[ [ 1528703255, [ "Taken: Monday June 11, 2018 00:47:35" ,"kill" ] ], [ 1528722066, [] ], [ 1543081404, [ "Automatic translations of the old nhk go tournament I used to watch every Sunday in Kochi. It's good enough to be useful... but what do the greyer words mean?", "Their interplay is interesting. Commentary on pro games and lots of talking over each other, gestures, and laying out of variations. I'd like to add another layer of Lizzie analysis.", "The man is O Meien. I actually saw him at an exhibition game in Kochi in 2002, in a hall with my student Seijun, who had taken up go and would play after school. The day was memorable for the student championship, with live commentary done in the same room, in the players hearing - with exact coordinates replaced with well-timed gestures. It couldn't have been easy for the college players to concentrate! He is always cheerful, speculative and seems like a bit of a jokester. His history is tied up with Japan's connection and 20th century invasions around asia. Born in Taipei and brought to Japan to study go, when Japan was the best in the world at at.", "Taken: Saturday November 24, 2018 09:43:24" ] ], [ 1544805012, [ "I pass right over a place I've always wanted to go - Kamchatka! Maybe next time.", "There are a lot of things I'm looking forward to on the trip. I plan to do a lot more of what I got into on the europe trip - taking pictures and doing a bit of research online. Having internet everywhere is a big plus - having internet on the streets of tokyo will be a first for me. And I look forward to seeing all my old friends in Beijing and Japan. Having a good phone camera also makes a big difference, too, for communicating what it is like.", "This trip is going to be about imagining what the future of the world will be like, socially & technically. All the places are have heavy asian & western combined influence. China has clearly set out a stake separate from the US - will Korea go over to its side? What will become of Japan - will they be allowed to continue to do their own thing?", "Taken: Friday December 14, 2018 08:30:12" ] ], [ 1544922672, [ "What percent of cars on the road are rideshare? I'd love to sit in on a meeting at Uber predicting what changes will happen over the next few years.", "Carl's lequ ferris wheel is totally unrelated.","kill", "Taken: Saturday December 15, 2018 17:11:12" ] ], [ 1544931474, [ "Carl, a go friend, has flexible lights and a big knock-off Lego collection.", "Taken: Saturday December 15, 2018 19:37:54" ] ], [ 1544943054, [ "We made up a new game with Leela. With estimation off, the first person sets up a position. The others guess who is leading, and the best move. If you set up one too equal, the problem creator loses. This is catnip for go players.", "My first go tournament was also the first time I ever had sushi. I'd come in to the highland Park go club and play really nervously. No real friends there, but they taught me and started my interest in it. We went to a tournament at a Korean club and I played a guy who couldn't speak much English, taking two stones. Then a pro who game me nine - I remember being impressed with his power on the board. We went out for sushi and I said sure, having no idea what I was getting. I also realized the social world isn't zero sum. Just spending time with people with shared interests generates social profit.", "Taken: Saturday December 15, 2018 22:50:54" ] ], [ 1544978798, [ "Lots of car and bike talk here - bike lanes, getting doored, changes coming from auto drive. I hope and think safety will be the main improvement compared to efficiency.", "Less space devoted to parking is what I'm mostly waiting for.", "Taken: Sunday December 16, 2018 08:46:38" ] ], [ 1544980800, [ "I'm getting ready for China - trying to reactivate my wechat bank account. I apparently have money in it, but can't top it up or access it without a local bank account. Over the years I was there, the rules about bank accounts continuously got stricter. A lot of the rules that apply in the US are missing, too - national bank cards don't work nationally - my Bank of China ATM card wouldn't work in another city. And cross-border with HK is completely out.", "Taken: Sunday December 16, 2018 09:20:00" ] ], [ 1544983502, [ "People who drink coffee are offered a lot of ways to improve themselves. Do they all want to be doing something more than sitting in a coffee shop?", "Memorable conversation - which shapes of food are most associated with savory vs sweet? Rings and spheres are most sweet - except for meatballs. ", "'Learning to sing is a necessary pleasure.'", "Taken: Sunday December 16, 2018 10:05:02" ] ], [ 1544986423, [ "A very Seattle looking house. They passed some zoning changes here recently and there are tons of new, square houses popping up, to maximize space. They all seem to be single family, though, so not much density is actually gained.", "Taken: Sunday December 16, 2018 10:53:43" ] ], [ 1544990941, [ "Seattle has a lot of the social problems SF has, but it's much nicer physically. A great sense of lushness and life on the sidewalks and in gardens. The houses are much more taken care of, and more classically designed in the first place.", "Taken: Sunday December 16, 2018 12:09:01" ] ], [ 1545093391, [ "Watched crazy rich Asians on the plane. It was much better than I expected! The end was good but it seems there still isn't a plan to work out the conflict between her NYU life and his Singapore future. She gained family acceptance by sticking to her true love guns, but what exactly is going to happen between the couple and their future family?", "Taken: Monday December 17, 2018 16:36:31" ] ], [ 1545118776, [ "We take the long way around North Korea.", "Taken: Monday December 17, 2018 23:39:36" ] ], [ 1545130469, [ "Some sort of public feedback and voting scheme on the subway. Korean transporation systems were pretty hard to figure out.", "Taken: Tuesday December 18, 2018 02:54:29" ] ], [ 1545170782, [ "This is a real estate listing, I'm guessing? Maybe '15, 4' means the building has 15 floors and the apt is on the fourth. But I can't make out the denomination of the other numbers.", "Taken: Tuesday December 18, 2018 14:06:22" ] ], [ 1545171044, [ "We stayed in Incheon in an area called 'Seogna office'. There were lots of multilevel places to eat in Japan style. We didn't see a single foreigner, and the staff spoke little English. The table had a little drawer containing utensils which we had pointed out to us.", "Taken: Tuesday December 18, 2018 14:10:44" ] ], [ 1545172268, [ "We spent a long time trying to figure out what this was an ad for. And are the girls all the same model?", "You know those programs where they use an existing neural net to generate images which maximally trigger it? Long term human beauty standards will be like that - figuring out how to get the most response from the neural nets in other minds.", "Taken: Tuesday December 18, 2018 14:31:08" ] ], [ 1545174265, [ "Enjoying jetlag-exploration at dawn. There were lots of church spires around town.", "Taken: Tuesday December 18, 2018 15:04:25" ] ], [ 1545174878, [ "Lost poodle", "Taken: Tuesday December 18, 2018 15:14:38" ] ], [ 1545175773, [ "Taken: Tuesday December 18, 2018 15:29:33", "This area has some central-government style big development off to the side." ] ], [ 1545175831, [ "There's