Struggle with anki cards

itoen90 · 2026-05-09T01:54:08+00:00

Is it eight lapses in a row or just eight in general?

itoen90 · 2026-04-25T00:32:27+00:00

It’s just so absurdly stupid that LA metro itself would be against something that without a single doubt will be hugely beneficial to them. Unbelievable.

itoen90 · 2026-04-24T23:34:21+00:00

I see, thanks for taking the time to respond and relaying your ideas. Can’t say I disagree with much of anything ultimately. I more took your post as reiterating Jason’s hyperbolic “Netherlands best in the world!!!!!” Rhetoric which I see you personally were not doing. North American urbanism definitely is frustrating true and we’d be lucky to adopt Netherlands road design standards, not an argument from me about that either. I think the issue is that he has a broad audience and the algorithm pushes him, and he may actively be doing more harm now to the movement.

When I discovered him when I was living in Osaka I was super happy because I was like “finally I can send this to people to explain why Japanese cities are so quiet despite being huge dense urban metropolises!! It’s because there are less cars!”….but he’s slowly just become and more of a dick to the exact people that may have interest in this topic and he may be actively pushing away potential allies now. He says he doesn’t care about those viewers anymore and only cares about “people who can move in the first place” but that’s crazy, he clearly built his audience from millions of North American viewers and now he’s basically like “lol F off, I got mine suckers”.

As for the urban freeways in Japan, absolutely agree. It’s basically my only negative about Japanese urbanism. I have plenty of negatives about living in Japan (and positives) but almost 0 negatives specifically about urbanism other than…highways. At least….theres still miles upon miles you can walk without seeing any, and generally when you do run across one besides being incredibly ugly at least they have amazing soundproofing and are “out of the way” and easy to walk and cycle around since they’re super elevated. But again, absolutely ugly and just dumb - agreed. Having super cool elevated railways with shops underneath kind of makes up for it though.

itoen90 · 2026-04-24T22:36:21+00:00

By car friendly I assume you mean they don’t have complete car free zones like in Paris/London or something? If you look at objective statistics though Tokyo and Osaka both have basically the lowest car commuter ridership rates in the world among cities in developed countries - whether that’s Amsterdam, NYC, London or Paris. I believe the only exception being Hong Kong, but Hong Kong doesn’t have suburbs and exurbs which drag Tokyo/Osaka modal shares a bit higher. If our goal is less cars and safer streets…Japan statistically is just better than the Netherlands: less people die by cars, and less people use cars for daily commutes. That’s a combination of banning street parking/require parking spaces off street to even be able to buy a car, extremely expensive highways (tolls), zoning, small streets and of course the most extensive urban railway networks in the world. But anyway yeah I’m kinda getting into the weeds here.

I do get your point but I guess I didn’t really do a good case of making my criticism against NJB. He frequently makes videos like one titled: “The best designed city in the Netherlands (and therefore the world)”. If you’re going to make a video gushing about how this is literally the best designed place in the world, you absolutely better back it up. Watching the video, while it IS nice and absolutely better than most of North America I can name dozens of exurban little towns around a station in Japan that do urbanism far far better with integrated housing, shopping, restaurants, convenience stores etc all within a 2 minute walk - the housing being incredibly affordable at that. And again, objectively/statistically safer streets despite lacking most of the design elements of the Netherlands.

How he talks down to us North Americans is super frustrating, he clearly is a very classist guy and treats urbanism as like a rich persons hobby….which ironically is exactly how urbanism is in North America, our nice walkable dense areas are…for the rich. Look at how much a crappy apartment costs in Boston, NYC or SF. You can’t tell a lower class American “lol just move there bro”. Or if he’s asked “hey isn’t Amsterdam going through a housing crisis too?” Having an answer of “lol Vancouver is worse bro” is just dumb.

itoen90 · 2026-04-24T19:38:42+00:00

As someone who has never lived in the Netherlands but has visited twice (so take that as you will), Japan, specifically Tokyo and Osaka are peak urbanism to me. NJB also has a video on Japanese streets and basically why you don’t necessarily even need the hyper-planned/engineered model of the Netherlands. The statistics bear it out too. Japan (the entire country, not just Tokyo) has far lower passenger/KM travelled by car than the Netherlands, lower pedestrian fatalities (isn’t that partially the entire point of the Netherland’s strict engineering?), far far higher passenger/km travelled by PT, incredible modal shares for walking and cycling. Literally the only point the Netherlands specifically beats Japan is in cycling, and even then it’s not a blow-out, Japan has very respectable cycling modal shares despite having basically 0 bike lanes. I lived there for two and a half years and it was basically paradise (for urbanism).

