The complete eclipse, with ring of fire, is due to sweep across Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya, and Tokyo at about Monday, 7.30am, 21st May. However, it depends on the weather, and currently it seems a bit too 50-50 to get excited.
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The super moon at 7.12pm on the 6th May 2012, where it was 357,047km from Earth, appearing about 14% larger. Here’s the BBC News story, and below is my image of the heroic moon rising over Nagoya Port and Japan’s automotive export hub:
Yesterday’s supermoon:
Tags: japan, japanese, moon, night, super moon
This Photo of the Week is inspired by Fujifilm Velvia 100. Fujifilm has announced price rises for the month of May, which is tragic news. And to share the love of film, here’s an image from the Naked Man Festival, taken on Fujifilm Velvia100. See the blog for details on Fujifilm and the Naked Man Festival.
Tags: festival, film, fujifilm, japan, japanese, naked man, velvia100
I received this very tragic and disturbing news today, Fujifilm has announced a price hike on their film, including my favourite, the beautiful Velvia 100 colour slide film! However, they are quick to point out that a price hike is better than cutting the line of films. Thanks to Alberto on G+ for sharing this news.
Below: Dancers performing in Osu Kanon to a mainly male audience. Photo taken on Fujifilm Velvia 100.
I was really surprised, perhaps along with about 100 million other residents in Japan, to hear the opening news story at 7pm that a typhoon-like storm is threatening Japan tomorrow (3rd April). That kind of storm that the Japan Meteorological Agency is worried about is reserved only for summer and for actual typhoons; but it’s the end of winter and early spring? We were told that there would be unpredictable consequences and possible erratic weather as a result of unbalancing the climate. I’d like to hear what logic climate skeptics might attempt to use to explain this!
The current storm warning in Japan as at 22.54, 02 April 2012
Left, the storm warning map showing current warnings several hours ahead of the expected storm. Below, boats moored in a marina behind storm surge walls for Typhoon Talas in 2011.
Edit: Updated map, 3rd April, 2012, from the Japan Meteorological Agency website, at 6pm. For related news see the Bloomberg website, and the NHK website.
Storm warnings in Japan as at 3April 2012 15.50
Tags: japan, japanese, meteorology, storm, weather
On the final day of the Osaka Spring Tournament we enter this day with these stunning facts:
- Mongolian Sekiwake-ranked Kakuryu has 13wins-1loss
- Fellow Mongolian Hakuho has 12wins-2losses
- Kakuryu needs Hakuho to lose to avoid a play-off and to win by regulation.
- If Kakuryu wins, he will be the first Sekiwake to win the tournament, and be promoted to the second highest rank Ozeki since 1999.
* Sekiwake is a low rank, Yokuzunas are the highest and most expert ranked wrestlers.
Today
- Homasho charges against and defeats the thrusting Miyabiyama.
- Toyonoshima defeats Kitataiki by going belly to belly, and wins a pile of cash and also wins his fourth technique prize, which also includes a pile of cash.
- Tochinoshin defeats Fujiazuma the dirty way by jumping high and pushing his forearms down on Fujiazuma’s back forcing his to the floor.
- Wakakoryu defeats Tochiozan by locking up his arms in a sumo cuddle and forces him out.
- Gagamaru defeats Tokyotenho by big-dude barge out
- Aminishiki narrowly defeats Aran, as both fall out of the ring. Video replay might have offered a different outcome.
- Goeido defeats Kakuryu in a sharp and fast start, causing a huge upset. Kakuryu is now at two losses, matching Hakuho, causing a play-off. Goeido worked hard for his home crowd, and spoilt the tournament for Kakuryu fans. Everybody’s now on edge.
- Kotoshogiku slides Kisenosato out of the ring for a cringe-making-fall of the side of the ring. Good sumo from Kotoshogiku.
- Harumafuji swings / rolls Koto Ooshu out of the ring. Very spectacular. Everyone in Bulgaria must have cringed and closed their eyes.
- Hakuho struggles against the Estonian Baruto and almost loses.
Play-off: Hakuho vs. Kakuryu
I had to turn Twitter off in the lead up as hash-tag #sumo was overwhelming my computer! Wow! Twitter was going wild!
Kakuryu wasn’t mentally prepared enough with his eyes, for the first time, too close on the prize. Exciting. Hakuho forced Kakuryu to the edge of the ring, kakuryu came so close with his feel on the hay bales, and heels so close to the dirt, Kakuryu was able to lever forward a little, rescued himself, just to be rolled over any way. He will be promoted to Ozeki any way. The whole situation reminds me of the wonderful potential of Harumafuji. Well done to Hakuho, and to Kakuryu for his first attempt at the Emperors Cup.
File image of Hakuho, Nagoya, July 2011
This photo of the week is from the 42 kilometer Nagoya Women’s Marathon held just yesterday (Official site). The winner was Russia’s Albina Mayorova with a time of 2 hours, 23 minutes, 52 seconds; second was Japan’s Yoshimi Ozaki who finished with a time of 2 hours, 24 minutes, and 14 seconds; and media favourite Mizuki Noguchi finished 6th in 2 hours, 25 minutes and 33 seconds, all boosting their chances to qualify for the London Olympics (source). Japan’s national broadcaster NHK did not report that Mayoroya won the race, but instead reported on only the Japanese competitors.
