Nate Oyama

Protest Against Bombardier for Incidents in Japan

From: Nate Oyama
To: [email protected]
Subject: Incident in Japan
Thursday, March 22, 2007 10:06 AM

Dear Sir/Madam:

I was disappointed about you and your aircrafts for the serious incident of ANA and Amakusa Airlines that were caused by faults of your aircrafts.

Boeing and Airbus are well known in Japan, but few people there didn't know "Bombardier" before those incidents.

As you know many media in Japan, especially famous papers have recently written about your poor quality management. Some papers describe you as "Flying Schindlers". These days many Japanese people seem to disappoint not only your aircrafts, but even other people and things in Canada.

Today I visited your website but I couldn't find your apology or any comment about those incident, as far as I checked at your homepage and news pages.

You don't have to make a full apology if you think you have no fault. But at least you have a responsibility to mention those incidents and the safety of your aircrafts.

Regards,
    Nathan Oyama, A college student in Japan

From: ****@aero.bombardier.com
To: Nate Oyama
Subject: Bombardier
Friday, March 23, 2007 04:10 AM

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for your email of today.

Please be advised that Bombardier held press conferences on March 16 in Tokyo and Kochi to publicly apologize which was widely reported in the Japanese media.

The attached statement was issued only in Japan on March 13 and not distributed internationally.

The JCAB investigations into the respective incidents continue so we cannot offer any comment at this time until final reports are released.

Regards,

*** ***
Senior Advisor Media & Public Relations
Bombardier Regional Aircraft
Tel: (1) *** *** ****
Mobile: *** *** ****
Email: ***@aero.bombardier.com

(See attached file: Statement Q400_EN.doc)

Bombardier Aerospace mention the incidents for only Japanese media. I represent them and report on what they want to say!

Tokyo Gubernatorial Election

In Japan election campaigns are held in 13 prefectures. Also, Tokyo has the election day on April 8 and they announced there are 14 candidacies as the following:

Tokyo Gubernatorial Election Candidacies

Name	Status	My Comment
Setsuo Yamaguchi	Real estate appraiser	Please raise land value more.
Manzo Yoshida	Former mayor of Adachi City	Supported by Communist Party.
Koichi Sotoyama	Street Musician	Dream comes true, la la la
Shintaro Ishihara	Current Tokyo governor	I think two out of three citizens will vote for him.
Shiro Asano	Former Miyagi Prefecture governor	I think he's 2nd candidate.
Noriaki Kurokawa	Architect	Please rebuild Tokyo.
Dr. Nakamatsu	Inventor	World's #1 inventor. Having more than 3,000 of his inventions (c.f. Edison: 1,093) including a perpetual motion engine.
Mitsuru Takahashi	Taxi driver	He wants to drive Tokyo
Takanori Sasaki	Former police officer	He must be familiar with real affairs.
Kinzo Sakura	Comedian	Now he's making us laugh!
Ryuho Takahashi	Fortune Teller	Follow him, or, Tokyo will sink.
Kumiko Uchikawa	Researcher of ancient Chinese geomancy	Her study provides citizens become happy.
Koichiro Mariko	Former office worker	What happened with him at his office?
Osamu Ogami	Writer	11 pages hit in Google. 3 of them are about his book.

Street musician? Taxi driver? You may say I'm joking. But I'm not joking.

Portable Software ― OS-friendly Distribution on the Go!

A portable software does not require installation onto your computer. Installing many softwares can cause damage to your OS, but you can try portable softwares at no risk. The word "portable app" was coined by one of its famous creator John T. Haller, and I knew his softwares on Mozilla development forum two years ago, and I've been his fan.

Nowadays freewares are very common, especially Mozilla Firefox. In fact the concept of "freeware" is "having the freedom of using, analyzing, redistributing, and altering", while most people misunderstand as if it had described as a software at no cost. See also GNU: The Free Software Definition.

Due to the benefit from freewares, people can modify them freely, and as a result portable softwares based on it is getting popular among computer maniacs. I believe most people will use portable apps instead of ordinary softwares within five years.