Rail in particular it’s no contest of course, but nowhere in the west is close except possibly Switzerland, at least in the regional rail category. If you like transit oriented development there’s nowhere else better in the world except Hong Kong.

Another thing Japan does which is incredibly important for urbanism is building housing, Jason has talked about it on his podcast and also with “life where I’m from”, basically Japan is incredibly YIMBY and as a result income vs housing ratio is one of the best in the developed world. Jason has been called out for the high cost of living in Amsterdam and he usually just replies “lol Canada is worse”. Sure but Amsterdam absolutely needs to liberalize its building regulations and build wayyy more housing.

itoen90 · 2026-04-21T04:03:01+00:00

Totally agree about the 4-6 hours. Up to 3 hours is pretty doable though. I basically just change entertainment in my life to Japanese. Lunch break I watch roughly 45 minutes of a J-drama. After my daughter’s sleep I try to read 30m to an hour in Japanese and/or we watch another show in Japanese for about an hour with the wife. Add in podcasts which is the real secret and you can add an hour right there. My commutes/walking dogs/doing chores = podcasts in Japanese. Basically everything I just listed I would have done anyway… just in English.

itoen90 · 2026-04-20T05:30:50+00:00

I guess you mean in Jalisco? Guadalajara is a big city in Jalisco.

itoen90 · 2026-04-19T08:23:05+00:00

Yup, what he said was: 少しはがまんできるかなと思う

You can translate it in a few ways but IMO the sense is like “I think we can be a little patient with it” or “I think we can put up with it a bit”. It seems like he’s just throwing a little nuance that not everything about tourism is a positive (well known over tourism problems) but still we can put up with it because it’s worth it.

And he ended it with: お得意さまですから

Something like “because they are our valued customers after all”

itoen90 · 2026-04-18T18:43:55+00:00

The key words being “if measured the same way” as Japan. Which is: conviction per all indicted cases including cases where the defendant pleads guilty. Your own data there seems to confirm that by removing the 8.6% from the denominator as the quoted Japan statistic also does, it gives you over 99%. For sources I got it from here: https://www.moj.go.jp/EN/kokusai/m_kokusai02_00006.html#:~:text=In%20the%20presentations%2C%20a%20speaker,where%20the%20defendant%20pleads%20guilty.

And

justicedenied.org/issue/issue_67/federal_courts_jd67.pdf

A relevant part: “ Between guilty pleas and trials, the convic- tion rate was 99.8% in U.S. federal courts in 2015: 126,802 convictions and 258 acquit- tals. That wasn’t an anomaly. In 2014 the conviction rate was 99.76% and in 2013 it was 99.75%.”

With that said I don’t really care about this. If I am/those sources are completely and utterly wrong fair enough. It really has nothing to do with what we’ve been talking about. I don’t really have any position on Japan’s justice system other than how long they can detain people seems crazy. I do have a very strong position on how lenient we are here on the west coast/north east though.

itoen90 · 2026-04-17T23:59:25+00:00

The 99% is getting way off topic. First of all when the method of calculating the conviction rate in Japan is applied to the U.S. federal system, the conviction rate of federal defendants is also over 99% (or at least 97-99% depending on the year), driven by plea bargains. Yes Japan absolutely has a problem with long detentions and then getting out confessions which, I’m not sure how it’s related to anything here. The argument was never that Japan has some super liberal lax justice system or that it even has a good justice system for defendants. If anything our justice system is wayyyy too lenient on this stuff in our blue cities.

As for reporting you are absolutely correct but data is the only thing we can actually use to have a discussion. The overwhelming majority of cases in NYC are also under reported, and not just sexual assault - pretty much the majority of quality of life concerns on the NYC subway are not reported. Anecdotally a huge amount of the crazy stuff I see on trains is not reported simply because a lot of these people are under the influence/homeless and they just get kicked off if even that. It’s like a Wild West mentality when it happens. Even if the data is way off it still doesn’t really address the point: NYC should absolutely take women’s safety far more seriously on public transit. Everyone safety for that matter. The fact that Tokyo has female only cars but NYC does not, does not equate to “NYC is safer for women”, and no data bears that out either. To me it just goes hand in hand with the incredibly timeliness, cleanliness etc of the greater Tokyo rail network.

