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Japan

Wearing someone else's face: Hyper-realistic masks to go on sale in Japan
Akira Tomoshige

TOKYO (Reuters) - A year into the coronavirus epidemic, a Japanese retailer has come up with a new take on the theme of facial camouflage - a hyper-realistic mask that models a stranger's features in three dimensions.

Shuhei Okawara's masks won't protect you or others against the virus. But they will lend you the exact appearance of an unidentified Japanese adult whose features have been printed onto them.

"Mask shops in Venice probably do not buy or sell faces. But that is something that's likely to happen in fantasy stories," Okawara told Reuters.

"I thought it would be fun to actually do that."
The masks will go on sale early next year for 98,000 yen ($950) apiece at his Tokyo shop, Kamenya Omote, whose products are popular as accessories for parties and theatrical performance.

See video:
https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN28Q194?__twitter_impression=true
 
Cute ... but nowt as good as the original.
Also about as relevant to the lyrics as when ToTP put up a photo of Jocky Wilson behind Dexy's or dressed Legs and Co. in Pierrot costumes to dance to the Bee Gee's Tragedy.
 
The end of floppy disks in Japan?

Japan's digital minister has "declared war" on floppy disks and other retro tech used by the country's bureaucrats.

Around 1,900 government procedures still require businesses to use the storage devices, plus CDs and mini-discs, Taro Kono said. He said regulations would be updated to allow people to use online services.

Despite its reputation for innovative high-tech gadgetry, Japan is notorious for clinging to outmoded technology through its office culture.
Floppy disks - so-called because the original products were bendable - were created in the late 1960s, but were falling out of fashion three decades later thanks to more efficient storage solutions. More than 20,000 typical disks would be needed to replicate an average memory stick storing 32GB of information.

But the legacy of the square-shaped device can still be witnessed to this day, as their visual appearance inspired the traditional "save" icon. A Japanese government committee has discovered about 1,900 areas in which businesses are required to use storage media like floppy disks when making applications or holding data.

During a news conference on Tuesday, Mr Kono also criticised the country's lingering use of other outdated technology.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-62749310
 
An interesting and disturbing case.

A Japanese man who was on death row for nearly half a century has been granted a retrial.

Iwao Hakamada, now 87, is the world's longest-serving death row inmate, according to Amnesty International. He was sentenced to death in 1968 for murdering his boss, the man's wife and their two children in 1966.

The former professional boxer confessed after 20 days of interrogation during which he said he was beaten. He later retracted the confession in court.

Rights groups have criticised Japan's reliance on confessions, which they say police often obtain by force.

In the retrial, judges will rule on whether DNA from blood stains found on clothing alleged to have been worn by the killer matches Mr Hakamada's. His lawyers had argued that it did not and that the evidence was fabricated.

Iwao Hakamada was arrested and accused of robbing and killing his employer and his family at a miso or soybean processing factory in Shizuoka west of Tokyo in 1966. They were found stabbed to death after a fire.

In 2014, Hakamada was released from jail and granted a retrial by a district court, which found investigators could have planted evidence. The decision was then overturned by Tokyo's high court. But, following an appeal, Supreme Court judges directed the high court to reconsider, leading to the ruling that a retrial should now go ahead.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-64938840
 
ramonmercado said:
The end of floppy disks in Japan?

Japan's digital minister has "declared war" on floppy disks and other retro tech used by the country's bureaucrats.

Around 1,900 government procedures still require businesses to use the storage devices, plus CDs and mini-discs, Taro Kono said. He said regulations would be updated to allow people to use online services.

Despite its reputation for innovative high-tech gadgetry, Japan is notorious for clinging to outmoded technology through its office culture.
Floppy disks - so-called because the original products were bendable - were created in the late 1960s, but were falling out of fashion three decades later thanks to more efficient storage solutions. More than 20,000 typical disks would be needed to replicate an average memory stick storing 32GB of information.

But the legacy of the square-shaped device can still be witnessed to this day, as their visual appearance inspired the traditional "save" icon. A Japanese government committee has discovered about 1,900 areas in which businesses are required to use storage media like floppy disks when making applications or holding data.

During a news conference on Tuesday, Mr Kono also criticised the country's lingering use of other outdated technology.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-62749310
Click to expand...

Still more advanced than the tech this forum uses.....

telephone-operators-on-job.jpg
Telephone_operators,_1952.jpg
 

The Japanese train station in the middle of nowhere​

By Jack Dona · Thursday, 17 November 2022

Seiryu-Miharashi-station-by-Escape-Kit.jpg
Credit: Escape Kit.

Deep inside the inland jungle of southwest Japan, along the winding udon noodle of the Nishiki River, is a train station. That mightn’t seem like a big deal. There are train stations all over Japan. So what?

In typical Japanese fashion, this station isn’t quite what it seems…

There’s no vending machine, no billboards trying to sell you something, no ticket booths or gates, and no way of getting in or out – except by train. It’s a station in the middle of nowhere.

But it wasn’t built to be a Japanese game show prank.

Seiryu Miharashi Station in Japan’s Yamaguchi prefecture was built for a much purer purpose: as a viewing platform where you can stop to take in the bends of the Nishiki as it snakes its way through towering mountains thick with foliage.

In the words of Ferris Bueller, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Yes, this train station in the middle of Japanese nowhere was purpose-built to simply ‘be’, inviting travellers who decide to take the train along the Nishikigawa Seiryu Line to just ‘be’ too.

