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
Some LED strips, diffuser channels, and an ESP32 are all you need to RGB anything. It’s shockingly simple to do this now.
Just tell them they run on coal.
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.
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
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.
Switzerland is very mountainous and has pretty fast trains too, although not Shinkansen-fast. Swiss trains are expensive and comfortable and the vista is pretty much always great.
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.
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’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.
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.
I think Shanghai/China fits it even better. The convenience and technological advances are moving crazy fast.
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I was there in the last few years and couldn’t believe how much of the country was still cash only!
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.
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/
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.
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.
Excellent public transportation
WITCHCRAFT
Is is a joke I’m too European to understand?
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.
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.
Cat 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.
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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 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.
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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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Yeah, I have one of these for backpacking. Works great.
they’re afraid they’ll enjoy it…
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.
It’s not a problem to touch there ass. It’s touching here ass that makes someone gay.
I’d argue anything past the first knuckle is on the spectrum.
Why are we getting my ISP inolved in this imaginary ass play?
$5/mo credit on your bill if you let them install a toilet cam.
Is that $5 per knuckle?
Its a sliding scale.
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”
Bath tub. With soap. My SO washes his dick every time he pees and his ass every time he shits. After he wipes.
Ok that’s too far. You don’t need to get into the bath just because you pissed wtf.
People don’t wash their ASS after they SHIT??
Sorry let me just wash my ass in the public sink when I gotta take a shit and I’m not home?
They’ve become increasingly common in recent years. I don’t think there’s as much of an aversion as you appear to imagine.
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.
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?
It’s like having a second toilet seat. Takes more room.
Not from the US and live in a condo, so I’m speaking from a purely practical standpoint. My condo is not that big and having a bidet would mean that I have no place to put my washer and dryer at.
the bidet is an attachment to your toilet, not a separate thing
That’s not really traditionally true. Modern ones are integrated into the toilet seat, but they used to be a standalone fixture.
Yes, I was thinking about the old designs, haven’t brushed up on new designs.
Sure, in that case, I would consider it, why not.
Oh… well, it was a sparate thing back in the day, haven’t looked up new designs.
You’ll enjoy this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=crDMkN8TZ8k
I suppose there’s also a mini electrical boiler in there somewhere, so the water’s not cold when it hits my ass.
Cool though, will look into this, seems like a nice soltion, toilet paper is getting more and more expensive.
there’s also a mini electrical boiler in there somewhere
Correct!
Those crazy toilets
New band name
If you are referring to the squat toilets, those are quite popular throughout all of Asia and are actually better anatomically speaking for taking a shit
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
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 3 bedroom apartment in 6 of the 23 wards in Tokyo.
Yeah that’s honestly insane.
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.
The bidets, of course. Ultra fast responsive vending machines for commuters on the go.
I came into this thread expecting to see toilets all the way down.
That’s just the lid…usually the toilets are about knee high.
But I would never NOT have a bidet in my house ever again. And yes, I’m in the U.S.
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
i just want to pay cash, otherwise i prefer kiosks… but i see a future of hostile, nagging UI design…
like at some stores self checkout, you have to click 80 different confirmations and give your phone number, email and social security number…That’s why you have GDPR.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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 :-)
From what I see joked about in tv and film: toilets.
From what I know from people who have actually been there personally: Vending machines.
Also they have the most advanced KitKat flavors in the world. I want them. But they’re like specialities of specific regions kinda like Pokemon. It’s wild.
KitKat is Nestle. Fuck that, never give those cunts any of your hard earned money.
I’ll just use my 5-finger discount.
That’s the spirit
Doesn’t really hurt Nestle. The supermarket will buy more inventory, giving Nestle money
I wanted to try all KitKat flavors until I found out about Nestlé.
Fuck Nestlé!
There’s a sampler you can get on Amazon with like 30 Japan flavors or something, but I don’t really like Kit Kat so I’ve never tried it.
One that I haven’t seen mentioned ever was neat flashlights in every hotel room I stayed in. They were all mounted to the wall, and had no power switch. The wall mount had a tab sticking out that separated the batteries, so when you went to use it, the batteries touch and make the circuit. They were always low power, so that you didn’t disturb others in the room, and you have to keep it in its location to turn it back off. They worked well for going to the bathroom at night and not messing up night vision too. I tried finding one in the US, to no avail, but they’re all over in Japanese 100 yen stores. A clever, cheap design.
Forgive me if I’m not understand this correctly, but that just sounds like a fancy nightlight?
It’s probably for use in an emergency like an earthquake.
90s web design?
i miss file
Our Japan group’s website is such a complete early 90’s train wreck.
The odd time I’ve tried to research something in japanese it always felt like going back in time
Not overly high tech but such a good fit for the culture and extremely convenient:
Self-filling, self-warming baths
Put the plug in during the day, press the button to fill the bath at the remote keypad in the kitchen. Baths fills and a little jingle announces that the bath is ready at the perfect temperature.
I’m so jealous of those deep soaking tubs they have too. SO jealous
Good food in convenience stores.
That technology just hasn’t made it to the US yet.
Do gas stations count? Because Kwik Star and Kwik Trip in the Midwest offer excellent food options.
Casey’s breakfast pizza is another. There is zero reason for a gas station to have good breakfast pizza at a reasonable price. But they do.
Their regular pizza is also decent for the price.
not like made to order food like in 711 prepackaged – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVG-3Yug4XA&themeRefresh=1
