The penultimate night of the Gion Matsuri, and on my way home from being swept down Karasuma Dori through the hordes of locals and tourists buying mediocre festival food like a mentally handicapped salmon not sure which way is upstream, I stumbled across this excellent performance just below Sanjo Bridge on my way home.
All photos taken with Canon EOS 300d and EFs 17-85 IS lense. Naturally, these effects come from long exposures.
The latest installment of the Asian History Carnival is up, this time being hosted at the World History Blog. As always, there are a number of great links to pieces by various authors on a far greater range of topics than you would ever find on, say, this humble blog. Speaking of which, there are cited no less than three different posts on this blog. Want to know which ones? Go see for yourself!
Having just watched the super-awesome finale of Season 2 (or 28, depending on your perspective) of the BBC science fiction adventure show Doctor Who, it seems a good time to post this bit of news.
Doctor Who’s success around the world continues, with the news that the programme will soon be showing on Japanese television.
The series has been sold to BS-2, one of three cable and satellite services run by NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster. Series One will go out in Autumn 2006, with Series Two going out on the same channel next year.
No word yet on whether the Japanese translation of the Daleks’ famous battle cry of “Exterminate!” will sound as awesome as the Korean one.
Younghusband of Cominganarchy.com emailed me a link to this fantastic WW2 era comic book format guide to distinguishing evil conniving Japs from friendly smiling Chinese. It was originally just one chapter of a larger Pocket Guide to China, the remainder of which is sadly not preserved. As a bonus though, you can try and figure out how these odd spellings of Chinese words are actually supposed to make the sounds that they are supposed to make.
One-third of all amphibian specied are in danger of extinction, according to a new report. In the future, mutant frogs will be the only ones that survive.
The Asahi reports that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, while having a dinner meeting with attendants including LDP Secretary General Tsutomu Takebe on the evening of July 6th said, “I’m glad that the Taepodong didn’t come flying while I was at Elvis’s estate.” One attendee said in response, “The Prime Minster does have good luck,” to which several others agreed.
Earlier post on the PMs visit to Graceland here.
After my post the other day lamenting the lack of wifi in Japanese cafes and other public places, I feel I should back up my claims of Taiwan’s wifi superiority with this post from Michael Turton, which includes several quotes regarding Wifi in Taiwan, as well as their E-government initiative-something else that Japan could well afford to copy.
I just re-discovered a wonder web site that I had seen a few years ago and utterly forgotten about. Have a look at The Phrontistery:English Word Lists and Language Resources, and in particularly the Repository of Lost Words. What is a Lost Word, you ask? The definition is as follows:
1. The word must have a header entry in the Oxford English Dictionary.
2. The word may not appear in its proper English context on any readily accessible web page.
3. The word must have been used in Modern English.
4. The word must have been used in a standard English variety rather than simply in a regional dialect.
5. The word must not be a simple variation in spelling of another word.
Each word is presented with a basic definition and period of recorded usage (courtest of the fantastic OED, which I am utterly convinced is the greatest dictionary existant of any Earthly language), the page’s maintainer (who goes by the name of Forthright) has also cleverly provided a modern example sentence for each lost word. While the words run the gamut from the no longer particulary useful
sputcheon n 1842 -1878
metal lining of the mouth of a scabbard
The blade rang against the sputcheon as he drew it, eliminating the element of surprise.
to the utterly obscure
krioboly n 1850 -1882
sacrifice of many rams; bath in blood of rams
Contrary to rumour, pagan rituals do not involve krioboly or baby-eating.
or overly technical technical
zygostatical adj 1623 -1656
pertaining to a market official in charge of weights
His zygostatical training allowed him to cheat the scales undetected for decades.
you can also find some that, in the context of current events, are probably due for a comeback.
psephograph n 1906 -1907
machine for automatically recording votes
These newfangled computers are no more reliable than an old-fashioned psephograph.
I spotted this on a few gaming related blogs, but I think it’s important to note the similarity to Koizumi’s subtle attack on the President’s war policy.
President George W. Bush received an early birthday present on Wednesday from Nintendo. The game developer sent the president one of their DS Lite portable gaming machines and a copy of Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day.
No word on whether Bush, who turns 60 today, is a fan of the company or video games.
