Yasutada.sudo

デロイトとGoogleの調査(PDF)によって、ウェブサイトへのアクセス数や滞在時間はページの読み込み速度に大きな影響を受けることが判明しています。できるだけ読み込み時間を短く抑えたいものですが、長年ウェブサイトを運営しているとさまざまなしがらみによってアナリティクスなどのサードパーティスクリプトが増加し、どんどん読み込み速度が遅くなってしまうことも。そうしたサードパーティースクリプトの処理をサービスワーカーに任せることで読み込み速度を爆速にしてくれるのが「Partytown」です。

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The great Prince of Darkness, Ozzy Osbourne, announced that he will no longer tour because of poor health. Osbourne, 74, was slated to go on a European tour this year but announced today that all shows are cancelled after he says he came "to the realisation that I'm not physically capable … as I know I couldn't deal with the travel required." — Read the rest

Row deepens as Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh dismisses president’s decision to suspend Najla El-Mangoush

Libya’s chronic political instability has been exposed, with the country’s foreign minister, Najla El-Mangoush, suspended from office and banned from leaving the country by the president, only for the disciplinary action to be rejected by the prime minister.

The power struggle comes days before a major conference in Paris at which world powers hope to speed up the departure of foreign mercenaries and troops from Libya ahead of planned December presidential and parliamentary elections, which are hanging in the balance.

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Rolling coverage of all the latest UK coronavirus developments

• Coronavirus - latest global updates
• Universal credit claims ‘almost impossible’ as 500,000 apply
• Men are much more likely to die from Covid-19. But why?
• UK healthcare workers: the protection they need and what they have
• Read all our coronavirus coverage
  

10.50am GMT

John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, is saying that the Treasury employment support package for the self-employed being announced by the government this afternoon must include measures that can be delivered quickly. In a statement he said:

Many self-employed people have been hit hard in the pocket by the Coronavirus crisis and have been calling for proper protection of their incomes by the government ... After days of delay and uncertainty the government must announce a package today that can be delivered quickly, giving the self-employed the same level of security as other workers.

Officials have discussed plans which will mean people’s income being assessed on the basis of a “blended” mixture of their revenues and profits over the past three years. They would then be paid a significant proportion of their usual income up to a capped amount, which some in industry have suggested should be £1,700 a month.

The scheme will be designed to ensure that wealthier people who are self-employed such as lawyers and TV presenters are not able to take advantage. There are an estimated 5m self-employed workers in the UK, but not all will have been directly affected by the outbreak. The bailout is expected to be means-tested, with discussions that those earning over £50,000 a year should not be able to benefit.

An eligibility cap is expected to be set at around the median income level - £30,353 last year - meaning it will include cleaners, childminders and cab drivers but not high earning professions like lawyers or tech programmers.

One likely option being studied last night is to use January’s tax return for the financial year 2018-19 as the new scheme’s benchmark.

That the self-employed are far less protected from temporary job loss is particularly worrying in light of the jobs they do. Figure 3 [see below] shows the share of self-employed workers in sectors that are directly affected by social distancing measures. It shows that 22% of the self-employed work in sectors that are badly hit, compared to 17% of employees (note that the total number of employees affected is still much larger). This is because the self-employed are much more likely to work in personal services (e.g. cleaning and hairdressing), arts and leisure (e.g. performing arts or fitness instruction) and passenger transport (e.g. taxi services).

In total, nearly a million (0.9 million) self-employed people work in sectors that will be mostly shut down during the crisis period. If restrictions are tightened further, the 0.8 million self-employed workers in the construction sector may also be affected (if they haven’t been already). And on top of the 0.9 million workers in badly hit sectors, a further 0.4 million self-employed workers have a young child (aged 0-9) and no key workers or non-working adults in the family, such that they may have to disrupt their work to provide childcare.

10.49am GMT

A rise in the number of domestic abuse incidents during the lockdown has already been observed, according to a Greater Manchester police leader.

Baroness Beverley Hughes, the deputy mayor for policing and crime, said there had been cases of abuse linked to the coronavirus outbreak and the force were anticipating more serious incidents.

I think we are beginning to see a rise in domestic abuse incidents. We anticipated this might happen in the very stressful circumstances for many families.

