nzlegend
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Posts posted by nzlegend
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Originally Posted By: spook
watching attractive people having sex is one thing.
yeah like the "Hedgehog" Ron Jeremy*
*the most prolific male porn star in history - 1900 films. He has had more than his fair share! -
Shin-ruru make cold medicine, they also do a nasal spray that seems to work quite well, sometimes I get temporary hayfever or allergies: sugi season, rice harvesting, in really dusty places, cats. Its quite mild but my nose goes haywire and I sneeze like crazy, if I use a simple spray its calms down the cilia, resets them almost then I am fine.
3-4 week ago I was sneezing like crazy, used the spray a couple of days it calmed things down and I have been fine since.
Japan is turning me into a medical weirdo!
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what's a holiday?
p.s mamabear, Indo is loaded, I think it will be bliss for him....
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The big thing this year is a few layers of medical gauze under the face mask surrounding the nose - it was shown in scientific studies to improve the efficiency of masks by up to 50%, e.g a mask that stopped 50% of all total pollen suddenly stopped 75% with the additional gauze - all brands showed varying degrees of improvement.
Saw it on NHK news.
The amount of pollen from cedar and cypress (Sugi and hinoki) is increasing each year, each year the total amount of pollen being released is a new record.
That is the reason why more and more people are starting to suffer from hayfever, at previous levels it wasn't enough, but as the levels increase an individual's threshold for handling the pollen is eventually reached.
Why is the amount of pollen increasing each year you ask? well each year the trees continue to get larger and mature and bigger trees release more pollen, so what you say? well many of the trees were planted by the thousands, millions probably post WWII to cope with the building boom etc. That good isn't it? well yes and no, They planted squillions of these trees everywhere especially all over steep hillsides in Nara, Mie and Wakayama, more than what was naturally there, but when they matured (not a fast growing tree like pinus radiata which is favoured plantation tree) it was not economically viable to harvest them, its cheaper to buy timber from Malaysia and Indonesia than to cut it down trees in Japan.
So each year they continue to get bigger (sugi can grow to 70m) so they keep growing and keep releasing ever increasing amounts of pollen each year.
Another issue, well known in Nara, Mie and Wakayama is that these trees cause landslides. The hills are rather steep and loaded with these massive trees that actually have quite shallow roots. So they are loading steep hillsides and contributing to instability.
So when it rains heavily you can see whole mountain sides slip away.
Caught on tape here.
So what to do.....I know lets build some of the most massive earth protection structures on the planet, pump millions of tonnes of concrete and cover mountains in nets...
protect the roads and keep the construction industry ticking over....
this is a minor road in Southern Nara.
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that was on NHK news years ago, I was watching it and saw that barcode and just knew I had to get a picture of it. I hit record on my then VCR and took a screenshot later. While he was being interviewed it was mesmerizing just looking at his head.
I guess his colleagues are too scared to say as he is probably the most senior dude as his academic institution ( they usually wheel out the most respected experts for NHK) and with the whole rigidly adhered to system of seniority, nobody would dare make a peep.
His friends probably sport a barcode themselves.
His family? he probably "lives" at the Uni and never sees them or he is single!
either way I think a avatar change is on the cards!
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Originally Posted By: TJ OZYou cannot go wrong with Hakuba.
Amen TJ, its the only place I want to go to now.
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this guy rocks
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Originally Posted By: soubriquet. I don't begrudge him getting rich.
or marrying a hot model 28 years his junior and nearly a foot taller than him!
Bernie sounds like a right w***er when he gets interviewed on race day though. -
Originally Posted By: bobby12Firefox is great.
I wouldnt use Opera because it has less than 1% market share and many websites are not designed for it so they may display incorrectly.
many? odd comment I have been using Opera for years and very very rarely do I get a site that wont work, its usually one thtas seems to work exclusively on IE.
