I don't have $5000 to spend on a digital camera, but I hope that Nikon can move the key technology from the D3 to lower cost cameras ASAP.
Cliff Mautner Photography: 9-23-2007 Nikon D3 Test Drive!!!!!!! WOW
September 2007 Archives
The WSJ has a nice profile of chef Ivan Orkin, [Trying to Out-Noodle the Japanese - WSJ.com ]who has opened a ramen restaurant, Ivan Ramen, in Setagaya. I hope to make it over there and try a bowl.
Fascinating look at how the Chinese Foreign Ministry and Chinese consulate in Japan pressures NHK to alter their coverage of China in Japan. This is due to a Chinese government website which had revealed classified information online.
After this [NHK] series was broadcast, the [Chinese] Foreign Ministry Information Department and the Chinese consulate in Japan negotiated with NHK concerning the negative content contained in the series, pointing out that the first two episodes were unbalanced, negative in tone, and did not objectively or accurately reflect the realities of Chinese society, thus misleading viewers and harming China's image. The Chinese side expressed its serious dissatisfaction and hoped that NHK could gain an increased appreciation of its journalistic responsibilities and make objective, comprehensive, and fair reports on China, as well take steps to diffuse the negative effects of the series. The Japanese side said that NHK had always pursued objectivity and fairness in its reports on China, and placed great emphasis on building a cooperative relationship with China. It had no intention of smearing China in the "Torrent" series, and it expressed regret that the series had caused negative effects to the Chinese side. The production team had taken this into account, and pledged to show the position and efforts of the Chinese government more carefully, objectively, and substantially in the sequel, so as to eliminate negative effects.
In light of the fact that NHK has had a relatively positive attitude in its dealings with China and has, overall, been objective in its reporting on China, the Chinese side agreed to continue the visits and interviews necessary to complete the series, but it requested that further episodes in the Torrent series fairly and objectively show the development of all aspects of China.
So when you see those "interesting" NHK documentaries on China, you can rest assured that they were produced in cooperation with the Chinese government.
Secrets out in the open [danwei.org]
Some of you may remember a popular post I had earlier this year called "the cost of monoculture" which looked at the de-facto monopoly that Microsoft Internet Explorer has in South Korea for a number of historical and technical reasons. There has been some movement on this topic recently and I wanted to share this information.
I've posted the updated information over at my Mozilla in Asia blog: update on the cost of monoculture in Korea.
Hi everyone- for those of you who keep regular backups, I'd love to hear what/how you do that.
My challenge is that I have 2 machines (work MacBookPro, personal Powerbook) and separate drives for media (I keep my iTunes library off the machine as it is too large).
I have both USB, FW400 and FW800 drives and interfaces, but I'm thinking about going to SATA and some kind of RAID configuration for the next step. If anyone has any recommendations (Sonnet? FirmTek?), I'd be delighted to hear them.
Venture-backed photo-sharing site Zooomr is betting the farm on Japan? Japan already has a lot of photo sharing sites like Photozou or Livedoor Pics or Flickr itself, or one of dozens of other clones. I'm not sure what the Zooomr guys think that they have that will make their service popular in Japan vs. the home-grown Japanese sites or the massively popular sites like Flickr which can add a Japanese interface in days.
But at the same time -- I'm working my ass off like you can't believe in Japan.
If Japan doesn't go anywhere, you can kiss Zooomr good-bye. Americans don't care about photos like the Japanese -- by embracing Japan's economy, we can save Zooomr financially.
Joi has an op-ed in the NY Times that I helped to edit.
Joi Ito's Web: In Japan, Stagnation Wins Again - My Op Ed in the New York Times
Mulboyne (in the fascinating Macias vs. Kerr thread on Mutantfrog) points us to the fact that Miyoshi Umeki, the first Asian to win an Academy Award, recently passed away. Missouri is a whole world away from Otaru. Rest in peace Umeki-san.
Miyoshi Umeki; Recorded American Pop Standards, Won Oscar for 'Sayonara' - washingtonpost.com
Awesomeness on wheels...
For the next 24 hours+, you'll find me over at Mozilla 24.com
Amazing...
Shin, whom you may regularly read at from the inside, looking in, also blogs for the (Japan) Entrepreneur of the Year contest. The semi-finalists have been named. I look forward to hearing more about this effort.
Rebecca (who went to the WEF Dalian meeting) has a way with words ^_^
It's not every day that you get to sit and watch a senior Chinese diplomat rip Thomas Friedman "a new one" (as we say in American colloquial parlance) as all the Chinese members of the audience cheer him on. But on Friday morning in a panel discussion [at the World Economic Forum meeting in Dalian China] titled "China's Soft Power" that's what happened.
RConversation: Thomas Friedman gets the middle finger in the Middle Kingdom
This is predictable but still deplorable.
In dealing with product safety complaints from the United States, China has sought to convince a concerned American public that it has reformed and is doing all it can to ensure the safety of its products. But its dealings with other, less-developed countries or those in vulnerable political positions are a different story, according to Husniah and officials in the Philippines and Malaysia.
Indonesian officials accuse China of pushing shoddy products and inferior standards on poor countries that have no choice but to depend on it for cheap goods, aid and investment. They say that China, in closed-door meetings, has refused to share basic information, attempted to horse-trade by insisting on discussing disparate issues as part of a single negotiation and all but threatened retaliatory trade actions. The Chinese respond that their products have been the victim of unfair trade actions.
Asians Say Trade Complaints Bring Out the Bully in China - washingtonpost.com
Cambria Kyuden (with hosts author Ryu Murakami and model Eiko Koike), the Monday night interview TV show on TV Tokyo (10 PM JST) is hosting Norio Murakami of Google Japan on September 10th. See also Japan Today for additional background on Murakami. Two famous Murakamis on the same show?
