You could put giant billboards warning for the risk and it would still become a recurring event. Even if it said “warning: this is capable of grinding a human being to pulp”.
I’ve heard of it posted on high voltage electrical panels, but never seen it myself (I’m not an electrician). I don’t know if I got the wording exactly right, but it sounds good.
I’d imagine it’s got weight and pressure sensors, so I don’t think a person would get very far. I can definitely see the mechanism getting jammed by garbage or some shit, especially if someone’s trying to jam it.
US here… it has less to do with the 1% being fucking morons and more to do with the only infrastructure we actually pay any attention to is cars. Sure we’re having a bit of a bicycle revolution but at least in my area the bikes aren’t being used for transport but for fun, but then that’s with a metro that’s sprawling with a city that’s only 100 sq miles smaller than NYC, with 8,000,000 less people in it. Add that the auto companies were allowed to buy out things like the streetcar that was local and able to tear up the tracks to get rid of competition, it really isn’t a shocker.
But we’re now stuck in a cyclical spiral, of no investment for things like this are happening because it’s not seen as profitable enough. Which means a constant problem of using something like a bike for commuting is “But then I have nowhere I can put my bike where it won’t get fucked with.” so people don’t commute with it, which leads to no investment to the infrastructure.
I still think about how Blizzard originally made their WoW expansion, Panderia, to include Samurai and sushi. And someone had to explain them the difference between China and Japan.
That’s not even necessarily mixing the two up so much as failing to distinguish cultures within “Asia” in the first place. A lot of people think of the whole region as one place. Put some soy and garlic on something? You’ve got an “Asian” dish. Never mind that there are numerous regional culinary traditions within China alone.
Yes, but not to mention Asia as in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh! 1.5 billion people living on the Asian continent, but “Asian” in popular American usage seems to only refer to China/Korea/Japan, and maybe Southeast Asia to a slightly lesser extent.
Ye-es. And then SE Asia is not the same as CJK, and then Middle Asia is not the same as West Asia/Middle East, and then India in itself has Dravidic parts, and then …
Though, returning to the example above with “Asian” dish, in Russia people usually refer to cuisine by country, not by continent. But may make a few diplomatic errors (possibly mistakes) this way, like saying that Armenians and Iranians drink Turkish coffee, etc.
This has absolutely nothing to do with xenophobia. This was based on a documentary of chinese economic waste and the people that fall into poverty because of it.
Fast my ass. Once they finally start maybe… But it takes ages to lay the first stone. There’s not enough people available to build everything they want to build. It’s a serious issue
Ok, well maybe they have a long pipeline of projects ready to be built, but they are getting things built. I went with a friend who was there like 5 years prior and he said everything looked totally different since the last time he was there. I don’t know about the planning process but even if that’s slow that’s still way better than most places where it also takes ages to get something started, takes ages to get something built, and they don’t have enough projects going through the planning process in the first place.
They have a device which progressively shines a light on a piece of paper while moving across the page and converts the brightness of the reflected light into an audio signal. Once it reaches the edge the paper is incremented and the process repeats. Each of these segments of sound are sent via a standard telephone connection to a similar device on the other end which uses the sounds to reproduce the image on the original paper on a new sheet of paper. This can be used to send forms, letters, black and white pictures, and even chain letters. It also forms the basic underpinning of a significant fraction of formal communications with landlords, employers, medical systems, government offices, and so on.
I think he’s saying that, for as futuristic as Japan may seem, they also still rely on outdated methods for certain things, just like every other country.
Ironically, I just noticed this morning that the pizzaria on the corner (here, in the US) can take orders via fax (as well as in person, via phone, and on the Web).
I don’t know about today, but back around 2000, stuff on the Japanese market was quite a bit ahead of the US in small, portable, personal electronic devices, like palmtop computers and such. I remember being pretty impressed with it. But then I also remembered being surprised a few years later when I learned that personal computer ownership was significantly lower than in the US. I think that part of it is that people in Japan spend a fair bit of time on mass transit, so you wanted to have small, portable devices tailored to that, and that same demand doesn’t really exist in the US.
Then everyone jumped on smartphones at some point after that, and I think things homogenized a bit.
Yeah, PC games are a nothing market in Japan as virtually no one owns a gaming PC; they’re much more likely to own a console (Sony and Nintendo are domestic companies) or a mobile device.
I think it’s because the country did not significantly recover from the 90s financial crisis, and their society is so conservative that they literally could not try anything modern again afterwards
They literally went “industrial society and it’s consequences have been a disaster for Japanese society”
The impact of the financial crisis reverberates to this day, and that drives a huge proportion of the issues, but the crisis in my opinion was inevitable. From my perspective, the Post-War Economic Miracle, as it’s called, catapulted Japan through all the stages of economic development into an almost accelerated version of the same problems that are afflicting the U.S. and other Western countries.
