The United States of Japan - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-united-states-of-japan <comment> temp-dude-87844 The author's basic premise stands: Japan has undergone a post-industrial transition where the sudden prosperity of post-WWII generations was quickly followed by stagnation of those coming of age later; the shrunken opportunities afforded to the younger cohort leads them towards idle leisure, or anxiety-filled corporate drone work. The nature of consumerism has changed: there's still outward signalling but the goals have coalesced around personal experiences and fulfillment within an intimate group, as opposed to nebulous segments of the society at large. This makes for an interesting comparison with South Korea, where the nature of consumerism has become markedly more extroverted instead.

The economic and demographic points are fair, but the author tries too hard to tie elements of Japanese culture in with American trends. Yes, Japanese animation has mainstream appeal, but not universally. Video games can be pointed to as the most successful cultural export, but enduring appeal of Mario, Pokemon, and Link isn't functionally more different than Lego or Barbie in their respective times. If the world of video games were devoid of the above, they would be more realistic, more violent, with bleak storytelling and morally ambiguous characters, as we've seen from typical Western AAA games, so perhaps ironically, Japan's most influential cultural export is optimist escapism.

<comment><USER4> Yes, Japanese culture has filled a gap. If there were more components to Western Culture outside of America's influence maybe it wouldn't be so prominent.

But what, culturally, is coming out of Canada, Europe, Australia, South America, or Asia (outside of Japan)? Not much that is universally appealing.

<comment><USER5> Canada's done all right in terms of music exports. I don't even know Western popular music all that well and I can name Bryan Adams, Shania Twain, Celine Dion, Justin Bieber, and Drake - I'm sure there's many more.

Hollywood and American TV has a ton of Canadian actors, which reminds me of the Canadian brain drain article from yesterday - maybe that's not restricted to tech :-)

"Asia (outside of Japan)" I can only speak to India. I'd say yoga and various forms of meditation (TM and some others) are pretty big in the West, as is Indian cuisine. People typecast Bollywood as this exotic industry that churns out musicals with no kissing scenes (both outdated info) but its exports are reasonably influential in the Middle East and parts of Africa. But yes relative to its size, India hasn't had much cultural influence upon the world in the 20th and 21st centuries.

<comment><USER6> Canada: Rush, Alanis Morissette, Nickelback, Saga and 100's of others. Celine Dion and Justin Bieber are Canadian but having lived in Canada I'd be more than happy if I never heard them again. And with Bieber I had that feeling from the first time I heard him, I guess it is to balance the score after Glenn Gould.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The economic and demographic points seem to lack perspective in some places and in others are downright conflicting.

Take the evidence cited about how NEETs make up 10% of young people. However, the report itself offers one explanation for the numbers. "More than two- thirds of NEETs, in particular young women, are not actively looking for work. The NEET gender gap is larger in Japan than in most other OECD countries as many women in their late 20s withdraw from the labour force to care for children." People leaving the workforce to pursue homemaking and childrearing shouldn't be a societal problem if it's done voluntarily.

On the other hand, in the US, unemployment among 16-19 y/o's is around 14% and among 20-24 y/o's is around 7%. These populations are actively seeking work and unable to obtain it (and not homemaking), meaning that the number of "American NEETs" is likely higher than these numbers. The author seems to suggest that the US is downstream from Japan and that the epidemic of NEET-ism will only get worse, but if the current numbers are any indication, America's NEET problem is far worse than Japan's.

But the differences in unemployment between the two countries seem to be something more systemic. The total unemployment rate in the US has been roughly double Japan's for the past decade. And of course, it is natural that younger populations are hit harder by scarcity of jobs because most of them have little work experience. The author seems to suggest that shifting cultural trends are causing younger people to increasingly choose a life of unemployment. But past generations have had this same class of youth, be it the beatniks of the 60s, hippies of the 70s, or "Jay and Silent Bob" suburbanites of the 80s and 90s. The primary shift is in how this class is presenting itself culturally. Many of these people are simply embracing a lifestyle of joblessness to feel content in the lack of opportunity being presented.

The author cites a lack of human labor as a source of Japan's societal woes, but this is a leading contributor to why the country has what the author calls an "envious" 2.5% unemployment rate. Importing labor en masse from the third world will inevitably limit opportunities for citizens, especially young adults who will be competing for entry level jobs. Furthermore, lower class wages decline, increasing income disparity. The data supports this, Japan has a significantly lower Gini-coefficient (37.9) than the US (47.0). Indeed, keeping migration into the country low is not a source of problems, but instead giving Japan the upper hand on important measures of economic well being.

<comment><USER8> NEET is not synonymous with unemployed. It includes people who aren't in education or training as well. So comparing with the unemployed group in America, isn't a proper parallel.

You would need to compare to people who are both unemployed and also _not_ in school.

Hence the unemployment number of 16-19 year old versus NEETS, would be very skewed as most of those people on those age in the US are legally required to be attending school thus can't be NEETs.

<comment><USER9> Unemployment numbers in the US don't include students.

<comment><USER10> The US unemployment rate includes students, so long as they were seeking work at for at least one season of the year.

If you look at it on a month-to-month basis, it is seasonally adjusted, as students typically seek work during the summer [1].

If you look at it, the unemployment rate for 16 year old's is incredibly high ---at ~16% [2]. These people like OP said, are nearly universally in schooling and would not be counted as NEETs.

I can't say though how the NEET score is calculated in Japan. If it is so strict as to only include people who have never held a job, education, or training of any kind during the year then it can't be compared to _any_ unemployment statistic as those would typically drop someone if they worked once or gave up.

Either ways, comparing it is bad---which is what the grand-poster is getting at, so I think we all agree.

[1] [https://www.bls.gov/news.release/youth.nr0.htm](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/youth.nr0.htm)

[2] [https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea10.htm](https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea10.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A lot more profound than I expected from the title. I recommend reading it if you've skipped to the comments :)

I was particularly impressed by the comparison the author drew between aspects of Japanese youth culture that developed during the Lost Decade and aspects of "millennial" culture today in the US. I would be interested to see if anyone has developed that further.

<comment><USER12> I have traveled the world quite a bit, and lately, my impression is: people and cultures are becoming and more similar, probably due to things like social networks that work as amplifier for (mainly western) culture.

What I observe:

\- people dressing/styling similar

\- same food

\- same large retail chains

\- music sounds similar (except for the language)

\- same TV shows

\- everybody looking at their smartphones all the time

<comment><USER13> Social networks, but also automated manufacturing and cheap shipping around the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This isn't really the main point of his article, but he glosses over one very important point about young people & the work ethic today:

People who get labelled as "freeters" aren't necessarily bouncing from job to job voluntarily. For decades Japanese corporations were labor-heavy because of life-time employment. When the bubble burst, they broke that unspoken promise and shed themselves of thousands of workers.

When things picked up again, instead of returning to that previous promise, they hired temporary workers. No benefits, no annual pay raises or twice a year bonuses, etc. (And no loyalty from these workers)

The Japanese corporate system is set up that you are hired after college at a low salary, but you are guaranteed a steady climb until you can retire comfortably in the end. The corporations pulled the rug out from under that system.

So you now have many young people who have been fully employed at MegaCorp for 3 years, but on a contract basis, never knowing when it will end, never getting a decent raise...

If you read newspaper and magazine articles here you realize there is an enormous sense of insecurity among the 20 to 30 year age group; and so they are unwilling to take risks, get married, buy homes, etc. People are retreating into themselves.

It would make sense that that is linked to minimalism - or at least, a reduced consumerism - but that would only be my own speculation.

<comment><USER15> Let me add that low-salary that rises is still low.

My Japanese teacher 20 years ago bragged that Japanese CEOs don't make obscenely more money than their employees. I countered that western CEOs may make more but they also pay their employees far far more and generally don't making their employees work 10am to 11pm 5+ days a week.

I'm my particular field I halved my salary to come to Japan and tripled it going back to the USA. Even funnier I was working for a Japanese company in the USA. I worked for 2 large Japanese companies (one with 4000+ people. The other with 300,000+ people). Both had limits of ~$60k a year set by the HR department no matter how much experience. That's less than interns make at Google USA. A typical engineer out of school makes around $20k a year at a Japanese company.

