Japan has ordered an investigation Tuesday after a boy who took Tamiflu jumped to his death in the latest case allegedly linked to the blockbuster flu medicine.(AFP)
From everything I’ve read, the drug can mimic LSD like symptoms and cause depression. I have no idea if thats true, but if it is, that would be a pretty whacked out medicine to give to kids…
More on the jumping death can be read HERE.
A big thanks to Paul Nicholls for tracking this story down.
It seems Japan’s two largest and highly unrelated companies have joined forces, according to a Gizmodo report. Japanese cellphone powerhouse NTT DoCoMo will partner with McDonalds “restaurants” purveyors of delicious and nutritious treats such as the Mega Mac:
“No, it won’t be McDonalds-branded cellphones, but this agreement will promote DoCoMo’s IC-card e-cash system in McDonalds restaurants. If you are part of Japan’s McDonalds “membership club” you can begin paying for food using your cellphone’s contactless IC card system. Now you can just swipe your phone to receive a heart-attack, to go.”
The e-cash/cellphone payments concept makes perfect sense, although it may be morally questionable to make it so effortless for children to buy Happy Meals practically on credit. But I didn’t know that McDonalds Japan had a Membership Club? Does anyone here belong? What do members get? Maybe coupons for discounts on triple bypass operations or perhaps Ronald McDonald gives the eulogy at your funeral and hands out little plastic toys to the kids?
In the photo above, NTT DoCoMo President Masao Nakamura (L) and McDonald’s Japan President Eiko Harada stand behind the restaurant chain’s ‘Ronald McDonald’ character following a news conference in Tokyo February 26, 2007, announcing that DoCoMo will offer electronic payment services and special promotions at McDonalds outlets for some of the mobile phone operator’s users.
Photograph courtesy of REUTERS/Michael Caronna (JAPAN)
An academic group is soliciting papers about “cute”. One of the organizers writes:
“Cute,” as we now commonly conceive of it, originated in the U.S. in
the late 19th century. Japanese “kawaii” is a quite recent import
altering and adding to “cute” in a variety of ways.
A zoo worker dressed as an orang-utan falls after being ’shot’ by another zoo worker with a simulated tranquiliser dart as part of an animal escape drill at a zoo in western Tokyo February 27, 2007.
Zoo workers practiced surrounding the escapee with nets before pretending to shoot it with a tranquilising dart and returning it to its enclosure. Photo courtesy of REUTERS/Michael Caronna (JAPAN)
A few days ago, it was reported that Yamanashi prefectural police had managed to leak information about investigations “including personal information on over 500 individuals including the name of a sex crime victim” onto the internet.
It’s happened time and time again in the offices of folks holding sensitive information. And the cause of it has often proved to be the p2p file-sharing application Winny (often in conjunction with the virus Antinny).
Last year, the Yomiuri reported that a domestic Internet service provider sent “an unprecedented letter to users who [had] downloaded confidential data on mentally ill patients in Takaoka, Toyama Prefecture, asking them to delete the relevant file”.
The Japan Times reported last summer that “sensitive information about Japanese power plants [data regarding security arrangements at a thermoelectric power plant run by the Chubu Electric Power in Owase, Mie prefecture] has leaked online from a virus-infected computer for the second time in less than four months”.
You might recall similar stories involving airlines, local police forces, mobile phone companies, the National Defense Agency even.
Therefore it’s hardly surprising that many organisations banned the use of Winny (though why p2p software wasn’t already forbidden in offices, I don’t know). The Mainichi reported that “Yamanashi Prefectural Police banned the use of any file-exchange programs in their offices in June 2005. All officers and clerical workers submitted written pledges not to use such software.”
Meanwhile in a completely unrelated story, Saitama District Court last week squashed a suit filed by a concerned citizens’ group who “sought deletion of their personal data from the Juki Net national residency registry network, claiming it infringes upon their privacy in violation of the Constitution.”
The judge Toshikuni Kondo, who apparently neither gets out much nor reads newspapers, said in the ruling, “The Juki Net is needed for administration. There is no substantial danger of data leakage to third parties. The operation of the network does not represent an unlawful infringement of privacy rights.”
Forgive my earlier scepticism. I’m convinced.
Here is at least one Japanese gadget (tool?) that seems practical and is not either totally weird or Hello Kitty-branded. Gizmodo reports on a new minibot that performs surgery from the inside out. While previous bots designed for your insides could only take pictures, this is apparently the first to actually be proactive once inside.
An aside. My friend Frank had to have a colonoscopy (sadly, as a mere precaution or as a result of one of those false positives) and they somehow forgot to administer the anesthetic so that he finally asked if it was supposed to be that painful. Well, it isn’t–just “uncomfortable.” Only happens once in a million times though (but that’s enough…)
However, that isn’t the point. He read somewhere that the colon is actually 60 feet long or something and all coiled up, so he wondered why the instrument is only about three feet long? The doctor explained that they don’t have to look at the whole thing–if anything’s wrong it’s obvious from just one part. Naturally, I volunteered to phone the doctor to ask if he could have the 60-foot one next time–just to be on the safe side.
But, if you do need something looked at or done, I guess it’s better if they use something like this rather than having Dr Butcher cut you up to get inside? As Gizmodo comments:
Boy, this sounds pleasant. Researchers in Japan have developed a minibot that enters your body via an incision. It’s then controlled from the outside while it performs surgery on you. It has forceps to take tissue samples, can deliver medicine, and take pictures. So what do you think? Would you rather have a doc slicing and dicing from the outside in, or would you be OK having a tiny robot swimming around your insides doing all the work instead? I can’t really imagine the feeling of having a robot inside me, but I guess in the long run it would be better to have the most minimally invasive surgery possible.
Shoichi Nakagawa, policy chief of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, says that China’s military build-up creates the risk that Japan someday may face of becoming a province of China.
“If something goes awry in Taiwan in the next 15 years, then within 20 years Japan might become just another one of China’s provinces,” Nakagawa said Monday in the central city of Nagoya, as quoted by the Sankei Shimbun daily.
“If Taiwan comes under (China’s) complete rule, Japan could be next,” he was quoted as saying later at parliament.
If your interested in learning more about the samurai, The History Channel has a produced a great one hour and thirty minute documentary called The Samurai.
You can watch the show in its entirety for free by clicking here. The narrators accent when pronouncing particular terms drives me nuts. They have some fantastic interviews with brilliant authors.
Pisses me off actually because I can only WISH that we had access to those people at my workplace.
Anyways its well done and certain worth watching so take a look.
Enjoy!
A fan of the Anime Naruto, shows us her stuff…
Thanks for posting this, lifted my day.
