January 2009
16 posts
Dubious characters and their ill-gotten gains →
…Chinese characters, that is. It transpires that Japan’s kanji certification body (the Kanji Nouryoku Kentei Kyokai, or KNKK below), which by the look of it’s a public body under the Ministry of Education’s oversight, has dipped a rather large toe in the property market, picking up a distressed bank asset for JPY670mn (something like US$7mn). Said asset is 4,000 sq. m. of...
Song ringtones at 150% normal speed →
Hard to know what angle to swing at this one from, but record company Avex is launching song ringtones that are timestretched (or timesquished) to 150% of their original speed — sped up 50%, in other words. So in theory you could own the song, have paid again for the ringtone, and now shell out a third time for the faster version. Nice business model as long as you can make it work, I...
Name of the day: Mauri Ukonmaanaho →
New CEO of Nokia Japan.
“aho”, which appears to be a fairly common component of Finnish names, travels rather poorly in Japan, sharing its sound with a word for “idiot” that’s particularly popular in Kansai. Come to think of it, “ukon” means turmeric root, too. “Turmeric Man’s an eejit” might be the first association Mr. U’s name...
It's OK to want to believe →
but if you’re a major news outlet you probably should vet your sources a little better than this. Japan’s mainstream TV seems to be somewhat more UFO-mad (or UFO-credulous) than its US or UK equivalents, but for a news show to run a story about a purported UFO sighting at Obama’s inauguration based on a YouTube video, when better footage clearly showed it to be a bird? Slow news...
Guitar Hero 1.0 →
"Antiforeigner discrimination is a right for... →
I’m not sure if Gregory Clark is lazy or simply a moron, but this article makes pitifully little sense.
Studies: Surgeons could save lives, $20B by using... →
Interesting. I’ve often found analogous results when wearing my professional hat (it’s easier to control the procedural and formal aspects of a process than the individual talents creating a…
Where wings take dream →
— the collected wisdom of George W. Bush.
Father stabbed by son / Chiba, 17-year-old /... →
One occasionally wonders about whether the Japanese media is tiptoeing around in a legal minefield or simply writing ineptly when it turns out headlines like the one linked to. To translate literally, we get “Suspected of stabbing father, 17-year-old arrested; Chiba, father died” (original is 父親刺した疑い、１７歳逮捕 千葉、父は死亡) — which, even discounting the slightly haiku-like quality that...
Scientific basis for the "unicorn chaser"? →
Playing Tetris after seeing traumatic images reduces the number of flashbacks. BoingBoing readers knew about this phenomenon already, of course.
Tilt-shift, timelapse monster truck video →
Happy new year. It takes a little while for this to get started but, particularly after the trucks start doing their thing, the toylike perspective really kicks in.