I’ve ordered yesterday an unused old external floppy-drive (IBM) and a set of floppies (Sony). More for fun than on purpose. By the way you need them everywhere where stuff remains a long time usable e.g. the older B747-400 or trains, plants and heavy machines and so on.
I hoped that SD-Cards replace them because the slip into a slot (other than USB-Thumbsdrives), have defined speed-classes and you can write on their outside what is stored on them. Cars, cameras, bike-computers and so on use them everywhere but computer manufacturers failed to built them in or connect them properly via USB (I refer especially to Lenovo which connected the card-slots via PCI which prevented booting from them…).
Honestly. I don’t like optical disks. They allowed for higher capacity but they were like multiple steps backward and a huge waste of material. Mostly one time writeable, a lot of material required, big form factor and writing them was also complex. Optical disks are like technology which should have skipped over? I even myself bought once a mini-disc player…wasted money.
I remember, I had to file one paper from the landlord and my ID and that was it. Took 5 minutes.
While not awful, comparing to Portugal, where I just need to register in a website an then wait to get a confirmation code by mail, it feels like going back to the stone age.
Despite Akihabara having no shortage of retro hardware junk stores, even many with floppy disk drives for sale, finding actual floppy disks was surprisingly difficult. I did eventually find some, but only after asking multiple shop owners who swore they had seen some around their shop to then fail to find any. The last guy went digging behind the counter and eventually produced a dusty box of floppies with only about half remaining.
I've found that's the question to ask with paperwork.
For instance, France is also extremely bad regarding paperwork and administrative red tape and people are so used to it that many can't imagine that many of it is not actually needed for society to function. I noticed when I moved to the UK: Suddenly all that was absolutely necessary to protect civilisation and the Republic (I only exaggerate a little bit) did not even exist and everything still ran smoothly.
Telling example: During the Covid lockdowns, the French administration decided that people had to fill and sign an official form to keep on them every time they left home. Basically "I swear that I am only doing my daily excercise. Date, signature" to be shown to any police officer who might ask, or "zut alors" you're nicked.
If a device relies only on fundamental physical hypothesis, surely it can certainly go pretty far. Look how pyramids are still great landing facility to this days. Too bad that the hi-erratic art of building the matching spaceships was lost since then — but that’s how it goes when you run for the high sophistication in your design.
In the US it's just https://moversguide.usps.com/mgo/disclaimer?referral=UMOVE
And this isn't even "required".
It's certainly an interesting phenomenon how simple some things can be.
It does mean that you'll get your old mail delivered to your old place forwarded to your new place while the other folks mailing you get their ducks in a row. And honestly I can't think of all the places that might mail me.
The damage of the former is entirely contained to the act of producing the floppy disk. It sucks for each business when they have to make the 1 floppy disk but then the damage is done. With the USB mandate, the party producing the millions of devices is constrained going back to the design of their core product and then every person using it is constrained.
No one is enforcing the use of old-school fax machines, for example - businesses just have been reluctant to give it up.
Control.
So the state knows in theory, who is living where.
With the joke being, that those institutions, where that information would actually be useful, don't know anyway. And so you still have to submit your adress everywhere (and then again, and a third time, to be sure).
Also MiniDisc, my car still has a MiniDisc player
Eventually I came to this explanation: their culture is obsessed with perfection, from perfectly paved roads to perfectly preserved temples to perfectly presented food, etc...but this pursuit of perfection in the hands of bureaucrats leads to processes where everything is captured in detail, approved by multiple people, etc. Basically, in the eyes of a bureaucrat, 'perfection' is a rock-solid paper-trail rather than a frictionless experience for the citizens.
This is fake news /s
The law of the land is manufacturers all have to agree on a standard.
If Apple wants to bribe everyone to use lightning, or micro-usb, they are free to do so.
If tomorrow everyone wakes up and decides to use thunderbolt, they are free to do so.
Oh no, optical disk is superior - I can backup family photos to M-disk and shove it in a bank vault, and in 100 years it will still work.
Just like photos, I have family photos that are 60 years old. Digital photos of 10 years old are lost
How are you gonna store a video for 50 years? flash memory discharges, hard disks rust, upload to google drive and hope they don’t kill the service?
Even if the move process is frictionless, in most countries, it's just not a thing. You are "tied" to your family house or apartment, passed from generation to generation. Here, real estate is just a commodity.
Since I'm not sure how much paper work you can do to confirm thst you are indeed moving away or loving in.
Also wondering if this could be elevated somewhat by having the form be digitalized as it is in certain European countries.
But, yes, different societies have different approaches there and they are kind of designed around it.
