Archive for November, 2011

Asashoryu Fined For Breaching Pachinko Promotion Contract

A Tokyo court has ordered former sumo grand champion Asashoryu to pay financial compensation to a pachinko parlor company:

Here are some details about the lawsuit, from an article filed before the court decision:

The Tokyo-based promotion company argues in the suit filed with the Tokyo District Court that Asashoryu did not appear at customer attraction events planned at two pachinko parlors in Saitama Prefecture in a tie-up with the other company, based in Sapporo.

The plaintiff claims the Sapporo company offered to hold the events last summer promising that Asashoryu would participate. But he failed to show up saying he had not been approached about any such appearances.

The court ruled in favor of the plaintiff, finding that Asashoryu had agreed to the contract and had failed to carry out his end of the agreement. The company was seeking 15 million yen in damages, but the court decided on about 9.5 million yen ($124,000) instead.

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Protecting Against Tsunamis

PBS takes a look at how Japanese and American scientists and engineers are studying techniques to protect coastal areas from tsunami damage:

Although there were several notable cases of towns with breakwaters and seawalls suffering heavy damage on March 11th, researchers still believe that both methods can be helpful. It seems that breakwaters do indeed weaken the force of tsunamis, and things could have been a lot worse if some of those towns had absolutely no breakwater. But, as March 11th demonstrated, it is a mistake to only count on protective barriers. There also needs to be a good evacuation plan in place, and people need to follow it.

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Japanese National Anthem Drowned Out By North Korean Boos

A week ago, I posted about how a small group of Japanese soccer fans would be traveling to Pyongyang. Here is the follow-up:

On Tuesday, the Japan national soccer team traveled to North Korea to play against the DPRK team in a World Cup qualifier match. Japan had already won enough games to qualify, and North Korea had already lost enough games to ruin its changes of qualifying. But, since it had been 20 years since the DPRK last hosted a match against Japan, it was an important match for the North Koreans.

The match ended in an upset: North Korean defeated Japan 1-0. It was Japan’s first loss in 15 matches.

Several explanations have been thrown around about why Japan lost. North Korea fielded its best players into the game, while Japan did not; it was the first time Japanese players had played on astroturf; the North Koreans had to win or they’d face punishment, and so on.

The Japanese media, however, seems to have given particular attention to the unfair treatment of Japanese fans and the rude behavior of North Korean fans. Here’s a short report from Fuji TV:

• The number of Japanese fans was restricted to about 100 people. The other 50,000 people were North Korean fans.

• When the Japanese national anthem was played, the North Koreans booed and shouted so much that one could barely even hear the melody. ( As a contrast, the TV program plays a clip from a DPRK-Japan match hosted in Japan, where Japanese spectators respectfully did not boo during the North Korean anthem.)
• Japanese fans were banned from bringing noise makers and flags into the stadium. The North Korean fans didn’t have any such restriction, and were making a huge amount of noise. They even spelled out giant slogans, as if it were the Mass Games.

The situation is quite different from past incidents involving rude fans in South Korea or China. In those cases, authorities try to prevent rudeness. The same cannot be said for North Korea.

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Japan Still Has World’s Fastest Super Computer

A super computer developed by a state-funded research project has retained its No. 1 ranking as the world’s fastest computer in computing speed:

The supercomputer, nicknamed “K” and being developed jointly with Fujitsu Ltd. at the institute’s facility in Kobe, retained the top post, which it first captured in June as the first Japanese computer to do so in seven years.

The feat came amid intense competition as countries race to develop ever-faster supercomputers to conduct simulations in research and development in the fields of science, industry and military.

“K” draws upon the Japanese word “kei” for 10 to the 16th power, with the word representing the system’s performance goal of 10 petaflops. One petaflop is the equivalent of 1,000 trillion operations per second.

This computer project was all over the news in 2009, when DPJ politician Ren Ho suggested that the Japanese government should save taxpayer money by slashing budgets for scientific research、and that it wasn’t really worth it for Japan to build the world’s best super computer.

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Japanese Bartender Drinks Beer in One Second

A video of a bartender in Hamamatsu who has some amazing drinking skills:

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Mocking The Nissan Townpod

On December 3rd, the 2011 Tokyo Motor Show will begin at the Tokyo Big Sight. One of the automobiles on display will be the Nissan Townpod, a “fashionable” zero emission concept car.

If you think it looks weird, you aren’t alone. Here are a few look-alike images posted by Japanese users of the 2-channel forums (via Itai News):

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