Inazo Nitobe

Japan prides herself on enjoying twenty-six centuries of continuous national existence under the same dynasty. To outsiders, too, there may be in hoary age itself something alluring to the imagination. If so, I am sorry to disillusion them somewhat, but I shall do so at the outset of my discourse. It seems that our earliest historiographers, in adopting the Chinese system of chronological computation in the eighth century, made a miscalculation by some ten sexagenary cycles, thereby pushing back the beginning of our history as many as six hundred years. It is well known that such an error is a common frailty of early chroniclers everywhere. ... Perhaps our countrymen had more temptation than the Romans or the Chinese to prolong the dates of successive reigns, as they dealt with sovereigns of the same family. It must have been a glorious satisfaction for the fubito, the recorders, to mete out by a stroke of their pens many happy years to their sovereigns !
Deducting then six centuries from our early history, we bring the foundation of our Empire to 60 b.c. — some historians assign the date to 20 or 25 b.c. — instead of 660 as usually accepted, making the first ruler, Jimmu Tenno (Tenno meaning Emperor), contemporary with Julius Caesar. Though the details of his life are mixed with more or less fabulous stories and are by no means as well substantiated as the lives of his Roman contemporaries, there is no valid ground for doubting the main events of his career. Where his family first came from, we do not know. For that matter, we cannot tell whence the Japanese race migrated. That we are the autocthons of the land which we now inhabit is more doubtful than that the the Suevi or the Goths were created in Sweden. All the legends point to the so-called " High Plains of Heaven " (Taka-ama-ga-hara) as the cradle of our race; but its location is more obscure than that of Atlantis, and we have no poets or archaeologists to trace its whereabouts.

命数法

一（いち） 100	十（じゅう） 101	百（ひゃく） 102	千（せん） 103
万（まん） 104	十万 105	百万 106	千万 107
億（おく） 108	十億 109	百億 1010	千億 1011
兆（ちょう） 1012	十兆 1013	百兆 1014	千兆 1015
京（けい、きょう） 1016	十京 1017	百京 1018	千京 1019
垓（がい） 1020	十垓 1021	百垓 1022	千垓 1023
秭（し） 1024	十秭 1025	百秭 1026	千秭 1027
穣（じょう） 1028	十穣 1029	百穣 1030	千穣 1031
溝（こう） 1032	十溝 1033	百溝 1034	千溝 1035
澗（かん） 1036	十澗 1037	百澗 1038	千澗 1039
正（せい） 1040	十正 1041	百正 1042	千正 1043
載（さい） 1044	十載 1045	百載 1046	千載 1047
極（ごく） 1048	十極 1049	百極 1050	千極 1051
恒河沙（ごうがしゃ） 1052	十恒河沙 1053	百恒河沙 1054	千恒河沙 1055
阿僧祇（あそうぎ） 1056	十阿僧祇 1057	百阿僧祇 1058	千阿僧祇 1059
那由他（なゆた） 1060	十那由他 1061	百那由他 1062	千那由他 1063
不可思議（ふかしぎ） 1064	十不可思議 1065	百不可思議 1066	千不可思議 1067
無量大数（むりょうたいすう） 1068

神武天皇、明治天皇

綏靖天皇のなかの神武天皇の血は 1/2
安寧天皇のなかの神武天皇の血は 1/4
懿徳天皇のなかの神武天皇の血は 1/8
孝昭天皇のなかの神武天皇の血は 1/16
孝安天皇のなかの神武天皇の血は 1/32

明治天皇のなかの神武天皇の血は
1/4,722,366,482,869,650,000,000　（47垓2236京6483兆分の1）

それにしては、よく似ている。

都築響一

The Economist (“Schumpeter” Column)

Confirmation as to how seriously some companies are taking additive manufacturing, popularly known as 3D printing, came when GE Aviation bought a privately owned company called Morris Technologies. Morris Technologies has invested heavily in 3D printing equipment and will be printing bits for a new range of jet engines. Morris Technologies uses a number of 3D printing machines, all of which work by using a digital description of an object to build it in physical form, layer by layer.