something appealing and suggestive about roads leading into the distance.", "Taken: Tuesday December 18, 2018 15:30:31" ] ], [ 1545176481, [ "Steaming river - no idea why the water was so warm. This was alongside a new condo complex. It feels like a high-tech version of Japan and China - the same yellow tiles and exercise machines, but more subtle and variable forms.", "Taken: Tuesday December 18, 2018 15:41:21" ] ], [ 1545176858, [ "The egret and flock of ducks seemed to like the warm water.", "Taken: Tuesday December 18, 2018 15:47:38" ] ], [ 1545176945, [ "Frost in Seoul", "Taken: Tuesday December 18, 2018 15:49:05" ] ], [ 1545177132, [ "South Korean architecture is pretty nice. Very square and clean. We walked through the park of a new planned urban / commercial zone. No idea why there are so many different facing materials in use.", "Taken: Tuesday December 18, 2018 15:52:12" ] ], [ 1545177295, [ "Taken: Tuesday December 18, 2018 15:54:55" ,"Towers over greenhouses" ] ], [ 1545177619, [ "Taken: Tuesday December 18, 2018 16:00:19" ,"Sarang Church. Generally building materials all look new." ] ], [ 1545178241, [ "It feels like a lot of care is taken in design here, similar to Japan. I saw a lot of cars with custom mirrors and lights. This one is labeled \"little genius\". Is it a competition to show parents how safe the van is for their children?", "This outdoor mall area is known as \"square of dogs\" and is centered around a dog playground.", "Taken: Tuesday December 18, 2018 16:10:41" ] ], [ 1545178471, [ "Pretty high density buildings. One difference from China is the lack of the 'compound' concept, which leads developments there to be totally surrounded by fences, and have a gate with guards (usually 15 year old boys). Another difference is much fewer small-scale shops and entrepreneurs.", "Taken: Tuesday December 18, 2018 16:14:31" ] ], [ 1545179023, [ "Taken: Tuesday December 18, 2018 16:23:43" ,"Walking on the ice in the shade of the buildings." ] ], [ 1545179639, [ "Classic Korean style. Solid square base with some freely moved accented angles.", "Taken: Tuesday December 18, 2018 16:33:59" ] ], [ 1545180313, [ "We spent a while trying to figure out what the green icon represents", "Taken: Tuesday December 18, 2018 16:45:13" ] ], [ 1545180455, [ "The big piles of winter vegetables is like Beijing, but the tires are Korea only. Parking rights are definitely an unsolved problem. In China there might be a parking attendant guarding and taking payment for a few spots.", "Taken: Tuesday December 18, 2018 16:47:35" ] ], [ 1545185893, [ "This man popped in when the doors opened, quickly measured the size of the gap, then turned away satisfied ", "Taken: Tuesday December 18, 2018 18:18:13" ] ], [ 1545186486, [ "Taken: Tuesday December 18, 2018 18:28:06", "'System testing' of a giant advertising billboard in the subway" ] ], [ 1545211392, [ "We just spent a night in Korea, and are now starting a few days in China", "Traffic is still pretty bad since I left four years ago. And the taxi situation isn't good either. Even didi doesn't really work.", "Taken: Wednesday December 19, 2018 01:23:12" ] ], [ 1545224090, [ "Chinese and Slav squats!", "Taken: Wednesday December 19, 2018 04:54:50" ] ], [ 1545262534, [ "The air's not too bad. Off to the left is where I used to live - a mall which was only partially completed in 2013, and which is still mostly emptyl.", "Taken: Wednesday December 19, 2018 15:35:34" ] ], [ 1545264661, [ "Taken: Wednesday December 19, 2018 16:11:01", "Little pupper" ] ], [ 1545267269, [ "Taken: Wednesday December 19, 2018 16:54:29" ,"man combing his dog's fur, perched on top of a garbage can." ] ], [ 1545267583, [ "Taken: Wednesday December 19, 2018 16:59:43" ,"There is still tons of activity on Beijing streets, and people showing very human sides of themselves." ] ], [ 1545271266, [ "The building arching out is the new tallest building in Beijing. To its right is the former tallest, Guomao Phase 3. To the left is the 'pants building', CCTV center. I used to work in an office in the area which was demolished to construct them. The building was condemned, but still in use. It had high ceilings, and the owner had constructed a false floor adding a bunch of new square footage, in order to maximize his compensation. We left, and it later turned out the negotiations about them leaving took another year.", "Taken: Wednesday December 19, 2018 18:01:06" ] ], [ 1545272983, [ "Lion vs human childcare practices.", "Taken: Wednesday December 19, 2018 18:29:43", "kill" ] ], [ 1545273026, [ "A guard station at the east entrance to Jingshan park, with a complete set of police gear. Anti knife padding, two man catchers, shield, helmet and night stick.", "Taken: Wednesday December 19, 2018 18:30:26" ] ], [ 1545274574, [ "Riding rental bikes past the entrance to Zhongnanhai", "kill", "Taken: Wednesday December 19, 2018 18:56:14" ] ], [ 1545275996, [ "Inspirational bookstore section names", "Taken: Wednesday December 19, 2018 19:19:56" ] ], [ 1545277234, [ "There really needs to be better books about alphago and what it's like to interact with high level ai; not just related to go, but more about how to interact with a being which has great intution, but can't justify its recommendations in English. What's great is that it can back up all of its suggestions by showing you variations, though. If we had an AI of say, Architecture, and asked it to build a power plant, it would make a recommendation, with no explanation. But if you doubted it, you could present it many other related situations and see what it would do then, too - vary the terrain, input costs, output reward function, safety tolerances, to try to get a view of what it sees as the problem space.", "Taken: Wednesday December 19, 2018 19:40:34" ] ], [ 1545281034, [ "Ten bike lunch delivery guys wait outside for guys from the offices to come out and pick up the orders. Is this what it's like in SF around lunch?", "Taken: Wednesday December 19, 2018 20:43:54", "kill" ] ], [ 1545281135, [ "Beijing has a new license plate for electric vehicles. Cars still park all over the wide sidewalks.", "Taken: Wednesday December 19, 2018 20:45:35" ] ], [ 1545281431, [ "Stand on that spot, frowning and twiddling your thumbs all day like a scholar.", "Taken: Wednesday December 19, 2018 20:50:31" ,"kill" ] ], [ 1545294284, [ "Why is public workout equipment such a thing in Asia? Some kind of shared communal duty and health proverb? Here's a security guard riding on one of the workout walkers. Notice the cracked tiles - this is all new stuff. Painting the trees with some kind of white chemical every year is another Beijing tradition. It's all enclosed in a fence, too. The windowboxes in the background will generally be full of dusty old boards and other junk, saved away for use some day.", "Taken: Thursday December 20, 2018 00:24:44" ] ], [ 1545314269, [ "Beijing scifi club is going strong! I only ran it for about 6 months, and we were up to about 8 or 9 people. But since then it's bloomed into a really fun group (one marriage among attendees so far, one on the way). http://beijingscifi.org/ . It was great meeting up with them again." , "Taken: Thursday December 20, 2018 05:57:49" ] ], [ 1545374266, [ "Taken: Thursday December 20, 2018 22:37:46", ] ], [ 1545446663, [ "Gongti gorge - this is a new low.", "Taken: Friday December 21, 