Category: ranting

Continuing on my 2024 end-of-year holiday posts (see here for Osaka [confusion.cc]), I want to cover some day-trips we did, before I dive into Kyoto. Over the two plus weeks we spent in Osaka and Kyoto we took three day trips: to Himeji, Nara and Uji. Nara and Uji are so close they almost don’t count as trips. Just a short train ride away, but we had a very relaxed schedule so even when they were close we got a late start and took our time to make a day of it.

I’ve been to all these places before. I first visited Nara was in March 2004, when J███████ S██████ and I went to visit J██ while he was living in Japan. That was my first ever trip to Japan (and my first time using a digital camera, the as the photos clearly show). You can see my blog entry and photos here [confusion.cc].

I visited Nara again, as well as Himeji and Uji for the first time a year and a half later, in December 2005 [confusion.cc]. J███████ invited me, along with Candice, to join him, his wife, K██, and J██, S██████, for a return visit.

So, 20 years from my first trip to Japan, I revisited these places with my daughters. So let’s have a little fun and compare the photos I took 2 decades ago with those from this trip.

Himeji

The first day trip we took, from Osaka, was to Himeji-shi [wikipeida.org] (Himeji city), home to Himeji-jō (Himeji castle). Himeji-jō one of the best preserved Japanese castles, having survived various natural and man-made disasters in it’s 400 plus years. The stark white walls of the main keep, the Tenshu, which sits atop a prominent hill, are visible from most of the city. The striking white color gives the castle its nicknames: Hakuro-jō, “White Egret Castle” or Shirasagi-jō, “White Heron Castle”.

By coincidence the castle was free to enter the day we arrived. Apparently celebrating its UNESCO World Heritage [whc.unesco.org] status. I guess its a thing they do every year? As Himeji-jō was inscribed in 1993 so 2024 would be the 31st anniversary, which doesn’t seem like a particularly important anniversary.

After touring around the castle grounds and making our way through the buildings, up to the top of the main keep and back down its steep stairs. We were rewarded with a rainbow over the castle as we walked back to the train station. Not a very bright one but a nice rainbow nevertheless.

For some comparison, the image on the left below I took in 2005 and the one on the right is from this trip in 2024, 19 years apart. Setting aside better equipment, having a better eye for photography and my greater skill at editing photos. It’s fun to see how little Japan changes.

Nara

Our second day trip, from Osaka was to Nara-shi [wikipeida.org]. Nara-shi was the capital of Japan, where the emperor lived for most of the 700s. As such there is a long and rich history of temples and shrines. Not as deep as Kyoto, given it’s 1100 years as the capital but impressive.

The two key attractions are the tame sika deer that roam around and Tōdai-ji, home of Daibutsu.

The deer are everywhere in Nara Park where most of the temples and shrines that are part of the UNESCO site are located. Tourists, local and foreign alike, buy deer crackers to feed them. Some of the deer will even bow to the people feeding them. But you also see a lot of skittish people being mobbed by several deer at a time, getting overwhelmed, dropping their crackers, sometimes even getting a gentle headbutt from a deer when they fail to hand over a cracker fast enough. All cute and funny but apparently the deer in Nara Park are malnourished and stunted as they eat too many of these deer crackers and not enough wild foliage.

Tōdai-ji [wikipedia.org], “The Great Eastern Temple” is a Buddhist temple that houses Daibutsu or “The Great Buddha”, a massive bronze status of the Buddha Vairocana. The building the Buddha sits in, the Daibutsuden or “Great Buddha Hall” and was the largest wooden building in the world until 1998. The current building dates to 1709 having been rebuild, some 30% smaller than the original, which burned down.

The temple sells roof tiles that you can write on for the ongoing repairs. My friends and I bought one back in 2004, and this time I got one from my daughters to sign and date. So, somewhere on the roof of the Great Buddha Hall there are tiles with my name and my daughter’s names.

Here are two shots of the Daibutsu, fairly close in composition to compare. One from my first trip to Japan in 2004 and one from 2024:

Uji

The last day trip we took was to Uji-shi [wikipedia.org]. Uji is famous for a few things, it’s a major setting in The Tale of Genji [wikipedia.org] a Japanese novel written in the 11th century. Uji is also famous for it’s cultivation of green tea, it’s home to the oldest tea house in Japan (and the 30th oldest company on earth) you wouldn’t know that passing this unassuming building on your way to the other major site: Byōdō-in [wikipedia.org].

