High-speed rail
don’t tell America. pretend it’s multiple automobiles welded together and they’ll like it
I honestly think we should build normal light rail stations with RGB gamer lights and crap and hype it like it’s futuristic tech. it works for musk’s tesla taxi tunnel so it should work for actually good public transit too. maybe make the bodywork on the trains look like some dumb sci-fi movie
Just tell them they run on coal.
pretend it’s multiple pickup trucks welded together
Fixed for 'murican tastes
Duh, we have high-speed rail in Morocco. It’s called Al Boraq and is the best way to blast from Casablanca to Tangier.
And it is not overpriced like in France, where the tgv is more expensive than a taxi to the airport, your plane ticket, and then another taxi.
I thought I was the only Moroccan on Lemmy.
I also live in an area that doesn’t get served by the Al Boraq. We don’t have trains in general over here and I am jealous.
I also learned about the Al Boraq’s existence the hard way, because in the summer of 2022, my family had to drive me from Casablanca to Tangier and back by car, which took us like 3 hours on one trip.
Tgv is awesome but I do agree that it is quite expensive
deleted by creator
Don’t quote me on the exact time but I heard somewhere that they run so close to schedule that a bullet train arrived something like 18 seconds late and the company apologized for the delay. ( might have been a minute or two but I recall it was really, really short. )
Confirm. That’s Japan. The driver is in trouble when it’s a minute or more
We’re doing fine with that in Switzerland thanks.
Switzerland doesn’t really have a high speed rail network. In fact they design against it. Indeed the country is very small so it’s not a huge deal but then again there are flights between Geneva and Zürich so it’s large enough for that.
Their rail system is by far the best in Europe though and one of the best in the world only surpassed by the likes of Japan. They just aren’t really know for high speed rail.
Also, the EU just launched a new plan for railroads all across Europe! Ofc Switzerland won’t get any additional upgrades, but they are still somewhat connected because of the proximity.
We’ve been waiting for Germany and Italy to upgrade their railways for a decade now, we invested billions in our alp transit system, but it can’t get used properly without the connecting infrastructure
In other words, no need, we’re already far ahead
I’d kill for a fast track to New Orleans, Atlanta, Little Rock, Tulsa, Nashville, all that. Ply me with cheap beer, let me chill and ride. What a dream.
Kansas city… what I’d kill for a fast track to Chicago, St Louis, Denver and the like…
I mean fuck, at least we have Amtrak to Chicago and one to St Louis… however only runs once a day, takes as long as driving as long as the priority that goes to freight trains doesn’t delay too much.
Private sleeping room. I’d never fly inside the US again.
smug TGV noises
Would love to be able to take a sleeper train to the border with Canada, then have one of my friends from Toronto pick me up so I can visit them.
On the flipside, something most developed countries consider normal but would blow Japanese minds is the ability to do all “paperwork” on your phone or laptop without any paper ever being printed anywhere. Japan is somehow still a country of fax.
I heard Japan described as being “stuck in the year 2000 since the 1980’s”. I think South Korea fits the original question better than Japan nowadays.
Yeah, Japan had a massive tech boom in the 80s and 90s, but then just kinda stopped growing that field. It’s still there and still a strong industry in Japan, but the cultural tech hype isn’t there anymore, it seems.
Part of the reason for the original enthusiasm is that they were enamored by the country’s recovery post-WWII when they managed to barely obtain permissions from transistor patent holders to manufacture in Japan which led to creation of many of the first consumer transistor radio brands among other electronics manufacturing.
They were the cheap electronics labour market before China, as China wouldn’t see notable economic improvement until after the 80s.
I think Shanghai/China fits it even better. The convenience and technological advances are moving crazy fast.
Meh. They’re head to head for most fields, only thing I can think of that they’ve made noteworthy advances in would be superheated coal burning efficiency to squeeze out more power and at the same time capture more emissions than any comparative western facility. China as a whole has some of the lowest per capita emissions of any nation, though their numbers might not be as accurate for several reasons.
Even their rocketry is kind of pathetic, I think India might even have the edge over them on that front.