2018 18:44:23" ] ], [ 1545446910, [ "Most of the sidewalks they rebuilt for the olympics are now cracked and falling apart.", "It really makes you think. What percent of the total effort for a project like this in the US would be signage, permissions, environmental impact studies, guardrails and lights? Gotta be 80% or more. So how do we get organization and quality without complex rules?", "Taken: Friday December 21, 2018 18:48:30" ] ], [ 1545451875, [ "It feels like beijing is back to 2005 grunginess levels. The improvements around the olympics are long gone. The natural state of things is dirty, cracked, and falling apart. Note what looks like DIY styrofoam+masking tape boxes just left outside - there's still not much theft.", "Guidance through a tunnel", "Taken: Friday December 21, 2018 20:11:15" ] ], [ 1545458679, [ "More electrical stuff. On the left side is one of the new red caged voltage boxes that have shown up everywhere on the street.", "Taken: Friday December 21, 2018 22:04:39", "kill" ] ], [ 1545459216, [ "Lots of electrical activity on the streets around gongti.", "Taken: Friday December 21, 2018 22:13:36" ] ], [ 1545470700, [ "After a few years of construction, work on this mall (to the right) stopped and has been paused since then - eight years paying a guard to stand duty inside and not let anyone into the uninhabited halls. They did finish the bus station, but not the streetlights, so every night crowds of people wander through the dark, lit just by the giant advertising signs. They did recently redo the pavement, which was developing lumps and dips while I was there. In the distance is a police bus with blacked out windows and a desk to talk to the cops, just watching out for revolution.\n\nThe stairway down to the high-speed rail line to the airport was rebuilt a couple of times, as I observed from across the street in our office. It never had an escalator, so people carry their suitcases down by hand.", "Taken: Saturday December 22, 2018 01:25:00" ] ], [ 1545473136, [ "Snow themed art exhibit at the AYE Gallery Beijing. The technique is interesting, trying to make stone look like snow, not white marble.", "Taken: Saturday December 22, 2018 02:05:36" ] ], [ 1545480979, [ "Playing around with night vision. It takes a bunch of photos and does something like hdr to extract and estimate colors even of pitch dark scenes. Seems to work pretty well.", "One amazing discovery is that Google's cell phone plan gives free automatic VPN from China. So you can access Gmail, YouTube etc over public data with no VPN. This would have been amazing to have when I lived here. And I expect this kind of phone to become standard among foreigners here - why wouldn't it be great for anyone returning to China who got used to an open internet? There should be a market for these.", "Taken: Saturday December 22, 2018 04:16:19" ] ], [ 1545484081, [ "Sci fi club Christmas party and Yankee swap. You really get a sense that expats recreate larger families for themselves. So far from home they are more open and caring to the people they make, and create their own little societies and homes. Being in that intense culture-formation state is wonderful - unlike back home where 'grinding life' seems more common.", "Taken: Saturday December 22, 2018 05:08:01" ] ], [ 1545545307, [ "Viewing the human world from the air means a lot - it puts us into another scale.", "What can you do to keep people working once they have enough to survive? Make it hard to afford a house, hard to get married? Keep them in debt? What would happen if lots of people adopt financial independence strategies and drop out? Or is that what's already happening. We may need people who are cursed with too much ambition just to organize everything we're used to having. Peter Principle, large scale version - what is the steady state of ambitious poor people trying to make it, with complacent generations forgetting the lessons they learned?", "Next stop - Japan, for two weeks. We'll visit Kochi, where I used to live, and then spend the end of the trip in Tokyo.", "Taken: Saturday December 22, 2018 22:08:27" ] ], [ 1545567070, [ "Japan's got a bunch of Vapes. Behind this, though, the Lawson still stocks ~150 varieties of cigarettes.", "I didn't see any vaping at all in China, which is a shame since it seems like it will reduce a lot of suffering down the road.", "Taken: Sunday December 23, 2018 04:11:10" ] ], [ 1545573316, [ "China bike news. Until now ebikes were considered bicycles even when they went 45kph. You also didn't need a license, plates, or insurance. It was quite a loophole - I got a 72V lithium battery (60V is the legal limit), and would race around at 30+ mph (which is a lot on those streets). It was the most mobile I've ever been. It looks like they're finally closing it down.", "Taken: Sunday December 23, 2018 05:55:16" ] ], [ 1545574360, [ "kill", "Taken: Sunday December 23, 2018 06:12:40" ] ], [ 1545609403, [ "We settled into a weird hotel with an interior that felt fairly adobe-style, and the next morning went walking and found a temple. This is a translation table between age and imperial year; there years which are more suitable for visiting, apparently.", "Taken: Sunday December 23, 2018 15:56:43" ] ], [ 1545611385, [ "Open space park above the fields.", "Taken: Sunday December 23, 2018 16:29:45" ] ], [ 1545611606, [ "\"Those supports are condescending to the tree.\"", "Taken: Sunday December 23, 2018 16:33:26" ] ], [ 1545614872, [ "Taken: Sunday December 23, 2018 17:27:52", "They almost do a dance of gestures and checks - but intentionally non-fluid. The whole thing is designed to get them to think consciously about the adjustments they make to the controls, rather than 'get used to it'. I wonder if it actually works?" ] ], [ 1545626508, [ "We were going along the route, when suddenly Google said: \"In 600 meters take the ferry.\"", "Taken: Sunday December 23, 2018 20:41:48" ] ], [ 1545631664, [ "Japan seems really nice, this visit. We're headed southwest from Osaka, over Naturo island, to Kochi. I have forgotten a lot of the anger I had from reading 'Dogs and Demons' way back when; sure, they destroyed a lot of their nature, but it's still epically amazing. They have clean air, beautiful buildings, and a basically working system.", "Driving on the left hasn't been a problem at all. We had Coco's Curry for lunch, which was as good as ever; stopped in a abandoned coffee shop where you pick your own beans and the caffienated man behind the counter grinds them for you and makes a cup. We've only been in small towns so far, and they're going to keep getting smaller til we start heading return through Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo.", "Taken: Sunday December 23, 2018 22:07:44" ] ], [ 1545631960, ["On the train from the airport we met a young JET who is posted to Takarajima, an island two miles long with a population of 109, about three hours by ferry from the next island, which has a city of 100k. He has fourteen students of all ages and is getting to know them really, really well. Being posted there is like some kind of Robinson Crusoe torture. But he'll definitely remember it, and at least he has internet."] ], [ 1545633783, [ "You're being watched, in a small pharmacy. Note the 'calorie mate' boxes, a food replacement.", "Taken: Sunday December 23, 2018 22:43:03" ] ], [ 