The depth comes from the players own creativity. Not everything needs goals and gameplay loops. Nothing about this is lazy. It's sophisticated piece of software that does exactly what it sought out to do.
This strong need to be accepted by a whole country is something I see mentioned a lot by a particular group of people that have never really been "othered" in their life. Coming to Japan is quite a shock for them because they experience being a minority for the first time in their lives. I was born in Canada and have dealt with micro-aggresions and blatant racism my whole life there. Living in Japan I can say I feel no strong desire or care to be accepted. I'm not here to win over the acceptance of a country. I live my own life quietly with the small group of strong friends and community that do accept me. I'm perfectly happy and would definitely be much less happy if my goal was to be seen as Japanese (with all the rules that this also entails). Integration to me is simply respecting everyone. There really is no big song and dance needed to be seen as the "accepted foreigner". Just live your life.
I don't really get why people always say "no matter how long you live in Japan, Japanese people will never truly see you as Japanese." Yeah, okay, but also no matter how long I live in Japan, telling other people from my home country that I'm Japanese now would seem kinda ridiculous and probably not be taken seriously. I don't think of myself as "Japanese". Seems odd to single out Japanese people as uniquely discriminatory here. (Of course, "Japanese" meaning both a nationality and and ethnicity is significant factor here, I might have more complicated feelings if I was of Japanese descent).
I speak the language reasonably well and generally don't feel excluded or disrespected at work or socially. People acknowledge that I'm from a different cultural background because I am. I don't feel the need to "be Japanese".
Meanwhile if you spent 15 years in Canada and got Canadian citizenship, no one would care if you started calling yourself Canadian, unless you're a really bad culture fit.
I think it would be similar in Australia, where I'm from, but different in any country where "nationality" and "linguistic/cultural/ethnic background" are synonymous for most people. Most of us wouldn't call an American dude living in Thailand for 20 years "a Thai person" either. The "you can't become Japanese" thing often gets held up as an example of unique or unusually strong Japanese xenophobia, and I don't think it's particularly unusual, though we (humans in general) could probably afford to get more precise about our thinking with regard to nationality vs ethnicity.
“No matter how long you live in Japan… “ bit more like even if you are born in Japan with a non-Japanese heritage you will never be Japanese.
There are people born in Japan, raised in Japan that aren’t considered ok Japanese. Some don’t consider themselves Japanese because that’s the cultural norm.
Many other people in other countries would consider themselves a citizen of that country if born there. Japan is different.
Tolerance sounds good on paper but it can so easily become complete and utter indifference. And you should never make the mistake of thinking that it implies respect.
I know deeply unhappy expats in Amsterdam who are faced with such an English speaking but very cold and alien society.
The globalisation lie is that the world is the same everywhere.
We were talking about integration. If you are happy more or less ghettoing yourself that is right.
But we were talking about being accepted. It os really difficult to be accepted in japanese circles as one more. But it is not the case, for example, in Spain in comparison.
I was not talking about having the apprpval of others. I do not really care. But in order to get integrated there are cultures that are really flexible, others are more stiff and others it is almost impossible.
All it takes is speaking the language fluently. Hard but this mystery behind integration isn't complex. So much of the culture is expressed through language. Sound native and you will be treated as native (for better and worse)
This may just be one small point, but I recall reading that visual clutter signifies a good bargain while lots of white space gives the impression of luxary. Most consumers want a good deal.
It would be nice to make the term more neutral again. Many people feel like they have no control over the rules of an algorithm they interact with. I like how Bluesky gives complete control back to the user. First step in changing how people feel about the term is showing how it can provide a more pleasant experience and be less of a scary black box.
Apartments are way cheaper compared to other major US cities. They're probably smaller though but the convenience makes up for it. You can also find something as low as $300 in Tokyo if you are fine with a very long commute to the station. I used to have a sharehouse apartment in Shibuya for $600. Shared kitchen, bathroom and shower. It was pretty good considering I didn't spend much time at home other than to sleep.
I'd jump ship if it weren't for the real time voice chat. It's extremely powerful for beginner conversation language learning. Hoping that a company will make use of the real time api for a dedicated language learning app soon.
I keep waiting for Anthropic to release real-time voice chat for Claude, too. I don’t know if they’re even working on that, though.
I agree that there need to be dedicated language-learning apps using OpenAI’s realtime API. But at the current pricing—“$0.06 per minute of audio input and $0.24 per minute of audio output” [1]—I don’t think that could be a viable business.
Oof yeah that's expensive. Only app I know that will use the API is Speak, which seems to be the most high quality of the AI language learning apps. Seems like they even have a deal with OpenAI. They don't have many languages currently but everyone I know who has used it to learn their target language have improved dramatically.
I rarely go back to screenshot but whenever I do I find inspiration and have even started projects suddenly. I think what I need is an archive that also randomly surfaces one of them once a day.
Looks impressive. I'm guessing the demo isn't representative of the full possibilities of this? Tried to have a basic conversation in Japanese and it kept on sticking with English. When it did eventually speak Japanese the pronunciation was completely off. I'm really excited about the possibility of local language learning with near realtime conversation practice. Will keep an eye on this.
The best book I've read on attention and living in the present is 'The art of noticing' by Rob Walker. I like his approach because it's basically tons of small mindfulness activities baked into everyday life. You start intentionally paying attention to little details in the world more and it's like a flow of creative ideas to keep yourself in a state of wonder about everyday life. It's like being a child again. Seeing things for the first time and taking the time to appreciate them.
Solitude is a big mind reset for me. So many of my most creative ideas come from my extremely long walks across Tokyo. I try to do these 10 - 20 hour walks a few times a year. My next one is next week. From west Tokyo to Chiba. It's becoming a kind of creative pilgrimage for me. No phone. Just a compass and my feet. Every hour I also do a creative exercise to help me connect with myself.
Brilliant idea, thanks. I thought my 2 hour walks were long (and beneficial). I need to try doubling that, then doubling that, then doubling that again.
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