testing posting from flickr
June 2005 Archives
「米テクノラティ創業者兼CEO, David Sifryからのポストです。」
one.orgのメンバーがLive8コンサートの５会場――フィラデルフィア、パリ、ローマ、ベルリン、東京――について、バックステージに出入りできるプレスパスをそれぞれ１０ずつ用意してくれた。one.orgのメンバーとLive8は、ブロガーの存在はスコットランドでのG8の前に、メディアに新たな声と見方がもたらされ、アジェンダがつくられるのに役立つと考えている。（彼らのnew blogも見てみよう）
これに加え、バージンアトランティック航空のリチャード・ブランソンはLive8のスタッフがニューヨーク－エジンバラ間を往復するのに航空機を寄付し、しかも最大５人のブロガーがそれに同行できるようにしてくれた。G8サミットの初めから全行程をブログしてしまおうという発想だ。航空機は７月３日の午後７時にＪＦＫを飛び立ち、ブロガーとそれ以外の人々を乗せて７月７日にニューヨークに戻る。エジンバラとその周辺の宿泊場所も用意される。
さて、これはどういうことか。つまり、これはブロガーである皆がLive8のバックステージパスを入手するチャンスを得て、もしかしたらエジンバラへの飛行機にただで乗れるかもしれない、ということだ。これがどんなにカッコいいことか考えてみよう――ポッドキャストを立ち上げてミュージシャンをインタビューしたり、フォトブログやビデオブログにしてみたり、もしかしたら何百万人もの前でギターを弾くまねをしてみたりできるのだ！
真面目に語れば、今回の措置の目指すところは何百万人ものブロガーたちにLive8について書いてもらうことにもある――実際、アフリカでは毎日３万人の子供が死んでいる――しかし誰もそれをリポートしないのを、我々は黙って見過ごすわけにはいかない。したがって、５０人のブロガーにこうした機会を与える一つの目的は、ブログによって影響力のあるメディアがアジェンダをつくるように導くことにあり、そしてこのことは大きな可能性を示唆している――ブロガーたちが、すでに起こった出来事について書くことによって起こす受動的な変化でなく、能動的に変化を生み出すということなのだ。これは、我々が世界のためになるニュースが生まれるのに役立ち、G8の場で各国のリーダーが何百万もの声に耳を傾けることにつながるということだ。
さて、申し込みの手順は次の通り。
１． one.orgに行き、ビデオを観て宣言書にサインする。Live8とは何かを理解する。
２． live8.Technorati.comに行き、いずれかのアイコンをあなたのブログにはる。やり方は簡単。on the badge pageのコードをあなたのブログのテンプレートに加えるだけだ。
３． Joe Trippi's blogとPowerlineに行ってLive8に関するポストを読む。
４． 近くの会場を一つ選び、以下の情報とともに私とジョーとジョンにメールを送る。
a. 名前と年齢
b. あなたのブログ名とURL
c. 行きたい会場（一つだけ）
d. 住所（これがないとプレスキットが送れません）
５． 自分のブログでLive8についてブログに書く。その際、そのポストにLive8のタグをはる。この作業をし、さらにあなたのブログにアイコンをはっていないと、チャンスがありません。
６． ６月３０日までひたすら待つ。この日までにメールで連絡があるはずだ。
７． 友達に言いふらす。今回の目的はG8サミットの前に１０万ポストを引っ張り出し、できるだけ多くのブロガーがLive8や貧しい国の債務免除、飢餓と貧困による苦境、そして我々がそれに対して何ができるのかについて書いてもらうことだ。
もしかしたらLive8側からより多くのバックステージパスが得られるかもしれない。私とジョー、そしてジョンは、トロントやイギリスのバックステージに入れるパスも得られるように努力する。その間、皆には耳を傾け、読み、そしてブログに書いて欲しい――我々が力を合わせることで世論が変わり、貧困が過去のものとなるように国の政策に影響を与えられるように。
Jason went to the Feedmesh BoF at Gnomedex and had some very interesting commentary...
My feeling is the Feedmesh should be a private effort by a group of services and publishers, organized by a board, and unlimited access to the cloud should be limited to members. Limited access (i.e. for a certain amount of time/bandwidth) per day should be open for people to experiment. Open access to this is just too powerful for everyone—i.e. spammers—to have access to it. There should be some controls.
However, I give this concept a 50-50 chance of going forward because if you were an established player like Feedster and Technorati you’ve got zero to gain by putting your data in. If the big players only take (as they currently are) and don’t give this service is only going to be 60-80% of the picture. Truth be told if I was CEO of Technorati or Feedster there is no way I would ever dump my entire business into an uncontrolled cloud. Forget it.