Here's some data on average yearly salaries by job type in Japan

[https://doda.jp/guide/heikin/gyousyu/](https://doda.jp/guide/heikin/gyousyu/)

Here's a page from Sony's job info showing starting salary at $2.5k a month or $30k a year

[https://www.sony.co.jp/SonyInfo/Jobs/careers/info/detail.htm...](https://www.sony.co.jp/SonyInfo/Jobs/careers/info/detail.html)

Random ad for C programmer for device drivers at Panasonic. $52k a year.

[https://persol- hrpartners.co.jp/tech/SB070200/orderSearch?or...](https://persol- hrpartners.co.jp/tech/SB070200/orderSearch?orderNo=20347369&banner_id=ade1282)

In fact even more evidence, if you go to Indeed.jp (a job listing site) the settings for salary top out at $60k a year.

Add to that age discrimination (expected age is often in the job listing)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It is an interesting thing to contemplate, how there really are "leading" and "trailing" cultural activities. I noticed this in Australia how culturally, they were about a decade behind the US (this is not a snipe, just an observation on cultural norms). It is interesting to think that the US is culturally behind Japan. It leads me to wonder if that really will be our future as well, will we go through two lost decades? I fear we very well may do so. There at some point needs to be some method for dealing with the crushing amount of debt the US has collectively accumulated, and with internal "growth" so low (low birth rates as pointed out by the author). I see there eventually being no other choice than some sort of devaluing of currency to relieve the debt situation. The question is, what happens then? Do we go through a period of economic stagnation? If so, what happens to those "left behind"?

<comment><USER17> _> will we go through two lost decades?_

Growth rates in US and Japan are remarkably similar.

[https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...](https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_kd_zg&hl=en&dl=en#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_kd_zg&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:USA:JPN&ifdim=country&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false)

 _> the crushing amount of debt the US has collectively accumulated_

The US has far less debt than Japan.

[https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government- debt-t...](https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt-to-gdp)

[https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/government-debt-to- gdp](https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/government-debt-to-gdp)

<comment><USER18> Wrong debt. The problem for Japan is the amount of household debt that was accumulated during the 80s (Most of it, as with USA, Australia, and a bunch of other nations, went into housing). This put a hard clamp on domestic consumption. Only being a strong export nation has alleviated the problem until recent years, where SK and China has undercut Japan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > "A drop in fertility is virtually a defining trait of industrialized > economies. This isn't a bug; it's a feature."

Interesting to see programming terminology in a New Yorker article that doesn't seem particularly targeted towards a tech audience.

</comment><comment><USER20> > [W]e're all otaku now.

Are we? Perhaps this is true for the people that write _New Yorker_ articles, and a big chunk of those who read them, but from what I can tell most average Americans use Facebook, play basic app games, watch popular movies, and occasionally read a best-selling book. I don't see or hear about much cultivation of deep, obsessive, specific cultural interests.

<comment><USER21> Aren't the American otaku basically just nerds? Their "deep, obsessive, specific cultural interests" would be things like DnD, MtG, science fiction and comic books, and their stereotype probably predates the otaku by a few decades.

<comment><USER22> The original meaning of Otaku is almost identical to "nerd" IMO.

<comment><USER23> Otaku (lit. "home")

The word comes from otaku spending more time at home on their hobby than hanging out with their friends, which encompasses things that would be called enthusiast or freak in English too.

<comment><USER24> That's not true. The word otaku, while it originally means "your home", is used as a polite second person pronoun; "you". When used by men in their 20s it can be considered as too polite, to the effect that it sounds something that a socially awkward people would use. There's some other forms of "otaku speak": using the honorfic "shi" (氏) instead of the commonplace "san". This, too, sounds too formal, and thus awkward.

The word "otaku" to refer nerds was coined by the writer Akio Nakamori in his essays, who used the word to refer to nerdy young males who used awkward language like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > _Stripped down to its most minimalist outlines (an approach that Kondo would > surely approve), a life of uncluttered simplicity represents a fantasy._

What part of it "represents a fantasy"?

It's rather the idea of becoming eventually rich while piling on debt consuming all kinds of crap that's, statistically a fantasy. As in statistically most don't ever get to that.

</comment><comment><USER26> Not at all related to the article, but visiting Tokyo, it was immediately interesting to me just how similar to NYC it was. The feel was very New York, except stores close much earlier on par with the rest of Asia. And no one has ever seems to have heard of a suit that isn't black.

A lot of difference of course, but overall it very much felt like New York to me.

As to the article, no doubt that the world is getting smaller. Good and bad.

<comment><USER27> >The feel was very New York, except stores close much earlier on par with the rest of Asia.

Closer much earlier? What time do NY stores closes at?

<comment><USER28> Depends on the store of course, but many just don't close, or else stay open far later than the rest of the U.S. -- it would be pretty reasonable to go out at midnight and expect to be able to grab icecream, for instance.

<comment><USER26> Exactly. There are lots of 7-11s in Asia that are 24hr but most stores close early and don't open again until 10am typically. Compared to NYC where you might find a 24hr pet store.

I did however find the best sushi I've had in my life at 1am in Tokyo near a fish market. It's damn near ruined me on sushi. So the concept of 24hr or open late isn't unheard of, but most places are closed by 10pm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I have trouble getting any value from this article, which seems relatively devoid of pertinent facts.

The author wants to claim "Japanization" of America after the Great Recession because of a reduced fertility rate and an emphasis on the experience economy.

But, although he notes that fertility declines are a mark of industrialized nations, he fails to adequately compare the U.S. phenomenon to other countries, to compare and contrast those relationships with the relationship between the U.S. and Japan. In brief: the author presents _no_ cogent argument as to why this is Japanization rather than, say, Frenchification (the French are notoriously anti-materialistic, preferring travel and cuisine to accumulating junk).

This New Yorker article appears to be nothing more than a blog post detailing some personal interpretive lens with no new information or analysis.

<comment> temp-dude-87844 The author doesn't make a compelling case at all, and instead correlates the general trend of post-industrial transition to elements of Japanese culture and sensibilities gaining appeal with younger generations in the US. That may be so, but it's doubtful the US can even undergo the same kind of transition as Japan.

Inequality in Japan -- although on the rise -- is famously low, and the income disparity between people with low educational attainment and high educational attainment is not drastic. Taxes on the rich are high, and inheritance taxes also, making it difficult to accumulate and retain large amounts of wealth through multiple generations, which keeps inequality lower. The US has higher levels of inequality, and incomes correlate with a number of confounding factors that amount to structural stratification that's difficult to overcome. Egalitarian stagnation of young generations, kept orderly by generous government safety nets, a process that could easily take place in Japan, or Denmark, or a hypothetical post-boom Qatar, could hardly happen in the US.

<comment><USER29> Yeah, there are a number of ways that superficially similar phenomena are radically different between the two.

For one, American life delays are heavily attributable to economic uncertainty about basic needs like healthcare, whereas Japan has a healthy social safety net (related to your point about income equality and tax structure).

Effective fertility rate in particular is also radically different. As the author of the OP article points out, Japanese youth are delaying relationships and sex. In America, however, as in most other industrialized countries, the declining birthrate is mostly attributable to birth control, not abstinence.

<comment><USER30> The social safety net here in Japan is amazing, but the stigma of relying on it is so high that utilization by those most in need is very low, and that taking risks that could potentially lead to needing to utilize it are strongly avoided (among other social reasons for low risk taking).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The USA and Japan have a very strange relationship.

As far as Asian countries are concerned, Japan has fewer immigrants to the USA than Philippines, China, Vietnam, Korea, and India. But Japan sticks out despite the relatively low migration rate.

* The USA in general does have a sense of "the importance of the foreigner" or outsider. Foreigners invite new thought, new culture, and new experiences.

* Japan seems to make an ideal outsider. They're physically on the other side of the world. Their history is basically isolated from "The West" for hundreds, or even thousands of years.

* Yet, with all of that, modern Japan has integrated very finely into the culture of the West. Japanese brands are well-liked (Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Mazda). And as far as I can tell, Japan also likes a number of USA brands (KFC, Pizza Hut, 7-11, Disney, Levi Jeans, McDonalds, Star Wars).

