I live in Japan. No, fax machines are not common here anymore. Most established businesses probably still have one in case someone wants to send them a fax, but that's true everywhere. A startup wouldn't think of wasting money on one. According to the article you can still buy cassette tapes in most convenience stores. Nope. Just checked. And traffic lights here are automatic, just like everywhere else. Where there is roadwork, there may be humans present to manage traffic. Just like in the west.
There is an unending stream of "XXX in Japan!" bullshit constantly streaming out of the western mass media. Is it because they think nobody will fact check them?
We have thirty people that share an ISDN line since we're in downtown Seattle, and it often takes multiple minutes to load the web page to do a pull request.
I'm not going to carry two phones. For some people that might be OK, but I've only got so much pocket space and room for chargers at home.
Since I will be using the sole phone I carry for personal use, I have some set-in-stone policies: 1. I get to choose the phone that suits me best. 2. I update the hardware according to my convenience and requirements. 3. The device is completely controlled by me for security and contractual reasons.
So long as a company complies with those policies, I am quite flexible about everything else. I'm happy to be non-contactable out of hours, if the company wants. I'm happy to BYOD so long as I am properly recompensed. I'm happy to have the company supply the phone.
BlackBerry, listening to their customers, dug their own grave.
No. The market has spoken and the vast majority of customers clearly do not want what BlackBerry built. Blackberry was listening to someone, but it obviously wasn't the people who made the ultimate purchasing decisions.
This is a very important business lesson. Understand who your customers really are. They are the people who will pay money for your product or services. This sounds simple, but there are often many entities that look like customers but aren't really. The IT department who claims to represent customers may or may not be aligned with them. How will you find find? Talk to the customers.
I use NFC on my phone to check the balance on my Suica (train and bus) card regularly. It is really useful. With NFC mass transit payment systems becoming ubiquitous, it seems backwards looking to leave out this feature.
Australia has had authoritarian, paternalistic governments since, at least, the end of WWII. Consequently, the best and brightest tend to leave the country (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_diaspora). This leaves Australia with two major pastimes: digging coal out of the ground and selling houses to one another.
There's already a mechanical compulsory licencing regime in most countries for music, including Japan and India. That's how radio stations work. You don't need to even talk to, let alone negotiate with, record labels. http://megalv.com/2014/03/17/l... outlines how it works.
Don't turn away customers. Spotify *still* (checking calendar, yes it is 2015) refuse paying customers from Japan. That's 120 million potential first world customers right there. They are ignoring China and India, which are many hundreds of millions more potential middle class customers. They *still* geofence, making their service suck for travellers. They *still* apply discriminatory pricing. They *still* provide a reduced service to people depending where they live.
Here's a suggestion. Stop your discrimination. Accept all customers. Treat them equally and with respect. Charge them all the same price. Make their customer experience awesome. You will make so much money you won't be able to eat it.
Yes, I know that there are all sorts of issues with lawyers and licences. Stop making excuses. Fix them. That's the value you add.
Guys, it really is that simple. Work out who your customers are and serve them.
....forgive me, but if we're talking about EMPLOYEES installing their own software on company equipment, I think I have a better idea on how to make the workplace more efficient. It has nothing to do with with browser choice, either.
Yeah, sack the IT people who are still insisting on insecure-by-default, non-standard, closed source browsers.:-)
We genuinely must be looking at different maps. I can see only one station in all of Shinjuku, the one on Yamanote-dori. That's it.
You might need to recalibrate distances in Tokyo. It might take 30 to 45 minutes to drive 11km in central Tokyo.
You might need to recalibrate your cultural expectations. The ku boundaries in Tokyo are very meaningful to residents, and the distinct cities are much more than technical boundaries. Cities in Japan don't work the same way as cities in the U.S.
Off the top of my head, there are around 6 gas stations within a 10-15 minute walk (or 5 minute drive) of where I live. This is typical. That's why I called bullshit on the headline. There are simply not more charging points than gas stations in any practical sense.
The government of Shinjuku-ku will be surprised to discover they are not a city. Please feel free to let them know. I will look forward to my tax refund.
As for the number of charging stations, did you notice that the majority of them were not in Tokyo at all but different prefectures (states)? That's like saying that charging stations in Arizona and Nevada are in San Francisco. Of course you had to scroll down to see Tokyo. That's like saying you have to scroll down from a map of the western US to see Los Angeles.
