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.
pretend it’s multiple pickup trucks welded together
Fixed for 'murican tastes
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
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.
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.
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.
I think Shanghai/China fits it even better.
The convenience and technological advances are moving crazy fast.
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)
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.
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’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.
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
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.
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.
I love how you're being downvoted for having a personal opinion that harms no one but dares to go against the circlejerk.
Yeah 2 of my close friends told me it was the greatest thing they've ever bought. I was very disappointed to say the least.
Because dry wiping doesn't actually clean your ass, it just picks up most of the shit and smears the rest into you.
I understand why you like it. I don't understand why the other person isn't allowed to dislike it. Does it harm anyone if he "smears shit into the rest of him"?
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"
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.
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.
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.
N O-
Surely that's an urban legend, like truck nutz and decent beer.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
It's completely normal for stores to keep cooked, deli style chicken on non-refrigerated shelves all day. I don't trust it.
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.
Fax machine?
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.
I've sometimes heard it phrased that "Japan has been living in the year 2000 since 1980."
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.
Clever! I missed that.
And we're still trying to eliminate fax as a channel we take orders in. We made a big dent a few years ago but we still get a handful a week.
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.
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...
The auto kiosks in Japan take cash and they are also mechanical and not touch-screen based (at least in most stores). They are tactile buttons. :D
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.
It's amazing that there's still room in there for the two wolves.
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.
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 :-)
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.
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.
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 need to push a button everyone else pushed, is how you get covid :p
I work in pharma, 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.
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 hot and cold water thing is not common at all. A few sushi places and bars have it. But it's quite rare tbh.
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.
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.
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.
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!
They have more drink vending machines than you'll believe, with a huge variety ofcold and hot drinks and even soup, but essentially no food vending machines.
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
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.
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.
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.
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 understanding this correctly, but that just sounds like a fancy nightlight?
Edit: I understand now :)
It's probably for use in an emergency like an earthquake.
Bingo
It's just a slightly different design on a standard flashlight. I was able to find this, seems to be a manufacturer of them. Hotel torch they do seem to be mostly for emergencies, but would work well enough to be a night light
Isn't that there to use if an earthquake knocks the power out?
Similar in that it's mounted, different in that it has no buttons/switches and wouldn't be on, or even able to be on when mounted. Those look pretty cool though.
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
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.
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!
Are people really thst bothered about which way they are facing when travelling?
Probably not. But life is full of minor inconveniences like that, and they do add up.
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.
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
Yeah, I've got a self filling one. Nice to run a bath without even getting out of bed. Although if you forget to put the plug in first, you'll arrive to an empty bath.
haha why would they make the solenoid for the water running but not for the drain? that's weak
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
i miss file
It’s just a small thing. The escalators don’t run continuously. They start running as you approach them.
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.
They can put a sign saying it'll run when there's a person. Eventually it'll be common knowledge. I'm just thinking re efficiency.
Bidets. General cleanliness everywhere, kinda like what we had when everyone was cleaning like crazy during the pandemic, but even more so.
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.)
The cleanliness of Tokyo is mind blowing.
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.
I believe the bidet is actually French. I assume that counts as the "Western world."
Kei trucks that are extremely functional and fuel efficient.
The U.S. won't ever get that because they are extremely functional and fuel efficient.
And they are not manly enough for the very manly men in 'Murica.
If you select the wrong floor on an elevator, you can deactivate it by pressing the button again.
🤯
Japan currently doesn't have this in the more normal sense. That Japan is still super high-tech is more of a PR move. I literally had to send a fax to get my current internet (though it is fiber-to-the-home).
Where Japan is innovating is in robots and also its crossovers with an aging population. Possibly also some space stuff.
But for an everyday person, I don't really see anything that doesn't already exist somewhere else. I was raised in the US and have been living in Japan most of the last 10 years.
Japan's been living in the year 2000 since 1980
but they're still in the year 2000...
They have this crazy machine... Slide paper into it and then a hundred miles away a copy of that paper slides out.
I feel like sarcasm is a really strong attitude to have about fax machines.
Also used by doctors here in the Netherlands.
Useable transit
Would definitely blow minds in the US, but most of the rest of the western world is pretty much up to par.
Fax machines
Fax machines are still everywhere in the medical field.
I work in the freight industry, their pretty common here too
Though primarily for specific industries we ship too which includes the medical field
In the USA perhaps, not in Europe.
Vending machines with hot drinks like tea and coffee, that also sell cold stuff.
And beer.
Their vending machines are great and reasonably priced. Which is what keeps me from using any here in the US.
A mindset of quality.
CNC Machines that are built in Japan are so much more better 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.
I remember touring a Harley Davidson factory in Milwaukee and noticing that, while the tour guide continued to repeat the "made in America" mantra, all the machine tools were either Japanese or German.