“The potential for tension to arise in the home as a result of what we are asking people to cope with, in order to suppress the virus, is going to increase and therefore we would be right to think this might display itself in an increase in the number of domestic incidents we are called to.”

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＜『クレイジージャーニー』でもお馴染み、スラム街の取材経験豊富なジャーナリストが明かす、私たちが知らない「悪いやつら」や犯罪組織の特徴＞ 『世界の危険思想――悪いやつらの頭の中』（丸山ゴンザレス著、光文社新書）の著者は人気番組『クレイジージャーニー』（TBS系）でお馴染みの「危険地帯ジャーナリスト」。スラム街など過酷な環境に躊躇なく踏み込んでいく姿をテレビで目にした方は、決して少なくないはずだ。 著者は本書において、そのような実体験に基づき、悪事に手を染める人々の思考について考えを巡らせている。殺人犯、殺し屋、強盗、武器商人、マフィア、ギャング、麻薬の売人、薬物依存者、集団暴行する人、悪徳警官など、さまざまな国籍、職業の「悪いやつら」に話を聞き、悪意や危険な行動の根っこにある（と思われる）思考を明らかにしようとしているのである。 スラムを取材し、その内容をルポとして発表するなかで、気付くことがあるのだと著者は言う。それは、スラムと裏社会を同一視する人が多いこと。「危険地帯＝スラム」と捉えると誤解が生まれやすいというのだが、確かに私も、少なからずそう感じていたかもしれない。 たしかに貧困層が犯罪組織と結びつきやすいという事例は、中南米からアメリカ全土で勢力を拡大するMS-13のような凶悪ギャング組織など、世界各地で見られる。だが、実際にスラムと裏社会を取材している立場からすれば、両者はまったく別の存在だと断言できる。（58ページより） 端的に言えば、エリアやコミュニティーのことを指すのがスラム。つまり、犯罪者の集団である裏社会の「組織」とは種類自体が異なるということだ。だとすれば、なぜ両者は同一視されてしまいがちなのか？ それは、スラムに犯罪組織の構成員が住んでいることが多いからだというのである。言われてみればその通りで、スラムは犯罪をする人を生み出しやすい環境なのだろう。とはいえ当然のことながら、スラム街に暮らす人々の価値観も多種多様。 ギャングメンバーにも喜怒哀楽はあり、家族だっているかもしれない。そういう意味では我々と同じなので、先入観だけを頼りにスラムに暮らす人を犯罪と結びつけてしまったとしたら、スラム街の本質を見誤りかねないということである。 裏社会が警察の下働き的な扱いになっている国もある その一方、犯罪組織には犯罪組織ならではの特徴的な考え方があるのも事実。そこで著者は本書において「裏社会ルール」を紹介している。それは、「縄張り」「ボスへの忠誠心（裏切りの禁止）」「アンチ警察」の3つだ。 ===== まず、彼らの「縄張り」だが、国境のようにフェンスやゲートが設けられるといった明確な線引きがあるのではなく、組織の影響力が及ぶ範囲のことをいう。最小単位は建物だけのこともある。大きくなると都市全体や複数都市を支配下に置いている。おおむね組織の数だけ縄張りが存在している。縄張りを持たない組織は存在しえない。（59ページより） この記述を読んで思い出したのは、ロサンゼルスのストリート・ギャングの抗争を描いた映画、デニス・ホッパー監督作品『Colors（邦題：カラーズ／天使の消えた街）』のテーマ曲だった。 ラッパーのアイス・Tによるその楽曲「Colors」のリリック（歌詞）にも、"So let me define. My territory; don't cross the line（俺の縄張りははっきりさせてもらう この線を越えるな）"というフレーズが登場するのである。 そんなところからも推測できるが、著者によれば縄張りとは、犯罪組織が所属する集団を食わせるための経済基盤。そのエリア内でならカツアゲ、強盗、麻薬の取引などをしても怒られることはなく、敵対的に動くとしたら警察だけだという。 裏社会には裏社会なりの秩序が存在しており、そこで大きな意味を持つのが縄張り。