That might be true, I have no idea but for day to day stuff, is amazing.
deleted by creator
I was there in the last few years and couldn’t believe how much of the country was still cash only!
Germany is very much the same way, in terms of paperwork and cash only.
Germany is the same as Japan in more ways than i could have thought.
I’m there right now from Australia, which is often considered one of the most cashless societies and yeah, it’s really a shock.
To be honest I kind of like it, and the way they manage it.
Here in the Netherlands you can pay practically everywhere electronically (even the door to door collectors for charities carry a qrcode in addition to their collection box) , but if you go next door to Germany you’d better bring cash if you want to buy anything.
And when it isn’t cash only it’s a completely random grab bag between credit cards, transit cards, QR codes, app payment and e money. Just hope you have the supported option of like 20 options.
They’ve made a stunning amount of progress in accepting credit cards in the past couple years though. I’m there pretty regularly and the shift has been wild. By spring 2023 I didn’t really need cash anymore. By fall, I used cash maybe twice.
There was one thing I was sure I’d need cash for— nope, the hotel paid them and added it to my tab. Back in the day, that mostly happened only if you skipped out on a reservation and the restaurant wanted to collect the cancellation fee. Which has never happened to me so I guess I’m not sure it worked exactly like that.
I know a lot of people here hate credit cards and only use cash, but it’s honestly a pretty large hassle to get cash in every country you visit. Using the same card everywhere is way more convenient and cheaper (exchange fee + no % back like with a credit card)
Isn’t this because of those special stamps they use in Japan to notorize documents? I heard about them on a podcast: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/hanko/
I’ve heard it’s just more of a burocracy thing. A friend there once told me he always puts the date wrong on the top of documents because there is a person who’s job is to double check your work. They’re judged on how often they find mistakes, so it’s easier to put something blatantly wrong at the top that easily fixed so they can quickly find it and he can move on.
sweats in german
We are getting more and more stuff, but they often have a really shit UX. We can do some stuff on PC since the “My Number” card system, but that also requires installing all kinds of software, only works in certain browsers, etc.
You can fax at your local public library. It was only about six months ago that my state’s social services dept. stopped requiring faxes.
Are you talking about Japan here?
No, Indiana.
Oh, that’s in the US isn’t it?
Ja
sorry this is gross:
i do not understand american’s aversion to the bidet. why would i want to wipe my ass with dry fucking paper rather than water? why why why. like it’s somehow ‘gross’ to use water. but scraping at wet shit with fucking tissue paper is hygienic and normal?
American with bidet for 2.5 yrs. I hate shitting anywhere else now. Need a shower to get a new ass. Day is ruined.
pro tip: get a mobile one. Its basically just a plastic bottle with a nozzle screwed on. Some even come with little travel bags.
Pro tip: Those are called douches, pretty sweet huh?
I am not carrying around a tube for my asshole
Yeah, I have one of these for backpacking. Works great.
Same.
My ass is squeaky clean at home.
I think we got our bidets at the same time
Woot deal?
Installed one for my Filipina wife. Never used it myself. I have shit on that pot for months, still forget it’s there. Old habits die hard.
Dude. Do it. Go. Right now. Don’t even need to drop heat. Just go freshen up.
Yeah I gave it a go. Not a fan. Took a lot of drying and I’m not very messy.
Just use 2 squares of paper
I got one with a dryer that makes that a lot better. It does take too long to fully dry it though, so it’s this middle ground of not too wet to dry off, and not waiting forever for the dryer.
Do you not use any toilet paper? That’s gross. You need at least a tiny bit, it helps to dry too
Sorry my bad. Yes a little toilet paper. Much less because of the dryer.
OK guys – Think about this – What if you got shit on your hands or anywhere else on your body. Would you make this argument? Would you think that would be OK if someone told you they just wiped it off with a paper towel and went on about their day? no.
Somebody once said it to me like this: “If you faceplant into a pile of shit, would you rather wipe your face with a dry paper, or use water for cleaning”
I think you’re shitting wrong…
Bath tub. With soap. My SO washes his dick every time he pees and his ass every time he shits. After he wipes.