No privacy... Juniper Networks takes it all away for you.
I see that Dopplr has announced their early-stage financing from Martin Varsavsky, Joichi Ito, Reid Hoffman and The Accelerator Group led by Saul Klein. The TechCrunch crowd is skeptical but they don't understand the whole picture yet, I'm sure.
I'm a beta Dopplr user and would be happy to give out invites to whomever reads my blog (or drops me email) and leaves me a kind comment to this post.
I don't have time to parse this article. Hoping Fukumimi will do it for me :)
The Supersonic Cumberbun (a.k.a. DJ Scallywag) has a great new summery mix out. I only recognize a few tracks (Lindstrom & Prins Thomas, Stardust, Daniel Wang, Pepe Braddock & Bent) but it's a strong list.
Scumcast! 4: Endless Baleria...
1. Lovebirds - Modern Stalking
2. Tangoterje - Diamonds Dub
3. Blackbelt Andersen - Sandoz
4. Sorcerer - Hawaiian Island
5. U-tern - Daft Punk Vs. Gwen Guthrie
6. Stardust - Music Sounds Better With You (Miami Horror Remix)
7. Stoclkholm Cyclo - Sticky
8. David Joseph - You Can't Hide
9. Putsch 79 - Doin It (Daniel Wang Remix)
10. Blackjoy - Moustache Diskodub
11. Tony Allen - Ole (Moritz Von Oswald Remix)
12. Business Man - Dubby Games
13. Metro Area - Caught Up
14. Lindstrom and Prins Thomas - Suppegjok
15. Induceve - Jazz Chops
16. Diesler - La Playas
17. Daniel Wang - Unhouse
18. Anja Schneider & Sebo K - Rancho Relaxo
19. Jona - Full Pool
20. Jurgen Paape - So Weit Wie Noch Nie
21. Lazyboy - Police Dogs Bonfire
22. Hot Chip – Colours (Fred Falke Remix)
23. Pepe Braddock - Deep Burnt
24. Beatfanatic - Jorden Skall Kala
25. Bent - Always
Fascinating Boston Globe article comparing current-day China to the US 100 years ago by University of Georgia history professor Stephen Mihm, author of the upcoming A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United States, published by Harvard University Press. The Harvard University Press has a podcast interview with Mihm on their website that is worth listening to.
China may be a very different country, but in many ways it is a younger version of us. The sooner we understand this, the sooner we can realize that China's fast and loose brand of commerce is not an expression of national character, much less a conspiracy to poison us and our pets, but a phase in the country's development. Call it adolescent capitalism, if you will: bursting with energy, exuberant, dynamic. Like any teenager, China's behavior is also maddening, irresponsible, and dangerous. But it is a phase, and understanding it that way gives us some much-needed perspective, as well as some tools for handling the problem. Indeed, if we want to understand how to deal with China, we could do worse than look to our own history as a guide.
...
In one industry after another, 19th-century American producers churned out counterfeit products in remarkable quantities, slapping fake labels on locally made knockoffs of foreign ales, wines, gloves, and thread. As one expose at the time put it: "We have 'Paris hats' made in New York, 'London Gin' and 'London Porter' that never was in a ship's hold, 'Superfine French paper' made in Massachusetts."
A nation of outlaws: A century ago, that wasn't China -- it was us [Boston Globe]
Mihm also wrote about North Korean counterfeiting of US currency [New York Times] in the New York Times in 2006.
Bianca Bosker, an undergraduate at Princeton University and a 2007 Robert L. Bartley Fellow who was given a paid internship at the Far Eastern Economic Review, has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal where she criticizes the Japanese government's usage of anime and manga as a tool for overseas cultural diplomacy.
Bosker makes a number of sweeping generalizations about anime (that it is all highly sexualized) and mistakes anime for a genre instead of the medium of expression that it is. She claims that portrayals of Japanese life (strict, conformist) are negative. She claims that the Japanese government's larger role in the promotion of anime overseas will create a negative reaction from the Chinese government. In fact, the article states that Japanese government's budget for the promotion of anime overseas is merely $175,000, whereas the market for anime and manga in the US alone in 2007 is $4.35 billion. Clearly market forces are much more powerful than anything the Japanese government hopes to do.
la_contessa at the forums of animenewsnetwork.com does a better job of breaking down Bosker's op-ed than I could.
Once again, we see Ms. Bosker's inability to acknowledge that not all anime and/or manga is the same. Anime is a fictional medium--there are not REALLY giant robots in Tokyo, nor are there space colonies or gateways to other worlds. However, those things appear in anime or manga just as often as a view of Japanese society as strict and conformist. Her analysis of the "negative images of daily life" concentrates on a view slice of life series without considering how fantasy plays in. Also, she ignores the fact that perhaps these are real images from Japanese life--would she prefer that manga artists lie? Than why not exalt mecha and fantasy anime as lies?
This brings me to the propaganda argument, where Ms. Bosker credits the absurd Chinese suggestion that manga and anime are made with the purpose of indoctrination. She does have a point that even if manga is NOT intended this way, people may still take this view--once the art leaves the artist's hands, misinterpretation is always possible. However, she ignores the obvious counter to this argument: the Japanese government neither writes the manga nor pays the artists to do so.
Ms. Bosker is incredibly mistaken by discounting advertising directed at teens and youth. In twenty years, who will be responsible for international trade and politics? That's right, today's youth. I think it's actually quite smart to direct promotional materials at people early, in the hopes that one day they will be in a position to travel to Japan or forge economic ties, or something equally useful.
I'm frankly surprised that the WSJ ran such a poorly written op-ed from a student who clearly knows little more than basic information about anime. It only perpetuates stereotypes when people ignorant about a subject write about it.
