Excuse if I don’t cry myself to sleep tonight, but Japan has failed to meet their whale slaughtering (scientific research? Hmmm, OK, so if we kill this whale, there is one less in the ocean… How about if we kill another? repeat ad infinitum) quotas this year. This hasn’t occurred in twenty years. Thanks to the anti-whaling protests at sea, the whalers have gone back to their home ports without as many whales as they had hoped for. Check out the story here.
Jul 17 2007
OECD Broadband Report
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has released a report on broadband prices & speeds in developed countries. The report states that users are receiving hugely varied standards and price structures, with a very slow take up in the use of fibre optics to replace the copper twisted-pair cabling still used in most country’s telephony systems.
Obviously those countries that had taken up fibre optics had the fastest speeds available, with Japan, Korea, Finland and Sweden offering 100Mbit connections in many areas.
Of the developed countries surveyed, Turkey was the most expensive, with pricing equivalent to $81 per Mbit per second! Compare this to just 22 cents in Japan, and you can start to see the disparity.
I have not yet figured out exactly how to calculate the prices quoted, but for comparison, our ISP here in Kazakhstan charges around $150 per month for a 256Kbit connection, or around $100 if you decide to download than 700Mb (per MONTH!)
When you check this against the Swedish price of $10.79 (the cheapest in the survey), or even the most expensive (Mexico) at just $52.36, which is 4 times quicker anyway, at 1Mbps.
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May 11 2007
Shogun
Shogun – James Clavell
OK, first things first, this is most definitely NOT an ‘airport’ book. You’ll need to sit down somewhere without distractions, and be able to actually pay attention to the book. This is a LONG book, some 1000+ pages in the edition I read. There are quite a few ‘main’ characters, although we mostly follow Blackthorne’s passage. He is a pilot (in the nautical sense of the term) who ends up in Japan, set in the 1600s I think?
Anyway, at the beginning, Blackthorne is pretty much like the rest of the crew on his ship – ‘proper’ men, stereotypical sailors, who work hard in a dangerous environment, and as soon as they set foot on land, blow a lot of money on alcohol and the company of woman with dubious moral values. However, he is soon held prisoner, and has to fight for his life many times. Although obviously resenting his captors, he soon finds himself questioning some of his core beliefs, and actually starts to learn the customs in this strange land, to the point of trying to learn their language, and understand their society’s values. Towards the beginning, he witnesses a low-caste persons beheading by a Samurai, and is incensed at the lack of justice. However, there is little taste for revolt by other villagers, and he begins to learn just how much life is different in this country.
His motives for adaptation are not wholly alturistic however, as his thirst for survival outweighs his feelings of discomfort and disgust; if he is to avoid summary execution for the smallest of misdemeanours, and maybe even make it home one day, he must learn quickly.
Blackthorne eventually makes his skills obviously valuable to the local lord of this area, and the story begins it’s real twists and turns from this point on…
If anyone wants more details, I’m happy to oblige, but I am loathe to describe much further into this story, as I don’t want to ruin some of the surprises in store for anyone…
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May 08 2007
Rising Sun
Rising Sun – Michael Crichton
Having not read one of Chrichton’s books in a long time, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked up this novel. The basic plot outline is that a woman (most definitely not a lady) has been killed in an office tower, and on the night of the opening party for a Japanese firm. The standard ‘cop-investigating-a-murder’ section starts here, though the Japanese involvement helps to keep the story fresh, without too many clichés. The policeman is assisted by another (ex? its been a while since I read it, sorry) cop who is very experienced with Japanese culture, and is helpful as a plot device, to explain to readers some of the intricacies of the Japanese way of doing business.
If you find unabashed xenophobic writing, even in fiction, distasteful, I’d recommend giving this book a miss. If you are happy to read this novel for the suspense, and not dwell on the Japan bashing, I’d definitely say you should buy it. The writing style is compact, without too much superfluous descriptive paragraphs. Although slightly predictable in places, the plot chugs along nicely.
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Feb 18 2007
How To Communicate With Customers
As readers may have noted in the past I have serious issues with the way many shops & businesses treat their customers in this country. (See Birthday Presents For Nick Customer Relations and One For The Milk Drinkers Out There… & various other moans from me ;> )
Recently, John fwded an e-mail he received, after ordering an item from a website.
Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.
A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.
Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.
We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved ‘Bon Voyage!’ to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Friday, January 26th.
I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as ‘Customer of the Year’. We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!
Thank you once again,
Derek Sivers, President
Whilst it may not appear very business-like, it made me smile, and if nothing else, certainly guarantees customers will remember the company the next time they consider who to place an order with.
Whilst we’re on the topic of communication, I should mention that it is possible that this blog will have a small amount of advertisements placed on it soon. Again, for anyone who is new to this blog, you can read a little of the history Google and I have had here
We’ll have to see how it goes, but I’m intending to use Oxado as a replacement for AdSense on all my other sites, as I need to start generating some income, whilst I continue to build up the affiliate sales side of things.
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