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Clippings From Japan & Japanese Forteana

Walking Through Tokyo ... reverse camera acting is extremely difficult to manage to make look natural

 
Japanese railway company offers abject apology after train leaves station 20 seconds early

In a country where conductors beg forgiveness when a train is even a minute late, the Metropolitan Intercity Railway Co posted an apology on its website for "the severe inconvenience imposed upon our customers" when the No. 5255 Tsukuba Express train left Minami-Nagareyama station in Chiba, a suburban prefecture east of Tokyo, at 9.44:20am, instead of 9.44:40am as scheduled.

According to the statement, the train arrived at Minami-Nagareyama on time, at precisely 9.43:40am. But when it came time to leave, the over-eager crew closed the doors prematurely and pulled out of the station ahead of schedule.
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http://www.smh.com.au/world/japanes...station-20-seconds-early-20171116-gzn6fo.html

I have been on a subway in Singapore where they apologized for being one minute late. Here in Australia, they count arriving within 10 minutes as "on time".
 
I reckon a hologram of Billy Connolly on the drone would scare the workers out.

A Japanese firm is planning to use a drone to force employees out of their offices by playing music at them if they stay to work evening overtime.

The drone will fly through offices after hours playing Auld Lang Syne, which is commonly used to announce that stores are closing.

Japan has for years been trying to curb excessive overtime and the health issues and even deaths it can cause.

Experts were unimpressed, one branding it a "silly" idea.

According to Japanese media, office security and cleaning firm Taisei will develop the device with drone maker Blue Innovation and telecommunications company NTT East.

The camera-equipped drone will take flights through the office space playing the famous Scottish tune.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42275874
 
Religious and family infighting.

An attack believed to have been sparked by a succession feud has left three people dead at a well-known Shinto shrine in Tokyo.

The chief priestess was stabbed to death, reportedly by her brother. A bloodied Samurai sword was found at the scene, along with other knives.

The attacker's wife also took part in the ambush on Thursday evening, police say, injuring the priestess's driver.

The male attacker then stabbed his wife to death before killing himself.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42275875
 
Swifty said:
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Japan sets the world record for the most dancing mascots.

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460,000 views and no comments?

I'm envisioning hundreds of Japanese mums and dads watching their kids cavorting on stage in a dockyard in the middle of nowhere and thinking, " "I want to be an actor", he said, so we pay for five ****ing years at the Italia Conti stage school..."

maximus otter
 
maximus otter said:
460,000 views and no comments?

I'm envisioning hundreds of Japanese mums and dads watching their kids cavorting on stage in a dockyard in the middle of nowhere and thinking, " "I want to be an actor", he said, so we pay for five ****ing years at the Italia Conti stage school..."

maximus otter
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You'd be wrong there Max, these children are taken from their parents at birth and trained at the tops of mountains and in temples and stuff. With haunting pipe music on in the background.
 
I think we've all now heard of places where single men and women can hire 'fake' partners, but the business is expanding its scope in Japan:

How to Hire Fake Friends and Family
In Japan, you can pay an actor to impersonate your relative, spouse, coworker, or any kind of acquaintance.

Money may not be able to buy love, but here in Japan, it can certainly buy the appearance of love—and appearance, as the dapper Ishii Yuichi insists, is everything. As a man whose business involves becoming other people, Yuichi would know. The handsome and charming 36-year-old is on call to be your best friend, your husband, your father, or even a mourner at your funeral.

His 8-year-old company, Family Romance, provides professional actors to fill any role in the personal lives of clients. With a burgeoning staff of 800 or so actors, ranging from infants to the elderly, the organization prides itself on being able to provide a surrogate for almost any conceivable situation.

Yuichi believes that Family Romance helps people cope with unbearable absences or perceived deficiencies in their lives. In an increasingly isolated and entitled society, the CEO predicts the exponential growth of his business and others like it, as à la carte human interaction becomes the new norm.

I sat down recently with Yuichi in a café on the outskirts of Tokyo, to discuss his business and what it means to be, in the words of his company motto, “more than real.”

Interview that goes some way to explaining the cultural currents which have given birth to the industry:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/11/paying-for-fake-friends-and-family/545060/​
 
This is hart warming news.

Researchers in Japan have fitted a train with a speaker that barks like a dog and snorts like a deer in order to prevent collisions on the railway.

Tokyo's Asahi Shimbun newspaper reports that the combination of sounds is designed to scare deer away from the tracks in a bid to reduce the number of animal deaths on the railway.

Officials from the Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI) say that a three-second blast of the sound of a deer snorting attracts the animals' attention, and 20 seconds of dog barking is enough to make them take flight.

