AI generated Star Wars as 80’s anime
Like it or not, AI generated art is here to stay. TheArtofAI used the generative image technology to imagine what Star Wars: A New Hope might have looked like as a 1980s anime.
Lafcadio Hearn’s Translated Japanese Ghost stories
I love a good classical ghost story. Some of my favorites are English ghost stories from the 1800 and 1900’s. But a good ghost story is not limited to just old British tales. Ghost stories are a phenomenon across all cultures and eras. Some cultures even had elaborate systems for telling ghost stories.
Lafcadio Hearn (aka Yakumo Koizumi) was born of Irish parents and had a difficult upbringing by most standards. He became a writer and journalist, but was captivated by Japanese culture that he experienced at the World Exposition in New Orleans. Shortly after, he traveled to Japan in 1890 at the age of 40. He soon made Japan his home, married, raised a family, and found continued success as a writer.
One of his favorite subjects was Japanese ghost stories. Japanese ghost stories are interesting because they are heavily influenced by Buddhist thought, and often carry a hint of moral elements. He collected and translated several works on the subject. Kwaidan is probably his most famous collection of ghost stories – stories which were even turned into a movie.
It turns out there are at least 3 different Lafcadio Haern museums/homes in Japan. Hopefully I’ll see them someday, but until then I’ll be happy just reading the stories.
- Lafcadio Hearn digital museum – This is really cool. They even have a walk-through VR-like guided tour with audio. (other VR tours of the area)
- Lafcadio Hearn Museum and former residence
- Hearn former residence
Ghibli movie locations in real life
It turns out that many Ghibli movies were inspired by real life locations and buildings. Here’s a good list of those spots:
Ghibli theme locations (and how to get tickets).
This biggest issue with the Ghibli theme locations is the need for advanced purchase tickets. No tickets are for sale onsite and tickets often sell out months in advance.
- Ghibli Park outside Nagoya. Advanced tickets are required and purchasable on their website.
- Ghibli Museum in Mitaka. Advanced tickets are required and they often sell out MONTHS in advance.
My Neighbor Totoro
- Satsuki and Mei’s house from Totoro – A nearly perfect re-creation of the house from the Totoro movie. I wrote about this amazing house here.
- Ghibli Park – location of Satsuki and Mei’s house along with a forest and other movie inspired attractions.
- Totoro Forest -In Sayama, Saitama Prefecture is Totoro Forest. It also holds Kurosuke’s House which is Japanese traditional house which was built over 100 years ago. You can see a big Totoro sitting in the house and walk the grounds. (more here)
Princess Mononoke
- Yakushima – registered as natural world heritage site. You can go there by plane or ferry.
- Shirakami-sanchi – world heritage site and it is mainly filled with greenery such as Japanese beech. There are some famous lakes called twelve lakes which means you can see twelve lakes at once from the upper side of the mountain.
Spirited Away
- Dogo Onsen (Ehime)
- Edo Tokyo Tatemono-en (Tokyo)
- Bar Kagiya
- Kodakara-Yu bathhouse
Whispers of the Heart
- Seiseki Sakuragaoka – Seiseki-Sakuragaoka suburb is conveniently located just outside of Tokyo. The highlight of the town is the staircase to the top of the hill where you can enjoy a typically Japanese nostalgic night view.
Ponyo
- Tomonoura (Hiroshima) – This beautiful cityview of Tomonoura in Hiroshima is another spot not to be missed. Ponyo’s house is believed to be inspired by Naramura Museum.
Secret World of Arriety
- Seibien (Aomori) garden – Seibien is a western style house with Japanese garden in Aomori featured in ‘Arrietty’. Its garden is counted as one the three greatest gardens of Meiji-era and is an attractive sightseeing spot.
From Up on Poppy Hill
The city of Yokohama is depicted in ‘From Up on Poppy Hill’
- Yokohama
- Minatonomieru oka koen (Kanagawa) – Harbor View Park
- Negishi natsukashi koen – (The Old House of Yagishita Family) reminds of Coquelicot Manor, a boarding house overlooking the port in the film.
