[...] Japan is dead - economically (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRIC#BRIC_in_2050), demographically (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan), etc. Deal with it. Hong Kong and Singapore FTW! Even Taiwan is close to surpassing it, and it has this cool "rebel island" vibe! I know it was cool 11 years ago, but [...]
Annual drop of 15.2 in first quarter as exports plunged, companies pull back
Japan's economy contracted at the fastest pace since 1955 as exports plunged and companies slashed production.
Japan's real gross domestic product, or the total value of the nation's goods and services, shrank at an annual pace of 15.2 percent in the January-March period, the government said Wednesday.
The result represents the steepest decline since Japan began compiling GDP statistics more than five decades ago. It also marks the fourth straight quarter of decline after the GDP fell 12.1 percent in the October-December period.
On a quarterly basis, GDP fell 4.0 percent from the previous three-month period, according to the Cabinet Office's preliminary data.
Japan's first quarter results were markedly worse than other major economies, outpacing the euro zone's 2.5 percent quarterly decline and a 1.6 percent contraction in the U.S.
The world's second-biggest economy relied heavily on the rest of the world to buy its cars and gadgets to drive economic growth. Like the rest of Asia, it has been pummeled by the unprecedented collapse in global demand triggered last year by the U.S. financial crisis.
Perhaps they should have kept those borders closed, instead of pawning off countless shiny trinkets for the Gaijin to buy.
Japan's next prime minister might be nicknamed "the alien," but it's his wife who claims to have had a close encounter with another world.
"While my body was asleep, I think my soul rode on a triangular-shaped UFO and went to Venus," Miyuki Hatoyama, the wife of premier-in-waiting Yukio Hatoyama, wrote in a book published last year.
"It was a very beautiful place and it was really green."
Yukio Hatoyama is due to be voted in as premier on September 16 following his party's crushing election victory over the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Sunday.
Miyuki, 66, described the extraterrestrial experience, which she said took place some 20 years ago, in a book entitled "Very Strange Things I've Encountered."
When she awoke, Japan's next first lady wrote, she told her now ex-husband that she had just been to Venus. He advised her that it was probably just a dream.
"My current husband has a different way of thinking," she wrote. "He would surely say 'Oh, that's great'."
Yukio Hatoyama, 62, the rich grandson of a former prime minister, was once nicknamed "the alien" for his prominent eyes.
Miyuki, also known for her culinary skills, spent six years acting in the Takarazuka Revue, an all-female musical theater group. She met the U.S.-educated Yukio while living in America.
Actually bowing is one of the things I like about their culture - way better than shaking hands. No need to worry about sweaty palms, spreading germs, encroaching into each-other's personal space, and so on.Bowing really does make sense.
It's a sign of subservience. If anyone bowed to me I'd want to yell "YOU ARE NOT A SLAVE" and walk away. If you feel like you need to acknowledge someone's presence and don't want to shake hands, a slight nod and a smile will do.Actually bowing is one of the things I like about their culture - way better than shaking hands. No need to worry about sweaty palms, spreading germs, encroaching into each-other's personal space, and so on.Bowing really does make sense.
People in Japan are at least minimally aware of libertarian ideas? I'd like to see the source on that...
Battle Royale. |
That movie is ridiculous! I love it! There's a sequel too.
Thanks, downloading now (http://btjunkie.org/torrent/Batoru-Rowaiaru-Battle-Royale-2000-DvDrip-JAP-E/4032cd3a29e86360de6eb2ea239f3e5fd5eeb578a4f0) [WP] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Royale_%28film%29).
After repeated concerns from Japanese citizens over "privacy rights" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy#Philosophy_of_privacy) violations involving Street View (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Street_View#Japan) and a probe by Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Internal_Affairs_and_Communications), Google Japan (http://www.google.co.jp/) has announced that it will help victims of Street View photo abuse take action against offending sites (http://www.examiner.com/x-16352-Japan-Headlines-Examiner~y2009m9d4-Google-Japan-fights-concerns-about-Street-View). Google Japan said it would send requests to the sites for removal of maliciously used Street View images. It will also potentially block the site from Google's search engine and consider legal action for those sites which ignore or refuse the request. Action to this extent against secondary-use abusers is reportedly a first in relationship to Google's Street View (http://www.google.co.jp/help/maps/streetview/) worldwide.
