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Best of 2025
Notable reads, watches, and questions for the year
新年おめでとうございます🎊㊗️
今年もよろしくお願いします🎍
from the west coast in Canada 🇨🇦
New Years Noodle Time 🎊🍜
#年越しそば
The last post of the year is up, so here is the last Newsletter of the year.
Now back to end of year cleaning 🧹🧽
Scrolling through all the #Kohaku commentary from last night. I miss the live back chatter on New Year’s Eve in Japan. All this is out of context.
Could probably make an app that displays posts in sync with the show based on time stamps. But then I wouldn’t get to participate in the snark! 😔
After a flood we plant trees so their root systems join to protect the vulnerable area. The key to resilience is local relationships. Come to our meetup for meetup organizers and let’s build a resilient community together. 🌲🤝🌳
#vancouver #events #communitybuilding
Surburban Development Cycle — a case from Japan
For a couple of years we kept a very small apartment in Kyoto for monthly visits while we were taking care of my parents-in-law. The rent was cheaper than getting a hotel each time, and my parents stored stuff there which justified the expense. The apartment was on the very edge of southwest Kyoto in a neighbourhood called Rakusai Newtown, a housing project started in the 1970s for the families of men working in the factories of West Kyoto.
10 years ago today I swore off meat. I adopted a plant-based diet because according to Drawdown it is one of the most impactful things an individual can do to fight climate change, especially in Canada which is a large country with a concentrated beef sector, contributing to a lot of GHGs. 🥗
Judging AI on its ability to expand capacity
From Evgeny Morozov’s essay Socialism After AI: The driving imperative would not be “growth” measured as ever more commodities, but the enlargement of what people are actually able to do and be, individually and collectively. On that view, AI would be judged by whether it opens new spaces of competence, understanding, and cooperation, and for whom. A tool that lets teachers and students work in their own dialects, interrogate history from their vantage points, and share and refine local knowledge would score highly.
Daughter and her friends just showed up at our front door singing Xmas carols. They have been going around the neighbourhood. Apparently it is an annual tradition for the Drama kids here. 😄
Just finished The Wisdom of Crowds by Joe Abercrombie 📚
This is the 10th book in The First Law world, and the finale of The Age of Madness. (Also the 6th book of Joe’s I read this year!)
Phew! Epic! Done! So good!
A few more shots from our pre-Xmas celebrations in Vancouver on a pretty nice day! (which means overcast but no rain)
At the Hyatt was the annual Gingerbread House display, with a couple dozen gingerbread houses in all sorts of designs. Here are some wild examples:
Cool live jazz at the skating rink in Robson Square ❄️⛸️🎺🥁
Midnight Xmas tree 🎄 at the library
Haha the chaotic energy in this! 😂 But @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social surfed on it 🏄 Hilarious and insightful.
The Japanese Canadian Legacies Society launched a new website with educational resources for K-12 teachers. It has lesson plans, exercises, and tons of images to help students learn about the internment of 22,000 Japanese-Canadians from 1942 to 1947.
Happy to be alive … and to know all of you wonderful, inspiring people!
(Also, I’m pretty sure all the sedatives from yesterday have worn off 😊)
Today been a busy. Launched Protocols for Publishers ✨ London early in the morning, then took a taxi to get surgery. Now just woke up. Feeling groggy with a pool of blood on my pillow. Answered a few messages, mostly inbox is full of reservation notifications for the event. Lovely! Back to sleep 😴
Just finished The Trouble With Peace and couldn’t help myself and immediately picked up The Wisdom of Crowds by Joe Abercrombie 📚
Of the Top 20 Apps of 2025 on the Canadian iOS App Store there are only 4 I use, and all of them begrudgingly. I am like the Scrooge of popular technology, aren’t I? (Considering I still use an iPhone, I suppose not.)