He's got some great points.
FeedMesh 101 (or why it will probably fail to be the one service that unites them all )
Technorati Tags: blogs, feedmesh, Technorati
So I have a question for all the Mac users who read my weblog.
Since moving to the Mac, one thing I've really liked is the "print to PDF" feature of Safari and Firefox and any browser. It essentially allows me to save websites, articles, etc. as PDFs, which are nice for printing.
Now with Tiger, I can search all those PDF'd articles and websites with Spotlight.
Does anyone else do this? I find it very handy, especially for news articles that go behind subscription firewalls like the NYTimes does after 10 days or whatever.
Technorati Tags: pdf
Sysco IP Phone Model TC-04 by BubbaTel You are bidding on a genuine authentic Sysco IP Phone Model TC-04 by BubbaTel. This model has the following features and capabilities:
• VOIP Capable! - Voice is actually transmitted via UTP Cat5e
• State of The Art Security - Almost Impossible To "Listen Into Encrypted Conversations"
• Premium Quality Half Duplex Audio - Receiver Is Also The Microphone
• High Tech VOIP voice processor - I mean come on just look at it!
• Echo Reduction Unit Comes Pre Installed To Prevent That "Tin Can Sound" That Often Accompanies VoIP Telephones.
• Optional On Hold System Can Be Utilized By Simply Hanging The Unit On A Nail In The Wall (Nail Not Included).
• Waiting On Hold Music Is Available By Placing Unit Near Radio or Other Audio Source (Radio Not Included). • Beveled Edges To Prevent Harmful Cuts While Speaking Or Listening.
• Perfect For Short Distance Communication! 2.5 Feet Of Cord Provided
• Could Possibly Work With Any Key System, PBX, or IP System: Vodavi, Nortel, Cisco, Avaya ect. Although neither me nor Bubba Tel is responsible for any adverse effects or damage that may be incurred to your telephone or intra network if not installed by a Bubba Tel Representative.
• Caller ID Could Be Possible, If Holes Were Drilled Into Each Side Of the Unit. • WiFi / 802.xx / Blue Tooth / UHF / VHF / Ham Radio / 101.9 WJHM / AM / FM / AM PM / EST / 900 Mhz Ready! All you have to do is cut the cord!
• IR (Infared) Capable With Optional Flashlight (Not Included)
Multiple Units Are Available, Just Send Me An Email. It may take me a few days to manufacture these units, so please be patient. I only create them once they sell :) Ask For A Custom Quote & Inquire About Factory Lead Time. I'll Even Personalize With Custom Extension Ranges!
WHOA. Browser-based tag viewer built with a lot of AJAX.
Note- no Safari support.
del.icio.us direc.tor is a prototype for an alternative web-based rich UI for del.icio.us. It leverages the XML and XSL services of modern browsers to deliver a responsive interface for managing user accounts with a large number of records.
The main features are:
• In-browser handling of del.icio.us bookmarks (tested up to 12,000 records)
• Find-as-you-type searching of all your bookmarks, with basic search operators
• Sort by description, tags, or timestamp
• Cascading tag browser
del.icio.us direc.tor: Delivering A High-Performance AJAX Web Service Broker
Technorati Tags: AJAX, delicious, del.icio.us
Technorati Tags: cake
This is an interesting list put out by AO/Technorati. Some of these folks have already had a lot of exposure, some very little.
AlwaysOn and Technorati are pleased to present the first annual "Open Media 100," the power list of bloggers, social networkers, tool smiths, and investors leading the Open Media Revolution.
...
The purpose of this list is to provide an initial, helpful framework of this emerging industry and highlight its key players who are influencing the adoption of open media and proving the impact it is already having on the technology industry, journalism, and marketing.
However, any list of Internet influencers without Andy Baio is suspect to me.
Full disclosure: Technorati Japan is my employer.
Introducing the AO/Technorati Open Media 100 [alwayson-network.com]
Technorati Tags: blogs, Technorati
MTV is planning 3 new channels aimed at Indian-Americans, Chinese-Americans and Korean-Americans.
That's what MTV World is counting on as it introduces three new channels focusing on the growing population of young, acculturated Asian-Americans: first, MTV Desi, which will go on the air in late July; then MTV Chi, for Chinese-Americans, by the end of the year; and MTV K for Korean-Americans next year. The channels will not be merely tweaked reproductions of MTV India, MTV China or MTV Korea, three of MTV's 42 channels abroad. Rather, they will, like their target audiences, be hybrids, blending here and there and grappling with identity issues, mostly in English.
