jimmy from shinagawa

Weekend reading

2012-01-27T17:17:00.000+09:00

How Sitting All Day Is Damaging Your Body and How You Can Counteract It

If 2012's Oscar-nominated movie posters told the truth

Burgled in Philly

Google Reincarnates Dead Paper Mill as Data Center of Future

HAPPINESS TAKES (A LITTLE) MAGIC

Mega-clubs are drowning out the indie scene

The Obree Way - Training Manual

2012 Jaguar XF Supercharged

Generational warfare

Best Places in the World to Retire

Is There Anything Marc Newson Hasn’t Designed?

Cameron Rebukes Euro Leaders at Davos, Calls Financial Transaction Tax "Quite Simply Madness"

Amazon's Hit Man

That much truth

2012-01-27T08:59:00.002+09:00

When they do the remakes

2012-01-26T16:37:00.001+09:00

Toy Story

2012-01-26T16:31:00.002+09:00

via Geekologie

Learn Chinese in 5 minutes

2012-01-26T16:27:00.000+09:00

That's not right.........................Sum Ting Wong

Are you harbouring a fugitive............Hu Yu Hai Ding

See me ASAP..............................Kum Hia

Small Horse..............................Tai Ni Po Ni

I think you need a facelift..............Chin To Fat

It's very dark in here...................Wai So Dim

I thought you were on a diet.............Wai Yu Mun Ching

This is a tow away zone..................No Pa King

Our meeting is next week.................Wai Yu Kum Nao

Staying out of sight.....................Lei Ying Lo

He's cleaning his automobile.............Wa Shing Ka

Your body odour is offensive.............Yu Stin Ki Pu

Elsewhere

2012-01-25T16:27:00.003+09:00

“Forcibly Retired”

Private Inequity

The end of mutual funds is coming

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

2012-01-25T16:24:00.001+09:00

Don't despair

2012-01-25T09:15:00.001+09:00

"Sir Mervyn said: “After the steepest downturn in output since the 1930s, the UK economy is in the process of rebalancing . . . the path of recovery is likely to be arduous, long and uneven. The position of the world economy, especially in the euro area, is serious.”

He claimed there was reason for optimism.

“There is no reason to despair,” he said. “All crises come to an end, and businesses will find ways to trade with each other and meet the needs of consumers.

“Helped by the right policy actions, the UK and world economies can and will recover. And when they do so, they will be on a more sustainable footing than at any point in the past 15 years.”

“The tragedy of the financial crisis is that those who have suffered most have been those who bear no responsibility for it,” he said."

Sir Mervyn King: no reason to despair - Telegraph

'..when they do so..'

Snow in Tokyo

2012-01-24T09:03:00.000+09:00

Cold overnight, snow storm from 9pm, with thunder which was a first, never heard that before.

Snow in Tokyo pictures

Breakfast

2012-01-24T09:02:00.000+09:00

Egg white omelette, mushrooms, onions, spinach, broccoli on the side.

The Plan

2012-01-23T14:15:00.001+09:00

"Make good stuff, then make it easy for people to buy it. There’s your anti-piracy plan."

MegaUpload - Jonathan Coulton via kung fu grippe

Priced in

2012-01-23T13:44:00.000+09:00

"I know the markets are discounting a happy ending to the euro crisis. I just see the substantial “tail risk” and suggest you manage accordingly. Large pensions and foundations may be happy if they end the year where they started. Smaller investors should assess their risk tolerance from the perspective that Europe does not work through its problems."

Staring into the Abyss - TBP

The jobs are gone

2012-01-23T13:41:00.003+09:00

“Another critical advantage for Apple was that China provided engineers at a scale the United States could not match. Apple’s executives had estimated that about 8,700 industrial engineers were needed to oversee and guide the 200,000 assembly-line workers eventually involved in manufacturing iPhones. The company’s analysts had forecast it would take as long as nine months to find that many qualified engineers in the United States.

In China, it took 15 days.

They could hire 3,000 people overnight,” said Jennifer Rigoni, who was Apple’s worldwide supply demand manager until 2010, but declined to discuss specifics of her work. “What U.S. plant can find 3,000 people overnight and convince them to live in dorms?”

Why isn’t the iPhone made in America? = Marginal Revolution

"Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said, according to another dinner guest.

The president’s question touched upon a central conviction at Apple. It isn’t just that workers are cheaper abroad. Rather, Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that “Made in the U.S.A.” is no longer a viable option for most Apple products."

