Christian Horn @globalc@chaos.social

In the last weeks I was playing with animations on an mp3 player running #rockbox . Now, #badapple runs. Not perfectly synced, but reasonably well.
So much fun to code on devices with limited specs :)
Blog article with details: https://blog.fluxcoil.net/posts/2021/08/rockbox-badapple-m3k/

3-color e-paper looks quite impressive! Wish I had a temperature sensor for the raspi around..

#lifeinjapan #下北沢
March 2019: The train station near my house gets a robot with AI setup.
Sept. 2019: Instead of the robot, a sign appears: "I am on a business trip to Shinjuku".
On the internet, also a proper press release appeared :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr0LJeeptrE https://www.keio.co.jp/news/update/news_release/news_release2019/nr190905_airobo.pdf

I moved to #japan , and some things are strangely 'just right'. Mount Fuji has just the right height so someone like me can climb it.
An other thing: my typographic senses are satisfied as my surname has 4 letters, which expressed in half-width letters are just perfectly lining up with Japanese names, which typically have 2 full width Kanji.
Example meeting attendees list:

For lunch, I was today going all in and tried chocolate ramen. Very nice that this kind of noodle soup is not just "set in stone", but also experiments like this are done. Worth to be tried out!

We get a 'recharge day' all 3 month, mine was today. Cycled to the KDDI museum, they are one of the huge communication providers here in Japan.
They are closed on weekends, so today was just right. Very much recommended!
More details: https://fluxcoil.net/2022kddi

Japan is discussing changes on how family registers accept names.
One of the proposals could for example allow 光宙 as name, with reading "pikachū", the pokomon name. Assigning 'random' names to Kanji is something seen in China, but I was not aware of it in Japan. Also, that could allow 大空 (oozora, 'big sky') to be spelled 'sukai', so basically English 'sky' spelled in a Japanized way. Mind blown.. adding English translation as reading to Kanji..
https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=54726

Japan has shrines in the middle of streets: https://www.spoon-tamago.com/2022/05/20/japan-jijinto-shrines/

I like exploring new super markets, a friend took me today to the Costco wholesaler: one needs to be member there, or existing members bring in a visitor.
A bit like metro in Germany: big packages in general, brands otherwise not seen in Japan, and everything available from food over electronics and clothes.
I got brownies, marshmallows, Nori (dried seaweed), and Hawaii style sweets.

Nice hack: using an optical mouse as scanner
https://qcentlabs.com/posts/g402_hack/

Sometimes, rules in #japan be like:
me: So, these teabags, every person can just get 2, right?
clerk: Yes.
me: So, if I come again tomorrow I can get another 2?
clerk: Yes.
clerk: Well, actually, now just after getting the first 2 you can fetch 2 more and come again to the counter. You just are not allowed to get 4 at once.
me: *smiles_and_gets_the_2+2_bags*

I got a Macbook Air and played around, looking at the current state of MacOS X and Linux@Apple Silicon.
My impressions are captured here: https://blog.fluxcoil.net/posts/2022/05/apple-silicon/

Fascinating. While google was in the past training it's translation algorithms with texts which existed in multiple languages, now texts simply in a single language are enough. That's quite a stunt.. learning basically from nothing.
https://ai.googleblog.com/2022/05/24-new-languages-google-translate.html

Why have USB-C hubs still usb2-ports?
Because they use internal usb3 for example for ethernet, and can strip off the unneeded usb2 contacts from that port, and expose extra usb2 port for free!
https://dancharblog.wordpress.com/2021/08/19/why-do-usb-c-hubs-still-have-usb-2-0-ports/

Nice idea: sticking neon lights to books to give the impression of an illuminated city:
https://www.spoon-tamago.com/2022/05/10/tsundoku-neon-sign-gacha/

Wow. Someone considers https://sputniknews.com so evil that blocking DNS is not enough, but null routing is required.. Works from Japan though.
https://twitter.com/Benjojo12/status/1522578715888304130

http://agora.ex.nii.ac.jp/earthquake/201103-eastjapan/energy/electrical-japan/
has a great overview of Japans power plants.
Click with left onto the characters saying ここをクリックするとマップを表示します to see the map.

火力 means that coal/gas are burned, Tokyo is surrounded by ~20 of these power plants..

New cat ad in Shinjuku
https://twitter.com/DanielAWarriner/status/1522131431392411648

Also this season I was able to join a friend for rice planting. Can only imagine how hard this was before the invention of the rice planter machine..
More pictures from last season: https://fluxcoil.net/files/2016_japan_move/out/307_utsunomiya_taoue/