People don’t wash their ASS after they SHIT??
I think wet wipe would be best, and it’s my favorite option.
This is also gross. There’s a lot of men in the US that thinks touching there ass is gay so they never clean them.
I have heard this so many times, but I absolutely refuse to believe that it is real.
So they don’t even jerk off?
That’s gay
N O-
Surely that’s an urban legend, like truck nutz and decent beer.
It is serious, and don’t call me Shirley.
Pretty much every thread we have in this community, someone comes along to say “you should pressure-wash your asshole”. I’m mildly bemused that this is what Lemmy obsesses over.
It’s not just Lemmy, the sentiment is on Reddit and such as well.
I’ve always heard it explained like this (which I wholeheartedly agree with). Imagine you’re hiking a trail in the forest, and you trip on a rock and fall. By chance, you land on turd of excrement, luckily it only smears part of your arm and elbow with shit. Would you be fine just taking a piece of toilet paper and scraping it off? Or, would you feel compelled to wash it off with water, perhaps also soap?
Why wouldn’t you just use paper, if you scrape hard enough it wouldn’t even smell and be just as clean, arguably?
If you would at least use water, why do you extend to your elbow a courtesy that you don’t extend to your anus?
The point is that there’s a lot of people who walk through life with a dirty asshole, but then try to act morally superior regarding personal hygiene, and I think that that’s not right.
Dude, you think I haven’t heard that explanation before? Did you forget where we are?
I was in Asia and got pretty horrible food poisoning. My wife suggested we head over to this Japanese mall. Spent the day there. Use the toilet, walk around, buy something, use the toilet. That was the ideal toilet to have in that situation.
I don’t understand this either, toilets already require running water and have plenty of room to integrate bidet function. It’s not fancy tech or anything… in North America that’s sort of how they’re marketed though, with an emphasis on the settings, like its something you have to learn to use.
I live in Japan. My wife and I recently went to visit my family in the US and I hated every minute of the toilet situation.
I own a BioBidet 2000. My friend Brian has one at his house and he convinced me to just try it. I did. And then I ordered one for myself before I left the bathroom.
What makes it better than my luxe bidet that I got for $20
I’ve never used your $20 Luxe bidet to know the difference, but I’m going to assume it doesn’t have a heated seat, heated water, variable pressure settings, massage settings, and an enema setting. If those features don’t interest you, then nothing at all makes it better. Use what you like. My wife just really loves the heated seat in the winter time.
You had me at heated seat. Fucker’s cold this time of year. Feel like I’m going to get my ass stuck to it.
Tell Brian thank you. I just used his and ordered one too.
Edit: I really did order one though, my current bidet needs an upgrade.
Fear of the Koch bros?!
Completely agree. I was raised with bidets/ water cleaning. TP That’s just a dry off or catch those last few drops
They’ve become increasingly common in recent years. I don’t think there’s as much of an aversion as you appear to imagine.
Cultures who use bidets and not the bum gun will always confuse me. Ones a robot strapped to the toilet that does a medicore job at one thing, then other is a cheap water gun you can use for all sorts of shit (pun intended).
I used them while visiting Europe. They made my ass incredibly itchy. I’m good with the paper and washing my hands.
How does water make your butt itchy?
He was applying the water with a dildo 😞
Like someone at the bar whose seat is too far from the counter, he was trying to push his stool in
Ahh yes, deep cleaning.
A very itchy dildo?
Uhhm, I’m not a doctor and this is not medical advice, but. You should talk to a proctologist about hemorrhoids or other blood circulation issues. Anuses are not supposed to itch when lightly sprayed with water, or ever for that matter, and that sensation might be a sign of tissue inflammation. Don’t ask me how I know this.
This was many years ago. The itching didn’t happen immediately. Good advice to not take medical advice in social media comments.
The itching didn’t happen immediately
That’s worse.
Water coming from the nastiest thing in the building in contact with the part of my skin that’s got a low barrier to things passing through it? Get fucked.
Motherfucker, you just shat out of your delicate asshole. Tap water ain’t gonna hurt it.
I think it’s more… What other people did with the bidet hardware that might result in it spraying other things with said tap water.
