Martin

@FyranEndersong @Arin_Yumi We have the recipes

@Arin_Yumi That's actually sad... If authentic cultural food restaurants shut down, how are local Japanese supposed to have a taste of those cuisines without travelling oversea or try their luck to find the remaining business in Japan :(

An increasing number of restaurants owned by foreigners are closing down. One reason is the tightening of the “Business Manager” visa required to operate a business in Japan. Previously, applicants could qualify by either employing at least two Japanese nationals or permanent residents, or by having capital of 5 million yen or more. However, following revisions last October, the minimum capital requirement has increased to 30 million yen.

@HacobVanDipyan @scottew x.com/martinicancer/…

@scottew More of an Airline manufacturer problem. In a normal situation you would be able to switch these out for USB-C for a dollar a piece, but for an airplane probably more like $2500 a piece.

feels like the world collectively overinvested in USB-A infrastructure

@scottew In airplanes, switching modules from USB-A to C ports counts as a major alteration if it affects the seat's TSO design (load bearing, safety stuff etc. basically). Airlines would need to re-certify old seats that they plan to retire anyways.

@feathersardines Only downside is having to move every 10 or so years (not sure if this is still a thing post-heisei) but you don't have to worry about earthquakes etc. destroying your home. It's especially good if your company covers a share of your rent but not mortgages

@martinicancer Definitely an option. At my age probably better to get a nice apt for $1000 and worry less about house keeping.

Interesting WSJ article about foreigners buying akiya. Seems like way more work than it is worth, but I guess it suits the right kind of person

@feathersardines @CacheThatCheque You could also just rent a house for like 600 usd a month and not have to worry about any of this shit

@CacheThatCheque There are some decent looking places in Southern Osaka for about $100K AUD. Liveable straight away, just need aircon and rewiring as a priority. Can't say much for the termites or structure. Another $25K would make it a great place.

@LifeandliesSyra @captive_dreamer You're trading crime with shitty build quality and earthquake risk. PPP adjusted this is about 100k usd, you can absolutely still get houses in the midwest for that (they'll also be an hours drive away from any city).

@martinicancer @captive_dreamer Which is why its price is really low...but it is still a house you can have and surely nowhere near the crime level in any place anywhere in a comparable UK city.

What am I doing wrong man

@captive_dreamer Think living in an RV near ATL levels of noise isolation and convenience, except your house will collapse with the next earthquake.

@captive_dreamer It's literally in one of the shittiest (as in no infrastructure, no transport, no shops) areas in Osaka (it's not even Osaka, it's Izumisano), not up to earthquake code, and not isolated. You'll also wake up to airplane noise every morning...

@sadakiyo99 @_smcf I think it's interesting to debate this because I have experienced all of these in both snacks and girls bars. I've mostly been in Kansai and Kyushu though. The one girls bar I went to in Tokyo also had the counter rather than them sitting near you but n=1 Where did you go?

@martinicancer @_smcf Also people smoke which I prefer too. It's just more showa (so obvs better)

Many "weird Japan" phenomena are niche offerings which even Japanese people think are weird. One thing that is prevalent however, is the bar tended by young women whose job is to provide attention to salarymen in their thirties and forties, the most normal dudes you'll ever meet.

@wstv_lizzi You have this in Japan and Korea too (to a certain extent) where weeks after new tech comes out you have books about it in bookstores. Needless to say the books suck and the people that buy them will never make it. It's just a result of cultures that value effort over talent.

Photo from Shenzhen: huge crowd of Chinese people (lots of grannies!) lining up to get help installing OpenClaw. One thing about tech diffusion in China that I feel is underdiscussed and that I’ll admit I don’t fully understand, is how open people of all ages are to jump into new tech. Feels very different from the AI suspicion/resistance you see in the U.S. Similar with mobile payments and the shift to cashless. Street vendors in the lowest tier cities setting up WeChat Pay and Alipay QR codes almost overnight and Chinese grannies happily using payment apps with no problem at all. And yes that kind of grassroots adoption helped mobile payments scale extremely fast and allowed China to basically skip the credit card phase. My conjecture is that if something similar happens with AI tools the speed of AI diffusion in China could look very different from what we see in other countries, which obviously would have major implications...

