I was actually in Higashimurayama yesterday because they have a lot of motorcycle shops and I needed to buy a few things. It was absolutely miserable on my bike and even still quite warm in the shops WITH air on. The brief times of 30-40 kph were somewhat helpful, but still a lot of sitting in the sun with little to no wind and not moving. I checked my heartrate when I got back home and it was almost 160 and all I was doing was sitting on a bike in my gear for about ~35 minutes riding back home.
…despite the vows set for in the threatening email, the checked-out books have been returned.
Hopefully those returned books are being examined for vandalism before going back onto the shelves. Wouldn’t be too big of a stretch to imagine that people petty enough to try and keep the books out of circulation might find other ways to be assholes.
They returned the books. I guess they realized that it would constitute as theft, and decided not to get arrested over it. Or they have no backbone. Who knows.
It also might have been because electricity costs recently shot up between 24-46% all around Japan a month or so ago. Tokyo prices went up about 25% and it was 46% in Hokkaido. Just in time for summer. They might’ve been trying to save money by having it off at night.
AC could die all of the sudden too. One of my friends had it last summer in Tokyo, had to spend week w/o AC. It happened when he was awake in the morning, but I heard other horror stories of AC stopped at night and waking up with severe dehydration symptoms.
My in-laws in northern Japan don't run their AC at night. I don't know the exact reason, but it's not uncommon. They have no screens in some windows, so we couldn't just open the windows either. It was unusually hot and I felt like I was going to die (I woke up feeling like I couldn't breathe and there was no air movement). The screens are necessary unless we want a house full of roaches, mice, lizards, flies, mosquitoes, etc.
I hate the fact that there’s a stand for the books that is this prominent. If someone is closeted and wants to borrow one, there’s no chance in hell to do it discreetly. It’s like a big neon sign… Very inconsiderate if you ask me.
And I’m sure they have a copy of each book on the display on their regular shelves, and it’s more like “hey, here’s some LGBT+ books we have, there’s more on the shelves.”
If that was the only place you could get pride books? Sure
But I can only assume that there are other pride books around the library, and I think having a designated pride section is good for those who want it.
And likely this was just for Pride month, and anyone wanting the books who is closeted can get them much more discretely later, or make a request with a librarian.
anti-clickbait tldr: system uses facial recognition, complete with the expected false positives, false negatives, and bias.
Key passage:
Clear’s methods determined its facial-recognition system to enroll new members was vulnerable to abuse, said people familiar with the review, who asked not to be identified discussing security-sensitive information.
The computer-generated photos of prospective customers at times captured blurry images that only showed chins and foreheads, or faces obscured by surgical masks and hoodies.
The process — which allowed Clear employees to manually verify prospective customers’ identities after its facial recognition system raised flags — created the potential for human error.
Apparently last July “a man slipped through Clear’s screening lines at Reagan National Airport near Washington, before a government scan detected ammunition — which is banned in the cabin — in his possession.” And he’d “almost managed to board a flight under a false identity.” The TSA checkpoint found the ammunition, which is what it is supposed to do. This had nothing to do with his identity. There’s no suggestion that the passenger intended to do anything nefarious.
I feel like we should say it every time a mother is shot by her neighbor, or a regular commuter is shot by a police officer because he owns a gun, in the most prolific gun toting country on Earth. I feel like we should say it every time a man is killed on video by police, or a classroom of kids is gunned down and we continue to act as if the ONE thing we need to start doing absolutely cannot be done because it “impedes” the rights of those who do not live on the other end of that spectrum. It should never and will never lose its impact because people are straight up over this bullshit. It may lose its impact to the run of the mill armchair warrior, but that’s it, and I’m ok with that.
Edit: I’m sorry that I sound so bitchy JJROKCZ, I just got off shift with a trauma red in the bay, shot in the throat ffs. I appreciate your opinion and I’m glad we can have these conversations.
I agree guns are too accessible in America but we’ll never get rid of them as it is the second amendment to our constitution. I’m just saying that unfortunately battles must be picked otherwise those pushing for reform are just called hysterical fanatics and will be ignored by the masses
The US is a country that says “citizens can own guns” and also says “cops can shoot citizens if they think they have a gun” so the saying applying to a majority of situations where a citizen dies to a gun is pretty fucking accurate.
I think using the whole building for low income or homeless housing is a mistake. It’s going to turn to shit. What they need to do is sprinkle low income families in amongst medium income residents.
This has the added benefit of providing some income to the program and increasing social mobility.
There’s 1,300 unsheltered homeless people in Denver. This hotel has near 200 rooms. With space in each room for multiple residents, this can put a major dent into the amount of homeless on the street if it’s used exclusively for that purpose. Plus, other homeless shelters in the Denver/Boulder area are spread crazy thin as it is. It’ll take a massive effort to keep it from going downhill but I think it can be done.
I like what you’re proposing, but I think this idea is just addressing a different goal. Plus there are probably better places than a hotel to integrate homeless into low/medium income society.
We've experienced this where I am, and I agree. Mixed demographic high density is necessary to prevent the stigmatisation that comes from living in designated ghettos.
It does look like they're thinking about these things to sone degree though, thankfully:
40% of the units designated for tenants earning 30% of the Denver area’s median income.
I am very happy that there are efforts to help the homeless though. I hope it is to help, and not just hide away.
I'm personally a fan of Singapore's rules which make 5% of all new development social housing.
It depends on what their goal is.if it’s just to give people temporary shelter for 6 months or so it could be an effective halfway house style setup. If it’s meant to be permanent housing, the it would be better to have a mix. If it’s just about headlines, then throw the most problematic homeless there and let the place get destroyed in 3 months.
6 months won’t work, it’ll take another 6 months renovation afterwards.
We need better solutions than short term warehousing, I’ve seen tiny house and similar systems that seem to have worked some, the key is to keep things manageable but ensure the expectation that the user is responsible.
The moment you have hallways you go back to Cabrini green really quickly.
It has been pretty successful in my county. The county bought up around seven hotels to house the homeless. Several hundred homeless are housed until they can find more permanent housing.
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