* The media empire of Japan (not movies necessarily, but Japanese anime and Japanese video games, which are popular in the USA) has a lot of synergistic play / counterplay with USA. For example, the "RPG" genre has been shaped by both cultures heavily. While the USA can claim the big-daddy Dungeons and Dragons, as well as Rogue, Diablo, Bauldur's Gate (Canada, but still "Western"), World of Warcraft, and Skyrim... Japan has the Final Fantasy series, Dragon Quest, Legend of Zelda (including Breath of the Wild). There's a lot of influence and synergy between the "JRPG" and "WRPG" genres.

In short: Japanese culture is both familiar and foreign.

Cowboy Bebop is perhaps the best example of what I'm going for. Its a hardcore scifi space opera filled with Jazz: the American-influence on the anime cannot be ignored. But its still an anime with big eyes and the unique "Japanese" drawing style.

The familiarity allows American audiences a degree of comfort, while the Japanese tropes entice us with their exoticness. Its both familiar and different.

And from my understanding: the opposite occurs in Japan. The Jazz and "Americanisms" in the anime are designed to give a bit of an exotic feel for Japanese audiences and entice them. While the Anime tropes are there to give them familiarity.

And that's why its synergy. Familiar to us is exotic for them, and vice versa.

\</comment><comment>--

EDIT: And then there's "Power Rangers", the weirdest thing to ever happen between the USA and Japan. Its neither fully American nor fully Japanese. Its clearly "Super Sentai" footage, but the "American Parts" with Johnny / Kimberly / Jason are still core to the series.

Its not just "Power Rangers" either. Transformers, and Sonic. Sonic is a Sega- owned video game character... but a lot of the animation was... American/France. How's that for a change? Outside of the "Sonic X" anime--- Sonic SatAM, The Adventures of Sonic, Sonic Underground, and Sonic Boom are all primarily animated in the West. With the comics done by Archie.

<comment><USER32> All I can say is, welcome to globalisation. As another comment pointed out, the author hasn't really made the case what's so terribly unique about Japan's influence on the US and vice versa.

Europe has tons of integration with the US, too. J-Pop has their equivalence in a whole range of British or French artists, Mazda has their equivalent in BMW, Sega in Rovio etc. And Europe has similar links with the Japan as the US does with Japan.

Just looks like ordinary globalisation to me.

<comment><USER31> > Europe has tons of integration with the US, too.

But that's easy to see why. Europe and USA's history goes back to the beginning of the USA's existence. Various European countries (France, Britain, Spain) were colonizing huge parts of what eventually became USA territory in the 1800s. And the original 13-states themselves were a set of British colonies.

That, the language-similarities, the religious similarities (historically Christian)... its no surprise that USA / Britain / France get along today. There's so much that's deeply in common that friendship is almost natural.

The Japanese / USA relationship (and Japanese / European relationship) is unique in that there's no colonial, language or religious relationship between the countries. Japan was never a colony of a great European Power, Japan never really converted to Christianity, Japan never adopted the language of Europeans.

So the very fact that a close relationship could be forged at all should be a surprise!

<comment><USER32> You're partly missing the point. It's not just about US vis a vis Japan and US vis a vis the EU... it's that the US/Japan relationship isn't radically different from the EU/Japan relationship, or in fact any two highly developed globalised countries.

<comment><USER33> The US serves as Japan's military, which is not an unimportant difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Off Topic - I do wish magazines that exist for long form articles would build the page so you could use the space bar to advance without covering the top lines with their navbar.

I don't sit and relax with long form story on a Sunday morning on my phone

</comment><comment><USER34> As one who lives on the internet for work, I have never heard of any of the things mentioned at the beginning of the article which makes me suspicious of its foundation. Years ago, we heard of Japan taking over all of technology due to their innovation and we see how well that went.

It is the USA with the biggest influence on the world, not the other way around, especially short-term fads like those mentioned in this article.

</comment><comment><USER35> I've heard one interesting hypothesis concerning the paradox that the poor tend to have more children than the rich. You would typically expect the reverse. The poor, unable to provide for more children, should have fewer. And, according to this hypothesis, that's what is typically the case historically. The major cause for the reversal is the consumerist ethos. Those with more money choose to spend it on things rather than children because when "keeping up with the Jones'" consumerist values are in play, having a child is a relative loss. You are much better off buying more stuff.

</comment><comment><USER36> > "[...] there is little in the way of the internecine strife rending > America's public discourse at the moment. What keeps Japan from flying > apart, in the face of ongoing political, economic, and demographic > uncertainty? A standardized national curriculum that insures a shared level > of basic educational experience? An egalitarian pay ethic, with far less > income disparity than there is in the U.S.? A refreshing lack of a 24/7 news > cycle or televised punditry?"

The author is trying way too hard here to push their American political agenda. Are they implying that e.g. if we suddenly had an equitable education system our nation would suddenly be at peace?

What keeps Japan from flying apart in the face of uncertainty? I doubt the author would ever admit it as it's not very politically correct (and doesn't fit their agenda), but, before all the superficial options the author proposes, the homogeneous society in Japan is the number one thing keeping their societal fabric strong. Conversely, the heterogeneity of America is a big factor making our situation so tumultuous.

I'm an American currently working in Japan. Japan is awesome, and each day I witness cultural customs or processes that just wouldn't work in the US - <USER2> I think in large part it's due to nearly everyone being Japanese and raised with the same values. That's not to say I think America would be better off as a homogeneous society either; America is great in many other ways because of its incredible diversity, though it means we have challenges no other nation has had to face before.

But to ignore the role of diversity (or lack thereof) in the strength of bonds in a society is dishonest and misleading.

Side note: as an expat in Tokyo, I often feel bad for simply existing there. I try to conform to all the cultural norms here, but sometimes its hard to, and I know there are many expats who simply don't care to try at all, and I feel like this is slowly leading to the demise of an awesome aspect of Japanese culture. Indeed the neighborhood I live in, which is the expat neighborhood Roppongi, already seems to have lost some of the Japanese charm - with dirtier streets, rude people, expats being loud on the subway. Most people lock their bikes in this neighborhood now and a friend couldn't find their phone after dropping it at a bar the other day here (almost never happens in Japan - <USER3> lost stuff is either where you left it or taped to a nearby wall so you can easily find it). Purely anecdotal but, as I said above, I think the more heterogeneous Japan becomes the more of this culture we take for granted will be eroded.

<comment><USER37> I think this is one of the most significant reasons why Japan is the way it is, but one of the most ignored. It's difficult, in today's political climate, to accept that maybe immigration and diversity aren't always good things.

I hope Japan stays the way it is for a long time more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Maybe I am wrong, but I have always perceived that the influence of Japanese culture on America is no longer as strong as it was in the 90s and early 00s. That could be my childhood bias though.

<comment><USER39> Japanese pop culture (specifically, anime and video games) seems to have become more mainstream in the US across various demographics, likely due to the web and streaming services like Crunchyroll and obviously video games, but also because the generation that held it as a cultural niche has grown up and become the standard bearers for current American culture.

Mainstream pop and rap artists are making anime references in their music now, and plenty of modern animation and movies making nods to it, even adopting the anime aesthetic (like Avatar, Teen Titans and RWBY.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> An interesting opinion. If true, the future holds interesting problems, and I liked that it noted that there are worse things for a society than calmly growing old together.

And as an aside, I find myself very willing to click on any HN submissions linking to the New Yorker. It's website is usually clean, minimal, and seems genuinely intent on conveying an intelligent message to the reader, which is a breathe of fresh air as clickbait and sensationalism seems to only be growing.

</comment><comment><USER41> >A suicide rate that is one of the highest among industrialized nations.

Please stop saying that. Japan's suicide rate is on the decline and not that high.

</comment><comment><USER42> >We don't buy into Kondo's life-changing magic just because we think Japan is cool; we also buy because our country is, in many ways, increasingly like Japan.

On point.

</comment><comment><USER43> Hey, is this related to Code Geass?

</comment><comment><USER44> This article is written from the viewpoint of the US urban dweller.

</comment><comment><USER45> (All hail Lelouch.)