MTV Desi will serve as the prototype. Interspersed among Bollywood videos, electronic tabla music and English-Gujarati hip-hop, it will feature brief documentary clips profiling desis, comic skits about South Asian-American generational conflicts, interviews with bicultural artists and desi house parties, live. MTV Chi will mix up Mandarin rock, Canto pop and Chinese-American rap; MTV K will tap into South Korean hip-hop and the little-known but vibrant Korean-American pop scene. MTV Desi will start on satellite nationally and then move to digital cable systems in various parts of the country.
MTV World's premise for these new channels was commonsensical: that young bicultural Americans have tastes different from those of youths in their ethnic homelands and therefore need, as it were, a customized MTV.
While I do think these channels will provide content that heretofore was only easily available to Americans via bittorrent, or other p2p networks, it's interesting that MTV/Viacom has consciously decided not to target the Japanese-American market or create a J-pop station. I can imagine that the marketers and business planners look at the size of the target audience to make their decisions. Plus, it sounds like the executives they hired are from the target audience.
J-Pop is far and away the most successful of the Asian pop music market. J-pop has crossed over into niche markets outside of Japan in Asia as well as niches in the US and Europe. While I don't want to take anything away from the other audiences, who deserve this exposure as well as anyone else, I do find Viacom's strategy interesting.
Anything that can be done to break up the monotony of the monoculture of the US is worthwhile. If these new MTV channels can move the needle even a little, it will be worth it.
I Want My Hyphenated-Identity MTV [nytimes.com]
Technorati Tags: Asia, corporate, MTV, television
David Jacobson of Japan Media Review quoted me earlier this month regarding the launch of the Technorati Japan beta site. Sorry I've waited so long to post this.
This is my quoted part:
Anonymity is valued more highly in Japan than in the U.S. (for comparison's sake.) That has been the culture on the Japanese Internet in the past and it is clear that this trend will continue with Japanese weblogs. Many Japanese Internet users have pointed to a strong diary ('nikki') culture that has been a strong part of Japanese written culture for many hundreds of years. Some Japanese believe that "blogs" are an extension of Japanese diaries, which may be the cause of many personal diary-type blogs in Japan.
What do I think of Manbe Kawori being the "most popular" blogger in Japan? I think she's pretty Internet-savvy and was an early adopter. I do hope to see more than just "chomeijin" blogs ("famous" people, usually media-related) in the Technorati Japan Top 100. I hope there will be more Japanese bloggers who blog under their own name, instead of anonymously. That's the key to reputation. Instead of being scared about what anonymous people may be saying about you on 2ch.net, if you have your own blog, your own voice, your own control over your own "online persona," then you can control what is said about you vs. the other way around. That's a key point that I may expand upon in the future. Being proactive instead of reactive, essentially.
And Japan's Most Quoted Blogger Is ... [japanmediareview.com]
Technorati Tags: blogs, Japan, Technorati
Andreas Bovens has handed me the Musical Baton.
* Total volume of music files on my computer: 5040 songs, 79.15 GB
I use iTunes on a Macintosh laptop and a Windows desktop. I have a preference for high-bitrate MP3s as well as Apple Lossless, which is why my total GB size is pretty large.
* Last CD I bought: NRK Singles Volume 7
I pretty much buy everything from NRK. They define quality deep house for me.
* Song playing right now: it's not a song per se, it's the Tom Middleton Star Wars Special dj mix. Phenomenal!
* Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me:
1. Global Communication "The Way, The Deep"
2. Hybrid "Finished Symphony"
3. Chicane "Offshore"
4. Rabbit in the Moon "Out of Body Experience"
5. BT "Blue Skies"
* Three people to whom I’m passing the baton:
Jon Yongfook Cockle
Coco in Tokyo
Peter Adams
Technorati Tags: musical baton, house music
I had a chance to visit the US Navy base at Yokosuka last month. Took some cool photos of USN boats in drydock and Japanese submarines.
Yokosuka, Kanagawa [Wikipedia]
CFAY HOMEPAGE [navy.mil]
Yokosuka Japan [globalsecurity.org}]
Continue reading visit to Yokosuka.
Probably not found at your local 7-11 (unless you're in Japan) would be this new green tea and sweet red bean flavored Kit Kat.
