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A PhD in noodles? Kick-ass, Japan!

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Food expert holds doctorate in noodle lore

OSAKA–A food expert, who has re-created dishes enjoyed by the nobility in the Nara period (710-784), was so taken with the 1,300-year history of noodles in this country that he wrote a book about it. “I simply wondered why ramen and soba noodles always rank high in Japanese favorite food surveys,” Ayao Okumura, 72, said.

His book, “Nihon men-shoku-bunka no 1,300-nen” (1,300 years of noodle culture in Japan), won the Tsuji Shizuo Shokubunka-sho food culture prize in spring. The book was the culmination of two years of fieldwork. Although he is a well-known expert in traditional foods, Okumura believes a person can always learn something, no matter how old he or she is. So he entered Mimasaka University’s graduate school in Okayama Prefecture shortly before turning 70 and chose noodles for his doctoral thesis.

He sampled noodles not only in Japan but also overseas, such as in Italy and China, and learned various ways to cook them. He sometimes ate noodles six times a day, raising his blood sugar level so high that he wound up in a hospital. In his sickbed, Okumura read 45 books from the Kamakura period (1192-1333) and later compiled a paper based on the books.

He began his culinary career at a relative’s delicatessen and studied under food culture giant Osamu Shinoda (1899-1978), who always said, “Visit the places where dishes originate.” Okumura devoted himself to studying noodles at his own research kitchen in Nara. “The reason Japanese love noodles is because of the way we cook and eat them,” Okumura said. “Now I’d like to study the aesthetics of color and the presentation of food.”

Source: Daily Yomiuri

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WTF?!? It’s not even August yet!

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Christmas comes early for shoppers in Oxford Street

One of the country’s top stores is to start its Christmas trading 145 days before the holiday. Selfridges in Oxford Street will launch its Christmas season on 2 August – its earliest-ever start for the store. People keen to plan ahead can purchase trees, crackers, fairy lights or even a £500 life-size donkey.

The store said previous sales had shown some customers, especially overseas tourists, started thinking about Christmas during August. Last year, its festive shop sold more than 1,000 baubles during the first week of trading after opening on 8 August. The shop said customers could paint their own baubles this year.

Geraldine James, Selfridges Christmas Shop’s buying manager, said: “Christmas is coming earlier each year. I can see a time when we offer a capsule Christmas collection throughout the year.”

Taken from the BBC

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I’m tired, Katy’s tired. The beastie is tiring.

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It’s been a loooooong weekend. Katy’s been working 12-14 hour night-sit shifts since Friday night so she’s knackered, and she seems to be coming down with a bug, which isn’t helping her energy levels. It’s still a transitional process, but I’m finding it a bit rough to not see her these days. It seems that we’ve only had three night in the past month when she hasn’t been working, and two of those were in Leicester. She leaves shortly after I get in from work, so we have maybe 15-20 minutes to chat a bit before she has to get ready. I generally put beastie to bed and then spend the evening cooking and watching TV. When she’s not working night-sits, she comes home between 10:30 and 11:30, so we might have another 15-20 minutes to chat, but by then we’re both tired so we just go to bed. I’m sure we’ll both get into the routine of things.

The beastie is just being a beastie and is into everything, biting everything, throwing everything, climbing everything and scratching everything that shouldn’t be scratched. I discovered that he can climb into his high-chair by himself during one of those “it’s too quiet” moments. He was sitting happily next to the fridge eating my fridge magnets. Oy, vey.

I had my first motorcycle lesson this weekend, the Compulsory Bike Training (CBT) course. It gives very high-level pointers on maintenance, controls, maneuvers, road safety and the like. I’m doing the course with Joe and he said it best when he said that it feels like it’s too much to take in at once and the best way to get everything to become automatic (like it is for him to drive a car) is to get out on the road and do it. That’s actually a bit intimidating, but I’m looking forward for more.

The day started out with a bit of stress because I had to pass a field eye exam. Now I know that this sounds dodgy, but I knew where they kept the fixed-distance license plate they use and I already knew what was written on it, but all of that went out the window when the guy said “just read the plate on either of the cars at the end of the parking”. I took a deep breath and said what I saw. The dude squinted a bit and said “yeah, that’ll do”. HAPPY DANCE!!!

