Posted in: Anti-Oi protest See in context
Nice to see that Japan won't forget his lies and policy inconsistencies. Noda lies, blowup pigs fly, and people protest in the rain...
The photo in't as powerful as a few before it, but it's nice to see that people won't give up. Onniyama, did you get my email? or at least the facebook msg. We all have too much going on, i know... work, family, little emergencies
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Posted in: Night lights See in context
basroilJUN. 28, 2012 - 05:55PM JST
I was a newspaper photo editor (small one at 20k per issue three times a week) for two years, photojournalist for 3, and independent professional photographer for four years. Trust me when I say this is a bad photo, and not simply "RAW" as you state.
Oh.. respect
I didn't quite pick up on that from reading your comments. I suppose i should have, being close to the same industry, it's just that you already have a reputation as the skeptic and someone who adds dimension to every debate by taking the side of unpopular opinion.
While not exactly a photographer myself, i'm quite familiar with all the stuff you talk about here, as as enthusiast/ professional (depending on the area) having worked as a "Photoshop guy" for a couple of years, most of it during the height of the real estate boom, all of '05 until late '07, when things got really still before the market imploded. As far as real estate stuff goes, it was fairly repetitive work and none of it really pushed the envelope of what i can do, but it consisted of taking whatever they had and making the best of it through post-processing, as well as fixing some bad shadows and reflections, fingertips, etc, etc.. You can probably imagine what the work was like...Yeah... bad food, coffee and "stimulants", sometimes no sleep for three days at a time, cracking jokes one moment and then snapping the next and getting into a yelling match when someone bothered me, because i'm not one of those people who can handle being awake for that long. But i didn't care, being young and it paid well enough. I'd do it again if i had the chance, even though it won't happen. I've done marketing materials as well and business cards, and whatever else beside this zombie kind of work, but the point is the raw material i was given to work with was pretty abysmal at times, and i learned to deal with it, having come up with a few techniques for even the worst of cases.
This is what i mean by raw. Unprocessed, straight from the memory card. If i were referring to RAW data, i would write it uppercase and without quotes. And yes, i did see the sensor noise in that one, the purple and lime green. Reminds me of my old Sony camera, which was both nice and horrible at once. It felt nice in the hand and the controls were positioned just right, the colors were true to life and needed no adjustment, but the sensor had only a narrow range of where it could perform well. Too dark and the sensor noise showed up, mostly RGB fuzz (purple and green is from fluorescent, so i might be wrong about the nature of lightbulbs in this photo... they might be CFLs, but could still be halogens), too bright and some overexposed objects suddenly had blue and purple outlines. There's a name for it, some kind of a pixel overflow that CCD sensors can suffer from. As much as i liked using the full manual mode, the sensor quirks that were usually hidden by camera firmware kind of ruined the experience.. and by "old" i mean summer of '01...
I could see myself walking along with my cell phone and snapping a photo like this and not thinking of it as being too bad, because i've not touched a real camera in three and half years. A side effect of owning a phone with a good enough camera and firmware... and my other two phones. It would have looked about the same, although i would try to fit something more than the building into the frame, because the building feels like it has no context.
So yeah, i can see how you can say it's awful. I'm just as picky about typography as you are about taking a quality photo. To each their own. I've seen enough crap that this looks somewhat reasonable in comparison, even though it's kind of a strain on the eyes. A blog photo is a great way to describe it.
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Posted in: Welcome to the toy cafe; no kids allowed See in context
Only old folks 70+ allowed??
Yea, but no adult diapers allowed. Old, but not too old.
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Posted in: Welcome to the toy cafe; no kids allowed See in context
Editors of the world, unite against the thighs!
@ProbablyWrong... it might be more like, proofreaders of the world, unite against the editors... heh... or just unite against Rocket News... it'd be much much simpler :)
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Posted in: Japan probes website attacks by Anonymous hacker group See in context
even though defense counsel challenged the legality of the wiretapping, a relatively new legal tool in Japan. The Tokyo High Court specifically upheld the legality of the wiretapping even though the wiretapping law itself only permits it “only if no other method of determining criminal activity is available.”
If someone's IP address shows up at a torrent, the police have enough grounds to request the data logs from the ISP. Whatever shows up in the logs will be enough grounds for a search warrant, and whatever is seized will be enough for a conviction. Sad, isn't it? Like pulling on one string and unraveling a whole T-shirt...
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Posted in: Night lights See in context
This snapshot is an eyesore, overexposed and under exposed at the same time.
@basroil,
You probably mean there was no post-processing done, that it's a "raw" photo. Not as much to do with exposure time, when the camera gets blinded by so many incandescent lamps. Each bulb is at leas 60W, maybe even 75, and without having any flash from the photographer's side, there is nothing to fill in the shadows and balance with the brightness of those bulbs. If it were my building, i'd keep the bulbs to 25W for a warmer, gentler glow.
