Technology – Page 14 – Mutantfrog Travelogue

RSS Feeds of Diet Members’ web sites, aggregated

Don’t say I never gave you anything.

I sifted through each individual web site of Japan’s lawmakers (members of the Diet) and placed any RSS feeds I found into Google Reader. Compared to the 722 seats in the Diet, only I only picked up 150 individual members with feeds.

That doesn’t mean Japan’s politicians are not active on the web. All but about 10 or so (mostly the elderly and entrenched – like “Don of the Upper House “Mikio Aoki” – or just too cool for the web – like our man Koizumi) had websites (another 10 members’ sites were down for various reasons), about 90% of them kept up-to-date content on the site, and a good majority provide a wealth of content either in the form of opinions or activities reports. There is, perhaps, a downside to that – they aren’t spending their time drafting legislation (in many cases the job of the PM’s office or autonomous bureaucrats). What I am saying, however, is that most of them are behind the times – lots of websites with early-2000s site designs, and one member even had a Geocities page!

But that aside, here are the links to the RSS feeds that were available, broken down by cameral and party affiliation (Click the party link to see the aggregator site):

Lower House (House of Representatives) (480 seats total; 114 feeds)

Liberal Democratic Party (295 seats as of 10/22/2006; 62 feeds)

New Komeito (31 seats, in a coalition with LDP to form ruling coalition; 3 feeds)

Democratic Party of Japan (113 seats; 43 feeds)

Japan Communist Party (9 seats; no feeds, but here’s their sweet English-language site)

Social Democratic Party (7 seats; 3 feeds)

Minor parties/unaffiliated (total 25 seats, includes Kokumin Shinto (New People’s Party, 4 seats) and Shinto Nippon (New Nippon Party, 1 seat); 3 feeds total)

Upper House (242 seats; 37 feeds)

Liberal Democratic Party (112 seats; 12 feeds)

New Komeito (24 seats; 6 feeds)

Democratic Party of Japan (80 seats; 19 feeds)

Japan Communist Party (9 seats; no feeds)

Social Democratic Party (6 seats; no feeds)

That’s 151 feeds, or about 21% of the members (this isn’t an exact total – one member had multiple feeds, of which I subscribed to 2). How is this useful? Well, not at all if you don’t read Japanese. But at least I will be checking back on it whenever I want to see what people are saying on a given issue, possibly keeping it updated after elections, but who knows? I was bored.

Now, it is possible that I missed a member’s feed for reasons including not seeing the link or it not actually being linked on the member’s official site. Also, a good percentages of the feeds I did find came after digging through the settings page of members’ “e-mail magazine” services, chiefly mag2. Also, many members had “blogs,” but either used primitive Japanese “diary” software, manually updated the sites the old school way, or simply didn’t offer a feed.
Continue reading RSS Feeds of Diet Members’ web sites, aggregated

Mr. Arai and his dream

Candidate for my new favorite Diet member now that Koizumi has decided to stop being awesome:

Etsuji Nii.jpg

Meet Etsuji Arai, LDP lower house member from Saitama’s 11th district. Doesn’t he look like a Japanese Napoleon Dynamite?

His web site address is “My Dream” – one of those English phrases that every Japanese person knows, but in Japanese rather than sounding lame, it absolutely reeks of conviction and sincerity.

As an LDP member, his basic stances should be pretty predictable, but he stands out in the following ways:

He remains one of the few LDP Diet members to have an official web site featuring an RSS feed (more on that later).

He’s a dentist.

He’s not the son of a former Diet member (but his older brother is “reformist” mayor of Fukaya City, Saitama, Iemitsu Arai.

He was elected to the Diet last year as one of the “Koizumi Children” to replace Dietman Ryuji Koizumi, who opposed the postal privatization bills.

Anyway, I just liked his picture really. He is apparently very active as a new Dietman, so let’s look forward to his continued success!

Behind the Deletion of 30,000 Japanese videos from Youtube

You may have heard that YouTube deleted 30,000 Japanese videos from YouTube on the request of the powerful music industry group JASRAC. Well, here’s an article that goes into more detail on the efforts to quash the online sharing of copyrighted content.

Translated/paraphrased (translaphased?) from Nikkei (via 2ch):

Behind the Scenes of the “Request to Delete 30,000 Files” from Youtube – The 2nd Act May be to “Eliminate Anonymity”

Even if you did not receive complaints after putting another person’s music on your blog without permission in the 5 days following Oct 2, you should not rest at ease. That is because JASRAC’s monitoring team was constantly connected to American video posting site YouTube from 9 to 5 during that period. We have taken a look at the “Week of Strengthening Measures Against Youtube” during which 23 copyright-holding companies and groups launched a concentrated attack, making simultaneous requests for deletion.

