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Monthly Log: 2024-06

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Original language: Chinese . AI translations: English , Japanese .

June is over. Half of 2024 is already gone. So fast.

Structure

  1. Input
    Learning: books/novels/good articles, videos/podcasts, any format, anything that feels rewarding after finishing
    Anime: new shows / old shows, TV season / movies, notes on what I watched
    Others: movies, TV series, etc., put here

  2. Random Thoughts
    Maybe I will write down whatever I’m thinking

  3. Output
    Maybe a blog, but I’m not good enough, so maybe I have no output for a whole month (lol)

  4. Travel
    If I went somewhere, I’ll jot it down. If not, then whatever

  5. Misc
    Small things that don’t fit in the categories above

Input

Learning

《インフラエンジニアの知識と実務がこれ1冊でしっかりわかる教科書》

I mentioned this book last month. After finishing it, it feels like there are a few knowledge points, but if I think carefully, I can’t recall much (
The content is relatively shallow. After reading, I got a rough sense of what infrastructure is. For depth, I still need more professional books.

Plain Language Guidelines

Read a bit of this writing guideline. Although it’s aimed at how government agencies write documents that are easy to understand, it also helps writing on other topics.

In the small section Use active voice, it says using active voice can clearly identify the actor performing the action, so readers can more clearly understand who should do the following thing.

Reading this, I thought of an article I happened to read before: sometimes domestic police bulletins use passive voice, causing the perpetrator to disappear.

For example, active: A hit B vs passive: B was hit.
The passive voice seems to express the same meaning, but it actually omits the subject performing the action, making A “invisible” in the incident.

The magic of language. How this magic is used depends on the author’s intention.

Back to Plain Language Guidelines: I read a tiny bit at the beginning and then forgot about it. When writing the Monthly Log I suddenly remembered I haven’t finished it (
Pick it up next month (copium)

Anime

  • Finished

    • 末日列车去往何方 / 終末トレインどこへいく？
      One of April’s three big originals. High-density dialogue, wild developments, apocalyptic road-trip vibe. The one that matches my radio waves the most.
      Episode 10: another mind-blowing episode. So fun.
      Episode 11: arrived at the destination, Ikebukuro Station. Everyone tortures the heroine.
      Episode 11.5: 万策尽. A recap episode, and a rather perfunctory one.
      Episode 12: final episode. I was a bit worried, since the ending can affect the whole work. After watching, I only felt satisfied.
      An unsurprising happy end. The world returns to normal (what is “return”? what is “normal”?). The girls set off again. Thanks to all staff for such a fun work.
      That final line feels very romantic: 地球と月が一番離れだところがアポジーって、あとは近づくだけだから。
      More: in recent years, the number and quality of original anime seem to have clearly declined. For originals now, I don’t ask for a god ending; as long as it lands smoothly, it’s already good.
      In my view, Train’s ending is very good. The girls argue, split, reconcile. Friendship has a dark side too. A friendship that can reunite after fighting is precious.
      The protagonists’ goal is to find their friend. The world doesn’t matter at all.
      Although the animation budget is insufficient and visibly poor, and even had 万策尽 with a recap episode (salute Shirobako),
      you can feel the staff are serious about this work. Every time right after the broadcast ends, director Tsutomu Mizushima posts a bunch of settings on Twitter (he has too many ideas; a single cour is not enough).
      Like an episodic series of small stories, while following weekly, you can’t predict how next week’s plot will develop at all. It fully uses the strengths of the animation medium.
      Verdict: an imagination feast. My radio waves matched.

    • 迷宫饭 / ダンジョン飯
      24 episodes. Season 1 ended, and season 2 was announced immediately. Hope they serve it up soon.
      Great source material backing (I haven’t read it), Trigger production is online (though there are places that aren’t great), and the final result is still excellent.
      While imagination is wild, the rigorous settings make the work feel a bit real (?). A huge, detailed, logically self-consistent fantasy world. Very immersive.
      Characters have clear personalities and are fun. Everyone has a working brain. No frustrating characters.
      Highly recommended.

    • 怪人的沙拉碗
      Interesting plot. Hirasaka Yomi-sensei supports it.
      Production is slightly poor, but you can see the team is trying hard to make interesting effects with limited resources.
      Recommended.