This dessert pictured on the box (shaved ice, green tea syrup, and sweet red beans is a famous Japanese summer dessert.
Yes, this is absolutely real.
Very smart move by Battelle.
Andre Torrez joins FM Publishing.
I am excited to see what they cook up.
The USA Today did a piece on female CEOs of Japanese companies (very, very few) and profiled the CEO's of consumer-electronics giant Sanyo and the struggling retail shopping chain Daiei.
The numbers for Japan are seriously depressing.
• Women account for fewer than 0.8% of the CEOs at Japanese companies that have shares listed on the stock market. In the USA, women head nine (1.8%) of the Fortune 500 companies.
• Japan ranks well below average — No. 38 out of 58 countries studied — in providing economic opportunities to women, according to a recent study by the World Economic Forum. (The USA ranked No. 17, and Sweden was No. 1.)
• Women are the top executives at just 5.64% of all registered Japanese companies, a percentage that has been rising but at an excruciating pace — from 5.53% in 2000, according to the research firm Teikoku Databank.
• Just 3% of Japanese companies have a woman on their boards, vs. more than 86% for U.S. companies, according to Corporate Women Directors International, a non-profit organization dedicated to getting more women on corporate boards. The 27 Japanese companies in the Fortune Global 200 last year had just three female directors — 0.7% of their total directors, lowest in the world.
I know that the longer I stay in Japan, the harder it will be for me to see the forest for the trees, but in this matter is is absolutely crystal clear to me. Japan needs more female middle management and senior management and more female CEOs. When that will happen and how that will happen, I am not sure. There are so many barriers to such a future and there are so few reasons for women to break the low glass ceiling that exists...
Female CEOs signal change at Japan firms [USATODAY.com]
Maybe I'm sort of just bored by this topic because it has been reported on for years at this point. Hoever, the declining birthrate is one of the most important trends facing Japan today, so it is worth reporting on even if it sounds like Chicken Little.
New figures published last week show that last year the birthrate hit a record low. If the trends persist, after peaking at 127.7 million next year, the population will go into decline: to 109 million by 2050 and a paltry 64 million by the end of the century, according to the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research in Tokyo.
Long before then, Japan will encounter social and economic problems it is ill-equipped to deal with. The workforce will shrink, the pension system risks bankruptcy, negative economic growth will be the norm and higher tax and social security burdens will further blunt Japan's competitive edge.
Faced with this apocalyptic prospect, the government's message to the people is marry and have more children. The only problem is Japan isn't listening.
How Japan grew bored with love [observer.co.uk]
Very cool Boeing blog for the flight testing of the 777-200LR Worldliner.
Technorati's new interface has launched to a public Beta.
Congrats to the Technorati team- the new site is awesome!
Technorati Tags: blogs, Technorati
Kishore Mahbubani, who I wrote about last April, has a new book out called "Beyond the Age of Innocence." I look forward to reading it as I think it will be a compelling read. Time Asia has a profile of the book:
Mahbubani is particularly astute about how the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98 damaged America's image overseas. He writes, for example, about how disillusioned Thais were when the U.S. did not bail them out after it had bailed out Mexico during a similar currency crisis in 1994. The reason the U.S. spurned Thailand may seem obvious to a lot of Americans—"you're not on our border," one U.S. Treasury Department official supposedly told the Thais. But for a country that had followed the global financial rules as dictated by Washington—opening itself up to large capital flows from abroad, only to get hammered as that same money flew back out in a matter of days—the truth hurt in ways that most Americans still don't get. The perception was that the U.S. would prop up another nation if threatened with a massive wave of illegal immigration, but otherwise cared only that big American banks should be able to get their money out of Thailand ASAP. Is it any wonder, Mahbubani writes, that China—the one major country that didn't play by Washington's rules back then—now sees its influence gaining steadily, probably at America's expense?
"We’ll swap out Technorati for someone like Feedster next week and then we’ll pick the service that a) gives the best results and b) gives us the best deal for linking to them."
Jason, I'll be curious to see how you compare the services :)
The Unofficial Apple Weblog is now using Technorati.com for tracking "Linking Blogs" (i.e. which blogs are linked to a particular post at tuaw.com)
MSN Korea was hacked for at least 3 days with a keystroke logging trojan.
There is speculation that this hack was very similar to a prominent hacker attack in Japan in May.
It's pretty bad when an MSN site is hacked- looks very bad for Microsoft.