You do know that toilets are like, the easiest to clean piece of furniture ever invented. Like the thing is designed to withstand being sprayed with chlorine on the regular. It’s literally a porcelain basin that has a built in water flushing system. If it’s your home’s private toilet, no one else but you will ever use it and you can make it as clean as you want it to before using it.
Even then, epidemiologically, in any given public bathroom, you’re several orders of magnitude more likely to catch an illness from the door handle than the toilet.
See “the cons”. I’m lightly convinced for private residences… Public restrooms as awful as I’ve seen them, I don’t know about.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/11/30/bidet-hygiene-pros-cons/
[About the study that claims changes in vagina’s bacteria] The study would “have to be repeated” for researchers to draw any conclusions, Swartzberg says.
This could go either way, bottom line, we don’t know.
bidet nozzles were contaminated with infection-causing organisms such as Staphylococcus aureus and Enterococcus spp.
So does your fridge, but no one is advocating against using fridges to store food.
You need to regularly clean it.
Uhh? duh. Such a radical concept, hygiene, that’s surely too much for most people. You also have to regularly clean your whole bathroom. What’s the con?
It’s also important to pay attention to your bidet’s water pressure and temperature
The level to which some articles infantilize adults is the really scalding issue here. Top water temperature of a typical household heater should be no higher than 120 F (48° C), unless you do something seriously wrong, my guess is you’ll be fine.
I’m less worried about whatever diseases I may already have and more worried about those coming from others. You can have butthole splash time all you want. If you’re toilet is entirely private, maybe that’s even good. I’m not doing it.
Do you also avoid brushing your teeth on the bathroom? Because I have some news about poop particulate and toothbrushes for you.
No, but I don’t keep my toothbrush in the bathroom for that reason.
Excellent public transportation
WITCHCRAFT
Is is a joke I’m too European to understand?
As I understood, lots of Japan is rural, and travel between places outside of the main cities and tourist spots is limited. It’d be like saying the US has good public transport because of the NY subway…
I got out to the middle of fucking nowhere on a mountain by taking the Shinkansen, then a local small train, then a bus, and finally a taxi because I didn’t want to wait 20m for a shuttle bus
Compared to California (home, comparable size and layout tbh) it’s way easier to get to remote places period thanks to the public transit system
Quite literally to do the same trip I did in Japan in CA I’d have Maybe a slow ass Amtrak line to get me close-ish in twice the time of the Shinkansen and still have an hours drive of my own rented car to get there
I’ve traveled from tiny towns in northern Japan to major cities like Tokyo. All on public transportation. Bullet trains, local trains, they’re very well connected to each other.
We have trains out to hubs in the countrysides here as well. Generally, they only run hourly the in a lot of the countryside.
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.
Japan’s current fiber-optic commercial internet connections use optical fiber transmission windows known as L and C multi-core fiber (MCF) bands to transport data long distances at record speeds. Meanwhile we (USA) have fiber back to copper and Cat3 for the last few hundred feet in most cities at best making the entire idea into a bottle neck.
There are a lot of very good reasons to switch back to copper for the last portion of a run. I highly doubt that consumer internet in Japan is terminating fiber directly into peoples’ computers. Fiber is a lot more expensive both for the line, to run it, more prone to breakage, the network cards are more expensive, etc. It’s really not needed for most purposes.
Also no one uses cat3 for data and it can’t be run for ‘hundreds of feet’. And LC fiber IS used in the US - that’s a kind of connector not the kind of fiber.
I highly doubt that consumer internet in Japan is terminating fiber directly into peoples’ computers.
You run fiber to the home and gigabit ethernet or whatever internally in the premises. All your other complaints re: cost and etc aren’t really an issue for last mile consumer grade fiber.
I have seen installers run a fiber drop cable across from a power pole, bring it down an outside wall , then staple it to joists under a house, cleave off the end and stick a mechanical splice on it, bang it in the power meter, all good, plug it in the fiber modem, good to go in less than 20 minutes. All this stuff uses standard components and technology that’s been available for 10+ years now.
