September 30, 2003
Starbucks and Evil Empires
I'm not a big fan of Starbucks - though I have been in a few here and there, but after having this piece brought to my attention by Lisa, I'm not sure I really want to visit one again. Amongst other things they drive indie coffee shops out of business by buying their lease from under them and saturating areas with so many outlets that not only are the indies eventually driven out of business, but the less successful of their own franchises go bust - with net revenues exceeding US$3 billion in fiscal 2002, it's a game they can afford to play because they know they'll win in the long run. Then you should read the tactics they employ to keep their workers from either becoming full-time employees or getting a second job! The linked article is a little long, but well worth a read. Evil indeed.
Our House
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I was born at home in railway quarters in Gaya, India. My brothers and sisters tell me they remember coming back from school and finding they had a new baby brother. To be honest, I have no recollection of this house at all, though I do remember the next one we lived in and I might put up a picture of that up sometime.
These photo were taken in the late 1980s, but I'm pretty sure if you were to visit Gaya and were to walk around near the station you would still find the house standing. We lived in the half shown on the picture on the right-hand side. A lot of people who visit India do go to Gaya - especially if they are of a religious bent - because Bodhgaya is where Buddha was enlightened.
Click on the photos for an enlarged view.
September 29, 2003
Rumble in the Urban Jungle
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Aftershocks continue to rattle up in Hokkaido, but in the meantime I thought you might like to see some photos I took in Kobe a couple of days after the M7.8 strike in 1995. I went to see Martin (a lecturer of mine from Sheffield) who now lives in Kobe and I took as many photos of the destruction as my conscience allowed me.
Looking at them in pairs across the page, the first two show buildings with the ground floor totally flattened. In other words that is the first floor just above Martin ... the ground floor has gone! Look at the sign with 'Schweizer' on the photo on the right hand side. That is a baker's shop and the sign was above the door. It used to be a landmark for us to turn right when we visited Martin by car.
The next two show collapsed houses. Traditional Japanese roofs are usually heavy tiled affairs to prevent them being blown away in the event of a typhoon - a much more frequent hazard than earthquakes. Come a hard earthquake though ...
Finally, the two below are that of the bullet train track that runs near Martin's house. The photos above these probably give the indication that houses are not as structurally sound as they might be. However, seeing what it did to the heavily fortified bullet train tracks, you can understand that not many things are going to be left standing if the quake is big enough.
Click on the photos for enlarged views.
September 28, 2003
Birdhouse in my soul
Not to put too fine a point on it, there are days when the bones just shake into place and there are days when they don't. Thank goodness today is one of the former. I'm off to play football on this gorgeous autumnal Sunday morning. :+)
Later: There's nothing like weak opposition and a good thumping of said opposition to put a spring in one's step and a song in one's voice!
Click on the lyrics to hear a rollicking good song.
September 26, 2003
Oblivious
We haven't siwtched the TV on much since getting back from down under and as a result have missed both big and small stories equally in Japan. So when a major earthquake hit northern Japan (and our TV screens), we were somewhat oblivious. This one was a real biggy. In fact with a Richter magnitude scale of 8.0, this one was classed as a 'Great earthquake' and bigger than the one that shook our house and killed thousands back in 1995. Miraculously there have been no fatalities after this one and the main reason appears to be that it was offshore and near sparsely populated areas. The biggest concern after an offshore shake is that of tsunami and even though the wave was a trifiling 1.30m, it managed to beach more than a few boats. I was informed that we had an earthquake here in Kyoto yesterday, but I didn't feel it and I'm glad this M8.0 one was nowhere near us.
Food, Glorious Food
After all the doom and gloom of the last few days, here at last is a happy story. Eat healthy food and you'll live longer. The Japanese are living proof according to this article in the Daily Telegraph.
The number of Japanese over the age of 100 will exceed 20,000 for the first time this month. There are more than 10 million Japanese aged 75 and older. The average man will live for 78 years, but for women, life expectancy is over 85 years.
Though the article highlights a particular fermented bean called natto - not the favourite dish of most foreigners or indeed of the Japanese in the Kansai region of the country - the story of longevity isn't all about diet. A professor at Kobe University says, "My research indicates that people who live longest tend not to have financial anxieties. They interact socially with various groups of people and have good life skills. They set themselves targets and achieve them, so that life is good even as they age.''
September 25, 2003
Partisan?
