Notices by Minoru Saba (minorusaba@toad.social), page 20

Alternatively Kanegon could join the trend of switching jobs
or (...gasp!...) surprise Japanese managers and ask for a pay rise!
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Datawatch/Surge-in-job-hopping-boosts-Japanese-wages

"The Japanese government recognises more than 80 hours' of overtime a month as a risk factor for karoshi (death by overworking)"
https://www.wired.com/story/karoshi-japan-overwork-culture/
🔸Kanegon would have to work 35 hours/week of overtime, thus crossing the karōshi line in the first half of week 3 to earn the 15,000 yen/day to survive; so death by overwork vs death by starvation.
🔸Minimum wage worker working 40 hours/week would earn about 185,500 yen/month ($1212/month)

"Kanegon is a ”kaiju” (monster) that eats [enough] money...to stay alive"
"[It needed] 3,520 yen ($22.89) [in 1966]...equivalent to around 15,000 yen today"
"[Even after raising Japan's minimum wage to] 1,054 yen an hour, Kanegon will earn only a little more than half of 15,000 yen [for 8 hours work]"
"To escape starvation, Kanegon has 2 choices: One, to act like a real kaiju and refuse to work, or two, to leave Japan"
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15363951
🔸Or do 7 hours zangyō per day😱
#Japan #MinimumWage

@pmonks @mloxton @genewitch @Remittancegirl @JuliusGoat @zenkat @benroyce

United Kingdom: “Hold my beer”

A parliamentary system may still be subject to “peculiarities". Labour just won a “landslide" with more than double the majority of the previous government but with a significantly smaller percentage of the vote (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Kingdom_general_elections#21st_century).

For the US *Presidency* (as long as there is one), IMHO there should be universal suffrage with some form of ranked voting.

"Until around the mid-1970s, police mainly used montages of photos with different features resembling the people being described"
"However...the photos' realism limited peoples' imaginations [leading to the] use of composite sketches..."
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20240727/p2a/00m/0na/005000c

🔸Was once told by a novelist that ambiguity expanded the reader's imagination, likewise a sketch probably widens the net when searching for persons of interest.
#Japan #ninsogaki #sketch #police

@readbeanicecream One could have used colored vapor and seen the vortex directly. A vortex is the most intuitive potential answer, anyway, once mentioned.

(I live in tornado country.)

A class on code-switching. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTNQf16pu/

"Local newspapers in the UK are disappearing fast, creating news deserts and leaving councils unscrutinised. Now, though, a new generation is reinventing community journalism"

" ”Spending on local news can lead to improved public spending. Once that watchdog function is gone, corruption increases”
- Jonathan Heawood (Public Interest News Foundation)"
https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/jul/28/mill-media-joshi-herrmann-interview-local-uk-news-substack-sheffield-manchester-birmingham-liverpool
#LocalNewspapers #UK #accountability

The 82nd NHK All-Japan School Choir Competition - High Schools Division (2015) set piece
"Maple Syrup"
Composed by Nozomi Matsumoto
Lyrics by Hiroshi Homura
Performed by Gold Award Winner
Fukushima Prefectural Koriyama High School

「メイプルシロップ」福島県立郡山高等学校　Nコン2015
作詞/ 穂村 弘
作曲/ 松本 望

第82回NHK全国学校音楽コンクール高等学校の部
全国コンクール金賞

https://youtu.be/Z9IcALwtZ6Q

UK rail travel is one of the things that gets harder for an expat like myself to navigate each time I visit the country (which is not often).

1985 - "Two off-peak to Doncaster please." Costs two bob ha'penny but apparently the Conservatives are unhappy about it.

1995 - Consult many timetables or approach wizard in ticket office. Expensive but apparently price will come down soon because of privatisation.

2005 - You now have to 'split' your journey to avoid being ripped off and ticket office staff will not explain this. Try to figure it out online. Travel with reams of printed tickets. Empty your wallet.

2015 - Ticket offices mostly gone. Multiple 'journey splitter' services, each telling you different things. Tickets now on phone, so pray your battery lasts. Mortgage required.
#UK #UKRail
@helenclayton

@inpc @ChrisMayLA6 @zzypt I fondly remember documentaries in the mid to late seventies fretting over how we were going to use our leisure time because of (a) microprocessors and (b) general purpose assembly robots. As I was introducing companies to office automation back then I smiled wanly then and I smile now, seeing exactly what employers wanted from the shiny tech that changed the nature of work.