Online gamers targeted in Korean MSN hack attack [securityfocus.com]
Websense - Security Labs Alert: Microsoft MSN Korea [websensesecuritylabs.com]
S. Korea MSN hack went undetected for days [MSNBC.com]
Technorati Tags: gaming, hacking, korea, Lineage, MSN, security, yahoo
I'll believe it when I see it.
"But Sony Corp.'s (6758.T) Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc. has yet to agree on contract terms with Apple, it said. The price for downloading a song in Japan is expected to be set at around 150 yen ($1.40)."
1.5X as expensive as in the US? What is it, 400 yen to rent an entire CD at Tsutaya? With NO DRM. Fuhgeddaboutit!
I know it will be a popular service in music-and-iPod-obsessed Japan, but it's NOT for me.
Apple to start Japan iTunes service in Aug-paper - Yahoo! News
Naver, the Korean search-engine behemoth, has rebranded it's Japanese blog service as CURURU.
Mailing list for non-Japanese parenting in Japan.
Last week, on the NBR Forum, Calhoun asked about online auctions in Japan.
I've been thinking about auctions in Japan for quite some time because it's a giant, growing market, and one that is interesting because the dominant player in the West (eBay) failed spectacularly in Japan for a number of reasons.
You can find my response to Calhoun here but I wanted to also put it on my blog.
On Jun 2, 2005, at 1:46 PM, Calhoun wrote:
>
1. Have mores/values changed such that second hand purchases are
now acceptable and if so, at what level?
Yes, of course. Since the bubble popped, Japanese people are more than willing to save yen if they can find what they want or sell something they don't need on Yahoo! Auction.
The same reporters who told us that, during the boom Japanese people had no interest in auctions, now tell us during the bust that the Japanese are highly attuned to the auction experience. The numbers support the latter argument.
2. How does trust figure into this situation?
Yahoo! Japan's Auction service uses the same trust metrics that eBay does- how many successful sales has a seller sold, and what kind of comments does s/he have from her buyers.
3. What kind of products are being traded and do their prices compare favorably with the "denden towns" of Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya? (Ebay prices go up, DenDen town prices are negotiated down)
Anything and everything, literally. Price comparisons? You'd have to spend some time on the auction system and kakaku.com to compare. I would think that overall market forces keep the prices competitive.
4. Does anyone have any personal experience in using one in Japan in Japanese?
Yes, of course.
5. Have there been any studies done on this by Japanese or Westerners?
Yes.
The auction space is one of the fastest growing areas of the Japanese Internet. Therefore it attracts many businesses as well as researchers.
The Wharton Fellows of UPenn looked at why eBay Japan failed and Yahoo! Japan was successful. The paper in both languages, is available here:
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/weblink/127.cfm
Here's an abstract from a Yasushi Fujita, who also is researching the failure of eBay Japan.
http://tinyurl.com/dkxcb
(http://www.essex.ac.uk/chimera/culturesofebay/Accepted%20abstracts.html)
This whole Cultures of eBay conference may be of interest to you.
http://tinyurl.com/9q5vh
(http://www.essex.ac.uk/chimera/culturesofebay/About%20the%20ebay% 20project.html)
I'm sure there are many Japanese academics in Japan who're looking at the auction space as well, but I am not familiar with any specific studies. I would very much like to know about any research into this area.
There's a lot of news coverage on this topic (both the failure of eBay in Japan as well as the success of Yahoo! Auctions):
http://www.jir.net/jir9_02.html
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/01_23/b3735139.htm
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_25/b3838627.htm
6. Are college/high school students involved or interested in this?
Yes, of course.
One of the reasons that Yahoo! Japan's auction service took off was that they did not require a credit card, as did eBay Japan. Plus eBay Japan had fees that Yahoo! Japan's auction service didn't.
7. Are there other similar "vehicles" that perform the same functions as Ebay (i.e. a Mayoshi Son creation) but are Japanese owned/created and that are more popular/reliable?
http://auctions.yahoo.co.jp/
They are the 80,000 lb. King Kong in the Japanese auction market. At 95% of the market, no one even comes close.
However, eBay is not sitting by idly.
eBay has taken a 25% stake in Craigslist, the most popular classifieds service in the US.
http://www.craigslist.org/about/press/ebay.stake.html http://www.cnewmark.com/archives/000265.html
eBay is also launching a Craigslist-type of global classifieds. The Japanese version is here:
http://tokyo.kijiji.co.jp/pages/AreaHome
Give it a whirl and let us know what you think.
8. In the realm of excess inventory, we find "buy.com" and "overstock.com" in the U.S. along with many, many small businesses
Most certainly there are businesses selling unsold items on Yahoo! Auction.