    • 声优广播的台前幕后
      Production collapsed. The plot is somewhat interesting.
      Still watchable.

    • 从Lv2开始开外挂的前勇者候补过着悠哉异世界生活
      Overall style is quite relaxed. Fine for casual relaxing.

    • 怪兽8号
      Production is good, but the original plot and the anime script are too bad.
      When it’s supposed to be hype, it suddenly inserts a boring gag segment. The emotions are very discontinuous.
      Also, watching a 30+ uncle act silly isn’t funny at all. Did he live 30 years in vain? IQ like a middle schooler. Too stupid.
      I planned to drop after episode 7, but later fight animation is good (as long as the protagonist doesn’t open his mouth, it’s watchable).
      Overall not recommended. Better to just listen to the songs or watch animation MADs.

  • Catch up

    • 天国大魔境
      Episode 8 left the deepest impression. And after watching episode 13, I only realized their identities after being reminded by the bgm comments.
      Thinking back to episode 8 and their interactions: pain. Really painful.
      Both story and production are excellent. Highly recommended.

  • Not finished

    • GIRLS BAND CRY
      One of April’s three big originals.
      Even though I’m not interested in band themes, Hanada-sensei did great this time. The characters and story are interesting.
      As a Kawasaki resident, the familiarity bonus when seeing familiar scenery is also significant.
      I’m at episode 11. The last two episodes I haven’t watched. Rumor says the评价 isn’t good. I’ll just treat this anime as ending at episode 11.
      Still recommended. Worth watching. New benchmark for 3D anime. Script is also good.

    • 贵族凭鉴定技能扭转人生
      Only episode 7 is good.
      Not recommended.

      It’s even getting a season 2, airing Oct 2024. This show didn’t feel particularly good (mainly the protagonist is too useless; I can’t see growth).

  • Paused for now

    • 狼与香辛料
      I’ll definitely watch later (

    • 无职转生
      I watched the Father’s Day special. Too fitting, Po)(lo
      Catch up later (

      Mushoku season 3 announced. Congrats.

    • Unnamed Memory
      I’ll read the novel later.

      This is also getting a season 2. Season 1 was already so poor. Can season 2 hold up? Very doubtful.

    • 京吹3
      I’ll definitely watch. Won’t procrastinate ((

      The last two episodes got blasted in domestic reviews. bgm rating fell from 8.6 to 5.X, even below Jellyfish. Terrifying. But overseas reviews seem okay.

  • Dropped

    • 单间，光照尚好，附带天使
      Selling characters. Memes are good, but a bit boring.

    • THE NEW GATE
      Production is too bad. Waste of time.

    • 夜晚的水母不會游泳
      Collapsed as expected. Good thing I jumped ship at episode 3.

    • 恋语轻唱 / ささやくように恋を唄う
      Tragic adaptation.

Others

Recent TV/movies. I try not to spoil.

This month there weren’t any movies I particularly wanted to watch, only Fujimoto Tatsuki at the end of the month interested me.

  • Look Back
    Production is very good. The plot didn’t move me that much.

Random Thoughts

Skipped.

Output

This month I was lazy (

I originally wanted to list Toshiba Science Museum (Future Science Museum) separately and write a blog post, but I’m too lazy, so I put it in the Monthly Log (

Travel

Toshiba Future Science Museum

I heard that Toshiba Future Science Museum would close at the end of June, so I immediately moved the museum visit plan up.

【東芝未来科学館 一般公開終了のお知らせ】
東芝未来科学館は 6月29日(土)をもって、一般のお客様向けの公開を終了いたしました。
1961年に「東芝科学館」として誕生してから 63年間長きにわたり
当館をご愛顧、ご利用いただき誠にありがとうございました。

After persistent effort (procrastination), I finally managed to visit once in late June.
I thought it was a small museum and I wouldn’t spend long, but I ended up staying for two or three hours.

Some exhibits are hard to appreciate on your own, but when staff explain, they’re much more fun.
For example, there was an Edo-period automaton used to deliver a sake cup.
After winding it up, you put the cup on a little tray in its hands. The doll starts walking forward. After walking a certain distance, it turns by itself in a half circle and walks back.
Watching staff wind it, and listening to the turning mechanism explanation, was quite interesting.

