Jason’s Random Thoughts

Perhaps it’s the lack of sleep this past week, but I’m getting pretty upset with the xenophobic attitudes of some people in Japan.

A Daily Yomiuri editorial from February 23rd (”Foreign residents’ suffrage not a political issue” - I’d post a link, but the Yomiuri’s Link Policy wouldn’t permit it) says, once again, that permanent residents in Japan must not be permitted to vote in national or local elections because we are a subversive threat to national security. Permanent residents hostile to Japan could abuse the right and somehow obstruct cooperation between the federal and local governments.

Considering the less-than-stellar degree of cooperation the state has fostered with the prefectures and cities over the years, the author really needs to take his head out of the sand and look around.

Is it theoretically possible for a hundred-thousand immigrants from some hostile nation move to Japan, go through all the ridiculously painful legalities to become a permanent resident then, in a single bold fashion, all move to a larger city and elect a representative that would be detrimental to the well-being of the country? Theoretically, yes. Is it likely? Keep this shit up and I might just organize a take-over of Osaka … suffrage or no.

The Cold War Is Over

The Cold War ended when Soviet Russia fell apart. Almost 20 years have passed since that time of extreme paranoia, but it seems the editors with their fingers in the media are still relying on out-dated, racist and otherwise backward ‘logic’. Not only does this increase the false preconception in Japan that foreigners are dangerous and a threat to the locals, but it reinforces and justifies it.

The editorial concludes that the political motives behind the DPJ’s moves to push for voting rights are “impermissible in respect to the issue that concerns what this nation should aspire to be.” And what, pray-tell, is that? To be an un-welcoming, regressive state that fails to trust non-Japanese as equal members of society capable of thinking for themselves?

Fuck you, un-named author.

The only thing people like this author have to fear from us foreign nationals is the airing of the government’s dirty laundry when more of us have a reason to pay attention to the garbage that goes on behind the closed doors of the ever-exclusive men’s club that is Japanese politics.

Breeding Hostility With Hostility

Considering how the next day that very same paper stated that a staggering 68% of Japanese are “disenchanted with their politicians”, you’d think the Yomiuri would have the foresight to hold back their opinion on the foreign suffrage bit. Heck, if so many Japanese have trouble with the existing politicians, perhaps the “national threats” could be called in to offer a little bit of perspective on their ways. Fukuda, following Abe’s lead, wanted to institute reform, right? What better way to reform than by getting a non-Japanese person a nice role as a political adviser.

Just as every Japanese person does not like baseball and sumo, not every foreign resident is from a nation with hostile intentions towards Japan. However, if the system continues to be hostile towards us, then it might not be hostile nations the government needs to worry about, but local residents instead.

With such obsolete outlooks being distributed in a national newspaper and echoed in the government halls, it’s no wonder people aren’t happy with the politicians in this country. If someone tried to publish this hostile, xenophobic tripe back in Canada, they’d be out of a job before the article even reached print.

Japanese people love their UFOs. It seems we can’t go one month without hearing about some unknown object flying in the skies above Hokkaido or Nagano and setting imaginations wild. And why shouldn’t it? We see countless references to extra-terrestrial beings and intra-galactic voyages in pop culture, and we want in!

However, despite what locals might think, these unidentified craft are not piloted by non-human explorers.

Before getting too far into this post, I’d like to say that I do believe there is life elsewhere in the universe; sentient or otherwise. If we ever discover we’re alone in the universe, then it will be a sad day for the human race. That said, I feel we are only a few decades away from discovering life on other worlds, and only a few centuries away from discovering sentient life outside our solar system.

The Intelligence Factor

Let’s look at this from the perspective of an intelligent government body, assuming there ever is such a thing. Sending a crewed vehicle across the cosmos is no small feat. It requires resources, training, goals and, most of all, rules.

Assuming there is a civilization advanced enough to make the leap between planets and solar systems, what would the purpose of their visit to this world be? Reconnaissance? Primitive culture studies? Communication? Trade? Slave aquisition? Extradition of disguised aliens among us?

Who can say for certain, but one thing is clear; if any of these possible reasons were the case, some foreign government body or institution would have strict rules to follow. Avoid human contact. Avoid human recording devices. Avoid giving away technological secrets. The list would be endless and exhaustive, but altogether saying the same thing: don’t give the humans any reason to expand their military technologies further.

We are a very trigger-happy people. Sure, billions of us have been domesticated to avoid confrontations and unnecessary violence, but when the threat is big enough, we’ll demand precautions, defenses and, potentially, retaliation.

I don’t want to sound like Jiuliani, but how many of us demanded military action against the Taliban in 2001 after the destruction of WTC towers one, two and seven? If memory serves, most of us wanted the American military to level the entire country of Afghanistan and turn it into the planets’ largest parking lot. If this is how we react to threats from technologically starved humans, just imagine how we’d react to a threat from outside our understanding.