It's hard to tell, but by eyeball estimation from the map there might be 30 stations in Tokyo 23 wards. Most of which seem to be in dealers or car parks. The latter are generally useful, but average less than 1 in a city. Hardly the immense market penetration implied by the headline. In fact there are clearly more gas stations than charging points.
You know nothing about Japan. Each ku is a distinct city with it's own city government. You know nothing about Tokyo. Shinjuku-ku is not little bitty, it is the most populated city in Japan. You know nothing. You must be Jon Snow.
Exactly one charging point in Shinjuku, my city. The most populated city in Japan. You must be joking. Where did you get the number 453 from? What a waste of time.
Anonymous Coward trolls: "Or hide in your anonymity and know you are a coward, your idealogy is FALSE and that you blindly and sheepishly support a failed system". How true.
If you want to counter the science, counter it with more science, not with silly videos or FOIA requests for private emails.
It needs to be science before you can counter it. A basic requirement of science is reproducibility. That's what's wrong with much of alternative medicine, and taht's what's wrong with so called scientists like Michael Mann refusing to release fundamental data. If an alternative medicine quack released a study claiming his treatment was effective but refused to release the underlying data due to "confidentiality", exactly how much weight would you give it?
In the case of Mann, suing people trying to get data to reproduce his results places him firmly in the pseudoscience camp. And if the video was so "silly" why spend money to threaten legal action? Maybe because satire is a perfectly fine way to criticize poor science?
It's clear that my drawing parallels between Mann and quacks has incensed you. Sorry, but that's how it looks to me. I predict your next response will be an ad hominem attack.
The only instance I can find is when he filed a countersuit regarding a FOIA request trying to get private emails. It wasn't trying to silence dissent, that's just how you dispute a request.
MIchael Mann does *exactly* what these alternative medicine people do. He threatens and/or files libel lawsuits against critics. Everyone seems pretty happy to damn this behavior as "not real science" when alternative medicince is involved (and I agree). I'm just wondering why the same yardstick doesn't apply equally to all.
I don't think nuclear has ever killed anyone at all in the US, actually.
In 1961, all three operators of SL-1 in Idaho were killed. The cause was one of the operators manually withdrawing a control rod too far. One theory is that it was a suicide-murder due to a love triangle.
The total cost of the Versa for 150k mi is $34,392, and the total cost of the Leaf for the same distance is $48,650. It costs about 41% more to drive a similar electric car at present, not counting insurance or limited-time government incentives. It is not cost-competitive.
Hang on! You didn't include the costs of maintenance in your calculations. Oil and coolant changes, spark plugs, and most of all the labor. I suspect that the gasoline car will still come out slightly cheaper, but it is a lot closer than you suggest.
If appropriate pollution taxes were applied to both electricity sources and gasoline vehicles, then I suspect electric cars would come out ahead.
IT support works best when they maintain core systems adhering to open standards. That way they can supply mainstream users with standard devices/environments, while still allowing sophisticated users to connect and get their work done. Part of the deal can be that sophisticated users provide their own support for their environments.
For example, while secretaries may be best served by running Windows, it often makes good business sense for dev teams to work on their target environment. A good dev team won't have any problem supporting themselves so long as the infrastructure is solid.
A special class of user is the early adopter. Befriend these people because they are investing time in experimenting with new tech, some of which will become mainstream (and some of which is passing fad). So long as you insist on them supporting their own crazy experiments, their efforts are a net win. For instance, early adopters seem to have worked out that iPads will be the mainstream winner out of the tablet field. That's a whole lot of research and evaluation that IT doesn't have to do.
What about security? I think this is often used as an excuse for trying to (quixotically) maintain some kind of status quo. Of course security is important. Appropriate policies should be enforce by core systems, with the assumption that pretty much all mobile devices are insecure. For instance, there's usually no need for a lawyer's iPad to access the central source code repository, and this is trivial to enforce without descending into a subjective argument about which mobile devices are less secure. They all suck.
The big picture is that the way we live and work is changing. People carry lots of powerful mobile devices, and work and leisure are ever more intertwined. Good IT people will work out a way to support their customers. The rest will go the way of the mainframe operator.
Slashdot Mirror
How about if Nadella uses a fucking AI to stop the Windows 10 upgrade nagware? Now that's what I call intelligence.
I live in Japan. No, fax machines are not common here anymore. Most established businesses probably still have one in case someone wants to send them a fax, but that's true everywhere. A startup wouldn't think of wasting money on one. According to the article you can still buy cassette tapes in most convenience stores. Nope. Just checked. And traffic lights here are automatic, just like everywhere else. Where there is roadwork, there may be humans present to manage traffic. Just like in the west.