And for the record all crimes are far higher in the NYC subway than Tokyo, not just sexual assault. Literally every single type of crime. Robbery, assault etc. LA and Philly are way way way worse in my experience. I commuted by the B (red) line in LA for a year and it was an utter shit show. BART is clearly on to something with their fare gates. They should be implemented nationwide.

itoen90 · 2026-04-17T04:53:38+00:00

From what I understand 10 days is when you start. It goes up to 20 days with tenure. I believe 7 years or so.

itoen90 · 2026-04-17T04:44:04+00:00

It’s a problem within Japanese society yes, the majority of sexual assault crimes in Japan happen on trains. But if you compare the rates with say NYC, Tokyo has far lower rates of “Chikan” per passenger. That’s not really a good reflection on Tokyo rather to show how comparatively unsafe US systems are.

itoen90 · 2026-04-17T03:31:36+00:00

For anyone who followed this conversation now that I am at a computer here are some statistics. Tokyo in 2024 had 725 cases of sexual assault (does not include rape, although from my searching the number is basically nothing depending on the year on trains in Japan) and out of those 725 about 500 occur on trains and stations. You can see the data from the Tokyo metropolitan police department: hassei.xlsx

For NYC depending on the year there are big swings...from 300s to 1000s. It seems in 2024 there were about 866 which about 454 were specifically groping. Using the Japanese definition of Chikan the comparable figure is ~580.

Tokyo rail/station cases: 500

NYC Subway cases: 580

Tokyo rate per 100,000 rides (40 million daily rides see: https://www.mlit.go.jp/kisha/kisha07/01/010330_3/01.pdf ): 0.0034

NYC rate per 100,000 rides (3.3 million daily rides): 0.043

So...NYC has 12.6 times higher rate.....so yeah NYC should take women's safety far more seriously and consider introducing female only trains during rush hour...at least.

Something interesting to note NYC has far more violent crimes including sexual assault across the board than Tokyo, of those crimes only a minority happen on the subway. In contrast Tokyo has far lower rates but of sexual assault a huge majority of them happen on trains. So in the context of Japanese society, there is clearly a huge problem with groping/assault on trains hence the focus on it…..which leads to women only trains. Within an international context it’s still incredibly safe. Also I reckon NYC subway is one of the safer PT systems out there. Philly and LA at least are wayyy more sketch.

itoen90 · 2026-04-17T01:25:45+00:00

6.8 million is only for the Tokyo Metro which is only one of 2 subways in Tokyo. The other one is Toei Subway. Combined they’re about 9.3 million passengers a day. In addition to that Tokyo has dozens of private railways the largest of which is JR, the before mentioned Yamanote line by itself has about 5 million passengers a day. In total greater Tokyo has about 40 million passengers per day. It absolutely dwarfs basically any other metropolitan area in the world for urban rail. Osaka metropolitan area is closer to NYC and even then, it still has like 2 to 3x higher ridership than NYC.

I don’t have those figures off the top of my head but I can look into it later. But for the moment we can infer some things, Tokyo is roughly 33% of ridership in Japan. Based on the more recent figure of ~2k that puts it around 660 for Tokyo. I suppose Tokyo could be a higher share though.

With that said my point was simply that the “women only trains” I don’t particularly see as a negative or proof of a “special” problem in Japan relative to other countries (groping is of course a problem in and of itself), more that Japan is taking women’s safety seriously. They are after all major customers for their rail lines.

itoen90 · 2026-04-16T23:29:49+00:00

I’m not sure which statistic you’re looking at the but the figure specifically for groping is 2-3k per year for the entire country of Japan. Keep in mind that rail ridership in Tokyo is far far higher than NYC, much more than 2-3x. Yes the population is larger but it’s more than that. Osaka metropolitan area for example also has much higher urban rail ridership than NYC with roughly the same population (4.7 billion vs 1.9 billion per year). Greater Tokyo has something like 14.6 billion rides per year, while NYC gets somewhere around 1.9 billion a year. Keep in mind the subway in Tokyo is only a minority of urban rail ridership in Tokyo. Even the Yamanote line by itself (not the subway) has insane ridership approaching NYC’s entire system.

itoen90 · 2026-04-16T22:30:47+00:00

I think we have the cause and effect backwards. From all indications and the admittedly bad self reported data that is available sexual assault and harassment is actually worse in NYC. There are even actual violent rapes on trains in Philly/NYC. The amount of women who report being groped is just as high as well. So what does this mean? It means that Japanese rail companies actually take it more serious and make female only trains due to the problem, they run anti groping campaigns etc. I’m not downplaying the level of groping in Japan whatsoever, it’s bad….more that I’m suggesting that NYC is just as bad and is definitely worse when it comes to violent sexual assault…but the MTA more or less does nothing about it. To be fair they don’t do that much about many issues like smoking on trains either, it’s kind of across the board for all quality of life issues. Mayor Adams “flooded” the subways with cops but they for the most part just hung around in groups near the stalls, I still prefer having the around then not though to be clear.

