Category: Japan
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Japan is: A clash of old and new
I hate when you have a power surge and all the lights go out and you go around turning the heaters and gas and computer and everything back on and a little while later you sit down on a cold toilet seat. This obstructive shock is the price we pay for having 21st century conveniences…
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The Baby Staring Problem — Or, am I supposed to punch this old lady in the mouth?
When you are a child, and you are staring at some person for being drunk or dressed funny: your mom hits you. If you are down in the pub and some bloke starts giving you the eyeball: you hit him. That’s the rules, refined over generations. However, another rule (well, more like a derivative corollary)…
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Can’t say I am never surprised by the old “hippy alien in the garage” trick.
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Can’t say I am never surprised by the old “hippy alien in the garage” trick.
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Bukowski’s “The Japanese Wife”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR53Hr_6xNo?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281] Bukowski’s “The Japanese Wife” as read by Tom O’Bedlam All I can say is I have not gotten to the knife-brandishing part of the marriage yet.
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Re: the lack of movies/tv on the Japanese iTunes Store
Is the lack of movie rentals and television shows on the Japanese iTunes Store due somehow to the powerful copyright lobby in Japan? JASRAC and JIMCAare more litigious than even the RIAA and MPAA in the US. Furthermore they are linked via Iron Triangle to MEXT. Moreover, Japan’s television industry is still mostly terrestrial, and…
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Q&A: What’s the Japanese equivalent of [enter foreign web service here]?
Serkan Toto does a great roundup of Japanese websites analogous to popular American and European sites. There are even a few on the list that I didn’t know about. Last April I analyzed the top 100 sites accessed in Japan and tried to point out gaps in the Japanese web that could be filled by…
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the problem of software development in Japan
@gen Kanai reacts to Tabuchi’s NYT article by discussing how the Galapagos problem applies to software development in Japan. I love how he picks apart Takeshi Natsuno’s solution to “focus more on software and must be more aggressive in hiring foreign talent, and the country’s cellphone carriers must also set their sights overseas.” The “foreign…
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Japanese cellphones may be clever, but that doesn’t make them smart
Hiroko Tabuchi’s NYT article on Why Japan’s Cellphones Haven’t Gone Global has been making the rounds. It is a good article, but she makes one unfortunate mistake: she uses that amorphous term “smartphone” to describe Japanese cellphones. Luckily, she only does it once in the whole article, but I fear the damage has been done.…
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Reggae Garbageman
As @Mutantfroginc can attest, this Rastafarian that drives by my house every Sunday spices up his blaring appeal for broken junk with some down-to-earth reggae loops. This week I was able to capture some of his upfulness on my iPhone. For those that do not know what a haihin kaishûsha is, it is a truck…