The Flu is Upon Us, Run for Your Lives

So Flu season is officially underway.

Every year, without fail, the dreaded influenza attacks Japan with devastating effect.

It's particularly virulent here not because they have weak immune systems, nor due to random mutations making their viruses stronger than elsewhere, but (I assume) due to geography and society.

Population density is very high here, especially in Tokyo and the cities.  If one person sneezes on a crowded train, can you hear the other passengers fall?  The answer is yes, because the sneezer can't even raise his hands to cover his mouth, so full are the trains.  This raises some obvious problems in terms of hygiene, and means that a single infected individual may make a great number of other peoples weeks worse.  I assume this isn't a problem in the middle of Siberia, where you're more likely to see a meteorite than other human beings.

The other problem is the people.  No one washes their hands.  Ever.  I've written about this a thousand times before, but it's worth repeating in case you find yourself here.  Don't touch anything, and always bring hand soap/alcohol with you.

I am not exaggerating when I say that I've never seen someone wash their hands in Japan, and I have used public toilets.  They consider rinsing fingertips under tepid water for three tenths of a second 'a thorough wash,' and go about their day as if they're not the reason everyone is always sick all the time.

My speculation on this is that a thousand years ago, when no one knew anything and a splinter could kill you, people ran their hands under water and gave up at that, because the whole thing was a futile attempt at keeping clean and what's the point.  That tradition is still observed outside temples and shrines and whatnot, where literally hundreds of thousands of people will pick up, mess around with, and then drink from the same half a dozen spoon/ladle things.  The water may come from a tap, but it can also be recycled, pumped around a closed loop and topped up with fresh water when it gets low.

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

So water is clean, and touching water imbues the toucher with cleanliness, I suppose?

They all wear masks which is a horrible idea to try and stop getting ill (the masks, they do nothing), but is a great idea if you are actually sick and don't want to make anyone else ill.  For whatever reason, they do not cover their mouths when they cough and sneeze, instead preferring to throw their hands back, find the nearest person and cough/sneeze as loud/hard in their victims face as possible.  This is why masks are a great idea, because they can do that to their hearts content while limiting the risk to their victim.  I doubt the masks do much in this instance, but it's got to be better than nothing, right?  Right?

They absolutely learn about cells, viruses, bascteria and transmission in school, I've seen the books and posters telling the kids how to actually wash their hands and not cough in other peoples faces, but absolutely no one takes notice.

And the hospitals here don't have a bonkers death rate after surgery, so the doctors wash their hands.

As a nation, they know about the transmission of disease, but the grand total of shits given is zero.

In thinking about it, I suppose that's similar to our obsession with soccer.  We are absolutely horrible at it, and we'll never be any good, but everyone gets their hopes up like a bunch of idiots and then get angry and start rioting when we lose.

As a nation, we know soccer is a lie and terrible for our national health, but everyone still gets angry.

Scared Straight

So I done gone caught the flu, and done gone forgot to sleep last night (what a time to not sleep!) so I'll be honest, I'm not feeling great.

On the upside, I got to see a car crash into a cyclist today.

On the downside, it was a planned event on school grounds whereby a group of 'stuntmen,' were deliberately hit by a foam padded car in order to show how dangerous cars are.

On the upside it was cool, and the bike was mangled pretty badly.

On the downside it was super hot outside.

On the upside, I'm not outside anymore.

Three ups, two downs.  Ups win.

Anyway, the premise is simple: show the kids what a crash is like and they'll be perfect citizens for the rest of their days.

I quite like the idea of showing something like a crash for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, most of these kids will have never, and likely will never, see something like this in the wild.  It puts a real consequence to a theoretical they've been taught all their lives.  If they ever do find themselves as a spectator to something like this, the 'I know this,' effect will kick in, and all the people will be saved from the bald dinosaurs.

 

It's a bit of a stretch, admittedly, but at least they ask the students what the emergency service numbers are during the presentation, so a conceivable benefit has been realised.

 

The other benefit is employment.  A troupe of unemployed actors get to roll around destroying bikes.  Cool.

 

 

So they teach the kids how to be safe, don't ride without a helmet.  Don't cross the street until the man is green.  Don't stand near the edge of the pavement.

 

And all this great advice will improve the safety of the younglings not at all.  They're taught how to act, (great word incoming) unilaterally, unthinkingly.

