The season has come again this year.
There's a new word invented again, "Love NEET" means those who fears to love an opposite sex or don't know how to love.
Akihabara story.
And these Love NEET's are easily found here in "Akiba".
Train Man.
This novel made Akiba much popular as a tourist spot. So many "first time comers" or "layman" came, and Akiba-otaku's deplore that the town is diluted.
Departure of Tsukuba Express.
Is Tsukuba Express the cause of dilution in Akiba? Maybe.
Subway in Tokyo.
The 13th line is under construction, and will be operational in 2007.
About the train accident in Japan.
People died was miscalculated: it was 107.
JapanRail West, the company which operated the said line, is still floundering.
Disasters.
There's one good news here, that Indonesia government and Free Aceh Movement or GAM (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka) had reached an agreement on peace negotiation.
India and Pakistan also show some indications about peace in Kashmir.
It's good to hear that they stopped fighting against each other, and cooperate in terms of reconstruction.
Dependence on medicine.
This winter, flu will be prevalent.
Remember to wash hands and to gargle, these are always the best ways of prevention.
Pollens as the cause of allergy.
Scientific analysis says that this year won't be bad as much as last year.
But still be careful for the people who have hay fever; whether the amount of pollens is lessen or not, you still have an allergy.
Save the Earth from short sleeves.
"Cool-Biz" campaign was successful.
Of course in terms of amount of energy saved, especially since the summer on 2005 was really hot.
But there's another aspect that it had spread and increased the Ecology-consciousness to many Japanese.
Team -6%.
Many private companies (especially in cars and electric appliances) also tell about these policies, in somewhere like TV commercials.
Vote! (of course in Japan)
Finally Koizumi and LDP won in a landslide.
It made the bills to be approved so quickly.
Privatize.
Postal service privatization bill was approved too easily after the election.
The falling nation.
Birthrate of Japan had dropped to 1.26, which is lowest in all the advanced nations ever.
At the same time, population of Japan began decreasing for 10,000 this year.
Is this problem totally helpless?
Fear of asbestos.
There's more scary news about construction.
Japan has strict laws about earthquake-resistant construction, but it was detected that there are group of people who forged the computation about it, and amazingly it was permitted by an investigating organization.
Whoever the one responsible is, those apartments built is now forbidden and will be demolished soon.
To the next step...
It's quite long since negotiation between Toshiba and Sony had been broken off.
Both the "HD-DVD" and the "Blu-ray" will begin selling on 2006 Spring, but I'm not sure if consumers are still interested.
"Flash memory" is slowly but certainly becoming the new standard, and both of them might be kicked down after the long fruitless competition.
Too Much Belief to the computer.
Stock market is still active like crazy.
Repeated Fiasco.
After J-Com stocks resumed trading from 1,020,000 yen, it had risen up to 2,200,000 yen.
Now It's falling back to somewhere near 1,600,000 yen.
And there's an individual who had earned 2 Billion yen in this incident. (17 Million US Dollars!)
Baseball and Mass Media.
Baseball marked lowest audience ratings this year.
December 31, 2005
December 27, 2005
Civilization.
This is a word of a great Japanese, said on middle of 19th century.
"Western countries are no civilized. If they are really civilized, they must bring equal living standard to uncivilized regions and treat the barbarians equally as the civilized people, instead of colonizing those lands and exploiting those people."
Profound, huh!?
In the world and times of imperialism, there was only two kinds of nation: strong or weak.
And the definition of civilization was clear: strong nation is civilized, and weak nation is not. It was synonymous with imperialism.
Japan tried to be a strong nation, and framed a lot of policies, like "the wealth and military strength of a country".
It seemed that was successful until WWII.
Japan was vanquished.
But at the same time, imperialism collapsed.
Now the definition of civilization is changed.
Most probably this is the definition accepted to almost everybody.
"Civilization is a society which justice is common to all the people."
In other words, "Civilization is a peaceful society."
