8/5     "Communist Party makes a comeback ... in Japan"
        http://news.yahoo.com/communist-party-makes-comeback-japan-134436281.html
        \_ They never went away in Japan. When I lived there, the MP from my city
           was a Communist (back in the early 90s). --erikred
        \_ They never went away in Japan. When I lived there, the MP from my
           city was a Communist (back in the early 90s). --erikred

7/25    http://www.quora.com/Japan/What-facts-about-Japan-do-foreigners-not-believe-until-they-come-to-Japan
        Japan rules!
        \_ Fifteen years ago I worked there for seven months.  I miss Japan!
           (I'm Chinese immigrant.)  More facts:
           - Besides cold drinks, vending machines also carry hot drinks like
             hot tea and corn soup.  And they are actually hot instead of warm.
             \_ Even more surprising, the Coca Cola Corporation, dba Georgia
                Coffee, has had hot-coffee-in-a-can vending machines in Japan
                for decades now. If they'd brought their coffee over here,
                they could have beaten Starbucks to the punch. --erikred
           - Tokyo and nearby cities like Yokohama are indeed crowded and
             fast-paced, but there are also towns like Kakegawa in Shizuoka
             Prefecture that are less dense and slow-paced.  Streets are not
             that noisy.  Peolple live in big houses park their cars in front.
             that noisy.  People live in big houses park their cars in front.
             And they drive to work and park in big parking lots that are not
             nearly full.  It's like the suburbs and business parks here.
           - If you have a group meeting involving your boss and other people,
             and your boss falls asleep, it's actually a good sign.  It means
             (s)he thinks the meeting is progressing well and (s)he no longer
             needs to pay attention.  So that's a sign of approval from the
             boss.
           - When some people go to convenient stores, they leave their cars
             outside the stores, doors unlocked, keys inside, and engine
             running.  I saw this every other day or so in both cities and
             small towns.  And the drivers look like normal salarymen, not
             mafia-looking people who might think nobody dare stealing their
             cars.
             \_ That's not too different than say, Denmark with homogenous
                small population with a smaller variance in income.
                http://www.quora.com/Japan/What-facts-about-Japan-do-foreigners-not-believe-until-they-come-to-Japan
                \_ "if you lose personal items (even phones/wallets), they
                    are almost always turned into the lost and found or nearest
                    police station"
                   \_ I have lost my wallet four times in America and had it
                      returned every time. Only once was the money even gone.
                   \_ The two things that are not safe are your umbrella and
                      your bicycle; on a rainy day, any umbrella in the bucket
                      near the door becomes fair game. As for bikes, I had one
                      stolen at a train station-- even though I'd locked it, and
                      even though it was a mama-chari (ugly old single-gear with
                      a basket on the front), and I've watched drunks ride off
                      on any bike they could manage not to fall off of. --e-red
           - There is a kind of sashimi where they take a live fish, cut out
             all the flesh off one side of the fish except the head and the
             tail, leaving the whole head, tail, skeleton, and the other side
             of the body intact.  Then they cut the flesh into sashimi, and
             put it back on the fish body.  They they serve it to the table.
             When you eat the sashimi, the fish is still not dead yet.  Its
             mouth and tail still move a little.  I tried it once at a
             restaurant in the Kawasaki area called Bikkuri Sushi.
             Interestingly, "bikkuri" means "surprise".
           - It's not uncommon to see drunk people in suits passing out on the
             streets.  I was told that that they'll just wake up the next
             morning unharmed with their briefcases intact.
             \_ and they just go back to work like that? don't they stink?
           - There are many normal-looking women walking around solo at night.
             They don't seem to worry about getting mugged or raped.
             \_ that's not what I heard from my inlaw who was stationed there
           - (I only heard this one, but don't know if it's true.)  Even mafias
             use swords and other non-firearms in gang battles, because gun
             control is very tight.
           About this: "When riding the trains ate (sic) at night I found the
           drunk salarymen to be overly friendly and talkative. They often
           wanted to take us gaijins to their homes."  I found the contrary.
           I made some very good Japanese friends during my stay, yet none
           invited me to their homes.  I also heard from Chinese expats there
           that Japanese people treat their homes very private and don't
           usually invite co-workers to their homes.
        \_ Really interesting article, and mostly matches my six years
           living there. Some other things:
           -- Baseball is HUGE in Japan, and high school baseball champion-
              ships will cause entire offices to put aside work to watch it.
           -- Many Japanese do not "get" sumo; the younger generation tends
              to think of the idea of two fat dudes wrestling to be very
              disturbing. Also, just as with samurai, ninjas, and geisha,
              you are very unlikely to run into a sumo rikishi on the
              train.
           -- Not all of the students are well-behaved or studious. Some
              are downright obnoxious, if not violent.
           -- If you get lost in a city in Japan, look for a Koban (a
              kind of mini police station), and the officers will be
              happy (mostly) to help you out.
           -- Lost in Translation is achingly funny and on-target, at
              least in terms of being jetlagged in Tokyo.
              \_ Scarlett Johansson was so hot in that movie.
           -erikred