No, the risk would be too great for the alien people. We’re just not socially ready for such knowledge, so they clearly understand that they must remain hidden from view, regardless of their intentions.

Human Racism Eliminated?

One possible positive aspect of alien visitors coming to Earth would be the drastic decline, if not elimination, of human prejudices and racial biases. No longer would people worry about who’s white, black, yellow or red. Instead the racial bias would be much, much simpler: Us vs. Them.

I’ll admit that the possibility of a sudden unity of mankind does have its benefits. No longer would we be squabbling over little things like border incursions or who’s politician said what. Instead, we’d have a singular fear to bring us all together, even if the visitors came in peace and spoke in our mother languages without any problem.

But What’s In It For Them?

However, at the end of the day, the question comes down to this: What’s in it for them?

If they’re coming to Earth to collect information for a potential invasion of our world, they’ve done a pretty piss-poor job of hiding their existence. Wouldn’t an invasion be much more effective if our governments didn’t know of a technologically superior foe coming from above? I would think so. You can’t tell me that this other species of sentient life would have just as much hubris as a 17 year-old boy who feels the world is his oyster and that nobody can beat him at his own game. Anyone that’s studied our history for more than 100 years could see that we’ve survived through some pretty desperate times and won the day.

If the plan is to have an open communication with the human race, then they should know the best way would be to actually communicate, rather than fly over our cities. We’ve been broadcasting our languages into space for almost a century now, so the odds of there being a language barrier would be slim and none. How hard is it to make a text-based translator that’ll do a rough conversion? Sure, it wouldn’t be perfect. But it would likely be intelligent enough to make the visitors understood.

Are they trying to study us in order to make detailed records that we can later access when we join the galactic community and get a library card? If this is even half true, then the visitors have done a pretty bad job of keeping us in the dark about their existence. Such knowledge would change government policies around the world almost instantly, which would skew the histories, which would make the record keeping rather dull and tedious … if we know we’re being watched, we act quite different.

Regardless of the reasons someone might offer for an alien race to come visit our world, an intelligent species would never act so carelessly and make their presence known in such obvious ways.

The Verdict?

Do UFOs exist? Yes, of course they do. Are they piloted by extra-terrestrial creatures? No. Have we been visited by another sentient race in the past? Undoubtedly. But I don’t have any proof to show a definitive ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer.

What’s your take on the matter? Have aliens really come to Earth on a regular basis to be filmed hovering in our skies? I’d be curious to know what you think about these things.

In an effort to curb traffic accidents, Japan’s Construction and Transport Ministry will conduct tests on a system allowing cars to “talk to each other”. Though scheduled to begin testing on public roads next month, the system has been in development for several years. The ministry hopes to introduce the system to prevent collisions at intersections and on highways.

Fourteen car and motorcycle manufacturers in Japan have already agreed to participate in the tests, which will be held in four of the most populated prefectures. With the aim of putting the system into play before the end of 2010, there’s not much time to get the bugs worked out.

How Will It Work?

When cars equipped with the DAPS (Driver Accident-Prevention System) approach each other, voice messages and vehicle navigation devices will inform the drivers of the other car’s position, speed and other relevant information. The system will then determine whether there is a risk of collision and issue a warning if necessary.

The tests will check whether the system can work well on public roads and highways, as well as how it affects a driver’s behaviour.

What About Accountability?

It appears that, rather than make drivers more accountable for their piss-poor driving habits, the government wants to add yet another piece of technology to our already over-computerized cars and trucks. How hard is it for a human with two eyes to properly gauge distance and velocity? Should we really be putting more reliance on information displayed at the center console? Drivers should pay attention to the road, not to some sightless apparatus concealed in the dashboard of a car.

I can understand the concerns of the Construction and Transportation Ministry, but I can’t understand why we’re using technology to do something a few bad apples are too lazy to do.

What About Cyclists and Pedestrians?

What worries me the most isn’t the technology itself, but our over-reliance on technology. Should a driver become too reliant on their little computer telling them when it’s safe to pull into an intersection or change lanes on a highway, they will likely forget the basic rules of the road. Look both ways. Check your mirrors. Stop for children. If we train ourselves to make decisions based on audio or visual queues from a computer system, then why not go the full route and let a computer make all decisions for us?

However, this raises the question of how the computer will react to pedestrians crossing the street at night. Or cyclists riding in low visibility conditions. The system doesn’t know about these variables because these people aren’t wearing a portable computer with GPS and communications apparatus. The same can be said about cars manufactured before 2009. For the number of accidents this system might initially prevent, there’s the potential for so many more in the future.

