Reddit -> Beehaw until I decided I didn’t like older versions of Lemmy (though it seems most things I didn’t like are better now) -> kbin.social (died) -> kbin.run (died) -> fedia.

Japan-based backend software dev.

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Joined 3 months ago
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Cake day: August 14th, 2024

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  • I live in Japan and definitely some sweets that I’ve brought back from the US to share as well as recipes I’ve made (from my grandmother’s cookbook) were too sweet for a number of folks (usually men, so there may be something else going on here with cultural images/norms and the like as men aren’t generally “supposed to” be overly fond of sweet stuff). Still, the vast majority of people liked them and wanted more. I do find myself toning down sugar in recipes, though. Less in grandma’s cookie recipes, less in the cornbread recipe I found online, etc.


  • it’s generally harder to fax to a wrong number, have that actually hit a fax machine, and have it print than to accidentally email the wrong person or something. There are things that could be implemented into certain systems to only send to certain addresses, etc., but that information also exists in multiple places that can be accessed as well. For a fax, the message exists on the sender’s side (physical if any, machine memory possibly), receiver’s side (same), and briefly on the wire. This is opposed to hard drive, cloud, etc. where it is always vulnerable.


  • they have colossal overpopulation.

    I don’t know that that’s necessarily true, particularly as the older generations are on their way out. I’m not sure how many people Japan can/should support in a sustainable fashion (thinking here more in environmental terms and maybe a bit in economic terms, but not in terms of the safety nets that are getting really wrecked by what you mentioned).

    I will 100% agree that the distribution is rather unsustainable on a number of levels. Not being able to get into free/subsidized childcare with growing shrinkflation and stagnant wages has certainly been an issue, and more people moving to the same places has definitely impacted that poorly.








  • This is true (edit: for fairly recent history; going back more we have women’s suffrage times and the civil war times), but I also don’t know that it’s great. When we see people having their rights denied or, worse, taken away, standing complicity by or with the people working to deny or strip those rights does not work for me. I have cut people out of my life and am even low-contact with some of my family because they want to hurt people I love and that’s not OK with me.



  • However, since you don’t pay taxes on that money, it can impact which kinds of retirement accounts you can use based in the US, if any. Also, trying to invest as a US citizen outside the US can suck because of all the agreements with US banks. Many Japanese platforms, for instance, won’t touch me because of US reporting requirements. I also can’t functionally use the tax-advantaged retirement accounts here because many amount to what are called PFICs by the IRS which requires paperwork and are taxed punitively more than wiping out any advantage the retirement accounts would have.

    You’re also going to have a rough time getting a US investment account if you don’t have one already. Then you have to figure out how to have a US phone number because two-factor auth basically requires it for any bank or anything that will touch you.

    There are other “fun” things about being a US citizen living abroad.



  • The fascist, directly into cold storage and left to bit-rot.

    Joking aside, history. If you really think the internet will not be a thing yet want to survive: water purification. farming, water management, plant guides, waste technology (your bodily excretions have a lot of uses (from laundry to fertilizer) but also a number of risks), medicine, forestry, jointery, metalworking, mining, animal husbsnwdry, skinning, hunting, numeracy, literacy, leadership, etc. in roughly that order


  • I didn’t particularly care for all of Harris’s positions and history, but I voted for her. I know many who felt the same. Even considering attacks on ballot drop boxes and such, based on what I’ve read so far, the majority of voting Americans picked the… Well, the one whom appears to have won.

    So, to me, the question is not the one you proposed. The question to me is more along the lines of getting more voters/engagement and the like. To your actual question: they actually got it back and it makes me feel sick and ashamed, but that is the reality as much as I despise it.