Hello there! 👋
The month of 🌸 cherry blossoms underlined a new season for us here in Kyoto as we closed the books on a significant number of chores. It has been a year since we came to Kyoto! And finally finally we are starting to settle into our life here. So much so that I was able to actually start meeting people. I spent a weekend playing games at a friend’s BBQ restaurant, took a photowalk with someone in Arashiyama (photos linked below), and had a mini meetup at the Kyoto Maker Faire — all with people I had never met IRL before.
Social interaction was the theme of the month.
I popped up to Tokyo and met with the nascent Japanese Bluesky dev community! You might have heard of the new Bluesky social app. The Bluesky crew are friends of Fission so I attended their very first meetup ever (and ended up getting roped into translating! 😅 Check out this article Japanese tech media article to see yours truly photographed awkwardly holding a mic). Since then I have spent wayyy too much time on social media going back and forth between Bsky and Mastodon posting my photos and following the “uncivil war” happening in decentralized social networking land this past couple of weeks. I have largely stayed out of the fight since I can see the perspectives of both sides. Can’t we all just get along and admire my cute new avatar? It was made by an illustrator who came to the Bluesky meetup. Although I am a bit social’d out, one thing all this online networking gained me this month is lots of good links for sharing below. 💎💎💎
Anyways, there is a lot of exciting stuff happening in decentralized internet protocol world. For the past week I have been catching up on two different conferences: IPFS þing conference and Causal Islands. The latter was put on by my company and explores the future of computing. We have worked hard to put it on and it already is garnering rave reviews. I have seen most of the talks and there is some really thoughtful stuff in there (edited vids will be released to the public in a couple weeks). We live in exciting times.
Take care, and stay inspired. ✨
/ck
🖋 From the Blog
Tanegashima Island: A strategic casualty
Someone said “you sure like going to those remote islands!” so I gave a bit of an explanation why. I still owe everyone a trip report to the Space Center (and the rest of the places I visited in Kyushu).
Maker Faire Kyoto 2023
A celebration of technology creativity… and weirdness.
🧭 Elsewhere
I uploaded a lot of photos in April:
- 📸 Kirishima Onsen Link →
- 🌋 Volcano photos from in Kagoshima Link →
- 📸 Pics during solo trip to Fukuoka Link →
- 🚗 Driving around Itoshima Link →
- 🌸 Cherry blossom overload at Haradani Link →
- ⛩️🐰 The Bunny shrine in Uji Link →
- ☸️ Wisteria at Byodo-in Link →
- 🌱 Young leaves at Arashiyama Link →
- 🎢 An afternoon at Universal Studios Japan Link →
Very fun space elevator site for kids Link →
Infographic for "What Makes People Act on Climate Change, according to Behavioral Science" Link →
"The end of the American internet: India and China are now almost half of global mobile traffic" Link →
The “Accidentally Wes Anderson” photo exhibit in Tokyo Link →
I decorated some rocks. Link →
I think everyone needs a little Mozart 😜 Video →
📖 What I’m Reading
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
(100% Complete)
Okay, this is more of a “What I’ve Read” but I just inhaled this book and immediately got the sequel so I had to talk about it here. Proper scifi here that reminds me a bit of Vernor Vinge. Very fast-paced. Tchaikovsky sure knows how to keep ratcheting up the tension!