Even in the short life of this blog, some themes have been fairly well established and 'Joe Bloggs loves the Beeb' is surely one of them. Well the New York Times reports that the BBC is losing some of its lustre. All the usual suspects are quoted in the article (incumbent administration officials, as well the newspapers that hate the Beeb by nature), with just a few few paragraphs from supporters. All of this would have been mildly acceptable from another media outlet, but the NYT itself took a heavy battering in May this year from a much more (than the current Gilligan/Kelly affair) far-reaching journalistic scandal. This following sentence caught my attention because it flies directly in the face of what an American friend said to me just this week about the reporting emanating from U.S. networks.
Those who watch BBC World, a commercial 24-hour television channel that broadcasts around the world, say that there, too, the reports seem more partisan than those of competitors like CNN or the American commercial networks.
I have to admit to not having seen much of BBC World, and what I have seen I haven't liked very much, but "more partisan than CNN or the American commercial networks"? Really? As I heard one journalist say on the radio in Australia recently, if the BBC is anything it is 'anti-politician'. Not a bad thing in my mind. Unlike this NYT reader I believe the position of "pre-eminent news organization in the world", is fairly safe in the hands of Aunty.
(You need to be registered to use the New York Times site and articles [though not letters to the Editor] are only free for viewing for 7 days, after which they charge. If you're not already registered use bloggsjoe as your user name and bloggsjoe as the password.)
Shrinking fish
Following on from the gloom of yesterday and our changing climate and environment, here's another depressing story about shrinking fish. The fact that stocks of large fish have dwindled dramatically has already been documented, but now the effects are being seen with fish species that never grow larger than 30 cm on the increase. Climate change also appears to be having an effect in the water. From the first article linked above, "southern species are suspected to be increasingly present in the gradually warming North Sea. Such migration could eventually influence fish communities as much as fishing".
September 24, 2003
Pull the other one
There I was thinking Microsoft had got the news agencies to buy their story hook, line and sinker about closing down chatrooms because of concern for child safety, when somebody finally came out with something approximating much closer to the truth. I've never used them, and I'm sure they are used for lots of heinous things, but if there is a concern of any kind, then the use of chatrooms by young children should be controlled by parents. In my opinion Microsoft's decision is a commercial one and it hasn't altered my views on the company one iota.
Crisis? What Crisis?
Europe has its hottest summer on records while Japan (and possibly the rest of north Asia) has the opposite. A massive Arctic ice shelf has just broken in two, draining all the water from the freshwater lake it dammed, and now there is news from the other end of the planet which suggests that there may be a permanent drought in Australia. The latter appears to be as a result of a vortex of winds around the Antarctic that are pulling climate bands south and dragging rain from Australia into the Southern Ocean. As one of the top agricultural supply nations, Australia has reasons to worry about its worst drought in 100 years turning into a permanent nightmare.
What beats me is that I don't get the sense that there is a loud debate going on about this dramatic and clear change in our climate. Burying our heads in the sand is not going to make this one go away. I wish the Beeb would give this more prominent coverage for a start.
September 23, 2003
227 days on a lifeboat with a tiger
The premise is wild. The execution was more than able. The colours vivid and the characters narrow but not without considerable charm. All of which should make for a rip-roaring read and indeed it was, but was it great literature? I'm afraid not. Page-turners rarely are, but that's not to say that Yann Martel's Life of Pi is not worth the effort of the read. Two thoughts came to me when I finished it. The first that it was like an intellectual Harry Potter and second that I would love Jane Austen to be able to read it. I'm not a Harry Potter fan and there is no magic in the book - unless you include a bit of magic realism (as an aside Martel says One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of his favourite books) - but it's main strength seems to be to totally engage the reader in a fantasy world that is way beyond anything they are ever going to experience. Ditto Pi, but with a bit more food for the brain. The wild premise, I feel sure, would have amused Ms. Austen greatly.
Why isn't it great literature? Because it fails to explore the human condition in anything more than a perfunctory way. A few observations about fear, sentient beings and god are not enough, but do read it if you come across it. It's all in the idea.
September 22, 2003
Why must we give up our hearts to the past
I know it is a sentiment that every parent feels and Joe Bloggs really has nothing new to add to the matter, but they do grow up too fast. The younger one said yesterday, "A year really goes by fast doesn't it!". I didn't give him time to finish as to why he thought that, but explained to him that he was getting older if he felt that way. The picture here is of the older one. Sometimes it was just easier to do bathtime and washing together. ;+)
September 21, 2003
The Erotic Gherkin
So here it is. I understand the correct unofficial moniker has 'erotic' in it! DJ's picture with The Tower in the foreground has a significance which possilby even he didn't realise when he took it. The address of the new building is 30 St. Mary Axe. The axe, of course, having played a prominent part in the history of the Tower of London.
