Category: Products

Drinking on the job just got a whole lot healthier?

beer yeast pills?

Saw this in an ad for “Asahi Super Beer Yeast” from the Nikkei.

Fortified with vitamins and minerals! This is the oyaji equivalent of marketing sugared cereals as “part of a balanced breakfast.”

One may recall my post on this topic a while back.

Two possibilities: a) His comments weren’t accidental at all but a strange form of viral marketing; or b) Someone at Asahi got the idea for this after his comment and possibly other propaganda started creating a buzz for healthy effects of beer. Hell, they already sell “Diet” happoshu.

The popularity of these “snake-oil” products in Japan simultaneously fascinates and infuriates. They clearly have no medical value but are popular in part due to the deep belief by many Japanese people in superstitions like the ability of blood type to determine personality. Even those who don’t buy in still know their blood type and know how to work it into a conversation. It may be sapping the time and energy of Japan’s biggest drug companies, but it sure is fun to watch.

That is not to say Americans are free from this parasitic organic supplement craze. Look at this ad for “brewer’s yeast” (spelling errors corrected):

Brewer’s Yeast is an excellent source of protein and several B-vitamins.

It is produced by cultivation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae on malted barley in the production of beer. After fermentation, the yeast is separated from the beer, roller dried and debittered.

Why not just eat food with protein and B-vitamins in it? I’m not an expert, so I’d appreciate the opinion of anyone knowledgable in the medicinal benefits of yeast (I mean, I thought it caused infections?!)

The pitfalls of the furry bra

At the risk of looking like Japundit, I present the Triumph® Heated Bra™, designed in response to the Warm Biz campaign.

This prompted a discussion with my friend “K.” As it turned out, she was an expert on furry bra physics:

[11:05] K: you know, i saw that earlier today and it doesn't make sense
[11:06] J: yeah... i imagine that boobies don't get that cold
[11:06] K: well, if it WERE that cold out... it's hard to wear a shirt over a furry bra
[11:06] K: but if it's warm enough for no shirt, then you don't need a warm bra!
[11:06] J: stop hating on the furry bras
[11:07] K: i don't hate it, but i'm saying that they didn't think it through
[11:07] K: like, it might be nice at a january football game
[11:07] J: yes
[11:08] K: but you're more than welcome to wear one
[11:08] J: mmmm fur
[11:09] K: it's like that diamond-encrusted bra... it's just... not comfortable!

UPDATE: I later showed this to a Japanese ladyfriend, “M.” Her response, in its entirety:

[10:46] M: that is pretty

Japan’s own FedEx, continuing the airspace oligarchy

Japan Post is starting an international air cargo company with ANA. That this can happen at all is pretty cool. Pre-Koizumi Japan Post couldn’t enter business deals like this one. For that matter, pre-1980’s ANA basically couldn’t do anything without a government green light (back in the day, JAL had a monopoly on international air travel, JAL and ANA split big-city domestic routes, and ANA and JAS split small-city routes). Now, the two are collaborating to make an East Asian FedEx.

One thing that bugs me, though, is that Japan basically has just two airlines, plus a tiny third guy named Skymark. Almost every commercial airline flight in Japan is ticketed by JAL or ANA, except for a couple of propeller plane flights to minor islands. You’d think that Japan could support some more companies in this area, given that it has a ton of money (recession be damned) and a population that loves to travel.
Continue reading Japan’s own FedEx, continuing the airspace oligarchy

Frogstyle


I’ve had one of these hanging on my keychain for over three months now, but most of the green paint has been scratched off mine.

What is Frogstyle?
To people searching for happiness, to people feeling down, to people lacking something, frogs bearing a message for those sorts of people, that is FROG STYLE (furoggu sutairu). FROG STYLE has plenty of friends. When you see one on the street, please try getting a warm message from the frogs. Maybe, just maybe it will cheer you up!

Origin:
Once upon a time, the frog progenitor, the -ANCESTOR FROG- came from across the sea. (There are various stories, such as that he accidentally got stuck in ‘bottle mail’ and drifted across the waves.) Thereafter, FROG has been thriving all over the world. So far, 16 varieties have been identified. However, new types are continually being discovered. (From the book “Frog Life” by Frog researcher Kero Kaeruda)

Bandai’s Frogstyle screensaver is now the official screensaver of Mutantfrog.com.

Mac version here.

Try reading this story in a Russian accent


Be fit with the help of video-player

18:32 2005-07-14
Lots of people dream of becoming fit and slim. Some of them keep to various diets, others prefer to exhaust themselves with endless physical exercises.

But in Japan people lose weight by playing video games. Dance Dance Revolution, a popular Japanese video game makes players leap around on a platform as instructed by arrows – up, down, right or left – to a throbbing techno beat. The moves get faster and harder as players get better, making the game arduous, addictive and inadvertently aerobic.

Matt Keane, now 21, became addicted by Dance Dance Revolution less than a year ago. At the start his weight was 209 kilograms. Dancing at the game platform he lost 68 kilograms.

A recent Pennsylvania study of 35 adolescents found that, on average, Dance Dance Revolution elevated players’ heart rates to double their resting level over a 45-minute period, according to one of the study’s coordinators, Stephen Yang.

“There is no doubt the games are great exercise,” Yang said, “but first and foremost, they’re fun.”

Usually a sedentary activity, video games might seem an unlikely weapon in the battle of the bulge. Earlier video games were blamed even for mass suicides. But over the past few years “exertainment” – a merging of exercise and electronic entertainment – has helped the industry’s image as well as its profit margins, says the AP.

