Don't worry, they'll get around to it eventually:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megazone_23

Essentially it goes like this:

Someone who is "overly masculine" to the point of bodybuilding, etc., is obviously obsessed with masculinity. They are obsessed with masculinity because they don't value femininity at all -- because they're gay. ESPECIALLY if they are constantly around men who have a similar physique. In Japan nothing is gayer than a bodybuilder's gym.

If you really want to get the girls, you have a boyish charm, and focus on a softer form of male beauty.

Also, if you like to wear pink frilly dresses it's under the assumption that you're a perv, not gay. (Think of Ed Wood and why he crossdressed. He did it because he WAS into women, and styling himself as one made him feel closer to them.)

That said, there is also an effeminate gay stereotype in Japan, but they are treated almost as women rather than gay men. ...but what's gayer -- an obsession with dresses or an obsession with ripped beefy muscles and oiled glistening skin?

(See other reply to this post for an explanation of "Bara")

I dunno, maybe something like conditional surrender? You don't need unconditional surrender to win a war. By the end of the conflict the Japanese had few conditions beyond keeping the imperial court in place. This was not very much to ask for, considering we let them keep the monarchy anyway in the end.

Uh, they BOUGHT Flight Simulator from Sublogic. FS1/FS2 were Sublogic products before MS got ahold of FS2.

Actually I should clarify, because I wasn't being quite honest or accurate in my previous post. The invasive species in the South East U.S. is a different species than the eels in question in the article. The pest fish that escaped the farms is the Asian Swamp Eel. While it is often sold as "unagi" and is somewhat analogous in flavor, the specific eel in question is the Japanese Eel, which does not live in the Western Hemisphere. The Asian Swamp Eel is actually from a different taxonomic order.

The closest analog in the Western Hemisphere is the American Eel, which is also endangered, partly due to the invasion of the Asian Swamp Eel.

That said, the Asian Swamp Eel works perfectly fine in similar roles, and is quite tasty. Unfortunately you can't really call it "unagi" in a respectable Japanese fish market, even if it's called that when sold in many fish markets outside of Japan.

Unagi infestations are actually a HUGE problem along the U.S. gulf coast! A long time ago, some enterprising farmer tried raising unagi for the Japanese-American market, and some managed to escape. They are now a huge problem in places like Florida and Alabama, where they outcompete and kill off native fish species, foul nets, etc. They're considered a massive pest fish and there have long been attempts at finding ways to poison them, etc.

A much better solution would be to just eat the damn things. We can export tons of these wild unagi to the Japanese if we decide to. There is currently NO shortage of them.

(To clarify, superconductors do NOT work at room temperature -- the best ones (and the only ones we can really consider in practical applications) require cooling with something like liquid nitrogen. Moreover, this molecule is designed for size, rather than temperature, so I wonder if they had to compromise on how low you have to cool it. The lower temperature superconductors require liquid helium cooling, which goes into ridiculously cold territory.)

The article does not seem to indicate the temperature that it works at.

This doesn't do us a lot of good in most applications if we have to cool our processors with liquid nitrogen.

Dude, the Dreamcast was released on November 27, 1998.

I know, because I had a friend get me one for a Christmas present. It was one of the ones with Yukawa Senmue on the box. You know, from the commercials.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jnsg3YLYcDk&fmt=18

He was funny and self-deprecating. It was sort of a recognition of how Sony's Playstation had managed to beat out the Saturn over time (The Saturn was the #1 console in Japan, roughly until FF7 came out for the Playstation)

I still thought the Segata Sanshirou ads were better though =) I think the Saturn would've won in the U.S. if Sanshirou had been the mascot here. He kicks your ass if you don't play Sega Saturn. =D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joNwYPdEBTc&fmt=18

For some reason I read that as "Hello Kitty" satellites.

That, and you made me lose the game. =(

"Cash only" establishments are just trying to get by.

They're not evading taxes, they're avoiding the service charge that Visa/Mastercard charges them on every transaction. In most businesses profit margins are very small, and the extra 5%-10% that the credit card companies skim off the transaction (particularly on small purchased) can eat up the entire profit.

Many businesses depend on cash customers because they make zero profit on credit card customers -- they just accept credit cards to increase their volume so to bring overall costs down, and hope and pray that they get enough cash customers to make a profit.

You know that "cash back" that credit card companies give you on each purchase? They're just giving you a cut of the money that they're wringing out of the merchant.

NO!!! Then it will turn all the vegetarians into carnivores! T~T See? -> http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3123/2820401196_e75abeec6f.jpg

Plate tectonics causes quakes! Sometimes, however, drilling *releases* stress, triggering quakes that were already going to happen, the drilling just throws the straw on the camel's back, so to speak.

In fact, technologies like this could be useful in doing controlled release of earthquakes, such that you can pick the time it can occur so people are ready for it.