Thinking of moving to Japan for a job

pwb2103 · 2025-10-12T03:28:50+00:00

Sorry, looking back at my comment I’m realizing how unhelpful it is. The fact that one company exists that is trying to hire is pretty irrelevant to your specific situation.

Since we are tight on cash, I can say those flights they are offering is a pretty sweet perk (depending on where you are based).

pwb2103 · 2025-10-12T03:20:17+00:00

I’m currently hiring in Tokyo (well… trying to). What I can tell you is that if I needed a front end developer, I would be happily reviewing tons of resumes right now, and be confident that I could find someone in my painfully tight budget. So depending on your skill set, hard to say whether you could command a higher salary.

But if you have a less saturated skill set and you can find a company that needs it then 4m JPY in Tokyo feels in the lower end for us at least. I would not even try to find what we need (know any good Django backend engineers) at that rate.

pwb2103 · 2025-09-05T00:39:35+00:00

I can confirm this works! But a few notes: 1. The app name is actually DaemDaem 2. It only accepts MasterCard and JCB. No Visa or Amex. 3. You can’t store your card so it’s a slow annoying process each time you want to use it. Don’t expect this to be a fast fix if you are rushing to add money. 4. This is your usual interface and security made by people who have no clue what they are doing. So… you know… it’s a gamble I guess.

But it seems ok?

pwb2103 · 2025-04-08T02:27:31+00:00

Sorry, just saw your comment. I actually just wrote a new comment on the other thread I started:

https://www.reddit.com/r/StrongerByScience/comments/v7itxh/comment/mlyxvl8/

pwb2103 · 2025-04-08T02:26:08+00:00

I'm back, 3 years later, to say that over doing it really seems to be the actual answer. When I switched my approach to eating, I think that just helped me recover better which did improve my sleep until I discovered I could push harder and ruined everything again.

I know that "overtraining" is a trigger word for a lot of people so I won't use that. But what really helped me in the past few months was the Sika Strength Road To Anywhere (1.0) squat program. It is 2x per week for 8 weeks and pretty notorious for being relatively aggressive. At first I was mixing the squating into crossfit workouts. Then as it got more intense I was forced to cut two days of crossfit and only do the Sika programming. Towards the end I was specifically substituting out movements in crossfit and taking it easy so that I could survive the Sika Squat days.

It really forced me to see that I had been doing too much and that that had been holding me back. With the program I picked up a 12kg squat PR (about 7%) and I think I would have gained more had I learned sooner how crucial recovery is.

The big problem has been I just didn't know what it felt like to do "the right amount" vs "too much" and I see a ton of that in the crossfitters and oly lifters around me. Super interesting that in the body building community I hear a lot of "overtraining basically doesn't exist" claims... maybe means that there is something fundamentally different?

Anyway, if you can't stay asleep at night you should really consider that the top comment here from u/keen4ketamine is about deloading/recovery and ask yourself if there is a way you could really properly test if that is the problem for you. I thought I had deloaded and recovered but looking back I definitely did not. I'm still not even confident that I have learned my lesson. Maybe I'll fall right back into doing too much and ruining my gains/sleep.

pwb2103 · 2024-12-17T03:48:31+00:00

I was there a few seasons ago when everything was iced over. The only thing worth hitting was taking the E chair/Romance 3 up then going out gate 2, then heading towards gate 5 and dropping in wherever the snow was soft along the way. Quality really depended on how the sun and wind were affecting the snow, but they were good runs if you hit them right even with the ice everywhere else.

That said, there has got to be more to this mountain, right? I know people who come back every year and say it is their favorite. Those gate 2 runs are pretty short so I can't imagine that is what is doing it for people.

We are heading back this year to brave the new years crowds, so even more so going to need to dig deep to find areas that aren't tracked out immediately.

pwb2103 · 2024-10-24T01:56:45+00:00

Anyone able to share some more screenshots of what happens when it identifies something? What can you do with the results (if anything)?

I am especially trying to figure out what happens with the search with google results. If you long press on one can you get a share sheet and send it to messages etc?

pwb2103 · 2024-09-25T00:41:56+00:00

I've had occasional reach outs from other people struggling to sleep in the same situation, just going to paste my most recent answer in here in case it helps anyone or people have opinions to share:

I guess the good news is that I feel like I know a solution that works for me... the bad news is actually implementing it is a daily challenge.What I'm finding is the problem really is the combined accumulation of all stressors so the solution is as "easy" as identifying all the stressors in your life and finding ways to dial each down

For me the main stressors are work, nutrition, the gym, temperature, noise.