Other than to drink green tea, Byōdō-in is why we went to Uji. It’s a Buddhist temple. According to Wikipedia the building was built in 998 as a villa and converted to a temple in 1052. The main building was completed in 1053 and is commonly called the Hōō-dō or Phoenix Hall, though officially it is Amida-dō. This is the building that has been on the back of the 10 Yen coin since 1951. The building and grounds are beautiful, and you have to go just so you can say you’ve been there every time you show someone a 10 Yen coin.

Anyway, wondering around the temple grounds and shopping for green tea were the only things we really did in Uji. It was a relaxing day and not too crowded. And once again, the late autumn was in our favor as there was a lot of colorful foliage around the temple.

For comparison, below is a shot from 2005 of the Phoenix Hall, and one from 2024 taken from almost the same position. You can see how much renovation work has been done to the Phoenix Hall in the past two decades.

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You can see the full photos set from Himeji [flickr.com], Nara [flickr.com] and Uji [flickr.com] on Flickr, or browse the galleries below.

Saw this guy along the canal the other day.

I usually use Adobe’s Lightroom Mobile to take photos, but it has some issues. This photo was taken in the native iPhone camera app. The biggest issue with Lightroom is Adobe does not seem to be able to keep up with the iPhone hardware. I have a iPhone 16 Pro Max and it has 4 zoom setting, one for each of the three lenses it has plus an extra 5x zoom.

While Lightroom has, for a long time now, had three options: ultra wide corresponding to .5, Telephoto for 2 and Wide for 1. But, it’s been months now and no update to add the 5x option.

Adobe has been slacking for a while now. It took almost a year to release the iPad upgrade for Express, which broke my workflow. And now they are slacking on basic hardware features in Lightroom Mobile. What are they doing? They seem some obsessed with AI these days that they can’t push out basic app updates. Get your shit together Adobe, its a fucking subscription service, there should be updates every month or quarter at least.

The Trump administration is apparently looking to introduce a “baby bonus” —a cash payment to people who have babies— in an attempt to reverse the decline in the US fertility rate. The total fertility rate in the US is very low, 1.62 children per woman in 2023. And it’s been falling most of this century:

Higher than a lot of developed countries but well below the replacement rate for about 2.1 children per woman. I always thought the religious people in the US were breeding enough to make up for the others? Harvey Danger lied to me [youtube.com].

This sort of paying for babies has been tried a few times. Wikipedia has a page on baby bonuses that lists, some 11 counties. Most are piddling amounts but let’s look at two places where a similar sort of bonus as the US is discussion were introduced: Australia and Singapore.

Australia

Introduced a baby bonus in early 2000’s. $3,000 in 2004, raising to as much as $5437 in 2012. Slashed to around $2,000 in 2014. Did it affect the fertility rate?

Maybe? The fertility rate rose, a bit, from 1.76 in 2002 to 2.02 in 2008. But then it fell steadily from 2008 and was sitting at 1.64 in 2023. 

Singapore

Singapore has a more complex system including cash gift, matching savings, tax credits and so on. The initial scheme was introduced in 2001, I don’t know the amounts at introduction but it has risen. In 2008 and 2012, when my kids were born, it was around a $6,000 cash gift, for first and second child (it goes up after that). Today the cash gift is $11,000 for first and second child. Has there been any change in fertility rate?

Hahaha! Singapore’s fertility rate in 2000 was 1.34. Today it’s .94. In a few generations there will be no Singaporeans.

China

As a bonus let’s look at China, because this week the Economist has an article on China’s attempts to pay for babies. Some local in China has offered up to $38,000 all-in (including things other than cash, like paid leave.) But, it’s unclear if it is helping any. One province saw a 17% increase in births in 2024 but a lot of that can be attributed to 2024 coinciding with the Chinese Zodiac’s year of the dragon, traditionally the most auspicious year to have a kid. 

