Tokyo like a Richard Scarry episode

This screenshot doesn't do the video quality any justice.

Usually I have something insightful to say. Today, I'm just gonna sit back and let this beautiful time-lapse video of Tokyo do the talking. This video is called ちちゃな東京 (Chicha na Toukyou), or, Little Tokyo and is by Darwinfish105. Enjoy.

In a related post (by title only), please enjoy the open, yet camaraderic racism that is South Park: Little Tokyo.

A battle version of Sudoku for iPhone and Facebook

There's a new application on iPhone and Facebook allowing two people to battle over a game of Sudoku at the same time. This beats the current tradition of one person holding a pencil while the other one tells them they've made a mistake.

The new application, called Challenger Sudoku, became available for the iPhone last December and has just recently gone live on Facebook. The game requires friends to challenge (or be challenged by) friends to a game of Sudoku and allows them to play head-to-head in real time.

As you solve each row or main square (consisting of nine single squares) the field highlights in your home color of blue. If your opponent solves a field first, the field becomes red.There are also various bonuses along the way, even one for the first to 777 points. Making mistakes will also take points away and transfer them to your opponents score. With the real-time spinoff, Challenger Sudoku can be very unnerving, especially if you are watching the puzzle light up red as someone solves it faster than you.

Through winning against opponents of your level or higher, you can raise your own level from Student, Senpai, Sensei, Grandmaster, and, highest of all, Sudoku Samurai. These aren't levels you can just relax at, though. If you lose too much or remain inactive you will drop a level.

If you ask a native Japanese speaker to play "Sudoku", you'll likely get an odd stare. In Japan, they generally refer to Sudoku as nampure (short for "number place"). In fact, the game was only recently titled Sudoku by a Japanese game company and later becoming an game of international popularity in 2005 (source). The Japanese had most likely appropriated it from the French, who apparently have had a thing for number puzzles.

Well, anyone up for a challenge?

Facebook, a difficult community for many Japanese

Oh, so you thought it was a fun social site?

On April 5, 2012, a study was released assessing Japan's views on Facebook. Nearly 70% of the Japanese surveyed said Facebook gives them at least occasional stress (source). The stats are a result of 500 people ages 15 to 59 surveyed in Japan's two biggest metropolitan areas.

When asked to be more specific about the cause of stress, the most frequently given answer, with 34.3%, was due to lack of privacy when engaging in interpersonal relationships in a frank manner. The second most stressful factor, with 31.1%, was that users felt besieged by meddlesome solicitations (invitations or pitches). Third, with 27.1%, was that they felt they were put on the spot by people’s requests to become “friends” and had difficulty refusing. And fourth, with 26.5%, was that users found it annoying to receive messages or notifications from friends of friends, or other parties with whom they had no direct relationship (source).

Of course, I'm sure Americans are sometimes stressed by Facebook, but there are a lot of cultural differences in Japan that understandably make Facebook a more difficult environment. For a quick reference point: if one of my American friends complained about a friend request and whether or not they should add the person in question I would most certainly transmit the message, "Oh, grow up," in at least my facial expression and/or posture.

While Twitter is still on top, Facebook has a grip on Japanese social structures

In Japan, relationships, community and respect are much more important. Social roles are even more strict for older generations and for certain groups. While teaching an eikaiwa (English conversation class) class in Japan, I remember being irked  by the older students asking each other their class years to establish seniority. Seniority in that eikaiwa class effected everything from who got to talk first to who had to do all the grunt work for special events.

If a community English conversation class can be justifiably manipulated by the seniors of the group, you could imagine what kind of social pressures run rampant on the Japanese Facebook platform. Imagine if you felt obligated to accept a friend request from your boss and a few coworkers and now feel pressured to attend a non-mandatory work function posted on Facebook because most of them are and you don't want to seem like the bad egg. And all you wanted to do was see pictures of your friend's kids.

"I'm sorry I missed the enkai last night, but I was nursing my sick cat. Check my status updates."

In contrast, people in the US tend to not shed a tear for those that are hung up on event invitations or friend requests. I may be speaking in generalizations now but it seems the Western Facebook users are bound more by the survival of the fittest rules in which only the weak are bogged down by social stress; anyone smart enough has learned to navigate Facebook stress free.

