Japan Times has an interesting article on the resurgence of Hoppy, a near-beer popular in the Showa era. I haven’t really liiked it but then I’ve never tried it like this:
The most popular way to drink Hoppy, which has remained unchanged to this day, is to mix it chilled with cold shochu in a proportion of five to one in a chilled glass.
Yesterday’s New York Times had an article on the short-lived wave of electricity powered automobiles that were popular in the city almost exactly one century ago.
Starting in 1914, the Detroit Taxicab and Transfer Company built and operated a fleet of nearly 100 electric cabs. Customers would often wait for a smoother, cleaner, more tasteful electric cab, even when a gas-powered cab was already on station.
At the turn of the 20th century, quiet, smooth, pollution-free electric cars were a common sight on the streets of major American cities. Women especially favored them over steam- and gasoline-powered cars.
Last year I posted a 1906 article from the same newspaper’s archive on an auto show at Madison Square Garden, which discussed electric vehicles in use at the time.
Breweries are still the leading users of motor trucks. The three-ton truck that is ordinarily used will carry fifty half-barrels. As an indication of its utility, it may be interesting to note that one of these will leave a big brewery around New York at 6 o’clock in the morning, make a trip to Coney Island, return at 2 o’clock, and finish a short city delivery before 6 in the evening. With horse-drawn trucks, four horses would be needed to make the trip to Coney Island, and the team would not get back until late at night, while the following day it would be necessary to give the horses absolute rest. Most of the big breweries have their own electric plants and thereby reduce the cost of recharging their electric trucks to about 2t or 30 cents, representing only the actual cost of the fuel. If recharged in an electric garabe, the cost is about $1.25. The Vehicle Equipment Company maintains a large electric wagon garage at Ninth Avenue and Twenty-seventh Street, where over 100 cars in daily use are kept.
The electric wagon can run only 30 to 35 miles on a single charge, and this limited radius naturally restricts the use of the electric wagon for city purposes. With good roads and with its simpler construction, requiring less mechanical work than is needed to keep the gasoline trucks in good condition, the electric wagon has become firmly established as the ideal method for deliveries in large communities. There is little difficulty now in securing capable men to manage them. The manager of one of the large concerns stated that motormen of the surface and subway lines are applying for jobs to drive electric wagons in great numbers. Their familiarity with electric motors fits them admirably for the work, as they can make light repairs and prevent needless damage, elements that enter largely into the economy of the motor commercial vehicle.
I asked then, “Did you know we had electric cars in 1906? Why are they still so scarce in 2006?” A place like New York City does in fact seem like an ideal environment for battery powered vehicles, and you actually see them in use quite a bit in parks or train stations, where speed is no factor, but would it in fact be effective to re-introduce electric vehicles for commercial purposes, much in the same way as described in the 1906 article, but with modern motor and battery technologies?
For the many thousands of readers who can’t get enough of fake Harry Potter, NPR’s Morning edition had a story on Chinese sequel-legging for their July 13 broadcast. And no, they don’t mention either of the two presented here.
Also, don’t forget the truly awe-inspiring Harry Potter in Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese Translation web site, which gives detailed comparisons of the Mainland Chinese, Taiwanese Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese translations of the novels. Fascinating reading for hardcore fans of the series (particularly those with some knowledge of one or more of the languages treated), and truly essential reading for any translators familiar with the world of Harry Potter.
While the main reason I had been idle from blogging the first half of this month was due to my spending all of the appropriate energies in preparation for an interview related to grad school admissions. The past week, however, has been obstructed by the general shittiness of Comcast cable internet service. These days I am living in my hometown of Montclair, New Jersey in the house where we have had Comcast’s cable internet service since shortly after moving there in 1998. While Comcast seemed insanely fast back then, after years of never having used anything faster than a dialup 56k modem outside of a school, it was never perfectly reliable, and feels like it has only gotten slower and less reliable over time. This feeling is of course aggravated by my experiences with far superior DSL service in both Japan and Taiwan, but the biggest insult was discovering that cable internet service provided by Optimum Online to my apartments in New Brunswick (I went to Rutgers University, the State University of New Jersey), not even one hour away from home and in the same state, was dramatically superior in both speed and service quality.
On Saturday, following a period of off-and on flakiness, the connection from Comcast stopped working completely. All right, I thought, on Monday we (I and my father) are going up to his house in Cape Cod until Friday, where there is a working net connection I can use to get some work done. And there was, at first. But unfortunately, the formerly existing Adelphia which once served up here was laid low by corrupt and incompetent executives and their network was bought by, yes, Comcast. So naturally it went out Wednesday afternoon, and after an afternoon of waiting to see if it would come back on and a lengthy tech support call in the early evening, nothing is fixed.