One of the attractions of printing parts is that it saves material. Instead of machining components from solid billets of metal, in which much of it may be cut away, only the material that is needed to shape the part is used. Printed parts can also be made lighter than forged parts, which promises fuel savings.

Many manufacturers already use 3D printing to make prototypes of parts, because it is cheaper and more flexible than tooling up to produce just one or two items. But the technology is now good enough for it to be used to make production items too.

Among the components that Morris Technologies plans to print will be some used in the LEAP jet engine, which is being developed by CFM International, a joint venture between GE Aviation and Snecma of France. The LEAP engine is scheduled to enter service in the next few years on a number of short-haul airliners. More than 4,000 engines have already been ordered.

John C Arkin

During the Civil War, it is believed that over one-third of the nation’s money was counterfeited. This can be largely blamed on the fact that each bank used to print their own money back then, making it so 4,000 types of money were hard to distinguish from the 7,000 types of counterfeit!
But nowadays, money and all counterfeiting matters are closely guarded by the Secret Service, who takes pride in investigating each and every counterfeiting case. Plus, money is no longer printed by banks; rather, a national currency was adopted in 1863.
While the traditional means of money counterfeiting used to be offset printing, technology has caused a surge in the counterfeiting business.
While the majority of the world will see the advances as a way to improve their output, a select few will view it as an opportunity to commit a crime or to try to “get away” with something illegal. High quality printing is both a blessing and a curse to law enforcement and even the Secret Service who no doubt use these technologies themselves.
Until detection equipment catches up, they seem to have their work cut out for them with all of this at-home money printing.

Lawrence Malkin

During a conference of experts in monetary matters held at the German Ministry of Finance, the following plan was discussed:

“Offensive against Sterling and Destruction of its Position as World Currency”

This plan, which was unanimously approved, contemplates in the first place the necessity of careful preparation and perfect execution of the work enabling the proposed aims to be realised in all the countries of the Near East as well as in North Africa, in the British Colonies and in South America.

It was decided to proceed with the printing in the printing works of the Reichsbank of 30 billions of forged bank notes of £1 and of 2 billions of various other notes. The transfer of these forged notes to foreign countries would be effected through the diplomatic bags of the Ministry of the Navy.

David Plotz

Believing America faced genetic catastrophe, Robert Graham decided he could reverse the decline by artificially inseminating women with the sperm of geniuses. In 1980, Graham opened the Repository for Germinal Choice and stocked it with the seed of gifted scientists, inventors, and thinkers. Over the next nineteen years, Graham’s “genius factory” produced more than 200 children.
What happened to them? Were they the brilliant children that Graham expected?
The children of the “genius factory” are messengers from the future–a future that is bearing down on us fast. What will families be like when parents routinely “shop” for their kids’ genes? What will children be like when they’re programmed for greatness?

Lynne Osman Elkin

(How close did Franklin actually come to deciphering the structure of DNA?) She was very close. She had all the parameters of the helical backbone. She was the one who figured out that there were two forms of DNA, which made solving the whole structure possible. She had figured out that backbone of the A form is antiparallel. It wouldn’t have been very long before she figured out that the B form backbone was antiparallel as well.

(What did Watson actually get out of Photo 51 beyond the idea that the “X” signified a helix?) After Watson saw Photo 51, he went out to dinner with Wilkins and pressed him for the interpretation of it—the 34-angstrom measurements and so on. At that early date Watson didn’t know how to interpret a diffraction photo, other than that an “X” meant helix. In terms of getting measurements out of it, he hadn’t the foggiest—at that point. It was Wilkins who told him how to interpret it.

