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(via engadget)

Japanese analog TV broadcasts will stop four years from today.
Your TV will become junk!

Will the world end?
Will Japan bubble under the ocean?
Or will Japanese people simply all go crazy?
Will Japanese electronics manufactures sell 100,000,000 TVs?

X-Day Indeed!

• Wet your hair.
• Put your feet in a bucket of cold water.
• Run cold water on the inside of your wrists.
• Take a bath. Every few minutes, let some water out and add cold water.

How to stay cool

• Open windows at night; close during the day.
• Stay downstairs.
• Use electric fans. Blow them on ice.

• Stay inside around noon.
• Stay in the shade.
• Wear a hat and a light, loose, cotton, long-sleeve shirt.
• Visit an air-conditioned mall, library, church, or movie theater.

• Soak your synthetic shirt.
• Hold ice until it hurts.
• Blow into a glass of ice cubes.
• Wrap a wet towel around your neck.
• Drink. Cold water is best. Caffein, hot drinks, and sugary drinks are OK. Alchohol is worst.
• Eat less, especially less protein. Eat cool salads and sandwiches
• Take 5-10 deep breaths, inhaling through your mouth, and exhaling through your nose. Stick your tongue out through an "o" shaped mouth.

Over the next week, I'll publish a variety of ideas on how you can keep cool. If you try any of these, please let me know how well they worked for you. If you have any other ideas, please tell me about it. I'll summarize all your comments next week.

Cool Biz means setting your air conditioner to 28C (82F). Some Japanese have actually been duped into this terrible idea.

Japan's Ministry of the Environment (MoE) hopes this will somehow reduce global warming. But it can't, since the electricity to run Japanese air conditioners comes from hydroelectric and nuclear generators, not fossil fuels. Instead it'll just lower the already infamously low productivity and creativity of Japanese office workers, lengthening their afternoon naps, and discouraging all motion and thought. Even though Japan makes some of the best air conditioners in the world, the MoE wants Japan to return to preindustrial third-world status.

The "Cool Biz" ad campaign reached 96% of Japanese, and 33% actually turn up their thermostats. In 2005 this reduced carbon dioxide emmisions from Japanese homes by 1/1000. (But of course most emmisions come from factories and cars. Why would houses be emmitting carbon dioxide at all?)

The MoE hoped "cool biz" would encourage less formal clothing. But in formal Japan, most workers still have to wear ties and jackets. Cool biz is a terrible failure.

Japanese people have to tape ice packs to their clothing:

What do you think of Cool Biz?

Google is now officially a verb. The latest Merriam-Webster dictionary includes a number of new tech terms:

google (transitive verb): to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the World Wide Web

mouse potato: a person who spends a great deal of time using a computer

spyware: software that is installed in a computer without the user's knowledge and transmits information about the user's computer activities over the Internet

text messaging: the sending of short text messages electronically esp. from one cell phone to another

bird flu: a highly variable mild to fulminant influenza of birds that is caused by strains of the influenza A virus which may mutate and be transmitted to other vertebrates

manga: a Japanese comic book or graphic novel

ringtone: the sound made by a cell phone to signal an incoming call

Look at all these stupid people on the beach!

They could be enjoying Ocean Dome for only US$50!

On the
Ocean Dome web site
they've photoshopped the sky blue. Why?
I guess they're encouraging people to plan trips there,
by promising a nice public beach with good weather,
but then, when you get there, and the weather turns out to be bad,
you happily pay them $50/person/day for your nice holiday!

They close the dome when the weather is bad.
On the inside of the roof, you see painted blue sky and nice white clouds!

Inside Ocean Dome, in the world's largest indoor pool,
the weather is always perfect:
No rain, no heat waves nor cold spells.
The sky is always blue!
The waves are always perfect: Never small and boring. Never dangerously big!
The water is pure: No salt and pollution (but there must be a lot of chlorine)!

It's Ocean Dome!
The world's only indoor beach!
They open the (world's largest retractable) roof when the weather is nice:

What do you think is inside this strange Japanese building?

Hint: It's near the mountains and the sea, with a golf course.

(Story suggested by Lehman Lindsey via Frank Sapp.)