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<rss version="2.0">
  <channel>
    <title>Joi Ito's Web</title>
    <link>http://joi.ito.com/</link>
    <description>Joi Ito's conversation with the living web.See also: &lt;a href="http://joi.ito.com/moblog/"&gt;Moblog&lt;/a&gt; - &lt;a href="http://joiwiki.ito.com/"&gt;JoiWiki&lt;/a&gt; - &lt;a href="http://joi.ito.com/jp/"&gt;Japanese Weblog&lt;/a&gt;</description>
    <language>en-us</language>
    <copyright>Copyright 2005</copyright>
    <lastBuildDate>Tue, 14 Jun 2005 14:23:40 +0900</lastBuildDate>
    <pubDate>Fri, 17 Jun 2005 17:12:05 +0900</pubDate>
    <generator>http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.16</generator>
    <docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs>
    <item>
      <title>Some Japan Internet stats</title>
      <content>
        <p>At the <a href="http://www.iajapan.org/index-en.html">Internet Association Japan</a> meeting yesterday, the folks from Impress gave a summary of their 10th annual Internet survey.</p>
        <blockquote><div class="personquote">Impress 2005 Internet White Paper</div>There are 32,244,000 broadband households which is 36.2%.

<p>There are 70,072,000 Internet users.</p><p>72.5% of people have heard of blogs, up from 39% last year.</p><p>25% of women in their teens and 20's have blogs.</p><p>9.5% of Internet users use RSS Readers.</p><p>46.5% of Internet users have decreased spending in physical shops because of online shopping.</p><p>29.6% of offices have wifi up from 10.7% last year.</p><p>2.8% of companies have corporate blogs and over 50% express no intention of ever having corporate blogs.</p><p>5.5% of companies have corporate web pages for mobile phone users.I took notes based on a verbal presentation so there could be some mistakes. If anyone notices any, please let me know.</p><p>UPDATE: <a href="http://www.impressholdings.com/release/2005/025/20050607_d.pdf">PDF of press release summary of white paper. (includes charts / Japanese)</a></p><a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/14/some_japan_internet_stats.html#comments" title="Comment">Comment</a> - <a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/14/some_japan_internet_stats.html#trackbacks" title="Trackback">TrackBack</a></blockquote>
      </content>
      <link>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/14/some_japan_internet_stats.html</link>
      <guid>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/14/some_japan_internet_stats.html</guid>
      <category>Blogging about Blogging</category>
      <pubDate>Tue, 14 Jun 2005 14:23:40 +0900</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <enclosure url="http://dailydancer.com/videos/2005/06/fetts_vette.wmv" length="1543572" type="video/x-ms-wmv"/>
      <title>Daily video of a geeky dancer in his living room</title>
      <content>
        <blockquote><div class="personquote"> Cory Doctorow @ Boing Boing Blog</div><a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2005/06/12/daily_video_of_a_gee.html">Daily video of a geeky dancer in his living room</a><p>Daily Dancer is a site where a geek video-records himself dancing to a different song every day and posts it. Jamal recommends starting with the <a href="http://dailydancer.com/videos/2005/06/fetts_vette.wmv">Fett's Vette</a> boogie, on the basis of its laudable Star Wars Kid reference, and I concur.</p><p><a href="http://www.dailydancer.com/">Link</a>Some day people will look back and try to understand.</p><a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/14/daily_video_of_a_geeky_dancer_in_his_living_room.html#comments" title="Comment">Comment</a> - <a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/14/daily_video_of_a_geeky_dancer_in_his_living_room.html#trackbacks" title="Trackback">TrackBack</a></blockquote>
      </content>
      <link>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/14/daily_video_of_a_geeky_dancer_in_his_living_room.html</link>
      <guid>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/14/daily_video_of_a_geeky_dancer_in_his_living_room.html</guid>
      <category>Humor</category>
      <pubDate>Tue, 14 Jun 2005 00:17:41 +0900</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Dan's minutes</title>
      <content><p><a href="http://bayosphere.com/blog/dangillmor">Dan Gillmor</a> has started posting 1 minute sound clips. It's an interesting form. One "Minute with Dan" is less than 1MB and short enough to listen to while browsing through your daily feeds. It's not "save it for my train ride" size. Also, probably for people who don't know Dan's voice, it will create a voice behind the words he writes.</p><p>I also noticed that VoIP in various forms on my Mac have caused me to be in an environment where I can listen to audio as my default. One year ago, I had sound turned off 90% of the time. Now I have it on 90% of the time...</p><p><a href="http://bayosphere.com/node/519">A Minute with Dan: Bad Behavior</a></p><p><a href="http://bayosphere.com/node/521">A Minute with Dan: Graduation Day</a></p><a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/13/dans_minutes.html#comments" title="Comment">Comment</a> - <a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/13/dans_minutes.html#trackbacks" title="Trackback">TrackBack</a></content>