I have yet to see one of those services like Auction Drop in Japan, but with the growth rates of Yahoo! Auction, I wouldn't be surprised if we started to see those soon.
9. Would the Japanese auction Chinese made goods but not Japanese ones on one of these sites?
Anything that is legal is sold.
As you might imagine, this is an area of high interest for me. I'd be delighted to speak with anyone else who may be similarly interested in the Japanese internet auction marketplace.
Sincerely,
Gen Kanai Meguro-ku http://kanai.net/weblog
* * * * *
In addition, I wanted to add a few other resources that might be of interest.
One is an interview with Merle Okawara on chanpon.org, which Mimi and Joi Ito did. Merle was the CEO of eBay Japan, while it lasted.
Another is a recent article in the NY Times by Randall Stross which covers Craigslist and Kijiji: What eBay Could Learn from Craigslist.
Then there's eBay, which is purchasing Shopping.com for $620 million. This is clearly because they need to sustain their growth and they have more cash to do this kind of purchase.
Shopping.com, which went public last October, is a relatively small business that is not expected to have a large impact on eBay's bottom line. Shopping.com earned $12.2 million on revenue of less than $100 million last year, while eBay earned $778 million on revenue of $3.3 billion.
Instead, the deal is seen as a way for the company to expose its sellers to new buyers who come to Shopping .com in search of product information and price comparisons. EBay collects a commission on each item sold on its site.
Finally, Yahoo! Auction (US) has decided to drop listing fees, which is their attempt to gain market share from eBay. I don't know that it will make much of a difference. There's such a huge ecosystem around eBay, as there is around Yahoo! Auctions Japan, that a different service dropping listing fees may not make much of a difference.
Japan Media Review has two interesting articles on blog trends in Japan. The first is basically a translation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications May 2005 white paper on blogs and SNSs in Japan.
Japanese Blogosphere Catching Up
The next is a discussion of the impact of blogging in Japan.
Their Numbers May Be Increasing, But Will Japanese Bloggers Have Impact?
I have a bunch of opinions about weblogs in Japan, but I'm going to save them for another day.
via Marxy
Interesting article on Internet attacks on Japanese websites in 2005.
2005: THE YEAR OF THE INTERNET ATTACKS
January 5: Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo targeted, receiving as many as 900,000 hits per minute
February 13: Tokyo metropolitan police announce plans to send officers to train at the US Secret Service’s electronic crimes unit in Los Angeles
February 22-23: The websites of the Cabinet Office and the Prime Minister’s Office crash after an attack. A web-based group called the China Blood and Iron Coalition claims responsibility
April 15: Sony and other Japanese companies in China suffer cyber attacks
April 19: The website of Fujieda city is altered by hackers with messages in Chinese such as “Shameless Japanese pigs, the Chinese people are angry. Boycott Japanese products”
May 1: The website of the Japanese Embassy in Beijing goes down after a huge number of hits
May 14-24: Kakaku.com, Japan’s largest electronics clearing house website, goes down after a cyber attack
5-4-3-2-1: Thunderbirds are go in the Sino-Japanese cyberwars [timesonline.co.uk]
Look at Anil's t-shirt!!!
In the NY TIMES NO LESS!!!
Loosing Google's Lock on the Past [nytimes.com]
James Brooke, the Tokyo Bureau Chief of the New York Times, and Dartmouth alumni, does a wonderful profile of Beate Sirota Gordon, the American who helped to write Japan's modern constitution.
On the stage, Beate Sirota Gordon, a snowy-haired American grandmother, implored Japanese women to rise in defense of the Japanese Constitution's equal rights clause, which was fundamental, she said, to their rights as women.
She should know. At age 22, she wrote it.
"Japanese women should keep fighting for their rights," Beate-san, as she is known here, said in Japanese to applause from the sold-out crowd.
...
"Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes and it shall be maintained through mutual cooperation with the equal rights of husband and wife as a basis," she said, reading the scarf, which was printed in the six languages she speaks - English, Japanese, Russian, German, French and Spanish. "With regard to choice of spouse, property rights, inheritance, choice of domicile, divorce and other matters pertaining to marriage and the family, laws shall be enacted from the standpoint of individual dignity and the essential equality of the sexes."
For critics who say these are imported concepts, Ms. Gordon told her audience that many of Japan's core cultural attributes were borrowed from overseas - Buddhism, ceramics, ancient court music and the character writing system.
Fighting to Protect Her Gift to Japanese Women [nytimes.com]