だからお互いの領域を侵さないことは最も基本的なことであり、最重要なルールでもあるというのである。 さて、裏社会に共通する考え方として、縄張りに次いで紹介されているのは「ボスへの忠誠（裏切りの禁止）」である。これは縄張り意識よりもっと内向きで、説明しづらい、面倒で危ない考え方でもあるのだそうだ。 忠誠心であり、裏切りの禁止。これは表裏の関係である。裏切られないという関係性は、そのまま忠誠心のある上下関係になるからだ。 どんな組織でも忠誠心の植えつけ方は2通りある。 ゆっくり植えつけるか、強烈に植えつけるかだ。（63ページより） 「ゆっくり」のほうは、いわゆる「餌付け」。仕事もなく学校にも行けないが、見どころのありそうな子供に食事を与え、小間使いを頼み、労働の対価にお金を支払う。徐々に仕事のランクも上げていき、段階的に兵士（ソルジャー）へと育て上げていく。幼少期から思春期まで長い時間をかけて餌付けされた子供は、ボスに対して絶対の忠誠を示すようになるということだ。 さらに、忠誠心を強烈に植えつけさせるため、決して裏切らせないような通過儀礼を経験させる。すなわち殺人やその手伝いである。トドメを刺したり、遺体の処理を手伝わせることで共犯意識を生み出し、裏切りを防止するわけだ。もちろんそれは、「裏切ったらこうなる」という現実を突きつけることにもなる。 ===== そして裏社会のルール、3つ目は「アンチ警察」。これは全ての組織に共通しているというより、「比較的そういうところが多い」というあたりにとどまるそうだ。なぜなら、警察そのものが裏社会に近かったり、権力を握っていたりすることがあるから。 小規模な集団が組織化して組織同士が結びつき、大きな連合体に成長するという流れが起きるのは、民主主義の資本主義経済の国においてのこと。こういった国だと、組織の拡大に伴って警察との結びつきが強くなっていくのだという。もっと言えば、政府の力が強くなると、裏社会が一斉に取り締まられる。著者によれば、現在の日本がこの段階にあるそうだ。 一方、独裁国家や軍事国家では警察や軍の力が強すぎ、裏社会的な勢力は脆弱。アンダーグラウンド・マーケットのブローカー的な人間が大半になってきて、そうなると政府側の組織の一部は、警察が主体となって裏社会的な機能を果たすようになる。ギャング的な層が警察の下働きの扱いになるということだ。 どの段階にあるにせよ、裏社会と警察というのは、最終的には相容れない。日本でも、第二次世界大戦後の闇市でヤクザと警察が共闘関係にあったという闇の歴史がある。ある時期共闘関係があったとしても、最終的に相容れないのは、現代日本のヤクザと警察の関係を見れば明らかだろう。矛盾と非論理的な関係性を繰り返したりするのも現実として起こりうるのだ。（66〜67ページより） こうしたルールがあるということは、理解できるようであり、分かりにくくもある。しかし、裏社会を見る側が頭の中を論理的にしてしまうと、混乱するのも仕方がないというのが著者の主張だ。 犯罪を生業とする人々や、そこで起きていることは、カタギ社会の価値観で考えると非論理的だからである。 また、もうひとつの注目点は、裏社会に生きる人々が思考停止状態にあることだとも言う。例えばロサンゼルスのフロレンシア13というグループに所属していたギャングは、「なぜ争っているのかわからない。上の世代が争っていたから自分たちも抗争する」と語っていたそうだ。 そこに、あらゆる争いごとにも共通する矛盾があると感じるのは、果たして私だけだろうか？ 『世界の危険思想――悪いやつらの頭の中』 丸山ゴンザレス 著 光文社新書 ［筆者］ 印南敦史 1962年生まれ。東京都出身。作家、書評家。広告代理店勤務時代にライターとして活動開始。現在は他に「ライフハッカー［日本版］」「東洋経済オンライン」「WEBRONZA」「サライ.jp」「WANI BOOKOUT」などで連載を持つほか、「ダ・ヴィンチ」などにも寄稿。『読んでも読んでも忘れてしまう人のための読書術』（星海社新書）をはじめ、ベストセラーとなった『遅読家のための読書術――情報洪水でも疲れない「フロー・リーディング」の習慣』（ダイヤモンド社）、『世界一やさしい読書習慣定着メソッド』（大和書房）、『人と会っても疲れない コミュ障のための聴き方・話し方』（日本実業出版社）など著作多数。 ※9月10日号（9月3日発売）は、「プーチン2020」特集。領土問題で日本をあしらうプーチン。来年に迫った米大統領選にも「アジトプロップ」作戦を仕掛けようとしている。「プーチン永久政権」の次なる標的と世界戦略は？ プーチンvs.アメリカの最前線を追う。

