#10My favorite architect, Tadao Ando

  Hi, everyone! I will introduce Japanese famous architect. His name is Tadao Ando.He was born in Osaka, September 13th,1941. After graduating from technical high school, he didn't enter University and learned architecture by himself. It was very surprising for me, because I had thought that he accepted professional education. Thien, I will show the feature of his building.
First,he used concrete to create buildings. Concrete is very cheap material and inorganic. By using concrete,he expressed a variety of shapes and texture.

Second,he tried to harmonize nature and building and work on environment problem. He thought that builing is a part of enviroment , so he adopted the structure which naturally can ventilate without machine when he designed station building of Shibuya station.
In my opinion,Tadao Ando is the greatest architect in Japan.
There are two reasons for this. First, He is excellent as architect. He bought new idea to architecture and made space which didn't have any purpose because it had people exercise their imagination.

Takuya

♯9 About TPP

 Hi,everyone! A Happy New Year!! I will introduce TPP. Do you know TPP? TPP is abbreviation of Trans-Pacific Partnership. It is the approach which abolishes customs of all items.Japanese government promotes TPP,but farmer's cooperative and fishman's cooperative holds demonstrations all over Japan.

I will introduce advantages and disadvantages od TPP. One of advantages is that price of goods will fall because of competition of foreign countries.Especially,the price of vegetables and fishes in foreign countries such as China or America is very low compared with Japanese.Other advantage is that it is easy hor export companies to expand business overseas.
On the other hand,one od disadvantages is that farming and fishing in Japan may be stagnant.
This will aggravate employment in farming and fishing.Finally, Japanese economy may be slump.
I think Japan should not join TPP. I have two reasons for this.First, situation in Japan is appreciation of yen. In this situation, if Japan joins TPP,export companies should acclerate overseas advance.
It will lead to hollowing of industry.

Takuya

#10:life

Sotaro

Hi. Happy new year!

Yesterday, I read a book called ‘I don't want to live forever!’.  It is a short book with less than 2000 words. It is so easy to read that I read it in 10 minutes, but it made me really think about life.

The theme of book is what would happen if we live longer. Thanks to the technology, our life span is getting longer and longer. Some scientists are studying how we can get ageless.

If we live longer, the population of the world would grow larger and we will have to face with food or water shortage. This is a common sense.

What if we live longer and become ageless? Our life might get boring. We might get tired of living. Our life may become pointless. People like Osamu Dazai or Mozart came up with my head. They have done a lot of things though they died in young age.

I keep thinking about this although exams are near. If we live longer, we might have a lot of chance to have fun, but the existing itself may become boring. However, I don't want to die now.

I think this is too short to stop the blog, so let me introduce the lecture I watched recently. This is a bit similar to the speech given by Steve Jobs in Stanford.

The lecture is performed by Carnegie Mellon University professor, Randy Pausch.He died in young at the age of 47 by cancer. The lecture is about how he achieved his dreams when he was a child. Though he was in a terminal cancer, he was energetic throughout the lecture and I got energy from him.

I'll post a part of the video. Personally, I like this video better than Steve Jobs's speech in Stanford.

Thanks for reading!

Blog#10 capital punishment that is becoming a mere name

Shun

Happy New Year everyone! How have you been? And did you make  New Year’s

resolutions? I hope everyone would lead a peaceful life without serious problems this

year.

Now, I would like to enlighten the terrible state of death penalty especially in 2011 in Japan Which we have to know. Sorry to choose this kind of severe topics from

the right beginning of New Year. In 2011, none of the capital punishments were executed. It is a really surprising affair because this has not happened for 19 years.

On the other hand, the number of established criminals has reached 129, which is the largest since the post-war. They have been waiting for being executed in a jail for over six months despite The Criminal Procedure Code says the Minister of Justice has to order the execution within six months since the final judgement has made. It means he breaks the law. Do you know why such a situation is terrible? It’s because the underestimation of the law causes the serious problem, which will ruin not only the system of law but the social rules. If that truly happens, tons of crimes will be being rampant around the world.

There is a story behind this affair that you approve the execution or not.

From the side of victims, they say that capital punishments must have been enforced mostly from the point of retribution. But yet, generally and from the side of assailants, it is said that death penalty is so strict that we should refrain from exercising it.

In this way, even only one execution causes a lively argument so the final decision is normally supposed to delay. Even so, 129 are too large. The Minister of Law has to make choices in some ways. For now,We can’t help thinking the law is underestimated. We all should argue back and force about this, however, this kind of subjects haven’t been focused on even though there have been held several general elections. There is a need to turn our attention to it.