</comment><comment><USER46> This is what happens when you write an article about Japan without having any particular understanding of history.

The future of America won't look anything like Japan because America is not a far flung outpost of an empire in decline. It's the center of that declining empire. The circumstances of globalized Capitalism do create superficial "cultural" similarities, but if you want to understand the fate of America, you're better off looking at the current state of countries that were the former the rulers of the Ottoman, British, or Soviet empires. Great Britain became more Indian in the wake of losing its empire as well, but it wasn't anything like this article describes.

<comment><USER11> What empire in decline is Japan (or the US) a far flung outpost of, exactly? Japan has about the same population as Britain and France combined, and America has twice that.

I'm also not sure how Britain is relevant here. I think you have might have an interesting point but I can't see it right now.

<comment><USER46> Japan is a far flung outpost of the American empire and has been so for its entire post-War history. The occupation forces arrived at a tacit agreement with the former imperial rulers that they could remain in power, so long as they served American interests in the region. This is why Japan received favored status politically and economically over Korea (who were indeed even forced to purchase goods and services from their former colonial oppressors to prop up Japan's economy).

Something like de-Nazification never happened in Japan. This is who comprised Japan's Conservative party when the post-War democracy was founded and still comprises it today. Abe Shinzo is the grandson of the former prime minister Nobusuke Kishi, who was nicknamed "America's Favorite War Criminal."

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobusuke_Kishi](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobusuke_Kishi)

<comment><USER47> I don't really know that guy or care about him, but the page doesn't look very well written. There are grammar mistakes and opinions presented as a fact in more than a few places.

<comment><USER46> >I don't really know that guy or care about him

Then why bother commenting?

Here's the same info from a non-Wikipedia source, hopefully meeting your grammatical standards:

[http://www.jpri.org/publications/workingpapers/wp11.html](http://www.jpri.org/publications/workingpapers/wp11.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> This article has a bit of truth and a provocative thesis but with a few notable exceptions it becomes more and more contrived as it winds on. Most egregiously it tries too hard to tie unique Japanese cultural phenomena which can be explained in other ways to universals that don't exist.

</comment><comment><USER4> >Another societal struggle that Japan was one of the first developed countries to encounter can be seen on the opposite end of the age spectrum, in its large population of unemployed young men and women. A report from 2017 revealed that, in 2015, there are some 1.7 million of them, a full ten per cent of those between the ages of fifteen and twenty-nine—a shocking number, given that Japan's unemployment rate is an enviable 2.5 per cent. Officially, Japan calls these people NEETs ("not in education, employment, or training") and "freeters" (temps who drift among various short-term jobs). The press has other, less generous terms for them, including "parasite singles" and "herbivore men." In the early aughts, journalists spilled a great deal of ink on the herbivores' seemingly unique lack of interest in moving out, getting married, or finding a girlfriend.

It's telling that the author starts out his hitjob on NEETS as stating they're both officially men and women, and finishing with the implication that they're actually all men.

I'd expect better editing from The New Yorker!

</comment><comment><USER49> >Tellingly, the Japanese have a slang term for people like this: otaku. Literally meaning "one's home," the word emerged in the early eighties as slang for young adults who eschewed normal relationships in favor of the virtual worlds of manga, anime, and early video games.

It's hard taking an article seriously when it's wrong on such a basic fact like this. It comes off as someone who has no idea what they're talking about trying to make connections between things to sound informed and enlightening on a subject. Especially when all you need to do is read the wiki article [0]. The word is closer to "geek". How would 銃オタク (gun otaku) fit under the media umbrella of manga, anime, or video games?

[0] [https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%81%8A%E3%81%9F%E3%81%8F](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%81%8A%E3%81%9F%E3%81%8F)

<comment><USER50> The author of the article is a professional translator that has lived in Japan for 15 years. It's hard taking this criticism seriously when your authority here is Wikipedia as opposed to living in-country for a decade and a half.

His statement was in reference to the origin of the term, whose meaning has evolved over the years. Wiki isn't wrong, but neither is the author.</comment></comment>


Carousel – Gallery from Dropbox for photos and videos - <AUTHOR> https://www.carousel.com/

<comment><USER2> You can't use this on iOS without granting Photo permissions, and when you do it automatically uploads all your photos to Dropbox. So this doesn't actually improve the Dropbox photo sharing experience - it demands that your phone's camera be Dropbox's camera. Maybe that's what some people want, but I can't ask the friends and family with whom I want to share photos to use this, so there's no point in using it myself.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, this is a deal-breaker for me as well. Why can't I selectively push my photos up? There are a ton of photos I would never want synced automatically (multiple shots of one thing where I'm going to pick the best, normal shot vs Instagram shot, screenshots from my phone, images saved from email or the web, etc).

Not to mention I can't get into the apps settings without letting it start to auto-upload thousands of pictures to check if it's going to do it over wifi- only or use my data.

<comment><USER4> Ditto. I signed in and realized what was happening, looked for options in settings... no dice. I tried to sign out, and then it was going to sign me out of BOTH carousel and dropbox, so I just deleted the app. I think you should at least have the option to choose whether you want to update your previous photos, if not more granular controls.

I like their concept of simple sharing of albums. I shouldn't have to sync every photo to use it, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is it just me or does the parallax effect on the landing page need a bit of tuning? I had to scroll much more than similar sites to get a visual response.

<comment><USER6> But it _pops_ [0]! In 10 years I hope we look back at these ridiculous scrolling beasts and laugh at them the same way we scoff at the flash intros from not too long ago.

[0] [http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell](http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell)

<comment><USER7> I hope it doesn't take 10 years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I can't be the only one who thought of the Mad Men "Carousel" pitch. [1]

The stylised photos on this website are in the same genre as those Don Draper used.

[1] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWyLaXCV2_s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWyLaXCV2_s)

<comment><USER9> I also thought about that too. It would be nice to hear from people working at Dropbox if this was the source of inspiration for the app name and page design.

<comment><USER10> Maybe not the Mad Men scene, but the name and logo are clearly nods to the Kodak Carousel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interesting, unfortunately their landing page isn't really telling me a lot about this yet. Is it mobile only? I don't see the difference to the Camera Uploads they are already offering then.

If there'd be something like this, accessible from mobile and your regular browser integrated with Lightroom/Aperture/Adobe Bridge that'd be pretty sweet to keep a copy of your library accessible at all times from anywhere. Unlike my current backups to Glacier. (I know it won't replace a proper backup but it'd be a good additional backup with the side effect of making it accessible from different devices).

<comment> k-mcgrady Watch the video, it explains it better. It basically looks like a mobile app designed just for viewing photos you have stored on Dropbox. I assume the aim is to offer a better photo specific experience than the Dropbox app can.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hey loom.com - please feel the heat. I put all my family photos on your service and everyone hates the functionality. I have no desire to use Dropbox for this, and lose all that local storage, but whoever makes photos easiest for the moms of the world will win in the end.

<comment><USER13> [ _cough_ ]([http://cluster.co](http://cluster.co)). I work on it. It's less "storage/archival" and more "private photo/video social network".

<comment><USER12> I think that looks pretty cool, but I feel I should stress that 99% of users don't need _another_ way to organize and share photos - they need a _primary_ way to do that.

When folks sync their cameras and phones, they wind up with massive, disorganized mountains of images in the form of unwieldy iPhoto libraries. At a certain point (say, a year after the birth of a child) the task of going in and manually organizing photos, albums, sets or whatever is so daunting people just ignore it.

That was the promise of Loom - dump your photos here, and they appear automagically in a timeline you can edit and share. The execution leaves a lot to be desired, as I've suggested.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, totally agree about the problem of massive, disorganized mountains of images. A lot of companies shy away from trying to solve that, because ultimately it's profoundly hard to scale it (e.g. Everpix). Loom and Everpix are the closest to really trying to tackle it. Dropbox can "solve" it, as long as you are willing to pay to store your photos in a sync-everywhere folder.

Cluster isn't trying to solve the "organize and share" problem, it's trying to make the stuff you share reach the right people _in the right context_. I think what Dropbox is doing fits their business model really well and adds a beautiful layer on top of your photos/videos in your Dropbox account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Carousel is a non-starter for me for the sole reason that it doesn't have the ability to set a root folder. I keep a lot of things in Dropbox, including iWork documents, web sites, and iOS projects and I don't need the "photos" from those projects appearing in the app.