This is a problem in many formal, detail-and-rule-obsessed cultures. Germany, like Japan, is lauded for its industrial engineering/manufacturing — but has the exact same hilarious obsession with government paperwork.
Meanwhile, more creative and permissive cultures — like say, Sweden (outsized influence on global fashion/culture/tech given its size), have far less paperwork.
The basic point is that most people in the US will want some permanent address where they can get mail etc. and is where they live from the perspective of official government documents. But they may not actually live there (and aren't required to).
I'm doing taxes for the first time this year, wish me luck!
going back to yodobashi, seeing all the current gen electronics ever under a single roof spread out across x storeys was something i haven’t seen in the west in quite some time. it was tiring (there’s so much stuff), but equally impressive.
Well, no.
You already have bills in your name, so there is nothing to do.
On the other hand, regarding ID cards (in France): First there is no obligation to keep the address on it up-to-date (so why is there even an address on it?). Second, if you do want the address to be up-to-date then you need to follow the administrative procedure to get a new ID card, which involves providing... a proof of address in the form of an utility bill!
- so you can vote in local elections and they can send you your ballots
- taxes, as they depend on where you live (some tax rates can differ and more importantly it decides where your taxes go)
- security, so for example when you have an arrest warrant or have committed a crime, etc. the state knows where to send your fines, etc.
- planning of health services or education services requires the state to know where people actually live
> And proof of address is not a utility bill there, but either a form from your landlord or land register.
Because you've decided to do that, not because there is a practical requirement, which is my point.
Edit: because the decision was to have a strong ID system, so when people show an ID with an address the confidence is high in that being correct.
You mean what was formerly known as GEZ?
No worries, nowdays that got easier, they just help themself. In my case they just took the money straight from my bank account without consent or asking first, or without me even giving them my current account. (No idea how that was possible, it was the same account as some years ago, but I was living offroad for some time and never gave them permission, but suing them is a fools errand)
In the US it matters too to some extent, eligibility for elections if you want to hold office, your tax burden for states that tax property and so on. But there's not a super official universal office you need to declare it at with lots of paperwork or validation outside of say the given situation it applies to. If I ran for office I'd provide my address and there you go, no complex validation, or if I wanted to pay lower taxes because it is my primary residence ... I just say that's where I live. Those given processes are left to validate it if they wish.
Bureaucracy is a strange thing. We get comfortable with what we know and we can't think of it any other way and it becomes a bit of a revelation when we realize maybe we don't have to do all that ...
How do you think this impacts the private sector? When delivering to a client, are similarly laborious levels of perfection expected?
It's often one of the main reasons why they ask you to register in other countries.
Compared to what seems like a big mess of telling only the post and hoping everyone will get the memo from them, telling the utility, my employer, family, and a few insurances that I moved (updating the info on the self-service site or sending support an email) seems like the better solution to me
I find some people just love process and bureaucracy for its own sake and will ad it endlessly because they think it is their job, but not out of some effort to keep jobs going. There are countries where government spending is a political issue and a way to satisfy constitutions and keep things afloat, but Japan doesn't strike me as one of those.
For say sales tax like things if you buy something online the address you ship it to usually determines that. So no effort required there. In person if you're in TX you pay the TX sales tax (if they have one), if you are in NY you pay the NY sales tax.
As far as filing taxes for a year goes (income tax, property tax) you file taxes (or maybe you don't) and there you go. Filling taxes is largely a sort of declaration of what you say you did and owe. It's up to the state or feds to validate if they wish.
> ... than a frictionless experience for the citizens.
And this is spot on as well. Most Japanese barely understand the need for that; seeking better experience is, basically, seen as a sign of weakness. Way more attention and cost are spared for preventing what are seen as improper and illegitimate, than seeking paths of least resistances or goals at all. Everyone's process people always.
[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv%...
For anyone else, here are some links:
As far as I know flash memory should last at least ten years. After that period of time I would either copy the data, erase and write again or look for other tech. So this requires manual intervention.
Which other? Magnetic tapes are often used for this purpose. Microfilms shall be much better. Paper is really resilient.
I would avoid any cloud, Google has a bad track record. The online access and requirements make it unreliable. In best case the don’t try to search the data or delete it by accident. As they did already.
As far as I know CDs last only ten years. DVDs maybe 30 years. I’ve it is a -ROM it last likely 100 years. But therefore you need special equipment. The M-Discs you mention are new for me but this sounds good. Are regular drives guaranteed to read it?
The most problematic thing isn’t just keeping the data. We also need to be able to read it again. Maybe we need to use good old stones ^^
I've been moving almost once a year for the last few years just to try out new places and cities.