JapanBlogList

Just some gaijin living in Tokyo

[JapanBlogList @JapanBlogList]

Empty seats on the Mita line this morning at 8:40. It’s unheard of! Where is everyone did I miss a bank holiday announcement?

[Anita Chen @amanitahalo]

japan rail ridership map!
see how many people ride each segment of rail. includes almost all japanese rail operators.
https://t.co/GdUEjH6HcV

[JapanBlogList @JapanBlogList]

Except we stopped at the next station hibiya and everyone got off?

[JapanBlogList @JapanBlogList]

#chiyoda line stopped due to power outage. Not a good start to the week!

[JapanBlogList @JapanBlogList]

Oh. And we are back!

[JapanBlogList @JapanBlogList]

@Fendy_yy @shintsuna_sh02 Yeah. The translation scared me too. I reported it. Not sure what a better way of saying it is ? Maybe “roaring” into Yokohama?

[JapanBlogList @JapanBlogList]

@911LAPD how do I report a crime of extortion that occurred to my son while he was on Hollywood Boulevard. Two costumed people took 1000 dollars from his credit card. Demanding it was for “Government Tax” we are back in Japan now

[TJ @TJ_Kawa]

Japan has 4M+ vending machines, called jihanki.

In Tokyo they’re everywhere, but the interesting ones are weirdly hard to find.

So I made Jihanki Atlas, a map where people can discover, submit, and help verify Tokyo vending machines.

Current favorites: Pokémon plushies, sriracha sauce, wagyu beef, edible insects, fresh-squeezed orange juice.

What’s the coolest one you’ve seen?

https://t.co/qmlHXLwVBY

[JapanBlogList @JapanBlogList]

@yurikageyama @Nihonpolitics So how are Calbee paying you for the free publicity?

[Jediwolf @Jediwolf]

What happens when you post a real Monet and say it’s AI? The coolest art social experiment I’ve seen in a while. Thank you @SHL0MS

[JapanBlogList @JapanBlogList]

@heynavtoor This is almost better than AI generated cat videos. I hope everyone has had communal porridge for breakfast https://t.co/lnY53qX6js

[Nav Toor @heynavtoor]

THIS GUY BUILT AN ENTIRE WIKIPEDIA THAT IS 100% AI HALLUCINATIONS AND IT'S OPEN SOURCE ON GITHUB

it's called Halupedia.

nothing on the site existed before you clicked. every article was generated the second you arrived.

the site has one rule: the universe only exists when you visit it.

it looks exactly like wikipedia. same fonts. same layout. same scholarly citations. same "stumble" button for random articles.

the only difference is none of it is real.

here are some actual articles currently in the encyclopedia:

> the great pigeon census of 1887
> the ministry of slightly wrong maps
> chaldic arithmetic — a branch of mathematics where subtraction is forbidden
> armund the river mapper — a cartographer who mapped 14,000 leagues of river without leaving his chair
> the society for the prevention of unnecessary tuesdays

every article page also tells you how many people are reading it right now. it says: "you alone are consulting this folio at present."

the creator's own tagline for the site is the most unhinged sentence i've read this year:

"an encyclopedia of a universe that does not exist until you visit it"

the entire backend is a single open source repo called vibeserver. one guy. one description on github: "a little webserver making things up just in time."

we built the largest knowledge base in human history and the very first thing a guy did with it was make a hallucinated mirror universe and put it on the open web.

the internet is healing.

[NyanChuu🔮🇯🇵🍭 @tanpukunokami]

March 11, 2011. 2:46 PM.
33 Shinkansen bullet trains were running through northern Japan.

Several were moving at 300 km/h.
Then the earthquake hit.
Magnitude 9.1. The 4th largest ever recorded.
Epicenter: off the Sanriku coast, 130 km ESE of the Oshika Peninsula.

Every single train stopped safely.
Zero passenger injuries.

Here's what happened.

12 to 22 seconds before the violent shaking reached the tracks,
a seismometer on Kinkazan — a small island off Japan's Pacific coast —
detected the quake and sent a signal inland.