Some other fun exhibits:


The world’s smallest mechanical hard drive: 0.85 inch (2.16 cm).
Top-left is a Japanese 100-yen coin for scale. Super mini HDD.


Ticket gates are indispensable when taking trains. In the museum they replaced it with a transparent shell so you can observe internal mechanics. I didn’t expect a small gate to be so complex.
I also caught a guide explanation and listened for fun.


The maglev exhibit area had a little UFO. A smoking (cold air) UFO. Fun.

Kawasaki City 100th Anniversary Events

Kawasaki celebrated its 100th anniversary with かわさき飛躍祭.
The programs I’m most interested in are flight performance and GIRLS BAND CRY cast (トゲナシトゲアリ) performance.
But the latter requires a ticket. I’m too cheap to pay (
Isn’t watching the flight performance enough?.jpg


Flight performance route map. Flying is fast: one loop directly ran to Shibuya and Shinjuku.


That afternoon was a rare clear day in nearly a week. The weather cooperated, so the flight show could proceed.
That afternoon was a rare clear day in nearly a week. The weather cooperated, so the flight show could proceed.


My longest lens is only 200mm. Did my best.
First time shooting planes. Several times when I zoomed to max, I couldn’t find where the plane was.
By the time I zoomed back, found it, and zoomed in again, the plane was already gone. So hard.
There were a few old masters with long lenses around. They seem experienced.


It only flew back and forth a few rounds and ended. Not enough.

Two days later YouTube recommended me a 2016 Iruma Air Base Air Show video:
[4K] ブルーインパルス 入間基地航空祭2016 / Iruma Air Show 2016 in Japan - Blue Impulse (Aerobatics)
This video has more tricks. I checked 入間基地航空祭: as usual, it’s held every year on Nov 3, on Culture Day (文化の日).
I’ll add it to Calendar first.

Misc

Perplexity AI

Softbank ran a promo: if you use their phone plan or broadband, you can claim one year of Perplexity Pro membership.
Thanks to Softbank’s free wool, I also get to use big models and catch up with the trend (

Perplexity’s goal seems to be replacing existing search engines. After using for a few weeks, the experience is okay.
In Pro Search mode you can keep asking follow-ups; it understands context (though there were a few times where during follow-ups it gave the exact same answer as the previous question).

My most frequent use is: explain this code, what is this concept and how is it different from that one, how to use this CLI tool, write me a bash script.
Especially for checking how to use commands, it’s very convenient. No need to read --help and figure out params.

For example, camera photos are too large. I wanted to use ImageMagick to resize post images by 50%.
Ask Perplexity: mogrify -resize 50% *.JPG. Can use directly. Nice.

Studying NISA

Recently the yen exchange rate is falling like crazy. Salary doesn’t increase. Exchange rate keeps dropping…

Study investments a bit (if you don’t manage finances, finances won’t leave you

Twitter - 喵流青年@midwaydude 讲投资

好那麽我來分享一下自己的投資觀。
一句話總結的話，就是現代投資組合理論。
展開說的話，就是通過資產配置分散機械式投資於全世界主要的指數基金及債券基金並以季度資產再平衡的方式維持投資組合的既定比例。

我説完了。
（并沒有啦
下面真的展開講講 （劇透：很長哦）

A long thread. You can read the threadreaderapp summary version; the long-form reading experience is better.

通過資產配置分散機械式投資於全世界主要的指數基金及債券基金並以季度資產再平衡的方式維持投資組合的既定比例 is a concise summary.
I think this investment approach seems pretty good: very intuitive and actionable. I plan to try it.

公募权益类基金投资者盈利洞察报告 by 景顺长城基金、富国基金、交银施罗德
I also saw an analysis report. The beginning is a bit emmmmm…
But the main text is interesting. It analyzes behavior patterns of making money and losing money in A-shares (what? you can make money in A-shares?).
After reading, the report’s advice is: DCA, hold long-term, reduce trading frequency. Very plain investment advice.

Maybe that’s “大道至简”? (

Closing

This month was too watery. I didn’t learn much, only did some miscellaneous things.
2024 is already half over. There are still several things I need to do and want to do.
Hope life becomes more regular and I can plan better.