Thoughts

Short thoughts that don't necessitate dedicated blog posts are posted in a Twitter/X style below.

Recently reading Tools for Conviviality by Ivan Illich. A highly recommended work I knew I had to get around to.

>> September 07, 2026 11:35:59 PM (+09:00) | Link

Finally fixed the font for the site... was driving me crazy lol

>> September 06, 2026 02:13:43 PM (+09:00) | Link

Changed the look of the site; using a very simple custom CSS now.
The ultimate goal is to have less and less dependencies until my site is purely managed by HTML and CSS.
Realistically I will get around to it when using 11ty starts becoming a pain to use.

>> August 30, 2026 12:24:49 PM (+09:00) | Link

Plotinus has ironically started to look more accessible after recent bouts with Aristotle

>> August 28, 2026 11:02:39 AM (+09:00) | Link

Updates:

Recent randomly great pasttime: finding websites via Wiby.
Hidden treasures of Platonist/Neoplatonist/other philosophical info. Also political work.
Might have a dedicated blog post on some of these readings.
Some favorites so far:
Finally got around to creating personal Neovim config. Good enough to edit markdown which is all I use Neovim for nowadays. That was too much computer time for me so will not touch it this weekend

>> August 28, 2026 10:25:03 AM (+09:00) | Link

Working in tech nowadays feels like watching The Office after Michael left

>> August 21, 2026 11:55:07 PM (+09:00) | Link

Haven't been able to update lately; I started a new job recently and the catch-up period has been a bit busy.

A few updates:

Using Linux as my main driver PC at work, for the first time in my career, which I was pretty excited about.
Fedora + GNOME. Picked up ghostty for my terminal but I run tmux anyways so haven't used any of the cool features.
Text Editor: Switched from LazyVim to NvChad - while LazyVim had the sane defaults they promised, their ecosystem felt more restrictive and inflexible as time went on.
NvChad's ethos of (even if they don't explicitly state this) being a sane configuration that helps you understand how to build your own felt more conducive to my goals.
Don't know if I want to use GNOME forever, but changing window managers can be quite tedious so unsure if I'll ever pull the trigger.
Was looking at something like Sway.
Haven't been able to read much this week, so I want to forget all this tech stuff even just over the weekend and get back into it.

>> August 21, 2026 11:39:29 PM (+09:00) | Link

Was mistaken about the 1GB Cloudflare Pages limit, that was for GitHub Pages. In any case will keep photo usage minimal

>> August 16, 2026 12:43:31 AM (+09:00) | Link

Went ahead and removed a bunch of photos. I think it is cohesive with the ethos of this project anyways, which was to be text-centric.

>> August 16, 2026 12:33:09 AM (+09:00) | Link

I just realized that Cloudflare Pages has a max limit for 1GB per repo... meaning if I upload ~300 photos that would cross the threshold. I might delete all the photos I've posted here lol...

>> August 16, 2026 12:24:59 AM (+09:00) | Link

本屋で見つけた、とてもおもしろかった本：

青木真兵「資本主義を半分捨てる」

ちょっと尖ったタイトル（自分はソソノられてしまったけどｗ）。現代に何となく感じる居心地悪さを描写していて、それにとても共感した。

4分の1くらいその場で読んでしまった。一人でずっとうなずいていた。

>> August 15, 2026 11:33:29 PM (+09:00) | Link

Finished migrating from Google Photos to Immich. All in all, was quite a pain... not much to do with the software (Immich is great), as much as it was about not reading up enough and mostly getting through it via trial and error. Which, when you're handling large data like photos and videos, leads to significant downtime just from transfering files. Lesson learned

>> August 15, 2026 11:22:08 PM (+09:00) | Link

Couple of random thoughts/updates from this week:

Bought The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy and have been thoroughly enjoying it
- Became quite obvious that Porphyry's Isagoge (Commentary on Aristotle's Categories) was the starting point for Platonist/Neoplatonist students
- Not only that; there's an intuitive path for Platonic education: logic -> physics -> metaphysics. Plato was usually introduced after a few years dedicated to Aristotle. Perhaps I was jumping the gun
Immigrating my photos from Google to Immich (self hosted)
- encountering some import errors (issue with immich-go metadata processing), but overall a smooth transition
With more things operating on my home server, need to care more about security. The best way to be secure is to be less connected to the internet. Removed pretty much all exposed ports
- This actually works fine with a self-hosted setup. It's fine to only sync your phone when you're at home. What's the point of doing it everywhere, all the time?