The dream of infinite growth in the Japanese context fell flat for the same reasons it is falling apart in other developed countries. A rise in standard of living and wages led to offshoring and outsourcing of production, the hollowing out of the middle class, a work culture at odds with family life, and so on. The country’s land and businesses were valued in the late 1980s as though it could remain competitive internationally with a mostly domestic supply chain, even as the production costs of its goods continued to rise along with the needs of its population, which in a globalized economy turned out to be a pipe dream.
We see the same thing in the U.S., where every president promises to restore the American manufacturing base, then comes up against the reality that U.S.-produced products made by U.S. workers paid U.S. wages cannot be competitive with something built in Southeast Asia and shipped overseas for less than $100 per ton. But the conservatism of Japanese society certainly plays a role, in that the country is highly resistant to change, and also due to a rigidity that stifles innovation, making it hard to start new businesses outside the keiretsu/conglomerate structure. The U.S. has somewhat mitigated its manufacturing decline through the creation of new service sector and especially tech businesses that operate internationally, which path is less available to Japan due to the rigidity of its business structure.
But the part I disagree with is the idea that Japan has rejected industrial society. Japan is still extremely proud of its culture and the impact it’s had globally. They love that people in western countries eat ramen and sushi, play Nintendo games or watch anime, and they have a deep reverence for their globally successful businesses and particularly the auto industry. They have no desire to reject or withdraw from industrial society, they just haven’t been able to figure out amidst external economic barriers, and internal cultural and financial barriers, how to move forward.
We see the same thing in the U.S., where every president promises to restore the American manufacturing base, then comes up against the reality that U.S.-produced products made by U.S. workers paid U.S. wages cannot be competitive with something built in Southeast Asia and shipped overseas for less than $100 per ton.
That is the lie they tell us. Meanwhile we do everything we can to make we don’t have an industrial base.
We zone factories far away from everything instead of allowing them to be in normal commuting range
We tax the land they are on the same way we tax commercial property. Which you might think is fair but we don’t do that to farmers. Especially considering how easy retail gets it, with governments willing to give plenty of free roads and police protection to them
We treat inventory as taxable which punishes factories that want a buffer and rewards the quick turnover of fast fashion places. Ever wonder why they never have your size and you have to go to the website to get it?
Thanks to our shit medical system any workplace injury is going to be devastating which means that the insurance as a whole will be very high.
Factory investments take longer to pay off which doesnt mean much when we all think quarterly. A tax on rapid stock trading could probably fix that but that isn’t going to happen.
There are other factors as well. We don’t hire women to do factory work which limits the labor pool. There is still a lot of discrimination against Latinos and African Americans. Which again lowers the labor pool and kinda leaves us with…well the kind of people who feel only comfortable only working with white Christian men.
I’ve seen some in the US that run slowly until you get close. I guess they think that if it was stopped completely, people would assume it’s non-operational.
Found at 7-11, combo ketchup/mustard blister pack that when you simply bend and squeeze together, ketchup and mustard come out evenly for your corn-dog and no mess for your fingers.
You have tomato sauce packets? It’s funny to think of ketchup as tomato sauce, in the US if you called it that everyone would be confused even though it is really the most accurate thing you could call it
We would call the sauce for burgers, fries etc ketchup, ‘tomato sauce’ in the US would be the sort for pasta, like marinara. If you asked for tomato sauce for a burger people would be very confused lol.
Is it though? There are other things people refer to as tomato sauce and that could be confusing. As an Italian living in Australia i cringe every time someone refers to ketchup as tomato sauce. Tomato sauce should be a beautiful thing that goes in pasta, lasagne and all gorgeous food stuff. Ideally home made.
The vinegary shit that drunk people here put on their meat pie (that BTW would taste beautifully as they comes out of the oven, no need to put any nasty shit on it) - it’s called ketchup and you just ruined that beautiful pie.
If you have a large suitcase or other parcel it may be unwieldy to walk around Tokyo or another city with it. Subways only allow one suitcase of a certain size, so you might have to take a much more expensive taxi.
Instead you can go to a desk at the airport and have your luggage delivered same day or next day to ~any hotel, subway station, or convenience store. It will be insured and kept safe for you there to pick up. And at the end of your trip, you can send it back. The price for this convenience? Around $10.
This is not only a good demonstration of Japanese trust and customer service, it’s also a legitimately hard logistics problem. I daresay that such a business could not succeed in the US both because of our defensiveness and sprawling cities.
There’s definitely a huge difference in service work ethic in Japan, which probably leads to those reliability stats. I don’t even know if I consider it a good or bad thing, because it’s super-nice when you’re relying on them there, but I can also tell that waiting on people hand and foot wears on people’s mental health, and it often shows across that country.
Wow that is fantastic. I’m surprised no one “imported” that one to the states in “make everything a start-up!” days early-mid 2010s.
As a tip, it’s not quite as convenient but most hotels will let you check a bag with them, even if you’re not a guest. I’ve done that at different conferences (usually 1st day and/or last day) when I had a day left, didn’t want to haul my bag, but couldn’t go to from my hotel. I think I got turned down once and it was simply because they were full.
