「僕自身も翻訳の仕事が大好き。翻訳は究極の精読で、横に書かれたものを縦に置き換えることで、自分の文章術を磨いていくことができる。」 www.asahi.com/articles/AST...

The five private TV broadcasters plan to quit BS4K by 2027, due to declining revenue and viewership, but also the burden of making 4K content, since everything is seen so clearly they can't fudge the background, props, etc. gendai.media/articles/-/1...

"Despite mounting evidence linking [finasteride] with serious psychiatric side effects – including anxiety, depression, and suicide – the manufacturers and the medical and regulatory communities have overlooked these findings to the detriment of public health..." www.sciencealert.com/decades-of-s...

Nine of you liked this post, and I appreciate all of you. On Twitter, where I have only 1/10 as many followers as on Bsky, so far it's 141 likes, 13 reposts, 17 comments, nearly 900,000 views. A QT has 5,100 likes, 359 retweets. Same post, different engagement.

A friend on FB wonders if Takaichi will be allowed inside the sumo ring to hand over the prime minister's cup to the winner.

How about not engaging in, or promoting, or being fans of, sports that cause all that head trauma? Too hard for people to understand? science.slashdot.org/story/25/09/...

In Japan, iPhone still rules but Android is catching up.

Smokers are worse than pigs news.livedoor.com/article/deta...

If Koizumi continues to implode, my guy Hayashi could pull off a come-from-behind win

Points for originality asia.nikkei.com/spotlight/im...

I wonder what the five LDP leadership candidates think about this view re Japan. Would be a good question for journalists to ask them. www.nknews.org/2025/09/beli...

Thanks for this, @dantraylor.bsky.social and keep working on those Kyodo and Jiji people. (Looks like my buddy @earthuncuttv.bsky.social in the photo, who predictably is right now chasing one of the all-time biggies on Batan Island.) www.japantimes.co.jp/community/20...

Dude should get his money back, along with the six months of his life he wasted www.scmp.com/news/people-...

If you thought there were a lot of obasans in Japan, woman 65 and older make up 32.4% of the female population. So you were right.

"Conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk doubled down on his belief that gun deaths are "worth it" because of the liberty firearms provide." www.rawstory.com/charlie-kirk...

TBS on today's late afternoon news show had this analysis of five possible candidates for the LDP leadership post. It's subjective and biased, but not so far off the mark. Esp. for someone strongly biased toward Hayashi as I am. (His chances are slim, even if he is not.)

My biggest fear as a Japanese-to-English translator is that after the US completes its self-destruction and the EU legislates its way into isolation or irrelevance, there will no longer be much of a market for the English language.

Watching a TV program tonight featuring Lake Biwa in Shiga Prefecture, I realized that the kanji for Biwa (琵琶) is also the kanji for the tropical storm now menacing Japan, Peipah/琵琶, the name of an aquarium fish popular in Macau, which contributed the storm name. (Biwa is also a musical instrument.)

Nikkei article notes that even in Japan's record heat this summer, the electrical power grid has never been stressed to the point of asking customers to curtail usage, thanks to increased generation from nuclear and solar, and better power transfer across regions. www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZ...

And sure enough, everybody here responds by dumping on Nate rather than reflecting on why Twitter is still the big city and Bsky is still the suburbs.

This is quite the photo. And also a reminder that even a very weak tropical storm/depression can have severe consequences given certain combinations of conditions. www.euronews.com/video/2025/0...

If this was a drug, it would be a blockbuster prevention vs Alzheimer's disease for APOE4 homozygotes, with 35% reduction of risk!

How US nuclear sanctions on China backfired www.scmp.com/news/china/s...

"China’s reserve margin has never dipped below 80%–100% nationwide, meaning it has consistently maintained at least twice the capacity it needs.... That level of cushion is unthinkable in the US, where regional grids typically operate with a 15% reserve margin or less." fortune.com/2025/08/14/d...

Every year in August, Japan commemorates the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and then the end of the war. The first time for me, as a Japan resident, was the 33rd anniversary. This year is the 80th. So (1) I've lived in Japan a long time and (2) I'm old. (But not as old as most of the survivors.)

Is this common wisdom finally starting to take hold in Japan? フランス人は誰も買わない？ボジョレー・ヌーヴォーの構造を痛烈批判 news.livedoor.com/article/deta...