1545654308, [ "We're heading over to Iya valley tomorrow. It's a restored tiny village by the author of a really interesting book by Alex Kerr. It gave me new eyes to see a lot of the changes made to the countryside in Japan - concreted rivers, clear cut and replanted forests, etc. I wonder what's become of him?", "Taken: Monday December 24, 2018 04:25:08" ] ], [ 1545695290, [ "This is the view from below Mount Kunimi [Country View Mountain]. A tiny little cluster of houses, perched on foggy cliffs above the river. The hotel, 'Sun Route', is huge and was built during the heyday of the eighties. There's an onsen on the fifth floor onsen with a mountain view, and 'modern' triangular seating areas in the lounge, and most people working there seem like they've been there since the eighties, too.", "Taken: Monday December 24, 2018 15:48:10" ] ], [ 1545696627, [ "We climbed an old stairway down from the bridge to reach the water. This was a great place for rock skipping, but it's cold and foggy year round.", "Taken: Monday December 24, 2018 16:10:27" ] ], [ 1545701980, [ "We scrambled up a long, concrete, overgrown trough in the mountain and saw this deer skull. The whole way up were mysterious glugging pipes and tubes with water pumping in and out. Could it be some kind of 'mountain sake' preparation system?", "Taken: Monday December 24, 2018 17:39:40" ] ], [ 1545709673, [ "What could cause this weird type of snow on the north side of the mountain?", "Taken: Monday December 24, 2018 19:47:53" ] ], [ 1545709952, [ "Pretty great variety of tree branch angles!", "Taken: Monday December 24, 2018 19:52:32" ] ], [ 1545710205, [ "It grows from twigs and trunks and then snaps off!", "Taken: Monday December 24, 2018 19:56:45" ] ], [ 1545715508, ["kill"] ], [ 1545717525, [ "Interesting visual effects where the sun blows out the tree trunks. The way they've built up the mountain is amazing. This will all fall apart and be abandoned someday. Apparently some of these towns really were started by renegade samurai, fleeing from the plains below.", "Taken: Monday December 24, 2018 21:58:45" ] ], [ 1545719793, [ "A major detour due to a \"burst shoulder\" led us through some very small villages and regions where replanting was in progress. The signs got smaller and smaller, and so did the little old ladies showing us the way. We didn't pass another car for a few hours.", "Taken: Monday December 24, 2018 22:36:33" ] ], [ 1545719878, [ "Taken: Monday December 24, 2018 22:37:58", "Cutting it all down and replanting it all." ] ], [ 1545720127, [ "As we went up through the adult Cedar, we eventually reached the replanting zone. A few years before they must have gone through cutting down the old forest and letting it fall and dry. Now they're back planting a new dark green band. Above it the trees peter out into lower density scrub and grass. This was what used to get me back in the day - weird stripes of color on the side of the mountain make you wonder - but when you get up close it's that some program caused whole sections hours away from anywhere, to be chopped down and replanted. It's all part of a government make-work program, which is already deprecated but still continues.", "Taken: Monday December 24, 2018 22:42:07" ] ], [ 1545720963, [ "After 45 minutes on a one lane road, we got to an intersection with an old abandoned yakitori shop and signs warning of bears. It's hard to avoid talk of population decline in an environment like this. Japan's tfr is 1.42, without much regional variation - the population will drop below 100m fairly soon.", "Taken: Monday December 24, 2018 22:56:03" ] ], [ 1545720989, [ "Next to the intersection there was this custom map - it seems heavily influenced by graph theory.", "Taken: Monday December 24, 2018 22:56:29" ] ], [ 1545721016, [ "Another road into the distance.", "Taken: Monday December 24, 2018 22:56:56" ] ], [ 1545731648, [ "We reached Kochi, my old home, on Christmas Day. This is out front of 'Irish bar Amontillado'. Is this a traditional character used to advertise Guinness? Cause that moustache looks pretty suspicious.", "Taken: Tuesday December 25, 2018 01:54:08" ] ], [ 1545739692, [ "We're spending another day in Kochi. This is Hirome Ichiba, a big food court. Back in the JET days I felt lucky to have a social spot like this to hang out in - we knew we were lucky, and we were right. The rest of the time in Japan I never found a place like this.", "Taken: Tuesday December 25, 2018 04:08:12" ] ], [ 1545748477, [ "Japan is a lot more saturated with colors and details than China. This was right outside a huge hippie style bar with dj music playing and two customers, on the third floor of a bar building, one of about fifty in the downtown of a city of 330k. The way rents and profits work in Kochi is still a mystery to me.", "Taken: Tuesday December 25, 2018 06:34:37" ] ], [ 1545748639, [ "'Labu Jama' is still around - Kochi's only Reggae bar. Kochi seems unchanging... How is this a surviving business for 18+ years now? How are the parameters of its survival set up not to thrive, not to die out, but just continue, over such a long time? I guess the slack is in the time and effort of the owner.", "The total amount of drinking & social space in downtown Kochi is amazingly high for the population. I guess it's the center for the whole province, maybe 1m people, which explains some of it. There were lots of busy places, but also many totally abandoned. Another dinner was in giant spanish-style dinner place with fresh ham, vegetables, everything ready and tasty, no customers at all.", "Taken: Tuesday December 25, 2018 06:37:19" ] ], [ 1545791276, [ "Japanese used bookstores are pretty good. And occult stuff being in foreign languages makes it even better, both for them and for me!", "Taken: Tuesday December 25, 2018 18:27:56" ] ], [ 1545793068, [ "Rooms for rent. 6.2 means 62000 yen. Plus the gift fee, rental fee, totaling two months more rent - still, 500$ USD/month for a single, basically downtown.", "Taken: Tuesday December 25, 2018 18:57:48" ] ], [ 1545799394, [ "Alex Kerr's \"principle of japanese photography\" in action - it's very hard to frame a shot in Japan without some incongruous element visible. In this case amps and cameras for what seems like a project to create a \"digital Kochi castle\". The castle itself is really nice, though.", "Taken: Tuesday December 25, 2018 20:43:14" ] ], [ 1545800092, [ "Next to the castle is a temple dedicated to Roosters, with some captive, some loose.", "Taken: Tuesday December 25, 2018 20:54:52" ] ], [ 1545800619, [ "Strange creatures above obiyamachi. This is a big shopping street, still thriving.", "Taken: Tuesday December 25, 2018 21:03:39" ] ], [ 1545805203, [ "Really casual ping pong spot above a guys home furnishing shop. He was sitting below waiting for business, surrounded by hundreds of cigarette butts in overflowing ashtrays.", "It seems like in the US there would be so many barriers to setting this up - he built a second floor on his warehouse with a steep metal staircase, no handicap access, sells drinks from a cooler, provides cool hand cloths, and rents out ping pong tables. How many years of permits and continued government relationships would this kind of business take in SF? The construction and lack of access would be a stopper. How much would getting a drink license to sell 100 yen bottles of tea