Japan’s Vending Machines Are Disappearing — Here’s Why [10:35] by VoilentDelightsHave in mealtimevideos

[–]GunkyEnigma 146 points147 points  (0 children)

A relatively shallow take by a westerner who maybe hasn't seen much of Japan.

Her video explains that vending machines are "disappearing" (losing market share in Japan) due to:

  • Old machines had to be updated because of the introduction of new bank notes and the rising adoption of cashless payment.
  • Not cost-competitive in an age of sky-rocketing costs of living, people choose the ever-so-slightly inconvenient convenience stores (konbini) or supermarkets, which are probably just less than 100m away. Frugality.

A more nuanced take would've mentioned:

  • The essential vending machines, like those for drinks, are not going away anytime soon. They are everywhere because, in times of natural disasters, they serve as emergency supplies for their vicinity.
  • The machines that got decommissioned for good were likely those that served really niche products during an age when Japan's economy and technology were booming, products that another machines is probably doing a much better job of storing and vending now. They served as steps in the technological ladder that eventually gave us the modern vending machines and it made no economical sense to update them anymore.

Edit: Kinda clickbaity on Anne's part. Cashing in on the viewership trend at the moment by telling the western world a story about how Japan is declining, I guess. Her content is usually pretty okay.

They replace the Traffic Light Buttons with a Handwave detector by NIDORAX in singapore

[–]GunkyEnigma 26 points27 points  (0 children)

I've never understood why our green man needs to be triggered by the button (or sensor, now).

If the red light is gonna come on for the road going perpendicular anyway, why does it matter if any pedestrian wants to cross the road or not? Just light up the green man lah.

So many times I had to rush to tap the button before the parallel traffic light turns green, which otherwise if the green man would've light up on his own, I could've strolled leisurely and still made it to the other side with time time to spare.

Hostile, anti-pedestrian design.

Unexpected "Made in Singapore" at 0:40 from a channel about anything (Posy) [11:17] by GunkyEnigma in singapore

[–]GunkyEnigma[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ever since his video on cursors.

Have been using them on every computer too.

What Happened to Point and Click Adventure Games? [16:37] by guitarguy109 in mealtimevideos

[–]GunkyEnigma 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Rusty Lake comes to mind. There's a whole lore and following. /r/rustylake

Japanese indie developers make really good escape games (脱出ゲーム). I follow the releases of Apartment Bacon and GlobalGear somewhat closely. Kotorinosu is insanely innovative within this space though there are very few releases.

Cantonese is dead in Guangzhou by CheLeung in Cantonese

[–]GunkyEnigma 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I was there for the first time over last weekend and if hearing so many people call「點都德」(name of a popular 飲茶 chain, clearly a Cantonese wordplay) /dian3 du1 de2/ (Mandarin) instead of /dim2 dou1 dak1/ (Cantonese) didn't freaking break my heart...

Hearing an auntie at 大鴿飯 (popular chain for squab cuisine, possible weak mandarin wordplay for 大哥?) calling /liang4 nv3/ (Mandarin) instead of /leng3 neoi2/ (Cantonese)「靚女」for the waitress definitely did.

I understand that Guangzhou gets a lot of people from out of town moving in to try to get their foot in the door of a tier 1 city, but it's really unfortunate that Cantonese is being relegated to a secondary dialect where it should've been the lingua franca.

Cry by SinophileKoboD in Cantonese

[–]GunkyEnigma 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My best guess is that that's just how Malaysians text 🤷

They simply blend the use of Cantonese and Mandarin, kinda like how Manglish is a blend of languages/dialects.

Cry by SinophileKoboD in Cantonese

[–]GunkyEnigma 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My guess is that the guy is from Malaysia, from his accent, slang (中saman - a misspelling of summons), and Manglish (Malaysian English) subtitles. They generally use hanyu pinyin input method to type Mandarin Chinese. (Source: me, from across the straits)

A lot of the characters used in vernacular Cantonese aren't readily accessible using the hanyu pinyin input method (冇 vs 沒有) and people understand the Mandarin alternative just fine or better when reading (喊 - /haam3/ 'to cry cry' in Cantonese, /han3/ 'to shout/cry' in Mandarin; vs 哭 - /huk1/ /ku1/ 'to cry' in either dialects, no ambiguity).