I'm sure if the same study was done in the US, the researchers would find the following unimpressive data:

1. Most people are slightly addicted to Facebook.
2. Half of users have complained about certain users complaining on Facebook.
3. 90% of users are sick of getting Farmville requests.
4. 10% of users are sick that no one will accept their Farmville requests.
5. 45% of people are still upset about not getting a "dislike" button.
6. A third of all users are upset that you have to be friends with some people to see their photos.
7. 60% of all college users have spent over 10 hours "stalking" other users.
8. 4% are excited about Mark Zuckerberg's wedding photos.

And maybe, one or two more in-tune users might comment on Facebook's ever-shifting privacy policy. If you get my exaggerated point, the US seems to adopt a use-it-or-don't attitude (in part, because we've had it since 2004) whereas Facebook could potentially trap, coerce or exploit Japanese users for only respecting traditional social norms.

If you'd like to read more including some personal accounts, check out the article.

Tokyo Sky Tree now open with old and new design

Japan now boasts the second highest building in the world with their Tokyo Sky Tree. The tower was finished after almost four years of work and reached 2,080 ft. in March of this year. The building was just opened to the public days ago on May 22, 2012.

The $806 million structure is a broadcasting, restaurant and observation tower in Sumida, Tokyo. It's design encompasses three main concepts including:

• Fusion of futuristic design and traditional beauty of Japan,
• Catalyst for revitalization of the city,
• Contribution to disaster prevention "Safety and Security" (source).

From triangle to circle (photo)

The design is actually quite crazy. To optimize the plot of land at ground level, the base is triangular, but floor by floor the tower slowly molds into a cylindrical shape reaching a full circle at 1,050 ft. Also, with earthquakes a major factor in building such a tall tower, the structural design mixes the best of ancient and modern architecture. Mimicking ancient Japanese pagodas, there is a thick center shaft that runs up through the whole structure. Apparently, none of Japan's pagodas have ever been toppled by the centuries of earthquakes (source).

The modern spin-off is that this center shaft is relatively unconnected to the outside steel frame of the building reducing swaying high up. Also, the foundation of the tower, rather than straight poles, is more like roots that dig deep and fan out. Simulation tests suggest that the Sky Tree would suffer almost no damage even in the event of a major 7.9 magnitude quake (source).

OK. Able to withstand a 7.9 on the Richter scale. But wait, 15 of those can happen a year anyway. Let's rewind a year to the 2011 Tohoku earthquake. That was a 9.0. On average, an earthquake equal to or greater than 9.0 happens ever year in the world (source). And lets remember that the Richter scale isn't linear. It's exponential. That means this tower is built to withstand 10 to 15 megatons of seismic energy, but may encounter 480 megatons of energy. I guess the March 2011 earthquake changed a lot of perspectives (and plans). Add this "earthquake safe" monstrosity to the list.

The tower is so high up that from the top observation tower you can see not only the entire Tokyo region, but also the curvature of the earth (source).

Apparently, the admission to reach the observation towers are just as sky-high as the structure itself. Also, merchandise and food at the observatories will be equally as expensive. Prices are not stopping the lines of eager tourists, though; tickets are sold out through mid-July, leaving visitors keen to ride up the capital's newest landmark in a very long queue (source).


As the second highest structure in the world, the Tokyo Sky Tree is outdone only by the height of Burj Khalifa in Dubai at a whopping 2,723 ft. which was opened in January 2010.

Burj Khalifa - figures that the tallest building in the world is in an oil-rich country

Softbank and Paypal team up pushing new smartphone card reader

Masayoshi Son, richest man in Japan, with the striped tie. Make money, make money.

Softbank, a telecom and internet corporation, is teaming up with PayPal on the joint venture "PayPal Japan". The companies will each invest $12.5 million to "revolutionize digital payments in Japan" (source).

It's no surprise Hiroaki Kitano from the Softbank side will serve as the CEO of the business agreement; while revenue for PayPal is in the early billions, Softbank revenue reaches into the early trillions. Kitano is a senior vice president and director of Softbank Mobile Corp, with relevant experience from his time with Yahoo Shopping (source).

The joint venture will also push the Paypal Here credit card reader that plugs into the audio jack of a smartphone. The card reader add-on will retail for 1200 yen, or about $15. (When the card reader is released in the US, it will be free.)

After viewing the demo via the PayPal introductory page, I've become very skeptical of the whole process. I can't imagine a NYC pretzel vendor or cabbie handing the customer his smartphone to type in a tip and sign the transaction. What's stopping the $2.50 pretzel consumer from running away with a $200-$400 smartphone plus a pretzel? In Japan, I don't see this as being such a problem with such low crime rates as a result of their general family-like moral system.

