Little Eye On The Crazy World Of Foreigners

[rafletcher]

Japanese search and rescue cockroaches..

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20220924/p2g/00m/0sc/016000c

[T42]

Japanese search and rescue cockroaches..

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20220924/p2g/00m/0sc/016000c

Shades of the Fifth Element.

https://youtu.be/DrHMBletjXg

[orienteer]

Japanese search and rescue cockroaches..

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20220924/p2g/00m/0sc/016000c

Not much solar power available if they're searching rubble...

[rafletcher]

Japanese search and rescue cockroaches..

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20220924/p2g/00m/0sc/016000c

Not much solar power available if they're searching rubble...

Yes, that was my thought. Nor does it get over the probelm they had with a similar mechanical centipede (one of our VP's worked on the project) whereby when they tried it after the Fukashima tsunami the radiation fried the electronics.

[Kim]

Isn't 'search and rescue' a robotics euphemism for 'military applications'?

I can imagine a solar-powered cockroach being a useful platform for covert surveillance.  Assuming you can overcome their famous aversion to daylight.

[rafletcher]

Japan is pathologically averse to militarism, given how well it turned out for then the last time. I suspect it's more to do with the development of the thin solar film - I can see applications for that as wraps, window films etc etc.  And the fact that they have a surfeit of eathquakes, tsunami and landslides means they do need better search and rescue materiel.

[rafletcher]

And another, a sticking plaster that mimics a biscuit. A “sweet butter biscuit made with dried powdered eel” no less 2 for 1 there!

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20221007/p2a/00m/0bu/015000c

And it’s the gift that keeps giving, a new twist on the “send money” scam, though pretty original!

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20221008/p2g/00m/0na/053000c

[orienteer]

Regular programme on NHK World is Document 24 Hours, where a camera crew hang around a particular site for three days interviewing people as to why they are there. Current one is a 10,000 bike underground parking facility at a railway station in Kasa, a suburb of Tokyo.

Depressing to learn how difficult life is for so many people, often having two jobs to help support caring for families with problems.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/video/4026168/

30 minute programme

[Jaded]

Don't lick frogs...

[spesh]

Or toads, even...

ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!

[Moleman76]

"Florida man announces intention to campaign for President of the United States"

[robgul]

"Florida man announces intention to campaign for President of the United States"

The teaser, for an article on page 26 of the paper was: 

The New York Post covered Trump's declaration with a bottom-of-front-page footer irreverently headlined, "Florida Man Makes Announcement".

So an even more cutting comment from the Dirty Digger, not even a hint!

[Mr Larrington]

‘Energy Healer’ Tech Couple Say They Flew to SF on Private Jet to Help Space Karen.  Going well, is it?

[Steph]

I watched a short video care of Twitter in which a Brummy chap produces what looks like a superb Xmas dinner for under £19, as part pf a challenge to help with COL. All the ingredients are fresh, and it looks absolutely superb. It includes fresh herbs and garlic, salt, pepper, etc.

Cue lots of USAnians going "There's no seasoning!"

Also cue lots of non-colonials asking "What the fuck are salt, pepper, sage, rosemary, mustard, honey and garlic in this context?"


There was also a USAnian video, just for contrast...

Lay uncooked oversweet packaged white 'bread' slices on a baking tray.
Whip together several while raw eggs and a large tin of baked beans and spread on the 'bread', and after sprinkling the whole lot with grated industrial cheese-like substance, bake.

Apparently, "The Brits will love this"

[ian]

It's not American unless it's seasoned with cheese and bacon.

I still can't handle the concept of marshmallow casserole.

[Mr Larrington]

It's not American unless it's seasoned with cheese and bacon cheez-flavored food product^TM'n'BacoBits^TM.

I still can't handle the concept of marshmallow casserole.

FTFY

[ian]

One of my first American food experience was 'bottomless'* cheesy fries sprinkled with bacon-dust. After that meal, I was offered a ride back to my hotel. Which was on the other side of the parking lot. I'd consumed enough calories to circle the world five times.

*every two minutes the waitress would zoom over and replace them to ensure you didn't see the bottom of the basket.

[Hot Flatus]

There was also a USAnian video, just for contrast...

Lay uncooked oversweet packaged white 'bread' slices on a baking tray.
Whip together several while raw eggs and a large tin of baked beans and spread on the 'bread', and after sprinkling the whole lot with grated industrial cheese-like substance, bake.

Apparently, "The Brits will love this"

That is only because they don't know about our exquisite culinary tradition

[Bledlow]

It's not American unless it's seasoned with cheese and bacon.

I still can't handle the concept of marshmallow casserole.

I may regret this, but -

WTF is a marshmallow casserole?

[Mr Larrington]

As best I can ascertain it’s a way of making sweet potatoes taste even more revolting.

[ian]

Spot on, its sweet potatoes cooked with marshmallows (usually in a sauce of button, brown sugar, orange juice and cinnamon) which might make it should like an odd dessert (I refer people to the miracle whip salad) but it's actually served with – typically – the Thanksgiving turkey and other trimmings. The first time I was served it, I thought it was some kind of hazing ritual and everyone was going to say we're just fucking with you, we don't actually eat this. But eat it they did.

You really have to recalibrate your palate to American levels of sweetness, where even a slice of bed tastes like spongecake, and they spread that with grape jelly (basically grape juice and high fructose corn syrup) and sweetened peanut butter and wash it down with sweet iced tea.

[Mr Larrington]

You really have to recalibrate your palate to American levels of sweetness, where even a slice of bed tastes like spongecake, and they spread that with grape jelly (basically grape juice and high fructose corn syrup) and sweetened peanut butter and wash it down with sweet iced tea.

I know the USAnian diet caters to a less sophisticated palate than that of the noble BRITON but I didn’t know they were actually eating mattresses   Some enterprising Walthamstovian needs to start a business selling organic free-range mattresses to USAnia hipsters.

Grape jelly is foul beyond description and you have to mine deep in the little tub of preserves at the Battle Mountain Super 8 to find an alternative – usually strawberry jam but occasionally something actually described as “marmalade”.  Which would have Frank Cooper setting sail down the Isis in a gunboat, if he hadn’t died in 1927.

[ian]

Wonderbread and its ilk do taste like a sweetened mattress. It's still nearly impossible to get decent bread in the US, unless you spend about $35 on a small baguette at the hipster market.

[orienteer]

Temple in hotel foyer

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20221215/p2a/00m/0na/018000c

[Pingu]

Alabama women, 85 and 61, sentenced after feeding stray cats
Beverly Roberts and Mary Alston sought to trap the cats so they could be neutered

Video of the arrest here: https://eu.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/crime/progress/2022/12/13/wetumpka-alabama-cat-ladies-found-guilty-on-all-four-charges/69722572007/