I've been using Unbound, which does let me set a root folder, but turns each folder into an Album when I'd prefer to just have the Photos.app/Carousel timeline view.

</comment><comment><USER15> I have a buddy who released something similar to this a little over a year ago called "The Carousel" ([https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/carousel-slide- projector-for...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/carousel-slide-projector- for/id572401095?mt=8)). It's complete with the old slide projector sounds and slide replacement animations (iirc). It sources the gallery images from Instagram.

While being a standalone ipad gallery app, it can also be tethered with apple TV to make your ipad act as the slide projector by mock-projecting the gallery on your TV.

</comment><comment><USER16> Ah, very excited for this. I have just now been looking at the API of dropbox to look into making a photos app that fits my needs. The big request I have is for Dropbox to render raw files in their website, mobile app, and now carousel. It's great the video shows g-pa taking photos on a film camera, and presumably these are being scanned to jpegs, but what about people who shoot raw, or have images scanned to raw? Would LOVE for my 10000s raw images to be viewable in this. Please. Please? They're just taking up space right now and un-viewable, and dreaming for the day they get "activated".

<comment><USER17> Perhaps you should try Lightroom's new cloud offerings [0].

[0] [https://helpx.adobe.com/creative- cloud/learn/start/tutorials...](https://helpx.adobe.com/creative- cloud/learn/start/tutorials/lightroom-mobile.html)

<comment><USER16> I've reviewed their offerings since they announced with great interest, but it doesn't have the whole 'sync' across devices as neatly coupled as this (dropbox) does. They only sync up the 'smart preview's of the raw files from the desktop. There is also a 20gb limit. I am nearing the 200gb limit of my dropbox.

Right now w/ Dropbox/Carousel, I have mobile photos uploaded via Camera Upload and that is a watched folder in Lightroom, so now my Phone/Pad/Web/Desktop- Lightroom are all in terrific sync, just without RAW files being viewable anywhere but Desktop.

<comment><USER18> Lightroom for Mobile doesnt seem to have a set limit:

From their FAQ {1]: Does syncing images to Lightroom mobile use a portion of the 20GB of cloud storage I get with my Creative Cloud complete membership?

[1] [http://www.adobe.com/products/lightroom- mobile/faq.html](http://www.adobe.com/products/lightroom-mobile/faq.html) No, the images synced to Lightroom mobile are not counted as a part of your 20GB of cloud storage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's available now: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dropbox.ca...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dropbox.carousel)

</comment><comment><USER20> Is there a service that does this, but lets you store the photos in the cloud?

1\. Take a pic

2\. Pic gets uploaded to the service, after x gets deleted from local device, only a small thumbnail remains.

3\. Open this history view, you can see thumbnails, pic gets downloaded when you click on it, large pic gets deleted again after x.

If I had something that worked like this, I would be so happy.

<comment><USER21> Picturelife kind of works the way you describe. It doesn't delete your camera roll automatically but other than that it's just a big online storage for your photos. You can browse all of your images from the mobile app and it shows thumbnails until you zoom them.

Referral link: [https://picturelife.com/?love=YqDZtHd3OI99uX](https://picturelife.com/?love=YqDZtHd3OI99uX)

<comment><USER22> +1 Recommend Picturelife.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It would be nice if there was just a little more branding to show that this is a Dropbox-created product. "from Dropbox" isn't as clear as "by Dropbox". (Are photos being served "from" my Dropbox?) I didn't scroll all the way to the bottom the first time on the page to see the copyright.

</comment><comment><USER24> If you are interested in Carousel you might also be interested in a service I built and am currently beta testing:

[http://www.yearloop.com/](http://www.yearloop.com/)

Each day it sends me an email with pictures from 1 yr ago, 2 yrs ago, etc. It is also powered by Dropbox.

<comment><USER25> How is it different from Timehop? [http://timehop.com/](http://timehop.com/)

<comment><USER26> Timehop shifted focus onto their app. I'm not sure I even get the emails from them anymore. (Checking my timehop email used to be a daily event for me...)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Ever heard of Flickr.? 1 tb for free. Dropbox out of blue has started to lose the territory , where it always been a king. Cloud Storage.

I meant we are living in the age where people're giving away 1tb here and there. Speaking of 1 tb, how exactly this would be different than, let's say the flickr iOS app itself.

I love dropbox because I have piled up 19gb free storage, because i am a whore and have plenty of email contacts, nevermind. But If I would ever need to shell out some money, hmmm well, I would definitely look for a company which is a reliable and cheaper and even better has its own data centers. you guessed it right. who I am referring to.

<comment><USER28> I want to like FlickR so much. I've been a premium member for years but their upload client for more than a few photos at a time is garbage. I also don't like how crude their online organization options are. I know with a bit of polish, it can be the king of ease in interface, but right now I am looking for something a bit more modern. Carousel COULD have been a no-brainer replacement, but I am glad I came here to get the insight of others; while FlickR may do a lot of things wrong, it sounds like Dropbox fails even harder on the organizational scale (root folders?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> How many people want to rent space in the cloud to store _all_ their photos? If our home did it we'd have to pay 2x $199 (200 GB each) or 2x $499 (500 GB each) per year -- plus buy computers with storage large enough to ferry this around (or external HDs).

Apple offers "photostream" as a free, transactional mechanism to move photos from phone to computer -- the central storage and usage of photos remains at home. Why would I pay a cloud storage company $400 or even $1,000 per year to keep my own photos?

</comment><comment><USER30> "Carousel automatically backs up photos and videos to Dropbox as you take them"

Yes, but also:

Dropbox automatically backs up photos and videos to Dropbox as you take them.

</comment><comment><USER31> All my photos... from now on? Can this check and index photos stored on my computer (not on dropbox) or on photo services like Flickr, and social networks as well? If it's supposed to be a one stop shop I would want something like that. The details are kind of few and far between...

</comment><comment><USER32> Neat. We just had our first child and I'm once again weighing various methods of storing / accessing all the photos I'm taking. Right now I'm mostly using physical backups and S3, but having a better way to browse the archived images would be great.

<comment><USER33> I have a local backup of my S3 bucket which uses Trovebox as a web/mobile frontend.

[https://jmathai.trovebox.com/photos/album- hg/token-d0386fc3f...](https://jmathai.trovebox.com/photos/album- hg/token-d0386fc3f3/list)

Source available at [https://github.com/photo/frontend](https://github.com/photo/frontend)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Clear now that the SnapJoy guys did not just disappear, I would venture this was out of their work.

</comment><comment><USER35> It's interesting how this is a separate app from the Dropbox app (I make this assumption because the app store links say the app isn't up yet). I'd imagine with DB's mobile pictures push the app would be integrated into the DB app itself.

<comment><USER36> I think they're trying to copy Google+'s "Photos" app which takes over the gallery while offering background upload in the same app.

Although on Android with Google+ it's bundled in the same apk, just 2 separate Launcher icons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> IF you're looking for a photo/video gallery for not only Dropbox, but Google Drive, Flickr, Facebook, and more, check out [http://cloudgalleryapp.com/](http://cloudgalleryapp.com/)

</comment><comment><USER5> That video...escalated quickly.

</comment><comment><USER38> Does the storage space for your photos come out of your Dropbox quota or is this separate? Are the photos shown just all the photos in my Dropbox or from a particular folder? The website needs more details.

<comment><USER39> [https://www.carousel.com/help](https://www.carousel.com/help)

Q: How many photos can I put in Carousel? A: The only limit to the number of pictures you can put in your Carousel is the amount of space in your Dropbox. If you have a 100 GB Dropbox account, you can have up to 100 GB of photos (that's about 40,000 of them!) and videos in your Carousel.

Q: Where are my photos saved? A: Photos in your Carousel are stored safely in your Dropbox account. Specifically, photos you take are saved in your Dropbox's "Camera Uploads" folder. Photos that you choose to keep will be found in your Dropbox's "Carousel" folder. Within the "Carousel" folder, photos will be stored in folders named after the person who sent you the photos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I skipped ahead and got right to the part where the woman was pushing/yelling during delivery. I had reread the title again just to make sure I was looking at the correct video.

