The Week #19

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  • Covid cases are back on the rise again in Japan. Kanagawa has roughly doubled its number of daily cases lately. Hopefully we can all take this seriously again and get the numbers back in check. I feel Japan squandered a real opportunity at the end of the state of emergency for New Zealand like results. Instead we ended it early.

  • Crew 1 launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on the SpaceX Dragon bound for the ISS. This flight has a lot of firsts: first operational crew flight on a commercial rocket, first operational crew flight launched from the US since the shuttle shuttered, first night launch in a decade, and most importantly, the first time they'll have ramen in space.

    I know one of the astronauts on the flight from our time living across from Johnson Space Center, so I was holding my breath a bit more than usual when watching the launch. I'm very happy it was a success.


  • I went to Hamleys in Sakuragi-cho in Yokohama. The last time I went was just before covid. If you've never been to Hamleys, imagine you're a kid and you've just walked in to Santa's warehouse, that's what it's like. They've got every toy under the sun, a clown making the rounds heaps of toys to play with and even one of those pianos you play with your feet, albeit not as big.

    But not this time. Covid seems to be taking a toll on the business. A lot of the shelves were empty and a large central section was now dedicated to easy revenue makers: capsule toys. It still had part of the magic you'd expect from a giant toy store, but it still felt like a store that's not too far from shuttering. I hope it makes it through all of this. It seems silly to worry about the viability of a toy shop around Christmas, yet here we are. To help the cause we bought Leo some Clever Cogs.


  • I've had my digital garden for a week so far and I'm starting to make good use of it. Dumping parts of my brain of things I'm thinking about has been helpful. So I've documented some print settings that are common when copying a license and ideas for future improvements to Airbot.