They have those cool blue plastic trays with rubber mats that you put your money in though. And they’re everywhere.
Don’t forget the impending population disaster (because they never feel the touch of another person these days, their government literally has to try and encourage them to drink just so they’ll fuck already- and can’t stand immigration) and all those depressed young people using seemingly everything from the slopes of Mount Fuji to their own apartments as log-off locations, and then nobody noticing their bodies for months.
Filet mignon from a vending machine is for everyone in Japan.
I like cash and fax machines. But floppy disks need to be retired. And paper filing is incredibly slow compared to digital databases.
Paper filing is good, digital filing with proper backups is good.
At my job for a staff evaluation I have to fill out a paper checklist, scan it, then enter the information digitally, then print the digital one and file it in the employees file with the original checklist and then upload a pdf of the paper checklist AND the digital one…
Instead of just having the evaluation portal open on a tablet and doing it ONE TIME with a good backup system.
Yes, I agree it’s good to have a backup system.
[edit] I mean having a paper filing system as backup.
I could just print out the digital version and archive that or submit the digital and file the paper checklist.
I dont need a digital copy of the paper and a paper copy of the digital at the same time. Especially when they get filed/archived together.
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Japan uses cards, it’s just that they love their trains so much, they put their money on their fare cards I stead of using credit cards.
I still have my Suica card, it’s got $50 on it still.
Most of those negatives sound fine to me.
…how? The only acceptable one (Even though I personally don’t like it) is cash.
Fax sucks ass and should have been put in the grave LONG ago, Flash drives are superior to Floppy in every way and fuck paper filing, digitized paperwork is far superior.
Floppy drives are the brontosaurus among these, excusive paper filing sucks too, but cash society and fax telecom is not that bad.
I mean these things can’t be that bad, Japan compete well on the world stage so whatever they’re doing is working fine. Can it be improved, probably. Does it need to be? Not yet
If people actually upgraded from FAX, I would have completely agreed. What we have today is an abomination which doesn’t work. Not even a week ago I had an issue with some paperwork where tax office required me to fill some form in PDF, then print it, then sign it, scan it and send it to them. I have a phone with a pen, so I did all of that and skipped few steps. Signed the document on screen. No no no no no. They didn’t want that. They want my signature on paper which I never have to send them but my signature signed through screen is not good enough.
FAX is basically all of this with fewer steps and I can easily see why they wouldn’t want to move away from it. It it works, don’t fix it mentality. Luckily this trend is slowly going away, but damn. Not to mention same IRS office required me to generate a certificate which I can use to digitally sign documents. But I couldn’t do this either, since they accept that only on some documents. A mystery.
As far as floppy disks are concerned, this is mainly for industrial machines. They are still a huge user. Those machines are not replaced every 2 years as they are more robust and made to last. So having a machine older than 30 years still working in industry is nothing new and considering upgrade costs literally millions, it’s simply not worth paying that much money to upgrade to USB.
Lots of those floppy drives in industrial and lab applications (as well as the retro computing enthusiast space) are being replaced by things like GoTek devices, which are essentially floppy emulators with flash memory.
In some places, yes. But many are still not doing the upgrade as it would require technical person to do so, provide tech support, etc. All of that costs money. Whole industry is becoming very specialized place. Siemens still sells laptops with DB9 and other serial connectors just so you can access and program PLCs. And new USB based adapters to serial simply don’t work. Sometimes they do, but most of the time they have issues with these specialized devices.
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We use fax in the USA more than you’d think. I’d call that a wash.
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Paper in your filing cabinet will never be messed with by a ransomware attack. Ransomware attacks seem to happen to businesses and hospitals just about daily here. I’m actually watching a news story on a hospital ransomware attack as I write this.
Floppy drives? Yeesh that one is a bit weird.
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Yeah, like what’s wrong with cash?
Annoying to deal with
It’s not even accurate anymore. Cards are accepted in a lot of places.
It was absolutely true 10 years ago, though. It’s inconvenient always needing to think about how much cash you need to bring, and having a pocket full of change because it’s significant denominations.
Also, their banks are only open on weekdays and close super early. Bank lines were (are?) massive because everyone had to go at the same time due to work hours.
I have a really slim wallet, which is only possible because I never have to use cash. Also cash is dirty. I can wash my phone once a week to keep it clean but I can’t do that with cash (well I can but what’s the point, and I’ll get accused of money laundering /j). It’s inefficient since you have to count your coins and bills and the cashier needs to do the same and then you have to check if you got the right change. You can also misplace cash, especially coins.
Meanwhile I haven’t had to handle cash for like 6 years now except for extremely rare circumstances and it just feels way better.
America doesn’t really have a functional system for this yet either. It’s a lot easier to just tap your phone on a brick and be done with it, but currently the tap method is pretty hit or miss. And bank transfers are atrocious - why do we pay venmo to do something that Korean banks just straight up do for everyone? In Korea you can just give someone your deposit number and with a couple buttons you send money easily/instantly.
