I have a friend who is Korean. She complains that her Korean-made phone (Samsung) can’t tell that her eyes are open, so it stops playing videos, thinking she has looked away. Apparently Samsung’s engineering is using Western subjects to test with, and not Koreans, who often have pronounced Epicanthic folds.
I have read that flatware, specifically forks, are made differently in Europe and America. The decoration is on “the other side”.
Specifically because Europeans treat the fork as like a knife - holding the concave side towards themselves in their dominant hand, while Americans treat the fork like a spoon - scooping food up and also transferring the fork back and forth between hands when they cut food.
Wow, that’s a really interesting example, and doubtless frustrating for your friend.
I thought of another example, from my own personal experience. However neutral this observation is, it may border on causing discomfort for some people, so please be warned.
Anyway, I noticed that when “Westnerers” (pale skin, European looking people) appeared in photographs in Japanese media, they somehow looked way more pink and reddish than I was accustomed to seeing them, and yet the average Japanese person looked “normal.” However, seeing westerners in photos in western magazines, I did not see anything unusual going on in terms of their appearance.
I think this weirdness was due to the way the Japanese photography had been tuned, to handle their predominantly common skin tones. I do believe it is possible to alter peoples’ appearances in photos depending on lighting and the handling of color, and so it’s not a stretch to imagine this being done either at the basic level (photographic media chemicals, or their modern electronic equivalents) or post imaging, e.g. photoshopping. I also know that cameras / imaging / photography are super popular in Japan, and they are world leaders when it comes to the design and sales of such equipment (Minolta, Konica, Vivitar, Fuji, Canon, etc. etc.). So I’m thinking that what I saw was, once again, an engineered feature. In this case, it made the locals look good, and the foreigners look kind of bad.
I agree with everything you said, but I just want to add extra emphasis to some.
Because some of the deepest speaking voices I’ve ever heard belonged to Japanese men. Like “WTF is Satan hanging out with his friends at the next table?!” deep.
I’m not any kind of expert on the Japanese language or culture but I’ve noticed substantial differences on intonation in Japanese speakers based upon their home province, and have been told that cities often have distinct intonation and speech patterns. My own Japanese is so rudimentary that I rarely even try to construct full sentences or attempt even a simple conversation but I can usually make out most common exchanges in a store or restaurant.
Stranger
In North America, most intersections have either stops signs (often 4-way) of lights. In Europe, stop signs are relatively rare and there are fewer traffic lights. I believe that this explains why automatic transmissions are much commoner on this side of the pond. I know that, although I much prefer a stick shift, I finally gave up on for exactly that reason. Practically every intersection in my small town has a 4-way stop. It wastes enormous amounts of gas and also creates an awful lot of pollution. Including particulate matter from brake pads.
Since tanks came up earlier - British tanks were equipped with tea-making facilities inside their vehicles from the end of WW2. It sounds from the wikipedia article they are now, finally, becoming more ubiquitous.
Their availability probably also affected the type of rations issued as well.
Companies that sell electrical machinery worldwide will have a range of motors and controllers to suit all the different voltages and hertz rates that apply.
The company I used to work for even had motors wound especially to meet the requirement of a bakery in Australia that was hundreds of miles away from their power generator. They also made DC powered machines for marine use, and some hand cranked machines for the military.
That’s debatable because fewer impediments to driving leads to more driving. Jevon’s paradox plus induced demand I think. If you don’t drive like a maniac and/or have a reasonably sized vehicle/engine, it doesn’t hurt your mileage that much. Plus there’s the safety factor to consider as well.
I think the prevalence of manual transmissions in Europe has more to do with efficiency and smaller displacement engines with less torque and power output that make cars less responsive when paired with a traditional three-speed planetary style automatic transmission with analog controls. The US has a long tradition of gas-guzzling cars with oversized engines that are more forgiving to a reluctant-to-shift slushbox. Now that automatic transmissions have more gear ratios and digital controls that make them almost as efficient as a good driver with a manual (although still not as responsive until you get into sequential transmissions) the difference isn’t as great but the majority of American drivers have never driven a manual unless they are also motorcyclists and so prefer automatics, while most Europeans have no difficulty with driving manuals because they are found in virtually all cars except for estate vehicles and luxury sedans.