- Yamate seiyo-kan (Kanagawa) – There are 7 western style houses collectively called Yamate Seiyoukan in the area where you can read different edition of Weekly Quartier Latin, the newspaper featured in the film, at each house
Only Yesterday
- Saffron fields of Takase District – Taeko travels on her own from Tokyo to Yamagata in this animated film. There are many sufflower fields in Takase District like the one depicted in ‘Only Yesterday’. Maybe you can even try out a Yamagata farm stay like she did.
Links:
- https://blog.japanwondertravel.com/location-ghibli-movie-in-japan-9409
- https://www.tsunagujapan.com/11-places-in-japan-featured-in-studio-ghibli-films/
- https://blog.japanwondertravel.com/5-ways-to-get-tickets-for-ghibli-museum-4472
- https://thegate12.com/article/150
- https://blog.gaijinpot.com/5-of-the-coolest-studio-ghibli-movie-locations-you-can-visit-in-japan/
- https://theculturetrip.com/asia/japan/articles/the-real-life-locations-that-inspired-studio-ghibli/
Totoro’s Satsuki and Mei House is real
Did you know you can visit Mei’s house from Totoro in real life?
A painstakingly realistic re-creation of Mei’s house was created in what is now Ghibli Park outside of Nagoya in Aichi Commemorative Park. In the park, you can visit Satsuki and Mei’s house in the park.
The house has been recreated in extraordinary detail. You sign up for a time slot and they give you a tour. That, however, is where similarities to other tours end. Unlike normal recreated gems like this, the tour allows you to open drawers, Mei’s backpacks, look in books and really explore the space. They have a strict no photography policy – which I think is great as it probably makes you really enjoy the space more instead of focusing on the perfect Instagram shot.
Links:
Tsundoku
Tsundoku is the Japanese word for the stack(s) of books you’ve purchased but haven’t read. Its morphology combines tsunde-oku (letting things pile up) and dokusho (reading books).
I personally love that I have a pile of books I have bought but not yet read. Probably for the same reason that others have suggested – that it creates a sense of wonder and excitement there is so much more yet to learn:
These shelves of unexplored ideas propel us to continue reading, continue learning, and never be comfortable that we know enough. Jessica Stillman calls this realization intellectual humility.
People who lack this intellectual humility — those without a yearning to acquire new books or visit their local library — may enjoy a sense of pride at having conquered their personal collection, but such a library provides all the use of a wall-mounted trophy. It becomes an “ego-booting appendage” for decoration alone.
Links:
Oregon, and Portland, see population declines and very poor recovery across many metrics
It seems Oregon, and specifically Portland, have lost their luster. Portland and Oregon went from being the #1 place to move in the US to having a net LOSS of population in just 2 years.
Part of this is due to people moving out of urban areas during the pandemic and remote work – but Oregon has faired even worse than other metro areas. Much worse. Multnomah county (which encompasses most of Portland) declined by 12,494 people, or 1.5% along with a more modest decline (0.2%) in the Portland metro area (Beaverton, Vancouver, etc).
How did this happen? How did a city go from the #1 place to move to just about last place? Some of the top posited reasons:
- Some unhappy city recovery stats:
- Stanford study shows Portland has one of the lowest overall lowest recovery rates in the country
- A University of California, Berkeley report (“Death of Downtown?”) finds the same – Portland came in 60th, with a recovery value of 41% compared with pre-pandemic activity. Only San Francisco (31%) and Cleveland, Ohio (36%) fared worse.
- They also have one of the slowest visitor recovery rates in the country .
- Oregon stats are continuing to decline
- Homelessness issues have degraded to a state of emergency in Oregon and the Portland metro area. Horrific attacks on random strangers has become common.
- Oregon now has gotten worse since 2019 and now has the 2nd highest drug addiction rates in the country. I wonder if legalizing drug use hasn’t contributed to the dramatic increase in addition and even more dramatic increase in overdose deaths.