1/5     Ultra marathon winner-to-be made a wrong turn in the final 100m during
        a 2-day, 217km race:
        http://www.csua.org/u/s8y (sports.yahoo.com)

5/11    "UN fears 'irreversible' damage to natural environment" - Yahoo! News:
        http://www.csua.org/u/qql
        "The report argued that biodiversity was a core concern for society
        that would help tackle poverty and improve health, meriting as much
        attention as the economic crisis for only a fraction of the cost of
        recent financial bailouts."
        \_ Green guilt is the new white guilt.

10/20   The original Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G VR is going down in price
        thanks to the new version II that's coming out. It's pretty good
        on DX (since it cuts off softness on edges that exist on FX
        format). Should I pull the trigger?
        \_ Is it made in Thailand?  Just curious.
           \_ No. All of the gold-rim (Nikon Pro) lenses are made in Japan.
              The rest of the consusmer cameras and lenses are made in
              Thailand. Ditto with red-rim (Canon Pro) lenses that are
              made in Japan. Actually, Canon XSi is made in Japan and
              it's a pretty plastic-feeling consumer grade camera.
              Go figure.
              \_ My car was made in Japan and it seems "Made in Japan"
                 doesn't mean much these days.
                 \_ The only thing that matters to me is that it is
                    not made in U.S.A. I don't enjoy going to repair
                    shops all the time like my patriotic dad.
                 \_ Is it a Nissan or Isuzu?
                    \_ Lexus

5/21    Do the English word "random" and the Japanese work "randori" have the
        same etymology?
        \_ "Randori" = "laundry".... so no.  Unless you mean the word for
          sparring, in which case... still no.  "Ran" is the same "ran" in
          Kurosawa's movie "Ran" which is "war" or "chaos/state of nature."
          The english Random is from Frankish "rant" which is "a running"
                        --brain
          \_ impressive! How do you know so much Japanese?
                \_ He's a brain.  Duh.
                \_ I have a very basic understanding of how conversational
                   Japanese works, and a more than basic skill with kanji
                   dictionaries!        --brain
          \_ But "random" and "chaos" are similar.  -- OP
                \_ they are in English... "Ran" is really like "a revolt"
                   or "the chaos that is around you when the government has
                   collapsed."  So not really like "random."  If you are
                   interested, check wwwjdic for the exact kanji readings;
                   because I am feeling especially charitable today, I will
                   give you the exact wikipedia URL where you can copy the
                   kanji and put it into the translate field:
                   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurosawa
                   http://www.edrdg.org/cgi-bin/wwwjdic/wwwjdic?9T
                   btw if you are up for an adventure, go ask this same
                   question at the linguistics dept. at UCB and see what
                   they say...                  --brain

3/4     Apparently reading Japanese is hard, even for the Japanese:
        http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090304/ap_on_re_as/as_japan_reading_japanese
        \_ Well, yeah.  Japan has the most BS writing system ever developed.
           It's managed to get all the detriments of both pictoral and phonetic
           writing, with none of the benefits of either.  This for a language
           that, phonetically, can fit within a subset of the latin characters.
           \_ Thank you. I was going to post something like this, but figured
              I'd get skewered what with the Asianphiles on soda. Sometimes you
              have to disregard culture and admit someone else came up with a
              better idea. This is true of chopsticks, too, but I know that
              will be an even more controversial issue than the language.
              \_ Ah, the Asianphiles are a problem in this case.  We have a
              \_ Ah, the Asianphiles are not a problem in this case.  We have a
                 couple of pro-chinese and a pro-Korea guy, but China and Korea
                 hate Japan.  So, no problem there.
              \_ you can do much more with chopsticks than a fork.  You are a twit.
                 \_ true, chopsticks>>fork, but they aren't so good for cutting
                    fork+knife is a great combo. Chopsticks are good for
                    noodles, salad, small pieces of meat, etc, but not so
                    good for an uncut piece of steak or a half chicken.
                        \_ further evidence of the superiority of chopsticks.
                           designed to support a society where everyone carries
                           blades intended to kill people.  The craftsmanship
                           of food is taken more seriously as evreything is
                           is cut into pieces designed for eating.  Surely you
                           must know this.  Barbarian culture is not something
                           to be proud of.
                           \_ So Chinaman, are you pro-China unification as well?
                           \_ Chopsticks kind of lost their appeal to me, after
                              I was eating with a native-born Chinese guy who
                              said to me after I asked him why he asked for
                              a fork in a Chinese restauraunt, "Why would I
                              want to use chopsticks?  A fork is better and
                              easier."  And most of the time, it is.
                  \_ Actually, chopsticks are very limiting. While you have
                     more precise control, you can pretty much only eat
                     one item at a time. If I want to have avocado,
                     lettuce, and a slice of tomato then I can do that
                     with my fork but with chopsticks I have to hunt for
                     each item one at a time. Also, chopsticks are
                     terrible for foods like pies and cakes. There are
                     probably other examples, too. I think there are some
                     things forks can do that chopsticks cannot do and
                     vice-versa, but overall the fork is a more versatile
                     tool unless your food consists solely of little bitty
                     pieces of pre-cut food that you want to eat individually.
                     \_ I nominate this for "most pointless MOTD debate of
                        all time."  -tom
                        \_ Surely the Great Camera Lens Debate of 2008/2009
                           is more pointless.
           \_ There was a time when Japanese uses Chinese Han character 80% of
              the time.  I thought it's at least better than the mix-mush they
              got today.  Then again, I am biased because I am a Chinese
              myself.  And just give you an idea how relatively recent has
              Japanese abandoned Chinese characters... I was able to read and
              comprehend World War 2 Japanese machinegun manual, and be able
              read and comprehend 90% of news paper headlines back in the day.
              \_ and now, you can't read a new Japanese machinegun manual?
                 \_ and that is due to percentage of Han Characters in modern
                    Japanese writing is a lot smaller... something like less
                    than 20%.

2/3     Japanese murder investigators fooled by life-sized sex doll
        http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/02/japan2
        How did this article never show up on the motd?

11/5    RIP Michael Crichton:
        http://preview.tinyurl.com/5uo43y [cnn]

11/1    Gundam Academy:
        http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5058011.ece

9/9     Are Hanna and Ike Japanese names?
        \_ Yes, as in the well known first Japanese American 5 star general
           and US President, Ike Eisenhower.
           \_ I thought Hana is flower and Ike is pond.

6/24    Correlation between temperature, skin color, and IQ:
        http://preview.tinyurl.com/yvaru4 [majority rights]
        \_ What, you couldn't find a stormfront link?

6/24    Correlation between temperature, skin color, and IQ:
        http://majorityrights.com/index.php/weblog/comments/intelligence_and_skin_color

6/18    Japan: still cornering the market for creepy
        http://in.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idINT8462420080617

6/1     "Japanese woman caught living in man's closet"
        http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080530/ap_on_re_as/japan_closet_woman
        How is this possible!?  The man never looked into his closet in a year?
        \_ Apparently she found a really, really good hiding place.  Thing is,
           if she just slept with him she could probably have continued
           staying there forever.