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Something strange is happening
Something strange is happening in the world of broadcast news. Live announcers are slowly being replaced by virtual actors and synthesized voices. Last spring, Ananova hit the scene. She reads the news for the UK’s Press Association. Shortly after Ananova began broadcasting, Sprint introduced Chase Walker, an interactive news announcer, to appear via their ION…
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Trival Difference #428 There’s
Trival Difference #428 There’s never enough toast on lazy weekend mornings. Loaves of white bread in Japan are about half the length of American loaves. During the week, this is convenient since we always finish the bread before it turns stale. By careful purchasing, I can maximise our toast. Loaves are normally pre-cut into 6…
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Corporate stupidity is mind
Corporate stupidity is mind boggling. I am writing a newsletter and one of my contacts doesn’t want to publish the names of the management team. I won’t quote her most recent e-mail, but she’s worried that things will change. Things always change. Why not give some information now and deal with the changes in the…
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Japanese OTC cold medicines
Japanese OTC cold medicines are a little bit intimidating. The rules are different here so Japanese medications are not always the same as the ones I’m familiar with.. Certain cough medicine ingredients that I’ve taken in America are illegal here, but codeine is easily obtained in cold preparations. The packages try to make it easy…
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The government of Japan
The government of Japan recently reorganized itself. It streamlined 23 federal agencies into 13. Some of the changes made sense. The Education Ministry and the Science and Technology Ministry were combined. Similarly Heath & Welfare and Labor were married. Those all sort of go together with similar goals and probably some overlapping programs. But some…
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As we walked outside
As we walked outside last night, I felt the air and commented, “It’s going to snow tonight, I think.” A few hours later, my weather sense was proven true. We had a nice little snowfall of about an inch or so. Rooves and trees were coated white; roads were slushy. By this morning the snow…
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Tokyo’s firefighters are well
Tokyo’s firefighters are well prepared for fires and other emergencies, and they proved it to the public yesterday at their annual New Years Fire Review. In a program organized down to the minute (10:51 March of Firefighters; 10:59 Parade of Fire Apparatus), the city’s fire service strutted their stuff. From commendations to stunts to a…
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Last night after dinner,
Last night after dinner, our dining companion took us down the street and around the corner. “Here it is,” he said. We were standing in front of BoPeep, a tiny walk-in closet of a shop. With just room enough for a single file of customers, the store was crammed floor to ceiling with drug paraphenalia…
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I got lost in
I got lost in my own train station yesterday. When the Odeo subway line opened last month, Kasuga station was enlarged to include access to the new line. In fact, the Oedo line forms a perpendicular bridge between the parallel Kasuga and Korakuen stations. So when I got off the Odeo line yesterday on my…
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Fukubukuro are grab bags
Fukubukuro are grab bags for grown-ups. The name means lucky (fuku) bag (bukuro) and it is just that. For a set amount of money, you select a sealed shopping bag full of merchandise. You get at least as much as you paid for and if you are lucky, you get more. I decided to search…
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