Greg de St. Maurice

Xenophobic Rhetoric in the 2025 House of Councillors Campaigns In the lead-up to the July 2025 House of Councillors election, nearly all parties—especially right-leaning ones—devoted significant attention to proposals on foreign residents (Asahi Shimbun 2025a).

It's really saddening the extent to which xenophobic anti-foreigner-blaming rhetoric has completely taken over the Japanese election, in many ways distracting from much more significant issues affecting Japanese society.

japanesemodernity.substack.com/p/xenophobic...

Exactly. Politicians should have to actually address economic / cost of living issues.

Trump cuts 69 global programs tackling child labor and human trafficking More than $500m in grants axed as US risks decades of progress in protecting vulnerable workers worldwide

Unconscionable. I hope this gets remedied soon. Thankfully, there are NGOs doing admirable work to prevent human trafficking, rescue victims, and bring perpetrators to justice.

Photo of a Nanboku Line 乗り換え 出口案内 (transfer and exit guide) on a station platform.

The other day, I was telling friends and family how a housewife originated these Tokyo Metro transfer and exit guides, and they thought I was kidding. It used to be a well-known story. If you don't know it, here's a quick summary.

Are You Experiencing Posting Ennui? Sharing casual moments from our lives on social media doesn’t seem to make sense the way it used to.

“We might also be heading toward something like Posting Zero, a point at which normal people—the unprofessionalized, uncommodified, unrefined masses—stop sharing things on social media as they tire of the noise, the friction, and the exposure.”

Social media minus the social?

NYC art schools see record-high application numbers as Gen Zers clamber to enroll Yes, even in this economy.

“A lot of my peers understand that nothing is guaranteed really, no matter what you study, so you should just study the thing that matters the most to you,” Balh said. “AI doesn't feel like a reason to stop making art. If anything, it’s a reason to keep making and insist on making art.”

The study guide cover — white background, photo of a garage packed with tools, and the title

The Maintainers have released their “Maintainers Study Guide: A Guide to Ground Your Practice in Principles of Maintenance, Repair + Care” — a resource that “reflects nearly a decade of work” across The Maintainers’ conferences, fellowships, research networks, etc

themaintainers.org/study-guide/

Cloudflare Is Blocking AI Crawlers by Default The age of the AI scraping free-for-all may be coming to an end. At least if Cloudflare gets its way.

The age of the AI scraping free-for-all may be coming to an end—at least if Cloudflare gets its way. The IT infrastructure firm has switched to blocking AI crawlers by default for its customers and is moving forward with a Pay Per Crawl program.

My statement on Donald Trump's threat to deport me and his praise for Eric Adams, who the President "helped out" of legal accountability.

That is on the agenda. My Japanese family has also expressed interest so it could even happen as early as next year!

Yeow. I didn’t know that! And Kochi is on the list of places I really want to check out.

That last part is disappointing! I wonder what it’s like now. When I make it to Shikoku…

What’s in Nakamura?

In 1987, on the eve of the release of Studio Ghibli's Grave of the Fireflies, director Takahata Isao sat down for an interview with Nosaka Akiyuki, the author who penned the semi-autobiographical novel on which the film is based.

A few highlights from their totally fascinating discussion:

"The Mamdani campaign’s identity is the work of a tiny design co-op called Forge, and specifically its designer Aneesh Bhoopathy, formerly of Queens and now living in Philadelphia" — a little bit Bollywood, a little bit bodega :)

【限界の自販機】｢コカ･コーラ｣200円時代突入へ､今秋値上げで赤字自販機は2～3割に激増も。サントリーやダイドーも苦戦で、連携の動きは加速か 6月中旬、都内の気温が30度を超えた真夏日。汗だくになりながら道端を歩いていると、コカ・コーラの自動販売機が目にとまった。飲み物を買おうと近づくと、ミネラルウォーター「いろはす」（540ミリリットル）が14…

The number of drinks vending machines in Japan fell from 2.47 mln in 2014 to 2.04mln in 2024, and 10% are still unprofitable. When a 500ml bottle of Coke goes to 200 yen, some 20-30% may become unprofitable. toyokeizai.net/articles/-/8...

Agricultural tariff schedule. There’s so much here. And yet, I’m left with so many questions.

I saw this woman feeding stray dogs in Patan, Nepal. They knew who she was and all but one went over to her immediately. Seeing so many strays was sad, but they clearly weren’t afraid of people. I saw some in stores, hanging out. At night, some of them were sleeping in the middle of the street.

GenAI is Our Polyester The best way to understand generative AI art and aesthetics is to consider how previous "synthetics" lost value in the long-run For the first half of the 20th century, white-collar workers wore busin...

W. David Marx compares AI generated art to polyester. From an aesthetic perspective, it’s already losing value just like the artificial fabric did. culture.ghost.io/genai-is-our...

They use a starter, yes. Not sure exactly what but I actually came across some starters they sold for fermenting rice beverages.

Absolutely! They also have a fermented millet beverage that is low in alcohol content (and is delicious).

Nepal has been one discovery after another. This one is chhang: a fermented rice beverage low in alcohol. The taste varies from family to family. This one has a lactic acid flavor with vegetal and herbal notes.

You are. That’s impressive!

9 out of 10. Wasn’t confident about a few of them, though.

Me: Carpets are dust and stain magnets and unhygienic. Dislike!

Also me: There’s such a thing as a Yeti rocking chair?!? Want!

Absurdly proud of the first garlic bulb I’ve grown. It’s so small because I had to harvest it early after spotting the allium leaf miner infestation on my balcony.