skokage

FTA: >"Japan has changed its strategy in combating the contagion, seeking to slow its spread and minimize the number of deaths."

In my personal opinion living and working here, this society is very slow to change and things that could greatly assist in slowing the spread, such as adopting a Work From Home policy, will only occur once it's too late. Almost no one is allowed to work from home here, even those with office/tech jobs that can completely be done remotely with no issues. In addition, workers are granted an incredibly small amount of days off, and most would rather get onto their very crowded trains and commute into the office even when unwell as opposed to taking one of their limited days off.

All that being said I'm not freaking out about it the way most people here are, but I wish companies would react a bit faster and change their work culture to accommodate the very easy things that could be done so people can limit their interactions with others when something like this is occurring. You can pretty much guarantee that one person with the virus getting onto a sardine can train during their morning commute is going to infect several other people in the process, and no amount of face masks the people here are so fond of will do anything to keep an infection at bay.

>But part of me feels an obligation to be informed to hold those in power accountable.

I'm curious though, how does the average citizen hold those in power accountable? OK so you vote, but tons of other people vote and are often uninformed about what is going on or are completely apathetic. The recent news about Roger Stone's sentencing to me proves how little power we as average citizens have in actually holding others accountable, especially when those in power have ties to other rich, powerful, and well connected people.

>North American (NA) schools have bullying, exams, homework, and sleep disruption but our system is still relatively intact.

My impression from living here in Japan for a bit over a year, and having friends with children in the Japanese school system, is that Japanese students have way more pressure put on them. Kids spend way longer each day out of the house; Study sessions before school, stronger peer pressure to assimilate and not stick out, more after school activities, more homework to do in the evenings, school six days a week. Also keep in mind that the middle school you get into will have a huge effect on which high school you get to attend, which has a very strong influence on which college you get into, and thus effect your pipeline into the best companies. The pressure to succeed starts way younger than it does in the US, and not getting into the primary school of choice can ruin your chances for success later on in adult hood.

A couple of anecdotal stories I've seen during my time here; Bullying here seems to be much more pronounced, and given the cultural hesitation to involve yourself in other's affairs, often goes unchecked. I've seen many instances of large groups of 10+ kids ganging up on a single kid on the streets, in full view of adults and even public safety volunteers, and no one will ever step in and tell the kids to stop.

On another occasion I was outside of a combini having a drink, and near by a young girl (maybe 8 years old or so), was crying trying to do her homework. The mother was nearby and when she would write down answers that were wrong, the mother would scream at the child and call her stupid, which would cause the child to cry harder (but still trying to complete her work), and the entire thing just kind of created this negative feedback loop - child would cry harder and probably do worse on the work, which would anger the mother and make the screaming more intense, which caused the crying to become more intense. It was a really depressing and disturbing thing to witness, especially given the young age of the child.

I know bullying exists in the west (myself being a victim of some pretty intense bullying as a child), and there is strong pressure to do well in high school to get into the best colleges as well, but from what I've seen in Japan it seems to be much more pronounced. At least in the west most times an adult will step in to stop bullying when it's seen, but here it seems no one cares or will do anything to stop it.

I guess it depends on if we are talking about enthusiasts or the average consumer? If we are talking about the average consumer I would assume in order of importance; Reliability, vehicle range, charging time, ride quality, available technology, interior quality.

For the average "enthusiasts" seen in the comments section of Car and Driver's facebook page it would be more along the lines of; 0 to 60mph time, nurburgring lap times, 0 to 100mph times, quarter mile times, looks. But for actual enthusiasts who have an interest in Electric Vehicles i would say all the things you mentioned are fairly important. But really, to the average consumer who purchases something like a Camry or Accord, I feel as if reliability/range/technology (by that i mean things like apple car play, lane assist, and other QoL technologies) and value are really what the average person is looking for.

Any time these topics around weakening privacy or removing encryption comes up, it's nearly always presented with a save the children type of argument. I mean, who doesn't want to protect children from child abuse and predators? The problem however, is that most children that are abused are done so by family members or people already close to them (like maybe their priests), so with that in mind I don't really understand how weakening encryption will help protect children from predators.

I disagree with this article that this is all about their ability to "tell stories", as much as management that's really good at identifying which company to acquire next so they can squeeze every last cent from consumers for whichever IP they are pushing at the time.

Most people I've talked to DON'T believe the star wars series has gotten better from a story telling perspective, as this article proposes. I don't think most people believe live-action remakes of their classic cartoons is quality story-telling. I think they are just really good at reading market trends, have enough money in their coffers to acquire whatever is becoming the next big thing, advertise and push it into becoming a cultural phenomenon, then moving onto whatever is next once they've exhausted that IP.

Edit - and to be clear, I most likely have a very jaded view here. I don't like disney as a company, nor am I a fan of superhero movies, star wars, or a lot of what the company has been pushing for the last decade or so. I respect their ability to make a ton of money, but I don't like a majority of what they create anymore, nor how they treat a majority of their employees.

>Runner up for next project was cost effective nuclear fission reactors, which wouldn’t have been as suitable for that style of work.

I can't tell if he was serious about that comment or not... Considering he builds rockets with free time, it could go either way.

>I have no doubt that some Americans legitimately dislike DST—not just the change of clocks, but the redistribution of sunlight from morning to afternoon.

I don't really feel like most people complain about the specific time the sun sets, as much as they are complaining about the disruption to their circadian cycle. I dislike the short days during winter, but changing the time the sun sets an hour forward or backward isn't ultimately going to create more hours of sunlight during the day.

What i will say however, after a year of living in a country now that doesn't observe DST, is i greatly appreciate not having a disruption to my sleep cycles in either direction. My dog also appreciate not having the disruption to his daily routine either. I adjusted to just waking up when the sun rises, wanting to go to sleep within a few hours of the sun setting, and when it's cold outside and the days are shorter i find myself wanting to spend more time inside sleeping anyways.

Boy was that a depressing article to read. I felt bad for the individual farmers who go out of business and lose their livelihoods, the towns which suffer as more means of production are lost to either globalization or big business, the animals who likely suffer at factory farms far more than they did in small-scale farms, and at how an entire way of life is being lost in a few short generations.

>So you have countries like Germany that are effectively subsidized by poorer countries.

Could you explain this comment further, or have links to stories that go in depth on how that works? Not saying you are wrong, but I don't understand how germany, which is an economic powerhouse and exports a lot of goods, are being subsidized by poorer countries.

>Breja alleges that on March 12, 2019, in an executive team meeting, he learned that some batches of mint e-liquid had been found to be contaminated. Approximately 250,000 mint refill kits, the equivalent of one million pods, were manufactured with the contaminated e-liquid, shipped to retailers, and sold to customers.

I really wish the article detailed what exactly the contaminant is, especially considering the current hysteria over vaping.

>That same day, Breja “protested Juul’s refusal to issue a product recall for the contaminated pods, or at a minimum issue a public health and safety notice to consumers.” Then-chief finance officer Tim Danaher reportedly “questioned his financial acumen,” since these suggestions would lead to billions of dollars in lost sales and hurt Juul’s then-$38 billion valuation, according to the lawsuit. Danaher, whose departure was announced by the company on Tuesday, allegedly told Breja that he should remember his loyalty to Juul.

It's sad that there are so many people who would knowingly cause harm to others, just all for the opportunity to make just a little bit more money. They were already making money, and I'm pretty sure this debacle will cost them far more money in the long run than just doing a voluntary recall and coming clean. No better than the tobacco companies that came decades before.