Interesting Links for 19-06-2023

[andrewducker]

1. The horrifying toll of Sweden's lax pandemic policy

(tags:Sweden Pandemic Death OhForFucksSake )

2. Ursula Vernon has cancer

(tags:Cancer )

3. Possibly the finest money-making scheme of all time

(tags:business funny geology )

4. Read here about chickenpox parties, and consider that this is what the NHS still wants today in the UK

(tags:UK NHS vaccination OhForFucksSake history )

5. California restaurant had fake priest hear workers' confessions

(tags:catholicism fraud work USA wtf OhForFucksSake )

6. Rishi Sunak mocks trans women in leaked video footage

(tags:conservatives bigotry LGBT transgender )

7. Schopenhauer's 38 ways to unfairly win an argument

(tags:argument )

8. Apple wants to own pictures of apples. All of them

(tags:apple apples intellectual_property OhForFucksSake )

9. Companies in Japan opting for selected offices to work in English

(tags:Japan English business )

10. No matter how else you might feel about the internet, the opportunity it provides for people to educate themselves is *amazing*

(tags:Education internet )

Comments

Japanese VS English

[agoodwinsmith]

I'm trying to think how much of a hoo-ha that would cause if it was done in reverse here. Well - I'm not actually sure that it could be done here because we have, on paper, not kidding, official languages, and I bet someone not even wanting to be employed at the place would make a fuss.

Also - for anyone moving to Japan to take advantage of the opportunity, it's great until one has to leave work for, oh, grocery shopping, or picking up a parcel, or getting a haircut, or ...

Re: Japanese VS English

[andrewducker]

I would certainly want to take Japanese lessons if I was doing that.

Apparently it's going to be more to be able to hire Indian and South Korean developers than American ones. They're a lot cheaper, and English is the common second language.

Re: Japanese VS English

[fub]

There is a vast distance between knowing enough Japanese to kind-of get by in every day life, where your interactions with others are of limited depth, and being able to communicate the nuances of, say, a subtle bug in software.
Obviously the people coming to Japan will learn the first type of Japanese, but it is unlikely they will master the second type of Japanese.

(And the reverse is, of course, also true for Japanese people!)

Re: Japanese VS English

[andrewducker]

Oh yes, but I wouldn't be aiming to learn computer-specific things, as I wouldn't need that. I'd want to be able to chat to people in the shops though.

Re: Japanese VS English

[channelpenguin]

It took me a year to learn German well enough to do my development job in it.

Having done a year of Japanese at uni (30 years ago!), I think it would not be massively harder to get to the same stage - but if there was a lot of written stuff... Hmmm

My current job in Germany does documentation in English, anything verbal or casual messaging in German (unless both parties not native). This is pretty common, was the same in prev job. Lots of places are English for both by default though. First job was 100% German. That's tough. I can see why the Japanese might well find it advantageous to have office language English.