With dance simulation video games making exercise fun and hip, parents, teachers and doctors are starting to pay attention. And manufactures are hoping to capitalize.

Obesity is quite a problem for many societies. Experts differ in ways to struggle obesity. Some of them advise to drink milk, others suggest not to watch TV, but now we know the correct answer – Dance Dance Revolution is the answer to all the health problems.

Bandai lists top cartoon characters in Japan: Anpanman #1 4 years running


Yahoo News (Thanks 2ch):

According to Bandai‘s “Children’s Favorite Cartoon Characters Ranking” released on June 22, “Go! Anpanman” was the top choice for boys and girls for the fourth year in a row.

At #2 and below were, in order: “The Precure Duo“, “Pocket Monsters“, “Winnie the Pooh“, and “Hello Kitty“.

Anpanman was overwhelmingly preferred by the 0-2 age bracket, with 58.6% choosing him as their favorite. For 3-5 year olds the top was “Precure” (LINK NOT SAFE FOR WORK), a show popular among young girls. “Pocket Monsters” was the favorite for both the 6-8 and 9-12 age brackets.

On Anpanman’s popularity, Bandai gathered, “There are lots of characters that show up on the show, and the stories, where the goodguys always win, are easy to understand and entertaining for both children and their caregivers.” (Metropolis magazine online has a good article on the origins and popularity of Anpanman)

The survey asked the opinions of 2000 caregivers of children 12 or under in the beginning of April of this year.

Post Computex Photo gallery. Part 1 – Gear

There are a lot of candidates for the center of the world’s IT industry: Cupertino, Redmond, Palo Alto, Tokyo, Seoul, – but these days it seems to be Taipei.

The definitive expression here is DIY, widely known in English speaking countries as an acronym for Do It Yourself, but here in Taiwan adopted as a uniquely specific lexical item referring just to the homebrew computer industry. If you walk into any of the many, many, many expansive computer stores in Taipei you will be overwhelmed by a selection of parts unavaliable at all but the rarest of US computer stores, and more interesting struck by the odd lack of brand name desktop systems.

“Here in Taiwan, if you can’t make your own PC you’re not a man,” I was told earlier today by a Taiwanese guy named Kevin. This is a sentiment that I can imagine evoking a kind of cultural jealousy in hardware geeks throughout the entire planet.

This little number from Foxconn has the distinction of being one of the coolest and best looking PC case designs I have seen. They also have the fine distinction of having provided one of the exhibitor ID tags that was used to sneak me into the show.

On Sunday I had the pleasure of attending Computex, Taiwan’s trademark computer and technology expo, the largest in Asia and the second largest of its type in the world after Hannover, Germany.

Of course I took a number of photos, and here is a sample of them. I have divided photos into two parts: Gear and Girls, since as everyone knows the motivation for attendance at these tech industry shows is based almost equally on both of those things.


Some of the literally hundreds of case designs on display.


This is exactly what we’ve all wanted for all these years! Screw laptops, next time I buy a portable I want something that looks like Q cobbled it together.


This isn’t an ipod shuffle, but an unreleased prototype product of the socalled iVogue mp3 player line from Jetway. They estimated a July release date, but the website doesn’t even have a listing for these products yet, much less pricing information.


Easily the most impressive piece of actual new technology I saw at the show. This is an experimental prototype CPU cooling system, from Korean manufacturer KM Korea. The demo had a chip of some kind running at about 50 celsius, quite hot to the touch. You press the button and it activates their cooling device, and the heat instantly drains away from the chip surface, cooling it to about 15 celsius in only a couple of seconds. I have no idea how it works, and where the heat is being dissipated to. Perhaps the table concealed some kind of wormhole, through which the heat is sent into whatever dark dimension in which Cthulhu waits.

Kingdom Hearts Hype: Release Date December 2005

UPDATE: LOOK LIKE IT WONT COME OUT IN THE US UNTIL APRIL 2006 OR SO. RATS!

Who's bad?
One of my favorite video games that was released semi-recently is Kingdom Hearts. It’s a Square-developed role-playing game based on the Disney universe. You play as a younger version of the typical Final Fantasy-type hero and team up with Donald and Goofy to save Mickey from The Darkness. That’s why I wait with eager anticipation for the American release of Kingdom Hearts II. Fanning the hype is gamesindustry.biz with its interview with producer Shinji Hashimoto:

Kingdom Hearts II

What are the major changes we can expect to see in the new Kingdom Hearts game?

One of the big changes you’ll see when you play the game is to the camera – we’ve changed how that works. Also, the levels now have more events in them, with mini-games and so on. We’re basically keeping the same concept and everything, but the changes are to the system of the game – we’ve made a massive block of changes that you will see.

After the success of the first game, do you think Disney trust you more with their characters and worlds now in the second game?

We definitely feel a new sense of trust from the Disney side. Based on that trust, we can make new developments – the kind of drastic changes, new discoveries and surprises that we couldn’t before. So yes, look out for that!

Kingdom Hearts 2 looks like it is a lot darker and more adventurous with its story and characters than the first game – is it aimed at a slightly older audience?

We’re still keeping a sort of balance, so that younger audiences can enjoy it as well. Certainly, at the top end, you’ll see some serious scenes and so on – but that’s not the main part. So, for example, even if the player is really young and doesn’t understand the serious parts, they can still enjoy it – we’ve kept that sort of playful element in the game.

There’s some cross-over with how Disney approaches things [to make their films appeal to all ages], of course, but we make the details quite different. We add more mysteries and so on, which appeal more to an older audience, maybe.

Can’t wait!