collegepark30349 comments

Because they only focus on making the lives of the parents better. There is no focus on making the lives of the children better. A lot of people here did not particularly enjoy their childhoods and do not want to visit the same thing on their children: over crowded classrooms, 70-year-old school buildings, busy work disguised as "education," juken, ridiculous bukatsu schedules, bullying, commuting 90 min to high school because it is the only one that had the course you wanted to take, crazy school and society rules... . They did not enjoy being young and know nothing will change - it hasn't in 70 years. Why force your children into something you did not like? Make the lives of 5 - 18 year olds better and more people will want children.

Build a society, says Mogi, in which individuals can live as they please, economically secure and embracing the lifestyle that suits them

Amen

signaling that voters have positively evaluated her policies centered on quality of life and political competence over the past eight years.

That's quite the spin. I think is has more to do with Renho and Ishimaru splitting the protest vote.

Board games at schools in Japan are surging in popularity as an extracurricular activity.

I think this is wonderful. I'm a proud Board Game Geek with over 100 games at home and can be pretty Evangelical about them. We have family game night at home every Saturday and there is nothing better - spending time together, talking and, depending on the game, competing or cooperating. I've tried to get a club going at my university but so far no takers. Kids seem to have the gaming skills from computer games, but not the social skills required for board games. I also wish there were more of a selection in Japanese stores. There is more to life than Catan, Life and Clue.

This is absolutely bonkers:

The criminal procedure law stipulates that a retrial will be opened if there is "clear evidence to find the accused not guilty." But it lacks provisions on the disclosure of information that is in possession of prosecutors and investigators for retrials, preventing easy access to evidence that could favor the convicted, experts say.

OK. So, one, the burden of proof is on the accused. You have to prove your innocence instead of them having to prove that you are guilty. Two, there is no rule of discovery for the prosecution. Three, because there is no discovery, the prosecution can hide exculpatory evidence, thus preventing you from "providing clear evidence" that you are not guilty. Talk about home court advantage for the prosecution.

And as I have always stated, if they are absolutely sure this guy is guilty, why has no Justice Minister signed his execution papers in 40+ years? 134 executions in Japan since 1993, yet this man has yet to be executed. They obviously don't think he is guilty and do not want blood on their hands. They were probably hoping he would die in prison of natural causes. I imagine now they are hoping he dies before the trial and verdict so that even if he is found innocent, they can way "well, we did not execute an innocent man."

There are two parts to this ruling that scare me.

*The chief justice also made clear that the lower courts cannot take into account Trump’s motives when determining the difference between official versus unofficial acts while in office.*

How in the world can motive not be taken into account? The President is the Commander in Chief of the armed forces. He is up for re-election. His rival has huge lead in the polls. He knows he is going to lose, but wants to stay in power. He declares his opponent a threat to the nation. Orders the army to assassinate him.

Yes, that is an official act as commander in chief. But does the motive make him immune? Assassinating someone like Bin-Laden is fine. But,....

*coupled with its decision to* return key questions about the scope of Trump's immunity to lower courts to resolve

So they just created a yo-yo. Lower court says a president can be prosecuted. President appeals .... and on and on.

*Roberts cited the need for presidents to "execute the duties of his office fearlessly and fairly" without the threat of prosecution.*

How about faithfully?

There are a ton of reasons as mentioned above. I think a more recent cause is the adoption of the "For me to win, you have to lose" mentality of individuals and parties. The idea of, "I don't care if I don't get what I want. As long as I can stop you from getting what you want, then I win." This is neither productive or helpful to anyone except for giving people something to run on. Compromise - RIP.

My grandmother and mother to me, and me to my kids: "Only stupid people get bored."

This kind of goes both ways. Students should be free to explore and follow their curiosity and interests. On the other hand, there is a long list of things that I was "made" to study and do that I would not have bothered with on my own. Many of the things on that list sparked my curiosity and have been beneficial to my life. The key is finding a balance.

I got a wage increase. Unfortunately, I had to get a second job for it to happen.

One thing that I think would help the economy would be to let high school students (16 and over) have part-time jobs. I don't understand the prohibition. Let the kids earn and spend their own money (and pay taxes). I've always felt this is a huge untapped market here. In the US and other countries, go to a supermarket, restaurant or mall at night or on the weekend and most part-timers are high school kids. They take the money they make and go out, but clothes....

