The Internet has responded collaboratively to the lack of trust in official pronouncements about radiation levels in Japan. First, Shigeru Kobayashi aggregated geiger counter readings from around Japan. Then Haiyan Zhang, self-described interaction designer, technologist and maker of things, produced a Google maps mashup of Kobayashi's data. Click this image to view the actual interactive map. Alexis Madrigal comments: One of the key problems has been that people aren't sure whether to trust the official measurements, no matter how many of them there are. Today, sociologist Zeynep Tufekci addressed the issue of lack of trust in institutions in her essay, "If We Built...

25 March, 2011

Eamonn Fingleton, an ex-pat Irish financial journalist who lives in Tokyo, takes a decidedly contrarian view of the Japanese economy. Far from stagnating for 20 years, as received media wisdom would have it, Japan's economy has been ticking along just fine, he contends. Guest-blogging for James Fallows at TheAtlantic.com website (where Contrarian will take a guest-blogging turn the week of March 14), Fingleton cites a couple of inconvenient facts in support of his analysis: Japan's current account surplus in 1990, regarded as the onset of its 20-year economic malaise, stood at $36 billion. By last year, it had risen to $194 billion. Over the...

26 February, 2011

The scale is deceptive. This is not the ordinary crab we're used to, but a giant Japanese spider crab (Macrocheira kaempferi), whose leg span (3.8 meters or 12.5 feet) and weight (up to 19 kg. or 41 lb.) make it the largest arthropod in the world. This time-lapse video was shot over a 6-hour period. Hat tip: Enoshima Aquarium, Fujisawa, Japan, via Daily Dish....

27 June, 2010

Received a note this morning from Colin Doyle in Osaka saying Contrarian was working just fine in Japan. Alas, within hours, an even more severe breakdown set in. Hostpapa's own systems were down throughout the day, so beleaguered help desk agents couldn't even get in to see what might be wrong with the servers that run Contrarian and CBFilm.ca. This is one of North America's biggest (and, I say again, normally most reliable) hosting companies, so the Oakville offices must have been going nuts. Service came back early this evening, and seems to be brisk once again. Let's hope the...

07 April, 2010