Russia and English

If I was a native English speaker and was an English teacher, I would work in Russia. This idea comes from my last trip to Istanbul on new year's holiday. I stayed in a hostel and shared a room with a Russian couple and a German guy. I went for dinner with them on the evening of the new year's eve. The woman of the couple spoke fluent English. She is an English teacher and runs a launguage school in Moscow. According to her, launguage business in Moscow is really profitable. The most popular is, of course, English, the second is Italian. She had opened Japanese courses recently. She made a joke about me that I would be a well-paid Japanese teacher in her school. I laughed at her offer and crucked a joke in return that her English business would be expanding in 2008 because the British Council in Russia had been orderd to close and loads of students would rush into her school. All of us had been laughing during the talking. It was a really funny and interesting dinner in Istanbul. It situmulated my interest in Russia. I felt how Russian people enjoy their economic grouth and how English has become important in Russia for the decade. I wuould like to go to Moscow in the near future. I think Russia and Britain must get along with each other.

The Life of Others (Das Leben der Anderen)

I have watched a good film on TV recently. The title is "The Life of Others (Das Leben der Anderen)".
The film is set in November 1984. Gerd Wiesler who works the secret police(Stasi) of GDR is assigned to spy on Georg Dreyman who is a playwright and regarded as pro GDR government. The secret police install tapps in Dreyman's apartment. In the apartment he lives with his girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland who is an actress. She has relation with government minister in order to keep her job. Once Wiesler starts tapping their life, he realise why he is assigned to spy on Dreyman. Because the minister is attracted to Christa, he wants to find Dreyman's fault and Dreyman to be arrested. This makes Wiesler lose his motivation for his job. Then he starts helping Dreyman and Christa. Dreyman writes an article about sucide in GDR for a western magazine "Der Spiegel", after one of his friend commits sucide. Though Wiesler was tapping the action, he acquiesces and makes false report which Dreyman was writing a story about Lenin. Once the article is published in the West, GDR and Wiesler's boss have suspicious of Dreyman. However Wiesler reports no problem. The police arrests Christa because she takes illegal drugs and interrogates her. She knows how Dreyman wrote the article. It was written by an unregistered western made typewriter which is hidden under thr floor. She had no choise but to confess in order to go on her carrier as actress. Then she is set free and the police searches for the typewriter in Dreyman's apartment. However they cannot find it in the place that Christa revealed. Wiesler hid it in advance. In shame that Christa told a lie to the police as a result and betrayed his boyfriend, she throws herself in the front of a running truck and dies. Finnaly the police gives the search up and Wiesler'tapping fails. He is degraded. After the cold war ended, Dreyman realises that his life was entirely tapped but Wiesler acquiesced. He tries to say Wiesler "thank you", but he does not directly. As a playwright, he writes a novel named "Sonata for A Good Man". Wiesler finds the book in a book shop and also finds a credit "To HGW XX/7, with gratitude" in the book. "HGW XX/7" is Wiesler's code name. When he buys the book, the sales person asks if he should wrap it as a gift. Wiesler says "No, it's for me".

This film describes difficulties of creative people such as novelist, musicians, actors and so on in Communist era. I have also sympathy the charactor of Wiesler. He is diligent but alone. Every charactors gave me deep impression. The last 10 minutes is the highlight of the story. I felt transported myself to the 1980s in GDR. I think this film is very good but someone who does not know the background of the film might lose interst.

IP address is personal

A software giant Microsoft offered to buy a search engine giant Yahoo
in the U.S last Friday. This week Google responded that it would be
bad for the internet. When it comes to Microsoft and Google, The
European Union comes first. The union has adopted a tough stance
toward both giants. I have read an article about it. An EU's data
protection commissioner told an EU parliament hearing that IP address
has to be regarded as personal data. According to the article, IP
addresses may not always be personal data, but anybody can ask
"Whois" who owns IP address. For that reason, it has to be regarded
as personal data. This idea is completely different from Google's
idea. The company says it just uses IPs to provide accurate search
results and to protect advertisers. Using IPs is essential to drive
out "Click Fraud". However, The European Union, which has almost 500
million population market, may oppose to Google's activity in the EU
area. Last year Google gave up to keep search queries for long time.
It reduces to 18 months. In addition, cookie expiration time is also
reduced from 30 years to 2 years. It might be getting out of the
critics of the union. The company might be scared of Microsoft's
dispute with the EU. European bureaucrats are good at making rules.
ISO comes from Europe. It's headquarter is located in Geneva. The EU
has grown since 1992. Giant company can't ignore 500 million market
any more. I'm really worried that my country has completely left out
about this issue. We are always a follower. We aren't good at
establishing rules. This might be one of the biggest reason why Japan is waning.