30.01.2026 00:12
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Mid-morning after rain. The smell of wood and fallen leaves. A crow and a pigeon silently make appeals for the breadcrumbs a woman scatters for the ducks and carp.
The bus will return in 90 minutes. I have that much time to watch the sky’s colors intensify and darken, the stars appear, and the nearby lighthouse’s beam sweep through the dark landscape. I can hear insects and the waves on both sides.
As much as people talk about native and foreign or imported and domestic, I love those Japanese sweets that totally draw on European culinary culture. Chocolate manju, milk manju, I appreciate you.
It's really saddening the extent to which xenophobic anti-foreigner-blaming rhetoric has completely taken over the Japanese election, in many ways distracting from much more significant issues affecting Japanese society.
japanesemodernity.substack.com/p/xenophobic...
Exactly. Politicians should have to actually address economic / cost of living issues.
Unconscionable. I hope this gets remedied soon. Thankfully, there are NGOs doing admirable work to prevent human trafficking, rescue victims, and bring perpetrators to justice.
Photo of a Nanboku Line 乗り換え 出口案内 (transfer and exit guide) on a station platform.
The other day, I was telling friends and family how a housewife originated these Tokyo Metro transfer and exit guides, and they thought I was kidding. It used to be a well-known story. If you don't know it, here's a quick summary.
“We might also be heading toward something like Posting Zero, a point at which normal people—the unprofessionalized, uncommodified, unrefined masses—stop sharing things on social media as they tire of the noise, the friction, and the exposure.”
Social media minus the social?
“A lot of my peers understand that nothing is guaranteed really, no matter what you study, so you should just study the thing that matters the most to you,” Balh said. “AI doesn't feel like a reason to stop making art. If anything, it’s a reason to keep making and insist on making art.”
The study guide cover — white background, photo of a garage packed with tools, and the title
The Maintainers have released their “Maintainers Study Guide: A Guide to Ground Your Practice in Principles of Maintenance, Repair + Care” — a resource that “reflects nearly a decade of work” across The Maintainers’ conferences, fellowships, research networks, etc
themaintainers.org/study-guide/
The age of the AI scraping free-for-all may be coming to an end—at least if Cloudflare gets its way. The IT infrastructure firm has switched to blocking AI crawlers by default for its customers and is moving forward with a Pay Per Crawl program.
My statement on Donald Trump's threat to deport me and his praise for Eric Adams, who the President "helped out" of legal accountability.
That is on the agenda. My Japanese family has also expressed interest so it could even happen as early as next year!
Yeow. I didn’t know that! And Kochi is on the list of places I really want to check out.
That last part is disappointing! I wonder what it’s like now. When I make it to Shikoku…
What’s in Nakamura?
In 1987, on the eve of the release of Studio Ghibli's Grave of the Fireflies, director Takahata Isao sat down for an interview with Nosaka Akiyuki, the author who penned the semi-autobiographical novel on which the film is based.
A few highlights from their totally fascinating discussion:
"The Mamdani campaign’s identity is the work of a tiny design co-op called Forge, and specifically its designer Aneesh Bhoopathy, formerly of Queens and now living in Philadelphia" — a little bit Bollywood, a little bit bodega :)
The number of drinks vending machines in Japan fell from 2.47 mln in 2014 to 2.04mln in 2024, and 10% are still unprofitable. When a 500ml bottle of Coke goes to 200 yen, some 20-30% may become unprofitable. toyokeizai.net/articles/-/8...
Agricultural tariff schedule. There’s so much here. And yet, I’m left with so many questions.
I saw this woman feeding stray dogs in Patan, Nepal. They knew who she was and all but one went over to her immediately. Seeing so many strays was sad, but they clearly weren’t afraid of people. I saw some in stores, hanging out. At night, some of them were sleeping in the middle of the street.
W. David Marx compares AI generated art to polyester. From an aesthetic perspective, it’s already losing value just like the artificial fabric did. culture.ghost.io/genai-is-our...
They use a starter, yes. Not sure exactly what but I actually came across some starters they sold for fermenting rice beverages.
Absolutely! They also have a fermented millet beverage that is low in alcohol content (and is delicious).
