Тотальная неудачница и убийца жёстких дисков.
#post-id: 3891-16-39
#original-date: 22.03.2011 Tue
#original-time: 4:39 PM
#original-day: 3891
#original-host: WinXP Home SP3 (Build 2600)
Питер Пейн рассказал вкратце, что происходит вокруг офиса J-List. И не только.
It's now been a week since the the earthquake that devastated much of northern Japan and shifted the Earth's axis by 6.5 inches, and everyone is taking stock. Though the damage has been incredible, there's no country as well equipped as Japan to recover, and the process is already beginning. I've been really impressed with the calm resolve of the Japanese people to overcome this disaster -- there's been no rioting or bad behavior, and everyone is listening to the official announcements and doing what they're asked to do. The only comparison I can make is the home front in the U.S. during World War II, when everyone came together for a common cause.
For us in the Kanto Region, the main hardship has been the 3-hour rolling blackouts we've been experiencing once or twice per day. This is only an inconvenience, especially when it's cold, but everyone is aware of how much harder people in the directly affected areas have it. Though some people are freaking out and buying more food than they need, I found convenience stores around J-List well stocked with everything from ramen to ice cream to Calorie Mate, though bread and milk are hard to find. Naturally, prices haven't inched up a single yen. Gasoline is another problem, as trucks delivering it to our area have been constrained, though the gas stations are open. For our part, J-List is functioning normally, placing large orders with our wholesale partners to help them get through this, and shipping products out daily.
Of course, the drama surrounding the damaged Fukushima Nuclear Power Plants has been among the most troubling, and everyone has been glued to the news or their web browsers following the crisis. It's a bad situation, though it's important not to worry too much -- for example, many news sites are happy to use overly-sensationalist language because it helps raise their page views. The situation is being tackled by very smart people, with much-appreciated help from the U.S. military's "Operation Tomodachi" mission, and there's every reason to believe things will be brought under control.
It's a shame that the name of Fukushima, likely unknown to most people before this sad event, had to become famous in this way, so I thought I'd write a little bit about the place. During my years in Japan, I've visited or passed through this rural prefecture in Japan's Tohoku region many times, and it's a very nice place. Most regions of Japan define a meibutsu ("famous thing") and use it to promote themselves to tourists, and Fukushima is famous for its ramen, which is indeed delicious. Although Fukushima was never the center of important political events in Japan, there was a famous battle waged there during the Meiji Restoration, when forces loyal to the Tokugawa Shogun struggled with those trying to "restore" the Emperor to power and create a modern nation. During the battle, a group of 19 young pro-Shogun samurai of the Byakkotai ("White Tiger Squad") saw smoke rising from their castle, mistakenly assumed the battle had been lost and committed mass seppuku. The battle and tragic death of the warriors is as legendary in Japan as Picket's Charge is in the U.S. Anyway, now you know more about Fukushima than what you're seeing on CNN these days!
I've written before about how Japanese is based on syllables rather than individual sounds, meaning you can express ka, ki, ku, ke and ko but not "k" by itself, and writing or saying the English word "weekend" can become quite a complex affair (it becomes something like oo-EE-koo-EN-doh). This is where the famous thick accents Japanese sometimes have when speaking English come from, and the strange "poverty" of available sounds means there's a higher instance of unrelated words having the same pronunciation (homonyms), which can get in the way of communication. There are quite a few examples, like the words for "public" and "private" schools having the same pronunciation (shiritsu) despite their opposite meanings, or the words for "science" and "chemistry," which are both kagaku (though the kanji are different of course). Another example in physics (which my son loves) is the word for the nucleus of an atom (kaku) is the same as the electron shell that electrons move around (also kaku). And now a new inconvenient linguistic accident: the word for someone who's been exposed to radiation, as in the case of the unfortunate people living near the Fukushima reactor, is hibakusha, which happens to be the same as the word for the victims of the atomic bombs dropped duing World War II (again, though the kanji are different). Hibakusha is a word with 60 years of historical baggage attached to it, and I'm surprised they didn't find a less prolematic term for this new situation.
There are many ways you can help Japan. Donating to Red Cross Japan might be difficult from outside the country, so perhaps a donation to the U.S. Red Cross or Red Cross International would be good. In addition, J-List will be donating 5% of all orders to the Japanese Red Cross throgh April, up to $10,000. Thanks for any and all support you can give!
