Get it off your chest!

Sometimes, I would look out the office building and start to think...

The city looks so different from this height (L50), one of the highest floors I can ever visit. I can see the unique angles of other high-rise buildings that won't be possible to observe from the ground floor, and the lights in them. Are there still workers in them?

Whenever I look at the city skyline, I always wonder who else is like me, still working late into the night. Are they doing night shifts like me, or are they doing OT to crunch deadlines?

Do they take breaks to admire the same view, or are they overwhelmed by work and can't wait to get out of the office once work ends, never ever get to see this night view.

I hope none of the offices have just that one dude being stuck in the office, late night, with no one else around. It will be such a boring time. No one else to chat with, but can only prepare coffee from time to time to stay focused.

The night in the office can get so quiet without anyone around, and you will start paying attention to sounds you normally don't hear. With the absence of fellow humans chatting or shifting around, you start to hear the ticking of clock, sounds of the fridge running, droplets from the water cooler, perhaps even the fan noise of your work PC being overloaded due to various software being active to get the tasks done.

Occasionally, may even hear the random startup noises of the printer and you start questioning yourself - "what, why did it startup? What triggered it???"

Standing so high up in the building, I would also start to think about the building itself, such as the costs or potential troubles.

How much did it cost to build such a high building, and how do they ever clear the exterior windows? I have never seen someone cleaning the exteriors but I assumed some skilled workers probably did so when I was too focused on my own work. Imagine the courage it takes to scale L50 height (even with the special lifts), and the patience to clear all L50 windows.

Also, sure it's awesome to have this view of L50 daily, but I would hate to walk down if something ever happens such as a fire or power shutdown. What would I do in such a situation, do I just walk down slowly, or do I just hope for the best and pray someone would rescue me instead. This made me think about how much we are relying on technology. The usage of elevator/lift for ease of access to great heights, as well as the usage of IT security (apps) to access my office. Being at L50 also greatly heightens the chance of getting strike by lightning during a storm, the lightning feels so much louder due to the more frequent lightning strikes.

Although L50 is already very high to me, due to limited land space + ever-growing human population, would we aim for even higher buildings to "solve" space constraints? L100? Or even L200?

And if we are, for example, building more L100, would we tear down the old buildings that are merely L10~20? How would that impact all of us? Would the city view be full of tall buildings obstructing each other? If there are higher buildings popping up everywhere, would I still get to see the same view from L50? Even the view from L100 could be drastically different, such as being unable to see the roads on the ground floor clearly anymore. Would the elevator/lift be designed differently to work in the new L100 building? And would the windows be ever cleaned at such a great height? I assumed the base of the building may have to be designed differently too to accommodate the weight + height of the new L100 building.

And back to the "crisis", what would I ever do I am somehow stuck at L100 due to fire or power shutdown? I think I probably can walk down L50, but L100? Would it be easier for me to escape from the rooftop via a parachute or I gonna crash due to skill issue. Human brains will start to conjure up ridiculous solutions when we believe the usual solutions are not gonna work out.

Perhaps adding a giant tube slide as an emergency escape so I can somehow slide from L100 to L1??? Sounds silly but I do think they can work, at least to a certain extent? That is gonna be one hell of a slide though. I also hope while the office workers are evacuating via the giant tube slide, no one gonna get stuck and cause a "traffic jam". That is likely another pain in the ass for the firefighters to deal with while they are trying to put out the fire. Now that I think about it further, this seems very likely to occur. Although I am using just a laptop, someone may try to save their data files by jumping into the giant tube with their office desktop (or their personal belongings) and jam it.

Speaking of fire, what happens if there's a raging fire at L50 or even L100, can the fire engine even reach it? Or do we wait for the fire to die out and pray the building's structural integrity isn't compromised by the fire? Maybe adding a water tank on top of the building can help with easier access to water, but that probably will affect the weight load of the building to a large extent. My "solutions" from random thoughts seem to be spawning even more problems. Not a building designer or engineer myself, shall leave it to the professionals if they ever get to designining L100 buildings for common usage.

While I am still having random thoughts (as depicted above), and admiring the view of the night sky, a voice interrupted my train of thoughts.

Colleague: "oi Dave, what you doing? End work already! Go home, go home!"

Me: "nothing much, was just thinking what can I bullshit on the forums later"

 

Gonna go Japan soon

Unable to purchase the standard Pasmo/Suica anymore, only the new Pasmo Passport/Welcome Suica is available for tourists

Old card: expiry date is 10 years from last use, so technically unlimited unless you spoilt it
New card: only valid for 28 days and it expires, not possible to refund

So if anyone is going to Japan, please don't top-up too much in the new cards
Note: had a mini panic attack when I couldn't find my old Pasmo+Suica for awhile

From https://trulytokyo.com/how-to-get-a-suica-pasmo-ic-card/
"Valid for 28 days, after which it expires. No refunds available, so make sure you use all the cash balance before you depart."