As a parent, I see no difference between spending 4 hours after school, and double that amount on weekends, doing club activities, and spending the same amount of time working part-time. Pick up some good life and social skills as well. Yes, there would have to be rules (no working more than 4 hours a shift on weekdays, finish by 9:30...etc. But, there is a large segment of the population that can, but does not, participate in the economy.

Two things. One, there are far more Japanese national tax and pension cheats than there are permanent resident cheats (and there are plenty of those). My Japanese sister-in-law has been skating on her taxes for years (small business but does a lot of cash-and-carry that she does not report - even lives in public housing!).

Two, the employers need to be held responsible for this as well. They often don't report or enroll foreign employees properly. Years ago, I worked for one of the "Big Three" eikawa schools. They provided all of their foreign teachers with travel insurance and did not enroll them in the national insurance or pension, which was not legal. Got away with it for years since most people finished their contracts and went back to their country. I did not. They did not renew my contract and I had a four month wait until my new job here started. Since it was their choice not to renew, I decided to file for unemployment and join the national health insurance. City hall was stunned to find out I had been living and working in Japan for four years without paying insurance and pension premiums and that the company was not enrolling us and only providing travel insurance. That company got in trouble and had to change the way they do things. I'm sure similar things are happening now with other companies. If you go after one, go after everyone.

I mainly do boring academic translations, so I have no dog in this fight. However, I don't see how AI translation of manga can work. A lot of the dialog in manga is dependent on the illustrations and vice-versa. Sometimes the words support the illustrations, sometimes they contradict, sometime the illustrations are used for emphasis, sarcasm, humor... Has AI gotten to the point where it can "read" the illustrations and see their relationship with the words? Or, is it just translating the words. If it is the latter, that is no good for anyone. Imagine taking a "Calvin and Hobbes" dialog and translating it without the pictures and then putting it into the strip. There is a 50-50 chance you'd be completely off the mark.

"Japanese has more than 10 ways to say “father,”

Good thing English doesn't, right Dad, Pop, Papa, Pa, Daddy, Old Man, Pops, Pappy, ...

I've recently stared a quest to collect the entire run of the "Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators" series. Loved then as a kid. I used to collect football cards. Still have a few with some decent: Jerry Rice, Dan Marino and Barry Sanders rookie cards, plus all of the cards of my idol Anthony Munoz.

I've seen several, but the one that stands out most is The Phantom of the Opera with Lon Chaney. It was at the Fox Theater in Atlanta and the house organist played accompanying music throughout the film - yes, including Toccata and Fuge in D minor. Just fantastic.

Sven Asai

BTW, those restrictions and prompting limitations are already massively applied, but can be and are obviously easily avoided ... although it doesn't answer those bad questions by original limited or restricted algorithm.

Thank you for the information. I did not know this. I'm curious as to who comes up with the prompting limitations and restricted algorithms. I don't think there are government regulations. Are the companies basically self-policing?

I think this is going to be the next big ethical debate. How or should we monitor / restrict / report what people are asking AI to do? And who should do the monitoring / restricting / reporting? I don't have much experience with AI but I can see some nut case asking questions such at "How can I make an untraceable poison?" or "What is the easiest way to poison a barn full of rats?" (When they really mean office full of co-workers). "What materials are necessary to build a pipe bomb?" I know that info is already out there on dark web and such, but AI will make it even easier. Scary.

At a university. To actually do my job, not much. To get ahead in my job, you need it. I've gotten ahead of more experienced and accomplished colleagues (ex. being given leadership / management / head of committee positions) because of my Japanese ability. Being able to speak isn't enough; keigo, reading and writing is what'll get you ahead.

Heartbreaking. Saw this on the news last night and it seems like another murder-suicide. I wish the people that did this kind of thing would take care of the suicide part first.

rainyday is spot on with the analysis.

Take a look at the drafts in any professional sports. Very few first and second round picks have Hall of Fame careers. Some have solid, All-pro careers, some become journeymen, and some wash out. On the other hand, some late round or undrafted players become All-pro or make it to the Hall of Fame. The same with the Japanese players going to the Majors. I think it will get better as time goes on - less hype, more solid careers. Similar to Europeans in the NBA. They were considered "over hyped" in the late 80s and early 90s. Two years ago three made it to the Hall of Fame (Gasol, Nowitzki, Parker) and this year's All NBA first team was 4/5 foreign born.

Ichiro is a generational talent and would have been great in any league in any era.

Hideki Matsui would have been great if he were not so broken down when he got there and then broke his arm in his third year.

