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.

Fascinating stuff.

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...

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.

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 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.

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...

Nepal has been one discovery after another. This one is chhang: a fermented rice beverage low in alcohol. The taste varies from family to family. This one has a lactic acid flavor with vegetal and herbal notes.

9 out of 10. Wasn’t confident about a few of them, though.

Me: Carpets are dust and stain magnets and unhygienic. Dislike! Also me: There’s such a thing as a Yeti rocking chair?!? Want!

Absurdly proud of the first garlic bulb I’ve grown. It’s so small because I had to harvest it early after spotting the allium leaf miner infestation on my balcony.

"The Food Action Awards support internat'l practitioners, community-led prjcts, collectives, + researchers advancing food practices that confront extractive food systems + climate breakdown. Via CLIMAVORE x Jameel @ Royal College of Art." £25,000! Apps due April 22! www.instagram.com/p/DIReq-QIcDz/

A fascinating deep dive into the Golden Age of Japanese pencils: “this sometimes inexplicable tendency of Japanese manufacturers to perfect what doesn't need to be perfected is a major reason why we're so passionate about our Japanese imports.”

Musk Leaves 9/11 Heroes To Die

we are rapidly turning into the kind of small minded authoritarian country that is given a made-up name in an action thriller

This is the most relevant article to NIH and research cuts I’ve seen. Imagine if this was today , how many people would be saying “Why are we studying Gila Monsters and their impact on diabetes ? That’s wasted money !” globalnews.ca/news/9793403...

Oh wow. Musk and his ally US Attorney Martin are going to get even more bent out of shape. But it won’t be discovered on Twitter due to its suppression of news links in posts. Here is the full report. And then please donate to ProPublica. #THANKYOUPRESS projects.propublica.org/elon-musk-do...

The Papua New Guinea Courier is in rare form.

The world is a mess. As we try to improve it for everyone, it’s not bad to find things that bring you joy. Yeti finished a whole bag of iburigakko potato chips! Joy was had.

This @washingtonpost.com story is so important that I'm gifting it. These people appear to be operating totally illegally and outside the Constitution -- and they know it. wapo.st/40LVERn

NEW: We obtained the directions NSF program officers are following to review all grants for compliance with the Trump EOs and the turmoil it has created in an agency mandated to broaden STEM participation. Our story: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

I do love how ekiben include regional specialties. For lunch I picked up this bento with bracken, iburigakko, and a good serving of shredded Hinaijidori over rice.

Great to see international brands renovating traditional Japanese houses into shops in the Kyoto city center - too many beautiful old buildings like these are abandoned or knocked down in Japan every year But what a unique brand asset Also keeps artisans in work and Japanese culture preserved

Talk to me, Goose... venturebeat.com/programming-...

“[specialty coffee shops] don’t just fail to engage with the communities they operate in—they actively contribute to their erosion. They push out families and erase culture, all while profiting off ideals of fairness and connection.”

Wow. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/27/t...

New research finds that the arrival of a Walmart makes communities poorer, even accounting for its lower prices www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Please circulate this great opportunity to do a PhD at Kew Gardens and the Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity at York! The student will look at the history of marginalised individuals who made knowledge about fungi in the early 20th century.

Train ride home from Yokohama and I’m listening to African jams broadcast out of Cape Town. Really digging this Radio Garden site / app radio.garden/listen/pan-a...

Within the context of the contemporary environmental movement that fought against the use of synthetic chemicals and the control of large corporations, the pushback against Roundup Ready crops is hardly a shock. But not all genetic engineering follows the trajectory of Roundup Ready.

‘2000-year-old graves suggest women wielded as much—and sometimes more—power than men in some Celtic tribes’.

Be my colleague at the Harvard-Yenching Library! We just opened our search for the next Librarian for #JapaneseStudies, who will become a core member of our small but mighty team. As with every job, you don't need to satisfy every qualification to apply. www.eastasianlib.org/newsite/harv...