@sadakiyo99 @_smcf Girls bars also have karaoke lol. The difference is that the girl will sing it for you rather than you singing it like you'd do at a snack. (they're both pretty interchangeable terms and Ik that at snacks they also sing sometimes)

@martinicancer @_smcf The screen karaoke + girl behind the counter looks more like a snack setting than a girls bar one

@sadakiyo99 @_smcf I'm sure op is talking about girls bars. Snacks have retired red light/kyaba workers. Girls bars are just snacks with younger girls or a theme. Kyabakura/Club is smarter girls that actively do conversation with you etc.

@_smcf Most snack.bars I've went were tended by older (not to say very old) women lol. They had some younger staff but the okamisan was usually some 50 something

@202accepted My business casual outfit is a mix of bottega veneta, Japanese tailors, handmade artisan shoes, and uniqlo. I think it’s a pretty bad look if your entire wardrobe is patrick bateman shit. There’s no reason ever to buy 60+ dollar underwear etc. (as a man)

clothing by wealth based on estate sales: - broke: Costco, Walmart, Uniqlo - comfortable: J.Crew, Banana Republic, Calvin Klein - established: Ralph Lauren, Brooks Brothers, Hugo Boss - wealthy: Brunello Cucinelli, Loro Piana, Zegna - fuck you money: Costco, Walmart, Uniqlo

@CacheThatCheque Before you @ me, most Japanese companies are hilariously unproductive and a large part is just so debt ridden that they don’t innovate, hence workers (who still do lots of overtime) just sit around typing out physical papers, printing them, and mailing shit to other companies.

@CacheThatCheque Japanese companies don’t have enough work for such minor productivity increases to matter. Also you can just select from common greetings in outlook

Even simple uses of AI will do amazing things for productivty in Japanese workplaces

@syrupmermaid The people they want as PR have enough money and they’ll surely benefit from shorter waiting times. There’s a reason salary adds so many points to HSP visas

@martinicancer it will affect everyone? people will pay more regardless

the people who apply for pr are those who contribute the most but still they are making a 20!!! fold increase. this is monthly salary for me. sorry this is insane. you want to increase it, fine but make it in a normal way.

@OliverinJapan I saw 2800 yen for 5kg last weekend at an oyster festival in rural Okayama. It's 5k anywhere I go in Hyogo. In general markets/stands/roadside tends to be significantly cheaper. You can also just use mercari gourmet to buy directly from producers

I saw American rice for 3,800 yen for a 5 kg bag recently, and Japanese for 4,000 yen. However I never buy any rice myself, so there may be better deals elsewhere.

@apralky I think the intersection is just boutique consulting/specialized consulting (not strategy). You have programmers, econ people, and banking specialists in the same groups. It's just not very well paid compared to pure finance and tech

There’s an interesting triangle of insecurity among the only 3 remaining careers in the West (tech, finance, econ) The tech people think the finance/econ people are “higher taste”/”higher class” (their taxonomy not mine), more serious in white shirts and what have you, both with probably better access to policymaking bodies, and the sexual market for the former The finance people are obviously kinda jealous of the tech people’s spiritual youth and illiquid dollars, and of the econ people’s license to opine and legislate on broad phenomena Then the econ people are obviously jealous of the others’ money If one is somewhat at the intersection, one can probably “monetize” these things? One acts youthful and namedrops the tech side around the finance boomers, one goes “little st james mode” around the econs, wears a white dressshirt in san francisco, and so on

@i_zzzzzz That being said it’s really fast but connecting is also much worse. Connecting from HSR to metro is also inconvenient. Ymmv but this is my experience in the shanghai metro area and guangzhou to chongqing

@i_zzzzzz Chinese metro stations are a lot further apart and have low coverage to less populated areas. The security for the metro is fine but the airport style waiting at a gate and queuing for HSR is ass. You can’t show up 2 mins before. Shops and food at stations suck. No bentos

My algorithmic feed has started showing me a lot of Japan-based rail enthusiast accounts and many of them seem to be experiencing a kind of spiritual crisis over the speed and frequency of Chinese trains