A couple of weeks ago the German publisher VDM asked if I would like to see my honors thesis in print, and after updating it a bit (yeah, there needed to be some changes to reflect my current understanding of the topic covered within), my new shiny monograph is now available on Amazon.com! It's titled, Online Data Protection in Japan: Studied Nonobservance as an Impediment towards Effective Privacy Legislation. The book basically argues that self-regulation will never truly be effective as a means of protecting online privacy in Japan because of studied nonobservance. A summary of its contents are as follows:

"Until recently, the rapid growth of the Japanese e-commerce industry was not paralleled with an increase in privacy legislation to safeguard online personal information. The Japanese bureaucracy attempted to fill this vacuum by releasing self-regulatory guidelines that were originally promulgated in the United States. However, the results of a content analysis showed that in spite of this, Japanese Web sites still lagged far behind their American counterparts in the development of effective privacy policies. The author posits that the ineffectual emulation of American made guidelines was due to the varying cultural standards that are found in both countries. In particular, an attempt will be made to focus on the role of studied nonobservance as a direct impediment towards the development of effective privacy legislation in Japan. With the conduct of e-commerce being trans-boundary and the Japanese people pressing for stronger judicial enforcement, it is perhaps time for industry and government leaders in Japan to rethink their strategy of enacting privacy protection safeguards based on traditional Japanese culture."

So pick up a copy today! (If I know you personally, do contact me for a discounted price).

An inquiry into human nature, from the narration of The Authority: Human on the Inside by John Ridley.

"The thing about it, the thing is:
the future's pretty much like the past. The present.
There's war and prejudice. Anger. Poverty.
It's shitty, and on top of that, you'll probably die before your time.

Maybe it seems like there's more anguish than in the past. The present.
But the feeling of despair;
It's not so much the absence of badness,
as it is a product of the lack of hope.

The thing about it, the thing is:
The human body can take a lot of damage.
Even when you crush it's spirit...
it'll keep going like some kind of...well,
like something that's not human.
Crappy as life is, as wrong, as messed up, as blatantly unfair as life is,
what it's got going for it is hope.

You hope, tomorrow you'll get the job you need,
or your kids'll stop thinking you're a frickin' idiot and start liking you again.
Someone somewhere'll actually want to have sex with you.

Take away hope, you've got nothing.
You've got a guy who robs to make money.
You've got a mother who drowns her kids rather than raise them in loneliness.
You've got a guy who rapes instead of looking for love.

Thing is, without hope, you ain't got jack.
But I believe, at least I've come to believe,
in everyone there remains the light of humanity.
And for it to burn again,
all that's needed is a spark.

So those who find it,
who find love and joy an happiness,
have got to grab it up tight.
Pleasure, like the present,
is fleeting."