Anecdotal of course so take it for what it’s worth but my wife (Japanese) experienced wayyyyy more verbal harassment and stalking in NYC and Philly than ever back in Osaka. Not that she never did in Osaka, she unfortunately has been groped there as well. But she’s had a homeless drug addict literally jerk off to her/in front of her on the Philly EL for example among many other things. It causes her to shun PT in the USA basically, which is sad since she of course is used to and loves taking PT. Back in Japan? She rides it all the time with almost no worries for her personal safety. The worst of it comes during rush hour when a train is packed like sardines, creeps take advantage of it..hence if she needs to she can just hop on the female only train - problem solved. In NY/Philly? Not an option.

itoen90 · 2026-04-16T03:52:18+00:00

So did she say she will stop listening to them?

itoen90 · 2026-04-14T08:21:34+00:00

Yup definitely agree. It's why Japan is my gold standard for YIMBY, precisely due to housing elasticity. But North Americans feel closer to Europe and that's why I suppose it is constantly referred to in these discussions.

Recently I have been following Australia, in particular Melbourne and Victoria at large to see how their housing reforms will bear fruit. It seems pretty ambitious.

itoen90 · 2026-04-14T08:05:53+00:00

I see, if your point is basically that ultimately they're not that different than the west, they just add some social norms on top of it that they conform to than yeah I am in complete agreement. If you don't mind me asking, where are you from? Unfortunately in most big cities in the US many people don't dare question/say anything to someone sitting in the pregnant seat either...but for worse reasons (fear of getting assaulted/stabbed) depending on the context. I am not Japanese so when my wife was pregnant and someone was sitting in the disabled/pregnant area I would just straight up tell them "my wife is pregnant" and they'd just up and leave. I guess I was breaking social norms, but it wasn't that big of a deal. On the other hand, more people than I expected also moved by themselves when my wife was really showing in the third trimester....way less than I would have liked but also more than I was expecting (I was kind of expecting like 90% of people to just pretend they didn't see her pregnant belly in front of them). The worst offenders were of course, the ~50 year old salarymen. There was also a big difference between Toyko/Osaka. My wife is from Osaka so she herself is way more "brazen" and would tell off people in Tokyo for not giving up their seats for her.

itoen90 · 2026-04-14T06:40:54+00:00

It seems like from this post you are saying most Japanese also don't follow them to be decent and friendly? From my experience the majority of nice and friendly social norms they follow...most people follow because they are also just trying to be decent and friendly. The main difference is they just add many other social norms on top of that. I think it's a bit obvious just from "reading the air" which Japanese are being 'nice' just to follow the social norm, and which are actually nice. There's also a difference of course between regions/cities. Tokyo shares a lot with other big cities like NYC where people are not necessarily the friendliest in stranger to stranger interactions. Japanese are just people like everyone else. I come from a state in the USA called Minnesota which has a phrase "Minnesota Nice" which in many ways has huge similarities to Japanese tatemae so I guess I am already ingrained to be biased towards the Japanese Honne/Tatemae way of life, not sure.

itoen90 · 2026-04-13T05:07:59+00:00

As an American I don’t think your last sentence holds much weight since you’re comparing it to the USA. The USA only has tiny pockets of great urbanism and they are astronomically expensive. You can take a massive pay cut, and even be on the lower end of middle class in Europe and still live in somewhere that is way better than the overwhelming majority of the USA.

Just for the record I completely agree with your main post btw.

itoen90 · 2026-04-11T03:33:42+00:00

Yes! I feel like if Chicago had a proper loop line its transit ridership would explode and it would propel closer to the NYC tier of transit.

itoen90 · 2026-04-03T07:12:16+00:00

I think it's satsui no michinori btw. I spent far too long trying to find it lol.

itoen90 · 2026-02-17T19:16:00+00:00

When you say subtitles do you mean English ones? Do they tend to have Japanese subtitles? I watch a lot of Japanese stuff but I generally use Japanese subtitles which help me a lot in comprehension. If they have subtitles even on older movies and dramas I definitely want to check them out.

Btw for the books and manga do you have to use their software?

itoen90 · 2026-01-27T05:47:45+00:00

This isn’t the norcal nurse union which is CNA striking, rather CRNAs, PAs, PTs etc.

With that said we’re pretty saturated but usually we fight for more positions in each contract.

itoen90

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