This however is a garishly decorated building... with faded rags, spray paint and a bohemian feel to it, so i'm not too offended the the photo quality....
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Posted in: Japan probes website attacks by Anonymous hacker group See in context
I admire your conviction and I'm not saying it didn't happen, but "they" would go bankrupt in no time (not to mention all the negative publicity this would yield which in turn could mean overturning said law (not really in their best interest):
In June 1997, the Tokyo High Court upheld a lower court's finding that the Kanagawa Prefectural Police had illegally wiretapped the home telephone of a senior member of the Japanese Communist Party. The court awarded damages of JPY 4 million (~USD 36,600).
Well, not necessarily. The ISPs in every country already log your internet traffic, including the incoming and outgoing IP addresses, file names and sizes, total bandwidth use, connection uptime (duration and time of day), etc. It's quite a bit of data, but in doing so they absolve themselves of the responsibility for what their customers do.
As the service provider, they can face criminal charges if they don't hand over their logs in case their bandwidth and IP addresses are somehow involved in criminal activities.
Now, here lies the problem. DSL internet service is basically dial-up 2.0, still uses a phone line and dials in to the ISP to obtain its global IP address. The ISP has its IP block that serves its users in a certain geographic area, and the modem gets assigned one of those unused addresses randomly, recycling them between users. Most DSL modems are configured by default to disconnect when they are not in use, although i set mine to "keep alive" the connection 24/7. This way a dozen people may use the same IP address within a certain amount of time. Think of the IP as a rental car.. that's a perfect analogy.
So, if say, Pervert X is arrested after a concerned neighbor reports hearing muffled cries of a child coming from the single man's apartment. The police seize the rugs, the couch, several computers and mobile phones, clothes and camera equipment. Investigators would then call the ISP and request all of the IP addresses that were used by his modem as well as the access logs for those IP addresses.
Now Taro across town has just discovered the Beatles and downloaded several albums' worth of CD quality losslessly encoded MP3s and a 950MB recording of a live concert. One of the IP addresses in rotation goes to him after being used for nefarious purposes. Through a mix-up or incompetence, Taro's access log may also be handed over if the IP address was recycled the same day, and even though the investigators will see that it's not a piece of the Pervert X's log, it's up to them to decide whether they want to prosecute Taro or not.
It's not crazy to assume this will happen, through mis-communication or some other accidental means. And Taro can't say that he was illegally wiretapped, if the logs are legal and the request was made through a lawful means.
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Posted in: Japan probes website attacks by Anonymous hacker group See in context
basroil JUN. 28, 2012 - 01:36PM JST
According to the Japanese courts, only if you are a citizen. Any non-Japanese in Japan have no such rights even though it's against several treaties that Japan signed.
Sounds just like the US with the Patriot Act. Any communication by foreigners or with foreigners ("registered" US-based foreigners or non-US phone numbers) is wiretapped and scanned for suspicious words before being either archived or discarded.
But in Japan, they still need to fax a piece of paper to the telco with an authorization to wiretap, and it's can't be issued by the tea lady, the janitor or a rookie cop. Somebody has to do it, even if not the judge, before wiretapping the gaijin.
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Posted in: Japan probes website attacks by Anonymous hacker group See in context
If someone is downloading a 10 minute video of child pornography, they won't be monitored and stopped that very same minute... it can take a few days before the evidence is collected from the ISP, or it can even go unnoticed. However, when another person downloads 10 minutes worth of badly compressed music videos, that will be recorded immediately and they can be held responsible.
But watching someone traumatizing a child in unspeakable ways is much more of a crime in my opinion than watching a grainy copy of Rihanna's 3 year old music video... don't you agree?
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Posted in: Japan probes website attacks by Anonymous hacker group See in context
I didn't intend it to mean that they aren't allowed to do it at all. For that you need a court order, and the police need to wait for it before they can go through the cell phone provider, not always convenient when the Yaks prefer to use prepaid phones under somebody else's name, which they can get rid of if they suspect the line is being wiretapped. It's not the same as secretly going behind someone's house and plugging in your equipment. It takes much more work to get to where you have their conversations recorded.
In this case here, the ISPs monitor the internet user's traffic in realtime, no court order required. There was a case a few years ago where someone was also selling child porn using prepaid cellular internet modems, which made it difficult to control the situation.
I still stand by my belief that the laws make it easier to target the average citizen than the truly disruptive organized crime.
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Posted in: Welcome to the toy cafe; no kids allowed See in context
You do know that smoking dulls the taste buds right? Imagine how much more flavour you could taste if you didn't smoke.