The closure of pubs and cuts to public services mean shared social spaces are dwindling. We want to hear where you like to go

It may be your local pub or park, your gym, or your closest cafe. A particular public bench where you go to read or think, or your neighbourhood library.

The “third place” is a public, social place where you spend time that is neither home nor work. Whether it is publicly run, like a library, or a commercial venture, it is, above all, shared – a site of community-building and interaction with others.

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Laura Mortimer, 31, and her daughter Ella, 11, are focus of double murder investigation, with one man arrested

Tributes have been paid to a mother and daughter found dead at a house in Gloucester who are now the focus of a double murder investigation.

They were named locally as Laura Mortimer, 31, and her 11-year-old daughter Ella Dalby, who were both pronounced dead at the scene. Police were called to the property on the outskirts of the city early on bank holiday Monday, responding to reports that two people had been seriously injured.

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早稲田大学の研究者らは、歩行中にガムを咀嚼することでカロリー消費量が高まり、健康増進につながる可能性があると発表した。

Soft drink company to part with tradition by launching version of ‘Chu-Hi’ alcopop in Japan

Coca-Cola is to produce the first alcoholic drink in its 132-year-history, with plans to launch an alcopop in Japan.

The world’s biggest soft drinks company said it would start making a version of “Chu-Hi” – canned sparkling flavoured drinks that include a local spirit called shochu.

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2017年11月15日(水)

[赤坂英一]

日本シリーズにおける横浜DeNAベイスターズの健闘ぶりは繰り返し語られることだろう。とくに０勝３敗の崖っぷちで迎えた11月1日の第４戦、ドラフト２位新人の浜口遙大が、豪打のソフトバンク打線を無失点に抑えた力投はいまだ記憶に新しい。

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Redditor ipee9932cd couldn't find a keyboard to their liking, so they built the casing of their dreams—out of cement. The brutal board weighs in at 12 pounds (yes, heavier than an IBM Model M) and "it takes some force to move it."

Being my first concrete cast, I chose not to put any rebar and want to see what happens over time. I know nothing about concrete, just did some research and went for it so we'll see what happens. It's not moving off my desk, even if I try, and when I do move it I never hold it from one edge. I was thinking about trying basalt rebar or glass fibers for the next cast...

the full gallery has 5 glorious shots of this brutal contraption, and there's an accompanying how-to gallery to show each step of the way. (Not shown is dismantling a keyboard and installing the important bits, but I guess if you're that far into custom keyboards it won't be a problem for you.) [via r/MechanicalKeyboards]

YouTuber Matthew Br made a gadget that senses when the rude people in the apartment next to him play loud music and blasts especially annoying music back at them through the wall. The device gives the neighbors a short grace period that stops it from triggering if the neighbors sneeze or drop something heavy, but if the loud music goes on too long, the device kicks into action and punishes them with a high decibel onslaught. [via]

See sample pages of Akira at Wink.

At the far too early age of seven I watched Katsuhiro Otomo’s film Akira. In a time before the internet, my parents had made the mistake of thinking that since it was a cartoon it couldn’t be that bad. If you’ve seen the movie you know just how wrong my parents were. If you haven’t, what followed was two hours of high-octane animated violence, drugs, and mind-bending psychokinesis. Being too young to really appreciate what many critics believe to be one of the greatest animated movies of all time, which helped bring Japanese anime into American culture, I retreated to the warm comfort of Disney. Thankfully as I got older I rediscovered this great movie, and this even better comic series.

This isn’t me just saying “Well, I read the book which is far better than the movie.” (Imagine me saying that with a snooty condescending accent). The movie barely skims the surface of the comics. It would be like if HBO took all the Game of Thrones books and turned them into a single two-hour special.

