h0nz4 comments

but what makes this new release so special is the fact that it will now be available in 350-milliliter half-bottles so you can enjoy it “more easily at home”

What kinda BS marketing line is this? Does it mean you will get less to make it more affordable or what?

The male recipient of the email contacted the prefectural task force on that same day, which allowed them to revoke his access to the data. However, the countermeasure was ineffective in preventing information leakage since the document could be viewed by typing the URL into a web browser.

Don't quite understand the last paragraph of the article. If it’s a document in a file sharing system and you send a link to it by an email, then either you can revoke the access to that link or not. Wondering what exactly they revoked.

If it’s a publicly accessible file and the only limitation is that you either know or do not know its URL, that's a gross negligence.

Saying that, mistakes do happen and the email sent to a wrong address is not an issue here. The system in place seems to be the real problem and quite likely a desperate lack of IT education for public servants – a systematic issue then and not a failure of an individual.

I do not own a car in Japan but as a personal rule of thumb when renting or using a car sharing service, never ever do I go for a K-car. Sure those things may have cutesy designs, they may fit the narrow roads nicely and be all kinds of convenient but when it comes to safety… no thank you.

For the budget spent, I was expecting nothing less than some next level flashy extravagant ceremonies. Also were I a part of the team working on the original ceremonies, I'd be pretty sour about this.

Worth paying it a visit once for the show, if you are interested, mainly to get your very own video of ramen on fire haha. If you just crave a bowl of a nice ramen without all that shenanigans, there are better and cheaper places.

Kirin Heartland is my affordable go to being the closest to Czech beer I can get in Japan to my knowing. Other normal options for me is either Sapporo or Premium Malt's (both pilsner or ale). All of the Japanese beers are decent I'd say, only a bit expensive for what they are; but then again, can't really compare to Czech prices, can I? hahah

This is all cool but quite don't understand the point. So they made paper bags that deer can digest, somehow.

Plastic bags discarded by visitors are a threat to the deer dwelling in and around the vast park.

Exactly, this means visitors are littering—why they do that, how to mitigate it, and where the new paper bags fit in the story? Are they gonna stop everyone to repack their stuff into the digestible paper bags which can later be tossed around?

But some tourists are apparently giving them other snacks taken from plastic bags.

This is so wrong on so many levels. I hate people giving snacks to or anyhow feeding (especially wild) animals—even if with good intention. Usually it’s causing more harm than good. Even in this case, just following the articles this year going along the lines “oh… my… gawd… deer in Nara are forced to eat grass and stuff, savage!”

@Reckless I was commuting through Geienmae before until WFH from April and some ceilings there felt really low. Couldn't believe it's ok to have such low clearance.

I'm all for the progress and development but this robot seems to be a bit of a 邪魔 (じゃま). Slow, clunky, and yet another thing that unnecessarily talks and has fairly annoying voice (perhaps just me, can't stand the anime like high-pitched voice).

Japanese drivers should seriously drop going through the red light. But no, instead of breaking because it's effing red, they floor it and fly through only to stop at the next light 100m down the road anyway.

It happened to me way too many times, I started crossing the street and someone would still try to speed through in front of me.

Interesting, wondering why did he let the police to go through his belongings without a warrant. Even more surprising is that police here knows what a liquid cannabis is. Furthermore it is not specified if it was a CBD product or a THC product.

Anyway, I would much rather prefer vaping a bit of herbs at my place on a Saturday afternoon to chill than drinking to oblivion and crashing asleep somewhere at the Shibuya crossing as the finest culture dictates in Japan. But the laws are what they are and it's not worth challenging it, as in many other Asian countries for that matter. The potential trouble is very real.

I've never quite understood how exactly is supposed shortening of hours help? Is it just that less people will get to go these establishments?

I don't follow the press conferences live so not sure how the data is presented, however, if the sentiment is supposed to be “it's mainly young folk so it's not a biggie,” I'd be very careful with such way of thinking.

There are studies being published claiming there are various related health issues that may affect even young and/or otherwise fairly healthy individuals infected with the virus. There are still many unknowns about this virus so it's definitely not ok even if those infected are mainly young people.

No joke, I have been walking around for the past month and my little game is to spot someone wearing this mask. Not a single soul so far. Only Abe on TV looking all comical.

