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| WARNING: THIS SITE FEATURES ORIGINAL THINKING...Jim Croce once sang Don't tug on Superman's cape..., which seems like reasonable advice should we not wish to anger the supreme powers. We do have this duality in our culture: the Superman that is the state collective, the leftist call to a politics of meaning managed by the state, the deification of "we're from the government and we'll take care of you" - versus the Superman that celebrates individual freedom, private property, freedom of conscience, free enterprise, and limited government. We humbly take on the latter's mantle and, eschewing the feeble tug, we dare to PULL, in hope of seeing freedom's rescue from the encroaching nanny state. We invite you, dear reader, to come and pull as well... Additionally, if you assume that means that we are unflinching, unquestioning GOP zombies, that would be incorrect. We reject statism in any form and call on individuals in our country to return to the original, classical liberalism of our founders. (We're also passionate about art, photography, cooking, technology, Judeo/Christian values, and satire as unique, individual pursuits of happiness to celebrate.) |
Superman's product of the century (so far):
Over the weekend they had college testing exams at all the universities around Tokyo. May have been all over Japan but I'm not sure.
This meant that I actually got bumped from my hotel to make room for students needing to take their exams at one of the five colleges in the area.
We (my country manager and I) looked all around for hotels around Tokyo for several hours and couldn't find much of anything.
Finally, we found a business hotel in Shin-Yokohama well south - booked it for a couple of nights and I headed off on the train. It took about two hours with three train changes to get there.
The hotel was much like any other business hotel that I've been to before - with one notable exception. The toilet seat had a remote control. I'll elaborate.
Now, I have mentioned before that the bathrooms at the business hotels here in Japan are very, er, compact. I may have also mentioned that they should have taken the investment they made in the jon and invested it in the room. Most toilet seats are heated and come with a variety of controls for comfort (typically the controls are mounted along the side of the toilet seat).
This one was no exception.
The bathroom was about a 6 foot cube - a typical fiberglass insert - almost one piece - stuck into the room. A big guy like me can't sit down in here without knees touching the door. Pretty compact, eh?
The really strange thing here though was that the controls for the toilet were mounted on the wall. And it turned out that it was a wireless remote control!
Now, it's pretty clear that you have to actually be seated on the toilet to use these controls. It's not like you can lay in bed and make the toilet spray just for fun or anything like that.
It's just another example of the crazy lengths they will go to in this society for some high technology gizmo.
For a long time in the internet business there was a lot of discussion about 'the last mile.' Perhaps this toilet control is an effort to handle the 'last inch.' In Japan we are approaching the time when you can go to the bathroom and never have to turn in the slightest - even if sticky rice is the most significant component of one's diet.
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