a few things:

1) there just aint enough TV here to create a demand for HDRs. The domestic appearance of such product is a "me too" thing at best. We dont have 500 channels of nothing to watch, we have about 10, maybe 20 if you have satelite and cable. BTW the cable difusion rates are a whole seperate regulatory SNAFU. And for as many hours as people here spend at work, I've never once heard a co-worker say they missed their favorite show because they couldnt get home in time.

2) TV delivery on keitei is being experimented with.

3) there is a NetFlix type service here, it started out as DVDZoo.jp. Livedoor bought it and its still around. Initially they promised same day delivery in the 23-ku or next day outside of the 23 using takkyubin delivery. Tokyo certainly has better logistics for delivery inside the metropolitain environments than anywhere in the US. I cant comment on the service myself, but since I just got hooked on the X Flies and dont want to spent 10万円 buying all the box sets, I plan to checkout the Livedoor offering.

4) TV/VOD is being experimented on using FTTH through NTT B-Flets lines. I posted a link to that here in another thread.

5) I think this type of distribution is probably at the heart of the Livedoor/Fujisankei battle. Horiemon is probably planning to try and sell us Fuji/Pony Canyon content over the net somehow. I'd bet thats the Fuji stuff itself is not the real money maker, I figure Pony Canyon is the real jewel for content.

6) The thing that probably holds all of this back here is distribution rights compensation. Its the same thing holding back an iTMS Japan. I'm betting on Horiemon is going to run into this same brick wall in regards to #5. If this all goes through, I wouldnt be surprised if Horiemon and Jobs are able to get some services going here since Pony Canyon does a fair ammount of music as well as video product.

Sort of a tangent, but perhaps relevant:

Video on computers does seem to be an underground thing here, but I wonder if in this case underground == minority. My reason for suspecting that more people are pirating video content on computers is the vast number of mooks available explaining exactly how this can be done. These have popped up in the last two years or so, I'd be very curious to know their circulation numbers as an indicator of the growth of TV on PC. It would also be interesting to see the BitTorrent, Winny and gnutella statistics in Japan to see what exactly people are dowloading. I suspect the majority of it is people downloading porno, especially uncensored porno. Pop the characters 無修正 into your favorite P2P app for an indicator of what I'm talking about.

Very interesting comments, Chris. I'm lucky to have people who know the more intricate details. While these technological and legal wranglings do seem to get in the way, it does seem like there's not enough content to increase demand for new TV/film techologies.

With both the Net and VCRs, better distribution of pornography is really what got the market going. Why is this not driving Japanese content distro?

Chris_B, you sound knowledgeable and authoritative in this area.

I'm wondering what your opinions on internet providers are. I leech (with approval) of a friendly neighbours wi-fi right now, but I'll be moving soon and will get internet at home. I've heard various opinions on the merits/demerits of ADSL/cable/fibre
and would be interested to hear your opinion too.
Ditto for other neomarxistes resident in Japan.

Ah, but Gizmodo posts this today:

http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/dvrs/tivo-to-cross-the-pond-no-the-other-pond-036596.php

BTW I've been seeing those video hard disk recorders in computer shops for several years. Have no idea what the size of the market is though.

Jean, would be very interested to hear your views on ADSL/cable/fibre and providers in Japan as well.

Thanks for the link, Jean.

Will Japanese consumers think they need Tivo if they don't even think they need cable?

I use Tepco's hikari fiber service with Point doing the IP provisioning. My needs are a bit different than most since I'm hosting several web pages, an FTP server and a few other things at home. I'm using a Cisco PIX firewall to terminate the PPPoE and do all port forwarding. The inside LAN has 2 servers, several client computers with over 1TB of LAN storage, as well as 3 networked printers.

When I was on DSL, I used YahooBB and was happy with it.

Your milage may vary.

marxy wrote: With both the Net and VCRs, better distribution of pornography is really what got the market going. Why is this not driving Japanese content distro?

There has been a large takeup on web porn here and pay per stream video porn (no pun intended). Are they making money? Not so much from what I hear. AFAIK this is in part due to low quality product and lack of consumer demand. EVERY video shop in this proud nation carries more porn than you could shake a stick at (no pun intended) so the theoretical convenience of PPV downloads just doesnt have much pull (I give up, I'm not going to even try and pretend to disqualify the double entendres any more).

Additionally the local adult video market is suffering overall. Most domestic titles are considered a hit if they sell 10,000 copies. Hardly a drop in the bucket if you compare sales figures for US/EU producers. Sales numbers are often sagging far below that in what might be called a limp market. As much as I wouldnt call it a trustworthy source, check out some of the back stories on http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/waiwai/index.html for various info. One thing the J-AV producers did catch onto before the major content producers was to market back catalog on DVD. Of course compared to the US market, this lesson was learned quite late.

Relevant to this is the current battle between BluRay and HD-DVD. Everyone is waiting to see what the US adult video producers choose since we all know that they will provide the real money shot for any format.

The inside LAN has 2 servers, several client computers with over 1TB of LAN storage, as well as 3 networked printers.

Wow! 3 networked printers? Are you running a small publishing outfit?

