• Bappity@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      don’t tell America. pretend it’s multiple automobiles welded together and they’ll like it

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        6 months ago

        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

    • Professorozone@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      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. )

    • ReallyZen@lemmy.ml
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      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.

      • Resol van Lemmy@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        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.

      • JimmyMcGill@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        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.

        • crispy_kilt@feddit.de
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          6 months ago

          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

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      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.

      • Azal@pawb.social
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        6 months ago

        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.

  • odium@programming.dev
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    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.

    • Squiddles@kbin.social
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      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.

      • Chozo@kbin.social
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        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.

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        I think Shanghai/China fits it even better. The convenience and technological advances are moving crazy fast.

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        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.

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          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.

      • fidodo@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        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.

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        6 months ago

        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)

    • RainfallSonata@lemmy.world
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      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.

  • _number8_@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    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?

    • blazeknave@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      American with bidet for 2.5 yrs. I hate shitting anywhere else now. Need a shower to get a new ass. Day is ruined.

      • 🦄🦄🦄@feddit.de
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        6 months ago

        pro tip: get a mobile one. Its basically just a plastic bottle with a nozzle screwed on. Some even come with little travel bags.

      • shalafi@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        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.

          • thecrotch@sh.itjust.works
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            I love how you’re being downvoted for having a personal opinion that harms no one but dares to go against the circlejerk.

          • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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            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.

    • spittingimage@lemmy.world
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      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.

      • Jojo@lemm.ee
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        It’s not just Lemmy, the sentiment is on Reddit and such as well.

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      6 months ago

      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.

    • kadotux@sopuli.xyz
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      6 months ago

      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”

    • RavenFellBlade@lemmy.world
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      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.

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      I used them while visiting Europe. They made my ass incredibly itchy. I’m good with the paper and washing my hands.

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      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.

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        6 months ago

        Motherfucker, you just shat out of your delicate asshole. Tap water ain’t gonna hurt it.

        • Mango@lemmy.world
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          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.

      • deur@feddit.nl
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        6 months ago

        Are you just fucking stupid? All water in the building comes from the same fucking place, the water in the toilet and the kitchen sink are the same until they fester.

        There is nothing more hygenic than a bidet

        • Mango@lemmy.world
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          Yeah bruh, it’s fine until it’s at the toilet. Then it’s not fine. Get over yourself.

          • SPRUNT@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Do you… Do you think that the water in the bowl is what gets sprayed on your ass?

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            Is this like a mental locational thing? There is no way the unsanitary water from the toilet bowl can back feed into the water line. They are isolated mechanically via the tank float and by gravity because water can’t travel back up into the tank from the bowl. The bidet and toilet fill valve is piped into the same water line the hand sink is you use to rinse your mouth after brushing your teeth.

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      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.

        • enkers@sh.itjust.works
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          That’s not really traditionally true. Modern ones are integrated into the toilet seat, but they used to be a standalone fixture.

          • 0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works
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            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.

        • 0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works
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          I suppose there’s also a mini electrical boiler in there somewhere, so the water’s not cold when it hits my ass.

          Cool though, will look into this, seems like a nice soltion, toilet paper is getting more and more expensive.

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            6 months ago

            Some of them have it, but that complicates the installation. I bought one without a heater ages ago, thinking I’d hate it. I actually hardly notice the cold water. Your butthole isn’t great at sensing hot vs cold.

            • Willy@sh.itjust.works
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              6 months ago

              My butthole is pretty good at sensing temperature. During the winter I have to try and use the bidet fast with the room temp water before the cold outside water gets to my turd cutter.

  • SnausagesinaBlanket@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    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.

    • falsem@kbin.social
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      There are a lot of very good reasons to switch back to copper for the last portion of a run. I highly doubt that consumer internet in Japan is terminating fiber directly into peoples’ computers. Fiber is a lot more expensive both for the line, to run it, more prone to breakage, the network cards are more expensive, etc. It’s really not needed for most purposes.

      Also no one uses cat3 for data and it can’t be run for ‘hundreds of feet’. And LC fiber IS used in the US - that’s a kind of connector not the kind of fiber.

      • Dave.@aussie.zone
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        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.

        • falsem@kbin.social
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          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.

      • TheMurphy@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Yes, but nowhere compared to the Netherlands and Denmark

        Ofc the size of the countries makes it easier.

      • Ranvier@sopuli.xyz
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        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.

      • lazylion_ca@lemmy.ca
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        Cat 3 isnt actually a thing, but people call house phone wiring that. Runs DSL quite well.

        • Dave.@aussie.zone
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          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.

      • Creddit@lemmy.world
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        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.

          • Archer@lemmy.world
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            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.

      • MinorLaceration@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        It’s completely normal for stores to keep cooked, deli style chicken on non-refrigerated shelves all day. I don’t trust it.

      • ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com
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        6 months ago

        This is what we heard. So when visiting my brother, the whole group tried it. Everyone got salmonella poisoning and had explosive diarrhea for two days. That was an interesting shinkansen trip.

        Your intuition is right on this, don’t eat raw chicken.

        • drawerair@lemmy.world
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          I googled.

          “When cooked, chicken can be a nutritious choice, but raw chicken can be contaminated with Campylobacter, Salmonella, or Clostridium perfringens germs. If you eat undercooked chicken, you can get a foodborne illness, also called food poisoning.”

          Yeaaaaaah, no way I’ll try it.

  • chiu@lemmy.ca
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    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.

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      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

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        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…

      • Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 months ago

        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.

        • macrocephalic@lemmy.world
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          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.

          • Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            All of those things are cleaned before being consumed. The touch screen menus are one of the last things you touch before touching and eating your food.

            The world may not be a clean room, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to deliberately interact with someone else’s faeces, especially when I’m about to eat.

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          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.

      • Nightwind@lemmy.world
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        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?

        • Guntrigger@feddit.ch
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          “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”

        • glarf@lemmy.world
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          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.

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      6 months ago

      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.

      • chiu@lemmy.ca
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        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!

    • Zellith@kbin.social
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      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.

    • Rob T Firefly@lemmy.world
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      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.

    • Firipu@lemmy.world
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      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.

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        I work in a pharma research facility, so people can have literally any disease or chemical on their hands, so we have a lot of doors with hand wave sensors.

        Just wag your mitts in front of it, and the door opens. They’re on the wall a few steps before the door, so the door is usually open by the time you get to it.

        • Fallenwout@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          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.

    • DABDA@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      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.

  • solrize@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    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.

      • KrakBamKrak@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        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.

  • rowinxavier@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    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.

      • AscendantSquid@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        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.

        • BallShapedMan@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          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.

        • tal@lemmy.today
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          6 months ago

          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.

  • 🇰 🔵 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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    6 months ago

    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.

    • Bluebanrigh@aussie.zone
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      6 months ago

      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

      • qyron@sopuli.xyz
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        6 months ago

        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”.

      • AscendantSquid@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        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.

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    6 months ago

    Their ability to actually build things. The amount of construction projects I saw while visiting was insane, and they get it done fast.

    • Firipu@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      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

      • fidodo@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        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.

  • murvillian@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    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.