Japan Takes the Lead
As Christian Fundamentalists work hard to undermine science in the U.S. and the Bush administration subverts the field for their political goals, the Japanese government is planning to hire a new generation of Science teachers for primary, middle, and high schools to spur new interest in the field in Japanese youngsters.
Meanwhile, how is your Internet connection in the U.S.? I currently pay $40/mo. for a 100 Mbps fiber optic line, and the reception’s great. I can do that because years ago, the Japanese government implemented a policy called “e-Japan” to spur Internet development in Japan. It worked, finishing a year ahead of schedule in its goal to make almost all of Japan able to connect to the Net at speeds no less than 30 Mbps at low cost.
The U.S., to this date, still has no coherent policy on Internet development. Beyond, that is, abortive attempts by bought-off congress members to repeal Network Neutrality, allowing the Telecoms to charge even more for Internet connections, while not binding them to any promises to develop faster broadband connections.
All this while Americans are suddenly realizing that gas prices are only going up, and those gas-guzzling SUV’s they thought were so cool are far too expensive to maintain. Guess which country is the only one specializing in smaller, fuel-efficient automobiles?
You would think that at some point, the U.S. would learn a lesson or two. This time around, it’s not so much about Japan being super-smart as it is about America being super-dumb.
America = Paradise Lost,
Neocons: “It is better to rule in hell, then be ruled over in heaven.”
In otherwords, A junky, stupid America controlled by Neocons is better than a smart, prosperous peaceful country that is democratic.
A fiber might support 100mbps from the house to a box out on the street or in the basement, yet from there, it can slow down since you have more people pushing data through the line. If you check internet speed w/ a server in tokyo, how fast can you move files back and forth?
i have yahooBB which is faster than my t1 college connection from a few years ago… what service do u have?
Another thing Japan is winning is styling. Besides quality, mpg, and horsepower to weight ratio, the Japanese comapnies have hit it on the head with styling.
Perhaps it’s influence by their culture and architectual design, or they just have some talented hands in the drawing room, who knows. One things for sure, they’ve left the “Big Three” in the dust. What I find funny is that it started a long time ago (before I was born), so it’s not a recent thing.
For instance, the 1987 Honda Civic CRX, most commonly used today as either a light footed pocket-rocket for the track (or, in some peoples cases, the street), was the king of mpg back in the day. It was advertised at 50mpg highway, but people were reporting higher numbers than that, the lowest was 53mpg. True, in the looks department, it really wasn’t much to look at at the time, considering it was a few inches wider and longer than the ill-fated Geo Metro. But as later stylings came from the likes of California car culture, and speed parts came readily availible, it turned this once laughable, but economic micro car from Japan, to a trophy winning powerhouse, that still got better gas milage than a muscle car from the late 60’s, and yet, still had a better horsepower to weight ratio.
Hence as to why the “Tuner” car culture has formed. Chrysler was pretty much dead in the water during the 80’s and early 90’s. What saved their asses was the Dodge Dakota, the mid-sized truck that could (had three different engine options during most of the 90’s. A 4cyl, a V6, or a V8 with your choice of two wheel drive or four wheel drive, manual or automatic), and yes, even the mini-van. Chrysler was the first, American company anyway, to market the mini-van to the general public. Considering the gas scare in the late seveties got everyone thinking, though those conversion vans are roomy and can hold a shit load of amps and shag carpeting, they may not be so economical when you have to plan your road trip by how many gas stations there are on the way there. The mini-van was an ok comprimise, with roomy seating for four (later an aparent 7, but that back seat was a little to cramed to “seat seven adults”), and economical 4cyl engine, with, in the late 80’s, two other options, a V6 from one of their passenger car lines, or a turbo four, basically the same 4cyl engine you get in option one, but with a stage 1 turbo on it and a tricked out cpu for the fuel system, giving you the power (and speed?) of the V6, but without the poor fuel economy…providing you kept it under 55.
But for the most part, after the “good ol’ days” of the early 70’s and earlier, the American car companies…well…have pretty much ran dry in terms of quality, effiency, and design. Yes, I do realize they have hit their marks on a few things (like the new Z06 corvette…though I wish they would stop recycling the same design for ten years before jumping to something else) and indeed, the new mustang that harkens back to an era when gas was mear pocket change and one could fill up a caddy with five bucks.
But I’m going to have to agree with Luis here, Japan has been dominating the market, by not only selling cars to Americans, but building plants and having Americans build the very quality cars they drive. Which is the polar opsite of Americas big three who are shutting down factories (a town near me is getting shut down by General Motors, laying off 180,000 people), and moving them to Mexico and other places where labor is cheap and no one really seems to give a rats ass in quality, as long as they make a proffit, they could care less. I bet if the government didn’t enforce safety regulations, I’m sure they would skimp on that too just to earn and extra dollar.
I’m not saying I wouldn’t buy American, as a matter of fact, all the tools I own that I use to work on my cars and racecars and made in America and I’m quite proud of that, but I’m saying, until I see something I like come out of one of those factories that are no longer in Detroit (Detroit now is litteraly rotting away because of the loss of the economical influx the factories pumped into that area), I’m thinking that red 1999 Honda Civic coupe thats right down the road for sale is looking really, really nice.
Ykw: These tests are not really reliable; the results vary by a great deal, even the same test applied seconds apart. The results varied from 30 ~ 50 Mbps up, and were about 15 Mbps down, but that was without restarting, and with other web-dependent apps running at the same time. In real-life terms, I’ve got more speed than I need, as few U.S. sites allow for that high a speed up from them and down to me. But when I need the bandwidth, I’ve got it to spare.
August: thanks for that; I know very little about cars aside from the rather obvious bits I stated above; your in-depth analysis beats the heck outta mine!