 

If the man is red then you wait.  Implied in waiting in modern society is looking down at your phone, headphones in, entirely oblivious to the outside world.  And then you cross on the green man, head down, oblivious to the outside world.  But the green man said go.  I assume you can see where this is heading.  And it stands for so many aspects of Japanese society, working all the way through the corporate favour system they employ, to running a household.

 

Keep your head down and go when the man says to.

 

I would have stayed out longer and watched a few more stuntsmen pretend to get run over, but for some reason it's about a million bajillion degrees outside and I have a legitimate flu' (if it's influenza, why is the flu not 'flu' on account of missing letters on either end of the word?).

 

Also the name.  Statistics show that the death penalty doesn't work, and that's the ultimate in scary straighteyness, so who are they trying to impress with a name like that?  (P.S. It's in English so no fucker knows what it means anyway.)

 

If you think I'm stretching, take this somewhat less extreme example of this principal in action: taking bad kids to a prison to straighten them right up.  The article shows it's an ineffective strategy to say the least.  I wonder if there have been any studies translated into Japanese?  Then again, this little circus employs eight or so people, so best not to rain on their parade.

 

 

 

 

Side note:  Is it just me, or has tech suddenly become interesting again?  For the last decade there's been an incredible amount of stagnation in the tech space, the last great innovation was the move to parallelism in computing then nothing seemed to happen, and now bam.  VR.  3D printers.  Drones (I don't think anyone actually cares about drones, but they have a cool connotation, pew pew gonna' bomb yo' non-European/American freedom hating free speech fuck yeah 'Murica ass).  Space travel  (One way trip to Mars.  Cool!).  4K.  Self Driving cars that only try to kill people a little bit.  Fusion generated electricity within the next two decades (it's only taken fifty years, what's waiting another twenty?).

 

Of these things I want VR and a 3D printer.  4K is a natural evolution and will happen equally naturally.  Who cares about drones?  Who has the space for one in their home when it's not flying around spying on the neighbours?  Or maybe you can mid air refuel them.  100 foot battery change, eternal flight.

 

I would sign up to be the first man on Mars even if it meant I was never coming back.  In a heartbeat.  But that's not going to happen, so I'll settle for the first two.  In a strange way they're entwined, as both require virtualisation in 3D space, and you could conceivably work a design for your printer with VR.

 

I've watched the evolution of VR into a viable product for a few years now, and the obstacles they've overcome have been pretty interesting.  Latency, resolution, fit and feel, brightness - all things that have been designed around and the results look great.  I've only tried static 3D headsets up to now, no tracking with head movements and certainly no controllers that map to the 3D space of the virtual world (punching yourself in the face while trying to scratch your nose is a reality.  I did it.) but they are all things that have been added to the pot.  With the first release of occulus, vive and morpheus (facebook owned, valve owned and sony owned respectively) we'll see a brand new format war that I'm entirely ready to embrace because up until this point, much like 3D in cinemas, VR has been a gimmick.  I want to see what it can do.  Plug the internet straight into my brain goddamnit.

Holy Donkey Balls

As it turns out, it only takes a few days of not sleeping to send a person mad.

I caught the flu from a bar floozy on Saturday night, returning home entirely unawares.  I felt a bit rough on Monday, felt about the same Tuesday and then BAM!  I struggled through work on Wednesday but left after all my classes had finished, a couple of hours early.  Thursday was a trip to the hospital for my scans, with enough energy left over to get home and sit on the sofa, sweating into it.

Friday was a trip to the hospital to get the results of my scans, talk to the doctor, then a road trip to the local county capital city for my visa.  That was a long day.

Saturday was a sit on my ass doing nothing day, as was Sunday.  On Sunday, things got worse.  It felt like I had an ear infection, then the glands under my chin (#EDIT# hahaha, I meant in my neck) swelled to make moving my head impossible, and I had no painkiller to combat it.  Every time I swallowed, it hurt.  Not a little bit either.  I couldn't cough to clear my lungs, or swallow to clear my throat.  It's that which makes it so painful, knowing that you're going to cough a hundred times, and clear your throat (involuntarily) a hundred more.

It really sucked, and I didn't sleep.  This after struggling to sleep the few nights prior, meant I didn't go into work on Monday.

But here I am, on Tuesday, feeling substantially better.  I still ache, my joints still hurt a bit, my neck is sore and my head throbs, but I've crested the hill.  I can eat, I can drink, I can laugh and play.  I am better.

And I have grown as a person:

Never again will I kiss a random floozy at a bar.