How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work - NYT

The Facebook Put

2012-01-23T13:39:00.002+09:00

"The $100 billion Facebook IPO has made me think a lot about Google. I call it the “Facebook put.” If Facebook is worth $100 billion, Google sure looks cheap. After all, both companies are in the same business—online advertising. Google did $35.76 billion in revenue through the year ending September 30, 2011. I’ve read that Facebook will do about $4 billion in revenue this year. Facebook is looking to be the next Google, but Google is already Google. Yet, Google may have a valuation of less than 2x Facebook when Facebook comes to market.

Facebook is valued at $100 billion and Google+ is valued at $0. The general thinking seems to be that Facebook will be the sole player in social and that things are just getting started (the latter part is probably true). Eventually, the thought is that Facebook’s social ads could rival or exceed Google’s search advertising. I believe that social networking will play out differently than people expect. I think Google+ is starting off slow, but that it will end up being a huge winner. In a few years, there will be two big social networks—Facebook and Google+."

Is Google Plus Worth $100 Billion? - The Reformed Broker

New media

2012-01-23T13:38:00.002+09:00

"That remaining entertainment time is up for grabs as it hasn't been in a hundred years. Hollywood used to own that time. Hollywood convinced us we didn't need to read books anymore because it would turn those books into easily digestible 90 minute movies. It convinced us that we didn't need to read the news anymore because it would produce news as entertainment and give us each a demented news channel all our own that would perfectly replicate and affirm our own points of view. That way they could keep us tuned in every night - sitting there like fat, sweaty vegetables nodding as the talking head confirms all our biases and makes us feel like we've been right all along. That way they could sell us enough penis pills and adult diapers that by the time they were through, we wouldn't know whether it was time to get laid or to get changed.

But Hollywood and the media companies are increasingly under siege from the New Entertainment.

Hollywood knows this and they're scared to death - this is SOPA is actually about, not the .01% of illegally viewed episodes of Bones. Startups and internet companies also know this and they are PRESSING THEIR ADVANTAGE."

Kill Hollywood - The Reformed Broker

"A consortium led by Chinese media entrepreneur Bruno Wu is scouring Hollywood for film companies to acquire, in a sign of China’s growing interest in the US entertainment industry."

China investors set their sights on Hollywood - Ft Alphaville

Garth Vader

2012-01-20T16:56:00.001+09:00

Don't Break the Internet

2012-01-20T08:53:00.001+09:00

"PROTECT-IP is a bill that has been introduced in the Senate and the House and is moving quickly through Congress. It gives the government and corporations the ability to censor the net, in the name of protecting "creativity". The law would let the government or corporations censor entire sites-- they just have to convince a judge that the site is "dedicated to copyright infringement."

The government has already wrongly shut down sites without any recourse to the site owner. Under this bill, sharing a video with anything copyrighted in it, or what sites like Youtube and Twitter do, would be considered illegal behavior according to this bill.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, this bill would cost us $47 million tax dollars a year — that's for a fix that won't work, disrupts the internet, stifles innovation, shuts out diverse voices, and censors the internet. This bill is bad for creativity and does not protect your rights."

"But maybe you don't care about all of that. Maybe politics bores you, maybe technical details make your eyes glaze over. Here's why you should care anyway: the proposed law that would result from Sopa and Pipa will only work if you are put under 24-hour digital surveillance.

The old media firms in the US aren't out to get you personally, of course – they don't really care about you in particular. What they dislike about you is your willingness to share things with your friends, and with the world at large."

Sopa and Pipa would create a consumption-only internet - Guardian

Beagles

2012-01-19T14:08:00.001+09:00

As seen from space

2012-01-19T10:43:00.001+09:00

via BBC

Complicated

2012-01-19T10:23:00.000+09:00

"He summarizes the global economic environment as follows: "The global environment is very complicated. On the one hand the Federal Reserve has taken a much-needed break from quantitative easing (at least for the moment). Accordingly, inflation in oil and food has abated, providing relief to the US economy. Bearish forecasts that the US was headed back into recession proved wrong for the third time since the end of the last recession. On the other hand, Asia appears to be in much worse shape than it was at this time last year and could be a drag on the world economy going forward. Very few people trust any of the economic data coming out of China, making it difficult to gauge the situation there. Some of the smartest people we know have very dim views. The Chinese have been a leading growth engine for the last two decades and are largely credit with leading the world out of the recession in 2009. A change in their economic circumstances could really upend things."

