The official position of planet Earth at the moment is that we can’t raise the temperature more than two degrees Celsius. Some context: So far, we’ve raised the average temperature of the planet just under 0.8 degrees Celsius, and that has caused far more damage than most scientists expected. (A third of summer sea ice …
Tag Archives: japanese
YouTube a major platform for news – says new Pew report
According to a new report from the Pew Research Center, “YouTube is becoming a major platform for viewing news.” By far, the incident that sparked the most interest was the Japan earthquake and tsunami. Pew looked at the most popular videos in the “news & politics” section of YouTube over those 15 months and found …
Continue reading “YouTube a major platform for news – says new Pew report”
Short films/commercials from Wes Anderson – starring Brad Pitt, Jason Schwartzman
Anderson starred in and directed an American Express “My Life, My Card” commercial, which chronicled the “filming” of an action movie starring Jason Schwartzman. Anderson acts as if he is being interviewed by someone from American Express for the ad, while walking around completing tasks on set, a scene paying homage to the movie “Day …
Continue reading “Short films/commercials from Wes Anderson – starring Brad Pitt, Jason Schwartzman”
Email in any language – auto-translate now available in Gmail
Did you ever dream about a future where your communications device could transcend language with ease? Well, that day is a lot closer. Over the next few days, everyone who uses Gmail will be getting the convenience of translation added to their email. The next time you receive a message in a language other than …
Continue reading “Email in any language – auto-translate now available in Gmail”
Whale Wars confronts slaughter of Pilot whales in the Faroe Islands
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, capitalizing on the tremendous success of their Animal Planet TV show, “Whale Wars,” has now taken on a new battle. With the Japanese fleet’s Antarctic hunt finished for the season, the skull-and-crossbones crew have turned their attention on the Faroe Islands with a new show: “Whale Wars: Viking Shores” In the …
Continue reading “Whale Wars confronts slaughter of Pilot whales in the Faroe Islands”
Psychology’s five aspects of wisdom
A recent article in the Economist used a complex, but somewhat small in scope, survey to study wisdom. They found that Americans definitely get smarter with age. They scored 45 points at age 25, and 55 by age 75. In comparison, the Japanese learn wisdom much quicker, scoring 51 in both age groups. This led …
Kanji and the art of calligraphy
The Japanese name for calligraphy is sho do, which most directly translates as “way of writing”. — I really want to go to Japan but not because I want to go on vacation. I want to go for the Imperial Gardens and the tasty noodles. You could say that I am utterly fascinated with this …