“30,000 videos in 5 days” the Limit

JASRAC was responsible for about 10% of the 30,000 deleted videos. It’s a tiny number compared to the tens of thousands of videos per day on YouTube, but even regularly having a special person in charge of going around various sites on the Internet and monitoring copyright infringements, we were told in what was close to a scream, “Deletion procedures are an extremely minute process. Anything more than that is impossible.”

On YouTube, there is a web site, which regular users cannot see, that is reserved for rightsholders for them to request that videos be deleted. They search for videos by keyword and place a check next to videos subject to the request. Once the deletion request is sent to YouTube, most of the time deletion is completed the next day.

These requests seem simple, but they are rather work intensive. The page is of course in English. Since the name of the song used in the video is not displayed, there are times when it is impossible to judge whether the video actually constitutes a violation unless it is watched to the end. They cannot neglect to listen to even one part of the song.
Continue reading Behind the Deletion of 30,000 Japanese videos from Youtube

Automobiling in 1906 – Peak oil is coming!

Looking through the NYT online archives, which now allow viewing of articles back to 1851 with a Times Select account, I came across a Jan 18, 1906 feature on an auto-show at Madison Square Garden, in which I found three fascinating nuggest. Each one gets its own post.

Ethanol is so 1906.

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GASOLINE GETTING SCARCE

Motorists May Have to Use Alcohol Before Long–Dust Nuisance

Winthrop E. Scarritt, ex-President of the Automobile Club of America, was the chief speaker yesterday at the Sixty-ninth Regiment Armory at the general meeting of the American Automobile Association. He sounded a note of warning upon the decreasing supply of gasoline and predicted that alcohol might have to be utilized in the future for motor service.

“There are in use in America,” he said, “approximately 70,000 motor cars. These do not consume as much as the 800,000 gasoline stoves which are in use all over the Middle West, where fuel is always high, and it is due to the use of gasoline for such purposes that has been the chief cause during the past five years in doubling the price of gasoline. The California and Texas oils are practically barren of gasoline distsillates, and while the supply of gasoline is not growing, its consumption is rapidly increasing. What is our remedy for this threatening situation? It lies in the direction of vegetable alcohol. At present the United States Government taxes all alcohol at $2 per gallon. There is no reason why this tax should not be removed on denatured alcohol, that is, alcohol rendered unfit for beverage. Experiments with this fuel made in France, also in America, by Prof. Elihu Thompson, show that it may be utilized as a motor fuel successfully. Germany last year used over 70,000,000 gallons of denatured vegetable alcohol.”

Mr. Scarritt stated that a bill was about to be introduced in Congress providing for the removal of the tax on vegetable alcohol, and he advised all automobilists to unite in supporting the measure.

Automobiling in 1906 – Locomobile in the Mikado’s Empire

After all, why even bother bringing an automobile without a native to drive it for you?

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BUYS AUTO FOR JAPAN

Good Touring Roads There, Says Mr. Thompson-Society at the Shows

An automobile that will be taken to Japan for touring purposes was purchased yesterday at the Madison Square Garden show by J.W. Thompson, who has just returned to New York after a residence of three years in the Mikado’s empire. Mr. Thompson’s purchase was a 30-35 horse power locomobile. He was the first man to introduce the motor car into Japan, his first car having been used there in 1900. Mr. Thompson said last night that the roads of Japan were excellent for automobiling, but owing to the heavy import duty few motor cars have been brought into the country. His greatest difficulty was in teaching the native the mechanical construction of the car so as to make them capable chauffeurs and repairers.

Automobiling in 1906 – Electric Cars in New York

Did you know we had electric cars in 1906? Why are they still so scarce in 2006?

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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. Search ‘sell my car fort myers’ online to earn extra cash if you plan to buy an electric car.

Right wing blog, 2-channel harassing Mainichi reporter of Korean ancestry for left-wing stances, speaking rudely about emperor

Popular right wing nutjob blog ~~murmur~~ mumur, along with his buddies at 2ch, are furious over the behavior of a reporter for the Mainichi Shimbun, a third-generation zainichi (Japanese of Korean ancestry) named Park Chong Ju, at recent press conferences given by the Saga prefectural governor (UPDATE: For the record, murmur’s blog hasn’t commented on the emperor press conference specifically, but he probably will since Park is the subject of a “series” on the blog). In particular, people are angry over a 9/28 press conference given by the Saga prefectural governor announcing that the emperor would be attending a ocean-themed festival (that apparently already took place on 10/29) in the prefecture. Park was rude when questioning the necessity of spending millions of dollars to bring the emperor to the prefecture when govt finances are in trouble. He not only failed to use the proper honorifics when speaking of the emperor and his wife (calling the imperial couple “those two” rather than the formal 天皇皇后両陛下 “their majesties, the emperor and empress”), he questioned “the meaning” of an imperial visit, suggested that the money spent on the imperial visit could be used to help “the less fortunate,” and asked whether people would be forced to wave the Japanese flag, an act controversial among Japan’s left wing. Others were annoyed by his “interrogation” style of questioning, which is actually pretty common from what I’ve observed of reporters. It’s not pretty, but it’s also not something that’s usually publicized since press conferences like this have only recently been posted in full online and by their nature are not that popular to watch.

