Notices by Minoru Saba (minorusaba@toad.social), page 10

"...the satellite will complete Japan's seven-orbiter geolocation system, called the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System [which] is key to providing uninterrupted services without relying on satellites from other countries"
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20251202/p2g/00m/0sc/006000c

🔸Orbits of QZSS satellites result in "ground traces [that] are asymmetrical figure-8 patterns"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi-Zenith_Satellite_System
#Japan #QZSS #satellite

It's Thursday (木曜日: mokuyōbi) here in Japan and since 木星 is Jupiter, the Japanese "Thursday" seemed to align more with the French "jeudi", but remembering Jupiter was partial to thunderbolts and thus equating to Thor solved the puzzle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thursday

What was harder to resolve is "Wednesday", but apparently OED suggested both Odin and Mercury were "gods of eloquence" (and 水星 is the planet Mercury, hence 水曜日). Interestingly "mittwoch" sidestepped all this.🙂
https://www.etymonline.com/word/Wednesday

"Japan launches its version of DOGE to cut wasteful spending"
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20251125_B4/
🔸An example of Japan's govt currying favour with US admin with a publicity stunt or a gross lack of self awareness😓

"Flood death toll rises rapidly across south-east Asia to more than 900"
"Large parts of Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Sri Lanka reeling after rare cluster of storms"
https://www.ft.com/content/61371c71-6518-4bd2-a702-7e74ba29e9c6
🔸"Rare" events increasingly becoming the norm.
#ClimateChange

"China is bearing down on Taiwan – enabled by Trump’s weakness and vacillation" (Simon Tisdall, The Guardian)
"The US hasn’t just left Ukraine vulnerable; it is also provoking Xi’s intensifying attitude towards what he considers a renegade province"
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/30/china-donald-trump-xi-jinping-taiwan-trade
🔸Which probably explains Japanese media finally (albeit timidly) daring to point out US admin's for-profit attempt to throw Ukraine to the Russian bear. (As if we haven't had a surfeit of bears to worry about)

"The fix mainly involves reverting to earlier software"
"Airbus said a recent incident had revealed that solar flares may corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls"
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/airbus-issues-major-a320-recall-after-flight-control-incident-2025-11-28/
🔸"may" seems to be the operative word in Airbus' statement.
Regardless, reverting to earlier version suggests problems with updated software.
Perhaps unrelated, but was reminded about the A300 crash at Nagoya Airport in 1994.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Airlines_Flight_140

I walk to work through a park which traces the course of a narrow, shallow river. Park staff keep the river banks mown, reinforce stretches carried away by storm water, thin out bamboo groves and prune its many varied trees.

This was one of my favourites. It stood alone in a flat grassy area with a backdrop of bamboo which rendered the tree a sort solo performer on a stage. I’ve admired and photographed it for some years. The first photo was taken in 2022, the second on Monday and the last this morning.

It looked healthy. It was demonstrably a thing of beauty. If the City has plans for the area you would hope they accommodated the tree, but apparently not. Mystifying.

Today, as I finished surveying the damage a woman approached and we got talking after I pointed to what had happened. I showed her my photos and she was as shocked at the event as I, but in a stroke of luck she said she was either the Head or a member of the neighbourhood association and would be ringing City hall to ask for an explanation. She said she’d leave a message near the stump when she’d heard from them.

#Photography #Trees #Japan

Infection status
Released Nov 28, 2025.
- As of period from Nov 17 - Nov 23, 2025 -

No. of patients per medical facility (nationwide) 1.64
Change from prev. week -0.27
[Source: Health-Labor-Welfare Ministry weekly report]
https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/001600451.pdf
🔸Week 23 of 13th wave
Saga at 1.21, Tokyo at 0.8, Akita at 4.28, Hokkaido at 3.54, Okinawa at 0.42, #Niigata at 4.85

#Influenza (nationwide) at 51.12
Change from prev. week +13.39
#Miyagi at 89.42 !!
https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/001600539.pdf
#CovidIsNotOver
#Japan

Photographs from a SoraNews24 article on Michi no Eki Minami Kiyosato (Yamanashi Pref.) show that compact monorails already exist.
The return fare for the ride probably reflects the tourist attraction aspect in the Minami Kiyosato example and would need to come down to the level of a local bus ride for everyday use in remote rural settings.
https://soranews24.com/2025/11/15/secret-tourist-stop-in-japan-has-a-lift-car-that-whisks-you-away-to-a-mystery-mountain-destination/

h/t @mattotcha
#RuralTransport #monorail #Japan

"Ssh."

