timtak comments

Posted in: Princess Mako marries after years of controversy See in context

zichi

Yes, it has been five years. Thank you for noticing. I have left off commenting here, as a general rule, but this piece of news, and the desire to comment on it brought me back.

The British royal family does not have a dominating household [agency] like the one in the Japanese imperial family.

I am not sure the fictional unqualified paralegal's love interest would agree.

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Posted in: Princess Mako marries after years of controversy See in context

A male member of the British royal family marries a woman who starred in a television series about, and as the love interest of, a guy who worked as a paralegal in New York even though he had not graduated from law school.

A female member of the Japanese royal family marries a man who works as a paralegal in New York even though he has not graduated from law school.

I feel like I suffering from Truman Show syndrome during a script writer strike.

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Posted in: Husband, wife found dead in apparent murder-suicide See in context

If you really must go, please DON'T take others with you!

This is the wrong way around. If you murder someone then you may have the decency to punish yourself, if you are Japanese .

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Posted in: Half-Indian elephant trainer crowned Miss Japan See in context

There is research showing that Japanese think that Japanese looks are unattractive (Kowner, 2004 http://goo.gl/gMignP). I would say that majority of fashion models are or look haaf, very much in contrast to ideals of the Edo period (http://goo.gl/Do0O94) when the Japanese still thought that Europeans looked grotesque (http://goo.gl/pkPzML).

3 ( +6 / -3 )

Posted in: Cyclist falls onto tracks, then is hit and killed after bike flung into him by train See in context

@Bill Murphy

The people in this country are not the most situationally aware so

There is a lot of research which demonstrates the reverse, that Japanese are more aware of the surrounding situation than Westerners who tend to be more narrow-focused. This research is summarised in PowerPoint slides here http://goo.gl/A3qhax.

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Posted in: Anti-doping agencies ask for whistleblower protection See in context

Lance Armstrong austensibly never failed a test but was eventually outed by whistleblowers the first several of which he trashed. They needed protection. But then cycling teams will get the Mafia in to enforce a code on silence. "Blow the whistle and we whack you on the track."

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Posted in: Wider role needed for 'womenomics' to succeed See in context

HR in Japan is still lagging behind in this respect, partly due to a lack of real HR specialists. This means that they are less effective in developing the talent that the organisation needs”.>

What a lot of utter shoot. Lagging behind who or what? Human Resources in Japan facilitated and based in on the job training which in Japan is second to none. There is no "I have the theory, therefore I can do it," carp.

Womenomics presuppose that women want to get involved in going out to work and earning money, which Japanese women would rather leave to the men, and why not, because they control the family finances and the men's wage packet. The presumption that women should or would like to be wage earners is a whole lot of cobblers.

@JeffLee

Japan's economy performed brilliantly when the participation of females was highly limited and the participation rate tiny. So, duh, that should tell the Einsteins that this issue is not where the solution lies.

Yess. 100%

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Posted in: So sorry See in context

They are making excuses too. Apparently Mitsubishi carried out the fuel efficience tests multiple times, and rather than taking the average they chose the test instances that had the most favourable data. At this session, after bowing (rather briefly methinks) the chairman claimed that their selection of favourable data was "not in breach of the law". The government results showed fuel efficiency at up to 8.8% less than those published by Mitsubishi! You can see the (3.5s?) bow here at about 50 seconds in http://www.fnn-news.com/news/headlines/articles/CONN00334805.html

I used to have Mitsubishi light van which was utterly reliable, great to drive, and the fuel efficiency was fantastic. I never believe published fuel efficiency figures, which vary according to how you drive.

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Posted in: Tokyo ward official beats taxi driver for not going way he told him to See in context

I have learnt lots of cool shortcuts from taxi drivers. They always know the fastest keast congested routes.

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Posted in: Majority want Abe to stay on until Tokyo 2020 Olympics: poll See in context

Gary Raynor's posts are good. There is cultural psychological research demonstrating that the Japanese "regulatory focus" is prevention of bad things rather than achievement of "success." This is probably in large part because, as Gary says, they are pretty content. Hamamura, T. (2008). Approach-avoidance motivation across cultures (Doctoral dissertation, University of British Columbia). https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0066470

2 ( +6 / -4 )

Posted in: Top 5 myths about learning Japanese See in context

Japanese is regular, genderless, without declension, or articles, and has an amazing structured vocabulary. The problem is that it is back to front compared to English, and adverbial clauses are back to front inside that forcing learners of each to tie their mind into a painful spiral.

E.g. I spoke to the man who came from America is America from came man to spoke (アメリカから来た男に話した)

This means that before making senses learners of both Japanese and English are required to say several words which do not make sense to themselves before receiving conformation from their interlocutor, who may not understand them, requiring them to say more (potentially and to themselves) gibberish.

This long dive into non-meaning is the problem. Non-meaning is found to be as terrifying as death (Heine, Proulx, Vohs, 2006).

I find that practising speaking gibberish, like Sid Ceasar https://youtu.be/iL7efWcaVnk?t=1m or me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2mI0X6p07o helps overcome this fear of non meaning. Please try it. Generally people agree that despite the fact that gibberish has no tenses, grammar, vocabulary, gender, articles, you name it, gibberish is more difficult than any foreign language. It is not the difficultly of the language, but the fear of non-meaning, chaos, mental death that is the barrier to language. This is why people who learn one can subsequently learn many more because they learn how to let go of their own language and dive in.

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Posted in: Top 5 myths about learning Japanese See in context

1 That Japanese is difficult.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Posted in: Japanese scientists detect rare, deep-Earth tremor See in context

Godzilla is coming.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Posted in: Yosakoi festival See in context

But one is not allowed to join in.