Joe and I didn’t go on the road on Saturday, even though a road ride is normally part of the CBT. That’s because we’re doing the direct access course that will allow us to ride bikes bigger than 125cc. We’re going to be doing the rest of our lessons on 500cc bikes that require a things be done a bit differently than with the smaller, lighter bikes. The other guy who was on the course with us, a loudmouth Ozzie who will someday wrap himself and the 1100cc crotch rocket he wants to get around a tree, was only doing the CBT and went on a ride. I find it a bit mind-boggling that, in most cases, people are let loose on the road for unaccompanied riding after only 6 hours of training on a bike that can do 70 mph with very little difficulty – without even needing a theory test. Still, that’s how things work here apparently and who am I to question a system that will actually let me drive :D

It is a lot to process, the things you need to unconsciously think about to be able to drive safely. The good news is that they seem very competent teachers and they’re very safety oriented. Still, I’m a bit humbled to say that I expected it to be easier. Anyway, I have a feeling that if all goes well, I’m going to be very proud of myself for accomplishing a goal that I’ve always thought impossible to achieve. Go me.

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Bill Bailey in London

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We got tickets to go see Bill Bailey’s Dandelion Mind in London in September, woot!

From the newsletter:

Featuring Bill’s trademark musical interludes, observations and stories of the road, Dandelion Mind will be based loosely on the theme of doubt (or will it?), as we follow Bill from his real-life saga of being trapped by the ash cloud, to his barely contained rants about celebrity, TV, creationism and Michael Winner. He demonstrates new instruments, both ancient and modern, he sings an internet love song, a lament about punk heroes, Iranian hip-hop, and plays a mean folk-bouzouki. Thomas the Doubter gets a new look, and Darwin’s curious obsessions and the myth of intelligent design are all worked over in Bailey’s own surreal style. He revisits the music of his youth, with a brand-new French Disco re-working of Gary Numan’s hit, Cars, played in his own inimitable way, and maybe some Wurzels-based remixes of classic German techno. Just your normal Bill Bailey gig, then.

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Pictures from the hottest weekend yet

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We were in Leicester last weekend, when the British summer heatwave came upon us.

We bought a little paddling pool for the beastie, which he quite enjoyed. We found out that he likes being attacked with a hose as well. As he loves fresh garden peas (we stopped counting after he ate a dozen pods). It was really nice in the evenings, because we could sit outside and watch Mel trying to burn down the garden with his chiminea while downing a pitcher of rather boozy Margaritas.

The weekend was actually really nice, until the drive back home when the beastwich had a heat-induced meltdown in the car (we still haven’t been able to make time to get the AC fixed). That put a bit of a downer on the weekend, but otherwise, lovely.

  
 

All pictures here: http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/leicester_jul_2010/

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Why the average Joe shouldn’t feel bad about pirating music

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The RIAA paid Holmes Roberts & Owen $9.4 million in 2008, Jenner & Block more than $7 million and Cravath Swain & Moore $1.25 million, to pursue its “copyright infringement” claims, in order to recover a mere $391,000.

Embarrassing.

If the average settlement were $3,900, that would mean 100 settlements for the entire year.

As bad as it was, I guess it was better than the numbers for 2007, in which more than $21 million was spent on legal fees, and $3.5 million on “investigative operations” … presumably MediaSentry. And the amount recovered was $515,929.

And 2006 was similar: they spent more than $19,000,000 in legal fees and more than $3,600,000 in “investigative operations” expenses to recover $455,000.

So all in all, for a 3 year period, they spent around $64,000,000 in legal and investigative expenses to recover around $1,361,000.

Shrewd.

Furthermore, there’s this gem about how the recording industry actually deals out the money it makes on album sales and royalties. So yeah, don’t feel too bad next time you hear about how piracy is hurting the music industry…

We recently had a fun post about Hollywood accounting, about how the movie industry makes sure even big hit movies “lose money” on paper. So how about the recording industry? Well, they’re pretty famous for doing something quite similar. Reader Jay pointed out in the comments an article from The Root that goes through who gets paid what for music sales, and the basic answer is not the musician. That report suggests that for every $1,000 sold, the average musician gets $23.40.