So how am I posting this? Well, I found a backup plan. A couple of days after getting back to the US from Japan I went out to buy a cell phone, and I opted for the Windows Mobile Samsung Blackjack ($50 after rebate, with 2 year contract that I will most likely break with an early termination fee next year) and the $20 a month unlimited data plan. With the cable net out, I simply plugged my Blackjack into my PC with the included USB cable, executed the Internet Sharing application (note that this program does is not listed on any of the application menus, but can be found in the Windows folder on the phone using the File Explorer), and pressed the “Connect” button on the phone, and I was online! The speed is nowhere near broadband-at around 140kbps down and 50kbps up (according to Speedtest.net) closer to the dialup speeds of the bad old days-but it sure beats nothing.
Luckily, it looks like I won’t be stuck with Comcast’s putrid service for much longer. Verizon’s FiOS (fiber- optic service) is now available in Montclair, offering significantly higher levels of speed for the same price as Comcast. And while I am cynical enough to feel no surprise if I’m still getting arbitrarily disconnected for at least a few hours a week, I hold out a ray of hope that the same people who provide the never-failed conventional phone service might actually have a clue how to run a network that stays online.
I haven’t been posting lately due to a variety of reasons, most of all are my move back to the US this coming Sunday, and the absolutely wretched chest cold/cold-like disease that has floored me well enough so that my packing and other preparations for moving leave me utterly without energy.
Which brings me to my discovery of the day- that many brands of over the counter (i.e. non-prescription) cough medicine in Japan contain codeine. I find this rather surprising considering the general strictness of pharma regulations in this country, such as the rule that even drugs as mild as aspirin cannot be sold except in a pharmacy, which means that if you have a headache late at night the only medicine you’ll find in the corner convenience store that can help you is going to be whiskey.
In a related bit of trivia, I was bit puzzled to learn that due to a quirk in the Taiwanese legal code, ketamine has become the new drug of choice there for teenagers. According to the Taiwanese (Republic Of China) narcotics control law, ketamine is classified as a “minor” or category 3 drug, which means that possession is only a ticketing and not criminal offense. Oddly, cannabis (marijuana) is a category 2 drug, along with cocaine, morphine, and about 150 presumably dangerous chemicals I’ve never heard of-despite that fact that the aforementioned category 3 ketamine can actually be fatal in large doses (although rarely.)
Incidentally, cannabis is fairly strictly banned in Japan as well, following the 1948 passage of the Cannabis Control Act, which is said to be based on the corresponding American law. I have read in a couple of places that cannabis consumption was in fact a part of Japanese religious practice until quite recently-which considering the existence of names like 麻生 and 麻美 seems quite believable-many people in Japan actually believe the Reefer Madness version of reality. Still, while I don’t expect a more rational drug related policy in any of the three countries I have lived in (US, Japan, Taiwan), at least the availability of over the counter cough syrup with harmlessly small doses of codeine is a bright spot of common sense.
The creation of a unified “Japan Brand” has been called for recently as a way to promote exports, boost tourism, and take control of how Japan as a nation is perceived abroad. To that end, the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency has recently announced a new logo for its campaign to help promote local products for export that to this blogger seems to lack a certain subtlety:
(Click the picture for the full size picture. It makes a great desktop wallpaper!)
Bluntness aside, it’s a simple and attractive logo. It seems intended as a sort of umbrella logo to bring disparate marketing strategies pursued by the various regions of Japan in under a unified concept that will “create new traditions” by very efficiently letting anyone who comes into contact with a product bearing such a logo that it DEFINITELY comes from Japan, which should let a potential buyer know that, like Japan, the product stands for “quality,” “beauty,” and “pride.”
And at least this logo should make sense to outsiders. “Yokoso Japan,” the tourism version of “Japan Brand” logos, was SLAMMED last year by American Japan theorist Alex Kerr, who told a government discussion panel that it would sound like “blah blah blah Japan” to those unfamiliar with the Japanese term for “welcome.”
UPDATE: I should note the similarity between this logo and the typeface at YH Chang Heavy Industries, a flash animation website known for its hit “Cunnilingus in North Korea:”
Nikkei PC Magazine reports:
Arguments for Caution at Cultural Affairs Agency Deliberation Council on Copyright Term Extension Issue
May 16, 2007
The Subcommittee for the Protection and Use of Past Copyrighted Works Etc. of the Cultural Deliberation Council’s Copyright Commission, an advisory body to the Commissioner of the Cultural Affairs Agency on the copyright term extension issue, held its 3rd meeting of 2007 on May 16.
Continuing from the previous meeting, a hearing was held consisting of 17 people including stakeholders engaging in business activities related to copyright. This time, however, moderate-thinking lawyers and academics with a background in copyright made multiple arguments against term extension.
