July 2011 archive

BREAK OUT THE PARTY HATS

A Guinness World Record was set in Toyama when 1,566 people got together to play a game of tag.

JAXA’s unmanned probe Hayabusa, which spent five years collecting samples from a space rock named Itokawa, has been certified by Guinness “as the first spacecraft to have brought back materials from an asteroid.”

Meanwhile, a team of researchers from Tohoku University and NEC Corp announced that they have developed the world’s first “large-scale integrated circuit that requires no standby power.”

Last year was the first time since 2001 that the number of suicides in Japan fell below 32,000, according to the National Police Agency.

People in their 70s killed themselves at a lower rate in 2010 compared to a year ago, but folks in their 20s and 30s committed suicide more frequently.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso joined Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing to kick off the inaugural Japanese Film and TV Week, which aims to “promote cultural exchanges between young people from the two countries.”

According to London-based human resources firm ECA, Tokyo is the most expensive city in the world for expats, followed by Oslo, Nagoya, Stavanger (Norway), Yokohama, Zurich, Luanda (Angola), Kobe and Bern.

The Japanese, apparently, have not been drowning their sorrows in booze following the March 11 quake: beer shipments in May were the lowest on record.

The Japan Sumo Association agreed to “provisionally pay a salary” to a wrestler named Sokokurai, who was implicated in the recent bout-fixing scandal. The thing we really like about this story is that the Chinese wrestler’s original name is Enhetubuxin.

Our regular featured content-

• Six In The Morning by mishima
• On This Day In History July 1 by TheMomCat
• Punting The Punditsby TheMomCat
• Evening Edition by ek hornbeck

These featured articles-

• Colbert Gets his Super-PAC by TheMomCat
• New Deadline For Debt Ceiling Bill: July 22 by TheMomCat
• "Turtles Hit The Tarmac at JFK" by TheMomCat

Tonight we will be featuring Translator’s Popular Culture and tomorrow ek hornbeck will launch his coverage of the 2011 Tour de France.

The Stars Hollow Gazette

This is an Open Thread

Greetings from Bahia Soliman, just north of Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico.  If your Bloguero sent postcards, he would send you one like this:

   

On the back it would say, in your Bloguero’s miserable chicken scratch, “Having a great time.  Weather slightly problematic. No matter.”  You could take the postcard and stick it to the door of your refrigerator.  A small window into a distant place.  Maybe you could feel the heat and humidity and smell the salt on the breeze and hear the clacking of the cocos.  Maybe you could feel the warm water of the bay on your face and imagine yourself sitting in clear water up to your neck with the sun on your face.  Maybe you could hear the bird calls and the frog choir in the mangrove.

On the zero-to-ten scale of mellowness, what your Bloguero refers to as the “Donovan Mellow Yellow Index,” your Bloguero is hovering at about 7.6.  He would be at 8.7 or so if it were not for his friends at Verizon and their shenanigans.  Your Bloguero is not telling the tale here, because it is still ongoing.  Suffice it to say, that the world record for annoyance while on hold might belong to Verizon.  No, it’s not the sound of Kenny G playing in a lavatory somewhere.  It’s commercials for handheld devices and is a bumper crop of techno-speak.  Like your Bloguero almost cares what kind of processor this thing has and how it will make him into a worldwide badass communications machine.  Your Bloguero don’t want to be no machine, gracias.  He is trying hard to be a person, the dehumanization of hours on hold with Verizon notwithstanding.  A question: is it mandatory that employees of Verizon who answer your Bloguero’s calls have to listen to the advertisements for altead ½ hour per week? It should be.  Call the Public Utilities Commission.

A Short Walk With Michel Peissel recounts that explorer’s trek down the coast of Quintana Roo, right through Bahia Soliman, and your Bloguero’s following the same path.

No Warnings explains that although the precursor to what is now called Tropical Storm Arlene ran right over your Bloguero’s house earlier in the week, there was no word of warning from la Autoridad.  All is well, nonetheless, but it would be nice not to be the last to know about these events.   Not all ignorance is bliss.

A Haiku Pas De Deux marvels at a series of Haiku written in Spanish by Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz and translated into English by Eliot Weinberger.  Your Bloguero loves to call to your attention such wonderful work.  Aplauso!

A Love Letter is about your Bloguero’s house, that was built in what he calls “Estilo Robinson Crusoe” in the 1990’s.  Your Bloguero lives in what has now become a museum of sorts, but he is still fully in love with the house.

The State of the Union recounts your Bloguero’s recent conversation with Manuel Acero, a fictional character, who is making trouble for your Bloguero and apparently trying to seize the means of literary production.  The struggle may continues, but your Bloguero is hopeful that a collective agreement will be made.  Your Bloguero is not yet wearing the prescribed t-shirt.

Being What They Aren’t worries that distraction has now made boredom virtually extinct.  And soon, your Bloguero laments, all of the delicious fruits of boredom may also be gone.  The loss of boredome is not a good thing.

This Week In The Dream Antilles is a weekly digest. Sometimes it isn’t actually a digest of essays posted in the past week. Sometimes, like now, it is.  Your Bloguero solicits your support.  No, not your money.  Just leave a comment so that your Bloguero will not feel that he is speaking to himself on the stage of a cavernous, but quite empty concert hall.  Your Bloguero does not want to feel like Prof. Irwin Corey.  Or, easier, just click the “Encouragement jar” (if there is one).

   

This chart is only the beginning of the story, and for the tiny fraction of 1% of records that sell (for example) 100,000 full-price copies, the record company will make about $1,000,000 and the average musician will make about $15K.

100,000 copies at $16.98 = $1,698,000.

Record company’s share = 63% = $1,069,740 – $100,000 for recording, promotion, etc = $969,740.

Four musicians share 13% = $220,740 – (28% of $220,740 for management, lawyers, producers) = $158,932

$158,932/4 = $39,733

But then…

The band has to pay back every dime of expenses to the record company!

So that glorious $158,932 turns into $58,932, and when you split it between four musicians, that leaves each of them with…

$14,733.

This is the background of my previous diary about Obama’s plan to lock you off the internet for sharing mp3’s with your friends.

And meanwhile all those shared mp3’s attract more bodies to your favorite band’s crappy little bar venue, where the band gets to keep a relatively whopping 50% of the $5 cover, $2.50 instead of 58¢ from a selling a cd.

Revealed: British government’s plan to play down Fukushima

Internal emails seen by Guardian show PR campaign was launched to protect UK nuclear plans after tsunami in Japan

Rob Edwards

guardian.co.uk,  

British government officials approached nuclear companies to draw up a co-ordinated public relations strategy to play down the Fukushima nuclear accident just two days after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and before the extent of the radiation leak was known.

Internal emails seen by the Guardian show how the business and energy departments worked closely behind the scenes with the multinational companies EDF Energy, Areva and Westinghouse to try to ensure the accident did not derail their plans for a new generation of nuclear stations in the UK.

Read The Emails Here