My transformative first trip to Japan

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This used to be our playground
There was a time when owning digital space seemed thrilling, and our personal sites motivated us to express ourselves. There are signs of a resurgence, but too few wish to make their digital house a home.
Carole King, and discovering the magic of sound
As noted a while ago I went into a deep rabbit hole after wondering if the Apple lightning to 3.5mm dongle affects audio quality. So there is a chip inside the small dongle that converts the digital audio signal to analog. In case you're wondering, apparently the $15 (SGD) dongle is pretty good...
Going East in 1998
While waiting for my new book to arrive from the printer I’ve been going through some pieces I wrote years ago, and thought I’d keep you entertained in the meanwhile. This one appeared in Motorcycle Sport & Leisure twenty-three years ago. I’d been thinking of doing another long journey after living in the USA for twenty years, and it was time to see how it […]
Needed: Deep State Traffic Cops
The American national security complex has a long list of 21st century defeats to its name. I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few months trying to understand some of these failures. But …
NFTs – Landscape Photographers: Can we cut the bullsh!t, please?
As a profession, we seem to have cast our climate concerns aside, the second it became possible to earn a quick buck peddling coal-powered NFT pixels online...
Ch-Ch-Changes
I think it can be universally agreed that the last couple of years have been a bit, well, testing. There has been much recording of the tragedies of our fellow occupants of Earth, on which I am who…
Alien Antics in America
5 weeks and 4000 miles through Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and California – Part I 2016 has been a rather weird and hectic whirlwind of jobs, travels, joggling visa days and running from the…
99 Additional Bits of Unsolicited Advice
I have another birthday, and another bunch of unsolicited advice. • That thing that made you weird as a kid could make you great as an adult — if you don’t lose it. • If you have any doubt at all
Both a part and apart
Jewish skullcaps Male Orthodox Jews usually wear skullcaps called kippot (singular: kippah) while they are awake, both outdoors and indoors. I’ve even met some who wear head coverings while t…
Poetics and technology – Via Negativa
Exploring how different technologies can influence writers and writing. (Guest writers welcome — contact me if you'd like to contribute a piece.)
Payments in Japan
The payments industry in Japan is evolving rapidly. Some trends are globally relevant.
Artists You Need To Charge More: Income Inflation
When I attended California College of the Arts there was an illustration professor who would often tell students that illustration wages hadn’t adjusted for inflation since the 1980s. He had …
Blog Series: Countering misconceptions in space journalism
As a lover of all things space I enjoy reading a wide variety of perspectives. The more different the origin, the more likely I am to learn something new! Even in articles which contain errors or e…
Last minute trip to the Sierras
It was with dawning dread I realized I hadn’t camped overnight in the high Sierras since late 2015. I did attempt a family trip as recently as 2019 but we realized just before sleep time that…
SheIn: A Story of Online Segregation and Data as Business Intuition
SheIn, an e-commerce company founded in China but sells exclusively to overseas markets, is likely to eclipse Zara (Inditex), H&M Group, and Gap Inc. as the world’s largest clothing retailer as early as the second half of this year. It reportedly sold $10b worth of clothing in 2020 and $3.6b in the first quarter of this year, reaching a valuation of $46 billion. On the U.S. iOS and Android app stores, it overtook Amazon in May as the most downloaded shopping app.
Seven Miles of Steel Thistles: Old Women (and some old men) in Fairy Tales
Probably every parent in a fairy tale should be considered old. They are the previous generation. We may hear something of their lives...
Il Casaro di Kings County: Handcrafting traditional Italian cheeses in Nova Scotia
The BESIDERS | Portrait of Ciro Comencini
An Initial Exploration and Review of Secure Scuttlebutt
Secure Scuttlebutt is easy to use, has nice offline features, and contains polite, interesting content.
Motherhood Around the World Archives | Cup of Jo
What We Know About Freezing Coffee Beans
MCA presents a summary of the benefits of freezing coffee, workflow examples and other useful information.
Saving Old Wooden Churches At the Shore of the White Sea - English Russia
Secrets and Whispers
By Mohini Takhar Since I was five years old, I’ve known him, and we started dating when we were seventeen. In the tenth grade, I had the biggest crush on James Gabe. I tried to hide it, but t…
The Truth in Ordinary Things
In his Nobel address, Seamus Heaney spoke about the issue that's been obsessing me lately: how, as artists, do we continue to do our work when the world seems to be so filled with sorrow, violence, and despair? What is...
Your Right to Express Yourself Versus My Right to Feel Safe
Photo by Kat Jayne on Pexels.com Firstly, a trigger warning: the content of this blog post includes quotes from something that I received in the inbox of the magazine that I edit, and whilst I have…
About a Marriage, from A to Zed – Persimmon Tree
Ghost train
I didn’t realize I had been inactive for almost a month! Life gets busy sometimes, so I suppose it’s unavoidable. My kids and I just returned from a trip to San Diego to visit some frie…
Make Me a Child Again, Just For Tonight
iPhone 13 Pro + Amsterdam
What's the result when an über tourist, armed with an iPhone 13 Pro, visits the picturesque city of Amsterdam?