Marcy Darnovsky

The world now knows about the blatant racism of the twentieth century’s most famous geneticist. Those tracking the story have also learned of James Watson’s other assorted bigotries – his denigration of “ugly girls,” “stupid” children, and “fat people”; his endorsement of paying rich people to have more children and aborting affected fetuses when tests for a “gay gene” are developed.
At a high-profile conference to plan how to make this high-tech eugenics “acceptable” to the American public, Watson called for “making better human beings” by “adding genes.” A few years later, he advised that “Hitler’s use of the term Master Race” should not make us “feel the need to say that we never want to use genetics to make humans more capable than they are today.”

Eli Blake

In a just world, schoolkids would learn who the real discoverer of the structure of DNA was: Rosalind Franklin. But the world is rarely just.

James Watson

--->

If you could find the gene which determines sexuality and a woman decides she doesn't want a homosexual child, well, let her (abort the fetus). [I am] inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa [because] all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours—whereas all the testing says not really. If you are really stupid, I would call that a disease. The lower 10 per cent who really have difficulty, even in elementary school, what's the cause of it? A lot of people would like to say, 'Well, poverty, things like that.' It probably isn't. So I'd like to get rid of that, to help the lower 10 per cent. People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great.

Rosalind Franklin

Rosalind Elsie Franklin (25 July 1920 – 16 April 1958) was a British biophysicist and X-ray crystallographer who made critical contributions to the understanding of the fine molecular structures of DNA, RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite. Her DNA work achieved the most fame because DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) plays essential roles in cell metabolism and genetics, and the discovery of its structure helped scientists understand how genetic information is passed from parents to children.

After finishing her portion of the work on DNA, Franklin led pioneering work on the tobacco mosaic virus and the polio virus. She died in 1958 at the age of 37 of ovarian cancer.

Anne Sayre

Facts have something of a life of their own. They are by no means entirely subject to viewpoint: What one likes, or does not like, does not affect what is. Facts may be annoying, they may hamper the flow of a good story, or even contradict it; but when they are swept under the rug in order to let the tale get on, they remain facts, locatable, discernible, stubborn, and there for the seeking. In one instance, and in my mind, a question arose concerning the accuracy of some of Watson‘s facts, simply because he presented in The Double Helix a character named ‘Rosy’ who represented, but did not really coincide, with a woman named Rosalind Franklin whom I had known, admired, and liked very much.
For we are presented with a picture of a deplorable situation. The progress of science is being impeded, and by what? Why, by a woman, to begin with, one labeled as subordinate, meant—or even destined—to occupy that inferior position in which presumably all women belong, even those with good brains.
But perhaps the progress of science is also being impeded somewhat by a man as well, one too inhibited by decency to be properly ruthless with female upstarts, and so to get on with the job.

Richard P. Feynman

Of course, you only live one life, and you make all your mistakes, and learn what not to do, and that’s the end of you.

You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It’s their mistake, not my failing.

It should be noted that there are some disagreements at the level of reconstructing skeletons and musculature, and that improvements and tweaks are frequently being made. We mostly agree on the positions of muscles, for example, but the sizes of some of the muscles involved are variable in living animals and there is sometimes no reliable way of determining their size in fossil animals.
The real complication in reconstructing fossil animals is that there's all the soft stuff that goes on top of the musculoskeletal system. Integument is the great unknown for many fossil animals; its preservation is rare and infrequent, and even when it's preserved, it may be massively distorted or rearranged relative to its position in life. This is important, since the shape and size of the integument can radically change the appearance of the living animal relative to its underlying musculature and skelton.
We are therefore presented with a huge diversity of ‘known unknowns' and ‘unknown unknowns' – the gate is open for all manner of bizarre possibilities as goes the life appearances of fossil animals.