Thanks for your comments btw. I'd go with Yahoo, but I don't really need a phone landline. I think it's going to be either fiber or cable.

I'm not going to even try and pretend to disqualify the double entendres any more

That last post could be the outline of an entertaining essay.

I'm not running a print shop. I have:

1) Epson LP1300 A4 laser printer
2) Canon iP3100 ink jet (A4, photo, CD printing)
3) Epson MJ8000 A2 ink jet with built in print server (this one is actuallly an old pro printer, I got it because sometimes I like to brint very large things.)

They are all networked because everything should be. I'm really surprised that neither Canon nor Epson has put an ethernet chip or wifi antenna into every printer they sell. HP isnt doing any better so its not just the locals.

As for the essay, that would just be one bit. I see the whole "massive leap forward" of japan's gizmology as just a repeat of the Black Ships. I've written bits of that here before.

But those HDD recorders are basically the same as TiVo units, especially the new Sony Sugoroku models. They've got a feature called "Omakase/Maru roku" that basically records everything you might want to watch, based on keywords you give it. Plus what PVR back in the States has 400GB (or even 250GB!) of capacity?

The only thing about my Sony HDD that I'm dissatisfied with is the lack of an extra tuner to allow me to watch something else while recording something. Other than that, to me it's light years ahead of a TiVo box.

(Yes, the Series 2 TiVos have the whole PC connectivity thing going for them, but I just don't see that as all that impressive yet.)

A Cringely column back around the release of the Mac mini made the argument that the mini, along with former Sony top Idei appearing at MacWorld, signaled the coming of an iTunes Movie Store that would allow you to DL HD movies to your mini (or whatever Mac you had) and then watch them on your DVI-interface equipped TV. He's going out on a limb a little, but I'm sure he's not far off.

As far as (illegal) downloading of movies go, while I know the Winny/WinMX/etc. networks are brimming with porn, where are the BT sites here? I've NEVER seen a Japanese BitTorrent site and I've been looking (though admittedly, not that hard). You'd think the underground community would jump all over that...

One final thing, an aside about Tepco's FTTH internet service (which I just signed up for today), keep in mind it takes 1-2 months from date of signup to the day they come to install everything. So if you're in desparate need of 'net RIGHT NOW, they may not be the way to go.

Brad: I have not found any Japanese language torrent sites either and all the mooks seem to point readers to english or russian sites. I have however found plenty of double byte file named torrents. Not one of em was a dorama/wide show/jidaigeki||kimono parade though. Is it possible that even the japanese dont think japanese TV is worth pirating? ^_^

The mooks do tell you how to set up your own tracker, so maybe the action is on ni-channneru or other BBSs instead of on websites. I'll have to admit, I have not bothered to investigate too deeply.

They've got a feature called "Omakase/Maru roku" that basically records everything you might want to watch, based on keywords you give it. Plus what PVR back in the States has 400GB (or even 250GB!) of capacity?

Doesn't Tivo also record things for you that you might like?

Did you use the HDD recorder in the US? I could imagine that, but I couldn't imagine finding 400 gigs of Japanese programming to record.

s.b. said: I've heard various opinions on the merits/demerits of ADSL/cable/fibre
and would be interested to hear your opinion too.

and i say: i've got a 'hikari fiber' connection going on here. it is fast as all get out, but then again, it should be, since i've got a server here going. i say don't settle for anything less than adsl if you are free to pick.

best,
r.

and i say: i've got a 'hikari fiber' connection going on here. it is fast as all get out, but then again, it should be, since i've got a server here going. i say don't settle for anything less than adsl if you are free to pick.

Yes I'm hoping to get fiber into the new place. It will depend on whether the owner allows the necessary hole drilling. NTT has an option that will set up wi-fi from the nearest telephone pole and give you about 46 Mbits/s bi-directional (don't get any wrong ideas). It's a bit more expensive and slower than FTTH but it would allow me to use wi-fi sitting by river, which is about 20m from the new place.

A friend says cable is a better deal than ADSL because you don't need an NTT subscription, and you get TV with it. But a lot of the mansions don't have cable, so that would probably involve a similar set up charge to fiber or to the NTT line set up, and I'd still face problems if the owner doesn't want new holes in the building.

BTW the general situation for fiber is apparently the best in the world in Japan, in terms of subscribers per capita, bandwidth, and cost. Second is Korea in therms of bandwidth and cost, but they probably have way more subscibers per capita. Both of these countries are ahead of the USA when it comes to FTTH.

What do you think of those apples, Marxy?

r.: do you have NTT or Tepco?

In western Japan the equivalent of Tepco is provided by Kansai Denryoku. They have a "campaign" which minimizes setup charges to neglible. Unfortunately it lasts only until March 31. And I don't think I want to raise the possibility of hole drilling with the manager of the new place until the lease is signed. A friend was once rejected by an house owner because he said that he asked whether it would be possible to change the wallpaper. This is a disadvantage of mansions over old houses. With a boro-boro old house, you don't even have to worry about knocking down walls, let alone wallpaper. Maybe next time ...

What do you think of those apples, Marxy?