- Schools:
- The last audit of PPS in 2019 (even before Covid) revealed that despite high funding, Portland public schools deliver dramatically poorer educational results for students, have very problematic spending, serious issues with financial waste and abuse issues due to lack of oversight, and 26 other specific problem areas identified that need to be remedied.
- Schools have seen dramatically larger decreases in reading and math scores since Covid started compared to other states. Middle school results cratered to the 6th worst in the nation. It probably doesn’t help we ended the requirement for students to demonstrate reading, writing and math proficiency in order to receive a diploma.
- Public school system now consistently ranks in the bottom 5 worst in the nation.
- Things are so bad that between 2019-2022 20% of students were pulled from Portland Public schools by parents that either moved out or sent them to private schools. The enrollment declines are expected to increase going forward despite higher than average funding compared to other states.
- Oregon state’s enrollment losses, which total 30,000, or 5%, were the second highest in the country, according to Stanford University’s data-driven Big Local News project. Only Mississippi lost a larger share.
- 2023 Oregon’s National Merit Scholarship winners are increasingly located outside the Portland metro area – demonstrating the continual decline of Portland school education.
- Taxes:
- Tax rates for anyone earning over $100,000 a year are now the second highest effective tax rate in the country – only behind New York City millionaires by 0.09%. We will become the highest tax rate starting 2024 when city taxes are slated to rise another 1-2%.
- Having over over 100 straight nights of violent and destructive riots sure couldn’t help
- Crime
- More than double the number of annual shootings (from 300 shootings in 2019 to 900 shootings in 2020 with even worse statistics for 2021). Shooting that are now increasingly happening in schools
- Near doubling of crime: from murder to property crimes since 2019.
- Auto thefts per-capital have doubled in 2 years to almost 1000 vehicles per month.
Links:
BBC RADIO DRAMA: THE DARK ISLAND
I wish we had more radio dramas like this one from the BBC by Robert Barr.
Set on an island in the Outer Hebrides in north west Scotland, a fisherman discovers what appears to be a torpedo washed up on a deserted beach. Upon closer examination, the container is found to contain materials for a spy and a couple of army officers go under cover to investigate.
Lies, D*mn Lies, and Statistics
“Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.”
-Aaron Levenstein, associate professor of business administration at Baruch College from 1961 to 1981
I’ve also heard it as “Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is exciting, but what they conceal is critical.”
Two kinds of Randomness
Game development is now as much art as science, or rather the art of science. Even something as simple as how and when to use randomness can profoundly impact the fun of a game. Enter the observation of two different kinds of randomness: input and output randomness.
Input randomness is randomness that is decided BEFORE a player makes their strategy and decisions. Examples would include having a random number of enemies generated before the fight starts. While the number is random, knowing how many will show up actually lets the user decide to use different strategies and feel more in control.
Output randomness is often a big contributing factor to frustrating parts of gameplay. Examples here would consist of attacking an enemy, only to find out your attack completely missed out of sheer bad luck or an usually bad hit roll. This kind of behavior, while mathematically correct, often leaves users feeling like they were ‘robbed’ and that the game is cheating.
Games are increasingly using input randomness as a way to give users control. Even games that rely on output randomness often put their thumbs on the scales so that you do not lose as often as you’d like. In Civilization, if your unit with a 33% chance of hitting misses twice in a row, it’s guaranteed to hit on the 3rd try – even though real randomness wouldn’t behave like that.
Anyway, this is a great video about the different kinds of randomness.
Old firehouse converted to home (and Ghostbuster’s Vacasa)
Just down the street from me is an old firehouse. It was retired years ago and now serves as a private residence. This last year for Halloween, they actually partly converted it to a Ghostbuster themed Vacasa complete with props and even a really cool replica ghostbuster ambulance. How’s that for cool?
Here’s an article and pictures of it renovated into a home:
Links: