• The transportation system is both amazingly efficient and SUPER clean. Like, coming from living in NYC for a couple years, I thought that the transit system there was solid. And it is, but Tokyo's makes it look (and smell) like ancient times.
• Skinny jeans aren't a thing here. At least, not for women. I saw maybe 3 or 4 men with skinny jeans, but besides that, nobody wore them. I saw people wear very light and loose clothes and they very rarely stray from that (with the exception of blazers on professionals).
• All public signage is multi-lingual. It was pretty great navigating everything, because they listed almost everything in Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and English.
• The tech scene is not very community-oriented (yet). At DevRelCon Tokyo (where I was speaking, why I'm here), several professionals explained that tech conferences are almost always on the weekends (and paid, not free) because companies don't really value "extracurricular" events, even if they're work related. They're definitely working on that, though.
• Nobody seems to walk their dogs. At least not publicly. Throughout the entire trip I saw 0 dogs walking outside. There were a couple stray cats, but besides that, I saw no animals in general.

Anyway, Japan was great. I’ll definitely be back, someday!
 

Interview question of the week

Write a function findMedian() that takes in an integer n and a list of length n of sorted integer arrays, and find the median value of them.

Usage:

> findMedian(3, [[1,2,3],[2,6,7],[1,9,11]])
3

Cool things from around the internet

Canal House in Phoenix, Arizona
This well-built, clear Dactyl keyboard
The Science of Stress and How Our Emotions Affect Our Susceptibility to Burnout and Disease
The Psychology Behind Video Game Sounds (1998-2017)​
 

Joke

What is the difference between a teacher and a train?
A teacher says “Spit out the gum!” A train says “Chew! Chew!”
 

I started writing this letter in Japan and finished it in Seattle. I’m pooped. I hope you all have a great week coming up. Be safe, make good choices, and enjoy the sun!

cassidoo