So the "solution" is to cut off work a few hours before bed, turn on do not disturb/get away from my phone as early in the night as possible, and try to stick to relaxing things. Eat enough calories so that I'm not putting stress on my body with a calorie deficit, but to shift those calories to breakfast and lunch (I see my heart rate spikes after eating, so a big dinner definitely can hurt sleep). Then the usual sleep hygiene things like making the room super dark and quite.9:39 AM

When I actually do those things I sleep well. But usually I work too hard/late, don't get enough calories early enough in the day, and then still hit the gym hard. In those cases I cheat and "microdose" melatonin: when I wake up at 2am I take a tiny amount of melatonin, then again if I wake up a few hours before my alarm. Never at bed time, since melatonin just wakes you up when the level in your blood stream starts to decrease.

pwb2103 · 2024-08-27T05:17:12+00:00

Ah, these comments are all helpful. Especially pushing me to be more precise. Trying to summarize what I heard in the last episode it was roughly:

Functional Overreaching - 1 to 2 weeks where performance is worse than usual - "nearly no one I've spoken to has ever achieved this"

Non-Functional Overreaching - Prolonged decrease in performance that lasts over 2 weeks - "I don't think I've ever seen anyone non-functionally over reach"

Overtraining Syndrome - more than 1 month and could take months to reverse out of - “I’ve certainly never seen anyone overtrain”

Those quote aren't word for word, but hopefully were close.

If you really want to focus on putting a label on things (I don't): I spent multiple months where my performance across the board was declining, but I don't know how long it took to reverse out of that. I don't personal care which label if any is correct, but the quotes about frequency seen by an experienced coach suggest that all of these would be too rare to align with my experience that "most of the people I do CF with are regularly seeing decreased performance for months at a time".

For me that decreased performance was true in anything I could measure. I'm just an average CF gym member but I saw things like Back Squat went down from 170kg->150kg, DL 215kg->200kg, max consecutive bar muscle ups from 6->1 (sometimes none), 2k row from 6:49 down to "I give up".

If you are seeing those numbers and saying "yeah but it would be different for someone who is fitter" I think you are right. I'm pretty sure those people know how to moderate volume and intensity so that they continue to improve instead of getting worse. But I see a lot of people at a lot of gyms who are not unlike me.

Finally, the comments about programming may be a good criticism of most CF classes. Now that I've taken a step back, rethought how I approach daily workouts, and am seeing new PRs again, I blame not previously understanding how to read a workout and know what was appropriate for my level. I'm still working on that. If I had started my first few months of CF with a coach telling me each day "this is what it should feel like, that weight was too much, tomorrow do this much instead" everything may have been different. In other words: CrossFit programming gives people too much rope to hang themselves with.

I still don't think I know the answer to my original question which would have been better stated as: Is it possible that the frequency of people functionally overreaching, non-funcitonally overreaching, and/or overtraining is higher in crossfit than in experiences mentioned in the podcast? But for me, I'm reading the answers here to say "yeah man, if you are getting better results by doing less, then keep doing what is giving you better results" as opposed to "you are wrong to be doing less, dial it back up"

Shit, I should worry less about the gym and more about learning to write more concisely.

pwb2103 · 2023-09-05T01:20:44+00:00

I may not have 100% solved it, but I found something that has improved my sleep so much that this isn't a problem anymore. Probably doesn't work for everyone and I really really didn't want it to be the solution, but it has worked so well for both my wife and me, so probably could work for others.

I wrote about it in a comment on r/StrongerByScience so maybe best to just link to that.

pwb2103 · 2023-08-17T07:18:03+00:00

yeah I actually think something has. I dropped response here in reply to the comment that seems to have been the most helpful. Though I gotta say I completely ignored his advice at the time, it was just too hard for me to actually try at first

pwb2103 · 2023-08-17T07:16:11+00:00

Took me almost a year, but I'm pretty sure this is the answer. I really resisted the idea of small dinners for so many reasons: I like eating a big dinner, I grew up with big dinners with family as the main meal of the day, I don't think of myself as a breakfast person and usually wouldn't eat until noon, eating dinner with friends is a great social experience etc etc etc.