Second what browny1 has said. You cannot think of these bonuses from the western perspective, it's a Japanese concept (anyone heard of one day internships? haha). As I've heard from some of my friends, their “salary” is meant to include all these so called bonuses. Simply put, their base salary is laughable, with bonuses it makes a somewhat livable amount of money. Many of them even factor in (and hoping for) some overtime to boost up their earnings.

An anecdote:

I have a friend who works as a nurse in Japan and I have another one who works as a nurse in Canada. It's absolutely crazy to see the difference between the two worlds.

The Canadian friend has a great salary, employee perks and benefits. Medical staff had some pretty cool perks there during the virus wave – free coffee, meals, laundry service, etc.

The Japanese friend has rather tiny salary, heavy workload, no benefits whatsoever during the crisis, some people would look down on her for being a medical staff. There are some ridiculous workplace practices going on which are ridiculed by the Canadian.

See those perfect uniforms.

To me they look like some sort of a power plant maintenance group. :D

One would just like to eat a melon, as a melon, fruit you know, for normal price, no need to stuff it with a cake. What is wrong with you, Japan.

Seriously, what is the thing with people stabbing people in Japan?? Why do so many people carry knives anyway? It's not like Japanese are the manly and crafty MacGyver kind of folk who would use it to save a situation.

Even more concerning is the rate of people ending up dying on the way or early after being admitted to hospital. Makes one question if everything is ok with the Japanese emergency medical care (the more I learn about it the more I'm doubtful).

Try to sell a square shaped watermelon worth of 10k yen somewhere in Central Europe and people will think you're outright mental. Try to sell any Japanese overpriced fruit for that matter… still can't understand the Japanese take on fruits.

My Japanese friends sometime ridicule me for trying to maintain (as much as my bank account allows) the habit of eating fruit somewhat regularly as part of my normal diet. They don't understand and see it as if I ate sweets. I eat a whole apple, they'd take two slices and leave the rest for another day. Can't comprehend. However, I give it to them they may have a slight point given the Japanese obsession with fruit being ultra sweet.

Wow, populist much?

@mmwkdw I feel you brother!

Kyoto was trying to be a cool green city and promote bicycles as to reduce the car traffic. Gotta say they did some tremendous improvements in building – well more like marking – bike lanes all over the city. Super thumbs up on that. What I could not get over, though, are the absolutely mental rules for parking your bike. Downtown Kyoto, the designated parking lots are full almost all the time and fairly expensive as well to be honest. Leaving a bike next to a konbini is also prohibited at many of them.

There are gangs of old grandpas and other terrible people scavenging the city all the time collecting “illegally parked” bikes. Leave your bike for 5 minutes in front of a shop without marked bike parking place while getting your snack/drink? Leave it on a side under a bridge next to a river where it's not blocking literally anyone? Leave it in front of a restaurant, where again it's not blocking anyone, while having a dinner because the nearest official bike parking lot is 1.5 km away? Well sorry mate, you gotta walk across the city tomorrow and pay some 3000 yen while looking sufficiently apologetic to get your bike back. All that while folks parking their cars daily on a bike lane, no fine whatsoever. And I'd count at least 10 cases every single day on my commute.

Was even trying to complain at the city hall but to no effect, as expected.

I have commuted around 15km daily riding my bike in Kyoto for a year. I did my homework to read up on all the traffic and other rules related to riding a bike in Japan and I can tell you this much: it's actually dangerous following them rigidly. Quickly did I learn the rule is not to follow any rules.

To put it bluntly, pedestrians are godlike creatures suddenly floating into a road traffic without bothering to look up from their smartphone screen – get them breaking skills. If there is a separate bicycle and pedestrian lane on a wide sidewalk, I'm gonna bet my fresh tuna sand that most of the folk are casually strolling all over the damn bike lane while most of the cyclist are either going on the pedestrian side or trying to ring the bell like crazy to get the walkers out of the bike lane. Btw riding on a sidewalk is permitted only if explicitly allowed by a sign afaik and in that case you can't ride a bike in the traffic but must use the marked bike lane/sidewalk. In other cases using a road is expected.