荒木永子

　　　　　　　　

Wiktionary, Pigs in Maputo

there’s a grain of truth in every joke

people convey truth in jokes

in each joke there is a share of the truth

there is truth in every joke

there is a bit of truth in every joke

there is a bit of joke in every truth

Alaska

Gerolf Steiner

The first edition of the H. Stumpke’s (G. Steiner’s pseudonym) book “Bau und Leben der Rhinogradentia” was issued in 1960 in the most known and serious German publishing house “Gustav Fischer Verlag” (Stuttgard; Jena) specializing in publishing of guides, textbooks and theoretical monographies. The book made so stunning success that at the end of the same year it was republished. Originally the monography had caused a shock, of course: zoologists could not understand a dirty trick for a long time – the trust to publishing house with a well-known emblem – tail-shaking fish – was too high… When the joke appeared revealed, Steiner had been forgiven for professionalism and that pleasure which every reader gets both from the text, and from humour, and from magnificent illustrations. It is not so surprising that the book was republished some times in German (last edition was in 1998 with color illustrations) and was translated to French, English and Japanese languages.

Pierre-Paul Grassé

Biochemists and biologists who adhere blindly to the Darwinism theory search for results that will be in agreement with their theories and consequently orient their research in a given direction.
La stigmergie se manifeste dans la termitière, par le fait que le travail individuel de chaque ouvrier constructeur stimule et oriente celui du voisin.
A library does not fabricate information, it receives it from without, classifies and stores it. The medieval copyists made mistakes that altered, vitiated the texts they were supposed to reproduce. Who dares assert that their errors are the work itself?

Harald Stümpke

En 1961, le monde scientifique apprenait avec étonnement l’existence d’un nouvel ordre de mammifères tout à fait étranges, baptisés Rhinogrades. Cette découverte était décrite et analysée en détail dans un petit livre.

Kirsten Salyer, Joshua Keating

In Russia, Valentine's Day Is for Making Babies by Kirsten Salyer, Bloomberg
This Valentine's Day in Russia, do your patriotic duty and make a baby.
That's the message from President Vladimir Putin, who has invited the trio Boyz II Men to perform in Moscow on Feb. 6 as part of an effort to raise the country's birth rate. The group will sing romantic ballads, "hopefully giving Russian men some inspiration ahead of St. Valentine's Day," according to the Moscow Times.

Putin meme accountability watch: No, he did not hire Boyz II Men to make Russians have sex by Joshua Keating, Foreign Policy
You may have seen via social media today that the Moscow Times is reporting that Vladimir Putin has hired Boyz II Men to play a concert in Moscow as part of a campaign to encourage Russians to procreate and raise the country's flaggin birth rate. This is not true. More precisely, it may or may not be true but it hasn't been "reported" by anyone.

黄檗宗

黄檗宗は当初「臨済宗黄檗派」と称していましたが明治9年、臨済宗から一宗として独立し「黄檗宗」を公称するようになりました。中国では臨済宗に含まれますが、日本の臨済宗とは中国式という点で異なったため、独立して一宗派を成すに至ったのがその経緯です。
黄檗宗の起源とする臨済宗は、禅宗五家のうちの一派で達磨大師から11代目の臨済義玄禅師を宗祖と仰ぐ宗派で、中国で起こり発展し、日本に伝来してきたものです。
黄檗宗では法式（儀式作法など）やお経もすべて中国で行われていたものを忠実に継承しています。特にお経は独特で、唐音とよばれる中国語を基本とする読みをします。たとえば一般的によく詠まれる般若心経でいうと「まかはんにゃはらみたしんぎょう・・・」と唱えるところが「ポゼポロミトシンキン・・・」という具合になります。
さらに黄檗のお経の中には「梵唄（ぼんばい）」と呼ばれるものがあります。これは字にも表わされているとおり、歌のようなお経です。声明などとはまた違い、４拍子を基本とするリズムを刻みながら節の付いたお経を詠んでいくとても音楽的なお経です。法要ではこれに、いろいろな鐘や太鼓などの鳴物を合わせて音楽を演奏するかのように読経が行われます。
一度お聴きいただけば、今までのお経のイメージががらりと変わることでしょう。