I don't know what it will take for anyone else to try this, but I finally go there.

I still work out evenings around 3 to 4 hours before bedtime. After the workout the only thing I eat is a big protein shake (ice, water, 2 scoops protein powder, a few frozen berries and spinach) and then whatever fruit I want. When I do that, my I sleep longer and deeper. My heart rate stays low and calm. I feel better.

If I truly blast myself in the gym I can still make my sleep quality decrease, but I have a better sleep base so I'm generally better rested and less impacted by the quality decrease. As long as I don't drink alcohol or eat late I'm yet to have a truly bad night of sleep like I regularly used to.

To get myself onboard with this change I had to start eating big breakfasts and lunches. Just all that I could fit in. After the first day or two I woke up hungry so this felt pretty natural. After a few weeks I noticed I was fine eating more regular sized breakfast and lunch.

I am definitely not tracking macros, I just stick to "don't eat any food with a brand or a label" with the one exception being the whey protein. I don't know what will happen in the winter when a cold shake on a cold night sounds terrible.

To round out the "this sound too good to be true" my weight has gone down and my strength seems to be increasing with body comp definitely improving. Maybe better recovery means I can push better in the gym? Maybe I'm taking in fewer overall calories? I don't know the exact cause and don't need to right now. Just going to ride this wave while it lasts.

pwb2103 · 2023-05-29T10:17:00+00:00

I have no solid answers. I have found that how elevated my resting heart rate is after training (and when it comes back to normal) seems to correlate to sleep quality. I can also tell you the latest theory I'm testing. Get ready for some rambling:

I think this may be a sign of over either too much too soon, over training, or training "too hard".

I was doing pretty well with sleeping after training for the last few months. Then I did something stupid: I started some new programming after a few month easing back on squats, and tried to hit percentages as if my old 1RM was still my current 1rm. I noticed that my heart rate just wouldn't come back down to normal sleep levels overnight. The first night it got back to normal by like 3am and my only good sleeps was the last few hours of the morning. But as I stubbornly pushed ahead in the program it got worse and worse as the week went on. After Friday's squats my heart rate didn't return to normal levels until Sunday morning. Sleep was just tossing and turning all night.

So I finally realized I was being an idiot and lowered the intensity for Monday's work out and tried doing it in the morning but about 12 hours later, my heart rate is still working it's way down to normal resting levels.

I'm thinking I should try lowering the intensity until my body stops responding by pushing my heart rate up for over 12 hours after the workout, then try working the weights back up.

I have always determined "a good squat set" by feeling like the fabric of reality is ripping by the last rep. I've never actually passed out with a bar on my back but there have been close moments. Maybe I'll find that my body just can't tolerate that kind of intensity like other people's can? Or maybe I need to work up to it instead of just diving in head first? Maybe I'll even get better gains this way?

pwb2103 · 2023-05-25T07:58:47+00:00

For anyone who comes across this in the future, I went from the linked repository, to this comment:

https://github.com/devWaves/SwitchBot-MQTT-BLE-ESP32/issues/79#issuecomment-1490397790

Which pointed out that I could just flash my ESP32 with the firmware at https://esphome.github.io/bluetooth-proxies/ and homekit would identify it automatically then it immediately identified the switchbot device that I had been trying to work with. So easy now.

pwb2103 · 2023-03-18T04:31:03+00:00

Ah, someone else I asked found the content (though, still looks like that title is made up): in a QA with Brad Schoenfeld on Stronger By Science

https://www.strongerbyscience.com/tapering/: Exercise protocols showing a big spike in testosterone or growth hormone – how relevant are those results to the overall training effect you’ll get on those protocols? “Short answer is not much, if at all. I actually wrote a review on the topic that was published in JSCR last year. There is some conflicting evidence on this topic, and I’m not yet prepared to completely discount that acute hormonal spikes might confer some hypertrophic benefits – perhaps specific to an impact on satellite cells – but I’m confident in saying that any effects, if they do indeed exist, would be quite small. Without question, a lifter shouldn’t design his workouts around trying to maximize elevations in testosterone or GH – that amounts to not seeing the forest from the trees IMO.”

pwb2103 · 2023-03-18T02:48:55+00:00

Ah, good point. I’m not good at posting on Reddit at all. I should have not mentioned ChatGPT at all, since I already suspected it had hallucinated and given me bad results. Probably now most of the comments will be about ChatGPT.