RTRI researchers say the late-night tests, at times when deer congregate around railway tracks, have resulted in a halving of deer sightings. If proved to be effective, future plans include static barking sites where deer are commonly seen, but "the noises will not be blared in areas where people live beside the tracks".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-42714353
 
They got a good deal on the materials.

A Japanese company is planning to build the world's tallest wooden skyscraper, to mark its 350th anniversary in 2041.

Sumitomo Forestry said 10% of the 70-storey W350 tower would be steel, combined with about 180,000 cubic metres of indigenous wood, enough to build about 8,000 homes, and trees and foliage on balconies at every level.

A "braced tube structure", diagonal steel vibration-control braces at the centre of a 350m (1,150ft) wood and steel column, would protect against Tokyo's regular earthquakes, it said.

The projected cost of the building is about 600bn yen (£4.02bn) - about twice the cost of a conventional skyscraper of the same size.

But Sumitomo said it expected costs to fall before completion due to technological breakthroughs.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42839463?ocid=socialflow_twitter
 
ramonmercado said:
A Japanese company is planning to build the world's tallest wooden skyscraper, to mark its 350th anniversary in 2041.
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If it goes well, they could branch-out into another one. (sorry, everyone wanted to say it. But I got there first....wood you believe it?)
 
ramonmercado said:
They got a good deal on the materials.

A Japanese company is planning to build the world's tallest wooden skyscraper, to mark its 350th anniversary in 2041.

Sumitomo Forestry said 10% of the 70-storey W350 tower would be steel, combined with about 180,000 cubic metres of indigenous wood, enough to build about 8,000 homes, and trees and foliage on balconies at every level.

A "braced tube structure", diagonal steel vibration-control braces at the centre of a 350m (1,150ft) wood and steel column, would protect against Tokyo's regular earthquakes, it said.

The projected cost of the building is about 600bn yen (£4.02bn) - about twice the cost of a conventional skyscraper of the same size.

But Sumitomo said it expected costs to fall before completion due to technological breakthroughs.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42839463?ocid=socialflow_twitter
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Sounds like fire waiting to happen. Just a few sparks from electrical installations could ignite the whole shit. It's easy to control in a normal house, but a 70 storey building? In Norway they're working on a wooden high rise: https://www.aftenposten.no/kultur/i/JdzMJ/81-meter-hoyt-trehus-i-Brumunddal-setter-verdensrekord
 
Bizarre, I wonder how the Japanese courts would treat this if he tried to bring the children there.

A Bangkok court has awarded paternity rights to a Japanese man over 13 babies he fathered through Thai surrogate mothers.

The ruling allows Mitsutoki Shigeta, 28, to pursue custody of the children.

The son of a wealthy entrepreneur, he caused controversy in 2014 when he was revealed to have fathered at least 16 babies via surrogates in Thailand.

His so-called "baby factory" case and others led to Thailand banning commercial surrogacy for foreigners.

Mr Shigeta, who was not present at the trial, was awarded "sole parent" rights after the Thai surrogates forfeited their rights, according to the court, which did not name him.

"For the happiness and opportunities which the 13 children will receive from their biological father, who does not have a history of bad behaviour, the court rules that all 13 born from surrogacy to be legal children of the plaintiff," Bangkok's Central Juvenile Court said in a statement. ...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-43123658
 
Yo didi Yo didi Yo didi Yo didi MONSTER'S EXERCISE :exercise:

 
Almost as frightening as a farmer.

'Super Monster Wolf' a success in Japan farming trials
By News from Elsewhere......as found by BBC Monitoring 6 March 2018
  • _100317907_gettyimages-838694574.jpg
    Image copyrightTORU YAMANAKA/AFP
Image captionSuper Monster Wolf strikes fear into the hearts of easily-fooled wild boar
A robot wolf designed to protect farms has proved to be such a success in trials that it is going into mass production next month.

The "Super Monster Wolf" is a 65cm-long, 50cm-tall robot animal covered with realistic-looking fur, featuring huge white fangs and flashing red eyes, Asahi Television reports.

It's been designed to keep wild boar away from rice and chestnut crops, and was deployed on a trial basis near Kisarazu City in Japan's eastern Chiba prefecture last July.

When it detects an approaching animal, its eyes light up and it starts to howl, Asahi TV says. Its manufacturers say the robot wolf uses solar-rechargeable batteries and has a range of howl noises so that animal threats don't get used to it.

The Japan Agricultural Cooperatives say that crop losses have noticeably decreased in areas where the Super Monster Wolf has been present. Beforehand, farmers around Kisarazu were resigned to giving up at least part of their crops to wild boar every year.

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-43303781#
 

This is just too-good not to emulate.

Or at least try to emulate.

I wonder whether there's a national average (in a mean/mode/median sense)?

And is this so dense, that it possesses true...heft?
 
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