</comment><comment><USER41> It's interesting to see this. Realplayer Cloud has been doing the video part of this. Moreover, they let me cast it on Chromecast. How is this any better for videos?

</comment><comment><USER42> I miss Everpix :'(

<comment><USER43> Wow I didn't know it was dead. I feel like there's really a need for a good photo/video management application. I didn't really like Everpix though, I felt like it was poorly made. Maybe that kind of thing need a desktop application to be truly good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> "Carousel is taking longer than expected to go live in the App Store & Google Play. Please try again in a few minutes."

<comment><USER44> Its actually up, they need to remove their js blockade [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dropbox.ca...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dropbox.carousel)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> How does this differ from / integrate with the existing camera uploads in dropbox?

</comment><comment><USER46> Nice scroll animation.

</comment><comment><USER43> "This app requires a camera flash". Why :( ?

<comment><USER47> Apple doesn't allow developers to restrict releases to explicit hardware revisions, so having that requirement keeps out anybody pre-iPhone 4.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> So how the hell do I upload 250GB of photos to them without dying of old age?

<comment><USER49> Slow and steady.

At 2Mbps upload it's only about 12 days.

<comment><USER48> I've never had an upload to _anything_ make it past 4-6 hours without some kind of hiccup, crash, or 404 from the host, much less 288 hours. And that's not counting transport errors on my side (I'm on WiMax). Assuming Dropbox can recover from partial uploads, I'd still expect an entire month or longer to get it all uploaded.

Now what happens if it's a terabyte? I'm supposed to saturate my upstream for 3-4 months?

<comment><USER50> Wait... this isn't one giant terabyte zip file we're talking about right? This is a bunch of 3 - 5MB jpgs, some 75MB-300MB video files? That accurately describes the media I have starting from 3 years ago when my daughter was born.

A failed upload only interrupts the file currently being uploaded, not the previously successful ones.

<comment><USER48> Agreed. "Assuming Dropbox can recover from partial uploads" meaning Dropbox can pick up where the upload stopped and keep going. But let's say it's halted at 99%, if Dropbox has to re-check every single file from the start to see if it's in sync, then there's gonna be a penalty there too.

<comment><USER51> Syncing files is pretty much Dropbox's core business. Of all the things to worry about them getting right, that one wouldn't concern me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> What a innovation. Share you´re photos. Sorry but cancled my account some months ago and switched to btsync and a local hoster. But yea, nice appleishstartup video with the typical funny guitar thing.</comment>


NASA engineer explains the aerodynamics of the World Cup soccer ball (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/15/turbulence/why-the-world-cup-suddenly-has-so-many-goals <comment><AUTHOR> The ball designed changed for the 2018 World Cup. Here's a history. [https://www.worldsoccer.com/world-cup/world-cup- ball-401201](https://www.worldsoccer.com/world-cup/world-cup-ball-401201)</comment>


How much time does WhatsApp Business Verification take? - <AUTHOR> Hello, I am looking to get access to WhatsApp Business APIs. I am trying to get answers to the below questions -
1. How much time does business verification take? 2. Which are the best official partners that I should consider working with? <comment><USER2> Hi Nolan, 1\. How much time does business verification take? - If you work with WhatsApp's official partners, you can get a WhatsApp Business Account in 7-20 days 2\. Which are the best official partners that I should consider working with? - You can choose from the directory here: [https://www.facebook.com/business/partner- directory/search?s...](https://www.facebook.com/business/partner- directory/search?solution_type=messaging&sort_by=alpha)

Disclosure: I work for Yellow Messenger and we've rolled out many WhatsApp Business Accounts and WhatsApp chatbots for brands globally. Check us out: [https://yellowmessenger.com/cognitive-solutions/WhatsApp- for...](https://yellowmessenger.com/cognitive-solutions/WhatsApp-for-business)</comment>


Court rules in favor of the Oxfod comma - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/932004/the-oxford-comma-a-maine-court-settled-the-grammar-debate-over-serial-commas-with-a-ruling-on-overtime-pay-for-dairy-truck-drivers/ <comment><USER2> Yet more evidence in favor of its use - clarity is important!</comment>


OpenSkyscraper – an open-source clone (in progress) of SimTower - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/fabianschuiki/OpenSkyscraper/wiki

<comment><USER2> This is a neat coincidence: I rediscovered an old box of SimTower just last week. Unfortunately, I could not find the disk any more.

I remember the most infuriating weakness of the original game was that the speed of transportation was linked to real time, while the in-game speed would increase during the in-game night. The effect was that if there were large queues late at night, they would never empty before dawn because the elevators were moving unrealistically slowly.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is awesome. SimTower was one of my favorite games as child, heck its even awesome now. I spent around 6 months creating my own version of SimTower called DroidTowers and released it on Android. Working on that project was one of the most fun experiences in my career as a software engineer.

I open sourced[1] the entire game shortly after securing funding for my current startup. Maybe I could donate the art to OpenSkyscraper. I really want this project to succeed :D

[1] [https://github.com/pplante/droidtowers](https://github.com/pplante/droidtowers)

<comment><USER4> I hope you will take this well. It looks like you've put real time and effort into droidtowers. I also understand you are not sure how your work can live on now that you're focusing else where.

The issue I bring up is that the CC-BY-NC license is not open source. The issue stems from the non commercial clause which is a restriction on fields of endeavour. Now the reason why this matters is that Open Source is in fact a made up work. The group which invented it and popularized it did so with a specific definition: [http://opensource.org/osd](http://opensource.org/osd)

One of the goals in inventing a new word was to have an unambiguous term to use for software which otherwise would have been called Free, as in freedom.

Now I am not saying this to force your hand. I understand you may not want to give up commercial rights, and that is fine. All I ask is that you consider releasing your hard work under one of the licenses which we as various communities have agreed are open source. You can take your pick from the OSI's list: [http://opensource.org/licenses](http://opensource.org/licenses) or the Free Software Foundation's list: [http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license- list.en.html#GPLCompatib...](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license- list.en.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses) or even the Debian community's list: [http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/](http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/)

If you pick one of those licenses your work has a chance to outlive your efforts. Your art may find its way into other games, and your game itself may find its way into linux distributions. Or it might get cloned a hundred times on the app store. =)

One more minor issue with CC licenses for code is that they are not designed for software: [http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#C...](http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Can_I_apply_a_Creative_Commons_license_to_software.3F) Thanks to edge cases you may be giving people more permissions than you intended. Or you might not be giving people a right you thought you were.

<comment><USER3> You're right. I chose that license because I originally wanted to protect the artwork which I paid a decent sum of money for. Now that its been over a year, I am less worried about the artwork since I have recouped my original costs. I just changed it to MIT. Thank you for pointing that out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > If you remember any additional information, please feel free to edit this > page and add your knowledge!

Is there some issue with asking someone to play SimTower in a VM and finding the items that way?

For example, here's a video of SimTower running on windows 7: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtMltxWLkaU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtMltxWLkaU)

<comment><USER6> The copy I had was 16 bit. So it's worth noting that it won't run in 64-bit Windows. (Did they have a 32-bit version? Or maybe a DOS port that would run in dosbox or freedos? I seem to recall it also ran on Mac System 7.)

<comment><USER7> I'm certain I had a copy for Windows 95, running in Windows mode, not DOS... Does that mean it was 32bit or no?

<comment><USER6> 32-bit Windows can run Win16 apps, i.e. those built for Windows 3.1. 64-bit Windows cannot.

AFAIK this is rooted in a hardware limitation. Once you enter long mode, you lose vm86 mode. Rather than introduce software emulation to cover this case, Microsoft just said they wouldn't support it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yoot Tower was ported to the iPad:

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yoot- tower/id379197311?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yoot- tower/id379197311?mt=8)

</comment><comment><USER9> Will this combine aspects of Yoot Tower as well?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoot%27s_Tower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoot%27s_Tower)

</comment><comment><USER10> I wish Maxis would make new versions of these old titles.

<comment><USER11> Maxis ceased to innovate when EA purchased them.