Does that automatically make Japan more computer literate than Korea or the US?

sparklig, you might want to check if they actually do have to drill holes. Tepco will bring the cable in through your aircon vent, or any other existing outlet, if possible. Of course, they can't say for sure until they look at the building. Tepco also calls the landlord to get the OK, rather than you having to do it yourself.

marxy, no, I bought the HDD recorder here. There may not be THAT much tv to watch here, but there's some that I enjoy, most of it late at night, when I'm asleep, so that's mainly what I use it for.

Brad - As I understand it Tepco serves Eastern Japan. In Kansai, the equivalent seems to be Kansai Denryoku.

I saw something on NTT's page saying that there is sometimes a problem getting fiber into mansions because the owner doesn't allow whatever work needs to be done. And in that case they have a service to provide a wi-fi link from the fiber to the house.

Anyways it's a bit premature because I just submitted the application to rent yesterday. The preliminary response was that there is no problem but there is still quite a bit of paperwork to go through.

However in general, surprisingly I didn't encounter the "no gaijin please" phenonmenon at any of the fudosan's I visited. That's five different fudosan's. In only one case did I have a personal introduction. In three cases I walked in off the street, and in one case I called ahead to set up an appointment. I ended up dealing with one of the walk-in places.
Overall it was a very enjoyable experience and good a good Japanese lesson.

What I did encounter was a straighup (shoujiki) statement from several of the fudosan that some properties simply don't accept foreigners. But they very effectively dealt with this situation, by either knowing ahead of time which properties were off-limits or by making a quick call to check.

Kyoto is the second largest educational centre in Japan after Tokyo and, per capita, must have the highest concentration of students and scholars in the country. And in addition it is a natural draw for foreign students. Every fudo-san I dealt with had prior experience dealing with foreign clients.

On the other hand, I recently met an American Nova teacher who claimed that every fudosan she walked into refused her. But she had a kind of I'm-gonna-be-in-your-face manner. Japanese people pick such things up very quickly, because it of the importance of non-verbal implicit messages in Japanese culture.

But thanks for the tip about the possibility of getting it in via the aircon in/outake.

But she had a kind of I'm-gonna-be-in-your-face manner. Japanese people pick such things up very quickly, because it of the importance of non-verbal implicit messages in Japanese culture.

I wonder sometimes how much discrimination towards foreigners is more about following cultural/linguistic codes than race. The better my Japanese gets, I tend to feel less hostility and alienation. When you speak a reasonable amount of Japanese, you get treated better on the whole and you also feel more in touch with what's going on. I've been here when my Japanese and my understanding of customs was more limited, and I definitely was more frustrated than I am now.

Hey Marxy - do I detect a thaw in your thinking?

This fudosan experience was very interesting. I recently separated from a long-term girlfriend and am doing things myself that I would normally ask for her help with. It's a very liberating experience to find out that my understanding of the language and culture has progressed to the stage where I can deal with these things by myself. I'm thinking about what I'll do when it comes time to sign the lease. Maybe I should bring a native speaker with me. I could do that, but it would be wimping out.

Does that automatically make Japan more computer literate than Korea or the US?

Certainly not. But it does defeat your point that Japan has been completely left behind in the development of the internet, other than networked phones.

When it comes to optical fiber, this country seems to be in better shape than anywhere else.
Thanks to advance planning and massive investment by NTT, the government, and others like Kansai Denryoku.

See there's a problem with cable - the bandwidth is asymmetric. Not very democratic is it, when you can download lots of content but not upload it as quickly?

The future is P2P. And you need a fast upload for that.

Stanley Lieber, who sometimes posts here has just drawn my attention to a very new book which is of relevance to several strands of this thread:

Bonds of Civility : Aesthetic Networks and the Political Origins of Japanese Culture (Structural Analysis in the Social Sciences)
by Eiko Ikegami
C.U.P. 2005

Abstract
Eiko Ikegami uncovers a complex history of social life in which aesthetic images are central to Japan's cultural identities. Combining sociological insights in organizations with prodigious scholarship on cultural history, this book explores such wide-ranging topics as networks of performing arts, tea ceremony and haiku, the politics of kimono aesthetics, the rise of commercial publishing, the popularization of etiquette and manners, the vogue for androgyny in kabuki performance, and the rise of tacit modes of communication.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521601150/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-1453987-7596900?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance

Now if Japan's aethetic networks get going on optical fibre, this is going to be even more fun than a monkey on a unicorn.

TiVo and Cable networks will look rather drab by comparison.

sparklig, I was just mentioning that since Tepco does this here, Kansai Denryoku might do the same over there. I understand Tepco does not service your area. I thought you might want to check into that.

Just checking out Tepco's page, I found they have a service called "Hikari de DVD" at http://www.hikari-de-dvd.com that allows you to download DVDs straight to your HDD/DVD recorder. This sounded great until I read the fine print and realized it only works with one model of recorder put out by Toshiba.