Also no one uses cat3 for data and it can’t be run for ‘hundreds of feet’. And LC fiber IS used in the US - that’s a kind of connector not the kind of fiber
It’s probably the standard “last mile” half assed solution where they decide to use existing phone lines and VDSL from a box down the street instead of biting the bullet and running fiber.
This is how it works in the UK too. I’ve got Fibre To The Premises (FTTP), and the installation was pretty much exactly as you described.
deleted by creator
I’m in Italy and I have a fiber internet port inside my home
Not on your computer though
This is like arguing that SMS is still a good messaging platform.
Which US-americans will happily argue for
No it’s not? Fiber is a bad solution for short runs for residential use inside people’s homes. Copper can pull 10 gig speeds or more.
Well, almost all apartments in the city I live in has fiber. They all have a box in a corner somewhere.
Then we pull a standard ethernet cable to our router and we run full speed.
Maybe I’m not knowledgeable enough on the area, but why is that bad?
They are arguing that inside the nlhouse ople don’t use fiber, they use the ethernet copper cable from the router. Which is like, fine, okay, that’s true, but also not at all what people are arguing and not something that should be required to be pointed out in this context.
People are arguing that in some US cities the Internet distribution is done through copper for the whole building/complex, and just like you, in my home there’s a fiber port into my router, which then I use cat7 copper cables for my stuff. But up until my router there’s fiber, which is awesome.
Anyway I hope this clarifies it.
Typing from my Tokyo fiber-to-the-home connection now. They ran it off the pole, installed a little thing in my house, ran the fiber to the modem they make me rent, and it works like a charm.
Yeah, it’s not terminated in your computer though for all the reasons I said.
I don’t think I understand unless you’re expecting me to buy some router and network cards that natively support fiber to go from the modem (which is fiber in from the pole outside).
I have fiber to home in Canada
Have fiber to home here in Arkansas in the US
Yeah, it’s not terminated in your computer though for all the reasons I said.
And so what? I have 1.5 Gb symmetrical with latency to many sites and game servers under 10 ms (on Wi-Fi!)
And you would be wrong.
Sweden is also quite well connected with fiber.
Yes, but nowhere compared to the Netherlands and Denmark
Ofc the size of the countries makes it easier.
Cat3? As in most cities in the US are limited to 10mbps?
No, the average internet download speed in the United State is about 171 Mbps. Though disclaimer, I’m not sure of the exact reliability of that number, different sources are reporting quite a range of speeds, though I don’t see any under 100 Mbps average and I see many reporting well above this. You’d also have to consider median vs average since people with fiber sitting at gigabit speeds may be dragging that number up, median may be lower.
https://www.highspeedinternet.com/resources/fastest-slowest-internet
There are certainly some areas, especially rural, that struggle though. And upload speed is often much worse unless you have fiber. Major cities are definitely getting much better than 10 Mbps down though.
deleted by creator
Cat 3 isnt actually a thing, but people call house phone wiring that. Runs DSL quite well.
Cat 3 is a thing and is basically unshielded twisted pair. You can abuse it quite a bit from its voice grade days to cram a few hundred megabits of VDSL over it if it’s only from your house to the curb.
deleted by creator
Takkyubin.
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.
Good livestock conditions so that food is actually edible raw
There are places in Japan that actually serve chicken sashimi.
I’ve tried it, and I ate the whole plate, but I wouldn’t do it again.
Raw chicken tastes like it smells, and it’s just inferior to every other sashimi - not outright repulsive, but just not as good.
I honestly don’t understand how those specialty chicken sashimi places stay in business. I guess there must be an audience for it, but I can’t imagine why.
That’s nasty and I ate bad sushi from Publix last week.
You have to be in the South. Now that I think about it, Florida sushi sounds like a euphemism for gator roadkill. Florida gas station sushi sounds terrifying.
Haha I did get some gator from a truck stop tiki bar, it was not good either… I’ve lost control of my life.
It’s completely normal for stores to keep cooked, deli style chicken on non-refrigerated shelves all day. I don’t trust it.