Spanning over 2000 pages the Akira series is a sci-fi epic. The story follows a teenage delinquent as he unknowingly gets caught up in psychic warfare that leads to an all-out revolution. Like the amphetamine that the main characters eat like candy, you’ll get addicted to this book – also, you might lose your teeth, but that could be unrelated.

Dark Horse did an exquisite job reprinting the comics into six volumes (although I did notice a typo in Volume 2 on page 228, so someone might want to contact Dark Horse about that). Each book starts with some beautifully colored pages, and then transitions into amazingly detailed black and white illustrations. If you liked the movie, like comics, or just like impractical yet totally cool future-bikes, read Akira. Bonus: If you like the Akira series check out Domu: A Child’s Dream. It’s much shorter but still very enjoyable. It feels very much like a precursor, a Hobbit to Lord of the Rings (Okay, I think I just reached my nerd-reference quota for this review). – JP LeRoux

Akira Vol. 6
by Katsuhiro Otomo (author) and Satoshi Kon (illustrator)
Dark Horse Manga
2002, 440 pages, 7.4 x 9.9 x 1.5 inches (softback)
$7 Buy a copy on Amazon

$5 Akira Vol. 5
$5 Akira Vol. 4
$14 Akira Vol. 3
$2 Akira Vol. 2
$17 Akira Vol. 1

I was hoping for a little firefighter homunculus. [via]

We’re moving back in time, before the mp3 player and the CD. We’re going back to the analog age, a moment when the vinyl record reigned supreme. The month is June 1937. And the short film you’re watching is “Record Making with Duke Ellington and His Orchestra.”  How the film came into being was described in the July 1937 edition of Melody News:

Last month, a crew of cameramen, electricians and technicians from the Paramount film company set up their paraphernalia in the recording studios of Master Records, Inc. for the purpose of gathering ‘location’ scenes for a movie short, now in production, showing how phonograph records are produced and manufactured. Duke Ellington and his orchestra was employed for the studio scenes, with Ivie Anderson doing the vocals.

Narrated by Alois Havrilla, a pioneer radio announcer, the film shows you how records were actually recorded, plated and pressed. It’s a great relic from the vinyl era, which you will want to couple with this 1956 vinyl tutorial from RCA Victor.

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University of Tokyo food hacker Hiromi Nakamura is developing an electrified fork that zaps your taste buds with low current to make food taste saltier, without using so much salt. Sounds kinda like licking a battery, only not quite as bitter. (Munchies)

Don?t let cold wet feet ruin your outdoor fun! Staying dry is important whether you?re riding to work, running, hiking, or doing any outdoor activity in the rain, these socks by Shower Press are fully waterproof thanks to 3-layers: a wear resistant knit exterior (feels like a regular sock), a waterproof breathable Artex membrane, and a Merino-wool moisture wicking anti-bacteria lining. The end result is a sock that feels like a wool sock but protects like a rain bootie.

Learn more from Shower Press, or purchase now from Amazon

Do not compare sausages to horse penises in Kyrgyzstan, or you could end up spending five years in prison. One man who learned this the hard way is Michael Mcfeat, a Brit who works at a gold mine in Kyrgyzstan. Mcfeat recently posted to Facebook that a traditional Kyrgyzstanian horse sausage known as chuchuk, which was being served to his co-workers at a holiday party, was actually a "special delicacy, the horse's penis." His co-workers complained to authorities and he was arrested.

Mcfeat, who is currently being held by police, could face racial hatred charges punishable by a jail term of up to five years, it said. A British embassy representative confirmed that officials were in touch with both Centerra and the local authorities over the matter.

Following the uproar, the Briton deleted his remarks and posted an apology on Facebook, saying he had not meant to offend anyone.

Ashima Shiraishi is the most talented rock climber in the world. She’s also 14.

[Full Story]

Abso-jesus-lutely not: Why can you infix "fucking" and "bloody" but not other swears?:

I wrote a post for Strong Language, the sweary blog about swearing, on why not all swear words sound good as expletive infixes. 

