I have the 13.3 inch Digital Paper but not the ReMarkable. The A4 size is great for reading Magazines and Journals. The writing experience is good but the stylus does not support pressure sensitivity. One feature that stands out: split screen, i.e. one side as a reader and the other side for taking note. By the way, the stylus supports erasing and highlighting. I wish it supports EPUB (PDF-only reader). Was interested in getting a ReMarkable, but the A4 size won me over.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Taiwan's health care system is quite comprehensive, coverage includes annual eye examination, teeth cleaning, etc. And, I don't remember paying much for it. People usually go straight to the hospital instead of visiting their family doctors. Most checkups (e.g. X-ray, blood check) are done at the hospital; no need to do mulitple trips. I actually prefer Taiwan's system over Canada's. The thing is, Taiwan's system is relatively newer (the same with their subway). It is difficult to compare.

Are these hospitals private or public? The experiences posted in this thread are very similar to my experiences in Thailand at private hospitals which are really nice world class facilities with mostly very good doctors. The public hospitals, however, tend to be way over subscribed and quite poor quality in service and facilities. I'm wondering if there is a private versus public hospital divide in Taiwan.

Both. The best hospital is a public one and tons of smaller or local hospitals run by both private (usually non-profits) or public. I think the smaller public one do suffer from resource shortage but fair service and quality are still expected and available. (but i live mostly in the city, I do imagine remote area would have some problems)

try https://www.jins.com/

I picked up two pairs, one in Taipei and one in Tokyo. The filtered one has been great so far; I have not experienced any eye strain. What a relief since I stare at the computer screen for at least 14 hours daily.

Caution: the filtered lens does affect color accuracy a little and makes the surrounding seems a bit darker.

I think this is also cool for learning English as well. An English learner who'd like to express what s/he sees can verify with AI's response.

The same is happening to Taiwan (stuttered growth; in-fighting, etc.). The issue is deeply rooted in local power-wielding elites conspiring or opposing the ruling government. It has nothing to do democracy. The riches have already allocated some of their wealth elsewhere (see Canada and Australia), so they don't really care. It's always easy to blame it on Beijing, isn't it?

The elites of Taiwan are mostly mainlanders (well, 1949 descended transplants who suppressed the native Taiwanese elites) who prefer closer ties with the mainland. The violent swings in Taiwan's politics between the KMT and DPP are all relate to that.

There is so much intermarriage between the 1949 Mainlanders and the Taiwanese that I don't think you can label their children and grandchildren as "Mainlanders."

I wouldn't be so sure. Last time I went in Taiwan, a friend of mine told me surprising political stuff like: "this part of town is KMT, that part is DPP", "if neighbours learn my family don't vote KMT we're in trouble" and "my grand-father is from the continent, that's why I have these facial features. So people knows I have mainland ancestors and thinks I'm KMT".

Of course it is just a data point, but that's may reveal underlying things that totally foreign for European/West way of thinking politics.

That is not true at all. There is still a lot of animosity between the two factions, even if some intermarriage has occurred (and is irrelevant given that they are genetically identical anyways, as native doesn't refer to the real Polynesian natives). Mainland-native identity politics is very real.

And, arguably, in the U.S.

The only thing left to argue about is the question of scale.

> The issue is deeply rooted in local power-wielding elites conspiring or opposing the ruling government. It has nothing to do democracy.

Seems like democracy would make this problem worse, since it redistributes power to local informal power elites.

Taiwan is a democracy, and has been for some time. Not sure what you're saying here?

Taiwan is a "democracy", just a deeply corrupt one.

Calling Taiwan a democracy is like labelling the Culture Revolution a democratic movement.

When elderly Chinese who actually experienced the terrible Culture Revolution go to visit Taiwan, many of them had the feeling that Taiwan make them feel young again as they saw the Culture Revolution again in Taiwan.

Endless street politics for every single change to the society, hugely divided society, corruption from both sides, people are forced to pick which side is less terrible rather than which is better, President democratically elected used its official jet to move cash to foreign countries.

Personally, I don't want such toxic Taiwan to be integrated back to China, they can run their own circus on that island so people in the mainland can look at them and learn from their mistakes.

Sounds like you've been getting all your Taiwan news from 新闻联播.

Taiwan is nothing like what you said, and to compare it to Cultural Revolution China is just ridiculous.

Disagree. In a functioning democracy, you have less entrenchment of power elites.

While democracy alone makes no such promise. If majority of people votes for entrenchment of power elites, that's what you get from democracy

Should we be proud of this type of achievement? I wonder.

I stayed in Shanghai, Tokyo, and Taipei over the summer last year. Taipei's metro is the best overall; certainly not as crowded as the other two. Convenience is about the same, i.e. payable by cash-loading debit cards. Tokyo's metro have gotten old. I honestly think, a couple of Tokyo's underground lines need to be replaced. Just remember, no food allowed in transit.

Taipeis metro blew my mind when I first encountered it as well. And yeap, no eating, no drinking water, and they also have signs telling you not to talk on your cellphone.

Don't expect much replacement in Tokyo. Japan is in maintenance mode as its population ages and shrinks over the next century.

Same will be true for China and Taiwan as well, very shortly. I hope for their sake they're paying close attention to how Japan has dealt with a shrinking population - Japan really has been the "pioneer" in a process that all countries will have to inevitably go through.

Here, in Toronto, you can borrow ebooks from the public library without physically being at the library. You will not find the latest edition but it is suffice for most patrons. The Reference Library at downtown is decent (good atmosphere) but WiFi is intermittent at times.

In LA you can also borrow Kindle books through the library. The only drawback is that you sometimes have to wait a few weeks.

Uggg... the waiting lists. It drives me crazy that libraries actually pay more for ebooks than for physical books. Like, a lot more.

"认为" can also be interpreted as making assumptions.

I'd use something more catchy such as "思通ハ達" :-)

Agreed. Your example is great because it's a play on the common idiomatic expression "四通八达" (for the non-chinese reader, this loosely means "accessible from everywhere), plus 4 character expressions are much more catchy.

Surprised that nobody at IBM thought of it.'

Edit: clarification

Plus it has an 8 in it :)

But what about the look and feel, ie the lighter characters and the rhyming sound?

Taken from the most recent documentary (by NHK?), Miyazaki does not use CG himself. He might attempt a comeback, i.e. doing feature-length anime. For the time being, Miyazaki is putting a finishing touch on a short anime (crawling caterpillar).