> If you throw trash on the ground, 100% of the people around you will give you a disapproving look.

http://buzz-plus.com/article/2018/10/29/garbage-shibuya-hall...

>technologically advanced

You might revise your opinion about that somewhere around the hundredth time somebody tells you that you have to communicate with them by fax.

I would definitely describe "putting two coins into a vending machine to receive a ticket to hand to someone in exchange for a tasty bowl of ramen" as more technically advanced than "table for two?...[waiting, waiting]...one ramen, please...[waiting, waiting]..."everything ok here?" "yes go away" [waiting waiting] ... "here's the bill"...[waiting waiting]..."have a nice night"

Advanced tech doesn't have to be high tech.

Well no, it just seems completely bizarre and adds little value to the process in my experience and HO. (Still, happy to be corrected...)

When just arrived in Tokyo for the first or second time and still feeling a bit nervous I went into an empty noodle place and was completely lost until the cook put down what he was doing and in utterly perfect English walked me through the whole process...

The country is a very very strange mix of advanced and retardedly old tech.

You can get hot drinks from bending machines in the middle of nowhere and just have to input a phone number in the GPS to be guided to a ryokan deep in the mountains of Akita, but kerosene heaters are almost universal (central heating is not a thing outside of large/business hotels) and many businesses require fax or physical stamps.

LOL, though I recently had the same experience of when a doctor's secretary rather imperiously informed me that my test results would be faxed to my GP. Maybe fax is regarded as more secure than email?

The photo 5th from the bottom actually appears to be of a coin-operated rice mill!

those, you bring your own rice though, so a bit different. (they're pretty common in the countryside!)

The first time I saw one, I was probably ~6 years old and my grandfather stopped by on our way home to mill some of the rice he had grown. I was confused since growing up in the States, I had never seen non-white rice until that point.

Rice vending machines are actually pretty common in the countryside where there may not be staffed rice shops or supermarkets

Our use-case is that my wife will receive gifts of unpolished rice from relatives, which we then need to haul to the vending machine to polish.

It's actually quite enjoyable, as you get to run your fingers through warm rice pouring out from the machine.

I'm interested in these articles you mention, but am having trouble finding out more. Do you remember what they were called, or any details about their publication?

I remember one particular sci-fi story (I don't remember right now if it was by him though). In it they have booth to booth teleporters that can take you virtually anywhere on the planet that's been hooked up.

One of the consequences of the technology is that immediately spectator value goes off the chart. As soon as people hear about something interesting happening anywhere then there is an an influx of a few million people playing spectator, which as you can imagine, has some consequences.

They were published in anthologies of his short stories and articles. EDIT: I believe it's in the anthology All the Myriad Ways.

I imagine in those types of restaurants, menus might be cycled-out due to wear and tear more often than due to changing dishes. In which case, the increased durability and water-resistance of this stone-based paper might result in less waste.

Are you suggesting the Danish should be taxed for travelling they might well have done in Sweden?

If the car was registered in Sweden they'd be paying tax there. If the per-mile tax is similar and there are a similar number of Danes driving in Sweden and Swedes driving in Denmark it evens out.

"The Danes" or "the Danish citizen".

"Danish" is an adjective or a cake.

What you're describing sounds a lot like shorthand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorthand

He explains that by using a line he can more easily move it "when the quarters move".

Using a border would require removing the border and adding a new one every three months. A line can be dragged around at will. This also makes it more useful for miscellaneous illustrative purposes.

I'm an excel noob but doesn't table mode fix all this.

For a monospace font, the characters aren't nearly distinctive enough.

> What good have mosquitoes ever done?

They are apparently an important pollinator of certain flowers, including the blunt-leaf orchid.

So then the question becomes, what good has the blunt-leaf orchid ever done? However in my brief research it looks like other insects do pollinate the orchid also. It also grows far north so would not be affected by wiping out the mosquitoes that cause zika in the south.