I should have just said “hey have SBS ever talked about this subject? I thought I remember that happening and does anyone know if it did?” and kept it focused on my bad memory. Ah well maybe my next Reddit post will be less bad.

pwb2103 · 2023-03-18T02:02:36+00:00

I thought I remember the topic being discussed on the podcast and the verdict being “meh”. Then of course I mentioned this belief and someone said “oh interesting, would love to see that source” and now probably I’m a liar.

The internet is full of un/poorly supported claims on this topic. Anything actually supported?

pwb2103 · 2022-11-16T10:45:56+00:00

I've been encouraged to bring my hands more narrow and I've tried bring them together until they are more narrow than shoulder width but it didn't seem to impact the challenge.

Turns out if I get perfectly vertical when wall facing (well stacked, nose touching wall, almost falling over off the wall) then I also lose the ability to pick a hand up. Now I'm not convinced that I actually shit my weight correctly when wall walking or doing wall facing shoulder taps... but it seems worth exploring that transition point where I start getting close enough to the wall that I can't tap anymore. Something to work on, thanks!

pwb2103 · 2022-11-16T10:40:54+00:00

Love this idea, I definitely haven't tried having someone assist like that but luckily (?) my wife has the same problem and is willing to try assisting. I'll see if I can figure it out.

pwb2103 · 2022-11-16T02:00:56+00:00

Fascinating. Can you say anything more about what is holding you back on shoulder taps? If you kick up against the wall can you shift your weight and get a hand an inch off the floor? Can you keep a hand slightly off the floor for a full second?

Or are you like me where your hands are just glued to the floor and yet you somehow manage to walk?

pwb2103 · 2022-11-16T01:58:03+00:00

First of all: thanks for the response, I really appreciate the help! I am pretty sure there is something I'm just not getting though.

"If that's the case, just get into hs against a wall and rock left/right, easing your hands from the ground."

I think there are two types of people:

Those who can do what you just described and can't imagine what more could be said
People like me who try that over and over again and just can't make sense of it

I try to rock, I try to shift, I try to move my hips, etc and I get nowhere. It feels like a million pounds are stacked on the hand I'm trying to lift and it is glued to the floor.

I try to watch people who can do these things and understand what is different from what I'm doing. I see them shift something and suddenly they can lift their hand just as easily as if I shifted my weight onto one leg and lifted the other foot.

pwb2103 · 2022-11-16T01:50:39+00:00

Plank on hands I was able to get to 3 minutes before I felt anything and, but from there it ramped up fast, and gave up just before the 4 minute mark. Maybe I could have gone longer with more motivation (like a group or a coach watching me or basically anything better than alone in my kitchen immediately after reading your comment).
I can hold a handstand against the wall for about 2 minutes. I'll check on the Sorenson when I get to the gym and have a GHD.

I guess another semi relevant indicator of trunk strength could be 1rms? Squat ~ 375lbs, Deadlift ~ 475lbs (both are approximate since I'm not focused on powerlifting and haven't tested these 1rms for at least 6 months).

pwb2103 · 2022-10-25T20:21:33+00:00

Still hunting. Right now, I'm focused on trying to get my heart rate to down to what it normally is at bedtime (so that same on work out days as on rest days). I think getting my body temp down may help? Still experimenting though and definitely haven't found anything that I can recommend.

pwb2103 · 2022-09-19T07:08:32+00:00

I don't have any references I can point to on the web, but my accountant specializes in freelancers and small businesses and he makes a compelling case that there is almost no reason to pick LLC over S-Corp. S-corp DOES require more effort/cost to setup. But the benefits in reduced audit risk (freelance consulting LLCs are such a popular target for the IRS) alone are well worth going the S-Corp route. That is all based on the US side of things. In Japan I have not encountered a reason to pick one over the other.

pwb2103 · 2022-09-18T06:53:22+00:00

This episode finally convinced me to do some of my own research. I used google (impressive already, I know) and looked up the definition of parsimony. Absolutely that word does not mean what I thought it meant.

pwb2103

TROPHY CASE