“Cases of Copyright Inheritance are Rare”
Professor Masaru Itoga (Library Information Science) of Keio University, pointed out that gaining permission to use copyrighted materials will become more difficult by extending the copyright term from 50 years after the death of the rights holder to 70 years. “With the exception of famous works, cases in which surviving family members inherit copyrights are rare. Also, finding the addresses of corporations is easy, but the contact information of individual rightsholders is not made public. If the copyright term is extended, there is a danger that there will be an increase in the number of works that are not passed on after the rights holder’s death and it is unclear who holds the rights to them.”
[snip issue of “free use labeling”]
“The International Balance of Copyright is -600 Billion Yen Annually”
Attorney Kensaku Fukui commented that while the US, Europe, and Japan have extended copyright term repeatedly, copyright term has never been rolled back, and called for caution on a hasty extension: “The effects from term extension will felt by posterity semi-permanently. I hope for and will watch carefully for a debate that will stand up to historical investigation, showing who and with what proof did people favor, oppose, or remain silent on extension.”
He went on to question: “Those in favor of term extension argue that if a database for copyrighted works is built then past works can be easily accessed. I think there is merit in that idea, but it would be difficult to create a database comprehensive enough to cancel out the problems posed by extension. The list of authors tops 790,000 just based on the archives of the National Diet Library. Extend that to overseas works and a database would grow exponentially in size if the copyright term is extended to 70 years retroactively. Are we going to place this cost on the Japanese people?”
Fukui also commented on the fact that according to Bank of Japan statistics, Japan’s international balance of payments for copyrighted works is negative 600 billion yen annually (meaning that more copyrighted work is imported than exported) and is growing year by year: “If prewar Western works’ copyrights continue to be extended, then over-importing and the international uneven distribution of intellectual property will become permanent. There are those who argue that ‘extension is necessary to protect the works of Haruki Murakami or Japanese animation,’ but these works’ copyrights will last for at least another 30 years. The decision to extend works such as those should be made based on the situation 30 years from now, and it is no reason to extend copyright term now. I think we should stop immediately trying to find a way to cooperate whenever we are told something by the US and Europe.”
“Economic effects of term extension no greater than 1-2%”
Keio University Professor Tatsuo Tanaka (Econometrics) claimed that the economic effects of term extension would be small and that the rational decision would be to promote use of the public domain. Tanaka explained his doubtful outlook: “Citing books with past case studies, the increase in revenue for rights holders due to copyright term extension would be only 1-2% of all copyright revenue. Will raising royalties from 10% to 10.2% actually boost creativity?”
Meanwhile, arguing that the term extension is set aside would allow works to be used freely in the public domain, Tanaka concluded that not extending copyright would be better for society: “Businesses that promote new uses by exploiting the public domain are increasing. For example, Aozora Bunko boasts a lineup of 6000 titles, and the top 1000 titles are viewed by 4.5 million people per year. Cheap DVDs sell 1.8 million copies per year. There are also many examples where works whose copyright terms have expired, such as Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon and Ayaka Hirahara’s Jupiter, have been recreated. On blogs and social networking sites, 10 million average citizens are creating and transmitting content. The public domain is the lifeblood of creativity for the next generation, and forms the basis for the average person’s creations.”
Other participants arguments’ included “I am negative on term extension, but even if the term is extended, I hope that the part of the term beyond 50 years will require a notification and that the term will not be categorically extended.” (Keio Univ. Associate Professor Kim Jong Kun [金正勲]), “As a part of a system for notification of intent, I would like a free use label to be created that indicates permission to freely use work in a museum.” (Akira Inoue, Director General of the National Science Museum)….. “Ryonosuke Akutagawa worried whether people would read his work 50 years in the future. The greatest hope of a creator is to have his/her work read by a great many people. Extending copyright term would decrease the opportunities for works to be used and lead to a cultural loss.” (Authoer/poet Chico Ryomi).
Still others’ contended: “For orchestras, the burden from usage fees they will pay to JASRAC due to term extension is a serious issue.” (Japan Orchestra Federation Standing Director Naomoto Okayama), “It is almost inconceivable that software will be used 50 years after [its copyright holder dies], making term extension unrealistic.” (Association of Copyright for Computer Software Executive Director Hiroshi Kubota)
Others Argue “We Should Lead the International Current”, “National Cultural Assets will be Lost”
Meanwhile, there were also arguments in favor of term extension, mostly from officials from rights holder groups. Hide Ikuno, Executive Director of the Recording Industry Association of Japan, noted that “copyright term for records is already greater than 50 years in 21 countries. Japan has the second largest record sales in the world, and is in a position to lead the international current.”