Pardon my world-historical ignorance but I didn’t know until reading the newspaper this morning that the name of Pakistan is an acronym.

Operator at a credit card call center speaking to a customer yesterday: アマゾン側からも連絡があるかもしれません。 (True story, and the customer must have been momentarily confused)

Perplexity does pretty well with a question like this. I wonder how other AI services do. (I like the people on the populist side but personally tend toward the abundance side. Which is another reason I hate the way so many key Bluesky people tend to divide into camps that ostracize others.)

I don't seriously expect the LDP to split up, but it would certainly shake up Japanese politics. Would it lead to a more conservative or more liberal administration taking over? まさかの「自民党分裂～政界大再編」の憶測も呼びながら、政局はお盆休戦へ。 www.j-cast.com/2025/08/0850...

Have been harping on this for years. Children are born for play, which is fun until adults step in and turn it into something not so fun. www.vox.com/life/422562/...

I am very much not in favor of the current 刈り上げ hair style trend among Japanese men.

Here is Ishiba testifying before a Diet committee this morning that Trump is not an ordinary person who plays by the rules. Why am I not seeing more of this in the news? Seems like a big deal.

Musashino, Tokyo. Took out the trash and did some street cleanup. It was unbearably hot. No other people or even birds in sight. Over the next few days, it will get hotter still, perhaps breaking local records. Outdoor activities will need to be sharply curtailed or rescheduled. Take care, people!

Used to get lots of "hot female" fake followers on here but not lately. Have the Bluesky admins figured out how to stop them, or do the fake followers no longer regard Bluesky as worth the bother?

Another hill I'll die on. With no car since 1978 and not even owning a bicycle, I never miss a day of brisk walking, even in my 80s. "Walking fast for 15 minutes a day slashes risk of early death by 20%, study says" www.independent.co.uk/news/health/...

Welcome to Bluesky, where you can bulk-follow people using Starter Packs, and end up on a block list because you followed one or more of the "undesirables"

Why does my bell pepper have a health disclaimer. It really shouldn’t be this deep

We. All. Knew. About. The. Trafficking. www.dailykos.com/stories/2016...

Gonna die on this hill "Research found older adults who consistently ate a healthy diet developed chronic diseases more slowly, in contrast to those whose diets were considered more inflammatory; that is, diets high in processed meats, refined grains and sugary drinks" www.reddit.com/r/science/co...

Sad to see adults using a labeling service to block or mute people based on the accounts they follow. It reminds me of my upbringing in a Dutch Reformed church, where even slight differences in theological thinking were considered heretical and reasons for expulsion or splintering into new sects.

The name Sorato (空跳) suggests his parents were aiming for a high jumper or pole vaulter, but they must be happy with his world record sprint www.essentiallysports.com/olympics-tra...

So there is a Chinese word equivalent to Japanese ブスかわいい? Anyone know what it is? "Soft power of a stealthy ‘ugly-cute’ sort: Labubu takes on America" www.scmp.com/news/china/m...

Got lost on the way to a meeting in the Ginza area and walked around in the intense midday heat for half an hour, but survived to live another day.

Woman in line in front of me at the post office is not happy about the cost of shipping. She just whipped out her phone, asked ChatGPT how much it thinks the shipping should cost, and is trying to get the mailman to honor that price.

All-rice whisky, anyone? gourmetpress.net/1342242/

My wife was quick to notice that this Bessent guy always appears in photos with his head held unnaturally high on his long neck. So I invented the phrase 上からBessent as an alternative to 上から目線.

Dom. Lafage Miraflors Blanc is an interesting wine, and its bottle makes a nice vase (shown in the window of our entranceway alongside a repurposed whisky bottle)

While we are trying to figure out the significance of Japan's election, let us take a moment to marvel at how quickly this country manages to tally all those handwritten ballots and get the results out by the morning after.

世界の右派政党躍進の波、日本にも到達　参政党がとらえた体制不信の民意 www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQO... 参政党はヨーロッパの極右政党と、積極財政派であることやSNS戦略、街頭演説を盛り上げる巧みさなどで共通しています。 「ドイツのための選択肢（AfD）」やフランスの国民連合（RN）、オーストリアの自由党──。 これら3党の選挙後の動きから、参政党の党勢の行方を考えます。 #参院選2025 #参議院選挙2025