Does this mean that bicycles and shoes should come equipped with tracers as well? Let’s hope not. Just imagine how much fun it would be for kids to throw a shoe across the street and cause 20 cars to hit their brakes in response to a “DANGER!!! CHILDREN!!!” warning screaming from their speakers.

A Better Solution?

Governments typically think that all problems can be solved with money. If they wish to spend taxpayers’ cash on preventing traffic accidents, that’s great. But let’s attack the problem logically. Rather than invest a few hundred million Yen in the Driver Accident-Prevention System, let’s put the money into re-education programs for idiot drivers found to have caused the accidents. I guarantee that after going through a mandatory driver re-education program two or three times, people would either get their act together or otherwise find alternative means of transportation.

What’s your take on this new driver system? Is this just another example of technology being used to compensate for our own laziness?

In a bit of shameless self-promotion, I’d like to present to the world TheCarbonBlog!

A few days ago, I had mentioned that I was accepting Vic’s challenge to start some new niche websites and earn a good amount of money in the coming year. This is but the first of three that I fully intend to start up before the start of 2009.

TheCarbonBlog will focus on companies and products that claim to be environmentally friendly. If they really are what they claim, they’ll get a nice carbon nanotube trophy. If they are just scamming us out of our money, they’ll get some used charcoal. Either way, the prize is carbon … even if it’s just a picture (I can’t seriously afford to send companies carbon nanotube trophies, after all).

The idea started quite a few months ago, first with my post on how people could use carbon credits the same way as we bought “indulgences” from the Catholic church not too long ago, and was reinforced when Nick wrote about a Sharp air conditioner that claimed to be more ecologically friendly than any previous model, but was no different from a 4 year old model by the same company. On top of this, there are literally hundreds of online companies that are offering carbon credits to us, but don’t actually use our money towards any carbon reduction projects. I have no intentions of becoming an uber preachy environmentalist like Al Gore, but I do feel strongly about people being taken advantage of when their heart is in the right place.

Saving the world is serious business. There’s no room for scammers.

If this is something you’re interested in, feel free to subscribe to the RSS. Also, should you know of a company or a product I should check out, just send me an email through the contact form, either on j2fi.net or TheCarbonBlog, and I’ll be sure to look into it ASAP.

So there’s my piece. What do you think?

Back in 1999 I remember making the transition from a 14.4 Kb modem to a 56K that was capable of connecting to my brand new digital PCS cell phone. “Night and Day” is the term I would use to describe the difference between the two modem speeds. A year later, I moved to the big city and managed to get my hands on some cable and was astonished to download at speeds in excess of 150 KB/sec.

Eight years later, most people in North America still have roughly the same amount of bandwidth as the early internet users at the start of the millennium. Japan, however, wants to set the bar a little higher.

In the Land of the Rising Sun, it’s not uncommon to see advertisements for 100 MBit DSL connections to normal homes. Heck, many people have between 25 and 50 MBit connections to their house, and use just a fraction of that capacity to surf the web (very few people here seem to download media the same was as Canadians and Americans). How much is a 100 MBit internet connection in Japan, you ask? About the same as the 25 MBit offerings in Canada.

But Mitsubishi Heavy Industries wanted to push the limits of technology and teamed up with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to develop a 2.7 tonne Kizuna communications satellite called WINDS. But, for those of you familiar with Norwegian neo-classical/progressive metal, this is not a tribute to the band.

WINDS, the Wideband InterNetworking engineering test and Demonstration Satellite, was launched from the Yoshinobu Launch Complex at the Tanegashima Space Center in Southern Japan today and will be placed in geosynchronous orbit over the Pacific Ocean. It comes equipped with three antennas which will be aimed towards Japan as well as South-East Asia, and will be used to conduct experiments with large-volume, high-speed data communications on remote islands and mountainous regions.

How Fast Is Fast?

Scientists at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries tell us that the launch of WINDS will help the country build one of the world’s most advanced telecommunications and information networks, and will have the bandwidth capacity to aid with telemedicine, bringing high quality medicinal treatments to some of the most remote places in the Asia-Pacific region. What kind of speeds are we talking about? How about 1.2 GBytes/second?

Yes … 1.2 GigaBytes, not bits, per second.

Could you imagine filling a brand new 1 TeraByte hard drive with content from the web in under 20 minutes? I can’t … yet.

Aside from telemedicine, this satellite will also be used to bring reliable high-speed internet to islands and other places where traditional fiber optic lines fear to tread. Although the general consumer will not have access to the full bandwidth capabilities of WINDS, a stable 300 KBit/s connection would likely be appreciated.

I couldn’t find any information about how WINDS will get around the problems like interference from lightning or other storms, but I’m sure the communications gurus at Mitsubishi and JAXA have these things well in hand.

This could be the start of a new wave of bandwidth rushes as the global TelCo’s start to launch more high-capacity satellites into orbit to bring services to developing and over-developed nations.