A place I worked had a noodle machine made in Japan. The manufacturer had us send noodles to them from our shop in the US to ensure the machine was working properly and that our noodles were good, I had never heard of any other sort of company doing that. Where I work now has top quality machinery and they are mostly made in Japan.
Magical girls
And the mechas
meguca is suffering
thank you DoctorButts
I recently saw a post where they have slots in bathrooms that clean your phone if you insert it
I really dunno how I feel about inserting my phone into a slot in the bathroom if I'm being totally honest
I stick all sorts of things in holes in bathrooms. Keeps things interesting
Why were you downvoted? Because they had no sense of humor?
Dirty dirty phone.
Go use the bathroom hole!
Plastic wrapping that's easy to open.
cat cafes?
We have cat cafes in Utah.
We have one here in Canada and it's really nothing special
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.
wrt US, I guess they shoot butts and not children?
also I heard Japan recycling laws are effective compared to US counterparts.
People from the US will be surprised how far the rest of the western world, and high tech eastern Asia, are ahead of the states in terms of recycling and infrastructure.
Seriously, even Europe is so far ahead it's not even funny
I was in Toronto's Union Station during civid and they also had UV phone disinfection machines. It was impressive.
Or South Korea
Hot coffee in a can that tastes great
It's kind of a relic of the past now since everyone uses a streaming service of some kind now but right at the end of physical media's lifespan, Japan had some key advantages over the US specifically because it was legal to rent albums and I believe individual songs, just like a Blockbuster. Eventually they had the music purchasing equivalent of Redbox in the form of kiosks as well with the advent of recordable Net-MD minidiscs, which only really ever saw success in Japan.
Not Japan specifically, but I've got say I'm jealous as hell about the snack scene in east Asia.
I generally don't have a sweet tooth, and things like potato chips don't have that umami I like. I try to keep snacks around because I forget to eat, but nothing appeals to me. But man... all those pre-packaged tofu squares, various bits of marinated meat... that's my deal. There's one solid "Asian Mart" near me, I'll stock up a few months worth at a time.
Closest you get in the US is basically jerky/slim jims, which are great but expensive and kind of one note for flavor.
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.
Fixed for 'murican tastes
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Link to picture of railroad plan.
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.
I think Shanghai/China fits it even better. The convenience and technological advances are moving crazy fast.
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/
Love that show.
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?
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’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.
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
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.
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.
I love how you're being downvoted for having a personal opinion that harms no one but dares to go against the circlejerk.
Yeah 2 of my close friends told me it was the greatest thing they've ever bought. I was very disappointed to say the least.
Because dry wiping doesn't actually clean your ass, it just picks up most of the shit and smears the rest into you.
I understand why you like it. I don't understand why the other person isn't allowed to dislike it. Does it harm anyone if he "smears shit into the rest of him"?
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.
Same.
My ass is squeaky clean at home.
they're afraid they'll enjoy it...
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.
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.
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.
N O-
Surely that's an urban legend, like truck nutz and decent beer.
So they don't even jerk off?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's completely normal for stores to keep cooked, deli style chicken on non-refrigerated shelves all day. I don't trust it.
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.
Fax machine?
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.
I've sometimes heard it phrased that "Japan has been living in the year 2000 since 1980."
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.
Clever! I missed that.
And we're still trying to eliminate fax as a channel we take orders in. We made a big dent a few years ago but we still get a handful a week.
"McFly! Read my fax!"
YOU'RE
FIRED!!!
So simply put, it is a facsimile machine?
Bro you actually got me so hard until I read the comment below. I was blown away.
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.
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...
The auto kiosks in Japan take cash and they are also mechanical and not touch-screen based (at least in most stores). They are tactile buttons. :D
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.
It's amazing that there's still room in there for the two wolves.
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.
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 :-)
There is just an one time fee... that you pay annually.
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.
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 see those all the time over here in my European country.
The need to push a button everyone else pushed, is how you get covid :p
I work in pharma, 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.
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 hot and cold water thing is not common at all. A few sushi places and bars have it. But it's quite rare tbh.
Those crazy toilets
New band name
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
They have more drink vending machines than you'll believe, with a huge variety ofcold and hot drinks and even soup, but essentially no food vending machines.
Automated underground bike storage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcZSU40RBrg
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
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.
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.
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.
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 understanding this correctly, but that just sounds like a fancy nightlight?
Edit: I understand now :)
It's probably for use in an emergency like an earthquake.
Bingo
It's just a slightly different design on a standard flashlight. I was able to find this, seems to be a manufacturer of them. Hotel torch they do seem to be mostly for emergencies, but would work well enough to be a night light
Isn't that there to use if an earthquake knocks the power out?
Something like this? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BFQTH16X/?coliid=I2KHT60C9Q9JJ0&colid=3M8N8NS9I64QJ&psc=1&ref_=list_c_wl_ys_dp_it
Similar in that it's mounted, different in that it has no buttons/switches and wouldn't be on, or even able to be on when mounted. Those look pretty cool though.
