In a box, untouched since my move, I found several chops or seals, and inkpads. I love the red color used with Asian seals. I learned the color is called Carmine. Cochineal is another word for this color because those beetles were crushed to obtain their red coloring power as early as 700 BC! Also, Cochineal was at one time a major source of income for the Spanish Crown. By weight, it was a far more valuable commodity than sugar. Made a little mark I can use in booklets or CD packages:

I learned that Napa Cabbage has nothing to do with Napa California. In fact the name comes from colloquial and regional Japanese, where nappa (菜っ葉) refers to the leaves of any vegetable, especially when used as food. This type of Chinese cabbage originating near the Beijing region of China…

PERFECT DAYS is a breath of fresh air in a media landscape dominated by the normalization of gluttonous consumerism, a facet of which fast fashion is very much a part of. One particular company that is quite big in the fast fashion world is Uniqlo. And it just so happens that PERFECT DAYS was commissioned by Uniqlo.

Very surprising considering the nature of the film. The story goes that Koji Yanai, the son of Uniqlo’s founder, approached Wim Wenders to create a film about the Tokyo Toilet Project, an initiative to renovate some of the public toilets in Shibuya, an initiative in which Uniqlo was involved. Granted, that in and of itself is a great public project for a company called Fast Retailing Co., Ltd. to be involved in at all and as such deserves some props. I don’t see Forever 21, Urban Outfitters, or American Eagle even considering public toilets in the United States.

Still, for Wenders to take that brief and create what is genuinely a landmark film in cinematic history is no small feat. A lesser director would have likely turned in a hokey non-profit-style advertisement, or at best turned down the project altogether. I cannot say enough great things about PERFECT DAYS.

That’s a quote from Ganzeer’s newsletter. I also read his blog. Now I have to wonder how many people visit those toilets in Tokyo because they saw them in the movie and also whether there is a Uniqlo sign in every toilet… I decided it doesn’t matter at all because the movie is a wonderful statement. But I will have a look at those toilets this Fall!

Saw this webpage for an art exhibition called Dream and Error.

Woven All of Dream and Error is an exhibition presenting a collection of films, images, and sounds that consider the overlap of two areas of the history of technology: the sites of abandoned railway lines, and the emergence of machine learning — or what has popularly come to be referred to as artificial intelligence.

Perhaps hallucinations are the best part of AI? It’s AI dreaming, creating. The sounds that accompany the Dream and Error video are very interesting. AI imagining what a train sounds like.

I listened to Radiolab’s podcast entitled Shell Game.

Today, we feature veteran journalist Evan Ratliff who – for his new podcast Shell Game – decided to slowly replace himself bit by bit with an AI voice clone, to see how far he could actually take it. Could it do the mundane phone calls he’d prefer to skip? Could it get legal advice for him? Could it go to therapy for him? Could it parent his kids?

Will the future bring advertisements that use an AI fake of our partner’s voice to dupe us into buying product XYZ at the supermarket? Just in case, I will develop safe words with my friends. If they say something that sounds even a little strange to me, I will ask them for the safe word… if they don’t know or don’t remember the word I will have to conclude that they are an AI agent.

I made paella yesterday and used my partner’s dashi instead of chicken broth. Asked her whether she could think of a good name for a company that delivers dashi to cooks. She rolled her eyes and said Door Dashi… she knows me well. Paella made with dashi instead of chicken broth is lighter and has a very nice flavor. Yesterday’s paella was quite the international mix as it contained dashi, kimchi, napa cabbage, spanish rice, sofrito, and asparagus.