In the letter addressed to the presidential birthday boy, Nintendo points out the game will help the president “keep your mind sharp” and suggests President Bush should try it out on his next long flight aboard Air Force One.
Included in the gift pack was this letter:
Dear President Bush:
Happy Birthday!
Don’t worry, turning 60 is an exciting milestone. As you know, you’ve joined millions of other baby boomers in an invigorating new decade of your life. And, like many boomers, you may be looking for ways to keep your mind sharp. That’s where we come in.
Please accept our gift of a new Nintendo DS Lite system and a copy of Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day. You now join millions of people around the world who have fun challenging themselves with Brain Age. If you have never played a video game before, don’t worry. Brain Age is part of our new Touch Generations brand, which includes games that are easy for people of any age – regardless of their video game experience – to pick up and start playing immediately.
It’s obvious you don’t have a lot of time to play games, which makes Brain Age such a great activity for you – just a few minutes a day with more than 15 daily training tests will help keep your mind sharp. Training tests include categories like math, reading and memorization. Try it for a few days and watch your score improve. Brain Age also comes with more than 100 sudoku puzzles – these could make your next long flight on Air Force One a bit more fun! (Perhaps copies of Brain Age for journalists joining you on your next flight would be a nice distraction!)
Have fun exploring Brain Age with your Nintendo DS Lite and be sure to let us know your brain age!Have a tremendous birthday!
Sincerely,
Your Friends at Nintendo
So the new head of Starbucks Japan has made a threat promise to open 100 stores per year for an unspecified number of years, up from the current 624 outlets. This is all well and good, except for one thing-Starbucks in Japan doesn’t offer any wireless internet service! While I suppose wifi access in Japan must be better than it was a few years ago, after living in Taiwan-a country where every cafe, KFC and subway station has free and open wifi connections-for most of the past year it seems rather dreadfully difficult to get online with a portable computer when traveling in this country.
I moved into a new apartment in Kyoto on Friday, about a two minute walk from the Sanjo Keihan train station and five minutes walk from downtown Kyoto, the edge of which can be thought of as the Sanjo Bridge, which in the days of the Samurai was the designated location for the beheading of the most heinous of criminals (such as Christians). Being Kyoto, this former killing ground is of course marked by a sign, but more people probably know it for the adjacent Starbucks. (pictured below)
Living so near to downown I assumed that I would be able to walk into any number of establishments with my laptop, once again able to run off battery sans AC adapter thanks to my clever repairs, only two days before my departure, and naturally this Starbucks was the first place I tried.
To my surprise, Starbucks Japan offers no kind of wifi service whatsoever! Neither does Dutour, a Japan-based cafe chain with a large presence in Taiwan. The menu is basically the same, but of course in Taiwan you always see a few patrons tapping away on their keyboards thanks to the free internet.
I ended up strolling up and down Kawaramachi and the immediate environs with my open laptop, Netstumbler running, in search of an internet connection that I could glom onto. In fact, there were plenty of connections- easily dozens. But all of them were corporate networks, for internal business use and were correctly encrypted to restrict access from non-authorized users. I did find one eventually, weak but slightly usable for a few minutes at a time, between service interruptions-accessible while sitting on a bench near Sanjo Kohashi (pictured right). After about fifteen minutes of highly frustrating internet use it started to rain, and with no options left I sprinted under a store canopy with my laptop tucked under my right arm, stowed it in my laptop carrying-case-backpack, and scurried through the rain back to my apartment.
After getting back I took the laptop out and turned it on in my new room for the first time, thinking I might watch a movie from my narrow yellow binder of DVDs, and immediately was hit with a message from Windows saying that it had connected to an unprotected wireless network. The wireless AP had the SSID “YBBUSER,” telling me that it must have been provided for a user of the Yahoo Broadband ADSL service popular in Japan.
Happy ending: I was able to download the latest episode of Doctor Who in under 30 minutes via Bittorrent. Seeing **spoilers removed**meet for the first time was excellent.
Lessons learned: Partly because all Japanese people can check their email from their cell phones free wifi is more difficult to find than in most, if not all other highly developed countries.
Solution: Starbucks can shell out the ￥10,000 for a decent wireless router and ￥4000/month for DSL service in addition to the millions of yen they’ll need to spend on those hundreds of planned new stores.