Despite the temperature reaching only 12 degrees Celsius, it was pleasantly warm in the sun in places where there was no cool breeze. The competition fielded 15,000 entrants, mainly locals, and included some men, starting at Nagoya (sports) Dome running through the centre of Nagoya, passing by the department store shopping district, Nagoya Castle, Nagoya City and Aichi Prefectural government offices, before returning to Nagoya Dome. Also, flags flying at Nagoya City government offices were flying at half mast in commemoration of the victims who died and suffered from the 11th March earthquake this time last year.
For more information about the Nagoya Men and Women’s Marathons (held in different times of the year), see the official webpage: http://womens.marathon-festival.com/en/ See this link for entrants and their bib numbers, and here for their results. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagoya_Marathon See the gallery for more marathon images: http://ablyth.photoshelter.com/gallery/Nagoya-Womens-Marathon/G0000rewkiB7Hu9U
Tags: Albina Mayorova, japan, japanese, marathon, nagoya, potw, women, Yoshimi Ozaki
I should buy more of my music in a music store. I bought two CDs and one came with free stickers (great if I were 10 years old), and the other came with a web link, username, and password for bonus tracks.
Music CDs bought in a popular music store come with free extras including downloads and stickers.
Radioactive rice may enter the food chain later this year
According to NHK the government announced that for Tohoku-region farmers unable to grow rice last year many rice fields contaminated with radiation can plant rice this year. The government reports that 2% of rice harvested last year contained between 100-500 bequerels of radiation, whilst 0.2% had more than 500bq which is not fit for consumption. The decision was made because of concern for farmers’ livelihoods and maintenance of good quality rice fields. Criticisms included no measures for stringent oversight preventing contaminated rice of more than 500bq to slip into the national rice supplies; no means of disposal of contaminated rice; nor financial incentive for farmers and local officials to be honest. Further, it appears to be a commercial decision in sympathy with farmers, and with less regard for consumers.
Previously there were reports in 2010 of expired rice meant for industrial uses, including glue production, was bought from government stocks and commercially resold to pre-schools and schools for childrens’ lunches in the period between about 2005 and 2010.
More pictures of Japanese rice can be found at my gallery:
Rice – Images by Andrew Blyth
Tags: contaminated, contamination, food, japan, japanese, radiation, rice
I love the Internet and the culture around it. It’s brilliant. I love being able to communicate with friends and family… at a distance, and up close. I love having access to the information and resources that didn’t exist 10 years ago, and I love seeing the new useful stuff. I do admit I let MySpace pass me by, and never heard of Orkut until it was already a living fossil; I was too busy with ICQ. However, here’s a website I’m steering clear of, Pinterest.
Pinterest says in it’s terms and conditions that it reserves the right to resell any image its users have added to Pinterest’s website, including mine. This is without regard to copyright ownership, nor standard industry licensing & purchasing. In short, Pinterest is a messy mass of Intellectual Property law suits waiting to happen. Both Flickr and stock agencies have added the no pin code to their websites preventing image theft (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinterest#Copyrighted_content).
On top of that, Pinterest allows website owners to opt out, which prevents Pinterests users adding your images to Pinterest.com; a rather selfish paradigm, it’s very ego-centric. Now, every single website in the world is fair game, until they insert the code (below) which prevents Pinterest’s users from stealing your copyrighted images. What if every other social network had this system? Should there be a list of websites to blacklist, or “blackcode”? It’d be a nightmare to keep updated, as each website will require unique coding, and occasional updates. The alternative is to invite Pinterests members to your site, and as soon as they illegally upload your images you start suing; it’ll be profitable, and should changed Pinterest’s policies.
We have a small piece of code you can add to the head of any page on your site:
<meta name=”pinterest” content=”nopin” />
When a user tries to pin from your site, they will see this message:
“This site doesn’t allow pinning to Pinterest. Please contact the owner with any questions. Thanks for visiting!”
Thanks to this website, http://llsocial.com/2012/02/pinterest-offering-code-to-block-pinning/ for posting the above code. The only caveat is that every time you update your blog software, you may need to reinsert that code. Pinterest’s own ‘no pin’ code is found at the very bottom of this page: http://pinterest.com/about/help/
Useful links:
Mention of Pinterest selling other people’s content: https://plus.google.com/u/0/109214702386760339292/posts/GQaFsSbc6Nt
Business Insider, Copyright Theft: http://www.businessinsider.com/pinterest-illegal-faq-2012-2
PhotoShelter: Pinterest Round 2 (includes pros & cons): http://blog.photoshelter.com/2012/02/pinterest-is-still-not-for-photographers-round-2/
Business Journal; How your business could get sued for using Pinterest: http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/startups/2012/02/pinterest-copyright-issues.html?surround=etf&ana=e_article&page=all
Pinterest’s Terms: http://pinterest.com/about/terms/
Story of the New York Times being scolded by a photographer for not crediting her, because of Pinterest’s problems: http://jimromenesko.com/2012/03/16/ny-post-scolded-by-photographer/
UPDATE, new terms & conditions (from 6th April 2012): http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/startups/2012/03/pinterest-to-change-terms-of-service.html?ana=fbk
Pinterest Terms of Service clearly stating that they reserve the right to sell member content for their own profit.
Tags: copyright, copyright violation, pinterest