A Journey to the Levant
There are many GREAT Japanese musicians, who usually do not manage to cross the borders and be successful outside Japan.
It is sometimes puzzling and mostly frustrating to see that.
Sebu Hiroko (Last name, First Name) is such an artist. Received some of her musical education in Paris and can speak French, English and obviously Japanese.
She is good. Sometimes Jazzy, sometimes pop and Alternative.
“Too far” is the first release from her second Album LG/B
Japan times article discusses Tokyo Condo Sales , and my only reaction is “Duh”.
What can one expect when there the population is declining?
I keep seeing new Condos and houses built around my station and I don’t understand who buys them. Most probably people are getting closer to Tokyo, thus leaving empty houses behinds.
I heard from friends they expect prices to go up until Tokyo olympics, but it does not make sense economically. Population decline means prices down. Foreign buyers? a few and not enough.
I do not invest in real estate in Japan. Do not understand it enough and I really believe prices will continue to go down.
From the NYTimes article on the Nobel Prize Winner
“I am not very competitive, so I always look for a new subject to study, even if it is not so popular. If you start from some sort of basic, new observation, you will have plenty to work on.”
An interesting statement from a Nobel prize winner. One has more chances getting published if researching a popular field, but he chose a new subject.
I often think about Start-up ideas, improvement or adaption of current ideas or a new field. The ideal is to invent a new field, a new concept. The challenge, the reward, the glory are bigger, but getting there is more difficult (and may fail).
And another observation:
“Unfortunately, these days, at least in Japan, young scientists want to get a stable job, so they are afraid to take risks,”
Not only in the Academy, but also at work.
We need more risk takers.
On Saturday I flew from Israel back to Japan.
While I assumed the Airport will not be busy on Saturday, I was surprised to find large groups flying to Uman, Ukraine. Overloading the security lines and my patience.
All the people who traveled to Uman to celebrate the Jewish New Year are male, of some religious status. From Ultra-Orthodox, to light version.
It was a cultural experience to listen to their phone conversations, to see their behaviour, to smell some of them.
As I was watching them I have realised that although we are both Jewish, I feel very little connection with them. If we start a conversation, I doubt if we will have anything to talk about. Literature, movies- No. Culture, Japan – No.
It felt strange to feel like a stranger in my own country, but actually this feeling grows each and every-time I visit Israel.
While watching the Funeral live on TV, wanted to share one quote which was also used in The Economist’s Obituary
“There are two things in life that if you really want to achieve, you have to close your eyes a bit, and that is peace and love. With eyes wide open, I’m not sure anybody would fall in love, and I’m not sure anybody would make peace. But when you compare what is better, living in peace and living in love, even if it’s not perfect, is by far the right choice.” – Shimon Peres
Watched on Netflix a documentary about Steve Aoki.
Besides not being a very exciting documentary, it was quite annoying to hear the American pronunciation of “Aoki”.
But what definitely caught my attention was a DJ AM Quote: “Starve the Ego, Feed the Soul”.
Definitely a quote I can relate to (But can I practice?)
Was quite surprised to see that Yad2 is blocking IPs outside Israel.
According to the message (in Hebrew), the decision was made due to Cyber attacks.
Now, this is a definitely a reasonable decision for a websites which serves only Israelis in Hebrew, but it also means that people who travel cannot use the website.
Bloomberg app reported on Usain Bolt’s 100m Gold Medal while related Articles recognised the word “Gold” and offered related Articles on Gold.
Not really a problem, but it only shows the real value of analysing data correctly. Understanding the context rather than recognising specific words.
Spent 10 minutes “playing” this game, and I can conclude I don’t need to play more of it.
Not surprising, it is the #1 downloaded game in Japan, with related applications in #2 and #3 .
A few more things I realised:
7 Japanese were killed in a terrorist attack, but to my surprise , none of my Japanese Facebook friends have posted on the subject.
When there is terror attach in Europe, Israel or US, my FB feed is flooded with news, reports, analysis on the same subject. This, thankfully, forces me to take a FB Diet and avoid it a while.
But in the past two days, there is no mention in my FB feed on the Dhaka attack, the Japanese victims. No sad comments, angry statuses, none.
As I definitely can’t analyse this difference, I will just assume my Japanese FB friends would rather not discuss these things “in public”.