Gen Kanai weblog
Japanese and American in Japan and America
Clay Shirky @ Web 2.0 Expo
(Apr 26)
Long Duk Dong: Last of the Hollywood Stereotypes?
(Mar 25)
NPR on Gedde Watanabe and Sixteen Candles. I am definitely among those who always winced at Watanabe's role in Sixteen Candles. It's amazing to think that the actor, a) does not speak Japanese, and b) had no idea how his role would have had such an impact on pop-culture and Asian-American stereotypes. I guess he was too young to realize.
It's good to see the Giant Robot guys still doing well. I met them when they were still struggling in the late 90s when I was working for Toyota in LA.
In 1984, when Sixteen Candles came out, some Asian-American groups decried Long Duk Dong as stereotypical, racist and part of a long history of Hollywood's offensive depictions of Asian men.
"It took me a while to understand that," Watanabe says. "In fact, I was working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and I was accosted a couple of times by a couple of women who were just really irate and angry. They asked, 'How could you do a role like that?' But it's funny, too, because at the same time I...
Red Sox vs. Hanshin Tigers
(Mar 22)
Stephen O'Grady will be very jealous.
I get to see the Sox vs. the Hanshin Tigers here at the Tokyo Dome today thanks to a good friend.
this week went by too fast
(Mar 21)
Some links of note...
What I Learned at (Mashup) Camp:
There was one common denominator, however: JavaScript. Nearly everyone was using it in some capacity, and one or two applications were nearly 100% JavaScript.
Apple pushing Safari downloads on Windows users: It now appears that the Cupertino-based company aspires to use the advantage presented by the Software Update mechanism to muscle its way further up the browser charts at the expense Microsoft's Internet Explorer and other third-party Windows browsers. Where By ?Interesting?, I Mean ?Annoying?: This is disgraceful. It fails the user in favor of serving Apple. It is, in fact, malware-level tactics.
More Kotoeri (Japanese input) tips: Note that in OS X 10.5, there is a fair amount of (Japanese) Koeteri input method help in English accessible by choosing 'Koeteri Help' in the Input menu.
Gyao vs. magibon
(Mar 18)
Gyao, a subsidiary of Japanese broadband ISP Usen, looks to be jumping on the YouTube bandwagon. magibon is the faux-Japanese lonelygirl15, who has a huge following (many of her short videos have over 1 million views on YouTube) among otaku worldwide.
A few months from now, we'll see magibon with representation in Japan and then all over the mainstream media like Leah Dizon.
I don't ever use Gyao because their platform requires Windows/Internet Explorer.
Firefox as a platform
(Mar 16)
I don't write about my work at Mozilla on this blog as I have another blog (with comments that work) where I post all of my Mozilla-related information. However, this recent article with Mozila CEO, John Lilly, Forget Facebook. The Web's platform is Firefox by Matt Asay is a great overview of why I love working at Mozilla and why it's such an exciting time to be working on the web.
Trend Micro website hacked
(Mar 13)
Asiajin reports that anti-virus software vendor, Trend Micro's website was hacked recently, and the hackers were then serving various viruses for 3 (!!!) days, March 9-12th) from the Trend Micro website. There's a statement on the Japanese website but no statement on any of the English or other language news sites.
If a security services/software firm can't keep their own web servers secured, and left their own hacked website up for 3 days, there's no logical reason to expect that their own security services are any better.
HEY TREND MICRO! DISCLOSE THE BREACH IN ENGLISH ASAP! TRYING TO HIDE THIS WON'T WORK!
The probable reason Trend Micro's website was hacked? They're running Windows 2000 (is Microsoft even supporting Windows 2000 Server anymore?)
Katz on the potential of Japanese economic reform
(Mar 13)
Richard Katz of The Oriental Economist has a very good op-ed in the WSJ, Japan's Stress Test, on the topic of the challenges facing Japanese economic reform. Katz summarizes his points in a recent post to NBR.
To quickly summarize my views, I see two obstacles to growth, one on the supply side and one on the demand side.
1) Supply side obstacles. Growth is the sum of how many additional people are working plus how much more each person can produce. With the working age population falling and more people working only part-time, the sole source of GDP growth has been productivity growth. Reforms that exposes firms to fiercer Darwinian competition will bring Japan's myriad backward sectors up to world benchmarks, and improve overall potential growth. This can certainly be combined with social safety net features and other measures so that, while some current firms and jobs will disappear, individuals are protected, true security is enhanced and income equality is restored.
2) Deman...
Yahoo! Dethroned in Taiwan
(Mar 13)
Wretch.cc now #1 site (by traffic) in Taiwan. If the reported purchase price is true, it was a very good purchase.
Wretch.cc was ranked the top Web site in Taiwan in a top-100 list tabulated by Business Next, a local magazine, and Taiwan's Access Rating Online (ARO).
...
But despite Yahoo's best attempts to keep up with new features such as blogs, Wretch.cc continued to grow and gain popularity. It proved such a difficult battle that Yahoo Taiwan finally used cash to end the battle, buying Wretch.cc for an undisclosed sum. Local newspaper reports valued the deal at NT$700 million (US$22.7 million).
Yahoo Taiwan came in second in the ranking overall, but it remained number one against other Internet portals.
Rounding out the top five overall Web sites in Taiwan, PChome Online came in third, Yam.com ranked fourth, and Gamer.com took fifth place in the Business Next/ARO list.
The U.S. version of Google ranked first among search engines, and 14th overall, while Google Taiwan came i...
WWNPHD
(Mar 9)
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WWNPHD, originally uploaded by the sweetchuck.