Einhorn Ends 2011 Just Over +2% - ZH

"The cycle looks like this: time passes and the crisis deepens. Markets, eternal creatures of habit, begin to reflect the ensuing fear. Then, just as things appear ready to unravel, there is a reprieve, as red headlines race across the screen: "Sarkozy and Merkel to Meet at Deauville", "Obama Phones Cameron", or "Christine Lagarde Waves from Bus". The market jumps. You'd think the media would quit falling for this charade, but having run out of clever headlines to describe the impending doom - "Eurogeddon" Really? - they herald every briefing, meeting, assembly, and conference call.

The market embraces these announcements as eagerly as the media, behaving as if any and all communication is equally constructive, and likely to yield a solution. The market continues to rise until the day of that summit, as all ears await a Grand Communique. Within minutes of any proclamation, the market may cheer with a final, celebratory spike. Upon evaluation of the actual statement, it becomes clear that either nothing has truly been agreed upon, or the plan is insufficient, impractical or just won't work. The market sells off and the crisis deepens some more. Lather. Rinse. Repeat."

Producing production

2012-01-19T09:42:00.000+09:00

"Clearly the question of what has really happened to Japan is of first-order geopolitical importance. In a stunning refutation of American conventional wisdom, Japan has not missed a beat in building an ever more sophisticated industrial base. That this is not more obvious is a tribute in part to the fact that Japanese manufacturers have graduated to making so-called producers’ goods. These typically consist of advanced components or materials, or precision production equipment. They may be invisible to the consumer, yet without them the modern world literally would not exist. This sort of manufacturing, which is both highly capital-intensive and highly know-how-intensive, was virtually monopolized by the United States in the 1950s and 1960s and constituted the essence of American economic leadership.

Japan’s achievement is all the more impressive for the fact that its major competitors — Germany, South Korea, Taiwan and, of course, China — have hardly been standing still. The world has gone through a rapid industrial revolution in the last two decades thanks to the “targeting” of manufacturing by many East Asian nations. Yet Japan’s trade surpluses have risen.

Japan should be held up as a model, not an admonition. If a nation can summon the will to pull together, it can turn even the most unpromising circumstances to advantage. Here Japan’s constant upgrading of its infrastructure is surely an inspiration."

The Myth of Japan’s Failure - NYT

The Hedge Fund Mirage

2012-01-19T05:50:00.000+09:00

"Hedge-fund managers treat themselves to absolutely fabulous toys: Ken Griffin is fond of Ferraris, Steve Cohen is known for his Damien Hirst pickled shark and ice rink outfitted with its own Zamboni in a gabled cottage.

So where are the customers’ yachts?

“Who can name even one hedge fund investor whose fortune is based on the hedge funds he successfully picked?” asks Simon Lack in his stinging expose, “The Hedge Fund Mirage.”

The risks and rewards are so cockeyed that Lack can’t resist paraphrasing Winston Churchill’s encomium about Royal Air Force fighter pilots during the Battle of Britain: “Never in the history of Finance was so much charged by so many for so little.”"

Hedge Funds Buy Ferraris With Phantom Profits, Leave Clients Crumbs - Bloomberg

The oldest piano shop in Paris

2012-01-19T05:45:00.000+09:00

Ocean Grace

2012-01-19T04:56:00.000+09:00

SOPA sucks

2012-01-18T14:40:00.001+09:00

STOP SOPA

“Why is it that when Republicans and Democrats need to solve the budget and the deficit, there’s deadlock, but when Hollywood lobbyists pay them $94 million dollars to write legislation, people from both sides of the aisle line up to co-sponsor it?”

Reddit Founder Alexis Ohanian on CNBC.

"The RIAA and MPAA are, again, on the wrong side of history. Attempting to tear apart one of the single greatest communications achievements in human history in a misguided attempt to cling to an outdated business model instead of adapting to the changing world is a fucking crime.

A free and open Internet is as important to me as the bill of rights. I don't want the government of one country -- especially the corporate-controlled United States government -- to exert unilateral control over the Internet for any reason, especially not because media corporations want to buy legislation that won't do anything to actually stop online piracy, but will expand the American police state, and destroy the Internet as we know it."

WWdN:In Exile

A technical examination of SOPA and PROTECT IP