tumult

That’s a different word. And it’s a word that came long after “slop.” It only makes sense if you know what “slop” means. I don’t actually understand why you’re linking me to this.

I looked up the etymology of "slop" and I did not find any reference to antisemitism.

Mail in ballots don’t get rid of secrecy, unless the system has been tampered with, which you could also do with illegal cameras at in-person voting etc. Anonymous envelope-within-envelope is a pretty standard way to keep secrecy, and many states do it, like mine.

Not in my experience. I see it almost every time I end up in a reddit thread from search results. I've recently started demoting it in Kagi. It's just not as good as it used to be. Newer threads tend to be full of junk and bots.

No, that’s describing permanent DST, which was tried and failed, not lack of DST. Most people in the world live without DST and it’s fine. (The article also mentions this.)

> This increase in capital requirements stamps out the visa mills.

No, it doesn't. The rich people abusing the system just deposit more money and get their checkmark. Small businesses cannot raise and float this kind of cash quickly.

Also, the policy change is being applied retroactively to visa renewal applications that had already been filed, before the policy change was even announced. So if you filed a few months ago, before any of this was announced, now you're getting rejected and sent home. If the govt was actually interesting in getting rid of illegitimate businesses, they could just go to them and see if they're real or not. All businesses that qualify someone to get a business manager visa have to be in commercial spaces, with signs with their name on it, and accessible.

No, that's not required for this visa. The capital requirement is the major change. Also, foreign restaurant owners are already fluent in Japanese, because they deal with Japanese customers every day. The language requirement change is for other visa types.

The rich people abusing this visa as second home have no trouble depositing a bit more money to meet the requirement. It only affects legitimate businesses that can't raise and float that kind of cash. It's performative punishment to appease the growing far-right sentiment. If they wanted to verify businesses were real, they can go there and foot and inspect. (They already have the right to do this, and all businesses that qualify for this visa must have a public office or commercial space with a clearly listed sign that can be accessed easily.)

Also, they enacted the change and applied it retroactively to existing visa holders who were waiting to have their visa updated. So people are now being rejected on new rules that were announced and enacted after they had filed to update their visa (which you must do every 1-3 years.)

Japan is not a theme park for foreign tourists to gawk at. It's a real place where people live and work.

You have to do it ahead of time. The airline won't let you board at your departure city without it.

> Would this be a national border? I haven't traveled internationally for a while, but this would be quite troubling.

Yes.

> Is there no option to pay without an app?

No option.

> Surely the government also allows you to just call and get an update?

The time I saw this, the non-app option was waiting in line for several hours.

More and more things require having a smartphone. Scan this QR code to install the app to cross the border. Install the app to use the street parking in this city. Install the app to board the bus. Install the app to get your filing status with department xyz. I admire your spirit of rebellion, but avoiding using a smartphone in daily life in most places will result in a lifestyle contorted specifically to avoid using a smartphone, and will cut you off from activities that were previously doable without smartphones 20 years ago.

I agree with you that the PHP forum software is not fast at all. But, try hundreds of requests per second, including requests that require text searches.

Also, uh, how does speeding it up that help with the AI spam? (Sorry, I should have emphasized that part of my most more, since that's mostly the topic of this sub-thread I was replying to.)

Not true at all. Even small, insular, just-a-few-hundred users PHPBB-style forums have to run Cloudflare or Anubis to try to stem DDoS-style scraping, and have a constant patrol of moderators to stop AI spam posts.