Nice 5k after work. No phone this time so no photos of the Yokohama burbs.

• It's week #10 - I've managed to make it to double digit weekly updates!


• I renewed my driver's license for first time. There's 3 different levels of license in Japan, green, blue, and gold. You get a gold license by renewing twice without (any?) infractions or accidents. Having a gold license will also entail you to a 10% discount on your auto-insurance. But if you get tickets with a gold license, they'll move you down to blue on your next renewal. Even though I've been driving for over 15 years, my driving history in Japan is only 3 years, so I was on a green and am now blue.


• The actual renewal process is quite simple - you put in your license at a machine to register that you're there for the day at "Station 1". Then you progress through each station from paying your fees, eye checks, taking your photo, and finally a 2 hour lecture to remind you to follow the rules and overview of recent changes.


• With Covid19 you still need to take the class, but the number of people permitted is half than before. So even though you came in the morning, you may need to take the afternoon class, or if you came in in the afternoon, you may need to come back the next day to take the lecture. I was rushing through all the steps as fast as possible as I didn't want to hang out at the DMV from 45 minutes before they opened until mid-afternoon because of class size limits. Thankfully I made the cut-off and was finished by noon.


• The lecture itself was mostly a video to remind people to drive safely and show some consequences of not driving safely. The video did cure all urges of me ever riding or owning a scooter, however.


• After watching The Social Dilemma, I'm thinking of closing my Instagram account. I don't use it much, but trying to figure out how to keep the data, as it is like a mini-photoblog. It looks like I can export my data (thanks to GDPR!) and maybe import it here to my website.


• Leo had his first full-day of pre school, including taking and eating his lunch at school with just his peers and teachers. He had onigiri (rice balls), karaage (Japanese style-fried chicken), pumpkin, and tamago-yaki (Japanese-style omelette). We were a bit worried if he'd actually eat at school, but he ate almost everything!

Fun hour long run this morning while it was 22c out. Brought my phone so I could take some photos. 🏃

I watched The Social Dilemma on Netflix. Much of the information presented I already knew - big tech mines all of our personal data and manipulates us to increase screen time in whichever way they can.

The movie itself has a story in-between the interview clips that help demonstrate the effects that social media (and cellphones) enable within a family. In one scene the son's cellphone's screen's cracks and the mom says that she'll replace it if he can not use his phone for a week, since, as he says "it's no big deal".

The algorithms notice his usage has changed, i.e. stopped, analyze that similar people in his area haven't changed their usage and start a "reactivation" sequence, to suck him back in. To tempt him to open the app they find a recent event that will entice him back in and, like a drug addict, he's back.

It reminds me of the seemingly random push notifications I get from instagram when I haven't used the app in a few days. Nothing is random with social media, but it didn't occur to me that they were trying to "reactivate" me and just how slimy that is. There's no regard for the "user" - only their advertisers, which is their real user.

Most of all, watching The Social Dilemma makes me grateful for the indie web, communities like micro.blog, and apps like Sunlit that allow social media without algorithms without manipulation for advertisers, powered (more or less) by RSS and other open standards.

The more I think about it, the more I think Apple should knock FB/Instagram down a peg with a iWeb-powered micro.blog style blog-based social network.

Sweets for guests. And maybe me too. 😋

Easy 5km after work. Starting to cool down a bit in the evenings in Yokohama. So nice.🏃

Excited to read my new books from Stripe Press. Hard cover feels so nice. Typesetting an entire book in a sans-serifs less so. But either way 👍📚

Summer Mt. Fuji 🗻