Daisuke Matsuzaka liked beer and fast food to much - look at his body between his rookie year with Boston and his final one.

The guys that impressed me the most were So Taguchi and Shigetoshi Hasegawa. Put their heads down, paid their dues (minors for Taguci), then became role players and eventually had solid careers with All-Star game appearances and a World Series ring for Taguchi.

I know of two places here in Okayama that do this. Benesse has a day care center inside their headquarters for employees and the people I know that work their have great things to say about it. The other is 国立病院, which has one for the children of doctors and nurses who work at the hospital (neighbor works there). Both seem like worthwhile investments.

METATTOKYO

Do all parents get the payment back from the local govt?

Just check with your local ward or city office. When Mrs. College Park and I went to get the 親子手帳 (after the OBGYN confirms your pregnancy and gives you the form), the folks at Okayama city hall gave us a big file full of applications, coupons, vouchers...all the information we'd need. Plus the little tag to put on our car for special parking, seating on the busses and trains and what not. Look on the website of wherever it is you live. Also check with your private insurance company if you have one.

This seems to be solving a problem that doesn't really exist, at least from my experience. Most municipalities have their own lump-sum payments to cover what insurance, national or private, does not. Here in Okayama, both of my children were delivered at no out-of-pocket cost to me. I have private insurance and what it did not cover, Okayama city did - delivery, hospital stay, pre- and post checkups...etc. In fact, since both of them were c-sections, we actually got money back because a c-section is considered "surgery." I think we got around 300,000 back each time. My insurance also gave us 出産祝い (childbirth gifts) - vouchers for diapers and whatnot and reimbursed me for the car seat. Okayama city gave us two years worth of free garbage bags - we have to buy bags from the city for garbage (300 yen for 10 x 30 liters) - but they gave us two cases.

As others have said, I'd rather see money spent on quality of life measures. But, not for the parents, for the children. Build new kindergarten and school buildings, get new items in the school. Some of the desks in my kids' school are older than me. More teachers, smaller classes...don't just focus on making adults' lives easier. I think one reason a lot of people aren't having children is because they did not particularly enjoy their own childhoods and don't want to visit that experience onto their own children.

It gets even worse. The uni that I work for started outsourcing the entrance exam writing a few years ago (until the the uni instructors wrote all of them) to "save the professors precious time." The outsourcing company uses AI to make the test materials, questions and answer keys. We now spend more time correcting and editing the outsourced exams than we did writing the originals. What is worse is that the company thinks AI is infallible and often ignores out edits. We have a published playwright on staff yet the company swears the AI dialogs are "natural."

They argued that mifepristone might result in complications that would send a woman to an emergency room where, as the only nurse or doctor on duty, they might be forced to take part in terminating a pregnancy.

On the other hand, they might also be "forced" to take part in saving the mother's life. I respect people's religion and right conscientious objection, but if you are the only resource / provider / option for the patient, you need to do what they want and feel is best for them and put your own beliefs aside.

“My Christian beliefs and values and morals informed my decision. … Here’s this person who’s hurting who needs help. Would my God that I believe in and worship want me to turn my back on her and just stand there and judge her instead of help her?”

This. All day this. Bless this person.

No matter what the parents think of each other, children should be allowed to love their parents (abuse excluded, of course).

I guess when you don't do anything it's pretty easy not to mess up.

His promoter is cherry-picking his opponents (mostly nobodys/bums) and only chooses to hold fights in Japan to make sure Inoue wins and looks impressive.

You are quite mistaken here, my friend. Inoue is definitely not one of the Kameda brothers. To date he has had bouts with 13 current or former world champions - 13! - half of his bouts - and has defeated all of them by KO. His opponent last night was a former champ, highly ranked and not a walk over - he came to fight. Inoue is just that good. He has also fought outside of Japan on several occasions. The kid is legit.

I guess the best part is you are never without coverage. Lose your job the employer insurance? Just slide right into the national program. Working only part-time or on contract? Join the national program. Also, no rejection for preexisting conditions. Like Jack above said, broad access, reasonable cost, reasonable quality.

I wonder how many are also lacking libraries. A book store I can live without. A library is an essential part of civilization.

Using it at the breakfast / lunch / dinner table. It's right up there with wearing a hat to the table.

I wonder what the issue is with legendary Carol Kaye. She should have been in as a contributor long ago. She's 89 now and not much longer for this world I'm afraid. She deserves so much more than a posthumous induction.