How to get to Seiryu Miharashi station​

You can reach Seiryu Miharashi station by catching the Nishikigawa Seiryu Line, which runs from Iwakuni station all the way to a place that I haven’t the tongue strength to pronounce: Nishikimachifukagawa.

You’ll only be able to get to Seiryu Miharashi station via a special train service which will drop you off, and then chug its way down the line. You’ll then have ample time to take in the beauty of your natural surroundings while you wait for the next train to pick you up.

Source:
https://mozo.com.au/insurance/trave...panese-train-station-in-the-middle-of-nowhere
 
Space debris over Japan. Vid at link.

WATCH: Space debris fireball lights up Japan skies​

A fireball that streaked across the sky in southern Japan may have been caused by space debris from a Chinese rocket.

The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan said it observed the incident at 11:00 local time (16:00 BST). It said the movement of the objects suggested it was not a meteorite but "looked exactly like the atmospheric entry of debris from a rocket" possibly from a Chinese launch in November.

The space junk was predicted to land in the sea and posed no danger to residents.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-65555696
 
ramonmercado said:
Space debris over Japan. Vid at link.

WATCH: Space debris fireball lights up Japan skies​

A fireball that streaked across the sky in southern Japan may have been caused by space debris from a Chinese rocket.

The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan said it observed the incident at 11:00 local time (16:00 BST). It said the movement of the objects suggested it was not a meteorite but "looked exactly like the atmospheric entry of debris from a rocket" possibly from a Chinese launch in November.

The space junk was predicted to land in the sea and posed no danger to residents.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-65555696
Click to expand...
The last time space junk hit Japan, Space Godzilla was the result!

tumblr_p4730chfwQ1wzw0ebo1_500.gif
 
The Joker gets 23 years.

A Japanese court has sentenced a man to 23 years in prison for stabbing a passenger and setting a fire on a Tokyo express train while dressed in a Joker costume on Halloween two years ago.

The Tachikawa branch of Tokyo District Court found Kyota Hattori, 26, guilty of attempted murder for stabbing and seriously injuring a male passenger in his 70s and of spraying lighter fluid in the train car and then lighting it to try to kill others.


Twelve people were injured by the fire, most of them not seriously.

During the trial, Hattori told the court he was so shocked when he learned his girlfriend had married someone else only six months after they broke up that he decided to carry out the attack so he could end his life by receiving the death penalty, NHK public television reported.

1690800909838_0.jpg--.jpg

Judge Yu Takeshita said the attack was an “indiscriminate crime with a selfish motive that targeted many passengers who happened to be on the train”.

Prosecutors had sought 25 years in prison, arguing that the attack was premeditated and that Hattori had deliberately chosen a special express train that makes fewer stops so passengers would have less chance of escaping.

https://www.ireland-live.ie/news/wo...years-for-halloween-stab-attack-on-train.html
 
I think there;s a previous post regarding this clown But I can't find it.

American nuisance streamer Johnny Somali (real name: Ramsey Khalid Ismael), who traveled to Japan and filmed himself threatening to kill Japanese people with nuclear weapons, was formally charged with the crime of forcefully obstructing a business's operation. The business in question was an Osaka restaurant, where he played extremely loud music and harassed the staff.

From Dexerto:

A report from The Mainichi states that on October 12, Osaka Prefectural Police arrested both Somali and another American man on suspicion of "forcible obstruction of business" after broadcasting inside of a restaurant in Osaka's Chuo Ward.
Johnny Somali is a controversial Kick streamer who is known for making offensive remarks toward locals in Japan.
Investigators say that Somali was "disrupting the business of restaurants" in Osaka, with examples being entering the kitchen while streaming and playing loud music.
Click to expand...

https://boingboing.net/2023/11/07/n...officially-charged-with-a-crime-in-japan.html
 
There's been an increase in such You Tuber's lousy behaviour in Japan recently: this corresponds to the rise in childish 'prank' video channels.


Thing is, there's a reticence to 'make a fuss' but now it seems that enough is enough.
 
Folk healing in Medieval Japan: a holistic approach.

The tools in a medieval Japanese healer's toolkit: From fortunetelling and exorcism to herbal medicines​


The tools in a medieval Japanese healer's toolkit: from fortunetelling and exorcism to herbal medicines


An ‘onmyoji,’ an expert on yin and yang, performs divination with counting rods in an Edo-period illustration. Credit: Kyoto University Library/Wikimedia

"The Tale of Genji," often called Japan's first novel, was written 1,000 years ago. Yet it still occupies a powerful place in the Japanese imagination. A popular TV drama, "Dear Radiance"—"Hikaru kimi e"—is based on the life of its author, Murasaki Shikibu: the lady-in-waiting whose experiences at court inspired the refined world of "Genji."

Romantic relationships, poetry and political intrigue provide most of the novel's action. Yet illness plays an important role in several crucial moments, most famously when one of the main character's lovers, Yūgao, falls ill and passes away, killed by what appears to be a powerful spirit—as later happens to his wife, Aoi, as well.

Someone reading "The Tale of Genji" at the time it was written would have found this realistic—as would some people in different cultures around the world today. Records from early medieval Japan document numerous descriptions of spirit possession, usually blamed on spirits of the dead. As has been true in many times and places, physical and spiritual health were seen as intertwined.

As a historian of premodern Japan, I've studied the processes its healing experts used to deal with possessions, and illness generally. Both literature and historical records demonstrate that the boundaries between what are often called "religion" and "medicine" were indistinct, if they existed at all. ...

https://phys.org/news/2024-03-tools-medieval-japanese-healer-toolkit.html
 
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