alphonsegaston

48 ms·

541.
by alphonsegaston 10y ago
Aside from your circular reasoning (kids that are sucessful are successful), you could transpose this argument back half a century and have faulty rationale that many whites used to justify segregation of academic institutions at all levels
542.
by alphonsegaston 10y ago
I hadn't intended to imply that the graphic was offensive, nor do I think that most Japanese people would find it so either. I was just pointing out (perhaps imprecisely) that perceived appropriateness in Japan is highly context depend
543.
by alphonsegaston 10y ago
Masking one's preferences and behavior to avoid offense in a public is a defining element of Japanese society and culture. And while everyone there is more inured to these kinds of graphics, the design of packaging for everyday goods o
544.
by alphonsegaston 10y ago
I second having something more classy. Japan is renowned for its package design, so why not include this aspect as part of what's being sold? Maybe something like how Meiji brands their goods. That illustration/design would seem t
545.
by alphonsegaston 11y ago
Action in and of itself is not a virtue, especially when many of his iniatives take square aim at dismantling democratic freedoms. This is akin to the fetishization of "speed" by Italian futurists that paved the way for fascism&#x
546.
by alphonsegaston 11y ago
In some realpolitik sense, of course. But never would I argue that the grotesque excesses of American history were signals of strength or potential in line with some greater ideality. They were unchecked manifestations of baser instincts wh
547.
by alphonsegaston 11y ago
You are correct in your intuition. The US used Japan as a forward operating post for both the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and built up their infrastructure to support this. Quite callously, they also exerted pressure on both Korea and Taiwan (
548.
by alphonsegaston 11y ago
Or simply that they were enamored with the colonial example of the west and had a tradition of extreme militarism and more fortunate historical circumstances that allowed them to project this sadistic fantasy on to their neighbors. I think
549.
by alphonsegaston 11y ago
Although this may be true for a wide swathe of Japanese citizens, the ruling party of Japan has a long history of whitewashing Japan's imperialist past, making this argument tenuous at best. Abe Shinzo's government has been active
550.
by alphonsegaston 11y ago
While I want to agree with this sentiment, the problem I see is that Japanese government has largely functioned as a client state of the American empire you're contrasting it with. There was a brief moment of true democratic impulses i
551.
by alphonsegaston 11y ago
It was alright to use when they were putting in the Wacom digitizers. The N-Trig ones just aren't up to snuff. All my artist friends now just want an iPad Pro that runs full-blown Photoshop.
552.
by alphonsegaston 11y ago
Yes and no (am an artist and have both). The hardware profile is exactly what you would want, but the software isn't there. You'd need something like the equivalent of the brush engine in Photoshop in order for it to be viable for
553.
by alphonsegaston 11y ago
While I'm sure there is some of this mentality among unpolished artists, I think you're wrongly conflating reproducibility of quality with creativity itself. A creative solution is often arrived at by the ability to generate a lar
554.
by alphonsegaston 11y ago
I think the problem is often that we do, we're just not cognizant of it. A lot of sexism is so normalized that the edges of more destructive behavior (jokes and the like) never signal to other men that someone is abusive or demeaning t
555.
by alphonsegaston 11y ago
That does sound great. Where in Japan?
556.
by alphonsegaston 11y ago
I believe the parent is referring to the fact that the GI Bill and home loans for returning WW II veterans were written in such a way to systematically discriminate against blacks in this country. The explicit prohibitions you mention obvio
557.
by alphonsegaston 11y ago
I don't know if this is true for J&J, but the paint industry is quite large and banked on racism allowing them to get away with harmful lead additives. This kind of cold calculus is hardly out of bounds for US corporations: The lea
558.
by alphonsegaston 11y ago
It's actually in reference to fairly well-established science: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/?term=talc+ovarian
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by alphonsegaston 11y ago
Many university library systems have programs where alumni (and sometimes outsiders) can purchase access to their resources for a yearly fee. If that's unavailable to you or cost prohibitive, most academic libraries are open to the pub
560.
by alphonsegaston 11y ago
I'm from a similar background and this is unfortunately untrue. The average white household, for example, has something like 12 times the wealth as the average black household, a near historic high. What this means is that despite an
561.
by alphonsegaston 11y ago
Again, the "cannot" here is probably imprecise. In Japanese, r and l exist as a single sound, making differentiation difficult for the average Japanese speaker in other languages. The original research by a Japanese linguist into
562.
by alphonsegaston 11y ago
Right, so more difficult and variable depending on time of acquisition and method of instruction. Not impossible. Thanks for the interesting article!
563.
by alphonsegaston 11y ago
Anecdotally, I find this to be untrue. My wife, a native Japanese speaker who did not learn English until age 16, is able to distinguish between the two. I learned Japanese in my twenties and am able to pronounce the r/l phoneme. The o