[–] 2 points 9 months ago

I don't say trams are bad, but it's just dumb that OP seems to demonize busses that are totally fine solutions in some contexts. If you plan a new city SimCity style, sure, go for trains first. But real cities are more difficult and have a history, and it rarely makes sense to throw all of that overboard just to have the most efficient (currently) solution

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    I mean, there are so many particularities in each place, it's just too simplistic to discard them. What does the existing infrastructure look like and how can we use it best? How expensive would it be to install a different system, where does the money come from, and what else can the city not afford for that?

    Another interesting case would be Kyoto, which relies mostly on buses although there are some train routes. But when they built their subways, there were a lot of construction delays because workers found ancient objects, had to call some archaeologists etc. So the city gave up after only 2 lines. Above-ground trains are also relatively rare although they exist. But you would have the same issue, existing buildings and cultural heritage.

    It's just a complex issue. Both can be totally viable solutions, depending on context and implementation. My point is that it's kind of dumb to start raging against buses now as we have different issues.

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  • [–] 26 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    Check out poor Lot whose evil daughters plot to get him drunk so they can rape him. The poor old man, I'm sure there was no redaction going on in post production.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (5 children)

    Sure, if you only consider that one aspect. But I thought we tried to move past such singular economics, rather than just replacing profit with resource efficiency. It's much more complex than that of course.

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  • [–] 38 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    Isn't American football the game where the second half basically consists of the leading team wasting time on purpose until the game ends? So he's not too wrong

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago* (1 child)

    Are you an academic? These job types are attempts by administration to precarize academic work.

    Adjunct is a last resort option, you can still stay in the system but have very little prospect of ever getting a permanent job. It signals to others that the uni doesn't really want you but takes your labour if you work hard and cheap enough, so it's harder to apply elsewhere. Some universities try to pivot into this, so that most of their staff loses negotiation power and is easy to get rid of and replace.

    Visiting is code for limited contract or unpaid locally with funding from somewhere else. The university doesn't complain if they get free labour with no strings attached, but it's not like the majority of people do this out of choice. Sure, if you're full prof somewhere, your can also visit your bro in a nice city for a semester, but that's the exception.

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    A new spin in the surveillance logic seems to be developing. The surveillance is of course still happening and expanding. But also it does not seem to matter that much anymore.

    The promise of the surveillance logic was that state actors or large companies find out some "hidden truth" about citizens, to target them with more tailored ads or repress them based on some evidence.

    Today, it seems that this logic becomes less important. Surveillance tools are still there, but they become more of a gimmick. The findings do not seem to matter that much anymore, repression happens based on vibes.

     

    I watched this recent video by Dogen about how immigrants should adapt to Japanese life etc.:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_tXp5sFlHQ

    One of the things I found odd was that he mentioned "eating while walking" as one of the offensive behaviors foreigners should stop doing. Many of the other examples made sense to me, but for this one - I never thought this was "rude", rather "odd". Thinking about it, I had a few conversations about this over time, but never got negative vibes for it (at least directly). Might be that people don't want to tell me it's rude, but I also got no negative opinions about it from people who lived abroad for a while (and thus are maybe better at communicating with foreigners) and/or are usually more upfront with me.

    So my current understanding: It's odd but not rude. Thankful for any further insights.

     

    Dear cozy little Lemmy World Japan Life community,

    I made a random small self-observation recently and would be curious about y'all's opinions. Where I'm from people casually talk about being super busy. A conversation can go like: "Hey, how are you doing?" "I'm fine, just drowning a bit in work. I have these 5 projects in parallel, 3 families to feed, and do some sports on top, but yeah, nothing exceptional".

    I don't understand this as "bragging" in most cases, just a casual conversation item and most people really are super busy these days.

    In Japan however, I noticed the dynamics around this are a bit different. I feel like I am quite busy here as well. But when I say something similar the conversation often becomes a bit awkward. For example, a friend recently asked me for a translation job as a favor. In a later conversation, I casually mentioned that I'm quite busy, so they felt bad for burdening me with even more work and directly addressed this ("I'm sorry that I asked for this, I can try to ask someone else" - "no, no, that's fine! That translation is not so much work actually! In fact I enjoy it even!". In my mind this was not really connected, but after saying it, there was this little awkward moment and I needed to do some conversational repair work. I had similar experiences with other friends, but now I thought that's an interesting small cultural difference. Here, I feel people would rather appreciate and talk about how much other people do (as manifested e.g. in お疲れ様).

    I know, it sounds a bit cliche ("Japan is so awesome, wow!!!"), but I was actually more curious if you had similar experiences/thoughts about this?

     

    Hi all, I hope you are doing fine recently.

    I need to go buy clothes and I was wondering if anyone knows of some second hand shops in Tokyo or nearby that have a bit taller sizes as well? I'm 183cm, male, so pretty standard in Europe but last time I checked (few years ago) that was way out the range and I gave up on it.

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