There is an unending stream of "XXX in Japan!" bullshit constantly streaming out of the western mass media. Is it because they think nobody will fact check them?
We have thirty people that share an ISDN line since we're in downtown Seattle, and it often takes multiple minutes to load the web page to do a pull request.
ISDN? Is it 1995 where you are?
When will people learn their history correctly? Armstrong's actual words were "FRIST MOONWALK!!!".
I'm not going to carry two phones. For some people that might be OK, but I've only got so much pocket space and room for chargers at home.
Since I will be using the sole phone I carry for personal use, I have some set-in-stone policies:
1. I get to choose the phone that suits me best.
2. I update the hardware according to my convenience and requirements.
3. The device is completely controlled by me for security and contractual reasons.
So long as a company complies with those policies, I am quite flexible about everything else. I'm happy to be non-contactable out of hours, if the company wants. I'm happy to BYOD so long as I am properly recompensed. I'm happy to have the company supply the phone.
BlackBerry, listening to their customers, dug their own grave.
No. The market has spoken and the vast majority of customers clearly do not want what BlackBerry built.
Blackberry was listening to someone, but it obviously wasn't the people who made the ultimate purchasing decisions.
This is a very important business lesson. Understand who your customers really are. They are the people who will pay money for your product or services. This sounds simple, but there are often many entities that look like customers but aren't really. The IT department who claims to represent customers may or may not be aligned with them. How will you find find? Talk to the customers.
I use NFC on my phone to check the balance on my Suica (train and bus) card regularly. It is really useful. With NFC mass transit payment systems becoming ubiquitous, it seems backwards looking to leave out this feature.
Australia has had authoritarian, paternalistic governments since, at least, the end of WWII. Consequently, the best and brightest tend to leave the country (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_diaspora). This leaves Australia with two major pastimes: digging coal out of the ground and selling houses to one another.
There's already a mechanical compulsory licencing regime in most countries for music, including Japan and India. That's how radio stations work. You don't need to even talk to, let alone negotiate with, record labels. http://megalv.com/2014/03/17/l... outlines how it works.
Don't turn away customers. Spotify *still* (checking calendar, yes it is 2015) refuse paying customers from Japan. That's 120 million potential first world customers right there. They are ignoring China and India, which are many hundreds of millions more potential middle class customers. They *still* geofence, making their service suck for travellers. They *still* apply discriminatory pricing. They *still* provide a reduced service to people depending where they live.
Here's a suggestion. Stop your discrimination. Accept all customers. Treat them equally and with respect. Charge them all the same price. Make their customer experience awesome. You will make so much money you won't be able to eat it.
Yes, I know that there are all sorts of issues with lawyers and licences. Stop making excuses. Fix them. That's the value you add.
Guys, it really is that simple. Work out who your customers are and serve them.
....forgive me, but if we're talking about EMPLOYEES installing their own software on company equipment, I think I have a better idea on how to make the workplace more efficient. It has nothing to do with with browser choice, either.
Yeah, sack the IT people who are still insisting on insecure-by-default, non-standard, closed source browsers. :-)
We genuinely must be looking at different maps. I can see only one station in all of Shinjuku, the one on Yamanote-dori. That's it.
You might need to recalibrate distances in Tokyo. It might take 30 to 45 minutes to drive 11km in central Tokyo.
You might need to recalibrate your cultural expectations. The ku boundaries in Tokyo are very meaningful to residents, and the distinct cities are much more than technical boundaries. Cities in Japan don't work the same way as cities in the U.S.
Off the top of my head, there are around 6 gas stations within a 10-15 minute walk (or 5 minute drive) of where I live. This is typical. That's why I called bullshit on the headline. There are simply not more charging points than gas stations in any practical sense.
The government of Shinjuku-ku will be surprised to discover they are not a city. Please feel free to let them know. I will look forward to my tax refund.
As for the number of charging stations, did you notice that the majority of them were not in Tokyo at all but different prefectures (states)? That's like saying that charging stations in Arizona and Nevada are in San Francisco. Of course you had to scroll down to see Tokyo. That's like saying you have to scroll down from a map of the western US to see Los Angeles.
It's hard to tell, but by eyeball estimation from the map there might be 30 stations in Tokyo 23 wards. Most of which seem to be in dealers or car parks. The latter are generally useful, but average less than 1 in a city. Hardly the immense market penetration implied by the headline. In fact there are clearly more gas stations than charging points.