小松和彦

洋の東西を問わず、人間が生活している世界にはつねにおびただしい「境界」が設定されている。境界を作ることが自分たちの世界を作ることだからである。人びとは錯綜し重層化した境界を、必要に応じて強く意識したり無視したりしながら生活を営んできたのである。
「異界」とは、こうした境界の向こう側に展開している領域のことである。人びとはこの未知の「異界」にっいてさまざまな想像をめぐらしてきた。ある者は境界を踏み越えて異界に分け入り、そこでの体験を語り伝えた。またあるときは、境界の向こうからやって来た者から異界の様子を聞こうとした。その話は本当の話であったり、幻想の話であったりしたが、人びとはその話からさらにまた多くの異界をめぐる物語をっむぎ出していった。 私たち日本人も、古代から現代に至るまで、境界の向こう側に広がる深い「闇」を見つめ、スサノオのヤマタノオロチ退治の物語や源頼光による大江山の鬼退治の物語、浦嶋太郎の龍宮訪問の物語、等々、さまざまな物語を生み出し語り伝えてきた。日本人もまた異界を想定することで、自分たちの世界を作り上げてきたのである。

安倍晴明

　　

Definition
A co-operative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise.
Values
Co-operatives are based on the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity. In the tradition of their founders, co-operative members believe in the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for others.
Principles
The co-operative principles are guidelines by which co-operatives put their values into practice.
1. Voluntary and Open Membership
2. Democratic Member Control
3. Member Economic Participation
4. Autonomy and Independence
5. Education, Training and Information
6. Co-operation among Co-operatives
7. Concern for Community

Mondragon Corporation

The MONDRAGON Corporation is a corporation and federation of worker cooperatives based in the Basque region of Spain. Founded in the town of Mondragón in 1956, its origin is linked to the activity of a modest technical college and a small workshop producing paraffin heaters. Currently it is the seventh largest Spanish company in terms of asset turnover and the leading business group in the Basque Country. At the end of 2010 it was providing employment for 83,859 people working in 256 companies in four areas of activity: Finance, Industry, Retail and Knowledge. The MONDRAGON Co-operatives operate in accordance with a business model based on People and the Sovereignty of Labour, which has made it possible to develop highly participative companies rooted in solidarity, with a strong social dimension but without neglecting business excellence. The Co-operatives are owned by their worker-members and power is based on the principle of one person, one vote.

Answers.com

Is LG and samsung same company?

They are not the same company, but the use the same assembly company in Korea and the parts that are installed in both machines have very similar OEM numbers. They also use the same warranty service companies. They are both Korean built machines. Side by side LG and Samsung with similar options are basically the same machine with a different interface LED or selector switches. Same hardware, but not the same company.

Henny Sender

The market may be too optimistic in believing that the short yen/long equities trade will work for a sustained period.
Mr Abe and the business community in Japan continue to think their main problem is an expensive yen, or more accurately an underpriced Korean won. That may have been true in the past but not today. Even if the yen was to fall significantly, the world’s consumers are not about to abandon Samsung gadgets for those of Sony or Toshiba. The problem is not an uncompetitive currency, it is uncompetitive products.
Japan’s trade deficits will worsen as the cost of imports rises while the current account will benefit but not enough to compensate. The fiscal deficit is expected to reach a shocking 11.5 per cent this year, JPMorgan estimates.

Niall Ferguson

The Japanese move triggered a flurry of warnings of an imminent “currency war”. Alexei Ulyukayev, first deputy chairman of Russia’s central bank, led the charge, closely followed by Jens Weidmann, Bundesbank president, and Bahk Jae-wan, South Korea’s finance minister.
Today, we live in a world of fiat money and mostly floating rates. The last vestige of the gold standard was swept away in August 1971, when Richard Nixon suspended the convertibility of the dollar into gold. For one country to accuse another of waging a currency war in 2013 is therefore absurd. The war has been going on for more than 40 years and it is a war of all against all.
On the basis of the Bis data, the most aggressive currency warriors of the past 5½ years have been South Korea (a 19 per cent real effective depreciation since August 2007) and the UK (minus 17 per cent). So the Koreans win this week’s prize for hypocrisy.

Penelope Soto

Craft