This reminds me of a Neal Stephenson quote from Snow Crash which seems relevant:
"When it gets down to it — talking trade balances here — once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here — once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel — once the Invisible Hand has taken away all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity — y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else:
music
movies
microcode (software)
high-speed pizza delivery”
I know Stephenson was mostly joking, but a part of me felt sad visiting Seoul and seeing just how phenomenally better at food delivery they are than America, and I assume anywhere in the world.
They'll strap an inexpensive meal to the back of a motorcycle and deliver it wherever you are standing. Sometimes they'll return in an hour to pick up the real plates and silverware they left with you.
With the way they have industrialized pop music, and given the movie industry there, it is almost like Korea read Snow Crash and took it as a challenge.
> They'll strap an inexpensive meal to the back of a motorcycle and deliver it wherever you are standing. Sometimes they'll return in an hour to pick up the real plates and silverware they left with you.
There's a very interesting video from Keith's Code's superbike school where they built a motorcycle with an extra handle bar that's fixed to the bike to prove that leaning doesn't actually turn the bike much at all.
I know this works for sure on a motorcycle, and I've tried this experiment on a bicycle too, you can turn a bike right just by pushing the handlebar forward with your right hand. Totally counter intuitive but it works and I'm pretty sure we do it subconsciously when we lean by pushing on the handlebar and we end up counter-steering.
Few examples I've observed on my 3 month visit there that I haven't seen anywhere else:
1. You can walk in the crowd at the shibuya crossing with your wallet sticking out of your back pocket filled with cash and not worry about getting pick pocketed.
2. Everyone carries around a portable ash tray with them when they smoke and never throw cigarette butts on the ground.
3. No one throws any trash on the ground. Garbage cans are hard to find too and everyone just carries their trash with them.
You don't need "social awareness" to explain any of your observations:
1) Low income inequality / strong welfare system
2) This is actually a counter example. Nothing more socially offensive than second hand smoke.
3) Trash cans disappeared from the streets of Tokyo shortly after the sarin gas subway attack by Aum Shinrikyo in 1995, and they've never reappeared.
But even without trash cans, Japanese people don't litter, ever. In contrast, Berlin, where I currently live, has lots of trash cans but the streets are full of litter.
Berlin doesn't get cleaned enough by the city. Yesterday it was still covered in fireworks and empty wine bottles from New Year's Eve. The only reason it looks clean today is because it's covered in snow.
If it were cleaned more regularly people wouldn't litter so much. (Not a defence of people who litter, and it's the one thing I hate most about living here.)
One time last year I had to stay overnight in Japan to reach a connecting flight. The airport allowed people to sleep on the benches (very comfortable with no arm rests), and a police man stands there all night and watches over everyone to keep them and their belongings safe.
To top it all off, there is a sign addressed to people sleeping there that at 3 AM the airport personnel need to polish the floors and they apologize for the noise!
Similar experience. I was in a Ryokan in Kyoto where some workers were about to repair some fittings in the street and make some noise. We were given a leaflet in English apologising for the noise made and the next day when we got out the supervisor was ready with a candy and a small toy for our daughter.
Steve Jobs was a fruitarian for a while iirc and he died from pancreatic cancer. I wonder if all the fruit juices he drank had something to do with him getting cancer of the organ that creates a hormone to control blood sugar.
If that's your answer then you shouldn't be applying for a job in the first place. It seems like your attitude would make you a difficult person to work with. Instead you should monetize and work on your own projects.
The problem is it's not that simple though because interviewers like to ask really language specific questions for example a C interviewer favorite: what are the different uses of 'static' in C.
This analogy sort of works because despite what we see in media, men aren't typically the choosers when it comes to relationships, especially when there's an oversupply.
In this case PhDs, like women, aren't choosing to settle either.
"When it gets down to it — talking trade balances here — once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here — once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel — once the Invisible Hand has taken away all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity — y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else: music movies microcode (software) high-speed pizza delivery”