>> August 14, 2026 10:50:21 PM (+09:00) | Link

Finished Plato's Philebus. A tough read towards the late-middle/end... Will go Gorgias -> Meno next before attempting The Republic

>> August 08, 2026 04:58:47 PM (+09:00) | Link

井筒俊彦「コスモスとアンチコスモス」をようやく完読。
講義ベースの書物なので、井筒氏の他の作品と比べると比較的読みやすかったが、あまりにイマジナルで形而上学的な内容になると掴みづらい箇所はやっぱりある。
仏教とイスラーム黄金時代について更に読みたくなった。
あと一点気になったのが、最後の解説がちょっと微妙だったｗ　心理学者が書いていたので、専門領域が全く違うから踏み込んだ内容は書けないのは分かる。けどじゃあ何故この人が書いたんだろう。。。岩波はどうやって担当を決めているんだろう。

>> August 08, 2026 10:05:49 AM (+09:00) | Link

The heatwave and consequent dry spell/drought in Europe has had grave repercussions:

>> August 08, 2026 09:55:13 AM (+09:00) | Link

Apparently an "unintentional collision that poses no danger to Earth".
If you say so...:

Part of a SpaceX rocket to leave crater when it slams into the Moon (France 24)

>> August 05, 2026 05:22:49 PM (+09:00) | Link

Went to the dentist today, and got curious of what the world looked like before them.

The Wikipedia for Dentistry History was very illuminating; it's a practice that has been around since pre-civilization, but only recently shaped into its modern form.

Some relevant excerpts:

Tooth decay was low in pre-agricultural societies, but the advent of farming society about 10,000 years ago correlated with an increase in tooth decay (cavities).

A 2017 study had already suggested that 130,000 years ago the Neanderthals already used rudimentary dentistry tools.

Ancient Greek scholars Hippocrates and Aristotle wrote about dentistry, including the eruption pattern of teeth, treating decayed teeth and gum disease, extracting teeth with forceps, and using wires to stabilize loose teeth and fractured jaws.

During the Islamic Golden Age dentistry was discussed in several famous books of medicine such as The Canon in medicine written by Avicenna and Al-Tasreef by Al-Zahrawi who is considered the greatest surgeon of the Middle Ages. Avicenna said that jaw fracture should be reduced according to the occlusal guidance of the teeth; this principle is still valid in modern times. Al-Zahrawi invented over 200 surgical tools that resemble the modern kind.

Historically, dental extractions have been used to treat a variety of illnesses. During the Middle Ages and throughout the 19th century, dentistry was not a profession in itself, and often dental procedures were performed by barbers or general physicians.

In the United Kingdom, there was no formal qualification for the providers of dental treatment until 1859 and it was only in 1921 that the practice of dentistry was limited to those who were professionally qualified. The Royal Commission on the National Health Service in 1979 reported that there were then more than twice as many registered dentists per 10,000 population in the UK than there were in 1921.

>> August 04, 2026 01:31:57 PM (+09:00) | Link

Ordered a "dirty latte" at a local cafe, was good! Surprised I've never had it before!

>> July 31, 2026 06:14:09 PM (+09:00) | Link

Put out a new Blog post that took me longer than I expected... writing is a tough endeavor

>> July 28, 2026 07:05:55 PM (+09:00) | Link

On the lookout for a good book on early Christian history...

>> July 26, 2026 10:10:01 PM (+09:00) | Link

finally started reading Histories by Herodotus

>> July 26, 2026 10:07:04 PM (+09:00) | Link

Panasonic 'dumb phone', released last year only in Europe. Apparently already sold out there. If it came to Japan I would buy it in a heartbeat..!

UK Site link

>> July 26, 2026 11:01:51 AM (+09:00) | Link

Finished reading: 福岡正信, わら一本の革命 (The One-Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka).

定め無き身の空の旅
あとは野となれ　山となれ

>> July 25, 2026 05:04:17 PM (+09:00) | Link

Testing out minor formatting for RSS

>> July 25, 2026 11:16:22 AM (+09:00) | Link

RSS ☑️

>> July 25, 2026 01:58:29 AM (+09:00) | Link

Was thinking of getting a split keyboard; Keeb Iris

>> July 23, 2026 08:21:01 AM (+09:00) | Link

Had a dream that the Opera Garnier was an AirBnb and I stayed there with like 200 other people

>> July 23, 2026 08:20:01 AM (+09:00) | Link

Probably shouldn't write so much about what I'm doing for the website. Feels like circular logic if I've built a site to complain about what I have to do for the site lol. Like a rapper who only raps about how rich he got off of rapping

>> July 21, 2026 11:01:12 PM (+09:00) | Link

Finished reading Plato's Timaeus. Probably will read The Republic next

>> July 21, 2026 10:58:54 PM (+09:00) | Link

Responsive imaging is broken too so I need to fix it. Photos look weirdly stretched out on mobile

>> July 21, 2026 08:52:53 AM (+09:00) | Link

Oh also RSS feeds. Although that would definitely be something that people don't use... but I do want to live in a world where more people use it so be the change you want to see I guess

>> July 20, 2026 07:03:13 PM (+09:00) | Link

want to figure out favicon soon

>> July 20, 2026 06:54:44 PM (+09:00) | Link

Another boiling hot day in Japan where I will have not left my apartment a single time...

>> July 20, 2026 06:53:19 PM (+09:00) | Link

though if I'm only going to be posting text here (can't post images with current limitations), and I'm definitely not going to implement a search feature, it actually might be better if I didn't have pagination at all

>> July 20, 2026 05:49:17 PM (+09:00) | Link

figured out how to organize these "tweets" in a more sophisticated fashion, which allows for things like having links to each of them. and hopefully pagination

>> July 20, 2026 05:16:23 PM (+09:00) | Link