High-speed rail
don’t tell America. pretend it’s multiple automobiles welded together and they’ll like it
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.
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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
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.
Private sleeping room. I’d never fly inside the US again.
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.
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.
Same.
My ass is squeaky clean at home.
I think we got our bidets at the same time
Woot deal?
Installed one for my Filipina wife. Never used it myself. I have shit on that pot for months, still forget it’s there. Old habits die hard.
Dude. Do it. Go. Right now. Don’t even need to drop heat. Just go freshen up.
Yeah I gave it a go. Not a fan. Took a lot of drying and I’m not very messy.
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”?
I got one with a dryer that makes that a lot better. It does take too long to fully dry it though, so it’s this middle ground of not too wet to dry off, and not waiting forever for the dryer.
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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.
they’re afraid they’ll enjoy it…
I enjoy mine…
scary
This is also gross. There’s a lot of men in the US that thinks touching there ass is gay so they never clean them.
I have heard this so many times, but I absolutely refuse to believe that it is real.
So they don’t even jerk off?
That’s gay
Surely that’s an urban legend, like truck nutz and decent beer.
It is serious, and don’t call me Shirley.
It’s not a problem to touch there ass. It’s touching here ass that makes someone gay.
Where ass?
I don’t know! Wherever the there ass is that the other guy was talking about, I guess
I’d argue anything past the first knuckle is on the spectrum.
N O-
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.
Pretty much every thread we have in this community, someone comes along to say “you should pressure-wash your asshole”. I’m mildly bemused that this is what Lemmy obsesses over.
It’s not just Lemmy, the sentiment is on Reddit and such as well.
I’ve always heard it explained like this (which I wholeheartedly agree with). Imagine you’re hiking a trail in the forest, and you trip on a rock and fall. By chance, you land on turd of excrement, luckily it only smears part of your arm and elbow with shit. Would you be fine just taking a piece of toilet paper and scraping it off? Or, would you feel compelled to wash it off with water, perhaps also soap?
Why wouldn’t you just use paper, if you scrape hard enough it wouldn’t even smell and be just as clean, arguably?
If you would at least use water, why do you extend to your elbow a courtesy that you don’t extend to your anus?
The point is that there’s a lot of people who walk through life with a dirty asshole, but then try to act morally superior regarding personal hygiene, and I think that that’s not right.
Dude, you think I haven’t heard that explanation before? Did you forget where we are?
I was in Asia and got pretty horrible food poisoning. My wife suggested we head over to this Japanese mall. Spent the day there. Use the toilet, walk around, buy something, use the toilet. That was the ideal toilet to have in that situation.
I own a BioBidet 2000. My friend Brian has one at his house and he convinced me to just try it. I did. And then I ordered one for myself before I left the bathroom.
What makes it better than my luxe bidet that I got for $20
I’ve never used your $20 Luxe bidet to know the difference, but I’m going to assume it doesn’t have a heated seat, heated water, variable pressure settings, massage settings, and an enema setting. If those features don’t interest you, then nothing at all makes it better. Use what you like. My wife just really loves the heated seat in the winter time.
Tell Brian thank you. I just used his and ordered one too.
Edit: I really did order one though, my current bidet needs an upgrade.
Completely agree. I was raised with bidets/ water cleaning. TP That’s just a dry off or catch those last few drops
I used them while visiting Europe. They made my ass incredibly itchy. I’m good with the paper and washing my hands.
Uhhm, I’m not a doctor and this is not medical advice, but. You should talk to a proctologist about hemorrhoids or other blood circulation issues. Anuses are not supposed to itch when lightly sprayed with water, or ever for that matter, and that sensation might be a sign of tissue inflammation. Don’t ask me how I know this.
This was many years ago. The itching didn’t happen immediately. Good advice to not take medical advice in social media comments.
The itching didn’t happen immediately
That’s worse.
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.
Check out the new ones. They fit right between the toilet seat and the bowl lip. Super slim. Plus, always clean ass.
You know those poops you take when you wipe once and it’s already clean? It’s like that but ALL THE TIME.
Damn… this does seem like the way to go.
I will most definitely look this up, seems like a real time and money saver 👍.
Water coming from the nastiest thing in the building in contact with the part of my skin that’s got a low barrier to things passing through it? Get fucked.
Motherfucker, you just shat out of your delicate asshole. Tap water ain’t gonna hurt it.
I’m less worried about whatever diseases I may already have and more worried about those coming from others. You can have butthole splash time all you want. If you’re toilet is entirely private, maybe that’s even good. I’m not doing it.
I don’t understand why you’re so angry. Do you not get how bidets work?
Angry? Don’t project. I’m grossed out.
Do you also avoid brushing your teeth on the bathroom? Because I have some news about poop particulate and toothbrushes for you.
No, but I don’t keep my toothbrush in the bathroom for that reason.