Can’t believe noone has mentioned the hot beverage vending machines.
Its so fucking nice to spend $1-$1.50 and just get some hot tea or coffee right there without issue. And they’re everywhere so you can pretty much rely on them.
So much more convenient than having to go to a coffee shop so you can pay $5 for the same thing, and the vending machine version still tastes great.
It’s likely not as cool as Japanese vending coffee, but in the UK there are Starbucks/Costa etc vending machines all over. Do Americans (sorry assuming you are from US) not have those?
the ones at racetrac are pretty great imo. i get the lightest roast they have (more caffeine) and dump a bunch of sugar and cream into it but it’s pretty good black, too
No, not that I’ve seen except for at highway rest stops. They have automated coffee vending machines that sells some brown nasty tasting water. Definitely not coffee
(The link above shows the scene I’m speaking of. I tried to embed the URL into this comment so the picture itself would display, but I couldn’t figure it out.)
Also from the US west, I’ve seen a bunch of hot vending machines! In several hospitals and schools in different states, a few gas stations. They will have coffee, tea or cocoa selections, a cup pops out and gets filled with fresh brewed coffee. They were usually around 1.50 to 2 dollars a cup, maybe more expensive now though.
But are those like a hot coffee dispenser, where you grab a cup and put it under a spout, push a button and it pours out a hot drink? Because we do have those in Australia.
But in Japan they have vending machines for canned drinks and cans of soup that are heated.
This comment made me remember that the tech school in my (US) hometown of ~4000 people had a machine like this roughly 20 years ago and I’ve never seen another one since.
I used to see these more often in Canada but now they’re pretty unusual. Not heated cans like some Japanese machines, just cups of coffee and sometimes lattes and shit.
Now you’re forced to pay $3+ for muddy garbage at Tim’s/McDonalds and you have to wait in line to get it too. Alternatively drop $7+ at Starbucks for ok coffee? I can make better tasting coffee with a drip machine, let alone my French press.
They also have much more popularized versions of canned coffee than us; I occasionally see bad overpriced Starbucks coffee bottles in grocery store checkouts, but not something small, quick, and convenient like BOSS.
$40 for the basic ones. They still work great, (I have them on all my toilets at home!) but they definitely aren’t as flashy as the Japanese toilets. Self-cleaning seats, heated seats, heated water for the bidet, etc…
We have plenty of bidets here in the States, they just install them outside the bathrooms and they mount them kind of high so they’re kinda awkward to get a good clean angle, though.
Probably helps that kids are instilled with a sense of cleanliness at a very young age. Kids help cook school lunches on a rotating schedule, and everyone helps clean up afterwards. Litter is also a big social taboo (which is funny because public trash cans are basically nonexistent. You’re expected to carry your trash with you until you get home.)
Saw a video from Denmark I think where everyone is biking everywhere and the metro station has an enormous numbered rack for depositing bicycles for storage. The entire thing is spotless, well maintained, and has zero graffiti.
All I could think is that in the US the fabric of our society and the integrity of the social contract is so degraded that even if we somehow had the political capital to build it - it would be destroyed by individual anti-social behaviors. And we’d certainly never have the wherewithal to maintain or repair it.
I think the problem would be not considering the upkeep. Just look at the roads in the US, individual anti-social behavior didnt graffiti those potholes.
Bathroom mirrors that don’t steam up after taking a shower.
Vending machines that are competent at accepting cash. Everywhere else that I’ve been to, you have to smoothen the bill and make sure it has no wrinkles or bended corners, and even then the machine would sometimes give you a hard time. In Japan, you just insert a stack (!) of bills, and the machine will count them within seconds, and also give you change in bills, and not a gazillion of coins.
Gates at the train stations are also better than everywhere else. You don’t have to wait for the person in front of you to pass the gate, you just insert your ticket and go. You also don’t need to look for arrows or notches or whatever on the ticket to insert it correctly.
Electric kettles that are very quiet and keep the water hot for a very long time.
Trains where all seats face the front, so you don’t have to sit against the direction of travel.
That reminds me. All of the change machines I had the pleasure of using were very gentle when taking your money. Felt kinda jarring coming back to the US where they fucking jank the money our of your hand the second you insert it.
Trains where all seats face the front, so you have to sit against the direction of travel.
I recently took a ride on a historic restored railroad where they run sightseeing tours on period accurate trains with period engines and coaches from the turn of the century. The trip was an out-and-back, and there is nowhere for the train to turn around before the return journey. Everyone was immensely surprised, then, when the conductor came down the aisle and demonstrated to everyone that the seats in those old coaches are reversible, and you can flip the backrest to the other side so you’re facing the right way regardless of which way the train is going. They’re otherwise 100% symmetrical.
Apparently this arcane technology of the reversible seat has been lost somewhere in the intervening 100 years, never to be discovered again. (In America, anyhow.)
Reversible seats sound marginally more expensive to install and maintain. The benefit is to make the customer’s experience better while adding no revenue.
Sounds like some anti-American euro-commie bullshit to me!
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