And yeah that's cheating a little bit because absolutely any landscape looks better in sakura season but in the dog days of summer that's still a relatively cool path to take a walk on due to partial shading and the water. (Bring bug spray.)
These also act as a somewhat natural traffic regulator; the two streets adjacent to the canal are less attractive to car traffic than e.g. one street out, due to the constrained-by-bridges turn opportunities, so they're generally walkable *without being closed to traffic.*
Free lunches in urbanism, etc etc.
There is sometimes a question about why Japan is "just so nice" and while there are extremely complicated answers to it, a necessary part of it is simply Will To Have Nice Things.
"We're building a university on the hill."
"Awesome that will help a lot with public traversability at the outer edge of campus. Adding shade?"
"Naturally."
"How about a water feature?"
"Not in the budget."
"It's in somebody's. Ask the neighborhood; some company good for it."
Darn it that isn't on Google yet. I suppose I know where I'm going for lunch now. Give me 90 minutes, Internets, I'll get you a photo.
(Continuing an imagined conversation)
"So we're building a college on the hill and were wondering if you could chip in for a water feature at the edge."
"By the police box?"
"No by the old bamboo grove."
"It gonna be passable now?"
"Yes we're putting in steps."
"Of course!"
The company named on the plaque is some distance from the hill, but they're In The Neighborhood (TM), and when you've been in the neighborhood for a hundred years of course it is proper for you to feel a certain sense of responsibility as far as the old bamboo grove.
A quick walk up the path next to Tokyo College of Music.
Funding for the water feature from Dai-Ichi Life Insurance, which I am doing my level best to repay by not dying while my term life is in force.
They’re a very large company and have some property (not HQ, AFAIK) in the neighborhood.
And in front of the cafe there is a fairly frequent feature of Tokyo developments which is sometimes mandatory: public open space on private property, generally improved with greenery and benches. Functions similar to a park; also eases movement to adjacent parcels via foot.
Anyhow, back to lunch and then the software salt mines. Apologies for the brief foray into urbanism influencer.
Once we’re in more settled times you should come visit Tokyo. It’s the best city on earth.
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I am reminded of the absolutely enormous detection of embezzlement as restaurants switched to cash registers, a switch which was not motivated by concerns of embezzlement.
(The combination of physically absent manager, socioeconomic realities of employee population, and no bookkeeping of marginal pizza created meant that places which believed they were high-trust environments were in fact not.)
(Ran into this once at Ardy’s in college on a debate team trip. Employee came out to take our order and said “OK that’s $20.”
Me: “$20 and what?”
Employee: “$20 will do. I’ll go tell kitchen.”
*leaves*
Me: “We’re leaving.”
Teammate: “What.”
Me: “Not eating a stolen burger.”)
Interesting new AI interaction model which we'll see a lot of in the future, spotted on Bench (bookkeeping service):
Patrick: *uploads statements*
Regular computer system chugs
AI: We have questions on ten line items. Your chat about them will be reviewed by a human bookkeeper.
AI: What's this use of Paypal for?
Me: *explains that it is a coworking space*
AI: Was that for daily or monthly use of a coworking space?
Me: Yes.
AI: Preliminary categorization is as Rent or Lease Expense. Should I proceed.
Me: Yes.
AI. Noted for your bookkeeper. Next.
This is so unbelievably more time efficient than requiring either a synchronous back and forth with my bookkeeper or, more likely, requiring me to bat emails around with a latency of several days because my job is not actually responding to questions about a $5 invoice quickly.
@GrantSlatton @waltuuuhr @tenobrus Some gaishikei (Western firms) do quite well for themselves in Japan (AppAmaGooFaceSoft for example) and *some* of those are *comparatively* not managed in the fashion of traditional Japanese companies *in many of their divisions.*
Real question is probably about startups right?
@GrantSlatton @waltuuuhr @tenobrus Question of why startups which adopted other-than-traditional management don’t just win outright is a subset of “Why don’t startups just win outright.” A Twitter thread will not usefully hold the answer to it.
Note: offering “better” culture *not necessarily in direct interest.*
@GrantSlatton @waltuuuhr @tenobrus There exist desirable candidates and desirable counterparties who are quite fine with the culture that exists, thank you very much, and will appreciate you credibly signaling your willingness to work within it to do business with you.
@waltuuuhr @tenobrus There have been many many attempted efforts at reform around the edges, with a low-to-moderate level of success comparable to other society-wide reform efforts in e.g. the U.S. There are some individual workplaces which attempt differentiation but they largely can’t outcompete.
@waltuuuhr @tenobrus And this is far beyond the power of a single visionary or cabal to fix, even within a single organization. You’re asking for a world historical success in cultural change.
Those are possible. History books are full of them. Most of humanity’s experience downselected for history.
@waltuuuhr @tenobrus Also while this is an acknowledged problem and public policy area that does not actually mean it is a top concern of decisionmakers, who were selected for embodying the virtues of Japanese work culture.
1) There are other examples of business models which are essentially status arbs.
2) Plausibly there should be more businesses which say “This biz is an extended argument that X should be higher status and will win if we win that argument.”
See that is one of the weird rules of the status game: by convention you lose points if you make it obvious you’re playing it, and someone who says “You’re playing it” makes themselves an enemy.
Thus you must use the traditional rule to absolve a salaryman of responsibility for violating the status ladder: put an intoxicating beverage in my hand. Actual intoxication is not a pre-requisite; just the fact of it by convention absolves me from telling you my true thought.
This week on Complex Systems I was joined by @David_Kasten.
We talked mostly about our experiences together at VaccinateCA, in creating essentially public infrastructure while being nominally outside the usual trust graph.
That "nominally" thing is important, and we discuss the importance of policy engagement, PR strategy to court favor with (and cooperation of) more formal actors, laundering blog posts into the policy apparatus by being crafty about it, etc.
But mostly we talked about the operational realities of making tens of thousands of phone calls from a standing start to conduct an ongoing census of Californian (and then American) medical providers,
Which was hard, but crucially it was not *impossible.*