About the rental thing, I went last week to find a new place and basically went to one fudosan. After looking through their books, I had found 4 possibilities, one of which I was dead set on getting. The guy I dealt with called the 4 landlords and of the 4, 2 said no foreigners. Fortunately, the apartment I wanted was one of the ones that said OK, so I'm moving in on Thursday. The guy that assisted me was half straightforward, half apologetic...kind of "This is the way it is, sorry".

Certainly not. But it does defeat your point that Japan has been completely left behind in the development of the internet, other than networked phones.

Maybe not left behind, but certainly not ahead at this point in time. The standard for a decade or so was that the Japanese were ahead of the West in technology, so compared to that, things aren't as good.

Now if Japan's aethetic networks get going on optical fibre, this is going to be even more fun than a monkey on a unicorn.TiVo and Cable networks will look rather drab by comparison.

We'll see. Despite my sometimes sourness, I'd be happy if Japan got interesting again. That monkey riding a dog placated me for a while though...

I don't live in Japan, so this is an outsider's outsider perspective:

Japanese computer security has lagged behind the West since the inception of computer networking. Japanese institutions are still connecting important, complex systems to the Internet with factory-default passwords and authentication codes. Overall, as others have mentioned on previous threads, their concerns don't seem to center around software.

The Japanese people seem to be adapting to and integrating communications technology into mainstream social interaction sooner, and in more interesting ways, than the West. Howard Rheingold explored this in his 2002 book, SMART MOBS: THE NEXT SOCIAL REVOLUTION. This is one area where I think Momus' examination of the differing relationships between Identity and Self in the two spheres are insightful; perhaps it could be said that the Japanese organizational principles more closely resemble the 'superflat' or 'pile of leaves' taxonomy (to draw upon dissonant visual metaphors), in that the population is not exclusively comprised of individuals constantly attempting to make vertical leaps within the hierarchy (which may also account for the disinterest in strong passwords and secure systems).

Momus might interject here that this is a clear example of Western aggression resulting in myopia when it comes to the organic development of efficient communications systems, but I'm not convinced it's all that simple.

-sl

Regarding my earlier post on Aesthetic networks, I'd like to extend this by saying that we may be entering an era where Broadband Aesthetics becomes an important area. I'd like to propose a first principle of Broadband Aesthetics: Reciprocity - networks should aim to have such a structure that enables people to upload as easily as they download.

Cable and TiVo do not satisfy that principle because these systems are designed with the assumption that people should be downloading rather than uploading. It's a very television era model aimed at continuing the passive consumer pattern or grazing cattle model of society.

I bet your average TiVo enthusiast has a bigger chance of being overweight and out of shape than the world average. TiVo itself with it's download orientation and massive storage capacity seems to be a homunculus of the obese consumer.

perhaps it could be said that the Japanese organizational principles more closely resemble the 'superflat' or 'pile of leaves' taxonomy

I don't understand why a society with high levels of vertical hierarchy is "superflat" in the way that Momus uses the word. "We're all the same except that I'm C.E.O. and make a bundle more than you, Mr. New Employee." I think there are plenty of Japanese people trying to make vertical leaps, but they're not doing it within the traditional organizations - they're starting new firms and battling on the market (ie, Livedoor).

Also, does the entire social/political/economic/cultural system in Japan fit into the "Superflat" mode? Isn't it one particular movement, not a direct description of the entirity?

I bet your average TiVo enthusiast has a bigger chance of being overweight and out of shape than the world average. TiVo itself with it's download orientation and massive storage capacity seems to be a homunculus of the obese consumer.

I bet he also drives a car, which is probably a more critical reason for weight gain. When you're walking an hour a day, like in urban environments, it's harder to gain weight.

sparklingbeatnic said BTW the general situation for fiber is apparently the best in the world in Japan, in terms of subscribers per capita, bandwidth, and cost. Second is Korea in therms of bandwidth and cost, but they probably have way more subscibers per capita. Both of these countries are ahead of the USA when it comes to FTTH.

Don't make the mistake of confusing the Japanese market for IT services and the SK market. Very different animals. SK has greater penetration and services are more market driven and expantion is fueled by customer demand. The market penetration of PCs in the home is also MUCH higher in SK. Yes we have the cheapest broadband in the world here now, but that is due to massive market distortion. Once again were talking about a "great leap forward" in response to an invasion of western technology. (Looks like its time for a re-hash of my "black routers" essay).

Remember PM Mori? Mori-san spoketh a command to the nation to build "eJapan" (enjoy the pun or face the wrath of the LDP). Once the words of the gods came down, lots of technologies like ADSL and FTTH were given official approval where in the past they were literally deemed impossible to implement in Japan by NTT and other worthies. That is indeed correct. NTT's official position throught most of the 90s was that ADSL could not be implemented in Japan. Physically impossible they said. Could it be they wanted to protect their investment in existing ISDN switching stations and ungodly per minute call pricing?

Whereas the west was once envious of "high speed" ISDN in Japan, it was soon obvious to everyone but NTT that ISDN was a flop. You may have been here long enough to remember "telehodai" pricing plans where you could make unlimited length calls after 11PM without increasing your phone bill. The effect on ISPs was rather dramatic. If you were to watch traffic graphs, everything looked normal till 11:01PM when all the traffic maxed out till around 1AM. With everyone dialing in at the same time, all circuits maxed out and everyone got lousy speed.