When the standard of justice is different, there will be no peace.
I'd like to define peace here:
"Peace is a state that society is in order; thus, the opposite of peace is chaos."
One more, definition of war:
"War is a method of diplomacy with military power; thus, the opposite of war is consultation."
Iraq War is over, but we can't tell that Iraq is peaceful.
Yes, there are still uncivilized regions in the world.
And the people who go natural, go as they desire, or self-interested, are uncivilized.
Civilization is opposite of going natural.
Isn't it ironical that Peace isn't natural at all?
At the end of the pursuit of wealth, spiritual declination awaits, followed by collapse of civilization.
It can never continue eternally.
Environmental problems we are encountering may be the warning from nature to us.
Civilization isn't measured by wealth.
"Western countries are no civilized. If they are really civilized, they must bring equal living standard to uncivilized regions and treat the barbarians equally as the civilized people, instead of colonizing those lands and exploiting those people."
Profound, huh!?
In the world and times of imperialism, there was only two kinds of nation: strong or weak.
And the definition of civilization was clear: strong nation is civilized, and weak nation is not. It was synonymous with imperialism.
Japan tried to be a strong nation, and framed a lot of policies, like "the wealth and military strength of a country".
It seemed that was successful until WWII.
Japan was vanquished.
But at the same time, imperialism collapsed.
Now the definition of civilization is changed.
Most probably this is the definition accepted to almost everybody.
"Civilization is a society which justice is common to all the people."
In other words, "Civilization is a peaceful society."
When the standard of justice is different, there will be no peace.
I'd like to define peace here:
"Peace is a state that society is in order; thus, the opposite of peace is chaos."
One more, definition of war:
"War is a method of diplomacy with military power; thus, the opposite of war is consultation."
Iraq War is over, but we can't tell that Iraq is peaceful.
Yes, there are still uncivilized regions in the world.
And the people who go natural, go as they desire, or self-interested, are uncivilized.
Civilization is opposite of going natural.
Isn't it ironical that Peace isn't natural at all?
At the end of the pursuit of wealth, spiritual declination awaits, followed by collapse of civilization.
It can never continue eternally.
Environmental problems we are encountering may be the warning from nature to us.
Civilization isn't measured by wealth.
December 22, 2005
No longer an empire.
December 23 is a holiday in Japan,the Emperor's birthday.
Well, it's not a big celebration to us, we're just happy that we have one more day-off before Christmas. ^_^
About the Emperor and the Imperial Family of Japan, there's one thing I amazed:
Some schools in foreign nations teach that the Emperor of Japan still has a power, an authority.
No.
They've lost power long time ago, even before WWII.
(If my knowledge is correct, last time they got a power was on middle of 19th century.)
The Emperors were controlled, or "used" for the nation, by then powerful people, like then prime minister or then commander in chief.
The Imperial Family is just a national symbol.
I amazed also to some Japanese youth, who don't even know who is the Emperor.
But that's the reality, the Imperial Family isn't important in our life.
(Look, I don't put something like "His Majesty", I'm not that patriotic.)
Anyway, they also contribute in providing heartwarming news, where most of the news we hear are glooming.
Many people were watching the marriage of the Emperor's daughter.
She's now a private citizen, but she's still popular.
The Emperor and Empress visited Saipan, one of the site of a hard fought battle in WWII, to express their condolences to soldiers and civilians was also a good mews.
However, some people are concerned in other place.
The topic they are discussing is if "the Empress" must be approved or not,
since the first child of the Crown Prince is a girl.
Actually, there were 8 Empresses in the history of Japan.
But they were just a "filler" until a male family becomes the Emperor.
"The first child" or "The son", which must be prioritized?
The public opinions are more in favor of the Empress,
But keeping the male line made the Imperial family continued for 17 centuries is also a fact.
This is a difficult topic.
And I don't have much opinion about this.
I'm just glad to be in one of the minor nations in the world which have "national symbol".
