Squeezing onto the crowded train. Hair coiffed. Long dark slacks. Shirt tucked in. Hip hop in the earbuds. Monday morning rush hour. Been a long time for this remote worker!

(It’s just for a meeting at the kids’ school. I am just having fun salaryman cosplaying 😇)

🤔 Thought provoking: 🖌️ Creative > Productive ⚙️

From a Sari Azout presentation about how she uses Sublime.app

sublime.app/card/copy…

A table contrasts "Creativity" and "Productivity" across various dimensions. Under "Creativity," it lists qualities like quality over quantity, freely connecting ideas, care for aesthetics, sensemaking, being like a human, and "scenius" (collective genius). Under "Productivity," it emphasizes quantity, rigid organization, care for elaborate knowledge graphs, fear tagging, being like a machine, and individual "genius." The table suggests that creativity values flexible, aesthetic, and human-like approaches, while productivity focuses on structured, efficient, and machine-like methods.

Started the audiobook of The Lathe Of Heaven by Ursula K Le Guin 📚

Cover of the audiobook of Lathe of Heaven

Started listening to: The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz 📚

(Abandoned at 25%. Just not enjoying it enough to continue… so many other books out there that need reading!)

Very interesting map. Iraq and Syria have started shutting down again during May, and apparently have been doing so to prevent cheating on exams for the last several years 🤨

pulse.internetsociety.org/shutdowns

<img src=“https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/107532/2024/global-internet-shutdowns-map.png" width=“600” height=“334” alt=“Map titled “Global Internet Shutdowns” highlighting regions where internet disruptions have occurred. “>

Current Status: Night run 🏃

The middle of a pedestrian bridge at night, with symmetrical arches to left and right. An airplane passes high overhead

Watched The Beautiful Game which wasn’t the greatest movie but I had to because 1) it was football, and 2) I love seeing things like the Homeless World Cup and CONIFA World Cup in popular media (look ‘em up!) ⚽️ #football #footie

boxd.it/wotY

Gorgeous day. Went with my wife up to Minoh Falls. Took photos of falls, the river, leaves, the city view, and all the insect illustrations on the public toilets 🐝🪲🚽🤔

Minoh Falls

(Click to see full album on Flickr)

Current status: Minooo Falls

#Osaka #Japan

Chad poses in front of a waterfall

Read in 2024: Prophet Song by Paul Lynch 📚

… this wore me out. Emotionally… wrung out. Each chapter he just squeezes, squeezes, squeezes. The characters are so real. Lynch’s writing is very poetic. He uses denominalization heavily. The writing makes everything feel alive, even the dead.

cover for the audiobook of PROPHET SONG by Paul Lynch

Jiufen

This post is part of a series. See the introduction here → (see the whole album in full screen on Flickr here) The gold rush at the turn of the 1900s caused a boom in the small mountain town of Jiufen, with its sweeping views of the sea towards both the northwest and northeast. The narrow road switches back upon itself numerous times as you climb up the rugged mountainside.

Continue reading →

A bottle full of brown liquid with beans floating in it with a homemade label “Coffee Shochu”

Popped down to Kobe Chinatown for some snacks 🥮🥟 before heading over to Merikan Park to see the Port Tower 🗼 and discovered an Aloha dance festival! And me in my Hawaiian shirt! 🌺👕 #otp 💅🫰

flic.kr/s/aHBqjBt…

Visited ⛰️ Mount Maya today 🚠 and took a few photos: cable car timelapses, cityscapes, mountain-top temples, and snakes 🐍

flic.kr/s/aHBqjBt…

Started Justice by Means of Democracy by Danielle Allen 📚

Cover of Justice by Means of Democracy

AMAZE 😍💅🧝‍♀️🧝‍♂️👑💍 #lotr

www.youtube.com/shorts/D1…

Since I was travelling last time, this edition of my personal newsletter is a little full. Covers all the hits from the last two months: chopping up tuna in a back alley, baby sushi, and existential ennui. 🍷

buttondown.email/chadkoh/a…

Kaohsiung and Tainan, featuring Fo Guang Shan

This post is part of a series. See the introduction here → (see the whole album in full screen on Flickr here) Kaohsiung is a port city in southern Taiwan, developed by the Japanese as an important industrial hub. We hired a tour guide who carted us around to different locations including the port area, the old British consulate, the art walk, and to one of the most intensely nerdy coffee shops I have ever seen (run by what I am pretty sure are devotees of the Falun Gong new religious movement , check out the art to see what I mean).

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Taiwan trip report - Introduction

Taiwan has been on the bucketlist for a while. In the year 2000 I was an exchange student in Kyoto learning Taiwanese from a fellow exchange student who was so excited for elections that he flew back to Taiwan to vote. That was only the second presidential election since the military dictatorship (which ruled from 1949) had transitioned to democratic elections in the nineties. In 2000 things were very exciting since it was the first time an opposition party won the presidency.

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🐦‍⬛♬ Mirlo is a collectively owned music service experimenting with novel governance concepts like “exit to community” to make sure power resides with the musicians and listeners. Only a couple days left and they are SO CLOSE to their goal! SUPPORT!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/…