As far as ADSL goes, you may remember a company called Tokyo Metalic. They were the first company to be allowed by the beurocrats to test ADSL in some suburb somewhere. They had to test for several years just to prove that ADSL worked in Japan. Eventually they were actually allowed to operate in Tokyo, over the voiciferous protests of NTT. Eventually others were allowed into the business and Tokyo Metalic was sold off.

What about YahooBB you may ask? Well they certainly have done more than any other company towards getting Japan connected at higher and higher speeds. The only downside is they have a very high cost for each customer sign up and dont begin to make mony on a customer till around the third year of subscription. In all probability they view this as a gateway cost to getting customers to sign up for the various pay services in their portal. And they do have the highest number of subscribers of any broadband provider in Japan and we all know that marketshare is everything.

I cant begin to guess what Tepco's costs are to sign up new customers, but offering free construction, several months free service and sometimes a 商品券 of up to ¥15,000 for signing up their costs must be quite high indeed. I was the first customer in my neighborhood. I watched the construction crew of 5 men string the fiber along the poles down the hill to my house. Tepco has to be subsidising this internally or getting a government handout, there is no other way considering the costs.

Another reason Tepco has higher costs is they offer a better service than NTT. Tepco guarantees a point to point connection for their house service (not the mansion service) whereas NTT offers a shared service. Oversell is a common tactic in the world of telcos. In the US a 10 to 1 ratio was common in the days of voice only lines. The idea is you are almost never going to have 10 people talking at the same time so that was considered a "safe" service level. NTT considers an accptable oversell ratio to be 100 to 1. I pitty the fool who signs up for a B-Flets line and expects to maintain good speed.

You may wonder why NTT even got into ADSL and B-Flets if it was "impossible". They figured out that their subscription rates for voice landlines were flat and saw broadband as a way to combat a declining trend.

Certainly not. But it does defeat your point that Japan has been completely left behind in the development of the internet, other than networked phones.

This wasnt addressed to me but I have to reply. Cheap subsidized broadband does not make up for computer literacy or ownership. One can not create anything but text on a phone.

Thanks to advance planning and massive investment by NTT, the government, and others like Kansai Denryoku.

See above comment regarding market distortions. Also did you know that Japan was actually rather slow to adopt IP networks? For many years the beurocracies tried to push various OSI compliant network models, none of which were even adopted on large scales within Japan. The uptake of IP is very recent here and even the availability of consumer IP services only goes back to the late 90s. It is a point of contention as to who offered the first IP connections to the world, but in the early mid 90s, the key players included Roger Boisvert (god rest his soul) and Joi Ito and Jun Murai (see here). Roger went on to found GOL and was a great guy overall. Unfortunately he died a few years ago, killed by a stray bullet while visiting L.A..

The current bounty of cheap IP service here is almost despite the efforts of the government and NTT. Maybe once they changed their minds, it was in an "if you build it they will come" spirit.

See there's a problem with cable - the bandwidth is asymmetric. Not very democratic is it, when you can download lots of content but not upload it as quickly?

Cable and ADSL are both asymetric (thats the "A" in ADSL).

The future is P2P. And you need a fast upload for that.

Not really. In the case of BitTorrent, not unless you are an early seeder, in the case of most other protocols, upspeed does not affect downspeed locally. As to whether or not the "future" is indeed P2P, well that remains to be seen. I rather doubt it, especially here.

"We're all the same except that I'm C.E.O. and make a bundle more than you, Mr. New Employee."

I agree it's a somewhat simplistic way of looking at the situation, but it is true that this disparity is much less pronounced in Japan than in the West. These figures are ludicrously out of date, but my understanding was that the gulf between employee and C.E.O. salaries in the U.S. corporations was at least an order of magnitude greater than in Japan. Maybe that's not the case any more.

Also, does the entire social/political/economic/cultural system in Japan fit into the "Superflat" mode? Isn't it one particular movement, not a direct description of the entirity?

Well, this is where I agree with you that Momus seems to romanticize Japan to the point of worshipping a utopia that isn't actually (entirely) there. Still, I think I see what he's getting at in pointing out the difference between the way individual rebelliousness, vertical social movement is promoted as almost the singular (and single) virtue in Western culture. I think that the connection to 'superflatness' here may be more by way of alluding to the traditional acceptance of one's place in the lateral hierarchy of society, rather than the relentless pressure to move upwards towards dominance of fellow citizens. Would Donald Trump have emerged as a positive celebrity in Japan? I think this is the distinction Momus tries to draw over and over again (please correct me if I'm wrong).

-sl

stanleyleiber said: Japanese computer security has lagged behind the West since the inception of computer networking. Japanese institutions are still connecting important, complex systems to the Internet with factory-default passwords and authentication codes. Overall, as others have mentioned on previous threads, their concerns don't seem to center around software.