This is what we heard. So when visiting my brother, the whole group tried it. Everyone got salmonella poisoning and had explosive diarrhea for two days. That was an interesting shinkansen trip.
Your intuition is right on this, don’t eat raw chicken.
I googled.
“When cooked, chicken can be a nutritious choice, but raw chicken can be contaminated with Campylobacter, Salmonella, or Clostridium perfringens germs. If you eat undercooked chicken, you can get a foodborne illness, also called food poisoning.”
Yeaaaaaah, no way I’ll try it.
Then I think I would like to try cookie dough sashimi
What if you get salmonella!?
Automatic opening doors but they don’t open by a proximity sensor, they open when you press the button. This is the optimal solution as the door doesn’t open needlessly but still allows for ease of access.
Ordering machines, where all your menu options are clearly listed and priced. Pressing on a combo of buttons will print a receipt which you can sit down and show the staff/cook your order.
Water (hot and cold) tapped straight to your dining table for self serve drinks.
Unfortunately becoming less applicable with the smartphone domination finally reaching Japan, but their flip phone technology.
taco bell in particular is embracing the kiosks and it’s wonderful. they have signs in the lobby saying ‘order at the kiosk’ even. and why wouldn’t you? why do people in the US have this pig-like stubbornness where they must have a human stand there and ‘PeRsONaLIze tHE iNtERacTion’ or some shit
Every US McDonald’s I’ve been to for the last…5+ years has had the kiosk system.
There was an article published last year, maybe the year before, where they tested the touch screen kiosks in McDonald’s. Every single one of them has traces of faeces on it.
Even if that wasn’t true, it takes me significantly less time to tell someone my order than to scroll through however many sub menus the restaurant has decided to put their food into, and then select the options for each item and add it to my basket, then check out.
Everything has traces of faeces on it, this fixation on it seems irrational when you put it into context. The burger meat comes from a dead animal that spent it’s life wandering in a field and trampling it’s own shit. The fries come from the root of a plant grown in the dirt. The bun is made from wheat which was probably infested with mice. You yourself are a biological machine that turns food into energy and discards the waste. Your body has a tube filled with faeces right now.
Yes, we try to keep waste separate from food, but the world is not a clean-room.
You also have a skeleton inside you. The body is a terrifying place.
It’s amazing that there’s still room in there for the two wolves.
All of those things are cleaned before being consumed. The touch screen menus are one of the last things you touch before touching and eating your food.
The world may not be a clean room, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to deliberately interact with someone else’s faeces, especially when I’m about to eat.
Doesn’t matter. There’s feces everywhere. When you smell a bad bathroom, a fart, your own poop it is because it is in the air all around you. You’re nose is actually detecting the particles of shit in your nostrils. It is on your clothes, on your skin, on your face, on your hands.
The test used to detect trace amount of feces would likely find feces on door knobs, stove dials, clothes or anything else often touched in your house right now.
Please be one of those people that washes their hands instead of this functioning as some broad, sweeping excuse because “it’s already everywhere.” I don’t know how else fecal matter would be expected to travel to a stove dial.
I wash my hands all the time. I’m not voluntarily gross. The tests will find trace amounts but if you don’t wash your hands after going to the bathroom, you are a gross person passing on loads of bacteria that is exponentially more than the testing will find.
I appreciate the distinction though. There are definitely people that live like that. There used to be a guy at a place I used to work who used to dig in those big trail mix jars people put out sometimes instead of dumping them into something or even dumping them into their hands. Once I was in the bathroom (washing my hands) and saw him leave the stall and just walk straight out. Now I can’t see those without thinking about that. I’ll never touch those things again.
That’s because there’s feces on every person all over them. Your nose works because it detects chemicals of something. If you smell feces it is because it is inside of your nose. Feces is in the air. Smell a fart? It’s now on you. Bathroom smells like shit? It is in the air around you and on you.
Just about 20 years ago when all those soda fountain dispensers tested always had feces detected on them, it wasn’t because some bandit was going around the world smearing shit on them every day, it is because it is always every where.
According to the BBC article that talks about the McDonalds touch screen, they say the same thing.
As someone that has to work in very close proximity to feces, smelling it is a good sign. Not smelling it is the alarm bell.