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.”
I think it’s because the country did not significantly recover from the 90s financial crisis, and their society is so conservative that they literally could not try anything modern again afterwards
They literally went “industrial society and it’s consequences have been a disaster for Japanese society”
I agree with the first part, but not the second.
The impact of the financial crisis reverberates to this day, and that drives a huge proportion of the issues, but the crisis in my opinion was inevitable. From my perspective, the Post-War Economic Miracle, as it’s called, catapulted Japan through all the stages of economic development into an almost accelerated version of the same problems that are afflicting the U.S. and other Western countries.
The dream of infinite growth in the Japanese context fell flat for the same reasons it is falling apart in other developed countries. A rise in standard of living and wages led to offshoring and outsourcing of production, the hollowing out of the middle class, a work culture at odds with family life, and so on. The country’s land and businesses were valued in the late 1980s as though it could remain competitive internationally with a mostly domestic supply chain, even as the production costs of its goods continued to rise along with the needs of its population, which in a globalized economy turned out to be a pipe dream.
We see the same thing in the U.S., where every president promises to restore the American manufacturing base, then comes up against the reality that U.S.-produced products made by U.S. workers paid U.S. wages cannot be competitive with something built in Southeast Asia and shipped overseas for less than $100 per ton. But the conservatism of Japanese society certainly plays a role, in that the country is highly resistant to change, and also due to a rigidity that stifles innovation, making it hard to start new businesses outside the keiretsu/conglomerate structure. The U.S. has somewhat mitigated its manufacturing decline through the creation of new service sector and especially tech businesses that operate internationally, which path is less available to Japan due to the rigidity of its business structure.
But the part I disagree with is the idea that Japan has rejected industrial society. Japan is still extremely proud of its culture and the impact it’s had globally. They love that people in western countries eat ramen and sushi, play Nintendo games or watch anime, and they have a deep reverence for their globally successful businesses and particularly the auto industry. They have no desire to reject or withdraw from industrial society, they just haven’t been able to figure out amidst external economic barriers, and internal cultural and financial barriers, how to move forward.
We see the same thing in the U.S., where every president promises to restore the American manufacturing base, then comes up against the reality that U.S.-produced products made by U.S. workers paid U.S. wages cannot be competitive with something built in Southeast Asia and shipped overseas for less than $100 per ton.
That is the lie they tell us. Meanwhile we do everything we can to make we don’t have an industrial base.
- We zone factories far away from everything instead of allowing them to be in normal commuting range
- We tax the land they are on the same way we tax commercial property. Which you might think is fair but we don’t do that to farmers. Especially considering how easy retail gets it, with governments willing to give plenty of free roads and police protection to them
- We treat inventory as taxable which punishes factories that want a buffer and rewards the quick turnover of fast fashion places. Ever wonder why they never have your size and you have to go to the website to get it?
- Thanks to our shit medical system any workplace injury is going to be devastating which means that the insurance as a whole will be very high.
- Factory investments take longer to pay off which doesnt mean much when we all think quarterly. A tax on rapid stock trading could probably fix that but that isn’t going to happen.
There are other factors as well. We don’t hire women to do factory work which limits the labor pool. There is still a lot of discrimination against Latinos and African Americans. Which again lowers the labor pool and kinda leaves us with…well the kind of people who feel only comfortable only working with white Christian men.
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.
I heard it’s to do with how secure tax actually is compared to email or something.
it’s not, it’s just institutional inertia
“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.
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.
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.
Takkyubin.
If you have a large suitcase or other parcel it may be unwieldy to walk around Tokyo or another city with it. Subways only allow one suitcase of a certain size, so you might have to take a much more expensive taxi.
Instead you can go to a desk at the airport and have your luggage delivered same day or next day to ~any hotel, subway station, or convenience store. It will be insured and kept safe for you there to pick up. And at the end of your trip, you can send it back. The price for this convenience? Around $10.
This is not only a good demonstration of Japanese trust and customer service, it’s also a legitimately hard logistics problem. I daresay that such a business could not succeed in the US both because of our defensiveness and sprawling cities.
Well, airports already manage to lose up to 0.9% of bags, it would certainly be difficult to convince the average American to trust this service.
There’s definitely a huge difference in service work ethic in Japan, which probably leads to those reliability stats. I don’t even know if I consider it a good or bad thing, because it’s super-nice when you’re relying on them there, but I can also tell that waiting on people hand and foot wears on people’s mental health, and it often shows across that country.
Wow that is fantastic. I’m surprised no one “imported” that one to the states in “make everything a start-up!” days early-mid 2010s.
As a tip, it’s not quite as convenient but most hotels will let you check a bag with them, even if you’re not a guest. I’ve done that at different conferences (usually 1st day and/or last day) when I had a day left, didn’t want to haul my bag, but couldn’t go to from my hotel. I think I got turned down once and it was simply because they were full.