I'll try and keep this short and sweet. I've been doing netsec here since 97. I cant even begin to count all the things I've seen done horribly wrong. A few years ago I worked near Hibya park. On my lunch hours I'd wander around the area and see many open wifi access points for government networks, lots of which showed old unpatched "joejob" servers. I also found a few of these at NTT Communications. After 6 months of seeing the insides of NTT networks, I decided I'd let them know. It took two weeks to find the right people and another two weeks and 6 meetings with them for them to "fix" the problem by ordering the wifi disconnected. A month later, several new APs were visible from that building.... Did I even get a thank you email for my efforts? Of course not. And that was the last time I did anything related to security for anyone that doesnt sign my paycheck.

Example of Momus' 'superflat':

The train driver he wrote about in one of his lj entries last summer, who was putting 100% of his effort into being a train driver, not straining to escape his station into some 'greater' role; because in Japan there is no inherent stigma attached to simply doing the best you can at the job you already have. it is 'superflat' because the motivation for doing the work is not based on moving up or down the ladder.

-sl

Anyone who thinks Japan is "superflat" has never worked in a Japanese company.

sparkling: Your aesthetic idea is very nice, but don't confuse the tivo model with offering content on an IP network. Tivos and VCRs dont require much specialized knowledge to work. I've yet to see mooks for sale telling you how to operate your Toshiba/Sony/Matsushita PVR. Also, most people dont create content that lots of others want to experience, and even if you do there is still the problem of letting others know about your works. How many people have heard my music? R and marxy probably have more listeners, but I bet the number is still pretty small. P2P models are good for 1) piracy 2) efficient distribution of well known large content like Linux ISOs.

But it is true that this disparity is much less pronounced in Japan than in the West. These figures are ludicrously out of date, but my understanding was that the gulf between employee and C.E.O. salaries in the U.S. corporations was at least an order of magnitude greater than in Japan.

This is still true, but I doubt that these new tech firm, which hire and fire on merit, will keep the 6:1 system around.

Another important thing to remember is that Japan didn't "automatically" start paying the CEO's less than American CEO's. There was heavy fighting with labor unions over this in the 50s, and the unions won themselves very high wages. But in a superflat society, there wouldn't be any labor-management conflicts, right?

I think Momus is right in describing a strong work ethic as "happiness in one's position," and I do think a lot of it has to do with the fact that there has been little class consciousness in the last 50 years. Middle-class kids work at McDonalds, not just immigrants or unskilled workers like in the US. I think the new generation, however, is asking society: why again do I have to give my life away to this insurance company I don't care about when I have a hip hop community that embraces me? Western subcultural content is becoming a real alternative to company loyalty, so I don't know why this side of "superflattness" is presented as something new, when it's probably on its last legs. And now with the idea of becoming maverick millionare in the IT field being a real possibility, the old idea of dedication has some threats to deal with.

P2P models are good for 1) piracy 2) efficient distribution of well known large content like Linux ISOs.

In the U.S., AOL is actually trying to develop a stealth P2P client (based on BitTorrent-like technology) that will force subscribers to share the load of pushing software updates to other subscribers.

-sl

I think the new generation, however, is asking society: why again do I have to give my life away to this insurance company I don't care about when I have a hip hop community that embraces me? Western subcultural content is becoming a real alternative to company loyalty, so I don't know why this side of "superflattness" is presented as something new, when it's probably on its last legs. And now with the idea of becoming maverick millionare in the IT field being a real possibility, the old idea of dedication has some threats to deal with.

I think this notion of the viral, perhaps poisonous quality of American-style capitalism and upward mobility is insightful. This is, after all, the model the U.S. has relied on since the 1950s to propagate our influence around the globe. Where I think many critics of this strategy fall short in attaining to real depth in their arguments is that they fail to acknowledge that the other half of this equation is dollar diplomacy. It's not just the motivational/ethical construct that hammers a nail into the forehead of all these other countries; but these ethics are tied to our currency, and the cultural products that begin to take on the same characteristics of currency. Once they get tied up in our debt problems it's too late to bow out (arg, no pun intended).

-sl

FWIW the April issue of "Mac Fan" magazine has a series of articles explaining how to make your Toshiba PVR work with OSX.

Chris_B: it was a guy at ATT who came up with the idea of ADSL in the first place. ATT discouraged development of ADSL for many, many years. Similar to the NTT story you relate.

Yes I heard about Roger Boisvert and his untimely and unfortunate death. I still sometimes wonder what they were doing in that part of LA at 3 in the morning or whatever time it was. The incident was described as a failed carjacking and then I never heard anything more about it. Aparently the person who was in the car with him survived but I don't think they caught the murderer. However, I'm puzzled that you describe this as a stray bullet.

There's a simple reason why downloading is more popular than "folk" sharing of cultural artifacts as in more tribal societies: we're still in an overwhelmingly passive consumerist society. The majority of people you and I know were raised on television. That has had its consequences.

When I spoke about P2P in the above post I did not intend specific P2P file-sharing programs but rather the general idea of a more democratic flow of information in society in contrast with the overwhelmingly one-way flow we have had for a number of decades (centuries?).
The hope is that reciprocal connectivity will change things.

I took some interest in the incident when I read it because Boisvert was clearly a hero of the early public internet in Japan, and also because I used to live in LA and was always hearing about carjacking/murders.

