Even now, I run into some of the financial issues mentioned here. I’ve seen ATMs that are offline or out of cash quite frequently, though not ones that close at certain times. There are several utility companies that, to this day, only begrudgingly accept credit cards (and will usually charge you a hefty fee to do so), as their billing system was intended for checks. I still see the fax machine (now a multi-function center with a modem) being used constantly, both at home and at work, for various tasks that can’t be done over email.

Also, I have both a VHS/DVD combo and a working Betamax in my bedroom, but that’s more out of nostalgia (and to play back the 30+ years of old tapes we have) than just being backward; they sit next to a DVR from the cable company and a 2000s PC with video-in.

Why should your group be told this was happening? It was a poll designed to give us a snapshot of what the general feeling is on campus and it did that. It would be less accurate if we had publicised it as it would then become about which campaign could turn out more of their core support.

The result is analysed by Mr Pia as he is a lecturer in Journalism at the university and as a very prominent media figure with experience of the sharp end of scottish politics. We offered both Better Together and YES the oppurtunity to provide an interview, they both declined to offer even a quote. That’s how much they both cared about this yesterday morning when they were contacted.

But the reactions of your readers stunned me far more than the contents of the article. I understand that you wrote this from your viewpoint and about a limited area of your experiences. People evaluate this article as though it were an exhaustive thesis on the current state of technology in Japan as a whole and as opposed to much of the rest of the world. I was grateful for what the article gave me – a different perspective on some aspects of life in Japan than is the usual. I never expected to end up with an unclouded picture of Japan’s place in the world or the final result of tedious research into the socioeconomics of Japanese IT. Do people really expect every article to be exhaustive and to represent the absolute average of everything that it discusses? An article that points out the average, the median, the most common, is not one that would be very interesting to read except if that average is quite different from what was expected. News is made from the unexpected, not the day to day. I was quite satisfied with both the scope and contents of the article.

I really am puzzled by the comment about grammar. My “grammar radar” is, I believe, quite good. Bad grammar sticks out for me and eventually pushes the contents to the background if scandalous enough. Like spelling errors, bad grammar seems to stand out in relief against the background, as though the page were 3D. That didn’t happen with this article. “Image this scenario” sounds perfectly fine to me, fine enough that I actually imagined that it was probably the preferred diction in some English-speaking locations. It never occurred to me that it was “wrong” or meant to be something else.

In short, I question the soundness of your critics.

Thanks again.