YESSS! I was reading to the bottom of this page, just waiting for the token claim of "but Japanese is *special*". And there it is! I've been translating Japanese to English for over 20 years and know the difficulties – but your claim applies to all languages, especially pairs not closely related. "Required contextual understanding" is a universal requirement for all translation. I agree completely that E to J machine translation is going to produce lots of nonsense, but that's part of the translation game; there's nothing special about English or Japanese in that regard.

I'm from the US, and live in Japan, spending almost exactly half my life in each place. And I simply don't agree one whit about "unique national cultural identity" claims, at least in broad general brushes. How about specifics, then, such as specific elements of this particular film? I don't know, since I haven't seen it. But how would we decide which elements belong to individual decisions, and which are due to the "different country" factor? That's's the rarely-considered fatal flaw in most "cultural difference" claims, IMO. But that's far too big a topic for a now-dead Slashdot thread. Even if I personally think such "cultural difference" claims, while fine in principle, tend to be 99% nonsense in practice, I have nothing that constitutes "proof" of this. Similarly, a claim such as "...could not have come from a different country" is opinion (of a popular sort, too), not something that can be proven. Purely a matter of dueling opinions. So be it!

Grow up. Astro Boy is as one-dimensional a character as any you'll find in kids' cartoons –which is fine, it's a fun cartoon, not an epic of literature. He does not have "so much personality" in Tezuka's works. He does not have "a unique Japanese identity" (whatever the hell that means). Don't want the movie? Then don't watch it, and stick to the comic books. Or get off your lazy arse and make a better Astro Boy movie. Or at the very least, actually SEE the movie before deciding that it's an unholy desecration of a cartoon character.

Hundreds. And they're not pretty. http://www.microsplot.com/vista

It's already been well pointed out, but once more for the record: There was no "change of heart". There never was a "hatred" in Japan for the iPhone, just a shoddy WIRED article (long since laughed out of the house) that made up the story. And don't let anyone tell you that it's the new 3GS that made the difference; the 3G was the #1 mobile phone in customer satisfaction in Japan in 2008. More links for anyone following the tale: http://www.mactivist.com/2009/06/iphone-macs-ipod-sweep-2008-customer-satisfaction-rankings-in-japan http://www.mactivist.com/2009/07/iphone-japan

Oh, I'd read it all right - both versions. I had forgotten to mention WIRED's apology at the end! The incredible thing is simply a lack of ANY sales data in the article - not the old version, not the new version. No numbers have been released (AFAIK) by Softbank or Apple, so I can't blame the author for not *having* the numbers. Who knows, it just may be that the iPhone isn't selling in Japan. But with NO data upon which to make any claim whatsoever... Wow, journalism can't get much worse than "create a headline and then make up a story to go with it"!

I assume you're pushing that "Why the Japanese Hate the iPhone" blather without having read a word of it. It must be of the most lambasted stories WIRED has ever coughed up. The author did no actual research on the topic; he pulled some comments out of context from Japanese blogs to say "See? The Japanese hate the iPhone" - after which *those bloggers* responded to say "Huh? My iPhone and I said no such thing". Most damning, the author presented ZERO data. Not one piece of sales info to show whether iPhone reception in Japan has been normal, miserable, or earth-shaking. Nothing. Read the scathing comments under that article. The piece is lazy nonsense, and the author was rightly raked over the coals for it.

Other have already said it well, but the rebuttal is clear: OLPC isn't supplying computers to kids who need food. It's supplying computers to kids who need computers. As spelled out here: http://www.cluedom.com/cluegrams/technology/olpc_computers_for_starving_children Will have to forward that to Johnny. Maybe he thinks any kid without a computer is starving?