"Ssssh."

says the sea.

#sea

Spent yesterday getting tyres changed for winter.
Lugging studless tyres out from storage and loading them for the trip to the tyre fitters, became acutely aware that tyres are awkwardly shaped while trying hard to avoid an unscheduled visit to doc's surgery for a back injury or crushed toes.
Silently noted that the day for storing off-season tyres at the tyre fitters may be coming soon.
Time waits for no one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_tire

A 6-year survey mapped the biggest structures in the universe. The results are beautiful...and, annoyingly, they fit nicely with the current model of cosmology.

We know there's something missing from that model, but figuring out *what* is not easy!

https://news.uchicago.edu/story/scientists-release-new-survey-biggest-objects-universe #space #science #nature

"One Voice" (Barry Manilow; arr. Steve Wycherley)
Performed by West London Brass
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PWGeaZlI1I

Infection status
Released Nov 21, 2025.
- As of period from Nov 10 - Nov 16, 2025 -

No. of patients per medical facility (nationwide) 1.91
Change from prev. week -0.04
[Source: Health-Labor-Welfare Ministry weekly report]
https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/001597998.pdf
🔸Week 22 of 13th wave
Saga at 0.96, Tokyo at 1.0, Akita at 3.68, Hokkaido at 3.98, Okinawa at 0.51, #Niigata at 4.41

#Influenza (nationwide) at 37.73
Change from prev. week +15.91
#Miyagi at 80.82 !!
https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/001598076.pdf
#CovidIsNotOver
#Japan

" ”This episode, in a way, also serves to ease some of the domestic tensions that have built up amid the economic slowdown [in China]” "
https://www.dw.com/en/china-japan-tensions-taiwan-explained-sanae-takaichi-comments-what-happens-next/a-74800962
🔸It has felt like manufactured, well-rehearsed "outrage" to test Japan's newbie PM (who should have just fudged the answer to a leading question in the Diet, like her predecessors) and deflect economic dissatisfaction at home.
Hoping "oh gosh" media reactions in Japan don't make matters worse.

@RoboticistDuck Thanks for the reminder. I had forgotten we've got one probably hiding somewhere near the back of a kitchen cabinet. As time passes wine seems to have become more of an item reserved for increasingly rare, special occasions.

Can't remember the last time I bought a bottle of wine, which was crossed off the shopping list long before chocolate, biscuits, and senbei (せんべい).
In any case, can't drink more than one glass before turning into a beetroot, so wouldn't choose a sales gimmick wine as that one glass.
Meanwhile zero alcohol wine still tastes like grape juice😬
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20251120/p2g/00m/0na/028000c

News show reported that Tokyo Metropolitan govt was mulling over giving residents linking their MyNumber card to the "Tokyo App" 10,000 points which could be exchanged and used as digital cash.
Probably a "Tokyo App" PR campaign, but one more worry for keeping personal data secure.
https://newsdig.tbs.co.jp/articles/-/2298732?display=1

For some reason was reminded about sticking a load of Green Shield Stamps into booklets in the UK long, long ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Shield_Stamps

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is facing a strong backlash at home over recent wrongful remarks on China's #Taiwan, with Japanese netizens saying those remarks endanger regional stability and harm #Japan itself. #militarism #history

" ”I'd love to get the guy currently in there out... but people are holding me back,” he said, referring to Powell, whose term as Fed chair is up in May [2026]"
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-his-administration-has-started-interviews-next-fed-chair-2025-11-18/
#FederalReserve