The Future’s Here Already

You could use this building as a set for an Ian Banks novel:

I can imagine that if you lived in this building complex in Osaka the rest of the ugly urban landscape would be completely obscured – but even the curtain walls and clever angles of this garden within a fortress won’t hide residents from the smog.
The pic is one of a Flickr photostream of Japanese architecture from PoshSentinel.

The Fat Controller

Tama the cat, the stationmaster at Kishi railway station in Kinokawa, western Japan, hard at work. Here, Tama sports her stationmaster cap and a neck sign reading

Cat oversees Japanese train station, brings back passengers

By Kyodo News, via AP

TOKYO (AP) — A money-losing Japanese train company has found the purr-fect mascot to draw crowds and bring back business — tabby Tama.

All the 9-year-old female cat has to do is sit by the entrance of western Japan’s Kishi Station, wearing a black uniform cap and posing for photos for the tourists who are now flocking in from across the nation.

Her job makes cultural sense in Japan, where cats are considered good luck and are believed to bring in business.

Tama has done such a good job of raising revenue for the troubled Kishikawa train line that she was recently promoted to “super-station-master.”

“She never complains, even though passengers touch her all over the place. She is an amazing cat. She has patience and charisma,” said Wakayama Electric Railwayspokeswoman Yoshiko Yamaki. “She is the perfect station master.”

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