Notices by Minoru Saba (minorusaba@toad.social), page 2

"...Inamura said she felt like the election ultimately became less about the candidates’ qualifications or policies, but more about what people choose to believe in.
“It didn’t feel so much like I was competing against Candidate Saito, but rather about confronting something else,” she said. “I must admit, I did feel something strange in that regard.” "
#Japan #elections
🔸Echoes of what happened in USA?🤔

"...ex-Hyogo Gov. Motohiko Saito was re-elected...after [automatically losing the post] following a historic [unanimous] no-confidence vote..."
"...Saito won...by a 5.2% margin [over runner-up Kazumi Inamura]"
"...Inamura, [former mayor Amagasaki City, Hyogo Pref.], said she couldn’t quite comprehend what had caused her defeat..."
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/11/18/japan/politics/hyogo-governor-saito-re-elected/
🔸Social media influence overturning general expectations of an Inamura win echoes trend in recent Tokyo Gov. & national elections🤔
#Japan

Visited the Hoshikusokan #obsidian mine display room which was located in the woods on a mountainside slope above the Kokuyōseki Taiken Museum, Nagawa Town, #Nagano Pref.
Took about a 35-minute trek up the mountain with a cow bell to ward off bears & numerous stops along the steep trail to rest the ageing legs & lungs.
Display showed how the ancients dug deeper over the ages for the material to make their knives & arrowheads.
Display closes from 1 Dec to 30 Apr.
https://jomon.co/en/point/detail/55/
#Japan

Yamanashi Pref. "will propose a trackless, rubber-tyred tram system made by China's CRRC to transport climbers" up Mt Fuji, replacing "the original plan to build a light-rail system connecting the base to the fifth hiking station of the popular Yoshida Trail"
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japans-mount-fuji-eyes-china-made-tram-transport-hikers-source-says-2024-11-17/

🔸Article seems at odds with ANN network report (10 Nov 2024) that autonomous EV buses are being tested to transport people up Mt Fuji🤔
https://newsonjapan.com/article/144080.php
#Japan #Fuji #overtourism

Leave the Internet Archive alone!

Except for book publishers, the Internet Archive has done no one any harm. But that hasn't stopped hackers from beating up on the site over and over again.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3593110/leave-the-internet-archive-alone.html

#books #digitallibrary

@ArrowbearMoore

What a GREAT point. Where are the religious ones. (Exempted are the Mormons who do tithe).

No, the #president cannot end #birthrightcitizenship by #executiveorder

#Trump says he will sign an executive order ending automatic #citizenship for #children of “illegal aliens” in his second term. Experts agree that’s #unconstitutional.

https://www.10tv.com/article/news/verify/immigration/no-the-president-cannot-end-birthright-citizenship-by-executive-order/536-b258b7a7-992f-4c8f-bd10-30957b65f04d

Infection status
Released Nov 15, 2024.
- As of period from Nov 4 - Nov 10, 2024 -

No. of patients per medical facility (nationwide) 1.47
Change from prev. week -0.1
[Source: Health-Labor-Welfare Ministry weekly report]
https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/001331939.pdf
🔸Probably nearing end of 11th wave.
Saga at 0.87, Tokyo at 1.03, Akita at 4.2, Hokkaido at 3.81, Okinawa at 0.79.

#Influenza (nationwide) at 1.06.
Change from prev. week +0.2
#Okinawa at 7.38!!
https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/001331766.pdf
#CovidIsNotOver #Japan

And I'm going to start making tapes again.

Well, probably flash drives, but the sentiment is the same.

I release the things I make under clear "shareware" terms (cc-by-sa baby), but I'm going to start including a "nag screen" in everything. I'm going to bring "send me $10" back in to the mainstream kicking and screaming.

And, guess what, I'm going to start doing little shareware collections again too. I did it when I was 9 because I loved to share the things I was playing with other people. When I made money on it, that money went to get more things that I turned around and shared again.

