I've been living in Japan for almost five years now and I can say that this same situation applies to a great number of companies and organizations here. Here city office are still almost completely paper based, employees are expected to work longer hours instead of working more productively, there are only a handful of computer in the teaching lounges of high schools, organizations will hire half a dozen people for what can be done with a single computer and some custom build software, workers are frowned upon if they try to innovate or rock the boat in any way, and stubbornness and diligence are two of the most important traits workers can have. Japan is one of the most xenophobic countries in the world ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_issues_in_Japan#Comment_by_U.N._special_rapporteur_on_racism_and_xenophobia ), and this doesn't just apply to their attitudes towards foreign people, it applies to business practices too. Japan isn't going to fall behind the rest of the world in technology, they already have. http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20100430d1.html There is a famous ancient proverb here that couldn't be more true in Japanese society today: "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down" And get hammered down it does.

The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.

...redirect to a javascript spam page for anyone else? Looks to me like that site's been hacked ...potentially by some Iranian-government supporters out there.

..the Earth leaving the Sun's heliosphere? As described in this article a few days ago: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227144.700-sun-leaves-earth-wide-open-to-cosmic-rays.html The (predicted) length of time for a cycle for this event, and the event described in the story is only a single order of magnitude off. Fairly common yet acceptable difference in in the field of Astronomy, I've been told.

They give away $900 to everyone in the country. Decide to spend $43Billion on providing broadband Net access to everyone. Will spend $x to try and censor it. Does this not feel somewhat like misuse of taxpayer dollars? Surely there's a better solution.