A couple stories in the Daily Yomiuri caught my eye. All too often these stories are badly written, coming to incorrect conclusions by missing crucial information. One story concerned the “unpopular” 2,000 yen bills. In my experience, they are not unpopular, it is just that they are very poorly distributed. The story claims that people don’t like them because they can’t use them in vending machines. Well, you can’t use a 10,000 yen bill in vending machines, either. Another stated reason was that bank tellers are afraid they might confuse them with 5,000 yen bills–a possible reason, but it hardly explains why you never see the bills. One time I tried to get a whole bunch of them, because I like the convenience as well as the design of the bills–and was made to wait more than ten minutes at the bank because they apparently had to get the notes out of the vault. I don’t think the public has had the chance to dislike them–I have only been given one once at a store–it is just that they are badly distributed by the banks. Oh, and the lack of enough drawers in most cash registers might be a reason merchants don’t like them….

Another story on the same page deals with high-speed Internet access, where consternation is expressed as to why only 305,000 subscriptions to fiber-optic lines exist, when more than 16 million households have access. It astounds me that the writer of the article did not seem to know that due to the type of cables used, fiber-optic connections can only be made to households with specific construction that allows the cables in–so of course only a few buy the service. Are the people at NTT really scratching their heads, unable to figure this one out? I’d love to get the service–the “high price” the story mentions for subscription is the same as many people in the U.S. pay for 1.5 megabit DSL, yet the Japanese service is 100 megabits. But my apartment building is unable to accept the wiring. NTT, you want to sell more subscriptions? Invest in new wiring technology that doesn’t exclude the vast majority of possible customers!