Opera is the most secure and the fastest. -
Originally Posted By: Tubby BeaverAny tech heads have an opinion on which one is better to use?
you dont have to be a tech head to quickly learn that almost anything is better than IE.
IE has to one of Microsofts worst programs.
I use Opera which is fastest loading the most secure and comes with great features like ad blocking built in.
Firefox is also great because it has so many really useful extensions that other users have made, though you have to be careful not to add too many and bloat the whole thing.
To start it may seem daunting and a little strange to change browsers, but have a play around with the menus and settings and you will soon get used to it and wonder how you ever used IE in the first place. -
CNN has some incredibly annoying ads -the most annoying is The AXA insurance ads, the one that increases the volume level dramatically and has that stupid electronic jingle followed by a some nihongo burble.
CNN has far too many ads.
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I'm not usually into football but turned on the TV last night and channeled surfed a bit before stopping on this game, I saw the tackle it looked like a fairly innocuous tackle initially and I thought Eduardo was milking it but alas he was not.
here is the start of the tackle, its not hard to see what happened next
Warning, spoiler!
tough break, figuratively and literally. poor man.
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Originally Posted By: soubriquet12 speed roadrangers are tricky too. The range change involves two levers. Into neutral, separate gearlever for range change, then from 6th into 1st (or vice versa). Both crash boxes too.
I sometimes used to drive trucks in my old company in NZ with roadranger gearboxes, its an acquired taste that I never acquired!
http://www.teamsmr.com/movies/Footbox%20Small.wmv
try this to see the heel/toe manoeuvre in action -
Quote:during a 1986 tour of China, Philip called Beijing "ghastly"
he probably got misquoted on the air pollution
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Originally Posted By: Tubby BeaverIn english
what does this mean to the DVD's I have in the house? Does it mean I have to bin all my disc's and start from scratch again?
you will still be able to play them in a HD-DVD or blu-ray machine.
If you want to buy new HD discs and enjoy them in HD glory then thats up to you. -
Originally Posted By: tripitaka
Before you start talking about HVD, it's a good idea to start thinking about content.
true, but you could put the entire Seinfield series on one HVD :-)
When they figure out an HVD-R or the like, that will be something.
UHDV format- 7680×4320 res with 60fps would need and the storage capacity of a HVD, though thats way off in the future.
Either way I not getting a Blu-ray player until I get a TV that can do it justice. -
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woah! that sounded terrible slow, hope you a feeling better now.
My winter has been hell for colds and flu....not me though: my family
Son #1 has had one flu-ish episode and and two really bad colds. (daycare is a breeding ground for sickness!).
son #2 has had 2 or 3 bad colds - the worst a fever of 40 for 5 days followed by Roseola.
The good wife has been struck down twice.
I have had a minor cold, touch wood I dont get a bad one.
I have lost count and really hope no-one else gets anything else!
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Originally Posted By: thursday.Originally Posted By: BagOfCrispsWhy would a "winner" mean that there is more fence-sitting?
'cos there is not a winner. It's still blue ray v HD DVD.
War may not be over just yet but Toshiba HD-DVD has just had some nukes dropped on them. There are reports they will announce they are pulling the pin on production later this week
Walmart, Netflix, Best Buys, Warner Brothers all the past week going 100% Blu.
HD-DVD will be worthless if no movie studio is producing titles. HD-DVD is the new Beta-max.
a google news seach on "HD-DVD" will reveal headlines like:
Toshiba throwing in the towel on HD DVD, HD DVD Doomed, Toshiba set to pull plug on HD-DVD, Toshiba says it may end HD DVD business,
Microsoft - having a bad patch. Getting snubbed by Yahoo and now it seems backing a losing horse in the DVD race. -
yeah RB the HVD - holographic video disc and other future technologies are going to be cool.
A Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) is an optical disc technology which would hold up to 3.9 terabytes (TB) of information.