So what kind of deal did TEPCO give you for your new fiber setup? And how is it working now are you getting all the bandwidth they advertise? In both directions?

Robert: do you have TEPCO or NTT fiber?

Sorry to have gotten the facts wrong on Roger. That was a dis-service to his memory. Thanks for correcting me.

I got free installation, 6 months free service and a ¥15,000 商品券 for Sato Musen when I signed up for Tepco. One can not get a full 100Mb over a PPPoE connection even under optimal conditions. The PPPoE wrappers shave off a few percent, the load condtions of the routers and servers make a difference as does your local LAN or even the drivers for your ethernet card. I've speed tested this 800Mhz G4 powerbook to 50Mb, and have done real world load tests where I monitored the line using my firewall and had all CPUs maxed before I even hit 25MB/second up. I couldnt be happier with this line.

--- sparkligbeatnic wrote:

The hope is that reciprocal connectivity will change things.

This notion is much more in line with the excitement that surrounded the original creation of network technology. Asynchronous connectivity as a dominant model really started with 56k modems -- which used a hacked-up ISDN line to push (vary rarely sustained) 56k down a regular phone line, while the user could only push back at 28.8k max. When broadband started to take off with early cable modems, the aynchronous model became a necessity, as ISPs were horrified to discover that suddenly customers wanted to run their own, unfiltered, unsupervised servers as well as just passively download naked videos of Pam Anderson.

The raving lunatic in me wants to see a political element in this as well, but as we all know, this kind of thing all ended in the early 70s when the hippies won and Nixon was shamed out of office, right?

-sl

Chris_B wrote:

One can not get a full 100Mb over a PPPoE connection even under optimal conditions.

Not least of which that it's highly unlikely any customer is given an unrestricted 100mb connection to the actual Internet -- assuming the ISP itself even has that kind of upstream connectivity.

-sl

My line is unrestricted and unfiltered as far as I can tell. Most ISPs in Japan peer out near Odaiba. The local IX backbones are gigabit or multi gig. Traffic speeds in country are VERY good indeed. Trans Pacific isnt always that great, but I can sustain 10MB/sec speeds when DCC sending files to many people while others are pulling from my FTP server. I once managed to knock a small .edu offline by sending too much to a few people at a time. Their T3 got soaked. Think about that. Better than LAN speed trans-Pacific! I for one am darn glad to live in Japan right now.

Forgot to mention: no matter what the backbone speeds of a network are, the spoke speed always counts. Its not just the width of your pipe, but also how fast the packets can travel on the pipe. A 100Mb connection delivers packets a heck of a lot faster than a 12Mb connection. Latency matters!

Chris_B:

I'm impressed. Would it make sense to move to Japan to get faster download speeds from a server down the street? :)

-sl

If by "down the street" you mean the other side of Shinjuku, sure!

Chris_B said:

If by "down the street" you mean the other side of Shinjuku, sure!

From the sound of things, I'd get a faster connection to a server down the street from where I'm at now.

I worked with a team to setup a FTTH system in a small town near the city I live in now, and they were selling service at '100mb/s' to each customer, even though their total uplink to the net was a single T3. Granted, most of their customers were bank branches and the like who mostly only needed to transfer data between each other, but I thought this was more than a little misleading, and unfortunately is fairly standard practice for the 'national corp -> local utility -> enduser' dynamic that brings broadband to many American communities. Sounds like you have a pretty nice setup there, Chris_B.

-sl

Grrrr! I just bought some download software from a Japanese vendor. 48MB download and Safari is telling me it will take 37 minutes to an hour? So much for getting that work done tonight.

I think this notion of the viral, perhaps poisonous quality of American-style capitalism and upward mobility is insightful. This is, after all, the model the U.S. has relied on since the 1950s to propagate our influence around the globe.

I think a lot of people generally think my idea of "the Decline of Japan" is automatically a pro-Western Capitalist one, and while in some ways this is true (I believe strongly in free information and individual self-determination, etc.), it doesn't matter what I want to happen - it's happening. I think your idea of dollar diplomacy is interesting, and I'm quite sure why in the hell Bush is crushing the dollar other than pure greed (tax cuts/benefits for his team NOW), so maybe there will be an alternative to the American system in the future, but at this point, the package of Consumerism/Personal Liberty/Free Market is indeed viral. Japan tried hard to do it "their way" for the bulk of the 20th century, but seeing that Japan's old system no longer "works" (for profit-oriented goals, anyway) and those borrowing Western techniques are making a lot of money, I doubt that the dikes will hold back the deluge much longer.

Momus' idea that the Japanese system can be an alternative political system to the American one is interesting, but I don't think he really understands what it entails to work: high consumer prices, little social mobility, great obedience, little political participation.

high consumer prices, little social mobility, great obedience, little political participation.

...a dominant economic power that maintains its position through proximity to the red buttons than could end life on earth...

-sl

At some point today maybe Momus will show up to correct my misreading of his views. I am very curious to hear his take on all of this, especially since I was unable to draw additional responses on this topic out of him over at his livejournal this week.

-sl

I got free installation, 6 months free service and a ¥15,000 商品券 for Sato Musen when I signed up for Tepco.

