Two days ago I had one of those "I love living in Japan" moments. I was watching the news (hence the posting under current events) and they did a long segment about the first cherry blossom opening in Tokyo. They then showed a graph of the expected time from the first blossom to full bloom and the last petal and then showed a map of Japan with dates of when Haika was expected for different areas. Usually news is about disasters and tragedies or somtimes the strange story. What I really...
I seriously believe that if you build a home for others that is unsafe is homicide. Recently in Tokyo, it was discovered that a series of apartment complexes that were sold do not meet earthquake safety standards. These buildings are only able to sustain half the earthquake damage that they are supposed to. How do these people sleep at night? Being that Japan is particularly earthquake prone (the thinking is a bit more "when" an earthquake happens not "if") If Tokyo were to have an ear...
Or somewhat. I wanted to post this mostly in reply to some long, long ago blog that someone made complaining that the US helps everyone and no one helps the US. Link We are all in this together! It makes me happy to see neighbors helping each other out!
Yesterday (Feb 24, 2004), the Japan Times ran an article by a London newspaper, The Observer. This article notes that this report was commisissioned by Andrew Mashall, a Pentagon advisor, but suppressed by US defense chiefs. The report predicts that by 2020, most of Europe's cities will be under water. Famine, drought, conflict and widespread rioting are expected to result. One possible scenario is the rise of nuclear warfare as nations struggle to protect dwindling resources. The artic...
Recently I wrote a blog called "Tech makes us do wierd stuff" in which I wrote that at least 30% of people in a crowd at an event like a concert have their arms raised high over their heads to take pics with their cell-phone cameras. I need to ammend that. It's more like 90% so that you can't actually see the event with your own two eyes.
Most people in Japan have a camera on their cell phone. Since I am still using my 5 year old phone, I have no idea how much they are. I have thought about getting one, since it would be nice to always have a camera handy for special moments but I will probably wait till this phone is on it's last staticky legs. We had a dinner party a few days ago and near the end of dinner, we all decided to take pictures to commemorate the nice evening. A few people dug out digital cameras and a few dug ...