Posts Tagged: Japan-related

Technology — 5 Comments
16
Oct 07

Sightseeing in Second Life Japan #2

Last time I went Sightseeing in Second Life Japan, I showed you Kumamoto Castle, Osaka Castle and Tokyo Tower. This time, Aleister Kronos pointed out that a faithful reproduction of Himeji Castle is under construction. 

Himeji Castle under construction in Second Life

Himeji Castle

Himeji Castle is part of Japan’s great cultural heritage located around 650 kilometers west of Tokyo. The castle is nicknamed “White Heron” because of its white plaster walls, plaster being a useful safeguard against fire in a building that is otherwise built entirely of wood. The current castle was constructed in 1601, though there have been fortifications on this site since 1333.

Himeji Castle is one place I’d really like to visit for real someday. According to Wikipedia, it is “one of Japan’s Three Famous Castles, and is the most visited castle in Japan.”

Have you been to the real Himeji Castle? Is it worth visiting?

Update: By request, here is the Second Life URL to Himeji Castle: http://slurl.com/secondlife/HIMEJI/128/128/0

Japan — 4 Comments
15
Oct 07

Millions of Old Japanese TVs Recycled

2011: The end of Analog TVsToday is Blog Action Day, and this year over 14,000 bloggers are discussing environmental issues with a combined audience of over 12 million people. That’s a lot of people. Now, imagine all those people lining up to recycle their old analog TVs, and you’ve got the topic of my contribution to this Blog Action Day.

What will happen to old TV sets?

By 2011, Japan will have phased out terrestrial analog broadcasting in favor of digital, making the millions of analog TVs still in use redundant. I’ve been wondering what will happen to all these television sets when people rush out in droves to replace them. I suppose the worst case scenario is that some individuals will dump them on the side of a road or somewhere in the mountains. Smart criminals will visit houses offering to dispose of any old TV sets for a fee… and then dump them on roadsides, in the mountains or in rivers and lakes. Hopefully more legitimate ways of chucking out the box will be made more publicly known as the deadline approaches.

Why can’t we dump them in landfills?

There are a few reasons. First, I don’t believe you can dump electronics without paying a fee. Second, TVs contain toxic elements such as lead and mercury, and third, big TV sets take up space and will fill up the landfills well before 2011, if they aren’t full already!

Is there such a thing as a TV recycling law?

Japan’s Home Appliance Recycling Law came into effect in April 2001. It covers four major types of home appliances: televisions, refrigerators, washing machines and air conditioners and requires that (i) consumers pay a recycling fee when disposing of home appliances; (ii) retailers take back discarded appliances and pass them on to manufacturers; and (iii) manufacturers recycle discarded appliances thus retrieved. It also became a requirement for “the recycling performance of home appliance manufacturers to be disclosed at their respective homepages and the homepage of the Association of Electric Home Appliances.

What is Sony doing about TV recyling?

Sony's TV recycling statsSony reveal their figures on their website and say that they have “established a nationwide cooperative recycling network with five other manufacturers” and that last year 760,000 of their TVs were recycled. The law requires that at least 55% of a manufacturer’s televisions are recycled and Sony exceeded that figure with a 75% recycle rate.

I assume that the recycling network Sony are part of is actually Kansai Recycling Systems, a group comprised of six electrical companies – Mitubishi Materials Corporation, Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd., Sony Corporation, Hitachi Compliance Group, Fujitsu general, and Mitsubishi Electric Co. According to the Japan Corporate News Network, the latest Kansai Recycling Systems factory in Hirakata, Osaka, has…

special recycling technology encompassing the whole process from taking the TV apart to refining glass to micro pieces. The factory also uses natural energy such as solar, biomass, micro hydraulic power, and geothermal heat. Recycling of TVs has widely penetrated in the community, with 11.6 million TVs recycled in 2005 which is up 104% compared to the previous year.

Matsushita Electric takes recycling into the space age

A report from 2003 on the BBC called Japanese plant takes on e-waste discusses how Matsushita Electric, best known for its Panasonic brand, has built an advanced recycling plant in Yashiro, western Japan. The Matsushita Eco-Technology Center (Metec) is particularly high-tech. Reporter J Mark Lytle says,

Inside, Metec could hardly come as more of a surprise. Instead of the anticipated wrecking gear manned by grimy grunts, the building is peopled by scientists and technicians in white coats and safety goggles. There are more computer displays than wrenches on view here.