      <link>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/13/dans_minutes.html</link>
      <guid>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/13/dans_minutes.html</guid>
      <category>Blogging about Blogging</category>
      <pubDate>Mon, 13 Jun 2005 08:09:18 +0900</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Hoder's going back to Iran</title>
      <content><p>Hoder, our favorite Iranian blogger is going back to Iran. He needs our help to get there as well as possibly keep him out or get him out of jail. <a href="http://hoder.com/weblog/archives/014173.shtml">See his blog for details</a>.</p><a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/12/hoders_going_back_to_iran.html#comments" title="Comment">Comment</a> - <a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/12/hoders_going_back_to_iran.html#trackbacks" title="Trackback">TrackBack</a></content>
      <link>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/12/hoders_going_back_to_iran.html</link>
      <guid>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/12/hoders_going_back_to_iran.html</guid>
      <category>Blogging about Blogging</category>
      <pubDate>Sun, 12 Jun 2005 12:33:06 +0900</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Problems with Wikipedia in my DNS</title>
      <content><p>For the last several days, I haven't been able to access the English Wikipedia from home. This has happened in the past. The reason is that the DNS that my ISP provides me is returning an error when looking up en.wikipedia.org.</p><blockquote>dig en.wikipedia.org<br/>
;; Truncated, retrying in TCP mode.<br/>
;; communications error to 210.130.232.1#53: end of file   </blockquote>The odd thing is that jp.wikipedia.org and other Wikipedia subdomains resolve. Also, when I try another DNS server, en.wikipedia.org resolves. The DNS server I am using, DNS.CDN-JAPAN.COM (210.130.232.1) is run by IIJ, my ISP. Has anyone else had similar problems either with other domains on IIJ or problems with en.wikipedia.org on other DNS servers?

<p>Sorry, for this obscure and geeky post, but being prevented from using Wikipedia has become extremely irritating.</p><p>UPDATE: en, fr, nl, de, pl fail. ja, eo, ko, es, zh work. It appears that the ones which are failing use geodns.</p><p>UPDATE 2: I caught up with a senior guy from my ISP IIJ at the Internet Association meeting yesterday and explained the problem to him. He said that MAYBE it is because they are running a load balancing thing that might interact weirdly with geodns. He's looking into it for me.</p><p>UPDATE 3: I got a response from my ISP. They said that the "AUTHORITYSECTION" was being returned making the record longer than 512 bytes forcing it to respond via TCP instead of UDP. They said that they thought my firewall was blocking TCP responses from dns. They changed the setting on the nameserver not to add the AUTHORITYSECTION and now it appears to work for me... I've asked them to provide me with another long domain entry greater than 512 bytes so I can see if I can replicate the error...<!-- --></p><p style="text-align:right;font-size:10px;">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/wikipedia" rel="tag">wikipedia</a></p><!-- --><a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/12/problems_with_wikipedia_in_my_dns.html#comments" title="Comment">Comment</a> - <a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/12/problems_with_wikipedia_in_my_dns.html#trackbacks" title="Trackback">TrackBack</a></content>
      <link>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/12/problems_with_wikipedia_in_my_dns.html</link>
      <guid>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/12/problems_with_wikipedia_in_my_dns.html</guid>
      <category>Wiki</category>
      <pubDate>Sun, 12 Jun 2005 10:46:08 +0900</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Visiting the old capital</title>
      <content><div class="linlineimage"><img src="http://joi.ito.com/DSC00186.jpg" height="224" width="300" border="1" hspace="4" vspace="4" alt="Dsc00186"/></div>Ever since I <a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/04/19/chinese_anti-japan_protests.html">blogged about the anti-Japanese protests in China</a>, I have been having a dialog with a number of people about Japanese history. One of my Chinese friends recommended <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060931302/chanponorg">"Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan" (Herbert P. Bix)</a> for a more objective and critical view of the Emperor's role in the War. I am reading the book now. I believe this book does a great job of uncovering a fairly systematic coverup by the US occupation and the Japanese media of the role of the Emperor in World War II. However, I do think that Bix tends to makes some conclusions based on the facts he uncovers that I would not necessarily agree with. It is, in any case, a very good book for anyone interested in Japan to read.