More pictures of London taken by DJ.
September 20, 2003
The Fabergé Gherkin
This may well be old news to some of you, but I've just seen a picture of the latest major building on the London skyline. My friend DJ (who I am hoping will let me show you the picture he took of it recently) called it the Fabergé Egg, but I understand it is referred to as the 'gherkin'. (I think DJ's imagination is much more lyrcial.) Anyway, the new headquarters for Swiss Re looks something else. Until I get a picture up, here's a site where you can see the work in progress. My search for a good picture also took me to this neat picture gallery of some great buildings which were either being constructed or in the planning stages in 2002 - the Architecture Year.
September 19, 2003
To Dvorak or not to Dvorak
Help me out here folks. If you were going to teach someone to type (using software of course) would you teach them the basic QWERTY system or Dvorak? I'm leaning towards the latter, but would like to hear some good reasons against my plan. The boys start their first typing lessons tomorrow.
How bad can it get?
A job in science is not everybody's dream, but many a young boy and girl would love to become an astronaut. Surely. Think again folks. Flying in space ranks 14th on a list of the worst jobs in science. Not as bad as smelling people's farts (No. 1), or a barnyard masturbator (No. 3), or indeed a prison rape researcher (No. 8), but still bad. If that list makes you feel ill, here's a link to some brilliant work in science.
September 18, 2003
The lion sleeps
The song says "the lion sleep tonight", but this Beeb story says lions and other predators are close to extinction and will be sleeping forever. From a population of 200,000 just twenty years ago, there are now only 23,000 left in Africa. Cheetahs? 15,000. Wild dogs? 3,500 - 5,000. This carnage that is going on in the earth's biodiversity will haunt (and hurt) us sooner rather than later.
For the love of ...
Every year I read at least one story about a parent leaving a child in a car for an extended period of time and then that child dying of heat exhaustion. In Japan this only seems to be a problem in the summer and I've just read of the latest case where the father (a school teacher) just forgot he should have dropped his daughter off at a day-care centre and left her in the car. This was in the south of Japan (the same island I was on yesterday) where summer still rages. The 2-year-old girl died of heatstroke. I thought that was bad enough, until I followed the discussion on that link and got taken to a website in America which lists more than 30 (sic) similar cases that have happened this year alone Stateside. My wife says she would have divorced me if I'd put the boys through anything like that. I think I would have divorced me.
Harvest
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Those of you who have followed this blog from the start (is it time for another roll call?) will remember the Urban Farmer and Planting Begins entries. I was hoping to keep a better track of that tiny little rice field diagonally across street from our house, but I'll leave it your imagination as to how the rice grew taller. Anyway, today was harvesting. As you can imagine it didn't take along. It is, after all, only a tiny patch. Americans, especially, will be blown away by the size. Have you ever seen such a small combine harvester? Click on the photos to see enlargements and of course the order to look at them is down the left hand side and then down the right.
Ouch!
A mistake at work for most people probably comes a lot cheaper, but these scientists must have been having a bad hair day (hence those hair nets). At least it happened on the ground and not in space.
September 17, 2003
Say what?
Somebody came a looking! That's a screenshot from my activity log. I wonder what prompted them.
'Ayy, me hearties' and all that
Why would you want to? Well they explain everything on their website, so get practising for 'Talk Like a Pirate Day' on Friday 19 September.
September 16, 2003
No spillage
The two and a half hour bullet train journey between Kyoto and Kyushu is certainly very different to the journey (of the same length but in the other direction) to Tokyo. It seems like one long tunnel interspersed with a few stations and valleys. Even the valleys afford a limited view as if the mountains wish to hide the interior of the land like some latter-day communist country secreting military bases from prying eyes. It really is best to get one's head down and either sleep, read a book or the news that flashes across the electronic strip over the doors. The news on the strip tends to be a few hours hold so is usually only good for baseball scores and the weather forecast. I was given a surprise though when the speed of the train flashed up on that strip between Hiroshima and Kokura (Kita Kyushu). We were informed that the train was travelling at 300kph. I'm led to believe it is the world's fastest scheduled passenger train. I can believe it. What really is astonishing (and yes, even after countless rides in both directions from Kyoto I am still capable of feeling astonishment) is how smooth the ride is. You can leave your drink on the window sill or the table in front of you and not have to worry about spillage.