Well, it's not a big celebration to us, we're just happy that we have one more day-off before Christmas. ^_^
About the Emperor and the Imperial Family of Japan, there's one thing I amazed:
Some schools in foreign nations teach that the Emperor of Japan still has a power, an authority.
No.
They've lost power long time ago, even before WWII.
(If my knowledge is correct, last time they got a power was on middle of 19th century.)
The Emperors were controlled, or "used" for the nation, by then powerful people, like then prime minister or then commander in chief.
The Imperial Family is just a national symbol.
I amazed also to some Japanese youth, who don't even know who is the Emperor.
But that's the reality, the Imperial Family isn't important in our life.
(Look, I don't put something like "His Majesty", I'm not that patriotic.)
Anyway, they also contribute in providing heartwarming news, where most of the news we hear are glooming.
Many people were watching the marriage of the Emperor's daughter.
She's now a private citizen, but she's still popular.
The Emperor and Empress visited Saipan, one of the site of a hard fought battle in WWII, to express their condolences to soldiers and civilians was also a good mews.
However, some people are concerned in other place.
The topic they are discussing is if "the Empress" must be approved or not,
since the first child of the Crown Prince is a girl.
Actually, there were 8 Empresses in the history of Japan.
But they were just a "filler" until a male family becomes the Emperor.
"The first child" or "The son", which must be prioritized?
The public opinions are more in favor of the Empress,
But keeping the male line made the Imperial family continued for 17 centuries is also a fact.
This is a difficult topic.
And I don't have much opinion about this.
I'm just glad to be in one of the minor nations in the world which have "national symbol".
December 12, 2005
Repeated Fiasco.
"Sell 610,000 stocks in 1 yen."
It's very obvious for everyone that this is an erroneous order.
The correct order must be "Sell 1 stock in 610,000 yen."
Mizuho Investors Securities made this order for J-Com stocks on last December 7.
And amazingly, this order was accepted.
Of course it's because of COMPUTER.
The price of J-Com stocks slumped to 572,000 yen.
No wonder, they made an order which was 42 times of the enlisted stocks.
It automatically means they sold short.
They noticed of the mistake 85 seconds later, and tried to cancel the order.
But this time, cancellation was rejected.
So they had to repurchase it to cover.po to 772,000 yen.
Few minutes later, J-Com stocks were suspended to trade.
Finally, Mizuho was not able to cover 96,236 stocks.
They lost 27 Billion yen in few minutes.
(By the way, it was swollen into 40 Billion yen on December 12.)
Now, whose fault is this?
The human error was caused by Mizuho, so it's natural to think that they have to take the responsibility.
However, TSE also admitted that they had a defect of not accepting the cancellation.
So the responsibility after the 85 seconds must be taken by TSE.
And also by Fujitsu, who made the system for TSE.
The fiasco was repeated.
It's fresh in our memory that all the trades was suspended on November 1.
Human errors are inevitable.
But we can make a fail-safe system.
The trade must be automatically rejected by computer, when a trader presents "impossible" value.
Actually, TSE called Mizuho about bulk amount of the strange trade.
But they just asked to cancel it.
They were able to stop the trade by themselves, but they neither did it nor made sure that they've cancelled it.
TSE is quickly losing trust.
I just wish that this won't become the trigger to the way of depression in economy of Japan.
It's very obvious for everyone that this is an erroneous order.
The correct order must be "Sell 1 stock in 610,000 yen."
Mizuho Investors Securities made this order for J-Com stocks on last December 7.
And amazingly, this order was accepted.
Of course it's because of COMPUTER.
The price of J-Com stocks slumped to 572,000 yen.
No wonder, they made an order which was 42 times of the enlisted stocks.
It automatically means they sold short.
They noticed of the mistake 85 seconds later, and tried to cancel the order.
But this time, cancellation was rejected.
So they had to repurchase it to cover.po to 772,000 yen.
Few minutes later, J-Com stocks were suspended to trade.