<p>With this fresh in my mind, I visited Kyoto, my home town, and was amazed at just how much Japanese tradition is organized around the Emperor. The Emperor went though various levels of influence in the governing of the nation, but has remained in place for 125 generations. Regardless of his level of influence, the Emperor has been the center of most of Japanese culture. Kyoto, for instance, is divided into the "Right Kyoto" and the "Left Kyoto". This has nothing to do with East or West, but is the right or left side of the city when viewed from the Emperor. The bullet train "climbs" from Kyoto to Tokyo (the new capital) toward the Emperor and any road that points away from the Emperor is pointed "down". All kinds of symbols and names allow you to understand exactly what each Temple's relationship to the royal family is. Maybe it was just our guide, or maybe it was that I was sensitized, but I think he talked about the Emperor in almost every explanation he made.</p><p>I question whether we should still have an Emperor in Japan and I believe that the facts about the Emperor's involvement in the war should be more publicly known. However, I wonder how the cultural foundation of Japan will change if the Emperor and the royal family were removed.</p><p>I&#12288;have <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/sets/440454/">Flickr'ed the trip</a>.</p><p>UPDATE: <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/geishadance0506a">Movie of geisha dance uploaded to archive.org</a> and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/geishadance0506b">part 2</a>. (<a href="http://www.archive.org/details/mameyoshidance2">And an older one from a previous trip</a>...)</p><p>UPDATE: <a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2003/12/30/sanji-chion-ji.html">Related Article - Sanji-Chion-Ji</a></p><a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/11/visiting_the_old_capital.html#comments" title="Comment">Comment</a> - <a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/11/visiting_the_old_capital.html#trackbacks" title="Trackback">TrackBack</a></content>
      <link>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/11/visiting_the_old_capital.html</link>
      <guid>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/11/visiting_the_old_capital.html</guid>
      <category>Japanese Culture</category>
      <pubDate>Sat, 11 Jun 2005 22:08:10 +0900</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>New Technorati beta is live</title>
      <content><p>The <a href="http://beta.technorati.com/">new Technorati beta</a> is live. It's a redesign of the main site. Congrats to everyone who worked on it. It's much nicer looking and hopefully easier to use than before. We'd love you feedback on it. Thanks!</p><p><a href="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000314.html">Lots more about this on Sifry's Alerts.</a><!-- --></p><p style="text-align:right;font-size:10px;">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/technorati" rel="tag">technorati</a></p><!-- --><a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/10/new_technorati_beta_is_live.html#comments" title="Comment">Comment</a> - <a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/10/new_technorati_beta_is_live.html#trackbacks" title="Trackback">TrackBack</a></content>
      <link>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/10/new_technorati_beta_is_live.html</link>
      <guid>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/10/new_technorati_beta_is_live.html</guid>
      <category>Technorati</category>
      <pubDate>Fri, 10 Jun 2005 11:33:33 +0900</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>the spread(of)CC</title>
      <content><blockquote><div class="personquote">Lessig Blog</div><a href="http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/002952.shtml">the spread(of)CC</a><center><img alt="Slide1.jpg" src="http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/Slide1.jpg" width="450" height="350"/></center><p>As of Thursday, the current spread of <a href="http://creativecommons.org">Creative Commons</a>. The green are countries where the project has launched. The yellow are close. The red is yet to be liberated. </p></blockquote>A lot of progress, but a lot left to do...