You know nothing about Japan. Each ku is a distinct city with it's own city government.
You know nothing about Tokyo. Shinjuku-ku is not little bitty, it is the most populated city in Japan.
You know nothing. You must be Jon Snow.
Exactly one charging point in Shinjuku, my city. The most populated city in Japan. You must be joking. Where did you get the number 453 from? What a waste of time.
And yet I live in Tokyo and I have never seen a charging point there. Can anyone tell me where there is a public point?
Anonymous Coward trolls: "Or hide in your anonymity and know you are a coward, your idealogy is FALSE and that you blindly and sheepishly support a failed system". How true.
Because he implies when someone loses something it's because they are stupid; which is false.
Which implies all people not losing stuff are smart.
I sure as hell feel stupid when I lose stuff.
That in no way implies that I feel smart when I don't lose stuff.
If you want to counter the science, counter it with more science, not with silly videos or FOIA requests for private emails.
It needs to be science before you can counter it. A basic requirement of science is reproducibility. That's what's wrong with much of alternative medicine, and taht's what's wrong with so called scientists like Michael Mann refusing to release fundamental data. If an alternative medicine quack released a study claiming his treatment was effective but refused to release the underlying data due to "confidentiality", exactly how much weight would you give it?
In the case of Mann, suing people trying to get data to reproduce his results places him firmly in the pseudoscience camp. And if the video was so "silly" why spend money to threaten legal action? Maybe because satire is a perfectly fine way to criticize poor science?
It's clear that my drawing parallels between Mann and quacks has incensed you. Sorry, but that's how it looks to me. I predict your next response will be an ad hominem attack.
The only instance I can find is when he filed a countersuit regarding a FOIA request trying to get private emails. It wasn't trying to silence dissent, that's just how you dispute a request.
Any others?
Sure. Here's a link: http://bit.ly/udox81
MIchael Mann does *exactly* what these alternative medicine people do. He threatens and/or files libel lawsuits against critics. Everyone seems pretty happy to damn this behavior as "not real science" when alternative medicince is involved (and I agree). I'm just wondering why the same yardstick doesn't apply equally to all.
Such as?
Such as Michael Mann,
These lying quacks are trying to use the legal system to silence legitimate scientific inquiry into their scam.
Does that logic also apply to climate scientists who resort to legal action against critics?
I don't think nuclear has ever killed anyone at all in the US, actually.
In 1961, all three operators of SL-1 in Idaho were killed. The cause was one of the operators manually withdrawing a control rod too far. One theory is that it was a suicide-murder due to a love triangle.
The total cost of the Versa for 150k mi is $34,392, and the total cost of the Leaf for the same distance is $48,650. It costs about 41% more to drive a similar electric car at present, not counting insurance or limited-time government incentives. It is not cost-competitive.
Hang on! You didn't include the costs of maintenance in your calculations. Oil and coolant changes, spark plugs, and most of all the labor.
I suspect that the gasoline car will still come out slightly cheaper, but it is a lot closer than you suggest.
If appropriate pollution taxes were applied to both electricity sources and gasoline vehicles, then I suspect electric cars would come out ahead.
IT support works best when they maintain core systems adhering to open standards. That way they can supply mainstream users with standard devices/environments, while still allowing sophisticated users to connect and get their work done. Part of the deal can be that sophisticated users provide their own support for their environments.
For example, while secretaries may be best served by running Windows, it often makes good business sense for dev teams to work on their target environment. A good dev team won't have any problem supporting themselves so long as the infrastructure is solid.
A special class of user is the early adopter. Befriend these people because they are investing time in experimenting with new tech, some of which will become mainstream (and some of which is passing fad). So long as you insist on them supporting their own crazy experiments, their efforts are a net win. For instance, early adopters seem to have worked out that iPads will be the mainstream winner out of the tablet field. That's a whole lot of research and evaluation that IT doesn't have to do.
What about security? I think this is often used as an excuse for trying to (quixotically) maintain some kind of status quo. Of course security is important. Appropriate policies should be enforce by core systems, with the assumption that pretty much all mobile devices are insecure. For instance, there's usually no need for a lawyer's iPad to access the central source code repository, and this is trivial to enforce without descending into a subjective argument about which mobile devices are less secure. They all suck.
The big picture is that the way we live and work is changing. People carry lots of powerful mobile devices, and work and leisure are ever more intertwined. Good IT people will work out a way to support their customers. The rest will go the way of the mainframe operator.