"1) Trade War & Economic Friction
2) Withdrawal from South Korea & a deal with KIM JONG UN
3) Trump abandons Ukraine & embraces Russia
4) Crisis in the Taiwan Straits
5) An Authoritarian, Dysfunctional America"
https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/781946

🔸Underlying existential dangers for Japan remain whoever wins in USA.Wondering if #Japan can come up with creative solutions before the balloon goes up.

"...govt aims to launch [an automated freight network] in select areas by 2034 before introducing it on the busy Tokyo-Osaka route, PM Kishida announced on July 25"
"...estimated construction cost per 10 km is 25.4B yen ($165M) for above-ground infrastructure and 7B to 80B yen for the underground tunnels"
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15363084
🔸Ignoring existing freight trains allows excuse to spend billions of taxpayers' money?🤔
#Japan #infrastructure #WhiteElephant

"A clinical study of artificial red blood cells that can be stored for transfusions in times of emergency will begin in #Japan by next March, according to Nara Medical University"
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20240727/p2g/00m/0sc/013000c

"Hiromi Sakai (Nara Medical University) developed a...PEG stabilized, lipid vesicle encapsulated hemoglobin product"
"Some participants [in a phase I clinical trial] experienced adverse effects..., but they were tolerable and temporary"
(18 Jan 2023)
https://www.drugdiscoverynews.com/making-blood-in-the-lab-15596
#ArtificialBlood

Infection status
Released July 26, 2024.
- As of period from July 15, 2024 - July 21, 2024 -

No. of patients per medical facility (nationwide) 13.62
Change from prev. week +2.44
[Source: Health-Labor-Welfare Ministry weekly report]
https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/001280143.pdf
🔸Eleventh week of increases. Saga at 31.08, Tokyo at 8.5, Chiba at 14.87, Akita at 6.53, Hokkaido at 5.34. Okinawa at 22.06
#Influenza monitoring paused by Health-Labor-Welfare Ministry until Sept.
#CovidIsNotOver #Japan

NASA is facing a tough budget situation, which might lead to the end of the Chandra X-ray telescope and big cuts to Hubble :(

https://www.npr.org/2024/07/23/nx-s1-5048828/chandra-x-ray-observatory-nasa-powerful-telescope-anniversary

"...the University of Tokyo’s Atacama Observatory, waiting only for an infrared telescope employing a mirror more than 6 meters in diameter to be installed"
"...located on the summit of the 5,640-meter high Mount Chajnantor in the barren Atacama Desert"
"The project began in 1998..."
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15348004
#astronomy #Chile #Tokyo #Japan

@FlockOfCats
Tateshina Jiyū Nō-en had 2 types in stock on Sunday: 1. all red stalks and 2. mainly green stalks.
Got the latter which was about half the price and will make rhubarb jam, probably omitting lemon juice & with less sugar than the recipe recommends.
Bonus of making rhubarb jam is ending up with sparkling clean pans!
Tateshina Jiyū Nō-en(たてしな自由農園): https://www.tateshinafree.co.jp/haramura/

Rhubarb jam(ルバーブジャム) :https://cookpad.com/recipe/7557844

"GM’s self-driving car subsidiary Cruise is scrapping plans to build the Origin — a purpose-built robotaxi with no steering wheel or pedals — and will instead use the next-generation Chevrolet Bolt"
https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/23/gms-cruise-abandons-origin-robotaxi-takes-583-million-charge/
🔸Probably explains why JV with Honda for driverless taxis in #Tokyo hadn't materialized:
"Cruise, GM and Honda...[aim]...to establish a joint venture which will begin a driverless ridehail service in Japan in early 2026"(19 Oct 2023)
https://global.honda/en/newsroom/news/2023/c231019aeng.html

#Applebaum:...And yet...through civic activism...they [Ukrainians] created a democracy. Sometimes...a pretty rocky democracy, but it's a democracy, nevertheless.

They, even during the war in #ukraine have a sense of freedom of speech and ease of conversation that you don't have in #russia