I didn’t even consider that, America is just filled with ‘people’ who barely even qualify as such. it’s no wonder we can’t have nice things.
Having to crawl through multiple menus to order is not that big of a deal for restaurants. They don’t value your time, they value their staff time (because they have to pay for it). There is probably very little ongoing cost to double the number of order kiosks while every additional human taking orders needs to be paid minimum wage. The restaurant owner watches with hate as their money slowly melts away while you decide if you want pickles, fried onions, and jalapenos on your burger.
That’s a good point. I could be in the restaurant for an hour trying to order, and as long as there are other kiosks available, it wouldn’t make a difference to them.
This is not a good point. This is just a company making us their unpaid employees.
Yes, that’s the point that TAG made. It’s something that I hadn’t considered, and it’s a good point.
The fact that it’s something shitty that businesses do doesn’t affect the fact that TAG made a good point.
Because I don’t want to be bombarded with ads and “did you consider this offer” shit and take 5 minutes to use some usability nightmare? Because I do not want to touch a greasy screen that 362 people used today without washing their hands after taking a shit? Because I do not support corpo greed that will not rest until every employee has been fired?
“BUt I LiKe tOucHy fLaSHy SCreeNy!!”
What are you, morons?
“Would you like fries with that?”
“Would you like to supersize that?”
“We have an offer on…”
“Paying by card? Type your pin into that well used machine. Cash? OK hand me the piece of paper that have touched hundreds of hands and maybe nostrils”
Maybe my people are bad at their jobs but my fast food people just take the order without any real upsell most of the time. PIN is only for debit. I almost never have to actually touch payment controls these days. NFC tap and away.
Why should I have to do everything myself when I’m at a commercial establishment? Why is interaction with a human a bad thing? I absolutely hate self checkout for the same reasons. Quality of service is valuable and humans benefit from interaction.
If you have to push a button, does it really count as an automatic door?
I guess you have a point. What I meant is that it’ll still slide open (like an automatic door does) but you push a button that has a similar feel to a door bell. So, still very accessible and automatic!
Oh yeah, I agree, just needless pedantry on my part :-)
Since I don’t speak Japanese, it was definitely a much preferred setup that made things very simple for me when I visited.
Water (hot and cold) tapped straight to your dining table for self serve drinks.
This in particular sounds awesome, speaking as a heavy water drinker who always feels like a bit of a heel having to pester busy wait staff to come over and refill my water glass a bunch of times.
I often see buildings in Japan that have a manual sliding door followed by either a push button or proximity automatic door. If I am going to have to open one door myself, I might as well open both. If one is automatic, the other might as well be too.
Automatic opening doors but they don’t open by a proximity sensor, they open when you press the button. This is the optimal solution as the door doesn’t open needlessly but still allows for ease of access.
Ordering machines, where all your menu options are clearly listed and priced. Pressing on a combo of buttons will print a receipt which you can sit down and show the staff/cook your order
I see those all the time over here in my European country.
The hot and cold water thing is not common at all. A few sushi places and bars have it. But it’s quite rare tbh.
Automatic opening doors but they don’t open by a proximity sensor, they open when you press the button.
I think it would be cool to have a hybrid system where you can wave/nod/bow to a sensor to activate it, but also implement an open standard frequency that can trigger it so people with reduced mobility can mount a transmitter on a wheelchair/cane etc. or just use their cellphone. Would eliminate having any external equipment that would be exposed to weather or vandalism and is one less common surface for the public to have to touch.
The need to push a button everyone else pushed, is how you get covid :p
I work in a pharma research facility, so people can have literally any disease or chemical on their hands, so we have a lot of doors with hand wave sensors.
Just wag your mitts in front of it, and the door opens. They’re on the wall a few steps before the door, so the door is usually open by the time you get to it.
I work in a hospital, we use these long vertical elbow buttons or rfid readers with a badge which is also touchless.
And if I need to push a button like in elevators, I use the knuckle of my ring finger.
Some even have this little touch tool on their Keychain to touch screens or buttons.
deleted by creator
A mindset of quality.