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Posted in: Resting easy See in context

"Life Ending" may be a translation of the recentish buzzword "shukatsu" 終活 (lit "end activity" or "end life" punning on job seeking 就活 and related to partner seeking konkatsu 婚活) . For those that have missed the expo there is a shukatsu festa in Tokyo from September 11th http://www.shukatsu-fesuta.com/index.html

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Posted in: Why Super Mario has global appeal See in context

Mario turns its players Japanese, by letting them see themselves, as something cute, genki and lovable: a feature not shared by Western first person shooters such as COD (Masuda & Ishii, in preparation). Mario excemplifies the core of Japanese culture, provided by the mirror in the hearts: autoscopy.

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Posted in: Orlando Bloom visits Japan to promote British Airways' 787-9 Dreamliner flights from London to Narita See in context

I enjoy an evening run around Imperial Palace in Tokyo with its stunning views.

So that is how he stays that trim. Google says he wears a baseball cap and often red-tinted round sunglasses while jogging, possibly with fellowJapanophile Katy Perry.

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Posted in: Abe's Super Mario act gets social media buzzing in Japan See in context

Mario should go to pearl harbour.

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Posted in: Let's make Tokyo best Games ever, says Abe See in context

@ThonTaddeo

I had not thought of that angle. Very interesting, plausible and, for those that will die and their families, very sad. At the same time, remembering Hiroshima, and especially Nagasaki is imho good, and important.

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Posted in: Let's make Tokyo best Games ever, says Abe See in context

"Lets say fatuous things", say most Japanese politicians a lot of the time, because the point of the event was the photo -- of Abe merging with palpable success personified in the four runners -- that Abe posed for, not the "begging" or "melodrama" that came from his mouth. The fatuous aspirations and requests were merely the context for the photographic main event. In Japan context (Hall, 1959) and focus are reversed.

Tokyo 1964 and Mexico 1968 were held in October. Why not 2020? It is strange. The only (lame) reason I have seen is to avoid typhoons that usually start later in August. The real reason is likely to be television viewing figures but I am not sure why the Japanese should care that much. It is not as if they are hoping to break even. Perhaps they want as many visitors as possible, to come during the long European summer holidays, and alas die of heatstroke. Who made this decision?

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Posted in: Japan's relay silver came from technique and teamwork See in context

Johnnymac57

Where in what video? I note that Cambridge is almost drafting Bolt towards the tape but his feet look to be just inside of his lane.

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Posted in: Japan's relay silver came from technique and teamwork See in context

Stunning. Best result for me too. Here is the full NHK video that I have watched quite a few times. https://youtu.be/2RWr2KwBoIY. It reminded me of those Cup Noodle commercials, especially this one https://youtu.be/0kg-dP56HS4 that make you doubt your eyes and wonder, "what is that Japanese guy doing there?" But the dream was real.

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Posted in: Olympic excellence now leads to whispers of cheating See in context

I think that the out of competition testing varies considerably country to country. JADCO's reputation is far from stellar https://goo.gl/vRCEDM. I am not sure about the UK but blood doping, micro-dosing at night are very difficult to detect. Blood doping within controlled hematocrit levels is afaik, essentially impossible to detect since the athletes only inject their own blood cells. I believe that in the UK athletes are not tested in the time between 9pm and 6am, unless forewarned, which makes micro-dosing almost undetectable https://goo.gl/xNeE3V. Tyler Hamilton details the use of micro dosing and testosteron patches in his book, summarised here https://goo.gl/QOJktp. You would be shocked about the Brits, but I would not. A British journalist tested the doping passport, micro dosed EPO, improved his performance by 7% and and passed the test http://goo.gl/okMSKl.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Posted in: Olympic excellence now leads to whispers of cheating See in context

I think that a considerable proportion of the winners have taken steroids and or human grown hormone during their training, when depending upon where they are, they are rarely tested. I think that in the former case this can cause a lot of bags under the eyes in young people, and latter case this may explain the prevalence of long jaws/chins, though of course, many have these features naturally. I still enjoy watching these super people perform.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Posted in: How much exercise will lower chronic disease risk? See in context

That is interesting because there is a viral video by a doctor who draws who recommends 30 minutes walking a day (30 2 7) or 42 MET minutes per week. https://youtu.be/aUaInS6HIGo?t=4m42s At the 4:42 mark he says, "More activity better but the rate of return seems to decline after 20 or 30 minutes." I did not believe the doctor so much, but I believe this study. Of course, a little is a lot better than none.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Posted in: Kaneto, Murphy, Phelps pick up gold; Manuel, Oleksiak share freestyle gold in dead heat See in context

Many folks are commenting that come-back girl Rie Kaneto looks like Homare Sawa, the great, long-playing football star. I am a fan of both. https://goo.gl/i23lOK But, what is similar about their faces?

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Posted in: Bolt wins third consecutive Olympic 100-meter gold See in context

For 9.81 glorious seconds on Sunday, all the ills that have dogged athletics recently were forgotten

Bolt, who has upper body muscles like a body builder, rather jogs my memory. http://i.imgur.com/bI6L3jK.jpg

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Posted in: Farah survives fall to retain 10,000-meter title; Thompson new sprint queen See in context

Farah's fall is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieRlLK_PSa0 The final few hundred metres is here (but it wiil be removed) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pq3nlGs440k Wow.

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Posted in: Murray wins tennis gold; Nishikori beats Nadal for bronze See in context

Great news and an inconic picture of Nishikori, looking like a secondary student, enhaloed by the Japanese flag. Another version here http://tinyurl.com/juh5z6c

2 ( +6 / -4 )

Posted in: Why do Olympic medalists bite their medals when they are on the podium? See in context

@browny1

Now I've become one with Shiraz.

Thus, fruity, full-bodied, with considerable aging potential. We are what we bite.

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