to schoolkids cost? What about insurance for providing a sporting facility? And he wouldn't be allowed to smoke in his own office. And the washing machine suggests he's also living there. I strive to remember the actual cost of doing things, not the artifical cost we've made things have to be done in our particular society. People in the future will look back on us and consider us as foolish as the ancients we disdain now.", "Taken: Tuesday December 25, 2018 22:20:03" ] ], [ 1545810645, [ "I'm not sure why this big gate on top of a concrete tsunami barrier exists at all, really.", "Taken: Tuesday December 25, 2018 23:50:45" ] ], [ 1545810693, [ "We drove over to the coast south of Nankoku and found this colossal concrete barrier. If it ever snowed here, this would be a great place to slide down!", "Taken: Tuesday December 25, 2018 23:51:33" ] ], [ 1545810699, [ "I'm guessing this is tsunami detection equipment and its protection.", "Taken: Tuesday December 25, 2018 23:51:39" ] ], [ 1545810731, [ "Nicely guarded crane continuing to control the Monobe river.", "Kochi Airport is ahead, and then the city beyond the hills. Nankoku, and my old home is to the right.", "Taken: Tuesday December 25, 2018 23:52:11" ] ], [ 1545812206, [ "Tetrapods down south of the airport. Kochi has a lot of huge infrastructure projects in unexpected locations.", "At some point, I have to visit Kochi, India, the place whose search results are mixed in with my Kochi's.", "Taken: Wednesday December 26, 2018 00:16:46" ] ], [ 1545843732, [ "\"Birth a trigg\" is a makeup salon next to an amazing wall made of woven branches.", "They put so much detail into everything. The whole country is full of custom designed roads, tightly integrated with the surroundings. I can just imagine what the meeting laying out their design would be like.", "Downtown Kochi has changed a little but but still feels the same as it always did back then. We arrived on Christmas day, and there were pairs of kids out on dates everywhere, going up and down the street.", "Taken: Wednesday December 26, 2018 09:02:12" ] ], [ 1545872078, [ "Downtown Kochi.", "Taken: Wednesday December 26, 2018 16:54:38" ] ], [ 1545876080, [ "Overgrown garden in an apartment backing on a canal in downtown Kochi.", "Taken: Wednesday December 26, 2018 18:01:20" ] ], [ 1545882940, [ "We rode bikes east, out to Nankoku.", "Taken: Wednesday December 26, 2018 19:55:40" ] ], [ 1545885979, [ "Taken: Wednesday December 26, 2018 20:46:19" ] ], [ 1545886776, [ "Unchanged sign since last time I was here, four years ago.", "Taken: Wednesday December 26, 2018 20:59:36" ] ], [ 1545887267, [ "Huge canal heading east from Kochi with great bike paths on both sides.", "Taken: Wednesday December 26, 2018 21:07:47" ] ], [ 1545889154, [ "Taken: Wednesday December 26, 2018 21:39:14" ] ], [ 1545892576, [ "Kochi skyline of lines", "Taken: Wednesday December 26, 2018 22:36:16" ] ], [ 1545894021, [ "Modern house down in haruno", "Taken: Wednesday December 26, 2018 23:00:21" ] ], [ 1545895103, [ "It takes a couple of years for shitake mushrooms to grow. You prop up short segments of oak, drill holes and plug in wood infused with spores, and then wait. Tom has a nice setup behind the house part way up the mountain.", "Taken: Wednesday December 26, 2018 23:18:23" ] ], [ 1545958144, [ "Plains east of Kochi city getting towards my old house.", "Taken: Thursday December 27, 2018 16:49:04" ] ], [ 1545959060, [ "Mixed forest. It'd make a good terrain type for Roblox.", "Taken: Thursday December 27, 2018 17:04:20" ] ], [ 1545959154, [ "Good light on an unknown industrial plant.", "Taken: Thursday December 27, 2018 17:05:54" ] ], [ 1545963343, [ "Taken: Thursday December 27, 2018 18:15:43" ] ], [ 1545963801, [ "Snow up in the mountains above Kochi", "Taken: Thursday December 27, 2018 18:23:21" ] ], [ 1545976308, [ "Big sky on Awajishima, the road back to Honshu.", "Taken: Thursday December 27, 2018 21:51:48" ] ], [ 1545977340, [ "Warning sign about wild boars, inoshishi.", "Taken: Thursday December 27, 2018 22:09:00" ] ], [ 1545981370, [ "Reflective building in Kyoto.", "Taken: Thursday December 27, 2018 23:16:10" ] ], [ 1545981936, [ "Girl jumping rope by the side of the road, Kyoto.", "Taken: Thursday December 27, 2018 23:25:36" ] ], [ 1545986455, [ "Happy kid!", "Taken: Friday December 28, 2018 00:40:55" ] ], [ 1545986922, [ "Big snow in Kyoto!", "Taken: Friday December 28, 2018 00:48:42" ] ], [ 1545987345, [ "I like to think about what they have here and how we can get it at home.", "Kyoto has a snack street that is pretty fun to walk along, getting samples and trying food from.", "Taken: Friday December 28, 2018 00:55:45" ] ], [ 1545988242, [ "Eating freshly baked melon pan!", "Taken: Friday December 28, 2018 01:10:42" ] ], [ 1545988624, [ "Reward, 6 or 3 million yen.", "Most wanted poster, Kyoto.", "Taken: Friday December 28, 2018 01:17:04" ] ], [ 1545988761, [ "Girls taking festival pictures in Kyoto", "Taken: Friday December 28, 2018 01:19:21" ] ], [ 1545989938, [ "Old bathhouse comedy cartoons in a tourist spot, Kyoto.", "Taken: Friday December 28, 2018 01:38:58" ] ], [ 1545989968, [ "Thousands of tiny cups and bowls.", "Taken: Friday December 28, 2018 01:39:28" ] ], [ 1545999871, [ "Kyoto apartment. 53 sqm, 1100$/ month. Move in \"gift\" of two months rent. Move in fee one months rent.", "Taken: Friday December 28, 2018 04:24:31" ] ], [ 1546051027, [ "More snow in the shinkansen", "Taken: Friday December 28, 2018 18:37:07" ] ], [ 1546066548, [ "Random building in Akasaka looks like an anime boarding school. The green flood lights are a nice touch", "Taken: Friday December 28, 2018 22:55:48" ] ], [ 1546067246, [ "Bringing out the cut for the customer to verify it.", "Another one for the \"things which would not be allowed in the US\" file", "Taken: Friday December 28, 2018 23:07:26" ] ], [ 1546140092, [ "Bookkeeping is also somewhat manual, with a clipboard entry of the ride being made afterwards (at least in Kochi)", "Japanese taxis use what looks like a pretty outdated navigation system. The input is lcd, with a slow search. It could just be a vision issue, but showing them a Google map in japanese with popular landmarks on it near the destination hasn't triggered recognition. I wonder what's going on to make them prefer addresses. It's much more formal than China where you just direct them.", "Taken: Saturday December 29, 2018 19:21:32" ] ], [ 1546144277, [ "There are at least 8 halls bigger than this, plus thousands of people outside.", "Fluid dynamics of humans.", "Comiket is huge - a few hundred thousand people attend. No visible security.", "Taken: Saturday December 29, 2018 20:31:17" ] ], [ 1546147226, [ "The dog is fake, and his ears kept falling off.", "Cosplayers as FBI, police, and cnn. Loved these guys. In general they were having a bunch of fun jokingly doing poses and repositioning.", "Taken: Saturday December 29, 2018 21:20:26" ] ], [ 1546148162, [ "And of course in general the fun of dressing up. I'd been a little freaked out by the crowds of people inside, all promoting their own hand drawn comics with a very few customers and all seeming really similar to each other but out here there's a lot more - some level of individuality, people's emotions are more on display, and everyone seems to be having fun.", "There's a convention that you have to request permission