Although people complain about the effort of manuals with stoplights and stop signs, as a manual driver you quickly become acclimated to running the gears and using the clutch and it isn’t a big deal unless you have back or ankle problems. Driving a manual in traffic is a little more taxing but also means that you have to be attentive versus automatic drivers who just let their cars idle in gear while fluid heats up and then herky-jerky forward while riding their brakes because they don’t have to be attentive.
The relative scarcity of stop signs in Europe (or, at least the ‘Low Countries’ and the Great Britain, at least) is an intentional choice to adopt a flow mentality rather than a control approach to traffic management; in essence, if you let drivers make decisions and design your road spaces such that drivers are encouraged to pay attention and not have to interact with pedestrians and bike lanes except at very intentionally designed interfaces with textured surfaces to cause cars to slow down, they will self-manage quite well in terms of merging, operating at safe speeds, and not posing a hazard to pedestrians and bicyclists. In the United States with its driver first mentality, we make giant ‘stroads’ (multi-lane flat paved streets that are essentially designed like highways) and then put either narrow or no sidewalks and bike lanes that are often unprotected against vehicles, then rely on stop lights and lines painted on pavement to ‘control’ drivers, which works very poorly but does encourage people to drive everywhere even if it is only a few minutes walk away.
Stranger
Re semi-trucks: There are length restrictions on many of the older ferries. Also the Eurotunnel has a maximum length of 19.40m. I checked taxes based on length but for trucks, the main differences were weight.
Because of fears of fan-related death in Korea, fans manufactured for sale there feature a timer so you don’t die if you fall asleep with the fan on.
Of course, this is because they have lots more roundabouts. Eventually the US will catch up to the UK in number of roundabouts, in maybe 20 years or so. Still will be way behind in density, though.
I took a vacation to New Zealand about 20 years ago. Before I left, I read or heard that stop signs were rare in NZ, so I kept my eyes out for them. Turns out there are lots of stop signs there. They don’t have 4-way stops, but 1-way and 2-way stops are quite common.
BTW, the developed country that futhest behind in installing roundabouts is neither the US nor Canada; it’s Japan. Before the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in 2011, they didn’t have any. But during that disaster, the power went out, which meant no traffic lights. Cars with fleeing people were backed up at intersections and many of them died in the tsunami. So in the aftermath, they decided to start putting in roundabouts, because those still work fine without power.
The default urban speed here is 60 km/h, and it annoyingly at the top end of 4th on my car, such that the stupid “change gear” light goes off when I’m just below the limit. My wife’s car doesn’t have that issue.
Length is regulated by law and strictly enforced. There are some US style trucks, but they are operated by people who are willing to sacrifice payload and manoeuvrability for style.
Taxes relate to GVW (Gross Vehicle Weight) and the number of axles. Also, indirectly, to fuel consumption.
As a matter of interest, the regulations have changed this year, partly to improve fuel efficiency and partly to improve driver comfort. Cabs can be longer and deflectors fitted to the rear of a trailer.
This issue has come up with facial recognition software generally. Research shows that if the photos bring used to design the system are mainly of white people, the software has low accuracy rates for black people, particularly black women.
Don’t American cars have big cupholders (and lots of 'em) compared to foreign cars?
Literally every car I’ve ever been in here (Australia) made after about the early 2000s has cupholders in it; be it a Japanese, Korean, or European design.
I’m talking about size and number of cupholders, not presence vs. absence. For instance, a five seat truck with 13 cupholders (number 6 on the list below).
After driving my manual transmission car in increasingly heavy traffic over a 15 year period, I finally gave up and moved to automatic. Not that I really wanted to, but most cars I wanted were automatic only (too bad) and given my use for them was typically commuting, I just gave up and went with the flow.
Funny thing is, I now drive a “beater” Subaru with a slightly malfunctioning automatic transmission that will “flutter” between gears in certain conditions, which I encounter at least once during my daily commute. Fortunately it has a manual shift up / shift down capability, so I am allowed to control most of its gear shifting, and hence drive it like a manual.