Kazuhiko Fukuodera, standing director of the Japan Artist Association, argued: “Edvard Munch is still copyrighted in the West but is public domain in Japan. When that happened, dolls parodying “The Scream” went on sale. We should not do things that are rude to creators. In 2009, Taikan Yokoyama’s copyrights will become public domain. The Taikan Yokoyama Memorial Center’s operating costs are taken care of in part by copyright fees, and if they become public domain the operations of the center could become difficult, leading to a loss of national cultural assets.
(by Kanto Kaneko)
Comment: Some things to be learned from/noted about this article:
1. Those who will benefit from copyright extension in Japan are overwhelmingly foreign rightsholders, such as the Beatles, Elvis, Disney and other popular foreign artists/movies.
2. The arguments for copyright extension, when shown in the light of day, are extremely weak (lead by following?!) and hold no legal water unlike the previous extension to 50 years to comply with the Berne convention.
3. The Japanese system of public hearings before advisory committees long before any cabinet decisions are made or laws passed can work much much better than, say, the American system in which copyrights can be extended through the sheer political will of Sonny Bono’s widow and Disney. This did not stop the copyright term for movies from being extended to 70 years after the rightsholder’s death due to foreign pressure from the US etc, but an increasingly copyright-conscious Japanese public may just save Japan as a bastion of consumer-friendly copyright term.
4. The bulk of the Japanese media, as major rightsholders themselves, spew endless anti-piracy, pro-rights management propaganda, though as you can see this is not always the case as there are opposing business/consumer interests involved. I’ll try and locate a good example sometime soon.
By which I’m referring to the new Suica/Narita Express deal. For 3,500 yen, you get a Suica card which provides (1) a one-way trip to anywhere in Tokyo via Narita Express and (2) 2,000 yen in Suica credit which you can spend on just about anything.
Considering that the Narita Express alone usually costs 3,000 yen just to get you to Tokyo Station, this is an incredible deal. The only catch is that you need a foreign passport to get it. (Discrimination!)
I’d state the obvious and say that Lonely Girl is the lamest bunch of crap that ever existed, but then I might hurt my own chances of a sweet product placement deal with Pocky.
Lonelygirl15 Breaks Ice With Hershey’s
MARCH 20, 2007 –
Lonelygirl15, the pseudo-video diary that became a YouTube phenomenon last year, has signed its first major product placement deal with Hershey’s for its Icebreakers Sours Gum brand.
In a video posted on March 20 on the official Lonelygirl site, Lg15.com, the show’s main character Bree is seen offering her friends a piece of Icebreaker’s gum, and a closeup of the product is shown. The sponsored episode of scripted teen drama is slated to eventually be featured on YouTube and other video-sharing sites in the near future, said officials.
This level of product integration marks one of the more sophisticated examples of branded entertainment to emerge from the rapidly-evolving world of amateur-created online video. The deal was initiated by the Dallas, Texas-based agency TracyLocke. Ad sales were handled directly by the agents from Creative Artists Agency who represent the Lonelygirl creators. “It’s empowering for us to have major international brand like Hershey’s treat us like they would any other major entertainment property,” says Greg Goodfried, Lonelygirl15co-creator. “Deals like this are good for the community – they help us pay our operating expenses, which has been an ongoing struggle.”
(from MediaWeek)
Marxy of neomarxisme is writing for a new site under the auspices of his employer the Diamond Agency called Clast, reports Jean Snow. It’s a blog aimed at “breaking down consumer and media insights in Japan.” Here’s more from Clast’s about page:
clast is a bilingual blog created by Diamond Agency to analyze contemporary consumer and media trends in Japan. The word “clast” means literally “a fragment of rock,” and we see our mission as breaking down the extremely complex systems of Japanese market culture into easily-discernible parts. At the same time, however, we also hope to break down misconceptions about the market that have buried their way into the conventional wisdom and provide a new perspective based on a multi-disciplinary analytical approach. Reaching consumers requires an accurate portrait of their world, and clast aims to draw that picture in vivid detail.
I know I’m overjoyed, especially with the “vivid detail” part.
The posts so far (a look at the declining magazine industry and an introduction to influential women’s fashion magazine CanCam and the women who read it) are a must-read for anyone interested in Japan’s media industry (as some of you have asked). You might not hear much about kisha clubs or other issues removed from the promotion and marketing of products, but you will definitely find out why some magazines are doing better than others and how fashion-conscious Japanese women are spending their money. How is this different from his old blog? So far, it’s more focused on the Japanese consumer issues and media. And perhaps more importantly, it does not accept comments, which have proven something of a distraction at the neomarxisme blog.
Not much else to add right now, just check out the site!