[youtube=425,350]zgHqR-wCryM[/youtube]
:?
Been so long since I watched AMV Hell 3. |
japanese comunists? *sigh* I thought they were smarter then that... |
The Shinto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinto) faith is very much bound up with the idea of purity, and the wholeness of the physical body.
Organ transplantation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_transplant) is comparatively rare in Japan because the body after death is impure according to Shinto tradition.
Shinto traditions also state that interfering with a corpse brings bad luck.
Families are concerned that they might injure the relationship between the dead person and the bereaved (known as the itai) by interfering with the corpse.
This means that many followers of Shinto oppose the taking of organs from those who have just died, and also would refuse an organ transplanted from someone who has died.
Asia's technology giants are showing mixed signs of recovery, with Japan's electronics makers set to languish in the red this year while South Korean companies rebound sharply from a global industry slump.
Their diverging fortunes show the strides South Korea has made against Japan in recent years as they compete fiercely for global market share in consumer electronics like flat-panel TVs, cameras and mobile phones. That South Korea's currency has become relatively weaker than the yen of late has only provided an extra edge by making its exports more competitive.
On Friday, Sony Corp. became the latest Japanese technology heavyweight to report red ink last quarter, racking up 26.3 billion yen ($289 million) in losses as plunging sales of its core electronics products eclipsed healthy demand for its PlayStation 3 game consoles and Michael Jackson hits.
While smaller than expected, the loss underlined Sony's hardships as it cuts staff and costs to weather the global slowdown and sliding prices of gadgets. The company, based in Tokyo, is now forecasting a 95 billion yen ($1 billion) loss compared with the initial projection for a 120 billion yen loss.
The new forecast is marginally better than the 98.9 billion yen loss it suffered the previous fiscal year.
In contrast, South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. said quarterly profits tripled to a record.
The country's biggest corporation and a world leader in consumer electronics earned 3.72 trillion won ($3.14 billion) in the three months ended September, compared to 1.22 trillion won a year earlier.
Samsung's result was not an exception for South Korean electronics companies. LG Display Co., which competes with Samsung in LCDs, announced record quarterly sales and a 90 percent surge in net profit. LG Electronics Inc., another rival, said it recorded all-time high quarterly sales for flat screen TVs and mobile phones.
Besides Sony, the performance of other Japanese electronics makers paled next to Samsung's.
While faring somewhat better than Sony, Panasonic Corp. barely managed to creep back into the black with quarterly net income of 6.1 billion yen ($67 million), its first profit in a year. That was down 90 percent from the previous year, despite recovering demand for refrigerators and washing machines.
Still, it too projected a loss for the year, though narrower than initially forecast at 140 billion yen ($1.5 billion) compared to 195 billion yen.
Japanese rival Toshiba Corp. stuck to its forecast for a 50 billion yen ($549 million) loss for the fiscal year. It eked out a small quarterly profit of 100 million yen ($1.1 million) on cost-cutting and higher sales of memory chips. That marked a reversal from a 26.9 billion yen loss the same period a year earlier.
One main difference between Sony and Samsung results stems from a more favorable exchange rate against the dollar for South Korea's currency, the won.
The other is that Samsung has its own in-house flat-panel TV production, while Sony gets its panels through a joint venture with Samsung, so its costs are greater and ability to make innovations in liquid crystal displays considerably slimmer.
Sony Chief Financial Officer Nobuyuki Oneda said cost cuts were on track, but a quick turnaround in its TV operations would be tough.
"It would be difficult for us to achieve Samsung's profitability in TVs just by competing in hardware," he said at a briefing, citing the South Korean rival's attractive products as well as the weaker currency.
Sony needs to roll out more futuristic models such as the 3-D TVs planned for next year to one-up Samsung, Oneda said.
Sony fell behind Samsung in liquid crystal displays, partly because it had grown too complacent about its success in old-style cathode ray tube TV sets.
