Stonecoldsoba comments

@semperfi

"... eradically ..."

Excellent new word! A brilliant combination of erraticaly and sporadically.

...put out about 400kW total during that time

Wrong.

... would equal 50kW in the same month period

Wrong.

A person perfectly still for a whole year or more, or only one second, would still put out 70 W (accepting your figure). The power, usually measured in watts, doesn't depend on the period. The energy output does depend on the period and that is measured in joules or kilowatt-hours or some other units of the same dimensions.

Could the writers of such articles please learn to use the units correctly?

1.21 million kilowatts per hour

makes no sense at all!

The solution is not to compost (or burn) the waste but to reduce the wastage!

if it's entirely made of concrete and metal, how does it float?

Just do a bit of arithmetic. It floated because it's bigger than 165 tons of seawater. Evidently there's some empty space inside.

I have no problem with gay people of any gender until they start wearing it as a badge and demand to be treated differently because of it.

No; they demand not to be treated differently because of it.

@ stonecoldsoba - are you saying that sexuality-based "discrimination" is wrong. What if somebody's sexuality involved bizarre or criminal acts?

YES!

There is no good reason at all to object to other people's sexual acts which you consider 'bizarre'. Why should any sexual act (which does not materially affect anyone else) be criminal? That is discrimination.

Where should the line be drawn?

Very simple: consent. Anything without consent is unacceptable. As alluded to above, collateral damage is also unacceptable.

And if it's just their "sexuality" and not what they do behind closed doors, why is it such an issue? Why aren't there hetero pride parades?

It's not just sexuality. The issue is discrimination in other aspects of life, such as employment, because of sexuality.

Why aren't there hetero pride parades?

Haven't you seen any carnival parades involving celebration of hetero sexuality? ( intentionally written as two words).

sensei, your question should be:

Why should they (or anyone) suffer discrimination based on sexuality (not habits)?

I wonder if there is any law against endangering a child by, for example, allowing him/her to ride on a tractor without a secure passenger seat.

Patrick:

It just had to be Adachi-ku eh.

Why?

tairitsuiken:

Adachi-ku. Have you ever been there? It is a shitty area.

Have you seen all of it? I've seen some pretty shiity areas in other, supposedly prestigious parts of Tokyo and elswhere.

Yet another example of incompetence in journalism!

Two units are expected to commence operation in July and September, respectively, and will have capacity to supply 4.2 million kilowatts per hour, sufficient for up to 1,000 households.

There really is no excuse for someone writing about electricity supply to screw up the units. Watts are used to express power, i.e. the amount of energy transferred (or converted) in a given unit of time, hence 'kilowatts per hour' is plain wrong (unless, of course, you are talking about a rate of change of power).

And in English, 4.2 million kilowatts is expressed as 4.2 gigawatts.

According to that part of the article, the average household uses at least 4.2 megawatts. My household uses about one thousandth of that.

One move toward a solution -- encourage people in Japan to develop a stronger sense of empathy, concern for others, selflessness, a nurturing attitude and a willingness to act as caregivers to both children and the elderly.

Might be easier to develop immortality.

Hmmm... yes, Twitter always seemed to me a bit pre-posterous.

Why was his name withheld? Because he's a doctor? Because he's rich? Because he greased someone's palm? Because he's a friend of the police chief? If this goes to court (is that likely?) will his anonymity be protected?

I wish they made guitar necks.

Maybe if you ask nicely ...

Image capture --> image processing --> output to plotter

Nothing really new here. If it were (successfully) progammed to distort the image automatically to produce a caricature (as the first sentence implies, although it isn't) that would be impressive.

But the street artists of the world can rest easy for the moment, as they still have the advantage of price.

Whereas a caricature might set you back $20 or so, this robot is worth at least 40,000 euros ($52,000).

An absurd comparison. The $20 is for a single picture but the 40,000 euros is for a machine that can produce thousands of pictures - or do something more useful.

No mention of wounds to the arms or legs, which suggests he didn't have a chance to defend himself. I reckon he was attacked by someone who was already inside the cab, so probably someone he knew.

@WillieB

Let them eat it, as long as it is properly labelled.

Anyone here ever heard about mislabelling of food in Japan?

@Cos

They get a week or less of training in average, then they take the test (99% pass).

Where did you get that from? Give us a source. Until you do, I'll believe this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugu#Regulations

@GW

Cooked fugu isnt an issue

Really? Also from the Wikipedia article, under 'Poison': "Tetrodotoxin is not affected by cooking." And there's a reference to a paper published by the HK Centre for Food Safety.

Seems to be something wrong with the thumbs up/down system. The last couple of times the effect was wrong. I clicked on 'good' but the positive numbers went down! (Yes, I'm completely sure I clicked on 'good', not on 'bad'.)

Yet if I, with my non-Japanese palate, put a bit of Tabasco on a bowl of noodles, to make it more enjoyable for me to eat, they look at me like I've started emptying my bladder into it.

Completely agree, l love the looks of horror when you get your meal and then make changes too it. Its hilarious to watch their faces.

Sounds like the time I ate my korokke with the 'wrong' sauce.

I don't think anyone has yet mentioned the hideous squeal of bicycle brakes; or the 'road-rules-for-cyclists-don't-exist' and 'everyone-will-keep-out-of-my-way' attitudes which seem so prevalent among the riders.

On the Hamshin expressway?!

I too would like a 24 hour timetable but, as Vernie pointed out, regular maintenance work such as replacing worn out rails is carried out between the last train at night and the first train in the morning.

@ExportExpert:

..., crime free, crime free, crime free and crime free.

You haven't heard about the groping, then?

My complaint is that the trains are over-heated in winter and over-cooled in summer. It amazes me that in a country with such widespread everyday application of modern technology, the climate control systems in trains seem to have only three settings: heating full blast, off, and cooling full blast.

Another improvement I would suggest is that the toilet cubicles should be fitted with high sensitivity smoke detectors finely tuned to tobacco smoke and linked to industrial strength sprinklers.

It does really taste very good, ...

Maybe it does but the taste doesn't come from the shark fin.

Heck, that's nothing compared to the U.S. national debt of over $15 TRILLION.

So the national debt of the USA is about 30 times that of Greece. Well, the population of the USA is about 30 times that of Greece too so their national debts per capita are about equal. More significantly, perhaps, the US national debt is about equal to its annual GDP whereas that of Greece is about 1.5 times its annual GDP. (Based on the $457 billion quoted in the article, and figures from Wikipedia and usdebtclock.org)

By the way, Japan has signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Children which states the following under Article 9:

"Parties shall respect the right of the child who is separated from one or both parents to maintain personal relations and direct contact with both parents on a regular basis, except if it is contrary to the child's best interests."

Japan continually violates this internationally guaranteed right.

Unfortunately Article 9 has a built-in loophole. The courts can simply rule that maintaining direct contact with both parents would be contrary to the child's best interests. Voila! No violation of any rights or conventions!

I think the Swiss school that educated needs to come clean about him - and why they took him.

I expect they took him because the fees were paid on time. Do they need any other reason?

The Let’snote S10 mobile notebook is intended for use in Japan.

I assumed that as soon as I saw its name.

Any child who will not eat food which looks like ordinary food is obviously not hungry.

Of course it's easy to say after the event, but that track looked horribly overcrowded, even on the 12th lap. With 34 cars on 1.5 miles of track, it's twice as crowded as the shortest Formula 1 tracks. And why did so many of the cars burst into flames? Of course they carry fuel but F1 cars don't seem to catch fire so easily.