to take any photograph. Ad hoc lines form for individual shooting or sometimes there's a circle like this. I spent some time thinking about the psychological economy of those involved but didn't come to any conclusions. I think part of it is about attention, the hope to make a connection, some unpredictable rewards a photography whether the light in the pose and the frame in the background come out all right.", "Taken: Saturday December 29, 2018 21:36:02" ] ], [ 1546149334, [ "It was about 40 degrees Fahrenheit out.", "Taken: Saturday December 29, 2018 21:55:34" ] ], [ 1546150107, [ "These guys said they represented the early 90s Japanese internet.", "Taken: Saturday December 29, 2018 22:08:27" ] ], [ 1546150481, [ "These guys were having so much fun. Part of the interaction is gesturing and communicating to them what you want them to do.", "Taken: Saturday December 29, 2018 22:14:41" ] ], [ 1546151309, [ "Japan has stronger protections around anonymity than the US, so a common feature of news reports is blurred out photos of the people involved.", "Taken: Saturday December 29, 2018 22:28:29" ] ], [ 1546151339, [ "\"heddo shotto\"", "Taken: Saturday December 29, 2018 22:28:59" ] ], [ 1546153609, [ "Part of comiket is about indie games and music. There are also DIY books published about things such as the design and review of every single instance of a specific chain restaurant in Tokyo. This is the kind of thing that the internet is really made for though, rather than printed books.", "The video game market here still has individual developers making games on their own and then burning CDs and trying to sell them to people who've never heard of them.", "Taken: Saturday December 29, 2018 23:06:49" ] ], [ 1546154794, [ "At the nearest subway station lineup after comiket ended a politician was giving a speech. In the US is it legal for politicians just to stand on top of a van with amplified sound?", "Taken: Saturday December 29, 2018 23:26:34" ] ], [ 1546155668, [ "There are a lot more caged roads that I remember. Road design is just as custom and specific as it used to be. You feel that almost nothing is done without thought about how it fits into the environment of other nearby roads and sidewalks and pedestrian flows.", "Taken: Saturday December 29, 2018 23:41:08" ] ], [ 1546155826, [ "Text says \"ganbarou nihon\" which means \"do your best Japan!\"", "Taken: Saturday December 29, 2018 23:43:46" ] ], [ 1546165096, [ "The guy on the left used all sorts of things to scrape and bang on an electrified snare drum.", "Unexpected noise concert. The guy on the right had a pretty cool modified record player which he spun things on to produce irregular rhythms - marbles and glass stones which would bump into each other, so the rhythm was neither constant nor random.", "Taken: Sunday December 30, 2018 02:18:16" ] ], [ 1546169848, [ "In the last act there were two guys. Thr first one had a tuba upon which he would place a tambourine which he would scrape and hit with a giant wooden chopstick wow playing softly and circular breathing. The other had programmable pulsing flashlights and little boxes which make noise dependent on the intensity of light flashing on them.", "Taken: Sunday December 30, 2018 03:37:28" ] ], [ 1546172360, [ "Taken: Sunday December 30, 2018 04:19:20" ] ], [ 1546173098, [ "Taken: Sunday December 30, 2018 04:31:38" ] ], [ 1546176525, [ "The new night view takes lots of quick photos and then mine's them for color data to create a somewhat HDR looking photo evening really dark conditions.", "Taken: Sunday December 30, 2018 05:28:45" ] ], [ 1546190834, [ "We're staying in a newish area called akasaka. Pretty good spot, near most places.", "Taken: Sunday December 30, 2018 09:27:14" ] ], [ 1546220360, [ "Couple differences from China they're still doing construction in Tokyo which is a surprise another big one is that the tiles on the ground are not all cracked everywhere.", "For the first few days in Tokyo we stayed in akasaka which is a hill that's been dug out for a mall and the sides flattened.", "Taken: Sunday December 30, 2018 17:39:20" ] ], [ 1546224759, [ "Comparison of life in Tokyo versus San Francisco: \n\nTokyo has no homeless problem\n\nweather is about the same \n\nfood variety is probably about the same\n\nhousing is much cheaper in Tokyo \n\ndensity is much higher\n\npublic transport as much better, but working freedom and salaries are much worse.", "Population densities per sqm:\nShinjuku: 47k\nShibuya: 38k\nMission district SF: 30k", "It'll also be near a super-efficient and fast subway and lots of places to go due to higher density.", "Three bedroom apartment in downtown Tokyo for $3,000 a month.", "Taken: Sunday December 30, 2018 18:52:39" ] ], [ 1546225681, [ "We had a drink in the Lion Cafe. It's a cafe with a huge sound system, which gives you the feeling of being in a church. They have a schedule of classical music they play throughout the month and no talking is allowed inside.", "Taken: Sunday December 30, 2018 19:08:01" ] ], [ 1546227392, [ "It's common to see expensive, detailed, and beautiful extensions of commercial property into the sidewalk. Similarly you can see this from residential areas with gardens and sculptures. overtime the homelessness problem in San Franciscoo is reshaping all public architecture to resist. The removal of private spaces, removal of places to sit down and congregate. Just the amount of effort we spend on physical security and how much Japan saves from not needing to do that is amazing.", "Taken: Sunday December 30, 2018 19:36:32" ] ], [ 1546231048, [ "Massive dog walking in yoyogi park.", "Taken: Sunday December 30, 2018 20:37:28" ] ], [ 1546231737, [ "I'm a fan of traditional japanese symbolism.", "Taken: Sunday December 30, 2018 20:48:57" ] ], [ 1546232055, [ "Gifts for soccer for the dedication of the Meiji shrine. On the other side of the road were gifts of wine from France.", "Taken: Sunday December 30, 2018 20:54:15" ] ], [ 1546232383, [ "Others are from a hanami viewing company and Mitsui Tomo insurance.", "Gifts of lanterns with advertising. The top line is for SEC elevators.", "Taken: Sunday December 30, 2018 20:59:43" ] ], [ 1546235084, [ "Taken: Sunday December 30, 2018 21:44:44" ] ], [ 1546238414, [ "Trump: I am the center of the world!", "Putin says: the world is in my hand!", "Cheap stuff at \"Don Quixote\"", "Taken: Sunday December 30, 2018 22:40:14" ] ], [ 1546255886, [ "Japan's tfr is around 1.6.", "Taken: Monday December 31, 2018 03:31:26" ] ], [ 1546256859, [ "Taken: Monday December 31, 2018 03:47:39" ] ], [ 1546258476, [ "Highballs are now available in every restaurant. How have they done this? Every restaurant and convenience store sells them now.", "Taken: Monday December 31, 2018 04:14:36" ] ], [ 1546269494, [ "We went over to Shibuya scramble for midnight on New year's Eve. It was pretty chaotic but not too crowded and easy to get in and out. This is a custom Mario themed soundtrack and visual display. The event itself is sponsored by Coca-Cola, and they were giving away hats and glowing ears.", "Taken: Monday December 31, 2018 07:18:14" ] ], [ 1546270257, [ "Cops mobbing a drunk guy.", "Taken: Monday December 31, 2018 07:30:57" ] ], [ 1546290770, [ "We snuck up to an abandoned restaurant on the 44th floor. One of the workers found us wandering around and kindly showed us a better