The signal traveled faster than the earthquake itself.

Power to the tracks was cut.
Every train in the zone automatically braked.
By the time the ground started shaking violently,
the trains were already slowing down.

One empty test train derailed at Sendai Station.
Not a single train in service derailed.

The Shinkansen has been running since 1964.
In 60 years, it has killed zero passengers —
not in a collision, not in a derailment.
Zero.

Most people stop reading here.
The real story starts now.

Japan built this safety system in two layers, for two different problems.

First: UrEDAS — the Urgent Earthquake Detection and Alarm System.
Invented in the early 1980s, deployed on the Tokaido Shinkansen in 1992.
The world's first operational P-wave warning system for trains.

Its seismometers sit along the coast, listening for earthquakes out at sea.
When one hits, the system reads the first 3 seconds of P-wave motion,
estimates the magnitude and location,
and sends a warning inland to the tracks.

Second: Compact UrEDAS.
Built after the 1995 Kobe earthquake,
which struck directly beneath a city with almost no warning.
When the earthquake happens directly under the train,
there's no time to calculate anything.
So Compact UrEDAS asks one question:
"Is this shaking dangerous?"
It answers in about 1 second.

Both systems end the same way.
They cut the power.

The Shinkansen is built so that the moment it loses power,
emergency brakes engage automatically.

The driver makes no decision.
There's no time to.

A 300 km/h Shinkansen takes about 90 seconds to stop.
No warning system in the world buys you 90 seconds.
The goal isn't to stop the train before the earthquake arrives.
The goal is for the train to be slowing down when it does.

This is the part foreign coverage misses.
The goal isn't to prevent the accident.
The goal is to make the accident survivable.

In-service Shinkansen have derailed twice in 60 years.

2004. Niigata Chuetsu earthquake.
A trackside Compact UrEDAS detected the P-wave.
Power was cut one second later. Emergency brakes engaged 1.5 seconds after that.
But the earthquake was directly beneath the train,
which was moving at 204 km/h.
8 of 10 cars derailed.
The train skidded 1.6 km before stopping.
154 passengers on board.
Zero injuries.

2022. M7.4 off Fukushima.
A Shinkansen traveling at 320 km/h detected the first tremor and began braking.
As the train decelerated toward a stop,
a second, stronger quake (M7.4) hit.
16 of the 17 cars derailed.
75 passengers. 3 crew.
Zero deaths. No serious injuries.

Two other derailments involved empty trains.
2011, Sendai Station, a test train.
2016, Kumamoto earthquake, a transit train.

In every case, the warning system had already cut the power
before the shaking reached its peak.

The system does not stop earthquakes.
It does not always stop derailments.
It just makes sure the earthquake arrives after the train is already slow.

Japan's earthquakes and Japan's trains grew up in the same country,
watching the same ground.

Somewhere in Japan right now,
a Shinkansen is moving at 300 kilometers per hour.

Far away, on a quiet coast,
a sensor is listening to the rock beneath it.

It has been listening since 1992.
Every time it was needed, it worked.

[JapanBlogList @JapanBlogList]

@ninja_padrino Verve coffee at Takanawa gateway is open from 7am every day. Good pancakes.

[JapanBlogList @JapanBlogList]

@edgaralandough Indeed. Think of your age as the “level”. Going up a level is always an important milestone

[JapanBlogList @JapanBlogList]

@KansaiPhotos I just use them at the local supermarket they take it all. No questions no problems

[World of Statistics @stats_feed]

🇯🇵 Kansai International Airport in Japan reached its 30th year of service without having ever lost a single piece of luggage.

[daveo, task'd @uncleweed]

maybe some of you internationals in Japan are familiar with fantastic website project Atlas Obscura. community editor is in Tokyo (sadly not the "rest of Japan" :-)) looking for tips for unique/hidden/odd/ obviously obscure places. So far pretty pedestrian list so lend a hand

[JapanBlogList @JapanBlogList]

@_smcf @grok can you explain this.

[Travolax | Always Traveling @travolax]

Gentle snowfall in Kamakura, Japan.