The best quote in the article is this one talking about our a particular local, Hothot’s, offering:

Wang Feng of the University of California, Irvine, thinks Hohhot’s policy will not “make a dent” in the city’s population decline. “Babies cannot be bought,” he says. “The cost is lifelong and it’s not just monetary.”

The Economist, China’s $38,000 baby formula [economist.com]

China, Singapore and Japan are bad, but Korea is leading the race to the bottom:

This is from GapMinder, you can play with it here [gapminder.org].

So, yea. This is a problem for a lot of counties. But how fucked is everyone? Seriously fucked. In fact, South Korea is so bad, it’s doomed, past the point of now return. At least according to this Kurzgesagt video:

So, this is an existential crisis, if you want your culture and/or country to live on, you need to find ways of encouraging people to have more babies. A lot more. Quickly. But really, most of the “first world” is doomed at this point.

One last thing, a lot of discussion around this the Trump Administration’s discussion of a Baby Bonus includes an unhealthy dose of modern dysfunctional politics. It’s sad that we have to talk about racism and the return of Nazi ideology, but here we are. The nasty, racist, christo-fascist streak in MAGA must be worried sick about the end of (white) America because empowered, woke, women aren’t having enough babies! Er mah gawd.

The Hill quotes Art Caplan, a professor of medical ethics at the New York University School of Medicine:

“If you’re really interested in babies, there are plenty of immigrants here whose kids are being deported,” Caplan said. “If you’re interested in babies, there are plenty of people who would come here and become citizens and bring their babies.”

Caplan argued that what the Trump administration wants is the “right kind of babies.” He called the notion “morally offensive.”

Jeff Arnold, Would $5K ‘baby bonus’ be enough to boost US birth rate? [thehill.com] published by The Hill

At least bribing people to have babies is better than the Handmaiden-esque alternative.

For years people have warned that mobile phones are marking every teenager depressed… but new research suggests older people who use smartphones experience less cognitive decline [theguardian.com].

Well, at least future old people will all be aware of how depressed they are and remember why they are so angry…

Late last year as I was rushing to get my 2023 Italy photos posted, I ran unto a problem. I was looking include a link to something I wrote a few months before, but for the life I me I could not find it using the editors built in search. The editor’s insert link tool allows you to enter a link or to search for links, usually used to find existing posts or pages on your site. But when I entered the actual name of the post it did not show up. I tried several different combinations, checked spelling, and finally gave up and opened the site in a browser to grab the link.

But the post was not there.

After much scratching of the head and reloading the list of posts that are published, in draft, and even trying the recently deleted I could not find the post and another one too.

I know I posted them as I linked to them via social media posts. But those links now 404.

I think I know what happened. The editor app —Jetpack— has an annoying habit of showing posts having “local changes” when I draft posts and edit them at some point in both the Jetpack app and in the WordPress admin interface. The thing is the app is convenient but not full featured. There are things I cannot do in the app that I do in posts. So I often start the post in the app and finish it in via the webpage. I also move between devices a lot. And the post showing up in the drafts section with “local changes” in the Jetpack app is annoying. So I deleted them. I’ve done it before but —as far as I know— I’ve never lost a post, but this time I lost two.

I have automated backups of the DB but they are 10 day rolling and this appears to have happened longer ago than 10 days. I don’t remember when I did it, other than it was a while ago…

I checked the Wayback Machine, but it did not seem to have the posts either. It has several site craws between when I published when the missing posts were uploaded and when I searched but the ones that load didn’t show the posts and several didn’t load. The Internet Archive was a bit rocky at the time due to the hack they suffered. So after a few days I checked again and the missing posts were there. So, after a temporary bout of amnesia, once again, the internet never forgot. [confusion.cc]… Though there is so much uncrawlable material on “social media” that I really should revisit that statement… the open internet never forgets, capitalism does strange things to that memory.

In any case, the missing posts were restored from the Wayback Machine’s crawl. And I doubt anyone noticed they were ever gone, such is my readership ;-).

This seems like a good time to remind everyone that the mission of the Internet Archive is valuable. Not so I can restore a few missing posts, but for long term historical preservation and promoting open access to information. So much of what is hosted on Archive.org would otherwise be lost or hidden just because it was hard to find.