At Japan’s first winery, the country’s oldest grape lives on • Hacker News Board

Re: At Japan’s first winery, the country’s oldest grape lives on

#91

Post by ChatGTP » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 11:19 AM UTC

ehnto wrote: post #85

atleastoptimal wrote: post #68

Japan's MO seems to be extreme attention to detail on labor intensive high end luxury products. This translated into good transfer learning towards industrialization after WW2 but now has stagnated its potential by focusing on optimizing local maxima. It's aims fail to see the forest for the trees.

Perhaps they aren't always trying to maximize growth. I think local focus is the secret sauce to the diversity of outputs and ability to sustain so many different niche interests.

I agree with you and I think it's a cultural difference which is really hard for Americans to grasp because we're ultra-competitive, in your face, maximize, automate, dominate.

Maybe we win in some sense but we don't enjoy the forest in the same way.

Re: At Japan’s first winery, the country’s oldest grape lives on

#92

Post by bamboozled » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 11:23 AM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #41

bamboozled wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't really lack large swathes of flat land. Sure it might not look like Texas, but if you're telling me there isn't enough room to be running combine harvesters over large areas of land you're wrong. Anyhow, the land influences culture, so my point still stands, if the reason for their attitude to farming practices is because there is mountains, it doesn't make much difference, people don't know any different…

It’s not exactly ideal to run ultra wide harvesters on narrow terraced fields. Until the pandemic, the statistics show net population increase in Tokyo, Nagoya, Fukuoka, and Osaka and substantial declines in rural areas. The work’s not any easier, but you get paid more. I’m not saying any of this is good , but let’s not get into weird exoticism and othering based on some idyllic vision of Japan.

So you know, I am from rural Japan, so I'm not coming at you with just an idyllic view and many farmers I know range from age 25-90. No one is doing it tough, or breaking their body here. Mostly it's a fairly relaxing lifestyle, especially in mid-summer while farmers are mostly just tending to crops.

Young people move to Tokyo because rural life can be boring if you're not into the outdoors. Watching rice grow isn't for everyone. However, you might be surprised to know that where I live there is actually a housing crisis because so many people are trying to find a house here after re-evaluating their life since the pandemic.

Also don't try and tell me everything is a rice terrace because it's not, there are plenty of crops being grown on large flat plains. That's just some kind of idealistic view you yourself have.

I do find this farming is just back breaking "toil" myth really interesting, it comes up a lot on HN, especially in the context of automation. Kind of the quintessential justification for everything. There is farming smart and there is farming stupid. Experienced farmers I know don't do a lot of work and are producing more food than they and their families consume.

My opinion, a lot of the farming horror stories come from uneducated populations having to farm without proper training and resources and farming in harsh environments.

Re: At Japan’s first winery, the country’s oldest grape lives on

#93

Post by phemartin » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 1:41 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #87

phemartin wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi dang! This article is behind a soft paywall, so I thought it would be helpful to the HN community.

When it's your own project, and you keep linking to it in many unrelated threads, the assumption is going to be that you're doing it for promotion. (That's how it looked to me, at least, and I tend to be a lot more lenient about this than the median HN reader.) Not only that but it looks like your account has been using HN primarily to promote your own work (this project and others), which is something that the site…

Gotcha! I actually use HN everyday - not much of a commenter though. Perhaps that's why it came across as a one sided thing. Perhaps I should be more active in the comments as well... Thank you for the feedback!

Re: At Japan’s first winery, the country’s oldest grape lives on

#94

Post by bluepod4 » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 3:35 PM UTC

fsckboy wrote: post #88

bluepod4 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhh, not sure if you misinterpreted what I said. I said that most of the videos in my feed aren’t Japan-related.

i'm saying that because it's a small number of people, most of them shouldn't be Japan related. but if the Japan related topics are more than 3% of your feed, then Japan is by estimation overrepresented, i.e. Japan likely does have a culture of exacting artisanship, i.e. opposite of what you are providing evidence for.

We’re not saying the opposite actually. I agree with what you’re saying, BUT:

> idk. Most of my YouTube recommendations are exactly that but from all around the world lol. I can’t even say most are from Japan. I would be lying if I did.

“Exactly that” = small batch, artisan videos

“From all around the world lol” = not only from Japan

“I can’t even say that most are from Japan” = Most of the videos on my feed aren’t from Japan

I think you’re hung up on the “exactly that” part.

I didn’t say “most of my YouTube recommendations are small batch, artisan videos from Japan and the rest are from all around the world.”

I said “most of my YouTube recommendations are small batch, artisan videos from all around the world.”

I didn’t estimate how many videos are Japan-related. I didn’t need to. GP said that “all stories like this are from Japan”. I gave my opinion that he’s wrong based on my YouTube recommendations. Not all stories are from Japan. Even with your misinterpretation of my comment, the conclusion remains the same lol since it was a reply to GP. You seem to have read my comment without that context.

Whether Japanese videos are overestimated (or underestimated which is probably closer to reality) in my feed is meaningless to the conversation that I was having with GP since the discussion (based on the highlighted quote from GP’s comment) was about whether all stories like that come from Japan. The conclusion is “no, not all stories like that come from Japan”.

Thanks for trying to teach me basic statistics though, I guess!

Re: At Japan’s first winery, the country’s oldest grape lives on

#95

Post by DropInIn » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 3:40 PM UTC

rbreaves wrote: post #9

rcme wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children have horribly underdeveloped palates. Generally novices in anything, food or otherwise, have trouble appreciating the nuances that make something beautiful.

Could also just say different - children also have an unlimited tolerance for things that are sweet. Some adults I think never get past it much & have what I call super smellers too. But yea it’s like they can also lack the tastebuds that’d help them appreciate bitter things later in life, like most adults do. Could just be natural that our tastebuds from when were kids change or die off sorta, which allows for the f…

Relevant link I had handy from writing my own reply

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2013/ja...