could use in the US, you got annoyed that they thought you were kind of silly to expect that sort of thing in a place catering to nerd-geeks?
If you really are native Japanese, then you would have known before going that nerd mecca probably didn't have what you were looking for.
It sounds to me like you went there just to find fodder for this thread.
Or you made a blatantly incorrect post on a forum of nerds who really know about this sort of thing, and when you were called out on it you started lying to gain some sort of nerd cred.
No nerd cred for you!
I wouldn't call it a troll, but I certainly wouldn't call it informative either. The OP implies that he/she actually knows quite a bit about the area, when the information in the post shows otherwise to anyone who lives in the area AND speaks Japanese.
"Most of Akihabara" is certainly not overpriced stores with snobby sales staff. I'm sure some shops are like that, particularly the duty-free rip-off shops, but nowhere else I've been is. It is a specialty area with specialty goods for - as was so eloquently put above - people who live in Japan.
Only if you count the cyborgs. Otherwise, there's only 12 million, plus another 20 million in the surrounding metropolitan area. There really are a lot of cyborgs, though.
That's because it's essentially a tourist trap, both for tech nerds (who live outside of the country and don't know any better), and for anime geeks (who know better but can't stop themselves). There are good shops there, though. It sounds like you went to a bunch of shops that had "Duty-Free" written on the signs. Just like everywhere else, those types of shops are the worst to buy from. You need to hit the backstreets that run parallel to the main drag to find good deals. That being said, anyone who's looking for electronics buys online from kakaku.com now. It's cheaper, and you don't have to run the manga-nerd gauntlets surrounding every cosplaying female-equivalent in Akiba.
It says that during the experiment they took out the background spectra, so the Deuterium probably wasn't naturally occurring stuff. And the guy who did the experiment seems to have published in quite a few proper journals, so he's probably not a complete quack.