The strong yen has hurt because it makes Japan's products more expensive in foreign markets and lowers profits made overseas. The dollar had traded at above 100 yen last year but has hovered at 90 yen levels lately.
Sony's quarterly sales plunged nearly 20 percent to 1.66 trillion yen ($18.2 billion) from 2.07 trillion yen the same period the previous year, dragged down by sluggish consumer spending and the rising yen.
Sony's movie division lacked major theatrical releases, except for "District 9" and "Julie & Julia" during the latest quarter, and sank into an operating loss, as sales slid 30 percent, according to Sony.
Still, a recent price cut was a boon for the PlayStation 3 machine, and Sony sold 3.2 million PlayStation 3 machines around the world during the latest quarter, compared to 2.4 million the same period the previous year. Sony hopes to sell 13 million PlayStation 3 consoles for the fiscal year through March 2010.
Despite claims (http://apple.slashdot.org/story/09/02/27/144256/Why-Japan-Hates-the-iPhone) earlier in the year that the iPhone was hated by Japanese consumers (later disproved (http://apple.slashdot.org/story/09/03/01/1358233/Japanese-Hate-For-the-iPhone-All-a-Big-Mistake)), the iPhone has been doing well in the land of the rising sun (http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/12/18/apples_iphone_commands_46_of_japanese_smartphone_market.html) and the evidence is in. Apple has taken 46% of the Japanese smartphone market, cutting in half the once 27% market share of the previous lead, Advance Sharp W-Zero3 (http://www.sharp.co.jp/ws/011sh/) (Japanese site). The article includes a large chart of the market share of Japanese smartphones over the last 3 years.
2005: Just as foreign audiences are warming up to the idea that animated fare isn't just for kids, Japan's anime industry throws them a curve ball. The success of the novel and television series "Densha Otoko" -- an alleged "true story" about an otaku who gets up the nerve to ask out a "normal" woman he encounters on the train during his daily commute -- legitimizes and empowers the local otaku community. This in turn leads to more and more animated series aimed squarely at their demographic.
Because said demographic consists almost entirely of eternally single, socially awkward men, their tastes tend towards wish-fulfillment fantasy plots starring beautiful young lolitas -- who are willing to hang out with eternally single, socially awkward men. This fetishization of girlish naiveté and innocence is known as "moé," and it will dictate the industry's path for the remainder of the decade. Critics, however, believe that the development will potentially hamper Japan's ability to export anime, as the moé concept comes across as utterly creepy to most foreign audiences.
2009: The types of anime shows popular among Japanese and foreign fans continues to diverge. The most buzz-worthy domestic fare are super-niche moé and lolicon shows brimming with inside jokes and anime stereotypes that few other than dyed-in-the-wool otaku can decipher. In Japan, a poll conducted by the otaku matchmaking service Otakuma reveals that four out of five of the top shows watched by female anime fans are about giant robots, while four out of five of the top shows watched by male anime fans are about little girls.
Capsule Hotel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsule_hotel) Shinjuku (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinjuku,_Tokyo) 510 once offered a night's refuge to salarymen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salaryman) who had missed the last train home. Now with Japan enduring its worst recession since World War II, it is becoming an affordable option for people with nowhere else to go (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/02/business/global/02capsule.html). The Hotel 510’s capsules are only 6 1/2 feet long by 5 feet wide. Guests must keep possessions, like shirts and shaving cream, in lockers outside of the capsules. Atsushi Nakanishi, jobless since Christmas says, "It’s just a place to crawl into and sleep. You get used to it."
http://kotaku.com/5484581/japan-its-not-funny-anymore
This article may apply here too.
Get rid of the extra legal costs. In today's day you can't just have it done on testimonials alone; you actually have to have shit like DNA evidence there, hopefully lots of it. |
But this is Japan we're talking about, a country where a guy who tortured, killed, and ate a foreign woman only served something like 7-10 years in prison. And now goes on the celeb reality shows in Japan. |
maybe its all the whale meat, or dolphin meat sold as whale |
Huh? Japs hate whale meat?! What have you been smoking?
If they do, that would certainly make them unique. Most people who try whale meat love it!
all the news I can find out about a whale farm is 8 years old, looks like it didint work
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1759757.stm