My bank still sends me a text message and has no other means of 2FA options.
You’d think they’d be way more up to date on this “digital security practices” stuff. :|
Same in Brazil, i can send i think 10k to anyone in my contact using PIX that was created by the goverment and is opensource, i can pay with it too, there is other way too, but PIX is the easier, just need a internet connection
you can send using ramdom nunber, cellphone number, CPF, qr code, email, just need to configure the key that you want in you bank or bank app, and it just work without fees
Theoretically the situation with bank to bank money transfers should be improving - the replacement for the ancient, slow ACH system went live a few months ago. Of course it will likely take several centuries for a critical mass of banks to support it, but there has been some progress at least.
I don’t know much about Korea. Do they have laws limiting how much you can be tracked and marketed to?
You don’t even have to go that far, Canada has interac e-transfers where you can send money by email. Directly accessible through the standard bank app/site. I haven’t handled cash in years
Ew email does not sound like the place for cash transactions.
But yeah, most countries these days have instant bank transfers. The US is ancient when it comes to payments, “cashing your payslip” isn’t a thing in much of the rest of the world.
They likely mean their bank uses email as an identifier. So the bank asks you the registered email you’d like to send money to. Not that you’re emailing cash or something like that.
Similar to zelle, a third party that fills the gap.
The email is like an id for your account. You can use your phone number. AFAIK if you link it email or phone number to your bank and someone sends you money to that email or phone number it doesn’t actually text or email you. The money will be directly deposited into your account.
In Australia you can send money via phone number or email (called payid) but it’s not sent in an email or SMS, it’s just that your number/email address is used as a unique identifier linked to your bank account. When someone pays you via either of those, the money gets directed into that account instantly.
And yes, being paid directly into your bank account is standard here and I would say really the only option for most jobs. I’m 35 and have never had a job that doesn’t pay you direct to your account.
In Australia you can send money bank to bank for free, with practically instant transfers (though large amounts and first transfers from you to someone get a 24hr hold)
And you can use the person’s phone number as the transaction target (instead of bank branch number and account number)
It’s pretty nice, good for small business too, especially trades
Re: Australia: be aware that all normal bank to bank transfers are still min 1 working day transfer. Its FAST and Osko which bypass that with their own new network (up to $1000).
Not every bank is with Osko or FAST, and some are with one and not the other. Though I think FAST is fading away with Osko being dominant.
Re: phone number: or email address! It’s great, especially if you have your own domain name. You can make different PayID email addresses for each account you have if you want.
Me and my mate have sent money to each other for kitty balancing on fishing trips, this year (about an hour ago) he sent me his share (high hundreds) and it was instant
We don’t use phone number since we have had each other’s bank details for ages
Osko/FAST: are fast BSB/Acct# transfers.
PayID: is an easy way to reference a BSB/Acct#.
Together, they are fast and easy, but they are not the same thing and are not required for one to be used to use the other.
Also, “high hundreds” is less than $1000 :-P
Yeah honestly living there for a while, I came around a bit on doing things by paper.
It’s slower, certainly. But the Japanese are scary efficient at it, and there is a lot of infrastructure to support it.
And in the case where things go wrong or are confusing, at least you can take the forms and actually go and talk to someone, rather than staring at a computer screen that offers nothing.
As someone who filled out multiple copies of the same contract by hand to buy a house recently, which had to be stamped with my seal and not signed, AHHHHHHHHHHghgghhg. On average, I only have to fax something once every several years. NTT, the main telecoms provider, STILL requires that you fax paperwork to get internet (at least for NTT East as of two years ago).
Using cash is great (except for my airline miles account), but one of the biggest banks in Japan is notorious for outages. ATMs here also, until very recently, had business days and hours. That’s finally mostly gone, at least. They can still run out of money at the year-end holiday season as everyone is home with family and they’re not always restocked in some locations, but more ATMs also helped to solve this. The problem with things transitioning to electronic payment is also those payment processors take a cut. We have all kinds of payment apps here, but many small businesses I know hate using it. The ones I know that use it most generally have larger foreign customer bases (anecdotal to business owners I know; may not be generally true in all of Tokyo/Japan).
I think someday we will look back and consider if taking everything digital was ever the right choice. Friend always uses the term, “high tech downgrade.” The more I interact with the internet the more I learn how it pushes the limits of our society in not so great directions.
I think the opposite can be said too. t’s pushed society forward in so many great places as well.
I’m not saying there should be no internet. I am only saying maybe some restraint would be advantageous for everyone.
Everything evolves as a wave of extremes and eventually finds some sort of equilibrium, trying to contain that is a fool’s errand.
Or a new normal… paved roads and cars in the US was once pretty extreme, until it became normal. Did you be it’s grownup and tell it to go to bed on time, did you make a futile effort to stunt its growth or did you roll over. Story of the frog in boiling water.
Ever notice how some roads aren’t paved?
Sounds like your own personal philosophy
Thing is, the Internet at its core is just a vastly interconnected network. That’s it. All the effects of the Internet are direct consequences of that fundamental property, and time.
