So what we have here is some sort of remote robot-control rig designed for guiding the movements of a remote android - which will soon grow tired of being tethered to its’ wi-fi leash and turn on its’ creators in a fit of Turing-esque rage.

Flaming Lips are cooler than Radiohead. See below for proof:

…and by you I mean the gaijin contingent of our readership. Which is most of you, I presume. Most of the stuff we publish here probably isn’t news to the Japanese (is there some lonely otaku out there running ‘Gaijin Menace‘? I wonder…).

Anyway, if you’re planning a trip to Japan, you might want to steer clear of any quaint Japanese bed-and-breakfast operations you find in the sticks - turns out they don’t like us hairy, smelly Westerners.

Japan’s countryside is dotted with thousands of small, old-fashioned lodgings called “ryokans.” Many are family run and offer only traditional Japanese food and board, such as raw seafood delicacies, simple straw-mat floors and communal hot spring baths.

Some such establishments have barred foreign guests in the past, leading to lawsuits and government fines for discrimination.

The survey carried out by the Ministry of Internal Affairs shows that 72 percent of establishments that didn’t have foreign customers in the past year don’t want any, and the majority are ryokans and hotels with fewer than 30 rooms. Such businesses said they are unable to support foreign languages and that their facilities are not suited to foreigners.

In other Bruce Lee related news - here’s a trailer for the upcoming Sammo Hung biopic about Bruce Lee’s mentor, Yip Man, starring Donnie Yen.

Good Lord, this sounds awesome. A 50-part Bruce Lee television series called The Legend of Bruce Lee featuring Chan Kwok Kuen (aka Danny Chan, the Bruce Lee lookalike from Shaolin Soccer), starts Sunday on Chinese network CCTV.

Can’t wait til it hits the BitTorrent trackers!

“We’ve only seen the glorious side of Bruce Lee - he comes out all guns blazing, his films are entertaining. But very few people know what injuries he suffered and what grievances he suffered,” Danny Chan said, noting the series even reveals that Lee was afraid of cockroaches.

The 33-year-old actor, whose best known work is Stephen Chow’s “Kung Fu Hustle” and “Shaolin Soccer,” makes up for his lack of star power with his uncanny resemblance to Lee with his thick eyebrows and slender body.

Lee’s message of Chinese strength in movies like “The Chinese Connection” and “Return of the Dragon” also matches that of the Chinese government.

“Lee had strength, agility, pride, intelligence, not to mention charisma to burn, which coupled with the pro-Chinese rhetoric in his films have made him a potent symbol for the powerful new China that is now rising,” said Michael Berry, a professor in contemporary Chinese cultural studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Ex- (or not-so-ex these days, I suppose) Spice Girl Victoria Beckham has reportedly been splurging on $200 ‘geisha face mask’ treatments, supposedly consisting of nightingale droppings. Yes, Posh Spice is rubbing bird shit on her face.

“When she was in Japan recently she was admiring how women in their forties look under 25 and was told about these facials. Then she found out they were available in the USA and popped into a salon for one. The results were so good she even picked up some nightingale dropping goodies to use at home.” Over the years Posh has tried every trick to improve her skin, which is scarred by teenage acne,” the pal added.

Sorry I’ve been absent the last couple of days - my day job’s been kicking my ass the last week or so, but I felt the need to comment on the recent passing of Japanese actor Ken Ogata.

The first time I remember seeing Ogata was in Paul Schraeder’s flat-out-amazing biopic Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters. Despite the fact that he didn’t really look like Yukio Mishima, Ogata projected his presence in a way that I’d rarely seen in biographical film. Unfortunately, Ogata was never very well-known in the West, which is truly a shame.

Fortunately, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters was recently released as part of the venerated Criterion Collection, so this is as good an opportunity to familiarize yourself with his work as any. You won’t be disappointed.

Usually when someone asks me to name a single product of space research that affects them, I blurt out ‘Tang!’ Now I can finally trump that argument with ‘Space Beer!’

The Sapporo brewing company in Japan is cooking up a batch of beer distilled from barley that originated in the bowels of the International Space Station. Nobody knows what the end result will be just yet, but the mere fact that it can be called Space Beer is a marked improvement on the terrestrial variety.

To quote the grand old Smiths: “Is it really so strange?”

Canadian researchers uncovered software residing on Chinese internet servers that is purportedly being used to “seek out and hold online text-based chats deemed to contain politically sensitive communications.”

Described as little more than a “flaw” in the TOM Online system by Skype spokeswoman Jennifer Caukin, who went on to say Skype was “very concerned to hear about the apparent security issue,” TOM Online was apparently quick to address the glitch after Skype alerted the China-based company, reports the Wall Street Journal.

While the report did not venture a connection between the security hole and the Chinese government, it revealed the discovery of an encryption key that could well have been used to easily decrypt and access personal user records, which included data on mobile phone accounts, mobile phone text messages, and Skype-TOM Online user information.

Sometimes I wonder if the media (Yellow Menace included) does too much to prop up negative stereotypes of otaku behaviour…and then I read this.

A Japanese woman addicted to comics turned to the internet to look for someone to kill her parents after they asked her to clear out her cartoon-filled room, reports said today.
The 36-year-old woman, who was unemployed and lived at home, filled up three rooms with several thousand comic books and videotapes she had collected with an allowance her grandmother sent her, news reports said.

She reportedly became angry after her parents told her to throw away some of her comic books to make space for her sister who was planning to move in.

“I was told to throw away what was precious to me since I was a child. I felt frustrated and angry and wished that my parents would disappear,” she told police, as quoted by Jiji Press and the Sankei Shimbun.

In all fairness, most otaku are (relatively) well-adjusted human beings. This child-woman is clearly fucked up. Sure, I did my share of squabbling with my parents - when I was 17 (and dosed up on loads of 80’s hardcore punk). Don’t think I ever wanted them dead, though.