It’s super important in Japan where jam packed trains are common during rush hours. They typically announce in Japanese and English, and may even have a visual displayed.

Squid: “Nobody at home’s ever gonna believe this.”

First I just want to say, that is a damn beautiful website. No ads, no popups, just pure information.

And second, as a former back end developer who has spent a huge amount of time working on input sanitization and building database schemas, that list gave me mild PTSD for a job I have never even had.

Great. Now I’m unsure of how to pronounce database as well.

Somethin’ like a fish.

One time while reading on my phone in bed with the lights turned off a single solitary firefly-like point of light appeared and drifted across my field of vision. It had depth, so I know it wasn’t a phenomenon originating just in one eye, and wasn’t constrained to the screen. There is also a zero percent chance it was an actual firefly. My only explanation is that it might have been a hypnagogic hallucination, but I’ve never seen one as bright and clear as this was. Like an ember from a bonfire.

Maybe this only works on certain fish, but if you stop the first long cut just short of the tail you can flip the fillet over and it stays connected to the body, making it easier to hold while you cut the fillet away from the skin.

I was really intrigued by the idea of short “jury duty” sessions with 12 random strangers in which you have to debate and try to come to a consensus on an issue. Disappointed to see it’s just a one-click opinion poll instead.

It’s not round, but it’s not flat either!

When I first moved to Japan over twenty years ago they were already about a hundred years ahead of typical US toilet/bath technology. For me, using one of these faucets where you can just set the temperature by number was like Liko getting beamed from her hut directly onto the damn Enterprise.

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Randall Munroe has joined the conversation

I just got back from visiting my parents who were struggling to fix an unreliable dishwasher that keeps clogging, fails to dry, stinks, etc. This is PERFECT timing for that video!

A similar machine also plays a role in the 1997 movie Contact.

Darn… I absolutely would have fallen for that trick, thinking I was being proactive in my security practices. I guess there will always be another vector to attack from.

Hewn