You can watch the video on Youtube or take a look at the transcript. In Japanese only.

To express his dissatisfaction with Park, ~~Murmur~~ mumurhas decided to use his favorite tactic and put up Park’s personal information, including mobile phone number, business card, and photographs, in an attempt to encourage readers to harass the man and contact his employers to complain about his performance. Consider it the online equivalent of black sound trucks outside a Communist Party picnic.

Basically, Zainichi can do no good in the eyes of the Japanese right wing. Almost anything Koreans do sets them up for ridicule and scorn, or denouncements as spies in their midst. The mere knowledge that a well-known person has Korean blood makes them a member of the Korean conspiracy. Apparently this reporter has an activist streak who thinks of himself as a representative of the people (a more recent incident had the Saga governor informing Park “This isn’t a place for reporters to state their opinions!”). He’s written articles critical of revisionist textbooks and in favor of allowing more government participation for the zainichi population, in addition to his critical stance on using tax revenues on the emperor’s visit.

As another commenter on 2ch pointed out, these stances make Park an easy straw man for those with a more conservative outlook (the majority of 2ch for starters). There have been several threads posted criticizing his manners, politics, and the definition of his own role as a reporter.

I want to say stuff like this makes me feel good about the state of American political discourse, but of course we’re no better, what with our own countless examples of petty harassment.

PSE Law update: Call for comments

You may remember the April 2006 flap about a law in Japan that bans the sales of a whole slew of used electronics, such as the original Playstation and used musical instruments, unless they could be tested to earn a seal proving their electrical safety. In response to massive protest from musicians and secondhand retailers, the relevant ministry, Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI), came up with a stopgap solution – allow and assist dealers in performing the tests themselves – that would supposedly. help ease the burden on the “recycle” industry. I, lacking the intuition to know a half-baked compromise idea when I see one, declared METI’s bone-throw along with other loopholes in the law to have “thoroughly declawed” the painful aspects of the PSE Law.

However, a recent survey conducted by the “Japan Reuse Association” indicates the following:

47% of secondhand electronics retailers have stopped selling affected recycled goods that don’t already have the PSE mark;

33% are inspecting and affixing the PSE stickers themselves;

6% are making use of a “rental” scheme in which buyers of affected goods sign a rental contract for the goods but never actually have to return it and pay a rental fee equal to what would have been the purchase price; and finally,

6% are ignoring the law and selling affected goods as they always have.

So regardless of METI’s attempt to ease the transition, if this survey is correct the new regulations are significantly harming the industry, and by extension, consumers. In that sense, the “assistance measures” taken up by METI seem to have had only limited effect.

So to get the real scoop, here’s what I want to know from you: is this what it looks like on the ground? Can one easily buy old Playstations/Dreamcasts/Saturns etc at the “recycle” shops in Japan?

Now keep in mind this survey came from an industry group chaired by a Mr. Koichiro Ogawa, a secondhand “wholesaler” and former chair of the “Association to Consider the PSE Issue” who was quoted in many articles during the PSE scare. The group was founded specifically to try and get the law amended so that it makes sense.

Google Japan update

Joe has posted a couple of times on the annoyances of trying to use Google services on Japanese cell phones. The biggest problem has been the fact that mobile Gmail, while working fine for English, has actually not been able to display Japanese text on a Japanese mobile phone. Until now. I am happy to report that, perhaps starting as recently as this week, I now have no trouble reading Gmail messages in Japanese on my phone.

Don’t laugh, some day we’ll ALL be wearing one of these

In this photo released by Japanese electronics maker Toshiba Corp. Monday, Oct. 16, 2006, a model wearing a full-faced prototype headgear demonstrates the new gadget that enables the wearer to get a 360-degree view on a 40 centimeters (15.8 inches) across dome-shaped screen at Toshiba Corporate Research and Development Center in Kawasaki, west of Tokyo, Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2006. The ominidirectional image, of which two-dimentional version is displayed on the flat panel screen, will be projected to the three-kilogram (6.6 pounds) helmet in accordance with the wearer’s head position upon being detected by infrared sensors. Toshiba plans to merchandize the gadget within 2 to 3 years. (AP Photo/Toshiba Corp., HO)

(Thanks to CRAZY JAPAN)