It's not so much the taste as the feeling. Like i said, i didn't really care for coffee before... and i could never drink decaf. It seems that caffeine complements one of the mood altering substances in tobacco. But i'm not one of those inconsiderate people, i was just surprised that your reaction to cigarette smoke is worse with coffee than without. Something i never knew until now.
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Posted in: Japan probes website attacks by Anonymous hacker group See in context
Thank you Anonymous!!!! I hope they go after the sites that censor freedom of speech as well.
Now that's some wish. I know who you're referring to.
@soldave,
It's a great point. The police aren't allowed to wiretap the Yakuza making phonecalls AFAIK, but the system is now in place to monitor and arrest little girls watching AKB48 on YouTube. That's some double standards. Methinks the Yakuza need to start their own ISP that will be off-limits to RIAJ and the police. (sarcasm)
I just feel that their priorities are really out of place with this. Where will the money go? Where will they put the juvenile offenders? Will it ruin lives? I feel that Anons have the same questions on their minds, and i fully support them in this gesture, just as i did when they attacked Monsanto... one thing though, pick your targets more carefully, no more water management facilities, ok?
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Posted in: Welcome to the toy cafe; no kids allowed See in context
Nothing ruins the aroma of a good coffee quicker than some inconsiderate smoker filling the air with cigarette smoke
Oh how funny. For a smoker like me, a cup of coffee with is just not complete without a cigarette.... They go so well together. I hardly drank any coffee until i started smoking, and then it was like "wow!"... And it's not just me.
Didn't realize just how much it bothers you guys. I figured at least coffee should sort of block it out, as they are both a variation of something that's slightly burnt :)
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Posted in: Welcome to the toy cafe; no kids allowed See in context
Toique only has two policies that it enforces, no smoking and no one under 15 allowed.
No soup for you!
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Posted in: Japan probes website attacks by Anonymous hacker group See in context
lol!
The Japanese gov't should have known better. These guys just do it for sport, and anything that gives even a tiny bit of moral justification for the attacks is a good enough excuse for them to go out and do it again.
No one should ever forget what Anons did to HBGary Federal. http://attrition.org/errata/sec-co/hbgary01.html The company was practically begging them stop. There is a chat log of it out there....
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Posted in: Osaka mayor's survey finds 10 education professionals with tattoos See in context
So, tattoos are bad, cigarettes are what?!
They are quite wonderful, if you ask me. But as a smoker, i'm somewhat biased :)
It's not like these kids never saw anyone else smoking. And at their age, probably tried it themselves. So no harm from seeing someone else smoke... it's not like he was shooting up heroin with a used needle.
As for the mayor's scheme, i think it's a calculated move, without a doubt. He's crazy, like a fox, and the Japanese will mostly just take it, and some secretly cheer him on. He's the kind of guy that enjoys power and won't hesitate to go after someone as a display of "strength". He enjoys harassing those whom he considers useless... all for laughs and fun. Might not be the most pleasant person to deal with, but we are talking about a lawyer here, and someone with long-held grudges and emotional wounds. He's past the point where he could care if he is hurting someone. Like an animal that's tasted blood.
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Posted in: Facebook email switch prompts outcry See in context
Is Facebook stupid?
Like a fox. They have pulled this kind of tricks for years.
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Posted in: Nomura CEO grilled over insider probe, but re-elected by shareholders See in context
The show must go on :rolleyes:
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Posted in: 46 things that surprise foreigners in Japan See in context
Want to know what really surprises foreigners? Natto.
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Posted in: 46 things that surprise foreigners in Japan See in context
Woah!!!1!1!!111! . . That's a whole lot of 1's in my post!!!1!!11!1 . . Another software bug : /
This writer has a toilet fixation (both for the modern bidet style heated seat ones and also the squat style).
Must refer them to Dr Freud ASAP... :D
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Posted in: 46 things that surprise foreigners in Japan See in context
Woah!!!1!1!!111! . . That's a whole lot of 1's in my post!!!1!!11!1 . . Another software bug : /
This writer has a toilet fixation (both for the modern bidet style heated seat ones and also the squat style).
Must refer them to Dr Freud ASAP... :D
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Posted in: 46 things that surprise foreigners in Japan See in context
You can drink water from the tap
To survive, sure. But can you enjoy it? It's like drinking from the swimming pool... same as the rest of the world.
You can smoke in restaurants
:)
There are free samples at the supermarket
Same here in America... Costco, Trader Joe's, various hippie grocery stores and food co-ops...
There are tolls on the highways The ETC (Electronic Toll Collection) system on the highways
Yup. Same here. The perfectly paved 73 Freeway here in Orange County, with barely any cars. If you take it often, it's cheaper to buy the FasTrack transponder. I take the I-5 instead. But i'd much rather have that noisy raw concrete stretch of I-5 that belongs to LA County take over the whole state than pay any tolls...
