MotMotMot comments

Yet another self inflicted wound for Musk. Plenty of CEOs are right wing conservatives. They just have the good sense to funnel their opinions through lobbyists and outside trade organizations.

Musk is like an alcoholic who tried to solve his problem by buying a brewery.

He could be a spy. Or it could be retaliation for Japan pulling so many factories from China the last few years. Or there could be someone important to China held in Japanese jail that they want released.

Japanese Royalty isn't really like the UK Royals. They have a lavish lifestyle, but it's heavily dictated by the Imperial Household Agency. Any attempts to modernize or make them more approachable by younger royals has been blocked by the Grand Stewards.

I don't expect that to change because the Imperial Household Agency is 1000 people with cushy, well paid, and prestigious jobs. The Grand Stewards are generally former high level government officials and ministers.

They seem to enjoy spending a lot of money to uphold traditions.

Meanwhile King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands has been a KLM pilot for decades.

People knew and did nothing. It's possible some of them still work there.

Unpopular option: People should not get jobs based on their skin color, gender identity, or ethnicity.

Agreed. It should would no longer be males from prestigious families that went to Waseda.

Telsa owners are already whining about other cars clogging up the charge stations. Should be interesting to see where this goes.

For those not in the know how device studies work. They use an entirely different set of rules compared to drugs. Medical devices are also much easier to get into initial studies compared to drugs. Though still fairly difficult.

This is only a study on if implanting the device causes any harm. It will not make any attempt to determine if the device works or has any benefit. Those are entirely different study that cannot happen until this is done.

Meanwhile the Chinese factories still crank out the low cost products that the west cannot do without…

One of the smarter thing Japan has been doing the past few years is create incentives to move factories from China back to Japan. Even more are looking at moving the factories to other parts of Asian. I think the Japanese see the upcoming issues of China using supply chain to project power and aren't having any of it.

Boat has already sailed on that in the US. Delta has been boarding customers using just facial recognition since 2018 using tech from NEC at certain airports in the US and Europe. They use both TSA data and private data (companies that aggregate DMV photos) so it can be for both domestic and international. Though it's mostly used for international. Some airports have special areas where the check-in and bag drop can be done all with facial recognition. If 9/11 didn't happen we could have stopped this kind of stuff, but the boat is long since sailed here.

ANA already has a similar system in HND, but it does require them to capture your face at checkin. I assume for compliance with various Japanese Laws they aren't just pulling existing gov't photos.

Using their freedom is not childish

He's an officer of a publicly traded company. He's free to say whatever, but not without the costs of violating SEC regulations and exposing himself and Tesla to shareholder lawsuits for sinking value.

Long and short of it is CEOs of companies that sell things to general public don't make public statements that alienate 1/3 of their potential customer based. It's dumb business.

I'd much rather Tesla would shift from having Elon at the helm playing "Half Ass Steve Jobs" to someone else at the helm who can play "Somewhat competent Tim Cook".

Hopefully it goes better than Netflix x Fuji TV Terrace House debacle.

Be that as it may, I hardly watch Anime anymore because the committee system puts out homogeneous junk and self censorship means far less risks are taken in character interactions compared to the 90s era.

Don't bother trying to get Anti-vaxers to understand science. Nothing you can say, and no amount of evidence will change their minds. You can tell them to look at the simple charts at the bottom of the 2023 mortality report and they'll just wave there hands about not trusting Biden's CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7206a3.htm

An odd choice of date. Why not before Golden Week so people can fully enjoy themselves without the gloom of Covid hanging over their heads?

Same reason retailers avoid software changes during holidays and banks during tax season. Risk management. By doing it right after they give themselves almost an entire year of runway to make changes and react to what happens.

There aren't any non-stop routes to Florida up until now, even though the slots are in place, I do know that JAL and ANA both looked at operating but there wasn't enough premium business expected to justify the route and this is post 787/A350 launch which makes these 'long and thin' routes feasible.

I'm a bit shocked the Origin/Destination traffic isn't there. Surely Florida much have business outside Disney? I mean even Minneapolis has a non-stop flight again to HND.

What Ghosn did was illegal, but a lot of people would also contend they weren't particularly unusual in terms of Japanese executives. What was unusual was the way Ghosn was treated compared to senior Olympus executives. Which got a slap on the wrist and no jail time. Shocking considering size and scope of Olympus's misdeeds.

I think Ghosn saw the writing on the wall that this wasn't going to be a pay a fine, suspended sentence kind of deal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympus_scandal

I was under the impression they want time. Given the incentives Japan has created for businesses to move production out of China (either back to Japan or to other parts of Asia).