<a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/09/the_spreadofcc.html#comments" title="Comment">Comment</a> - <a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/09/the_spreadofcc.html#trackbacks" title="Trackback">TrackBack</a></content>
      <link>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/09/the_spreadofcc.html</link>
      <guid>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/09/the_spreadofcc.html</guid>
      <category>Creative Commons</category>
      <pubDate>Thu, 09 Jun 2005 21:38:02 +0900</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The Apple-Intel leak</title>
      <content><p><a href="http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=2133">Dvorak reports</a> that the leak about Apple switching from IBM PPC chips to Intel was leaked by someone at IBM to analysts who leaked it to CNet or someone close to CNet and then somehow the Wall Street Journal got the story. He wonders whether Apple was suing bloggers in anticipation of this announcement to try to plug the leaks. <a href="http://bayosphere.com/node/492">Dan Gillmor wonders whether Apple is going to sue CNet</a>.<!-- --></p><p style="text-align:right;font-size:10px;">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Apple" rel="tag">Apple</a></p><!-- --><a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/08/the_apple-intel_leak.html#comments" title="Comment">Comment</a> - <a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/08/the_apple-intel_leak.html#trackbacks" title="Trackback">TrackBack</a></content>
      <link>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/08/the_apple-intel_leak.html</link>
      <guid>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/08/the_apple-intel_leak.html</guid>
      <category>Media and Journalism</category>
      <pubDate>Wed, 08 Jun 2005 08:15:08 +0900</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>MPAA cam</title>
      <content><div class="linlineimage"><a href="http://joi.ito.com/MPAAcam-1.jpg" onclick="window.open('http://joi.ito.com/MPAAcam-1.jpg','popup','width=250,height=375,scrollbars=no,resizable=yes,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=yes,left=0,top=0');return false"><img src="http://joi.ito.com/MPAAcam-1-tm.jpg" height="150" width="100" border="1" hspace="4" vspace="4" alt="Mpaacam-1"/></a><div class="caption">Photo of camera<br/>by <a href="http://blog.koganuts.com/">Jeff Koga</a></div></div>The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is paying the Los Angeles police department to install cameras to crack down on DVD bootleggers. So far four cameras have been installed and six more are on the way. Although the LAPD refuses to say where the cameras are installed, but there is information on <a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2005/06/07/hollywood_foots_bill.html">Xeni's post on Boing Boing</a>. The post also contains funny details of their adventure.

<p>I hadn't realized that there was DVD piracy activity in LA. I wonder how much "lost revenue" they will recoup from these cameras. I wonder what else the LAPD going to use these cameras for. Having said that, I think we probably have more cameras per square inch in Tokyo than in LA. Welcome to our world.</p><p>Xeni has <a href="http://wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,67768,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3">filed a story with Wired News</a> about this as well.</p><p>UPDATE: </p><blockquote><div class="personquote">Xeni</div>Hi, Joi -- Sean Bonner created some topographical maps of the site, and posted those along with more photos and his first-person account over at blogging.la. Check it out:<br/><a href="http://blogging.la/archives/2005/06/sekret_location.phtml">http://blogging.la/archives/2005/06/sekret_location.phtml</a></blockquote><br/><!-- --><p style="text-align:right;font-size:10px;">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/MPAA" rel="tag">MPAA</a></p><!-- --><a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/08/mpaa_cam.html#comments" title="Comment">Comment</a> - <a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/08/mpaa_cam.html#trackbacks" title="Trackback">TrackBack</a></content>
      <link>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/08/mpaa_cam.html</link>
      <guid>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/08/mpaa_cam.html</guid>
      <category>Intellectual Property</category>
      <pubDate>Wed, 08 Jun 2005 07:00:09 +0900</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <enclosure url="http://homepage.mac.com/kevinmarks/wwdc2005.mov" length="2467" type="video/quicktime"/>
      <title>WWDC Keynote in chunks</title>
      <content><p><a href="http://epeus.blogspot.com/2005_06_01_epeus_archive.html#111813021560407291">Kevin Marks</a> has created <a href="http://homepage.mac.com/kevinmarks/wwdc2005.mov">a Quicktime movie of the Steve Jobs keynote at WWDC 2005 with chapters</a> which makes it easier to view. This is the first time I've seen chapters. Pretty neat.</p><p>UPDATE: <a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/tutorials/chaptertracks.html">Here's how you do it.</a><!-- --></p><p style="text-align:right;font-size:10px;">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Apple" rel="tag">Apple</a></p><!-- --><a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/07/wwdc_keynote_in_chunks.html#comments" title="Comment">Comment</a> - <a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/07/wwdc_keynote_in_chunks.html#trackbacks" title="Trackback">TrackBack</a></content>
      <link>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/07/wwdc_keynote_in_chunks.html</link>
      <guid>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/07/wwdc_keynote_in_chunks.html</guid>
      <category>Hardware</category>