The picture above was taken at Kyoto station with the train on the left (the Nozomi 700) heading for Tokyo and the one on the right (the Nozomi 500) coming from Tokyo to pick me up and bring me to Kyushu.
September 15, 2003
Life of Pi
From the introduction: If we, citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams.
I was going to write 'Discuss', but the book itself has a very annoying 'Reading Group Guide' at the back. As it happens I am reading it in a group, but the publishers can piss orf, I certainly don't want to be told by them what to discuss.
September 14, 2003
Any way the wind blows
Definitely not a case of schadenfreude, but I'm glad this particular typhoon missed us.
Whose soul is it anyway?
The title isn't a reference to the website that is doing the rounds at the moment where you get a valuation on your soul, but rather the photo. I didn't take it, but I saw an identical scene at the same location yesterday. The taxi drivers (that's who they are) were belting out the company song just as they appear to be here. It may have been totally misplaced, but my first reaction was pity and I said to the boys "I hope you never have to do that". It just struck me as soul destroying. You not only have to work for somebody, you have to sing about how wonderful they are ... in public ... at a high decibel level. No wonder I see drivers of the same company parked around here skiving for hours at an end.
Obscured
If books be words then surely 19th century literature is the pinnacle of novel writing. That's certainly not how I felt while reading Jude the Obscure (published 1896), but by the end of the (sometimes excruciating) journey through Jude's tortured life one is left astounded by the artistry of Hardy's language and prose. I get much the same feeling after finishing a Jane Austen or Charles Dickens novel - though those two are much better storytellers. The story can sometimes be 'excrutiating' because the two main protaganists of the novel do irreparable damage to each other out of free will and not just as a result of the pressures of the age they live in. Indeed there are references in the book to how people reading the story years hence would likely understand their position better than the society of the day. Watching someone else's wedding Sue Bridehead says:
Everybody is getting to feel as we do. We are a little beforehand, that's all. In fifty, a hundred, years the descendents of these two will act and feel worse than we. They will see weltering humanity still more vividly than we do now.
She is talking about marriage - something she steadfastly refused to enter with Jude even though they loved each other to the bitter, bitter end - but it was also a metaphor for all of the supposed 'ills' of the day. By the end, I had to admit to feeling more than a degree of schadenfreude at how they crushed themselves, but also glad that I finally did get down to reading it. If you have read other Hardy novels but not this one, then I recommend you do, but if you haven't read any of his other books, this is not an ideal beginner.
September 13, 2003
Views on Fuji
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About time I got some photos on here again! I do have my views on Fuji. A boring mountain to climb, but that feeling of being with the Gods is also pretty special on the conical icon of Japan. These photos (click on them for enlargements) were taken on flights from Tokyo to Osaka (top left: Fuji visible to the west), from Osaka to Hokkaido (bottom right: Fuji visible to the east) and from Osaka to Tokyo (bottom left: Fuji visible to the west). The ANA picture captures Fuji with a strange cloud cover over its cone. I'll try and get one from a bullet train on my rides up to Tokyo, but Fuji is very elusive from the ground so you might have to wait a bit.
I just liked the 'clouds lapping' photo (top right). It's the sort of scene that Japanese novelists of yore would have waxed lyrical about if they'd had the opportunity to fly at 30,000 feet.
September 12, 2003
Repeat ad nauseum
I wonder if any of my UK readers saw Airport on BBC 1 yesterday (Thursday 11 September)? First of all I can't believe the Beeb would repeat such tripe at peak viewing time, but I guess they don't make enough money from the TV license to put good programmes on. Anyway, some of you might have recognised me as the Dad of the little boy suspected of having meningitis. I only found out a few hours ago that it was on yesterday otherwise I would have warned you against watching the programme.
(I'm back by the way.)
September 07, 2003
Off the air
Joe Bloggs might be off the air for a couple of days as I might not have an Internet connection while I go off to do some work on the road. Hope not, but if so see you back here on Thursday.
slythering
I'm not a Harry Potter fan, but I have read some of the books with the boys. I think I have also read somewhere that JK Rowling collects names for characters in her books. Well I hope she's watching the Scotland vs. Faroe Islands football match being played in Glasgow as I write this because the referee is a certain Darko Ceferin. A slythering name if ever there was one!
September 06, 2003
Whoa?