3.9 TB! that is hard to grasp in 2008, by 2015 it will be run of the mill.
The exponential rate that technology is improving at is mind boggling. I remember when 1GB was hard to grasp - a 486-100 with a 580MB HDD and 16MB of Ram was absolutely smoking, I was at University.
I could not fathom the computer I have now.
When they start selling stuff that has PB storage capacity I will be truly impressed, or perhaps not! maybe an EB - exabyte, who knows!
PB = petabytes, 1000TB. Google processes over 20 petabytes of data per day - those boys are busy!
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City stop start driving is best suited for an auto though overall autos can make you lazy as others have pointed out. I have an auto not by choice though (its hard to say no to a free car)
I must have driven 20-30 different cars before coming to Japan and only two were autos: both my bosses company cars, a Ford Fairmont and a Toyota Camry. The first time I drove one I didnt know what to do with my left leg at the start, I kept trying to hit the non existant clutch!
I came to Japan and the two cars I have had were both autos!
On country roads with hills and bends, a good car with a manual transmission is so much more fun and lively. Most country roads in NZ are like this especially in the Sth Island.
I think everyone should learn to drive in a manual car as it helps you understand, to get an appreciation of the mechanics of how the car works: the clutch, the gears, revs etc, you have to think about it. Starting your driving career in a auto, you just put it in "D" and go, you never understand whats happening under the bonnet.
I used to work with a guy who summed it up like this.
Auto = steering wheel attendant
manual = driver
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you could get a really nice regular camera* and buy a waterproof case for it, its not as much as you think it might be.
A waterproof camera is a compromise.
A top line compact camera will take better pics in all conditions and a dive case will go to 40 metres and be 100% waterproof.
Great if you are really going to get it wet: scuba diving, kayaking etc.
They (cases) are really tough and sturdy, they can handles drops onto hard surfaces.
*many of the good compacts at the top of their respective lines will have a dive case option.
Here is an awesome combination that I would buy in a heart beat.**
¥44,880
plus
¥16,800
total - ¥61800. and that was for a brilliant camera, you could get it cheaper with a different model.
1030SW (brand new model I gather) is ¥49,799
pretty nice camera but for ¥12000 yen more you can get an awesome camera arguably the best non - SLR camera on the market and a dive case.
Compare the lenses of the two camera and think of which one will take the better pics.
The only drawback is the canon which is already quite a large compact even without housing would be bulkier than the Olympus which you could slide easily into a pocket.
Anyway food for thought. Have the best of both worlds.
all prices were the cheapest on kakaku.com
**wife would kill me if I did so: I already have a dive case.
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Originally Posted By: thursday.Africa and the tiny pacific islands are the hardest I reckon
Africa is OK as you can see the borders, the pacific islands are a nightmare- they are often invisible at the game resolution so you are really just guesstimating a lot of the time.
The important topic of... toilets
in General off-topic discussions
Posted
I took me a long time to get used to the concept, but now I really dig the washlet, it makes sense doesnt it? if you hands are dirty you wash them in the sink with water you dont dry wipe them with a paper towel do you? Toilet paper when you think about is really quite primitive, one step away from a caveman with a large leaf.
We just moved and it was the first thing the missus bought as the new place had a plain old toilet, intially I thought we could wait but after a few days I wholeheartedly concurred we needed to get one asap. Luckily the local home centre had a big sale and we got a Toshiba one dirt cheap.
Spook, they are suprisingly accurate and many have a dryer, even if they have no dryer, one wipe with a bit of toilet paper and you are good to go.
If you a guy and feeling kinky you could push the womans bidet button, which cause a second prong to come out even further forward the the first one.
my inlaws recently remodelled their bathroom and they installed a top of the line Toto dunny, it is a work of art, auto lid opening and closing and a wall panel with more controls than the dash of the space shuttle, even the most fastidious user can get the right wash . I must say I do enjoy visiting their place and taking a long trip with the newspaper Al Bundy style.