      <pubDate>Tue, 07 Jun 2005 17:26:42 +0900</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <enclosure url="http://joi.ito.com/torrents/roombadogs.torrent" length="1656" type="application/x-bittorrent"/>
      <title>Trackerless torrrent test</title>
      <content><p>I've created a torrent using the Trackerless Auto setting on <a href="http://www.bittorrent.com/">BitTorrent</a>. It's a 37MB movie of my Roomba having some trouble with cliff detection and my dogs having trouble with the Roomba. It's probably not worth downloading, but if you feel like testing trackerless torrents, give it a try.</p><p><a href="http://joi.ito.com/torrents/roombadogs.torrent">roombadogs.torrent</a></p><p>UPDATE: I've updated the torrent with the new version of the trackerless client. Can you give it a try?</p><p>UPDATE 2: I didn't have port forwarding on. I've turned it on now so it might work. However, I'll be on the road again in a few hours...<!-- --></p><p style="text-align:right;font-size:10px;">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/BitTorrent" rel="tag">BitTorrent</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/dogs" rel="tag">dogs</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Roomba" rel="tag">Roomba</a></p><!-- --><a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/06/trackerless_torrrent_test.html#comments" title="Comment">Comment</a> - <a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/06/trackerless_torrrent_test.html#trackbacks" title="Trackback">TrackBack</a></content>
      <link>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/06/trackerless_torrrent_test.html</link>
      <guid>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/06/trackerless_torrrent_test.html</guid>
      <category>BitTorrent</category>
      <pubDate>Mon, 06 Jun 2005 10:11:17 +0900</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <enclosure url="http://joi.ito.com/torrents/texlive-live.iso.torrent" length="23350" type="application/x-bittorrent"/>
      <title>Help me seed TeX Live</title>
      <content><p>I just created a torrent for Tex Live. <a href="http://tug.org/texlive/">Tex Live</a> is a ready-to-run TeX system for Unix. I just set up the torrent for the TeX Users Group, but I'm currently seeding it on my laptop so I would love a few other people to get the file from me and seed it so there are a few more seeds. It's a 580M file. Thanks!</p><p><a href="http://joi.ito.com/torrents/texlive-live.iso.torrent">texlive-live.iso.torrent</a></p><p><a href="http://tracker.ito.com/torrents-details.php?id=39">More details on the tracker.</a></p><p>UPDATE: Doh. The reason I'm helping out the TeX guys is because I think it's a cool project. If you're geeky and into typesetting, you should check out the project.<!-- --></p><p style="text-align:right;font-size:10px;">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/BitTorrent" rel="tag">BitTorrent</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/TeX" rel="tag">TeX</a></p><!-- --><a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/05/help_me_seed_tex_live.html#comments" title="Comment">Comment</a> - <a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/05/help_me_seed_tex_live.html#trackbacks" title="Trackback">TrackBack</a></content>
      <link>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/05/help_me_seed_tex_live.html</link>
      <guid>http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/05/help_me_seed_tex_live.html</guid>
      <category>Software</category>
      <pubDate>Sun, 05 Jun 2005 10:21:54 +0900</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Differences in meaning of finger chopping in Korea and Japan</title>
      <content><p><a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2004/05/28/chopping_pinkies_and_swords_grips.html">I wrote earlier</a> about the origin of the Japanese the ritual of chopping off pinkies. In Japan, the ritual comes the importance of the left pinkie in the grip of a Japanese sword. Removing the left pinkie is literally disarming and was used to punish people in the past. This has been ritualized and continues to be used by small number of Yakuza and others in Japan as a form of punishment or taking responsibility.</p><p>This is why I didn't understand why the Koreans were severing their fingers in protests against the Japanese. <a href="http://english.yna.co.kr/Engnews/20050314/320000000020050314181850E2.html">Two Koreans chopped their little fingers off in in front of the Japanese embassy in March to protest Japanese comments about the Dokdo islands</a> and <a href="http://app1.chinadaily.com.cn/star/2001/0816/cn8-1.html">in 2001, 20 Koreans chopped their off their little fingers in protest against Koizumi's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine</a>.</p><p>I was beginning to understand the issues that the Koreans were protesting against, but I didn't see how this finger chopping was involved. I decided to get to the bottom of this and asked friends during my trip to Korea.</p><p>Although it is an ancient custom, if I understand correctly, one of the most famous incidents was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Jung-geun">An Jung-geun</a>, a legendary leader in the armed resistance against the Japanese occupation, chopping off parts of several of his fingers and writing "Korean Independence" in blood on the Korean national flag. Later he assassinated Japanese politician <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ito_Hirobumi">Hirobumi Ito</a> in 1910. Hirobumi Ito was a key figure in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_Restoration">Meiji Restoration</a> of Japan, former prime minister and former <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident-General_of_Korea">Resident-General of Korea</a>. Using the blood from severed fingers to write such statements became a sign of solidarity in the resistance against the Japanese and I believe the recent finger chopping is a continuation of this.