The technological architecture that supports the complexity of modern civilization? The direct consequence of interconnectivity × time. QAnon? The direct consequence of interconnectivity × time.
You can’t restrain the bad without crippling the good.
the Internet at its core is just a vastly interconnected network.
Nothing about what you said invalides my point.
Not every human transaction has to be made over the internet. Other technology’s are sufficient and do not cripple society.
You can’t restrain the bad without crippling the good
That part. “People should…” is an impotent sentiment. How do you incentivize, or force, a regression to “sufficient” technology? How do you do so without affecting beneficial network technology?
By learning from the past. See, in your mind you’ve already established all technological advancement is beneficial.
I think you might be misinterpreting my point.
I agree.
Nah
Ok… good talk.
Why are you responding to me on the internet?
… why don’t you have reading comprehension?
because Reductio ad absurdum is easier than confronting hard truths they don’t want to accept and possibly risk firing off a dreadful thing called a “thought” in that inert mass of jello they call a brain.
Maybe it’s the Internet. You should show some “restraint”.
Digitizing some things, like medical records and rare texts, have been extremely useful.
Digitization of records in general is extremely useful.
The Internet is great. It connects people. I learned so many things even I lived in a small town in a third-world country.
But ads, scam, and 15-second videos are bad. The current Internet is nasty and not as beautiful as it was.
Two sides of a coin, I suppose.
I think the problem was that technological advances were faster than social ones. We ended with new ways to control people, and new forms of inequality.
Many of our problems with technology are rooted in a company abusing from their power. Even the troubled ways we communcate online today are a product of how bigh tech manipulated social networks.
Germany is the same but without the bullet trains and the robots wiping your ass.
There’s nothing wrong with having/paying by cash though.
I find it pretty funny seeing people talk about how Japan is not as advanced as people think. Meanwhile my home state the majority of people don’t have Internet. I’ve been getting pretty convinced that most places use fax machines due to how few places have Internet. Anyplace that has any amount of beurocracy uses paper files. There are a considerable amount of places were cell signals simply don’t work. The only way reason I know of public transport busses is because of movies. VHS player are common place for house holds. Many work vehicles were made in the 60s and we still use buckets to collect sap when sugaring. Card readers are rare so some gas stations require you to pay with cash. All around the only advanced tech things Vermont has to offer are our winter cars and the f13s that occasionally blow peoples ear drums out.
Bro time travelled from 1992 to make this comment
I did too, but it took 30 some odd years
Tf is sugaring
Making maple syrup at industrial scale
Ahh yes. Typical Vermontian behavior
Come to Quebec where everyone and their mother have a maple syrup shack.
Can confirm. Everyone in Québec has a mononc(uncle) Réjean who is like the 5th biggest maple syrup producer in the world.
Your country has a strategic maple syrup reserve. Maybe you guys need to calm down about the maple syrup.
That’s the only thing we have, might as well go all in.
Both things can be true, but Vermont doesn’t have a giant “We’re a high-tech place!” image harped upon constantly that can feel like false advertising.
Most people don’t have home Internet because almost everyone has it on their phone. Plenty of people don’t own a computer anymore unless it’s for work.
Okay but Vermont is basically a white people nature preserve, isn’t it?
Well it’s a pretty shitty preserve
Imagine saying that about another race/place
“the Philippines is a nature preserve for Filipino people” fucking I wish, leave us alone colonizers
Congratulations! You have discovered that changing the words in a sentence changes its meaning.
Point is it would not be appropriate to make a joke of that nature with another race/place combo, therefore the joke is inherently racist
Yeahhh but when the race you’re making fun of isn’t threatened, doesn’t face any meaningful discrimination, and pretty much runs the world, I think it’s safe to make fun of us.
Kewl
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Either race-tinged observational jokes can be funny if good spirited (I subscribe to this view) or they should be considered poor taste 100% of the time. (That’s fine too)
But this self-flogging “lol but it’s ok to be racist against people that look like me because the stereotype is some bad people also look like me, so I totally deserve it based on my ancestry, right guys?” Schtick isn’t good for anybody.
(Unless you literally don’t face any injustice on your way to running the world, then I totally misunderstood lol.)
But the idea that you should denigrate yourself to appease others’ misguided hatred of your racial “impurity” is…the exact concept we want to eradicate isn’t it?
I think you need to learn the difference between punching up and punching down.
When white people become oppressed and stop being in control of practically everything in the U.S., you will have a point.
As a white person, I am authorising and allowing this joke to be made, and I am retracting and removing any racism labels associated or attached to it.
You’re welcome!
So one person of another race could “clear” a joke against their race? Obviously not.
As a comedian, I am writing you referral for your doctor for a humor-transfusion. Any of the four will do.
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Needing to ask your boss so he can ask his boss so he can ask his boss so he can verify if you can sharpen your pencil
Cash is better than digital currency. And gold, silver and copper coins are better than any other currency.