Also, unless I had a special stylus signing pen, I'm pretty sure my signature on a smartphone would look like a few pixelated circles and lines. How's that going to sit with my bank that is tirelessly scanning for fraudulent charges?

Currently, Japan is a very cash-based society. I'm wondering the speed as to which something like card reader might catch on. It's strange that Japan is one of the most technologically advanced countries but still largely operates outside the lines of credit.


Softbank Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son hopes that in five or ten years from now, Japanese consumers won't need to carry wallets (source). As for me, I find any statement from this guy (the richest man in Japan) laughable.


The irony here is Masayoshi Son supposedly directs some of the Softbank commercials which include what are thought to be hidden messages that dishonor Japan. (Son is Korean but later naturalized as a Japanese citizen.) In a line of popular commercials, a black man has a dog for a father (which doesn't sound so crazy for a commercial plot). The black man, then, is inu no ko, which in Korea is one of the worst curse words. Given that there exists a stereotype that Koreans don't like Japanese or blacks, you may see some of the disputed evidence.

 Here another example, for obvious reasons:

When a bunch of Japanese celebrities march out of a dog's anus, it really makes you start to think...

Japanese researchers find slime smarter than supercomputers

Toshiyuki Nakagaki, professor of Future University Hakodate (source)

Japanese professors, among others, are hard at work researching, umm, slime. Toshiyuki Nakagaki (above) has found that slime molds in petri dishes (although brainless) are smarter than supercomputers in solving complex-systems problems. The single cell organisms will spread themselves far as possible to find food and then well form to the shortest route to the food possible.

Here, the slime mold (physarum polycephalum) works realtively quick. This video shows how all other "bad attempts" at solving the puzzle will quickly die out to leave only the shorts route.

Atsushi Tero, from Kyushu University, southern Japan, who conducted the research, believes that the intelligence skills possessed by slime mould networks could potentially be used in the future design of transport systems or electric transmission lines (source). "Computers are not so good at analysing the best routes that connect many base points because the volume of calculations becomes too large for them," he said.

In this video, researchers placed food at railway stations around Tokyo (not Bay of Tokyo at bottom middle). The fungus collaborates, spreading out to map many possible configurations and then dies out to highlight the shortest routes between cities and the most efficient overall system map.

So this technology is smarter than humans, and even supercomputers. But isn't the web of human knowledge a product of our technology? Isn't every man as smart as his ability to navigate the internet, or smartphone? In much the same way, now that we have and control this slime technology, isn't it part of our knowledge?

GPS leads Japanese tourists right into the Pacific

Japanese tourists in Australia, misled by their GPS device. Fairfax Media/Getty Images

Japanese students in Tokyo were led astray by the GPS while vacationing in Australia (source). Trekking from the mainland to North Stradbroke Island with its popular Point Lookout (a major tourist destination during holidays) the three Japanese travelers drove down a gravel path which quickly turned to mud.

The tourists' GPS led them from Oyster Point through the thick mud saying it would guide them to another road. After getting about 50 yards out, their Hyundai Getz became stuck in the Moreton Bay mud. The passengers fled as the tide came up and waterlogged their rental car. Passengers on passing ferries watched in amazement (source).

The Japanese tourists had the car towed in to the mainland and will have to pay the 1500 dollars not covered by their insurance. Even though it had rained six of the seven days on their vacation, the three plan on returning to Australia in the future. They commented that they were just glad that no one got hurt.

What Dan Thinks: Now, if these tourists were American, I'm sure there would be a lawsuit underway. Being Japanese, they politely walked away from an embarrassing incident feeling lucky to have avoided injury. Also, they plan on returning. How genki!

What confused me about this is why they had continued driving when the already-suspicious gravel road turned to mud. I'm wondering if they thought all the rain had caused the mud. But even so, why had they dared to brave the thick mud in a cheap Hyundai intended for nothing more than city streets. And with the locals being so "kind" why had they not searched out some help?

Japanese scientist turns seaweed into fuel

 

Things are looking even more shaky in the Middle East and gas prices are projected to soar this summer despite the fact that the US has quadrupled the number of domestic oil rigs drilling. This is not to mention that oil is a natural and nonrenewable source on this planet.

Good news: scientists at Bio Architecture Lab in Berkeley, California led by co-founder Yasuo Yoshikuni have refined the process of turning brown seaweed into a renewable fuel. The 2 and a half years of fine-tuning was made possible by a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

The problem with breaking down the high sugars of seaweed into ethanol is the presence of the "alginate" sugar--a problem of which has been deemed to be unsolvable until now. Yoshikuni and his team have genetically engineered E. coli splicing in a section of a known metabolizer of alginate. And this was no easy task considering Yoshikuni and his team had to successfully isolate a 36,000 base pair DNA fragment (source).

