11F comments

Walked into Sumitomo bank Nagoya Eki Mae with my wife to help me with the process and forms. We both applied for new bank account and credit cards. It was hard enough just to get approval for a bank account. They said I need to work in Japan for 6 months before i could get one. After much escalation they finally allowed it. Had all the company contracts and signed letters proving my salary and employment. The credit card applications for both of us got sent off for approval. My wife had 0 income, I had a very healthy expat income to more than support us. A week later the letters arrived, my credit card application got rejected and my wife’s got approved. Amazing.

This is real RnD. Maybe those firmware and software engineers from TMC and the suppliers would know how to do this, especially if they made the specifications, did the validation testing. Maybe some of the specifications got past the security checkpoints around gihon. A Foreign resident engineer from a foreign supplier designing a key ECU was once tapped on the shoulder one day by the chief engineer for cyber security. He asked him what is your company’s test spec for cyber security? TMC didn’t actually have any cyber security specifications until 2019 for the first time, can you believe that? And of course they just copied what the resident gave them. It’s not as hard as you think if you understand how the electrical architecture works and with all the CAN sniffing devices out there all you need is a good software engineer or two and a hardware expert. Start your impossible!

This is a classic case of cultural misunderstanding. For the JAL staff expected them to be quiet and fall asleep and not make any noise and follow requests like robots, however Australian culture especially of young men enjoy being rowdy and getting smashed. Now they are in quarantine and once out it might be possible that they won’t remember what happened. Perhaps if it was a kantasu flight there might not be any escalation. It’s difficult for Japanese to understand Australia’s unique culture.

Have to hand to it him for not indulging, dudes these days are completely opposite. Mindset back then shows how different we are.

Goanna!

Don’t bite the hand that feeds. You are in too deep.

The shape of things to come. There are many resident engineers from Suzuki and Daihatsu in TMC. Basically they go there to learn the specifications and take it back with them to their company to implement in their vehicles after their 2-3 year assignment is over. That’s how the collaboration works. TMC gains leverage.

Watched the speech to kill some time in lockdown. He did a great job pandering to the crowd mimicking our bogan sayings. The media was also very considerate until the last reporter asked him about Fukushima and how it impacts Japans future nuclear roadmap and what their plans are, he skipped around the question, the reporter asked him again and he the then refused to answer saying “I’m going to stop right here on this topic”. Guess the program couldn’t execute that one.

That is true. Telematics now allows remote services of the vehicle. Anything you imagine that has an ECU can be remotely controlled. You can immobilize the engine, open or close windows, turn the AC on or off, lock or unlock doors and remote start. If Ford is proclaiming this now they are a little bit behind the game as JOEMs and EOEMs have been doing this for more than a few years now. It’s actually the supplier that makes the hardware and applications for this functionality. The vehicle company has to construct the backend servers to process this and you know that all your data will be sold to insurance company’s or what not. Now everything and every time you drive you will be tracked and the information recorded. Systems of control.

The Dead Kennedy’s wrote a song about this, called “Kepone Factory” which educated me about this corporate crime.