viewing spot. One new thing is that Japan now has foreign hotel, restaurant, and convenience store workers, who all seem to speak really good Japanese.", "Taken: Monday December 31, 2018 13:12:50" ] ], [ 1546311736, [ "Burns dinner and ceilidh. I really love these kind of secular memorials to specific values and virtues", "Taken: Monday December 31, 2018 19:02:16" ] ], [ 1546312900, [ "We're staying fairly near the imperial area. New year's morning we woke up and went around looking for a place to eat but everything was closed. We did pass by this beautiful arrangement of abalone shells.", "Taken: Monday December 31, 2018 19:21:40" ] ], [ 1546313618, [ "Can you guess what restaurant this is? Hint: the version here is Japanese Korean Western fusion.", "Taken: Monday December 31, 2018 19:33:38" ] ], [ 1546316022, [ "Taken: Monday December 31, 2018 20:13:42" ] ], [ 1546316155, [ "Four UN peacekeepers.", "Taken: Monday December 31, 2018 20:15:55" ] ], [ 1546325767, [ "Taken: Monday December 31, 2018 22:56:07" ] ], [ 1546325946, [ "Long cat is long.", "Taken: Monday December 31, 2018 22:59:06" ] ], [ 1546326036, [ "Two faces, bear, and cracks!", "Taken: Monday December 31, 2018 23:00:36" ] ], [ 1546326795, [ "This is at yasukuni shrine, which is a controversial memorial to Japan's war dead over the last 150 years, since it also includes some ww2 war criminals.", "Inoshishi is a Japanese wild boar. They're everywhere since it's coming up on the year of the pig.", "Taken: Monday December 31, 2018 23:13:15" ] ], [ 1546328055, [ "It's pretty sad to see Japan doing better than ever culturally, but still with a declining population, and the problem is getting worse.", "Babies riding wild boars.", "Taken: Monday December 31, 2018 23:34:15" ] ], [ 1546330978, [ "Strange subway nudge.", "Taken: Tuesday January 01, 2019 00:22:58" ] ], [ 1546331500, [ "\"bikkuro\" - the name is a combination of \"Bic camera\" and \"Uniqlo\". Why does this exist?", "Taken: Tuesday January 01, 2019 00:31:40" ] ], [ 1546334983, [ "Wagyuu for dinner on New year's day. It was pretty good. I've never had beef like that before.", "Taken: Tuesday January 01, 2019 01:29:43" ] ], [ 1546339885, [ "Experiments with night sight", "Taken: Tuesday January 01, 2019 02:51:25" ] ], [ 1546387614, [ "The emperor's palace feels simple. It's made mostly of arranged dirt, loose sloped walls, grass and pine trees. Not much other decoration besides some birds, gates, and iron light posts", "Taken: Tuesday January 01, 2019 16:06:54" ] ], [ 1546391308, [ "We started lining up at 9:00 and took three hours to get to the palace.", "Taken: Tuesday January 01, 2019 17:08:28" ] ], [ 1546398606, [ "Taken: Tuesday January 01, 2019 19:10:06" ] ], [ 1546398738, [ "Overall the palace is the most simply designed place I've ever seen - just a huge square without many accents at all. The grounds were very monoculture, too. I wonder what the story behind that is. The average one-man neighborhood shrine has more decoration than this place did.", "Waiting for the emperor to give his new year's address. He is abdicating this April, so there was a big crowd. We were in line 3 hours to get to this point.", "Taken: Tuesday January 01, 2019 19:12:18" ] ], [ 1546399904, [ "Overhanging tower. Some debate, unresolved, about the use of the notches and windows.", "Taken: Tuesday January 01, 2019 19:31:44" ] ], [ 1546400704, [ "Police in a dinghy in the moat of the imperial palace, Tokyo.", "Taken: Tuesday January 01, 2019 19:45:04" ] ], [ 1546406959, [ "Kid posing in front of ranks of soldiers, toy store in akihabara.", "Taken: Tuesday January 01, 2019 21:29:19" ] ], [ 1546409593, [ "Taken: Tuesday January 01, 2019 22:13:13" ] ], [ 1546410061, [ "Taken: Tuesday January 01, 2019 22:21:01" ] ], [ 1546411812, [ "Cat Cafe was way better than I thought!", "Taken: Tuesday January 01, 2019 22:50:12" ] ], [ 1546413853, [ "This mechanic is everywhere - there is a whole new type of vending machine where you get a little random toy for a few bucks.", "\"Gacha\" is a mechanic similar to loot boxes. This is a 200$ gacha bag from an electronics store.", "Taken: Tuesday January 01, 2019 23:24:13" ] ], [ 1546415018, [ "After reading \"Wesley the Owl\" I didn't think this close contact was possible. It must vary by species.", "Owl cafe. They are spectacular but it is sad to see them tied down.", "Taken: Tuesday January 01, 2019 23:43:38" ] ], [ 1546415187, [ "The owl cafe was more like a \"zoo in an apartment\" and was a bit sad. But the birds looked magnificent.", "I wish I knew how to characterize how similar dinosaurs were to birds. I guess they've been evolving the whole time since dinosaurs died out, so not much may be left.", "Taken: Tuesday January 01, 2019 23:46:27" ] ], [ 1546416953, [ "This guy's drumming is amazing.", "Taken: Wednesday January 02, 2019 00:15:53" ] ], [ 1546417630, [ "Dancing arcade game.", "Taken: Wednesday January 02, 2019 00:27:10" ] ], [ 1546419483, [ "You can ride go karts around public streets dressed up in character body suits. My reserve price: 50$. Another thing you couldn't do in SF.", "Taken: Wednesday January 02, 2019 00:58:03" ] ], [ 1546419623, [ "Akihabara is pretty great.", "Taken: Wednesday January 02, 2019 01:00:23" ] ], [ 1546421588, [ "This is a customer feedback report on a vr game system. This kind of thing is actually really common in Japan. This one was verified before being put up, but it's common for tables to have notebooks which you can write anything you want in to as a message to the next customer.", "Taken: Wednesday January 02, 2019 01:33:08" ] ], [ 1546422009, [ "This was awesome. It's a mechanical pong game. It even has angle of deflection.", "Taken: Wednesday January 02, 2019 01:40:09" ] ], [ 1546424396, [ "I do admire long-lasting cultures that have had time to accumulate lots of common knowledge of behavior patterns. Like a fast running stream can keep many grains of sand moving along.", "Why don't we have this at home? There may not be as much reason for it - less waiting in general due to less density?", "They have a nice line system - when there are multiple overlapping or segmented lines, they will make a laminated card describing which line it is and have the last person hold it, continuously passing it off to newcomers.", "Taken: Wednesday January 02, 2019 02:19:56" ] ], [ 1546424859, [ "Taken: Wednesday January 02, 2019 02:27:39" ] ], [ 1546431287, [ "@nestor yeah, I mean more why there is just so much going on in general on the cover. Just searched for an english Naruto cover and the ones that came up only had a little bit of text on them, e.g. ", "Still waiting for a good explanation for the pretty consistent difference in information / word density between Asia and Europe.", "Taken: Wednesday January 02, 2019 04:14:47" ] ], [ 1546475910, [ "We're going to an ssc/rationality Meetup tonight.", "Taken: Wednesday January 02, 2019 16:38:30" ] ], [ 1546480056, [ "Pretty nice calligraphy style on this one. I'm guessing this is a list of crosstalk performers (something like traditional stand-up comedy)", "Taken: Wednesday January 02, 2019 17:47:36" ] ], [ 1546487684, [ "Stone exterior vending machine. It also has a lock blocker for extra security - a suggestion that there are keys out there being misused?", "Taken: Wednesday January 02, 2019 19:54:44" ] ], [ 1546489089, [ "Squarish things in a quiet