Blog#10 evaluations about restaurants on the Internet

Do you search restaurants on the Internet? I search restaurant or dining bar on the Internet when I have to reserve the dining bar for party of club or when I visit the place with which I am not familiar. The sites which give us information about restaurants are useful to check whether that restaurant is good or not before we eat there. Therefore, evaluation on the Internet could be one of principles for restaurant to succeed. As we already have studied about restaurant, there are 7 principles, but the evaluation on the Internet or strategy on the Internet could be eighth principles in today’s world.

However, recently there is the problem that some companies make up false comments in such sites.

According to the news “msn sankei news,” in Tukishima, which is famous for monjayaki, two of sixty restaurants asked dealers to maneuver the evaluation on the Internet, and they succeeded to make line in front of these restaurant.

These dealers said, “ if you give us ¥100,000 per month, we will make 5 comments per month.” Storekeeper distrusted them, but they came up with the idea that many tourists use the site, so sales could be larger even temporarily.

There are two way which these corrupt dealer use. First is making good comments for the restaurant in the site. Second is accessing the restaurant many times and making it featured.

If we allow such corrupt dealers that operate the evaluation on the Internet, we cannot trust the information on the Internet. However, if the restriction becomes too strict, people will not make comments in the site, which makes information sites weaker. I think this dilemma is more difficult than we expect. What do you think in order to solve this problem?

One of the most famous site for searching restaurants is HERE.

Motoki 

BLOG#9 DRIVERLESSCAR

What do you think about “driverless car?” Driverless car means the driver does not need to drive his car. I think we can image such a car, but most of us cannot believe that such cars will be made in very near future, because we think such cars exist in only dream world. However, Google is making such a dream car, and it looks almost done. The detail is HERE.

I would like to expect the effect of actually using the driverless cars. If such cars are released for ordinary people, I think many people want to drive or ride on it. We don’t need to lose our way. Therefore, they will try to buy it. In the world, there are 965,257,286 cars. I don’t know how many people of 965,257,286 try to change their car, but the economical effect should be huge. Also, drivers may be able to sleep during drive. I think there are more opportunities that father drives than the opportunities that mother drives in your family, but fathers are often too tired by daily job to go out. However, fathers don’t need to drive this car, so they try to go out in weekend more easily, so leisure industry can earn more. However, the profit of public facilities for travel may decrease because more people can use cars more easily.

Secondly, increasing the number of cars, CO2 also must increase. Car industry have to cut the emission of CO2.

Thirdly, the number of car accidents may decrease as the condition that driverless cars can drive accurately because sometimes drivers are tired and sleepy, and these conditions make accidents.  However, if the cars cannot work correctly, it could make huge accidents and the number must increase.

Fourthly, the age restriction may relax. As far in Japan, people who are older than 18 can get the chance of driver’s license, but the confused techniques are not required unless cars drive automatically.

As my opinion, driving car by ourselves is one of pleasures. Someone could say, “even if driverless cars are invented, you can drive yourself”. However, we must rely on new technology like mails instead of hand writing letters. Of course, these new technologies are attractive, but I feel something unhappy.

Motoki

Blog#9 smoking

Sotaro

Smoking is said to be bad for the health. Also, society started to think about non smokers. For example, dividing seats into non smokers and smokers in the restaurant or smoking is banned in all the taxis in Kanagawa prefecture. Therefore, smokers are having a hard time. Today, I would like smokers to stop smoking by explaining how smoking affects you and others, and how you can stop smoking.

  Smokers, I have a bad news to tell you. Non smokers can live 5-8 years longer than you. Simply, you will lose 5 minutes and 30 seconds of your lifetime by smoking 1 cigarette. If you start smoking from an illegal age, you would live shorter. If you start smoking from high school, your life would shortened by 10 years. You would live 15 years shorter if you start smoking from junior high school. Nicotine and carbon monoxide are mainly causing sickness like lung cancer, laryngeal cancer, or asthma. Especially, you are likely to get laryngeal cancer by 32-100 times compared to non smokers.

  Smoking affects others, too. Smokers mainly intake mainstream smoke, while non smokers those who are near to smokers mainly intake secondhand smoke. This is because mainstream smoke comes through inside the tobacco while secondhand smoke isn’t and contains a lot of harmful substances. Passive smoking can cause 5 times likely to get lung cancer or it may cause premature birth or a miscarriage for women and tympanitis for children.

  Fortunately, health insurance will be applied by retreatments. You can choose from nicotine patches, nicotine gums, or tablets without containing nicotine prescribed by doctors. If you stop smoking, there are a lot of benefits like you can breath, smell, or taste better than before. I would like to say one thing that if you start to quit smoking, never ever smoke again. Just one cigarette will rewind you to the beginning.

  By looking at these facts, there is no benefit of smoking. Smokers are stinky and have dirty teeth. Smokers and their surroundings will more likely to go to doctors that they will have to pay money. In my opinion, I don’t want them to use my taxes that I have paid for health insurance. I wish a day comes without caring about smokers.