Of course, it’s actually even more ridiculous than this report makes it out to be. Going back ten years ago, Courtney Love famously laid out the details of recording economics, where the label can make $11 million… and the actual artists make absolutely nothing. It starts off with a band getting a massive $1 million advance, and then you follow the money:

What happens to that million dollars?

They spend half a million to record their album. That leaves the band with $500,000. They pay $100,000 to their manager for 20 percent commission. They pay $25,000 each to their lawyer and business manager. That leaves $350,000 for the four band members to split. After $170,000 in taxes, there’s $180,000 left. That comes out to $45,000 per person. That’s $45,000 to live on for a year until the record gets released.

The record is a big hit and sells a million copies. (How a bidding-war band sells a million copies of its debut record is another rant entirely, but it’s based on any basic civics-class knowledge that any of us have about cartels. Put simply, the antitrust laws in this country are basically a joke, protecting us just enough to not have to re-name our park service the Phillip Morris National Park Service.)

So, this band releases two singles and makes two videos. The two videos cost a million dollars to make and 50 percent of the video production costs are recouped out of the band’s royalties. The band gets $200,000 in tour support, which is 100 percent recoupable. The record company spends $300,000 on independent radio promotion. You have to pay independent promotion to get your song on the radio; independent promotion is a system where the record companies use middlemen so they can pretend not to know that radio stations — the unified broadcast system — are getting paid to play their records.

All of those independent promotion costs are charged to the band.

Since the original million-dollar advance is also recoupable, the band owes $2 million to the record company.

If all of the million records are sold at full price with no discounts or record clubs, the band earns $2 million in royalties, since their 20 percent royalty works out to $2 a record. Two million dollars in royalties minus $2 million in recoupable expenses equals … zero!

How much does the record company make?

They grossed $11 million.

It costs $500,000 to manufacture the CDs and they advanced the band $1 million. Plus there were $1 million in video costs, $300,000 in radio promotion and $200,000 in tour support.

The company also paid $750,000 in music publishing royalties.

They spent $2.2 million on marketing. That’s mostly retail advertising, but marketing also pays for those huge posters of Marilyn Manson in Times Square and the street scouts who drive around in vans handing out black Korn T-shirts and backwards baseball caps. Not to mention trips to Scores and cash for tips for all and sundry.

Add it up and the record company has spent about $4.4 million.

So their profit is $6.6 million; the band may as well be working at a 7-Eleven.

And that explains why huge megastars like Lyle Lovett have pointed out that he sold 4.6 million records and never made a dime from album sales. It’s why the band 30 Seconds to Mars went platinum and sold 2 million records and never made a dime from album sales. You hear these stories quite often.

And note that those are bands that are hugely, massively popular. How about those that just do okay? Remember last year, when Tim Quirk of the band Too Much Joy revealed how Warner Music made a ton of money of of the band’s albums, but simply refuses to accurately account for royalties owed, because the band is considered unrecoupable. Sometimes the numbers even go in reverse. If you don’t understand RIAA accounting, you might think that if a band hasn’t “recouped” its advance, it means that the record labels lost money. Not so in many cases. Quirk explained the neat accounting trick in a footnote to his post about his own royalty statement:

A word here about that unrecouped balance, for those uninitiated in the complex mechanics of major label accounting. While our royalty statement shows Too Much Joy in the red with Warner Bros. (now by only $395,214.71 after that $62.47 digital windfall), this doesn’t mean Warner “lost” nearly $400,000 on the band. That’s how much they spent on us, and we don’t see any royalty checks until it’s paid back, but it doesn’t get paid back out of the full price of every album sold. It gets paid back out of the band’s share of every album sold, which is roughly 10% of the retail price. So, using round numbers to make the math as easy as possible to understand, let’s say Warner Bros. spent something like $450,000 total on TMJ. If Warner sold 15,000 copies of each of the three TMJ records they released at a wholesale price of $10 each, they would have earned back the $450,000. But if those records were retailing for $15, TMJ would have only paid back $67,500, and our statement would show an unrecouped balance of $382,500.