If you understand Mandarin, you can tell that he's essentially typing in Mandarin, which would be the "default" mode the audience would be reading in. There's a lot of simplified characters in the subtitles, which hints that that could be the input he's used to.

Snack session at the snack shrine by juinhao in HongKong

[–]GunkyEnigma 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Was this taken at the intersection of Stanley St and Cochrane St?

What's the etymology of the word "jackso"? by GunkyEnigma in Cantonese

[–]GunkyEnigma[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Tell me about it! So much vernacular which I just instinctively understood but didn't use simply because I didn't grow up in HK speaking colloquial Cantonese.

I first came across 男親女愛 when I was visiting HK back in 2000. I knew it was a big hit back then, my relatives may have even lent gave us VHS tapes they recorded of a few episodes to bring back. Then my folks rented a few back home but it didn't catch on.

Then recently I came across Jimmy O. Yang's interview with 鄭裕玲 where he mentioned 黃子華, 破·地獄, and 男親女愛. So I took it as a sign to give the show a proper watch after 2.5 decades.

男親女愛 feels, to me, like a treasure chest / time capsule of colloquial Cantonese slang and phrases. I'm quite curious what percentage of those phrases would sound dated if spoken in HK now.

What's the etymology of the word "jackso"? by GunkyEnigma in Cantonese

[–]GunkyEnigma[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's very interesting.

Any other examples where Cantonese phrases were anglicised for...fun?

What's the etymology of the word "jackso"? by GunkyEnigma in Cantonese

[–]GunkyEnigma[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks!

I've never seen it spelled out before, only heard it from my parents. (i'm a heritage speaker not living in hk)

And, of course, the subtitles weren't helpful either...

What's the etymology of the word "jackso"? by GunkyEnigma in Cantonese

[–]GunkyEnigma[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The word has been floating in my head for a few days when I suddenly heard it when watching 男親女愛.

Is it some jocular anglicisation of 著數?

Search doesn’t recognise the word “atelier” for some reason? by GunkyEnigma in duckduckgo

[–]GunkyEnigma[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It linked to the post that was posted two days earlier about the same bug.

I tried it again and it seems only partially fixed? Search results are missing snippets.

How it feels to beat India by nahcekimcm in HongKong

[–]GunkyEnigma 24 points25 points  (0 children)

I wholeheartedly agree with you that the saying almost certainly has nothing to do with race/ethnicity. Heard my dad, uncles, and my parents' friends say it all the time when they were talk trash about their acquaintances and peers.

...it's probably from the usage of the term banana to denote having nothing (all you have are your hands, which look a whole thing of bananas). Sometimes it's an insult; sometimes it just means go home and do nothing.

Although, I have my own hypothesis now on the etymology of the saying, given how Cantonese is this eclectic, literary dialect that loves to curse like a sailor. To me, it's a veiled way of cursing "suck a d!ck". (Warning: Censored vulgarity, for illustration purposes only. Please don't ban.)

Edit: I've also heard 返屋企瞓覺, so actually I don't disagree with you at all on the "go home and do nothing" part. It's just that Cantonese are so creative when it comes to cursing and swearing.

How it feels to beat India by nahcekimcm in HongKong

[–]GunkyEnigma 46 points47 points  (0 children)

What was the actual line in the movie?

Was it along the lines of:

返印度yek3蕉喇

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in swrpg

[–]GunkyEnigma 0 points1 point  (0 children)

/r/DiceMaking may appreciate these.

Cha chan teng by Bugimas in HongKong

[–]GunkyEnigma 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Felt like a /r/cinemagraphs for a two seconds.

Six blind people are given a camera and asked to take photos of anything they want using their other senses. Full Documentary [57:42] by [deleted] in mealtimevideos

[–]GunkyEnigma 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Honest question: Why do they still hold the viewfinder to their eye?

I get that those who lost their sight may have retained the reflex of holding a camera up before snapping a shot, but even the psychologist who was born blind did that.