block next to Akasaka. if you only take the subways Tokyo seems really busy, but as you walk between neighborhoods you see there are large sleepy areas filling in the spaces between.", "Taken: Wednesday January 02, 2019 20:18:09" ] ], [ 1546489693, [ "Veterinary school with dogs peeking through the columns. I have no idea what that strange building in the background is... maybe parking?", "Taken: Wednesday January 02, 2019 20:28:13" ] ], [ 1546489811, [ "I felt like they had left me and brushed off their sandals, condemning me to damnation.", "Back in Kochi years ago I bumped into a pair of them. They weren't that interesting in chatting about life in Kochi, and they said goodbye, warning me that sometimes people only get one chance, and there are many other sheep out there to bring into the fold.", "Two Mormons riding off into the distance in their suits.", "Taken: Wednesday January 02, 2019 20:30:11" ] ], [ 1546509373, [ "The meetup with the rationality community in Tokyo was great. The founder has a personal mission to bring its ideas into circulation in Japan. i e. the from here: ", "Taken: Thursday January 03, 2019 01:56:13" ] ], [ 1546524106, [ "I can't wait to get home and put these positions into alphago!", "The go Cafe has some really strong players. I took three stones from two 8ds and both games were tough. They have pretty nice go tables.", "Taken: Thursday January 03, 2019 06:01:46" ] ], [ 1546526411, [ "Stations don't seem to be as deep as they are in New York where it feels like you're just going up and down most of the time.", "Some general comments about the Tokyo subway: there are stations within a couple hundred meters, almost anywhere you are in the city. It's a lot cheaper than I remembered - just two or three dollars to go 4 or 5 miles. the line layout is not really comprehensible by a normal person so you end up using the map quite a bit but that's okay. ", "Someone must have made a meme out of this already.", "Taken: Thursday January 03, 2019 06:40:11" ] ], [ 1546591151, [ "It would be nice if there were foods which would taste different according to your specific makeup, but that seems hard to discover. More easily I think you could give people blood tests to determine what their current state would find most nourishing, and give them that... And possibly make them wait a while first til they achieve a given, proven level of hunger?", "We made reservations at a molecular gastronomy/japanese restaurant.", "Taken: Friday January 04, 2019 00:39:11" ] ], [ 1546591241, [ "Re: ", "Bringing back the faces!", "Taken: Friday January 04, 2019 00:40:41" ] ], [ 1546593013, [ "Visible in the background: the \"projection mapping\" we had dismissed incorrectly as a translation error. Each of the nine courses had a unique design and soundtrack.", "The first course was \"rocks\" of potato and pumpkin set in a zen garden of salt. Pretty good! And at this point the anticipation and ceremony was highest, so it was the best.", "Taken: Friday January 04, 2019 01:10:13" ] ], [ 1546596012, [ "Vacuum cooked molecular beef with whisky smoke and truffle salt. It was one of the best courses. This way of having a meal as a ceremony of presentation and pure taste isn't bad! But we still went out for beer and fish and chips after.", "Taken: Friday January 04, 2019 02:00:12" ] ], [ 1546645281, [ "~70 usd for these marbled wagyu on a stick.", "Taken: Friday January 04, 2019 15:41:21" ] ], [ 1546646113, [ "It's our last day in Japan. Tsukuji market no longer hosts the fish auction, but there is still some cool meat on sale. This one has a wood-like grain.", "Taken: Friday January 04, 2019 15:55:13" ] ], [ 1546648228, [ "Dogs as a replacement for children has been a big theme of the trip. In general Japan is good at extracting elements of the human experience and refining them. That stuff is fun, but what's left is a decreasing population.", "Taken: Friday January 04, 2019 16:30:28" ] ], [ 1546650136, [ "I'm in that part of the trip where Saturday lasts for 36 hours, and newly taken photos slot in behind ones taken on the other side of the international date line.", "Taken: Friday January 04, 2019 17:02:16" ] ], [ 1546658485, [ "Tokyo subway.", "Taken: Friday January 04, 2019 19:21:25" ] ], [ 1546660741, [ "Urban fishing", "Taken: Friday January 04, 2019 19:59:01" ] ], [ 1546662191, [ "Go players as idols.", "I made my pilgrimage to the Nihon Kiin, the japanese national go center.", "Taken: Friday January 04, 2019 20:23:11" ] ], [ 1546662638, [ "Stephen King short stories will last a lot longer than Jack Reacher books.", "Taken: Friday January 04, 2019 20:30:38" ] ], [ 1546668023, [ "Taken: Friday January 04, 2019 22:00:23" ] ], [ 1546670696, [ "What property of the organization systems here makes this amount of complexity a common outcome, and is different in the US?", "Custom schedule for all the. Stores of a chain, by day of the new year period.", "Taken: Friday January 04, 2019 22:44:56" ] ], [ 1546678960, [ "I used Google maps a lot this trip, and ran into a few classic bugs and missing features.", "Taken: Saturday January 05, 2019 01:02:40" ] ], [ 1546682504, [ "Narita has elevators which you can push carts up!", "Taken: Saturday January 05, 2019 02:01:44" ] ], [ 1546740160, [] ], [ 1546747352, [ "Final sunset of the trip, Hawaii.", "Taken: Saturday January 05, 2019 20:02:32" ] ], [ 1546803941, [ "Going making it a regular stop whenever returning from Asia seems like a great idea!", "Hawaii reminds me a lot of Costa Rica. Not too hot, great feeling of rain and cool wind. People are pretty relaxed and enjoying their lives.", "Taken: Sunday January 06, 2019 11:45:41" ] ], [ 1546810577, [ "And so the trip ends, with a banana macadamia pancake and a maitai. Developments on many fronts will come out of this.", "Taken: Sunday January 06, 2019 13:36:17" ] ], [ 1546929649, [ "A Jehovah's Witness handwrote a letter to me. As a marketing strategy it's pretty great - it's definitely been on my mind. What was the scene like where they wrote it? Is it a kid being pressured into it? A whole room of them pumping out letters? Or a true believer doing it to save just one more soul?", "Taken: Monday January 07, 2019 22:40:49" ] ], [ 1547007676, [ "We read a Conan the Barbarian story from 1935, which people liked. Pulp, violence, but also some questions about the limits of humanity and the spectrum of organization from animal, barbarian, to civilization.", "Year of the boar, at the coffeehouse where the SF reading group is.", "Taken: Tuesday January 08, 2019 20:21:16" ] ], [ 1547144182, [ "Wonderfully foggy, and a huge rain is coming.", "Taken: Thursday January 10, 2019 10:16:22" ] ], [ 1547160435, [ "Dice to introduce variation into life, by a Roblox developer.", "Taken: Thursday January 10, 2019 14:47:15" ] ], [ 1547244956, [ "Did around 70 miles of walking the last week in Tokyo!", "Taken: Friday January 11, 2019 14:15:56" ] ], [ 1547421327, [ "There's a hidden park a block from downtown San Mateo.", "Taken: Sunday January 13, 2019 15:15:27" ] ], [ 1547422166, [ "I came back and San Mateo is all green! ", "Taken: Sunday January 13, 2019 15:29:26" ] ], [ 1547438497, [ "Someone made awesome anki flash cards with audio + image for Terrace House. They go through every single line in the episode - about 600 cards per 40 minute show. It's great.", "Taken: Sunday January 13, 2019 20:01:37" ] ] ]