CNC Machines that are built in Japan are so much Mount Betterest than their ‘Made in America’ counterparts. Even under the same company name.
Visit any shop that requires quality around the world and you’ll see Japanese made machines almost everywhere.
Refrigerators that make way less noise than the ones we have here. Japanese more often live in small apartments so noise is a bigger nuisance. But, those refrigerators are ridiuclously expensive by our standards. I had been interested in buying one, oh well.
Japanese more often live in small apartments
Cries in NYC
Another big difference is the apartments are actually very affordable. Two minimum wage earners could afford a
32 bedroom apartment in 6 of the 23 wards in Tokyo.EDIT: 2 bedroom, not 3.
Yeah that’s honestly insane.
You do realize a 3 bedroom appt is like 40-60m2 over here right?
40m^2 seems small. 60m^2 is 645 sq ft, so a bit smaller than we’re used to, but not enough to make up the price difference.
An average apartment in Tokyo is less than 200sq. ft, less than a third of New York’s average apartment size of ~700sq. ft.
When I looked into it a few years ago, I found that, contrary to the stereotype, Japanese homes are surprisingly big. Smaller than the US or Canada, which are some of the biggest in the world, but actually bigger than most of Europe.
The result of a quick search: the average Tokyo apartment is 65.9 sq m (710 sq ft). The modal apartment size is 19.7 sq meters (212 sq ft), so maybe that’s what you’re referring to. But that’s only 21% of Tokyo apartments.
How much is that in communist units?
There are tons of silent and near-silent refrigerators in the US
Got a url? Not the very inefficient ammonia type, or the Peltier type that won’t freeze stuff. Thanks.
Doesn’t anyone check the dB an appliance makes? It’s one of the first things I check, as I hate loud devices.
Those crazy toilets
deleted by creator
No, I meant the ones with all kinds of buttons that has 5 different bidet settings and heated seats and plays music when you flush
plays music when you flush
Please tell me this is something you can customize. I didn’t realize until now that I need a toilet that plays John Williams’ “Olympic Fanfare” when I take a dump.
Therapist: Japanese toilets aren’t real, they can’t hurt you.
Japanese toilets:
I saw an ad for the Squatty Potty and decided to put 2 phone books in the bathroom instead. it worked well enough
Where did you find a phone book?
Next to the landline
I use my kids’ step stool.
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.
Their ability to actually build things. The amount of construction projects I saw while visiting was insane, and they get it done fast.
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
They had a lot of practice with all their empty scam apartment buildings.
Are you thinking about China?
Oh ye. Sorry.
When your xenophobia is eager but bad at geography.
Pretty common unfortunately in America.
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.
It’s so stupid.
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.
See also: Africa.
There are people on the Web unable to distinguish between Asia as in “China, Japan, Kamboja, Vietnam …” and Asia as in “Iran and Saudi Arabia”.
There’s a reason “USA doesn’t know geography” is a worldwide joke
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.
Well can’t fault honesty
Automated underground bike storage
It’d be cool if they had those here but I swear we have enough idiots that would try to get in for shits and giggles and maim themselves
We can’t have a lot of things because that 1% is fucking morons.
Everything from clean public bathrooms to high end vending machines.
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.
Dunno how to fix it. It just sucks.
Don’t forget privacy in toilet stalls - I’ve seen the huge gaps in doors in the US.
Make it self cleaning. Problem will solve itself after a while
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”.
New viral challenge…
Now you got me seriously depressed.
“Not only will this kill you, but it will hurt like hell the whole time you’re dieing”
Where is that sentence from?
Why can’t we have basic, objective, uncomplicated worded warnings like that? Maybe the stupid ratio would drop.
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.
Meanwhile, I can’t retrieve my bike because someone’s mangled arm is jamming the main lift.
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.
Maybe, hopefully? I’d imagine whatever idiotproofing they do won’t be sufficient for the wild.
That’s the premise behind /r/ArchitectureForAdults: architecture that’s dangerous for morons, but safe for everyone else
We got a few of bike towers on the ground in Czechia. Very neat.
Why does this remind me of Death Stranding?