Portable Softwares

Pros:

No damage to OS

Very easy to start and very easy to delete.

Also runs from USB memory, SD card, iPod, and even CD-R.

Cons:

Lack of stability

Modification is later than original (at least 1 day)

For:

Any users and any purpose. Not only to use it on the go, but even use it from your computer's HD not to damage to your OS.

I highly recommend to use portable instead of original ones as much as possible. Now I'm writing this blog with Firefox Portable. I will introduce my favorite portable apps. There are some of great portable apps by John T. Haller: PortableApps.com. I recommend to download single portable apps, rather than "portable suite".

Film "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso" ― Greatest Film from Italy

Have you ever watched "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso"? It is in Italian, "New Cinema Paradise". Three years ago, a friend of my mother's lent her its VHS tape, and I also watched it with her. When the film ended, she found it boring. But I was clapping my hands. Then I had never watched such a great film, and today it is still my absolutely favorite film.

The other day I found that Nuovo cinema Paradiso was #1 popular film on a Japanese magazine. Amazing! Many Japanese people were attracted by this old Italian film, rather than other great films from Hollywood!

Last week I rent its DVD from a rental video shop. It's the director's cut version, 50 minutes longer than the original version. and today I watched it. 173 minutes was a little long, but it was worth watching.

Whether a film is good or bad is depend on who watches it. I think audience from Italy, Japan, and Germany would love Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, since they have knowledge about their country's high economic growth period. Meanwhile many American people admire Forrest Gump.

The story of Nuovo Cinema Paradiso is about a film-lover boy when the WWII was over. At that Time, Italy lost the war and people there were very poor. But each of them had dreams and were very friendly.

By the way, nowadays Italy, Germany, and Japan are very wealthy countries. However how about citizens there? Do you have any ambition? Are you happy? If you doubt it, I recommend a Japanese kid's film "Crayon Shinchan's The Adult Empire Strikes Back". Unfortunately only Japanese version is available!

Quik Pod ― Take Picture of Yourself Easily

When I travel in Japan, I often help foreigners to take their pictures. Then they seem very glad.
Can you say "Will you take a picture?" in Japanese? Some foreigners, especially westerners believe that English is a worldwide language, so most people can speak English in Japan and South Korea as well. But is is wrong.

In Japanese, you can say "Shashin o totte kuremasen ka?" Still in case of forgetting it, or visiting South Korea, or if you are afraid for other people, this product will help you.

It is available at QuikPod.com and it's $24.95.

Those two pictures were taken from their web site.

TBS' Apology for K. Hosoki's Remark about Oshamambe

After that TV program "Kazuko Hosoki's I tell you straight out!" on Feb. 27 (See: Feb. 27: Protest Against Kauzko Hosoki), Oshamambe Town Hall announced that they had officially protested to its broadcaster, TBS. The town hall also announced that TBS had explained and made a full apology for the town hall, and promised that they would apologize to viewers.

Today my mother and I were concentrate on watching that TV program. Then I was holding a camera. Whie that ending, a subtitle appears on their credits for about 3 seconds.

(in Japanese, During this program on February 27th, there were inappropriate remarks about Oshamambe. We are terribly sorry.)

"Mom, It's too small and short time, isn't it? They didn't apologize seriously! Let's protest again!"

TOEFL in Japan

As long as I will enroll at an American university, high score on TOEFL is quite important (note that I'm Japanese-educated, though American-born!)

In fact I've never taken TOEFL, but I will during this spring. Four years ago, when I was first grade in high school, I bought a TOEFL Computer Based Test (CBT) textbook which is most popular in the United States from Amazon.co.jp.

To my great surprised, I found CBT was abolished last year! Nowadays Internet Based Test (iBT) is their mainstream. Their traditional style Paper Based Test (PBT) is no longer major.

Furthermore, I surprised at their fee in Japan: $170! (iBT early registration)

They hold three times a week! Every Friday, every Saturday, and every Sunday!

Um, I need to study not only English but even affairs during my stay in Oshamambe.