I was reading about a similar deal last night at the Kansai Denryoku site. The page was in Japanese and I doubted my understanding because it seems so unbelievably good to be true. They pay you to get a much faster connection, give you 6 months of free access and then the subscription fee is actually not that much more than ADSL, especially wwhen you take the NTT line rental into account.
Is there some obligation, such as that you must remain a customer for 10 years or else they can demand a pound of flesh?

Unfortunately it seems that the "campaign" ends this month. Wonder if I can set things up ahead of time and still get the "negative" price.

I got free installation, 6 months free service and a ¥15,000 商品券 for Sato Musen when I signed up for Tepco.

I was reading about a similar deal last night at the Kansai Denryoku site. The page was in Japanese and I doubted my understanding because it seems so unbelievably good to be true. They pay you to get a much faster connection, give you 6 months of free access and then the subscription fee is actually not that much more than ADSL, especially wwhen you take the NTT line rental into account.
Is there some obligation, such as that you must remain a customer for 10 years or else they can demand a pound of flesh?

Unfortunately it seems that the "campaign" ends this month. Wonder if I can set things up ahead of time and still get the "negative" price.

...a dominant economic power that maintains its position through proximity to the red buttons than could end life on earth..

I don't think it's that easy to blame nuclear entrapment when Russia, China, Israel, France, Pakistan, and India also have atomic bombs. America was the richest country in the world way before WWII, and the economic pressure to work with America is usually so high that threat of nuclear holocaust isn't on the table. While the "necessity" of nuclear agents in WWII is still hotly debated, I think yelling at the U.S. for having nuclear weapons kind of kills the conversation - it's not like if China becomes Number One, they'll get rid of their nukes.

America should be accountable for this terrible Iraq fiasco, CIA intervention in world affairs, and not doing enough to stop nuclear proliferation. I'll back you on those charges.

And its about this time that the sacharine sweet taste of liberalism makes me feel like no ofuro could be hot enough to wash away that sticky morality. [waves the Star Spangled Banner and runs for the bath]

robert here.
someone asked me a WHILE back on this thread...

Robert: do you have TEPCO or NTT fiber?

and I have NTT fiber at the moment.
however, i'll be moving to a new location this year, and i'm not sure what options are the best for me there. so i'm in the process of checking and comparing everything (along with, of course, actually testing the speeds with my computer, since there is a lot of 'smoke and mirrors' with the whole thing, as you guys have been writing up above.

"Jean, would be very interested to hear your views on ADSL/cable/fibre and providers in Japan as well."

Apologies, I'll answer this question, but I haven't gone through the whole thread -- 57 comments!

My history with providers in Japan...

For 3 years now I've had a fiber connection with NTT's Flet's service. I was actually one of their first subscribers, as the place where I just moved in at the time happened to be in one of their test areas. I've been a happy customer ever since. For the 2 years before that, I had a cable connection (with Toshima Cable). So I've been using broadband internet in Japan for 5 years, but I realize that I'm the early-adopter type, so this is probably not the norm. I do remember the days of dial-up, where I would only use the internet after 11pm because that's when I could use the terehodai plan, and not get charged per minute. That's probably why I'm still a night owl to this day -- old habits die hard.

Although Japan was late to the internet party in general, it does seem like they've adopted broadband a lot more quickly than in North America. I mean, is dial-up internet even still an option in Tokyo?

Wow, this thread mushroomed, and I find I'm being "performed" here in my absence, like a glove-puppet! There's a lot to say, but it's a bit confusing that technical issues are being mixed with philosophical ones in the same thread. For the moment I just want to respond to Chris B's

As to whether or not the "future" is indeed P2P, well that remains to be seen. I rather doubt it, especially here.

I think it's very significant that the BBC has just made the decision to make available its entire archive of radio and TV programmes on the internet, free. And the way it plans to get this massive amount of data out there? P2P.

http://digital-lifestyles.info/display_page.asp?section=cm&id=1723

For 3 years now I've had a fiber connection with NTT's Flet's service

I wonder what sort of bandwidths you get?

I've been using the internet since the mid 1980's,
but now that I come to think of, I've never paid for a connection.

Up until about 6 months ago, I could even use file sharing programs at work, but that has been clamped down on lately. So I think it's time to actually get my own connection.

I think yelling at the U.S. for having nuclear weapons kind of kills the conversation - it's not like if China becomes Number One, they'll get rid of their nukes.

That's not exactly what I meant to do, though I would maintain that there is quite a difference from the nuclear level the U.S. was playing at (and telling everyone the Soviets were playing at) and that of the rest of the world. Are other nations capable of incinerating the entire planet with their nukes? I think the 'madman from Texas who just might flatten you like a packet of ketchup' Presidential model is still being exploited quite effectively.

America should be accountable for this terrible Iraq fiasco, CIA intervention in world affairs, and not doing enough to stop nuclear proliferation. I'll back you on those charges.

I think at some point there has to be a line drawn between observing what seem to be facts and suggesting reparations for perceived wrongs. I haven't gotten into the remedy phase yet...

-sl