Good livestock conditions so that food is actually edible raw
A mindset of quality.
CNC Machines that are built in Japan are so much Mount Betterest than their ‘Made in America’ counterparts. Even under the same company name.
Visit any shop that requires quality around the world and you’ll see Japanese made machines almost everywhere.
more better
ಠ_ಠ
Thanks to Demming…
Wow, that’s fascinating! What do you think would be the best thing to read from Deming from an lay engineering or lay civic perspective? What’s most accessible, I guess?
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.
I work for an OEM and we will request photos after installation and samples of raw material before sale for anything unusual, so I got to say that is more impressive
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
Ok, well maybe they have a long pipeline of projects ready to be built, but they are getting things built. I went with a friend who was there like 5 years prior and he said everything looked totally different since the last time he was there. I don’t know about the planning process but even if that’s slow that’s still way better than most places where it also takes ages to get something started, takes ages to get something built, and they don’t have enough projects going through the planning process in the first place.
They had a lot of practice with all their empty scam apartment buildings.
Are you thinking about China?
Oh ye. Sorry.
When your xenophobia is eager but bad at geography.
Pretty common unfortunately in America.
I still think about how Blizzard originally made their WoW expansion, Panderia, to include Samurai and sushi. And someone had to explain them the difference between China and Japan.
It’s so stupid.
That’s not even necessarily mixing the two up so much as failing to distinguish cultures within “Asia” in the first place. A lot of people think of the whole region as one place. Put some soy and garlic on something? You’ve got an “Asian” dish. Never mind that there are numerous regional culinary traditions within China alone.
See also: Africa.
This has absolutely nothing to do with xenophobia. This was based on a documentary of chinese economic waste and the people that fall into poverty because of it.
Well can’t fault honesty
Those crazy toilets
New band name
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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
Useable transit
Would definitely blow minds in the US, but most of the rest of the western world is pretty much up to par.
I would kill for their bidets everywhere.
If you like them, you can just buy one for your home. Expensive, but probably a better option than the murder you suggest.
Dude, bidet add-ons are like $40 that work great. I agree I wish it was more widespread though.
$40 for the basic ones. They still work great, (I have them on all my toilets at home!) but they definitely aren’t as flashy as the Japanese toilets. Self-cleaning seats, heated seats, heated water for the bidet, etc…
I’m in Portugal and bidets are standard in all home toilets around here.
And it’s not just here: the word itself - “bidet”- is actually French.
That said, they’re invariably plain and no-frills around here.
Next time out down the katana and just learn some Japanese. You can say:
Toire o tsukatte mo ii desu ka?
And they will just let you use the bidet
We have plenty of bidets here in the States, they just install them outside the bathrooms and they mount them kind of high so they’re kinda awkward to get a good clean angle, though.
Can’t believe noone has mentioned the hot beverage vending machines.
Its so fucking nice to spend $1-$1.50 and just get some hot tea or coffee right there without issue. And they’re everywhere so you can pretty much rely on them.
So much more convenient than having to go to a coffee shop so you can pay $5 for the same thing, and the vending machine version still tastes great.
This comment made me remember that the tech school in my (US) hometown of ~4000 people had a machine like this roughly 20 years ago and I’ve never seen another one since.
My college had a french fry vending machine. That was pretty awesome.
They also have much more popularized versions of canned coffee than us; I occasionally see bad overpriced Starbucks coffee bottles in grocery store checkouts, but not something small, quick, and convenient like BOSS.
I had one at my old workplace and it certainly served me better coffee than the mud I could get from the mcdonalds across the road.
I used to see these more often in Canada but now they’re pretty unusual. Not heated cans like some Japanese machines, just cups of coffee and sometimes lattes and shit.
Now you’re forced to pay $3+ for muddy garbage at Tim’s/McDonalds and you have to wait in line to get it too. Alternatively drop $7+ at Starbucks for ok coffee? I can make better tasting coffee with a drip machine, let alone my French press.
Can you get sugar or cream or do you have to drink the coffee black?
You have a variety of options usually. Different brands, and then ones that have no milk, ones that are milky etc.
You also usually have the choice of having things cold or hot as well.
I’d steal from them
It’s just a small thing. The escalators don’t run continuously. They start running as you approach them.
We have those in Europe as well, not Hyper commin, but still
We have escalators that don’t stop in Europe? I didn’t even know those existed.
We even have those in Brazil. Not everywhere, I reckon most are older than those but I’ve seen them in some malls and airports at least.
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.
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
An average apartment in Tokyo is less than 200sq. ft, less than a third of New York’s average apartment size of ~700sq. ft.
Doesn’t anyone check the dB an appliance makes? It’s one of the first things I check, as I hate loud devices.
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.
