Xander ✺

‘I don’t expect to live a normal life’: how a Leeds teenager woke up with a Chinese bounty on her head After speaking out about the suppression of Hong Kong’s protests, Chloe Cheung was targeted by Beijing, followed on the street and abused online. Yet she remains defiant

‘I don’t expect to live a normal life’: how a Leeds teenager woke up with a Chinese bounty on her head

Regarded by many in Taiwan as a ruthless dictator, Chiang Kai-shek is worshipped at Kaohsiung's 蔣公報恩觀 temple, founded by the local community of residents evacuated to Taiwan by Chiang's troops from Dachen Island. Originally an air-raid shelter, it was used as a mourning hall after CKS's death.

JTWC has considerably downgraded their forecast peak intensity. now only forecasting a peak of 140 km/h (85 mph) at hour 96. The forecast has also shifted further north compared to yesterday. However confidence in both forecasts is low beyond hour 48.
Some context below: (1/x)

A woman eating rice balls with chopsticks. On the back of her head is a huge mouth with tongue out and strands of her hair are feeding it rice balls.

In #JapaneseFolklore futakuchi onna is a #yokai that looks like a normal woman, but who is actually hiding a second mouth under the hair on the back of her head. Endlessly hungry, she uses strands of hair as tentacles to gather food and stuff it into her ravenous extra mouth.
#FolkyFriday
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(c) 國家文化資料庫

(c) 國家文化資料庫

(c) 國家文化資料庫

(c) 國家文化資料庫

Ski grounds with a 400-meter lift once existed on #Hehuanshan, when it enjoyed 2 months of snow. As part of the Nationalists' plan to "retake the mainland," a military camp was established on the 3,416-meter mountain in the 1960s for elite soldiers to learn winter skills for fighting in north China.

Donovan’s Deep Dives: Taiwanese voters losing trust in the DPP - Taipei Times Bringing Taiwan to the World and the World to Taiwan

The last month was a self-inflicted disaster for the DPP, and this column goes into some of the reasons why (there's more, but word count limits). The KMT can't celebrate, though, the recalls were in many ways as bad or worse for them, and that's my next column:

www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/ar...

Planet Labs image, draped onto the Google Earth DEM, showing the site of the 21 July 2025 landslide in Wanrong township, Taiwan. Satellite image copyright Planet Labs, used with permission. Image dated 25 July 2025.

On 21 July 2025, an extremely large rock avalanche occurred in the mountains in Wanrong Township in Hualien County, Taiwan. Initial measurements suggest that this ran out for about 6 kilometres.
Image by @planet.com on the Google Earth DEM.
An initial description is here:- eos.org/thelandslide...

Palmer Luckey: I Saw the Future of War. Now It’s Up to Us to Prepare For It. Technology is now the greatest battlefield advantage, writes Palmer Luckey. It’s time for Taiwan—and a new generation of innovators—to heed the call to build.

(headbashing ensues)

on monday i joined a group of taiwanese uni students in protesting at the national taiwan university for hosting a talk with US defence tech company anduril's founder palmer luckey.

luckey self describes as a "radical zionist" and once said that "israel has my [and our] unqualified support."

Ugh, it's the complete opposite... almost everything LLM generated and borderline insane.

Bluesky's most tiresome tendency these days (apart from the ever-present Amerocentrism) is reflexive anti-AI demagoguery. It is terribly incurious and on some level worrisome how many peoples' views have ossified even as the pace of change continues to accelerate.

Why I'm Betting Against AI Agents in 2025 (Despite Building Them) I've built 12+ AI agent systems across development, DevOps, and data operations. Here's why the current hype around autonomous agents is mathematically impossible and what actually works in production.

On the 20-step problem and the economics of agentic AI.

Wanna see a crazy chart? Of course you do.

Spending on constructing datacenters and manufacturing facilities for computers & electronic products in the US now exceeds the entire retail and wholesale industry and almost as much as the rest of the office and manufacturing sectors combined.

Substack bilge only slightly above screeds penned by someone with "whiskey" in their handle.

Twice in the last month have I heard Sade's "Like A Tattoo" piping over the stereo of a late night Taipei working cafe... how's that for a vibe? The story behind this song is really incredible too...

Videos that are like "Guys China is a UTOPIA!" but it's just westerners leveraging generous currency exchange rates and low local wages and high inequality to indulge in various affordable servants are so bleak.

Tourists release sky lanterns in the former mining community Shifen 十分 in northern Taiwan.

An estimated 30,000 lanterns are released every month as one of Taiwan’s most popular tourist activities.

Some seriously high temperatures in Japan.

Another temperature map from the CWA showing 34.7 degrees in Taipei.

Nearly 35 degrees in Taipei this afternoon... I'm out getting lunch on YouBike and it's a tough slog 🔥🔥🔥

U.S. reiterates position that Lai visit plan not canceled - Focus Taiwan The United States State Department on Tuesday dismissed speculation that a planned trip to South America with stopovers in the U.S. by President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) was canceled, saying there were no p...

Hmm, so what's the story now, it was "fake news"? Or this is just a cover? I guess we'll see... focustaiwan.tw/politics/202...

Simulated propagation of tsunami generated by Kamchatka M8.8 earthquake. Generated by NCDR, Taiwan. 🧪⚒️⚛️

M8.8 earthquake strikes offshore Kamchatka A dangerous subduction megathrust ruptures once again

⚒️ 🧪

A M8.8 earthquake just ruptured the subduction zone offshore Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula. This is one of the world’s truly huge earthquakes, and a triggered tsunami is currently traveling across the Pacific ocean.

This same fault ruptured on July 20th in a M7.4, and last August in a M7.1.

Yeah, me too. I guess they are confident in the forecast and the slope of the beach. If it's Qixingtan it's pretty steep! We'll, you probably know 😏

A screen capture from TVBS News showing the sea and a rocky beach with two rescue workers and a dog in the foreground and around 8 people watching for the tsunami to arrive.

Crossposted from TVBS on Threads: the scene in Hualien, Taiwan, as the tsunami from the M8.8 earthquake in Kamchatka arrives.

Puli! But it's another mountain basin much like Taipei so it'll get steaming hot some of the time.

Magnitude 8.7 #earthquake in Kamchatka, following a M7.4 last week - may be largest earthquake since 2011, 8th largest on record globally, #tsunami warning in place for US west coast and Canada - the historic 1952 M9 closely caused a destructive tsunami across the Pacific

A weather map of temperature in Taiwan. Taipei hit 32 already, Taichung is at 25.1, Kaohsiung at 28.7.

Heading to the office this morning and it feels unusually hot. I'm not hallucinating, it is already 32 degrees in Taipei at 9am! 🔥

Tsunami estimated to arrive at about 12:40 in Hokkaido (Sapporo). 1pm in Niigata. Just before 2pm in Okinawa (Naha I guess).

Taiwan: 1:19pm local time in Hualien, 1:24 in Taitung, 1:52pm in Keelung, 2:06pm in Kaohsiung.

tsunami.gov/events/PHEB/...

🧪⚒️⚛️

"Taiwan needs to stop acting as willing participants in Israel’s policide of Palestine. Silencing Palestinian voices will only hurt its own battle to be heard over Beijing."

Gazans Are Starving to Death. Here’s How to Help. At least 93 people have died of malnutrition since July 20 due to Israel’s monthslong blockade.

It is hard to know how to help. This is a good list. #gaza