So why is this great news? Imagine a cheap alternative to current renewable gases. Corn is the current heavyweight, sucking in so much water (and tax dollars).

 “When you grow corn on land, there’s basically a fixed amount of land, and if you were to increase the use of that corn for fuels, you are taking away the use of that corn for something else,” says BAL spokesman John Williams. Using just three per cent of the waters that can grow seaweed could produce 60 billion gallons of fuel—four per cent of the world’s annual fuel consumption (source).

Sounds great, right? Imagine the skeptics. Keep in mind, though, no one is proposing that seaweed bioethanol will overtake petroleum. But it will be making big progress with a small carbon footprint.

Bio Architecture Lab has made a few deals and now grows this brown seaweed in Chile, where it owns and operates four offshore farms and is currently developing storage facilities (source). The seaweed is grown on long submerged ropes. Also, it doesn't suck up resources like corn, it takes little space, and grows in virtually untouched areas. "Using 3 per cent of the world's coastlines we can replace 5 per cent of total oil consumption. That's 60 billion gallons of fuel," Dr Yoshikuni said (source).

Algal bloom of the coast of China during the Olympics

What's more, seaweed naturally absorbs industrial waste reducing algal blooms which are a whole 'nother cluster F we probably shouldn't get started on.

One of the biggest problems of this amazing advancement in renewable fuels is how to cultivate it year round.

Japanese synchronized "swimmers"

Here is a short clip of an interactive visualizer from Japan's Music Saves Tomorrow Campaign. If you head on over to Sperm.jp, you can choose your favorite song from Vimeo and have the little sperms dance to it. You can also change whose sperm it is to change the dance routine.

Sperm.jp says they each filmed their own sperm under a biological microscope to extract its shapes and motion data to create the animation. Weird? Awesome?

Their concept is that children are the "seeds" of tomorrow so why not influence them to help create a bright future.


MUSIC SAVES TOMORROW（SPERM DANCE 60 Sec Ver） from SPACE SHOWER TV on Vimeo.

The default song is "Denpa Jack" by Passepied. Denpa Jack means "Broadcast signal intrusion" or basically: a hijacked broadcast. Remember, you can pick any track from Vimeo. Have fun!

Here is the Making Of video:


MUSIC SAVES TOMORROW SPERM DANCE MAKING VIDEO from SPACE SHOWER TV on Vimeo.

Wild monkeys to measure Fukushima radiation

Fukushima University researchers have designed radiation-measuring collars to fit on some of the wild monkey population in the surrounding wooded areas. This, of course, is to analyze the higher radiation levels still present since the March 11, 2011 earthquake, tsunami and subsequent meltdown of reactors at the Fukushima power plant.

Since the monkeys spend most of their time in trees while occasionally dipping to the forest floor, the gps-equipped collars will be able to measure ground and air radiation levels. Supposedly, the monkeys are key in this new project because their area is well known and will help track wildlife exposure to radiation. Also, the monkey collars are supposed to be more reliable than the current readings from helicopter.

These cute little guys even bathe in hot springs.

Now, I understand that the collars can be released even by a remote, and that, well, the monkeys will be living in the radiated areas anyway... but doesn't it sound a bit like exploitation? These little guys are smart enough to bathe in hot springs. They're like little people (that may occasionally throw poop in a fit of anger).

It just seems a bit backwards to employ an itchy and invasive collar on monkeys to study the degree of "not well" a human accident still is. Why not just attach a few "collars" to trees in different areas at varying heights?

Why not just send a few current TEPCO heads out into the forest with dosimeters (hazmat suits optional)? Ah, they're getting sued by their shareholders for sheer incompetence anyway.

Read more about the monkeys here

Japan invents a speech-stopping gun

Two scientists in Japan have invented a "speech-jamming" gun to stop a person mid-sentence. Although it's called a gun, its no more harmful than a police radar gun. The gun picks up what a person is saying with a directional microphone and repeats it back the person with a directional speaker.

The gun has a 0.2 second delay which seems to be the perfect amount of time to confuse your mind. The gun currently works on subjects up to 30 meters away and although it will stop words, it won't stop other oral sounds.

Imagine instead using a parabolic microphone at a football game, using on of these speech jamming guns during a key play when the coach has to relay a play to the quarterback.

And, well doesn't this kind of violate free speech?

Read the original post here