</p><p>I am not trying to make a statement about or a judgement on the anti-Japanese protests or the actions by the Japanese, but trying to clarify something that was confusing for me.</p><p>PS I found <a href="http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2005/04/19/200504190013.asp">this article about the protests that ran in today's Korea Herald insightful on the relevance of these protests</a>.</p><p>UPDATE: Edited post to reflect comments that An Jung-geun chopped his fingers before the assassination and that it's an ancient custom which didn't start with An Jung-geun.</p><a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/04/differences_in_meaning_of_finger_chopping_in_korea_and_japan.html#comments" title="Comment">Comment</a> - <a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/04/differences_in_meaning_of_finger_chopping_in_korea_and_japan.html#trackbacks" title="Trackback">TrackBack</a></content>
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      <category>Japanese Culture</category>
      <pubDate>Sat, 04 Jun 2005 09:40:00 +0900</pubDate>
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    <item>
      <title>Some notes on the .XXX Top Level Domain</title>
      <content><p><a href="http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-01jun05.htm">Yesterday the ICANN board discussed and approved ICANN staff to enter into negotiations with ICM Registry, Inc.</a> for the .XXX Top Level Domain (TLD). I'm sure there will be a longer more complete presentation from ICANN later about this, but as an individual board member I thought I'd post a quick note before people got carried away with speculation based on a lack of information.</p><p>I realize that the formal documents on the ICANN page are difficult to read, but I suggest people take a look at the <a href="http://www.icann.org/tlds/stld-apps-19mar04/xxx.htm">actual application</a> before jumping to conclusions about what the .XXX TLD is. It is actually a well thought out structure that provides a balanced approach to an issue with many stake holders.</p><p>The .XXX TLD is a sponsored TLD or sTLD with a sponsoring organization. Policy will be managed by a non-profit organization called the International Foundation for Online Responsibility (IFFOR). (<a href="http://www.iffor.org/images/IFFOR_Org_Chart.gif">Here is the org chart</a>.) IFFOR will have a board of directors comprised of members from several supporting organizations. These organizations include 1) privacy, security &amp; child advocacy, 2) free expression, 3) online adult-entertainment and board members selected through a nomination committee system similar to ICANN. No one constituency can capture the board and all have a say. There will be an Ombudsman. The organization has demonstrated strong support from all of the constituencies and also the credit card industry. A portion of all of the revenue from domain names will go to a fund that a Grant Advisory Committee will use to support child advocacy. Credit card companies are working with the legitimate adult sites to create incentives for them to switch to .XXX.</p><p>ICANN has been mandated with trying to increase the TLD space and the .XXX proposal, in my opinion, has met the criteria set out in the RFP. Our approval of .XXX is a decision based on whether .XXX met the criteria and does not endorse or condone any particular type of content or moral belief. This is not the role of ICANN. I realize that some will view this as ICANN endorsing pornography on the Internet, but this is not the case.</p><p>There are people who are concerned about censorship and control. These are issues that have been raised, but I think the .XXX proposal is more about creating incentives for legitimate adult entertainment sites to come together and fight "bad actors" and is not focused on forcing people to use the .XXX domain.</p><p>Some people have argued that there has not been enough public debate, but we have been <a href="http://forum.icann.org/lists/stld-rfp-xxx/">taking public comments</a> for quite a while. We DO read them and have encouraged people to discuss their issues with us through the process. I believe we followed a rigorous process. We started with an RFP and over the last 15 months, we have had independent evaluators, numerous meetings, public discussion and public comments.</p><p>I think Bret Fausett summarized the situation well on his blog.</p><blockquote><div class="personquote"><a href="http://blog.lextext.com/blog/_archives/2005/1/21/269985.html">Bret Fausett</a></div>The decision on .XXX may be one of the most difficult ICANN has ever made, and you can expect ICANN to be criticized whatever it decides. I imagine that many of the countries participating in the GAC aren't ready to be part of a decision that will endorse a space for pr0n on the Internet. The fact that .XXX could be a political hook on which the governments of the world could hang Internet zoning laws could make the decision more palatable, but it's still a political minefield for ICANN. Again, I hope the proposal is accepted, but it's going to take a great deal of courage to do that.</blockquote>I think any decision would have had strong critics. I believe we have made the best decision possible considering all of the issues involved. Having said that staff are now negotiating the contract. If anyone has any thoughts that we should consider in negotiating the contract I would be happy to hear them. Staff are working hard to produce a contract that ensures that the TLD functions as advertised.

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      <category>ICANN</category>
      <pubDate>Fri, 03 Jun 2005 08:52:48 +0900</pubDate>
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