The classic case of expletive infixation involves “fucking” or “bloody” as in abso-fucking-lutely, abso-bloody-lutely. And one syllable swears can’t infix: there’s no abso-fuck-lutely or abso-shit-lutely. But “Jesus” is two syllables, people swear with it, and it even has the same stress as the other two. Why doesn’t it sound right as an infix?

When we run through the list of two or more syllable swears, we get a suggestive contrast.

(Plus bonus minor digression about whether you can infix emoji, such as abso-eggplant-lutely.) 

Definitely also check out the comment thread and these threads on twitter, which are already bringing up some great points for a follow-up post. 

Where the heck is Matt?

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Hot peppers can make you feel like your mouth is on fire. The American Chemical Society explains the science behind that burn and why drinking water is one of the worse things you can do to ease that pain.

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The fine art of sushi isn’t something to take lightly—good chefs train for decades, and good sushi restaurants have customs all their own. This guide walks you through that training, how your sushi is made, all the different types, and of course, how to enjoy your sushi to the fullest.

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This Wired video interview with former director Nicholas Negroponte and current director Joi Ito is a mind-blowing tour through the Media Lab's storied history: from e-ink to touchscreens to multitouch to in-car GPS to wearables. The current Media Lab administration is pretty amazing, and the research just keeps getting more mind-blowing.

On Monday evening, a man armed with a knife attacked a facility for the disabled in Sagamihara, Japan. His motives are still unknown. The Guardian reports that at least 15 people have been killed and 45 have been wounded. If those reports are right, it will be the largest mass killing in modern Japanese history — claiming even more lives than the Aum Shinrikyo cult's sarin gas attack on the Tokyo Subway in 1995.

These sorts of mass killings — and, in fact, any kind of killing — are extremely rare in Japan, making the events of this evening especially shocking.

Why is Japan's murder rate so low? There are many reasons, of course, and not all of them are fully understood. But one of the biggest ones, undeniably, are Japanese gun laws. Though today's horror was perpetrated with a knife, this kind of event would be more common — and more deadly — in a world where more Japanese people were armed with more efficient killing machines.

How gun control protects Japan

A man with a gun in Japan — during a sanctioned anti-terrorism drill. (Toshifumi Kitamura/AFP/Getty Images)

In most places in the United States, buying a gun is really easy: You can walk into a gun store, pass a background check, and then get your gun. In some states, you don't even need to do that much: You can buy a gun without any check at all from a private seller, or even over the internet.

Here is how you buy a gun in Japan, as Max Fisher explained in a 2012 Atlantic piece on Japan's astonishingly low rate of gun violence:

To get a gun in Japan, first, you have to attend an all-day class and pass a written test, which are held only once per month. You also must take and pass a shooting range class. Then, head over to a hospital for a mental test and drug test (Japan is unusual in that potential gun owners must affirmatively prove their mental fitness), which you'll file with the police. Finally, pass a rigorous background check for any criminal record or association with criminal or extremist groups, and you will be the proud new owner of your shotgun or air rifle. Just don't forget to provide police with documentation on the specific location of the gun in your home, as well as the ammo, both of which must be locked and stored separately. And remember to have the police inspect the gun once per year and to re-take the class and exam every three years.

This leads to a much lower rate of firearm ownership: While there are 88.8 privately owned guns per 100 people in the US, there are only 0.6 in Japan. Unsurprisingly, Japan's firearm homicide rate is way, way lower than that of the United States, according to data from the University of Sydney:

"In 2008, the U.S. had over 12,000 firearm-related homicides. All of Japan experienced only 11, fewer than were killed at the Aurora [Colorado movie theater] shooting alone," Fisher wrote. "And that was a big year: 2006 saw an astounding two, and when that number jumped to 22 in 2007, it became a national scandal." This low rate of violence has continued: In 2013, only 12 people in Japan were shot to death; in 2012, that number was a mere three.

Now, Japan and the United States are very different countries, so just porting Japanese laws over to the US might very well not work. For one thing, Japan has, in general, one of the lowest murder rates in the world, while the US's is quite high by developed country standards.

There are a number of reasons for that, including effective Japanese policing (roughly 98 percent of homicide cases are solved) and low poverty rates. But according to a United Nations report, "some researchers" believe that "extremely low levels of gun ownership" play a significant role in Japan's low overall homicide rate (not just the low firearm homicide rate).