Finally, Mizuho was not able to cover 96,236 stocks.
They lost 27 Billion yen in few minutes.
(By the way, it was swollen into 40 Billion yen on December 12.)
Now, whose fault is this?
The human error was caused by Mizuho, so it's natural to think that they have to take the responsibility.
However, TSE also admitted that they had a defect of not accepting the cancellation.
So the responsibility after the 85 seconds must be taken by TSE.
And also by Fujitsu, who made the system for TSE.
The fiasco was repeated.
It's fresh in our memory that all the trades was suspended on November 1.
Human errors are inevitable.
But we can make a fail-safe system.
The trade must be automatically rejected by computer, when a trader presents "impossible" value.
Actually, TSE called Mizuho about bulk amount of the strange trade.
But they just asked to cancel it.
They were able to stop the trade by themselves, but they neither did it nor made sure that they've cancelled it.
TSE is quickly losing trust.
I just wish that this won't become the trigger to the way of depression in economy of Japan.
December 06, 2005
Don't be tricked!
At all times, the crimes from pickpockets to murders do exist.
But what is new and impressive to my ear is "pay-into-fraud".
There are so many variations of this trick, but the basic style is so simple:
Criminal calls victim, pretends to be a police, and tells that his/her son/daughter made an accident and needs to compensate, so please pay $$$ into particular bank account.
I can't believe that there are thousands of Japanese who where tricked in this single phone call!
It's so clear that this kind of phone call is strange. If they are really police, they should confirm the name of the parents first, and the one who asks for compensation is not police but the other party of the accident.
And yet, they believe in what the criminal says, since they are panicked.
The variations of modus operandi I mentioned above is about making the story not suspicious.
Criminals are clever, they change the story everytime it becomes well known.
The bad news is that there's no limit of variation of the story.
However, this kind of crime is also easily prevented.
Perhaps the victims can call his/her son/daughter, and check if they are really in trouble.
Isn't it simple?
(Well, if the criminals are so clever, they'd call when the victims can't get a contact with his/her son/daughter.)
I guess this kind of crime cannot be done in other countries.
One of the tradition of Japan which we can be "proud" of is "to trust, and to be trusted", which criminals abuse.
It's really famous in the world that Japanese are suckers,
they are easily tricked and have a lot of money.
It's also because of the environment, that provides us extra-protection, which makes us not immune to the dangers.
That's why we can never drive away all crimes,
When we conquer one crime, another crime will appear.
And since we can never be sure that we'll never be the victim,
We should be aware and cautious.
But what is new and impressive to my ear is "pay-into-fraud".
There are so many variations of this trick, but the basic style is so simple:
Criminal calls victim, pretends to be a police, and tells that his/her son/daughter made an accident and needs to compensate, so please pay $$$ into particular bank account.
I can't believe that there are thousands of Japanese who where tricked in this single phone call!
It's so clear that this kind of phone call is strange. If they are really police, they should confirm the name of the parents first, and the one who asks for compensation is not police but the other party of the accident.
And yet, they believe in what the criminal says, since they are panicked.
The variations of modus operandi I mentioned above is about making the story not suspicious.
Criminals are clever, they change the story everytime it becomes well known.
The bad news is that there's no limit of variation of the story.
However, this kind of crime is also easily prevented.
Perhaps the victims can call his/her son/daughter, and check if they are really in trouble.
Isn't it simple?
(Well, if the criminals are so clever, they'd call when the victims can't get a contact with his/her son/daughter.)
I guess this kind of crime cannot be done in other countries.
One of the tradition of Japan which we can be "proud" of is "to trust, and to be trusted", which criminals abuse.
It's really famous in the world that Japanese are suckers,
they are easily tricked and have a lot of money.
It's also because of the environment, that provides us extra-protection, which makes us not immune to the dangers.
That's why we can never drive away all crimes,
When we conquer one crime, another crime will appear.
And since we can never be sure that we'll never be the victim,
We should be aware and cautious.