They run huge offices in India. It's where they outsource a ton of jobs.

Wells Fargo (via Wachovia) tried to enter the Japanese lending business in the 2000s. They had no idea how to get people to actually pay and ended up exiting rather quickly.

It's all fine and good that slander is getting sorted out.

BUT, they have done nothing to address the producers of the show hiding behind NDAs for their role. They may or may not be guilty of something, but I don't think we'll ever know as long as they are allowed to hid from a full and open inquest.

Looks like a version of Panasonic's Arbitrator bodycam. It's big because 1) large battery pack, 2) it's an extremely rugged housing to avoid destruction of videos. If it's like the US product it meets MIL-STD-810G (aka MIL-SPEC).

We really don't know much about the behind the scenes of the show since everyone is under NDA. The close ties between talent agencies, production companies and broadcasters makes getting to the truth hard as well. Speaking up is almost certainly career ending.

Her mother, Kyoko Kimura, was also a professional wrestler. She likely has a pretty good idea how what she was being asked to do on TH would effect her overall career and public perception. In particular given the stereotypes and bullying Hana faced being mixed race.

I don't know what the liability is legally, but it does seem like BS that the people with power in the production have been allowed to hide behind the NDAs. Certainly if this was in other countries there would have been in an independent inquest to air all the dirty laundry.

I hope more movies follow the example of Top Gun: Maverick and refuse Chinese censorship. Artistic integrity should trump profit always.

Hollywood is entirely about profits. However, between Chinese theater attendance being down and the limited number of films allowed in, appeasing China only makes sense for a small number of films.

Ironically, pre-pandemic, Top Gun was appearing China by removing the Taiwanese flag from the iconic flight jacket in the trailer. They put it back in when it was clear that a potential Chinese thesaterical release wasn't going to make much money.

China is simply taking advantage of the Ukraine situation. On their face they are refusing to supply Russia with weapons outright, but at the same time they have quadrupled trade with Russia and are providing them with an alternate to SWIFT to process money internationally.

Make no mistake, if not for Russia's war on Ukraine the US would have sailed a carrier group between things. Just like they have done in the past.

There's a separate private funeral the family is holding. If he isn't invited to that one then we'll know if Abe actually liked him or was putting on an act.

Maybe instead of spending money on dubious infrastructure project Japan is famous for they could make it so childcare is cheap and plentiful?

 In other words, USA has one manned flight left for the next 10 years. Until they develop their own rocket engine.

The US has a warehouse full of Russian Engines to support the remaining Atlas V launches. When things started heating up the Russians rushed shipping them to the US. After that there's three other Rockets, including the SpaceX Falcon 9, that can do a crewed mission.

That ISS only needs to make it to 2031. By that point it's already outlived it's original lifespan by 2X.

I don't think the joke was the reason Smith assaulted Rock. Smith is seating directly in front of the steps. Watching the play back I think what set him off was when Rock said "That was a nice one.” The implication was Rock could make a joke about Jada Smith infidelity/open relationship. I think that pushed him over the edge. That when he jumps up and Rock pauses as he's not sure what's happening.

Hello Ruble, Yuan, Yen and even blockchain.

They aren't going to trade on rubles. SWIFT is just a message format exchange. It's a promise to transfer physical money. Which means you charter a plane or boat to move a pallet of cash at some point. No one wants to do that with rubles.

Russia will already sell crude with crypto. But it's a currency with huge fluctuation second to second. So far no one has wanted to go that route.

Most likely is Yen or Yuan.

This is exactly what Russia did in Chechnya and Syria. They will scare off the population (eventually) with indiscriminate shelling, then send in their military to more or less demolish the cities. We are paying the price for letting them get away with it time after time.

The saving grace is Russia has proven logistically they can't more than 90 miles away from their existing bases because Molotov cocktails are extremely effective against fuel trucks. They will eventually resolve it and things will get much worse.

Every bit helps. Ultimately, Russia wants a redo on the end of the USSR. Ukraine can't negotiate peace because they have no control over the US, NATO or EU. This is about so many things more than the Eastern Russian speaking regions. If it was just that Russia would have rolled in and set a new border.

Hopefully there can be a diplomatic solution.

PS. Did you know there's a region of White Russian speakers in China that's just as big. Funny, don't see Putin making a stink about them being forced to adapt Chinese culture and language...

What, you think his law firm isn't sponsoring his visa? What's wrong with you?

Mildly wealthy people can skip a lot of the red tape with special visa programs. I would also assume they would receive preferential treatment, waivers and assistance by the US state department.