This is broadly consistent with the research on gun ownership and homicide. Harvard researchers Daniel Hemenway and Matthew Miller examined 26 developed countries and checked whether gun ownership correlated with murder rates.

They found that "a highly significant positive correlation between total homicide rates and both proxies for gun availability." They also didn't find much evidence that a higher rate of gun murders led to lower rates of other kinds of murder (i.e., stabbings).

Interestingly, these results tended to hold true even when you exclude the United States and its super-high homicide and gun-ownership rates."More guns are associated with more homicides across industrialized countries," Hemenway and Miller conclude.

Another study, by Berkeley's Franklin Zimring and Gordon Hawkins, found that the US has crime rates comparable to those in similarly developed countries, but much higher rates of lethal violence — owing in significant part to our high rates of gun ownership.

Japan's experience also suggests that a favored gun rights slogan — "if you ban guns, only the criminals will have guns" — is too pat. It's true that in Japan, a large percentage of firearm homicides are related to the Yakuza crime syndicates. Yet the Yakuza still kill far, far fewer people with guns than American gangs.

According to some reports, that's because the criminals themselves are scared of carrying guns for fear of strict legal sanction.

"Under current laws, if a low-level yakuza is caught with a gun and bullets that match, he’ll be charged with aggravated possession of firearms and will then face an average seven-year prison term," longtime Japan correspondent Jake Adelstein writes in the Japan Times. "Simply firing a gun carries a penalty of three years to life. And ... a yakuza boss may decide a death sentence is more appropriate if his thug miraculously gets released on bail before going to jail [because accomplice laws could get the boss indicted along with his subordinate]."

Adelstein even spoke to an actual Yakuza boss, who told him the same thing. "Having a gun now is like having a time bomb," the Japanese gangster said. "Do you think any sane person wants to keep one around the house?"

Again — this does not mean Japan has figured out a solution that'll work just as well in the United States, or that Japan's gun laws are the sole reason its homicide rates are so low. Nor does it mean that Japan is immune is to mass killing completely, as Monday's horrible events prove.

But gun control is, without much doubt, a reason these killings are so rare there. That bears repeating.

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We’ve seen Europeans cover famous rock and metal bands in an American folk style—Finnish musicians playing AC/DC, Iron Maiden, and Dio in Appalachian folk, to be exact. Now, prepare to hear famous rock and metal bands in a distinctively European folk style: Medieval Belarusian folk, played by the beautifully named Stary Olsa. The band’s name derives from a stream in East Belarus—their clothing, instrumentation, and rhythms from an early Lithuanian state called the Grand Duchy—but the songs are all 20th century radio fodder. Above, see them do Deep Purple’s “Child in Time,” and below, they tackle the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Californication.”

Stary Olsa’s cover of Metallica’s “One” (further down), already an incredibly dramatic song, works particularly well in their syncopated Spartan style. The sounds and costuming of the accomplished Belarusian musicians will inevitably remind you—if you haven’t been under a rock in Belarus—of that Medieval-style fantasy show in which your favorite characters meet horribly violent ends week after week. When we look at the bloody history of Medieval Europe, the gruesomeness of Westeros can seem like only a slight exaggeration—dragons and ice zombies aside—of the so-called “dark ages.” These associations, and the solemnity of the song selection and starkness of the voices and instruments, lend Stary Olsa’s performances a gravitas that, frankly, elevates some of the material far above its pop origins (I’m looking at you, Red Hot Chili Peppers).

In order for such meldings of styles, periods, and cultures to work, whether they be played for laughs or deeply serious, the musicianship must be top notch. Such was the case with Finnish bluegrass metal cover band Steve ‘N’ Seagulls, and such is certainly the case with Stary Olsa, who have appeared on Belarusian TV (from which some of these videos come) and are currently finding a level of popularity outside their native country that few Belarusian bands have achieved. It’s unlikely we’ll see them soon on the rock festival circuit, but their status as an internet sensation is all but guaranteed. Just below, see the band translate a medley of The Beatles’ “Obla-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” and “Yellow Submarine” into their musical idiom, proving that they don’t just do dark, haunting, and mysterious; they’re also positively danceable.

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Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness

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