J-List is open for business and is shipping products out more-or-less normally. Japan will need economic power to recover from this tragedy, and we're going to help them the best way we know how. We've got a lot of excellent new products that our distributors hav e been delivering, and we foresee no special delays with outgoing shipping (but we'll post an update if this changes). Thanks and God Bless.
http://www.jlist.com/home
#original-date: 22.03.2011 Tue
#original-time: 4:39 PM
#original-day: 3891
#original-host: WinXP Home SP3 (Build 2600)
Питер Пейн рассказал вкратце, что происходит вокруг офиса J-List. И не только.
It's now been a week since the the earthquake that devastated much of northern Japan and shifted the Earth's axis by 6.5 inches, and everyone is taking stock. Though the damage has been incredible, there's no country as well equipped as Japan to recover, and the process is already beginning. I've been really impressed with the calm resolve of the Japanese people to overcome this disaster -- there's been no rioting or bad behavior, and everyone is listening to the official announcements and doing what they're asked to do. The only comparison I can make is the home front in the U.S. during World War II, when everyone came together for a common cause.
For us in the Kanto Region, the main hardship has been the 3-hour rolling blackouts we've been experiencing once or twice per day. This is only an inconvenience, especially when it's cold, but everyone is aware of how much harder people in the directly affected areas have it. Though some people are freaking out and buying more food than they need, I found convenience stores around J-List well stocked with everything from ramen to ice cream to Calorie Mate, though bread and milk are hard to find. Naturally, prices haven't inched up a single yen. Gasoline is another problem, as trucks delivering it to our area have been constrained, though the gas stations are open. For our part, J-List is functioning normally, placing large orders with our wholesale partners to help them get through this, and shipping products out daily.
Of course, the drama surrounding the damaged Fukushima Nuclear Power Plants has been among the most troubling, and everyone has been glued to the news or their web browsers following the crisis. It's a bad situation, though it's important not to worry too much -- for example, many news sites are happy to use overly-sensationalist language because it helps raise their page views. The situation is being tackled by very smart people, with much-appreciated help from the U.S. military's "Operation Tomodachi" mission, and there's every reason to believe things will be brought under control.
It's a shame that the name of Fukushima, likely unknown to most people before this sad event, had to become famous in this way, so I thought I'd write a little bit about the place. During my years in Japan, I've visited or passed through this rural prefecture in Japan's Tohoku region many times, and it's a very nice place. Most regions of Japan define a meibutsu ("famous thing") and use it to promote themselves to tourists, and Fukushima is famous for its ramen, which is indeed delicious. Although Fukushima was never the center of important political events in Japan, there was a famous battle waged there during the Meiji Restoration, when forces loyal to the Tokugawa Shogun struggled with those trying to "restore" the Emperor to power and create a modern nation. During the battle, a group of 19 young pro-Shogun samurai of the Byakkotai ("White Tiger Squad") saw smoke rising from their castle, mistakenly assumed the battle had been lost and committed mass seppuku. The battle and tragic death of the warriors is as legendary in Japan as Picket's Charge is in the U.S. Anyway, now you know more about Fukushima than what you're seeing on CNN these days!
I've written before about how Japanese is based on syllables rather than individual sounds, meaning you can express ka, ki, ku, ke and ko but not "k" by itself, and writing or saying the English word "weekend" can become quite a complex affair (it becomes something like oo-EE-koo-EN-doh). This is where the famous thick accents Japanese sometimes have when speaking English come from, and the strange "poverty" of available sounds means there's a higher instance of unrelated words having the same pronunciation (homonyms), which can get in the way of communication. There are quite a few examples, like the words for "public" and "private" schools having the same pronunciation (shiritsu) despite their opposite meanings, or the words for "science" and "chemistry," which are both kagaku (though the kanji are different of course). Another example in physics (which my son loves) is the word for the nucleus of an atom (kaku) is the same as the electron shell that electrons move around (also kaku). And now a new inconvenient linguistic accident: the word for someone who's been exposed to radiation, as in the case of the unfortunate people living near the Fukushima reactor, is hibakusha, which happens to be the same as the word for the victims of the atomic bombs dropped duing World War II (again, though the kanji are different). Hibakusha is a word with 60 years of historical baggage attached to it, and I'm surprised they didn't find a less prolematic term for this new situation.
There are many ways you can help Japan. Donating to Red Cross Japan might be difficult from outside the country, so perhaps a donation to the U.S. Red Cross or Red Cross International would be good. In addition, J-List will be donating 5% of all orders to the Japanese Red Cross throgh April, up to $10,000. Thanks for any and all support you can give!
J-List is open for business and is shipping products out more-or-less normally. Japan will need economic power to recover from this tragedy, and we're going to help them the best way we know how. We've got a lot of excellent new products that our distributors hav e been delivering, and we foresee no special delays with outgoing shipping (but we'll post an update if this changes). Thanks and God Bless.
http://www.jlist.com/home