That brings us to cyclist themselves. Riding on the left side is for losers only, obviously. My personal favorite, since you can't do a direct right turn riding a bicycle, people love to switch to the right side before the turn and cut the damn corner like there's no tomorrow. Try to ride a bike on a left side, as you do, someone suddenly appearing speeding up against you in the wrong way. So – many – times – I was super close to an accident, luckily my bike is a decent one with good breaks. The best exhibit at the end, mamachari kamikaze. Two children on a bike, fearlessly speeding through intersections without a blink. Seriously, what level of irresponsibility is that?

Cars, the centerpiece of Japanese urban glory. Of course roadside bike lanes are built for them to park on, ya'll didn't know? It's illegal, btw, yet a daily occurrence. One would think police would do something about it, smirk smirk. Besides that, though, gotta say they were quite considerate to cyclist. Mainly because, as @Antiquesaving has said, they'd be automatically at fault in a case of accident.

To sum it up, police should do some work, not like they are doing much in this country anyway. They should check on cars doing crazy stuff and they should def check and enforce more existing rules on cyclists. Lastly, all the construction work guarding ojisans should on occasion use their disco sticks to smack all passersby walking on a bike lane.

I'm still being amazed how the subcontracting chains work in Japan. There's a loooong number of companies getting paid for doing basically nothing but taking some questionable decisions (usually to the detriment of the project) and waaay down at the bottom some poor workers getting paid almost nothing working 24/7.

Which btw is a great example why there are so many exorbitantly expensive IT projects where the results are laughable.

Dear lord. 9/10 points for originality and living on the edge. I guess much more “digestible” for the audience would be to simply dice the bell pepper, mix in the sauce, chuck the ramen in, mixy mixy, plate it, put some cheese on top and voila – pasta pizza ramen!

We tend to make criticism about the government, but only them know what kind of decision is the best to do be done at this moment. Of course, government leaders can make mistakes, but they are the one who know what is happening around the world.

@Mitsuo Matsuyama I would love to have your enthusiasm and trust in this government. I get your message and the positive tone but “only them know what kind of decision is the best to be done” is a bit far-fetched to say the least.

Following press releases of the Japanese government and certain ministers over last few months, it's absolutely flabbergasting to see the extent of mishandling and cluelessness while they keep patting their own backs in a belief Japan has been so great in handling the situation.

This is a good example of yet another lunacy coming from this government. If they indeterminately ban re-entry of permanent residents and people on long term work visa, they should also indeterminately let them stop paying taxes, social security, rent, etc. Never thought Japan would fall to China level on this one.

Meanwhile in Japan… I mean yeah, why not, whatever. Waiting for a lawsuit from Uber coming.

Another source to check is this video on Youtube with a detailed explanation https://youtu.be/ldm3n0hEsd4?t=170

Japanese TV is a world of self preserving marvel. The kitsch and bizarre design of TV studios, the plethora of familiar faces on every – single – channel, the audience chanting in wonder when presented with basic facts, the audience chanting twice as hard in awe after the presented basic facts are carefully explained and confirmed in a short clip, all the elaborate boards with stickers-covered secretes and mysteries, the daily calorie-free rations of OISHIIs and UMAIs over the bestest plates of meals discovered for that day, the familiar tone of your elementary school teacher with which you are presented the information and assured everything will be just fine, the floating heads living in the corners, the cartoonish subtitles jumping out every moment…

I don't know, all I'm saying is for the most part watching Japanese TV somehow annoys me and it's not my cup of tea. If other people like it, who am I to judge.

Interesting development of the situation. While I think it was not necessarily a bad idea to provide citizens with reusable masks amid the shortage of the disposable ones, by the time people actually receive these this epidemic may as well be over. I'm wondering if people actually still wait to receive these masks or if they just sourced alternatives – be it disposable ones or DIY cloth masks. At this point in time it feels like the massive cost is simply not justifiable anymore and the timeline of the distribution is a big fail.

I vividly remember months ago Japan was one of the first countries where people started sharing online how to make DIY cloth masks at home. In the Czech Republic, after the government ordered that people must wear face masks in public, most of the people readily made their own cloth mask at home. Volunteers even supplied medical staff with makeshift masks.

That's why it's a bit difficult for me to comprehend why at the end of April this is still a thing.