<comment><USER12> They still innovate, they just direct all their effort to more profitable microtransactions and ways force everyone online.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Rather tangent, does anyone know if there is any open-source version of "Transport Tycoon"? I used to love that game.

<comment><USER14> Yes! Check out OpenTTD at [http://www.openttd.org/en/](http://www.openttd.org/en/) It has a very active community and has a lot of new stuff compared to the old TTD game.

<comment><USER13> OMG. awesome.

<comment><USER15> Would you like to lose all productivity today? as there is a browser based port of openttd [http://play-ttd.com/](http://play-ttd.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Used to play this game for hours as a kid - lots of hotel rooms, condos, cleaning, etc :)

</comment><comment><USER17> > Completed: Dynamic extraction and use of SimTower graphics, sounds, and > other resources from retail EXE file.

Isn't he opening himself up to copyright takedown by using the original game assets?

<comment><USER18> I'm assuming this is akin to the [http://www.openttd.org/en/](http://www.openttd.org/en/) or Doom clones where the "engine" is open source and you have to provide your own graphics/sounds/etc.

As a stop gap until they completely replace the art assets with OSS version, you can extract the originals and use them for development. That requires an original installation to coexist with the clone (read [https://github.com/fabianschuiki/OpenSkyscraper#how-to- try-s...](https://github.com/fabianschuiki/OpenSkyscraper#how-to-try-stuff) which mentions you need the SIMTOWER.EXE locally, mainly to acquire art assets).

So, you need a legit copy of SimTower to play the SimTower clone (at least until they rebuild all art assets).

<comment><USER19> > I'm assuming this is akin to the > [http://www.openttd.org/en/](http://www.openttd.org/en/) or Doom clones > where the "engine" is open source and you have to provide your own > graphics/sounds/etc.

OpenTTD has shipped with a complete set of base assets for quite some time, though it _used_ to be like that.

<comment><USER18> Good point, I failed to mention that explicitly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm curious why they chose libRocket instead of cocos2dx or unity3d?

<comment><USER21> it's an open source project. why would you use unity3d? Would that not totally defeat the purpose?

<comment><USER20> I suppose that makes sense, although unity3d is free, and the source for the game could still be open source, but yeah I think you are right, perhaps not the best choice :)

<comment><USER21> Actually no. Not only is Unity3D NOT free, (it has a version called "Unity Free" which is just a brand name. Do not be fooled into thinking it has meaning here as an actual word) The Unity3D license is totally incompatible with Open Source. Please read the agreement:

[http://unity3d.com/company/legal/eula](http://unity3d.com/company/legal/eula)

In particular, pay attention to clause 2a (You are not permitted to combine content created using Unity Free with content created by Unity Pro)

2f: you may not copy or modify or use to create a competing product

3: You do not own Unity3d, only license its use

5: you consent to permit Unity to collect data on your users

and so on and so forth. Honestly I don't see the appeal of paying this company money to throw code away into a closed platform with no independent implementations.

(and yes, you do still have to pay them money if you wish to uh.. .distribute your game. to anyone. a right not included in the "free" version.)

<comment><USER20> I agree with you, the point I was trying to make was that since the project is open, using unity3d would be free, since everybody builds their own build. If at some point someone wanted to distribute and monetize the app, then yeah they'd have to pay the license fee.

But in any case, the app is being written in c++ which I think is a harder but better language to write games in, mainly for performance reasons. I am not familiar with libRocket, but I am curious how well it will deal with a large scene graph, whether or not it support level of detail or culling, or if you have to handle that yourself.

<comment><USER21> You missed my point. the license for Unity3d is incompatible with distributing source code on github, or licensing it with any open source license. You can't do it.

As for librocket, I was confused about that, so I had a look and I'm not sure that's what they are using for anything more than the UI. The framework they are using is SFML.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sweet baby jesus, I loved SimTower as a youngster.

</comment><comment><USER22> December 25th, santa flies across the sky at midnight. I loved this game.

</comment><comment><USER23> Please feel free to call a directory "src" when it contains source code. This is standard and avoids needless typing.

<comment><USER24> Why did you even bother making this comment?

As an aside, I don't see how needless typing is involved. s-tab will still go to the "source" folder.</comment></comment>


Hiri email client - <AUTHOR> https://www.hiri.com/ <comment><USER2> Thanks for posting this b01t. I'm co-founder of Hiri. Saw a little traffic dripping in from HN so thought I'd chime in. A few things you should know about Hiri: 1) Hiri is a replacement for MS Outlook. It's Exchange/Office 365 and Outlook.com only for now. 2) What's unique? It helps you get better at email. For example, you shouldn't check your email too often. So we don't do notifications. Instead we encourage you to wait 30 mins before checking mail. Loads of features like that. 3) You can drag emails into a fully featured task list. 4) We've got a fully functional calendar built in. 5) Linux, Mac and Windows.

Would love to hear what you guys think.</comment>


Facebook earnings beat; shares jump nearly 20% - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/id/100903640 <comment><USER2> Mobile push notifications? I suspect at least one technique that is helping with mobile engagement is the aggressive push notification strategy they have deployed in last 3 months. Its not just when someone mentions you, but even random wall posts from friends will send me an alert 1-2 times per week ([http://forums.androidcentral.com/samsung- galaxy-s4/293018-fa...](http://forums.androidcentral.com/samsung- galaxy-s4/293018-facebook-app-notifications-about-friends-status-updates- friends-not-close-friends-list.html))

At first I tapped on every one of these and landed in FB. After a few weeks, I realized something was off (or FB was just trying to trick me into thinking a wall post was relevant).

Anyhow, its a interesting/shady tactic to re-engage passive FB users, possibly one of several strategies that are getting them results on mobile. Here is how to turn off push notifications - [https://www.facebook.com/help/103859036372845](https://www.facebook.com/help/103859036372845) \- I'm sure most FB users can not figure this out.

<comment><USER3> Joking with friends last night: "Facebook Liked your status."

I've held the opinion that FB is poised for major user erosion, as a consequence I took a short position in the stock some months ago. However, since they've entered a phase where they're aggressively monetizing, I'm probably going to get out on the next pullback. I still think the conditions are right, but there's also no catalyst event on the horizon.

<comment><USER4> "Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent." \- John Keynes

That's especially true with shorting positions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Financial reporting is the absolute worst. Why say something like "estimates called for the social media giant to post earnings of 14 cents per share on revenue of $1.62 billion". Comparing the per-share number to the total revenue tells us next to nothing. Interpretation of the facts aside, they should at least report the relevant facts.

Going to the primary source tells us that the numbers are $333M income on $1.813B of revenue, and the same quarter last year was a ($157M) loss on $1.184B of revenue. So revenue increased by ~$629M, and income increased by ~$490M.

<comment><USER6> There is a lot of bad financial reporting out there, but this isn't it. They aren't "comparing the per-share number to the total revenue." They are comparing the current quarter's EPS to the EPS for the same quarter a year ago and to the consensus expected EPS. The difference between the expected EPS and the actual EPS accounts for the jump in share price. EPS is just a way of normalizing earnings on a per share basis, kind of like how we quote the price per share (about $31 right now) rather than the total market cap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Facebook's earnings excluding items came in at 19 cents per share versus 12 cents per share a year earlier."

What were the excluded items?

[http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/excludingitems.asp](http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/excludingitems.asp)

<comment><USER8> "Share-based compensation and related payroll tax expenses and income tax adjustments" are excluded from Facebook's non-GAAP income (loss) from operations measure.

Facebook believes "varying available valuation methodologies, subjective assumptions and the variety of award types that companies can use under FASB ASC Topic 718" make it difficult for investors to gauge the "underlying performance" of "business operations" across time periods and companies. Excluded payroll tax expenses "are tied to the exercise or vesting of underlying equity awards," and to Facebook's stock price "at the time of vesting or exercise", which again may obfuscate "the operating performance".

[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000132680113...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000132680113000016/ex991.htm) _FB 's Q2 2013 Reported Results_

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Those five shares I bought to be a part of internet history at the IPO are finally making a comeback

<comment><USER10> If you had instead invested that money in a ETF that follows the S&P 500, you could have $2.109 in profits today. (Assuming $190 initial investment and S&P growth of 1.11% since May 20th)

<comment><USER6> I think you fat fingered the calculation. The S&P is up something like 30% since the FB IPO (5/18/2012).

