Gen Kanai weblogJapanese and American in Japan and AmericaLong Duk Dong: Last of the Hollywood Stereotypes- March 25, 2008 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...http://www.kanai.net/weblog/archive/2008/03/25/20h29m46s Red Sox vs. Hanshin Tigers- March 22, 2008 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. Comment - TrackBackhttp://www.kanai.net/weblog/archive/2008/03/22/12h05m38s this week went by too fast- March 21, 2008 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...http://www.kanai.net/weblog/archive/2008/03/21/18h55m42s Gyao vs. magibon- March 18, 2008 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 WindowsInternet Explorer. Comment - TrackBackhttp://www.kanai.net/weblog/archive/2008/03/18/16h22m16s Firefox as a platform- March 16, 2008 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. Comment - TrackBackhttp://www.kanai.net/weblog/archive/2008/03/16/23h34m02s Trend Micro website hacked- March 13, 2008 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 servicessoftware 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...http://www.kanai.net/weblog/archive/2008/03/13/15h36m17s Katz on the potential of Japanese economic reform- March 13, 2008 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.http://www.kanai.net/weblog/archive/2008/03/13/15h00m32s Yahoo! Dethroned in Taiwan- March 13, 2008 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...http://www.kanai.net/weblog/archive/2008/03/13/14h46m00s WWNPHD- March 9, 2008 WWNPHD, originally uploaded by the sweetchuck. Awesome! Comment - TrackBackhttp://www.kanai.net/weblog/archive/2008/03/09/21h57m22s Mark Pesce on the networked public- March 6, 2008 Mark Pesce (Wikipedia) has moved to Australia and is running a consultancy called Future Street Consulting. Pesce has a great blog post on his site, That Business Conversation, talking about stuff we know and use every day, Craig's List, Trip Advisor, and all of the social network software and services we use. I think this essay is a great read for people who are not on the Internet all day (like some of us) and gives a good overview of how the Internet has impacted communication between...http://www.kanai.net/weblog/archive/2008/03/06/12h37m52s |