I do not share this information out of a Steve Albini-esque desire to rail against the major label system (he already wrote the definitive rant, which you can find here if you want even more figures, and enjoy having those figures bracketed with cursing and insults). I’m simply explaining why I’m not embarrassed that I “owe” Warner Bros. almost $400,000. They didn’t make a lot of money off of Too Much Joy. But they didn’t lose any, either. So whenever you hear some label flak claiming 98% of the bands they sign lose money for the company, substitute the phrase “just don’t earn enough” for the word “lose.”

So, back to our original example of the average musician only earning $23.40 for every $1,000 sold. That money has to go back towards “recouping” the advance, even though the label is still straight up cashing 63% of every sale, which does not go towards making up the advance. The math here gets ridiculous pretty quickly when you start to think about it. These record label deals are basically out and out scams. In a traditional loan, you invest the money and pay back out of your proceeds. But a record label deal is nothing like that at all. They make you a “loan” and then take the first 63% of any dollar you make, get to automatically increase the size of the “loan” by simply adding in all sorts of crazy expenses (did the exec bring in pizza at the recording session? that gets added on), and then tries to get the loan repaid out of what meager pittance they’ve left for you.

Oh, and after all of that, the record label still owns the copyrights. That’s one of the most lopsided business deals ever.

Original link here: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100712/23482610186.shtml

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One step closer, one step back.

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I passed my bike theory test last Friday, so I am one step closer to achieving a goal I thought unreachable until quite recently. It went quite well, except for the teensy problem that almost got me an automatic fail.

I’d been studying for the thing for the previous week so I wasn’t really worried about it and I’d downloaded software to go over the hazard perception (HPT) portion of it. I was all set to go.

I got there with plenty of time to spare and with all the necessary paperwork. The dude at the reception counter told me to put my bag in a locker and to step into the exam room. As i was sitting down, I realized that I had my mobile in my back pocket, so I put it face down on the “place personal items here” area of the exam cubicle along with my provisional license and I started the test.

I breezed through the theory portion and then came the HPT section, where I was instructed to put on headphones and listen to an audio clip. Unbeknownst to me, my phone bleeped while I was listening to the clip, and later on while I was concentrating on the hazard videos (as it happened, it was the alarm on my calendar giving me an event reminder – for the test I was currently taking). At some point, the little lady looking over the exam room came in and asked who had a phone. I swear I never heard her even come in!

So when it bleeped the second time, apparently some people complained and the head honcho from the reception desk came in and spoke up loudly to ask who had the phone. I heard him that time and knew I was in trouble from the tonage. Since the English aren’t known for their sense of humour in official terms, I was rather worried. I did my best to concentrate on the task at hand – i.e. not failing the test – and figured I could deal with the consequences afterwards.

So when I was done, I came out of the room and the lady pointed me towards the head dude. She looked rather concerned for me. The dude then proceeded to tear me a new one for 10 solid minutes, telling me that in the 10 years he’d been doing this, nobody had ever been stupid enough to bring a phone in an exam room and that this was just not done in England. In the end, I looked pitiful enough and said yes sir, no sir, thank you sir enough that he stopped yelling at me and gave me my passing grade papers.

In the end, it was an honest mistake and I never meant to cause bother. But it doesn’t matter now, because I am one step closer to getting my full license and buying a motorcycle.

Amusingly though, when the guy who is taking the courses with me and was taking the exam with me left (after me) and asked the head dude what had happened with me, he was also regaled with a 10 minute barrage of verbiage.

I have my CBT this weekend and lessons a few weeks later and then I simply need to pass an eye test and a driving test. No pressure. Easy peasy. I’m freaking out.

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Pube waffles, indeed.

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For reasons unknown, the database servers are being extraordinarily naughty at work and it’s getting impossible to get anything done. I’ve been trying to rebuild a biomart for the last 2 days and the scripts keep borking on me. Finally, it seems to be working now, but it’s sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow.

So, in the meantime, there’s naught else to do but browse on my new toy.

It’s bad. It’s really bad. I’ve already installed 6 games, a few productivity apps and the complete learner’s guide to the UK motorcycle theory test (which I need to study for because my exam is next Friday).

I love my phone.

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