<comment><USER10> Yep you are right! I calculated from May 2013, not May 2012! The total profit would be $46.68

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I am waiting for Facebook to start their own AdSense alternative. There is a lot of money there.

<comment><USER12> Seriously. This is the one reason I invested in Facebook stock. They are sitting on immense profit potential in the form of contextual advertising.

<comment><USER13> I would guess it's because the context is relatively obscure whereas with Google it's not.

Yes, they can uniquely identify you by your profile more than Google can, but for many who don't 'like' everything left and right (or like everything they come across) how would you determine what ads to show them? Just because my friends like something doesn't mean I will. And that's a wasted impression.

Google on the other hand knows what you want - you're actively searching for it. It's pretty straightforward for those who want to serve ads to target what they want to target.

<comment><USER9> I think you're confusing Adsense with Adwords -- Adsense is the offsite platform Google runs; if Facebook told websites using their non-existent off site platform what to advertise to you, that would very quickly turn into a fountain of money

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Amazing! So they simply turn ads on for mobile and it makes over $200 million in a quarter. Jaw dropping!

<comment><USER15> As someone who has clicked less than maybe 20 Internet/mobile ads in their life, thus clearly not party of the demographic companies target, I wonder what is wrong with my brain if the majority of people click on ads. (And probably spam mail too)

<comment><USER16> Disclosure: I'm a Facebook employee working on something completely unrelated to ads, and I always use AdBlock on my desktop machines, but I will say this for our mobile advertisements: they can be genuinely useful. Just last week, I got an "offer" on my phone, from The Gap, for 25% off my next purchase. Claiming the offer didn't send any of my information to the gap, but it prompted me to shop there for pants when I normally would have gone elsewhere, and I actually ended up buying something. At 25% off, it cost less than or comparable to my normal shopping locations, so it was a win for me, and I bought something from The Gap that I otherwise wouldn't have, so it was a win for the advertiser. A far cry from the bad taste that online advertising usually leaves in my mouth.

<comment><USER17> That sounds to me like the argument people always provide in favor of targeted advertising. What distinction do you see between desktop and mobile that made the latter more useful for you?

<comment><USER16> Desktop advertising has never before offered me a discount for having seen the advertisement; it's usually along the lines of "go look at this". By having a more tangible "carrot", if you will, I was much more receptive to the request for attention.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I bought at ~21 blended; I'm feeling good right now, but see this as a real long term bet. FB's position is so stratospheric that the opportunities to monetize are nearly endless; the rub is going to be in picking the right paths, not the lack of paths.

<comment><USER19> It really should be noted that no company with Facebook's P/E ratio has maintained that level for a long term. Facebook is still so overvalued that it will certainly come down from where it is now. If it doesn't, it would be the first company to do so. Even if it were to increase it's earnings, just a quick glance at Google Finance shows it's P/E 2,231. Regardless of other financials, that ratio is so off the wall that it could not be justified without an unprecedented amount of earnings growth. Making the claim that Facebook is the greatest company in the history of public companies is a stretch.

[1] Cliff Asness of AQR's "Bubble Logic": [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=240371](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=240371)

<comment><USER20> > _Even if it were to increase it 's earnings, just a quick glance at Google > Finance shows it's P/E 2,231._

Google Finance has not recalculated the ratios yet. At present, Facebook is trading around 100x earnings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is slightly off topic, but can someone explain this to me.

I'm looking at the Google Fiance page for FB: [https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AFB](https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AFB)

There I can see that the price is indeed up, but this is "pre-market":

Pre-market: 31.10 +4.59 (17.31%) Jul 25, 5:29AM EDT

Can someone explain to me how this pre-market works in the background? Is is an summation of an actual work queue of orders that are waiting to be placed once the market opens?

I'm really interested how this works from the general technical perspective.

</comment><comment><USER22> Hooray for annoying stupid fuckign ads all over Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER23> Facebook is not going away. They can turn on as many revenue streams as they want, and people will not leave.

<comment><USER24> "AOL is here to stay." "Myspace is here to stay." "Facebook is not going away." "640K should be enough for anyone."

The only certainty is change.

<comment><USER25> Arbitrary list? Why not use Google, Apple, Intel?

<comment><USER26> Not arbitrary... list to support his opinion of Facebook.

<comment><USER23> It's arbitrary because if we're going to assume that facebook is going away, we can just as easily assume that google, intel, etc will.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Wow. I'm at break even. Almost.

</comment><comment><USER12> I made my first stock investment yesterday when I bought 20 shares! I must be a savant.</comment>


Decisions - <AUTHOR> http://paulmckellar.com/decisions/

<comment><USER2> Not directly related to a consumer app, but I've found that requests for more features strongly predict customers who aren't going to pay.

Customers who are a good fit for the product ask for the core features to work better, faster, and in new situations you haven't thought of yet.

Customers who ask for random features are trying to think of use cases they want solved, because there are none being solved by the product as-is.

If most of your prospects are asking for random features, you don't have product-market fit. Try asking these customers to sign contracts saying they'll pay once the feature is supported. If they will, that's a promising pivot opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems strange that the posts mention things but never elaborate on them:

What are the four decisions in the app? Which feature did one user want to remove?

</comment><comment><USER4> Single review of app on appstore ([https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wut-semi- anonymous-chat./id7...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wut-semi-anonymous- chat./id781488867?mt=8))

" didnt use a password field

by spencer1248

everyone saw my facebook password"

Looks like you need to focus on such things before thinking about features at all.

</comment><comment><USER5> Simplicity is a great thing and the app screenshot looks nice. There must be something else to help persuade people to download this or explain the usefulness of its simplicity.

PS. WUT SENDS A MESSAGE TO ALL FRIEND WHO HAVE WUT.

Should it be Friends*?

<comment><AUTHOR> Typo is intentional. Based on the tone and audience we want to create.

I know that is unusual, but keep in mind nobody downloads an app because it is exactly the same as every other application.

<comment><USER6> Can you explain what kind of tone and audience you're targeting that made you decide to keep the typo? I'm genuinely interested because the phrase does sound odd to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Going to try and answer that with examples.

Anything silly and whimsical.

If you were to look at a teenagers phone and ask "what does this word mean, and this word, and this word." That is our audience. Example: "OMG LOL FML" (clearly you know those words, but your parents may not)

Apple actually rejected our App the first time because our marketing copy was too ridiculous. This is the more reasonable version.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Most of my friends who looked at it asked for new features."

Users ask for features, but as makers we need to dig deeper and understand the underlying need that's not being met.

</comment><comment><USER8> Is there any content to this post? All I see is "someone said something I didn't expect."</comment>


Kleiner Perkins Has Invested in a Startup to Improve Battery Power by 300% - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/11/kleiner-perkins-has-invested-in-a-stealth-startup-to-improve-battery-power-by-300-says-moores-law-is-running-out-of-steam/

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe this is it? [http://green.autoblog.com/2012/10/31/calbattery-working- on-3...](http://green.autoblog.com/2012/10/31/calbattery-working-on-300-mile- li-ion-batteries-at-greatly-reduc/)</comment>


Unofficial video of the #29C3 Keynote: Not My Department - <AUTHOR> http://youtu.be/QNsePZj_Yks

<comment><USER2> Its frustrating to see this being so undervoted on _hacker_ news.... but than again, this site was never really for hackers, was it..</comment>


Meditation as cheap, self-administered morphine  - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304760604576428151831584880.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

<comment><USER2> For anyone wanting to try this out themselves, Jon Kabat-Zinn is one well- respected long-time researcher into this effect, and I recommend his materials. <[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Kabat- Zinn>](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Kabat-Zinn>);

NOTE: I don't know the man and have no stake in his success.</comment>


Meet Angelpad's Newest Class - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/29/angelpad-round-two/

<comment><USER2> Looks like an amazing group of founders. Good luck to all of you guys running your companies.</comment>


Naked Streets – Do They Bring Chaos or Safety? - <AUTHOR> https://blog.synced.to/Naked-Streets/ <comment><USER2> Very interesting concept! Has anyone seen this implemented in North America?</comment>