I’m not sure of why others wouldn’t:

expat /ĕks′pāt′/

noun

1. An expatriate; a person who lives outside his or her own country.
2. A person who is voluntarily absent from home or country.

I guess I should’ve said that I wasn’t dismissing it, but was trying to find possible explanations. My understanding is that their xenophobia is more from a sense of caution rather than a more traditionally racist view like, “Inferior being!” That’s just a total hunch, though.

I know, right? But my trip to Japan made me realize a few, surprisingly massive, key factors that differentiate the US from them are:

• Publicly available drinking water: while the US’s added fluoride is certainly contested by various groups, readily available drinking water is at least present almost everywhere. It is hard to find potable water in Europe, and Japan has zero drinking fountains. There are no water bottle refill stations. They just don’t exist at all there. It’s really kind of crazy given their unbelievably intense, sauna-like weather outdoors for the entirety of their sweltering summers (the humidity made it feel like 110° F in July; you burst into sweat after just a few minutes outside, literally, and many people use portable, electric fans, etc.), but they just expect you to be be self-sufficient carrying with your own water or to just tough it out until you get home or whatever.
• Trash cans while out and about: believe it or not, garbage is actually very difficult to dispose of in Japan, to the point of my late sister who had lived there for years advising us to take advantage of konbinis (convenience stores) to dump your trash, because you could literally go to multiple entire stores and not see a single trash can anywhere. You basically otherwise have to hold it with you until you get home.
• Americans with Disabilities Act: I was shocked to see how only some of Japan’s numerous, famous labyrinths of subways have escalators or elevators; some had literally none, so if you’re wheelchair-/scooter-bound or even on crutches, you just can’t ride trains at all. Additionally, I saw a business that had perhaps 2 dozen workers confined to an insanely tight room for their daily work; there were no cubicles at that place. The computer desks per worker literally touched each other, so you could stretch your arms sideways and you’d already hit your coworkers in the face. I wish I could say I was exaggerating but that kind of crammed, sardine can-level packing was so disgusting and demeaning to the hard workers there that I felt just a little more grateful to be in the US, where that kind of treatment towards employees, who couldn’t even walk 2 feet without bumping into a colleague’s chair, would absolutely not fly with the civil rights lawyers here.

Despite all the amazing things in Japan, from their higher-quality food to the blazing-fast Shinkansen trains and incredibly efficient, bidet-equipped Toto sink toilets, etc., I found just some various aspects of daily life there (especially the lack of easily discoverable water in the raging summer heat) to be quite eye-opening in a reverse way just as much. I do not think I could easily move and live there, even if they all suddenly spoke English.

They get an easier pass because their products are top-notch. Toyota basically invented Six Sigma/a globally used process for manufacturer defect elimination. A Japanese automaker invented QR codes. They have Nintendo, anime, etc. They changed and continue to impact the world in highly recognizable ways, not by merely cheap products (China), cheap labor (India), etc.

They are not hostile or aggressive.

… until you try to open a bank account with them ad a foreigner. Tourists are fine and tolerated but become an expat and you’ll have a much steeper time.

I went there recently. The organization and efficiency are truly astounding. I felt like the best parts of Japan and the best parts of the US fused together could make a utopia. But it’s never gonna happen because those best parts are direct results of the cultural mindset that leads to each one’s dark ends as well. They’re both sides of their respective coins, unfortunately…

Qalculate! doesn’t need the Enter key to run calculations, and can calculate for X. These are the reasons no other calculator should ever be promoted!

The app Mental Math actually improved my mental math indeed! While division can typically be estimated because it never goes into mixed numbers/fractions, it does eventually go into 5 digits’ worth of all the 4 basic operations; you set the difficulty and climb as you like. I’d never multiplied so accurately in my life, haha.

Hmm, I was only aware of the ones that actually, accidentally made it into releases. Well, what’s to stop such devs from still getting targeted despite these safety checks (I mean, in their personal lives)? We’ve gotta find a way to protect these critical individuals…

Really? What software went from open-source to closed specifically because of vibe-coding? I’d also question how long they kept up their quality… What apps disabled contributions in favor of AI slop? I’ve never heard of this.

Stirling-PDF and Episteme Reader are solid examples of apps that went freemium, but I know of no product that entirely went paid-only because of vibe-coding. If anything, Stirling-PDF was originally vibe-coded and then added traditional programmers to its team upon seeing its popularity skyrocket, from what I remember reading. I’d be curious to see your examples on the other end.

Kdenlive is an old piece of software from over a decade ago. While we can’t be sure that all of the contributors stayed AI-free, I’m sure all of the code was vetted for quality since a lot of people are invested in this incredible video editor.

Even from an anti-AI view, I’m not sure of what to make of skepticism like yours; what if vibe coders simply lie and say they didn’t use AI? Then would you instantly give it a pass? Proof of AI-free work has become impossible due to offline FOSS models, so unless I’m missing something, all we can do is aim for quality and security by this point, I think.

The UI is tricky but that could be said of any video editor other than maybe iMovie lol. Nonetheless, I’ve produced literally every video on my YouTube channel since about 2015-16 using Kdenlive, and would be happy to give pointers if there is anything basic that you don’t know how to do (though I’m certainly no expert).

I have always been impressed by its automatic waveform-syncing ability, which even paid software I used prior couldn’t do.

Why couldn’t they just have called it “crabinization?”

But it’s so much easier to get yourself to move when you have to to get somewhere than it is if it’s purely for exercise. At least for me.

That’s definitely not just in your case!!