It's good to see the Giant Robot guys still doing well. I met them when they were still struggling in the late 90s when I was working for Toyota in LA.

In 1984, when Sixteen Candles came out, some Asian-American groups decried Long Duk Dong as stereotypical, racist and part of a long history of Hollywood's offensive depictions of Asian men.

"It took me a while to understand that," Watanabe says. "In fact, I was working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and I was accosted a couple of times by a couple of women who were just really irate and angry. They asked, 'How could you do a role like that?' But it's funny, too, because at the same time I laugh at the character. It's an odd animal."
...
The situation for Asian-American men in Hollywood has improved a bit since 1984. There are more Asian Americans behind the camera, and more substantial roles, especially on TV. As far as film actors go, many people mention John Cho. He is best known for playing Harold in the comedy Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and in an upcoming sequel.

But Asian-American actors are still trying to overcome several big issues. They want more roles that are simply American, not ethnic.

And, says Watanabe: "We really need an Asian-American star, and it hasn't happened." Hollywood may be importing leading men from Asia, one oft-heard argument says, but it has a ways to go with Asian Americans.

I get to see the Sox vs. the Hanshin Tigers here at the Tokyo Dome today thanks to a good friend.

• What I Learned at (Mashup) Camp: There was one common denominator, however: JavaScript. Nearly everyone was using it in some capacity, and one or two applications were nearly 100% JavaScript.

• Apple pushing Safari downloads on Windows users: It now appears that the Cupertino-based company aspires to use the advantage presented by the Software Update mechanism to muscle its way further up the browser charts at the expense Microsoft's Internet Explorer and other third-party Windows browsers.

• Where By “Interesting”, I Mean “Annoying”: This is disgraceful. It fails the user in favor of serving Apple. It is, in fact, malware-level tactics.

• More Kotoeri (Japanese input) tips: Note that in OS X 10.5, there is a fair amount of (Japanese) Koeteri input method help in English accessible by choosing 'Koeteri Help' in the Input menu.

A few months from now, we'll see magibon with representation in Japan and then all over the mainstream media like Leah Dizon.

I don't ever use Gyao because their platform requires Windows/Internet Explorer.

If a security services/software firm can't keep their own web servers secured, and left their own hacked website up for 3 days, there's no logical reason to expect that their own security services are any better.

HEY TREND MICRO! DISCLOSE THE BREACH IN ENGLISH ASAP! TRYING TO HIDE THIS WON'T WORK!

The probable reason Trend Micro's website was hacked? They're running Windows 2000 (is Microsoft even supporting Windows 2000 Server anymore?)

To quickly summarize my views, I see two obstacles to growth, one on the supply side and one on the demand side.

1) Supply side obstacles. Growth is the sum of how many additional people are working plus how much more each person can produce. With the working age population falling and more people working only part-time, the sole source of GDP growth has been productivity growth. Reforms that exposes firms to fiercer Darwinian competition will bring Japan's myriad backward sectors up to world benchmarks, and improve overall potential growth. This can certainly be combined with social safety net features and other measures so that, while some current firms and jobs will disappear, individuals are protected, true security is enhanced and income equality is restored.

2) Demand side obstacles. In my view, anemic consumption is not the result of culture, but of lack of money. Real wages per worker have fallen 2.7% since 2002 and so people have lowered their savings rate drastically to maintain consumption. This problem is simply the exacerbation of a longterm structural problem stemming as far back as the mid-1970s. The household share of disposable income--e.g. wages, interest, dividends, rent, income of self-employed--has been too low a share of national income relative to support consumer-led growth. Give them money and they will spend.

Wretch.cc was ranked the top Web site in Taiwan in a top-100 list tabulated by Business Next, a local magazine, and Taiwan's Access Rating Online (ARO). ... But despite Yahoo's best attempts to keep up with new features such as blogs, Wretch.cc continued to grow and gain popularity. It proved such a difficult battle that Yahoo Taiwan finally used cash to end the battle, buying Wretch.cc for an undisclosed sum. Local newspaper reports valued the deal at NT$700 million (US$22.7 million).

Yahoo Taiwan came in second in the ranking overall, but it remained number one against other Internet portals.

Rounding out the top five overall Web sites in Taiwan, PChome Online came in third, Yam.com ranked fourth, and Gamer.com took fifth place in the Business Next/ARO list.

The U.S. version of Google ranked first among search engines, and 14th overall, while Google Taiwan came in second, China's Baidu ranked third and video search engine Flurl came in fourth.

Yahoo Dethroned in Taiwan

WWNPHD, originally uploaded by the sweetchuck.

Awesome!

Click graphs for related music videos...

bangkok traffic on twitter, originally uploaded by *keng.

"follow bangkoktraffic [on twitter] to get the most latest high traffic jam info."

Insane use of Twitter...

A farm near Milan is raising Japanese Wagyu cows to woo meat-loving Italians with the world's most expensive Kobe steaks.

The Italians are hoping the tender, marbled beef will revive falling beef consumption and give their profits a boost.

Described by one chef as "the Ferrari of meat," Kobe has been making inroads in Italy even though it costs about 100 euros ($148.2) per kg to buy. That's twice the price of Italy's Fiorentina T-bone steaks from Chianina cows.

Italian farmers pin beef hopes on Japanese cows - Yahoo! News