It seems astronomers (and I) jumped too soon with regard to that possible asteroid strike in 2014. "Asteroid flaps are becoming as regular as the first cuckoo in Spring", reports the BBC and there's nothing to worry about. Well then, you can all go ahead and make plans for that day without worrying about a premature curtailment of activities. Maybe you'd like to come to my birthday party. ;+)
Booze bonanza
How incompetent do you have to be not to notice $1.7m (£1.2m) worth of beer and wine disappearing from your stores over a period of two years? That's a question the U.S. military are asking themselves after a tunnel was discovered below cargo containers at a U.S. base in Korea. Maybe the store managers were too drunk to notice ... or they just don't drink enough!
(This post prompted by an excellent debate on 'drinking culture' in the UK going on at Lisa's blog right now.)
Guilty
If not exactly a secret, let me tell you another blogging trait ... that of 'Google-worship'. Google, as you should all know by now, is the BEST search engine on the web - bar none. Once you've started a blog, or indeed any other kind of website, the temptation is to find out how far up or down you are on Google in a given search. So, folks, guilty as charged, I had to look where my version of Joe Bloggs stood in the latest rankings. Second and 7th! Not sure I like it, but I'll get to that another day.
September 05, 2003
Old Chicagee
This Economist city guide got me all nostalgic like about my trip to the Windy city ... dirt 'n all.
September 04, 2003
Tomorrow is some way away
'What price lunar occupation in 100 years?', I asked yesterday, well the New York Times would have given you very short odds as early as 43 years ago. They were predicting "a flourishing civilization on the moon twenty or thirty years hence", back in 1960. Other predictions that didn't make it include jet packs, videphones and cars that drive themselves. (Though as we saw a couple of days ago, they've made progress towards the latter with cars that park themselves.) No mention in that list of the paperless office, contact with aliens and teleporting, but then what's Hollywood for eh?
September 03, 2003
Merrygoround 2
Remember how I said the Internet and blogging was a circuitous thing, well here's a bloody brilliant piece written by a blogger defending the Beeb which I was pointed to via Lisa's lustrous log in which she herself mentions someone else talking about. All I can say is good writing deserves a larger readership and I suspect most of my readers wouldn't find their way to Scaryduck if left to their own devices.
Jude the Obscure
I'm in the process of laying a ghost to rest by picking up a book I picked up 20 years or so ago and never finished despite many attempts. The first thoughts that come to mind as I pass through the opening chapters is how swiftly and radically our lives have changed since Jude's time. The 'boy' Jude walks three or four miles just to catch a glimpse of Christminster (Oxford) some 16 or so miles further away. I had a professor at Kyoto University who told me that when he was a young boy just after World War Two, his one wish was that he could visit Tokyo (some 400 km away from his home town) just once before he died. Express trains and then bullet trains fulfilled his wishes many times over. Now, some 50 years further down the timeline, I find myself helping the boys do their Australian school homework over the phone and am getting read to welcome them back from their 6,000 plus kilometer journey next week. What price lunar occupation in another 100 years?
(I'll have something more interesting to say on the novel - I hope - when I've read a bit more.)
September 02, 2003
Whoa!
Got any plans for 21 March 2014? There's a big asteroid heading this way and deep impact, if it occurs, is set for that date. Apparently, the probability is still a very low 1 in 909,000, but that's better odds than you get with the lottery and someone wins that almost every week!
Self parking for £1,300 anybody?
It seems Toyota thinks its customers could do with some help when it comes to parking and have developed a car that uses electrically operated power steering and sensors that help guide the car when reversing into parking spaces. It doesn't come standard however and you have to cough up an extra £1,300 (US$2,000) for the option, but you'll save that money in no time on the improved fuel consumption. How does 35.5 km per liter of petrol grab you?
It's all in Japanese, but the Prius site has some stuff going on when you press the start button on the first page.
September 01, 2003
From Colombia to North Korea
If you make the threat of terrorism a deciding factor in where you travel, you'll want to keep away from Colombia especially, but you should think hard about making those bookings for Israel, Pakistan and the U.S. as well. A Global Terrorism Index rates those four countries as facing the highest risk of a terrorist strike. You'll be safest in North Korea if that particular despotic country takes your fancy.
One big merrygoround
News on the Internet (and blogging for that matter) can be a very circuitous thing. One network writes this, another picks it up and puts a different shine to it and repackages it for consumption by its particular readers. Indeed I know of one major news organisation that in certain circumstances will fax information through to its journalists in the field and the journalist then sends that same information back as news. If the bigwigs do it you can be assured they all do it. All of which is a roundabout way of saying I wrote about people not being fat enough to interest sharks way back on August 18, but it's only just hit the features desk of the Sydney Morning Herald today. No, I don't have any readers who also read the SMH. :+(