I still love it. I'm still going to charge for them. I'll stick to things that were explicitly licensed for redistribution, I'm not going to lean in to piracy at this time (but if someone does, fuckin' great.)

“The stumbling stones document what larger memorials cannot show: that the terror began not in far-off Poland, but in the heart of a city full of clubs and cafés, spaces where you can still buy a lottery ticket or go to the dentist."

~ Susan Neiman, Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil, p. 276

Neiman is writing re: the "stumbling stones" now found in German (and other cities), commemorating Holocaust victims.

#Nazis #fascism #cruelty #Holocaust
/1

Helping to usher in a fascist regime, as many Germans did in the Nazi period, inevitably leads to chaos, rubble, destruction — including for the very people who made the decision to help the process.

But getting people to see the folly of their very stupid, blind choices even when everything is in rubble around them: that's not easy.

I have German friends who were children during WWII.

#Trump #Gaetz #MattGaetz #chaos
/3

@SRDas @joejoetom
It's the Kaze no Tō (風の塔, "the tower of wind") which provides ventilation to the undersea section of the Tokyo Bay Aqua Line expressway. It also serves as an evacuation area for motorists if a major accident/fire occurs in the tunnels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Bay_Aqua-Line
#Tokyo #AquaLine #風の塔

@cryptadamist Blockchain Capital invested in Opensea, Kraken, Ethereum, Coinbase & Ripple... so, a bit of everything... Desillusion is coming for the new BS users (and many old ones), but they don't want to see it...

Spotify just reported record-breaking profits.

In totally unrelated news, Spotify stopped paying nearly 90% of artists on the service ANYTHING (no royalties for songs w <1k streams/year)

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/spotify-earnings-profitability-subscribers-1236060081/

Enrica Tricomi of Technische Universität München demonstrates robotic shorts that assists walking
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ns3oFUqzu0

Link to TUM article (13 Nov 2024): https://wisskomm.social/@tu_muenchen/113476183740534903

🔸Was reminded about Wallace & Gromit The Wrong Trousers:
https://archive.org/details/wallaceandgromitthewrongtrousers
#TUM #RoboticShorts #exoskeleton

"...consumers who get headaches from drinking red wine [should] avoid anything labeled "natural" or "organic" due to potentially high content of compounds called "biogenic amines"
"...France, Germany and Australia, upper limits have been set for the content of biogenic amines in wine. In #Japan, however, there are no such standard[s]"
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20241111/p2a/00m/0sc/016000c
🔸Haven't had red (or white) #wine in ages. Zero-alcohol beer has improved greatly, but non-alcohol wine still tastes like grape juice😓

"[Kazuyoshi Miura] turns 58 next February and will extend his record as the oldest player to appear in the JFL, the fourth tier of Japanese football"
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20241112/p2g/00m/0sp/005000c
#Japan #soccer #Kazu

@DavidBHimself
"Illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing by Chinese vessels was happening throughout the Asia-Pacific, including within other countries' EEZ"
https://www.newsweek.com/china-fishing-fleet-industry-environment-forced-labor-1844620
🔸 Seems China's OK with fish caught around Japan by Chinese vessels as it is magically transformed from "Fukushima fish" to "Chinese fish"🙄
Another example of China's "What's mine is mine. What's yours is mine" view of the world.

@DavidBHimself
"... hundreds of Chinese fishing vessels remain active in waters close to Japan"
Japan's "Fisheries Agency is aware that Chinese fishing boats have continued to operate after the release of treated water"
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15399875
🔸Heard China initially scored an own goal with its fish markets when people in China stopped buying fish since they reckoned all the seas were connected. Hoped it would help stop global over-fishing, but seems the public soon forgot.

"[Naoki Hyakuta (68), novelist &] the leader of the Conservative Party of Japan retracted his suggestion that subjecting women over 30 to having their uteruses removed would prod them to have children and reverse the declining birthrate"
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15503088
🔸#Japan has its share of things that go bump in the night & people that support them.
CPJ, formed by Hyakuta in Sept 2023, gained 3 seats in recent elections.
#discrimination