It is also an education center which “can be used to teach elementary and junior high school students about the importance of the environment and recycling” so that has to be a good thing. In fact, I went to the Metec site, and noticed on the Japanese page that the recycling statistics haven’t been updated since December 2006. However, it was great to see that between December 4th and 9th, they recycled 4,682 televisions!

Will Japan be recycle-ready by 2011?

With new recycling laws and the efforts being made by TV manufacturers, I don’t think there will be a TV-dumping problem at all. I would hope that as the deadline approaches, current digital TVs will become cheaper to buy and hopefully stores will allow you to trade in your analog TV when you buy a new one. Meanwhile, there will be television collection days in each neighborhood. Most likely the news stations will go crazy, warning us that if we don’t upgrade our TVs and recycle our old ones, the world will end. So yes, I think Japan will be ready.

Technology — 3 Comments
12
Oct 07

Sightseeing in Second Life Japan

The virtual reality world of Second Life is full of clubs, bars, beaches and bedrooms in which people interact in all manner of virtual ways and even positions, but there is more to Second Life than its “in your face” seedy side. I decided to go searching for some of Japan’s famous landmarks to see if they had been recreated in the 3D world.

Here are a few pictures of real places in Japan alongside screenshots of their recreations in Second Life. To make things fun, I won’t tell you what they are. Instead, you can leave your guesses in the comments and I’ll tell you how close you are! Even if you don’t know all three of them, leave a comment! I’ll be impressed if anyone gets the first one!

Japan Sightseeing in Second Life

Update: By request, here are the Second Life URLs to the above places:

Japan — 3 Comments
9
Oct 07

Trying to Drive in Japan #2

Japanese traffic lightsJapan, like most developed countries, has so many laws and rules to abide by that I find it all quite suffocating. I previously wrote about the ridiculous number of traffic lights in Japan, and since I’m driving for an hour and a half every day I can’t help but get frustrated, and a frustrated driver is not a safe driver.

So let me get this straight. Traffic lights are there to prevent accidents, right? But too many traffic lights cause road rage and therefore, more accidents. It sounds like we’ll come full circle so let’s just scrap all the lights completely and take some responsibility for our own actions, without City Hall acting all over-protective.

This is the kind of thing that runs through my head as I sit at the lights. These are the same lights I hit everyday. They are always red when I get to them. I swear they are timed to turn red just as the traffic from the previous set of lights reaches them. There are no cars coming from the left and no cars coming from the right. I can see a good mile in either direction because there’s nothing but rice fields along this road. Do I really need to be told when it’s safe to go? Can’t I make that decision for myself?

While city officials will argue that traffic lights save lives, I would have thought a few pavements would save more. With all its narrow streets, pedestrians are forced to walk on the roads, and barely a week passes without someone getting run down by a car.

Driving to work in Japan is a horrible experience. On a day free of traffic jams, you could either arrive 15 minutes early or 15 minutes late depending on the lights. Even if you accept you have no control over what time you’ll arrive, you’ll still have to put up with the maniacs that race to beat each signal before it turns red. Did I mention that an amber light in Japan means “put your foot down or you won’t make it”?

I’ve just been explaining this all to Mami and she finds my opinions ever so amusing. Fortunately, as I argue in favor of scrapping traffic lights, I have some European traffic planners in my corner:

European traffic planners are dreaming of streets free of rules and directives. They want drivers and pedestrians to interact in a free and humane way, as brethren — by means of friendly gestures, nods of the head and eye contact, without the harassment of prohibitions, restrictions and warning signs.

That quote is from a great article called European Cities Do Away with Traffic Signs. In it, they talk about Drachten, a small town in the Netherlands that has done away with nearly all its traffic lights and has seen a decrease in the number of accidents.

Strange as it may seem, the number of accidents has declined dramatically. Experts from Argentina and the United States have visited Drachten. Even London has expressed an interest in this new example of automobile anarchy. And the model is being tested in the British capital’s Kensington neighborhood.

Could cities in Japan follow Drachten’s lead? Oh, how I wish!