There are holes in the 5 and 50 yen coins
Chinese tradition.
GPS is automatically included in rental cars
Same here.
The multi-storey parking garages
Same here.
Cigarettes are really cheap
They are reasonable, compared to the extortionately taxed cigs in the US, but not "cheap". But i'm not complaining.
Japanese squat-style toilets
If you travel in India or the former Soviet Union, you'll also see a whole lot of "Japanese squat toilets"..
Verdict: really "unique"...
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Posted in: Powerless See in context
If not for the goth far in the background, this could be 1963....
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Posted in: Osaka mayor's survey finds 10 education professionals with tattoos See in context
I went to some matsuri and most stands had some tattooed guy "helping". Well, they'd grab most of the money and the local associations that organized the event couldn't dare refusing. They'd ransom all street stands.
shobadai !
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Posted in: Russia seizes Japanese boat near disputed islands See in context
No telling what will happen to the Russian nationals.
They might have a "tax evasion" case against them if they don't come up with the money soon. I'm dead serious. Pay or go to jail
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Posted in: Osaka mayor's survey finds 10 education professionals with tattoos See in context
And why can't we link this to Facebook? To show the world that human rights are being killed in Japan? Have to check the Japan times for a link do I can show the world (well, my 3 friends) this travesty.
Huh?
You can click "Recommend" above at the top of the page, and from there it will post to your Facebook if you're logged in.
For the Japan Times article i quoted in my post, here's the link http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120523a3.html It's from May 23....
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Posted in: Osaka mayor's survey finds 10 education professionals with tattoos See in context
Quote fail :(
"Scapegoating" was not my words. However, it will be interesting to see where this will go next.
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Posted in: Osaka mayor's survey finds 10 education professionals with tattoos See in context
First mark of a fascist: Scapegoating.
Has there been an outcry against tattooed teachers before Hashimoto began this witch hunt? Did anyone else even mention it?
Is there any study or evidence that tattoos inhibit or diminish a teacher's ability to do the job?
Is there any study or evidence that tattoo unduly distract students or block their ability to learn?
There was that one guy who was trying to scare children with his tattoos by lifting up his shirt...
From Japan Times:
The tattoo survey was carried out at the request of Hashimoto, who was infuriated by revelations in March that a worker at a children's home threatened kids by showing his tattoos.
"Citizens feel uneasy or intimidated if they see tattoos (on workers) in services, and it undermines trust in the city," Hashimoto said earlier. "We need to grasp what the (tattoo) situation is and reposition personnel."
The poll asked if employees have tattoos on their neck and above, on their arms or hands, and from their knees to the toes. Those with tattoos had to indicate their location and size. Workers were also asked to respond voluntarily if they have tattoos on parts of the body normally covered by clothing and when they got them — before or after they started working for the city.
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Posted in: Patches of higher-than-average radioactivity found in Tokyo park See in context
Normal geiger counters are generally not used for radiation detection, since most can only tell where a source is, not what it is. For that, you need much more sophisticated equipment and training, neither of which can be mass produced to check everywhere.
Glad you said that. The average geiger counter, within the average person's budget is gamma-only, and gamma rays can travel millions of miles without stopping. The only clue they give is that radiation levels are stronger than normal background levels. A more expensive α+β+γ geiger counter can help pinpoint the source, but you can only guess what exactly you are measuring, not being able to tell until you take a sample to a lab.
Safecast.org has a project of measuring background radiation in many areas and plotting it on a map. It kind of helps diffuse hysteria when every contributor comes up with roughly the same readings, except for more heavily contaminated areas, where readings may change as soon as you cross the street. Overall, i think it's good to see the public getting involved and notifying authorities when something like this appears, whether it is natural deposits or a "lost" manmade object. It's like finding asbestos buried in a kids playground... should be removed and replaced with clean new soil. When things like that become routine, people will stop being so paranoid and hysterical....
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Posted in: Patches of higher-than-average radioactivity found in Tokyo park See in context
@basroil,
Not only Brazil... Mexico and Thailand too, and many other places. Salvage yard employees breaking up radiotherapy equipment and then irradiating everyone around. Ignorance can be pretty lethal.
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Posted in: China says 'unexpected obstruction' led to August Japan airspace breach
The only time my wife has a good all night sleep is after sallowing some protein enrich yogurt.
Posted in: What food or drink do you recommend for helping get a good night’s sleep?
One thing worse than one man having it would be the central government having it.
Posted in: Warren Buffett is sitting on over $325 billion cash as Berkshire Hathaway keeps selling Apple stock
@quercetum Absolute nonsense!! Read up to the second paragraph, and that was enough!!
Posted in: China says 'unexpected obstruction' led to August Japan airspace breach