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
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
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.
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!
Are people really thst bothered about which way they are facing when travelling?
Probably not. But life is full of minor inconveniences like that, and they do add up.
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.
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
Yeah, I've got a self filling one. Nice to run a bath without even getting out of bed. Although if you forget to put the plug in first, you'll arrive to an empty bath.
haha why would they make the solenoid for the water running but not for the drain? that's weak
Medicare for all
90s web design?
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
i miss file
It’s just a small thing. The escalators don’t run continuously. They start running as you approach them.
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.
They can put a sign saying it'll run when there's a person. Eventually it'll be common knowledge. I'm just thinking re efficiency.
Bidets. General cleanliness everywhere, kinda like what we had when everyone was cleaning like crazy during the pandemic, but even more so.
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.)
The cleanliness of Tokyo is mind blowing.
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.
I believe the bidet is actually French. I assume that counts as the "Western world."
Kei trucks that are extremely functional and fuel efficient.
The U.S. won't ever get that because they are extremely functional and fuel efficient.
And they are not manly enough for the very manly men in 'Murica.
If you select the wrong floor on an elevator, you can deactivate it by pressing the button again.
🤯
Japan currently doesn't have this in the more normal sense. That Japan is still super high-tech is more of a PR move. I literally had to send a fax to get my current internet (though it is fiber-to-the-home).
Where Japan is innovating is in robots and also its crossovers with an aging population. Possibly also some space stuff.
But for an everyday person, I don't really see anything that doesn't already exist somewhere else. I was raised in the US and have been living in Japan most of the last 10 years.
Japan's been living in the year 2000 since 1980
but they're still in the year 2000...
They have this crazy machine... Slide paper into it and then a hundred miles away a copy of that paper slides out.
I feel like sarcasm is a really strong attitude to have about fax machines.
Also used by doctors here in the Netherlands.
Useable transit
Would definitely blow minds in the US, but most of the rest of the western world is pretty much up to par.
Fax machines
Fax machines are still everywhere in the medical field.
I work in the freight industry, their pretty common here too
Though primarily for specific industries we ship too which includes the medical field
In the USA perhaps, not in Europe.
Vending machines with hot drinks like tea and coffee, that also sell cold stuff.
And beer.
Their vending machines are great and reasonably priced. Which is what keeps me from using any here in the US.
A mindset of quality.
CNC Machines that are built in Japan are so much more better 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.
I remember touring a Harley Davidson factory in Milwaukee and noticing that, while the tour guide continued to repeat the "made in America" mantra, all the machine tools were either Japanese or German.
A place I worked had a noodle machine made in Japan. The manufacturer had us send noodles to them from our shop in the US to ensure the machine was working properly and that our noodles were good, I had never heard of any other sort of company doing that. Where I work now has top quality machinery and they are mostly made in Japan.
Magical girls
And the mechas
meguca is suffering
thank you DoctorButts
I recently saw a post where they have slots in bathrooms that clean your phone if you insert it
I really dunno how I feel about inserting my phone into a slot in the bathroom if I'm being totally honest
I stick all sorts of things in holes in bathrooms. Keeps things interesting
Why were you downvoted? Because they had no sense of humor?
Dirty dirty phone.
Go use the bathroom hole!
Plastic wrapping that's easy to open.
cat cafes?
We have cat cafes in Utah.
We have one here in Canada and it's really nothing special
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.
mcdo with their cellphone cleaners
wrt US, I guess they shoot butts and not children?
also I heard Japan recycling laws are effective compared to US counterparts.
People from the US will be surprised how far the rest of the western world, and high tech eastern Asia, are ahead of the states in terms of recycling and infrastructure.
Seriously, even Europe is so far ahead it's not even funny
I was in Toronto's Union Station during civid and they also had UV phone disinfection machines. It was impressive.
Or South Korea
Hot coffee in a can that tastes great
It's kind of a relic of the past now since everyone uses a streaming service of some kind now but right at the end of physical media's lifespan, Japan had some key advantages over the US specifically because it was legal to rent albums and I believe individual songs, just like a Blockbuster. Eventually they had the music purchasing equivalent of Redbox in the form of kiosks as well with the advent of recordable Net-MD minidiscs, which only really ever saw success in Japan.
Not Japan specifically, but I've got say I'm jealous as hell about the snack scene in east Asia.
I generally don't have a sweet tooth, and things like potato chips don't have that umami I like. I try to keep snacks around because I forget to eat, but nothing appeals to me. But man... all those pre-packaged tofu squares, various bits of marinated meat... that's my deal. There's one solid "Asian Mart" near me, I'll stock up a few months worth at a time.
Closest you get in the US is basically jerky/slim jims, which are great but expensive and kind of one note for flavor.