Monthly Log: 2024-06

June is over, and 2024 is already halfway gone. That was fast.

Structure

Input
Learning: books, novels, essays, videos, podcasts. Any format is fine as long as it leaves me feeling I got something out of it
Anime: new shows, older shows, TV series, movies, just a running record of what I watched
Others: films, dramas, and anything else that ends up outside the first two buckets
Random Thoughts
Maybe I’ll dump whatever has been on my mind lately
Output
Maybe a blog post, though at my current level it’s still very possible to go an entire month with nothing to show for it (
Travel
If I went somewhere, I’ll write it down. If not, then there is nothing to report
Misc
Small odds and ends that don’t belong anywhere else

I mentioned this book last month. Now that I’ve finished it, my honest feeling is that I probably did pick up a few things, but when I try to recall them carefully, not that much really sticks (
It’s a fairly introductory book. It gave me a rough outline of what infrastructure work looks like, but if I want to go any deeper, I’ll still need something more specialized.

Plain Language Guidelines

I only read a little of this writing guide, but even though its stated topic is how government agencies can write documents that are easy to understand, a lot of it is useful well beyond that.

The section Use active voice says that active voice makes the actor explicit, so readers can more clearly understand who is supposed to do the thing being discussed.

That reminded me of an article I happened to read before, about how police bulletins back home sometimes rely on passive voice in a way that makes the perpetrator disappear.

For example, active: A hit B versus passive: B was hit.
On the surface they seem to say the same thing, but the passive version quietly erases the person who actually did it, which lets A fade out of the event entirely.

Language really is magical. The only question is what the writer intends to do with that magic.

Anyway, back to Plain Language Guidelines: I read a bit of the opening, then promptly forgot it existed, and only remembered it while writing this Monthly Log (
I’ll pick it back up next month (~~famous last words~~)

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. Dense dialogue, wild swings in direction, and the mood of a post-apocalyptic road movie. Out of the whole season, this was the one most perfectly tuned to my wavelength.
  Episode 10: another gloriously unhinged episode. Great fun.
  Episode 11: they finally reach the destination, Ikebukuro Station, and then ~~the entire cast takes turns grilling the heroine~~.
  Episode 11.5: production finally ran out of road and we got a recap episode, and not exactly a lovingly assembled one.
  Episode 12: the finale. I had been a little worried, because the ending can absolutely decide how the whole work is remembered, but after watching it I was left with nothing but satisfaction.
  It was an unsurprising happy ending. The world goes back to normal (~~what counts as “back”? what counts as “normal”?~~), the girls set out on the road again, and all I can really say is thank you to the staff for making something this fun.
  That final line felt especially 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 broadly, it feels like original anime have clearly declined in both quantity and quality over the last few years. At this point I don’t even demand a miraculous ending from originals anymore; if a show lands cleanly, that’s already worth respecting.
  And in my view, Train landed very well. The girls fight, split up, and make up again. Friendship has a dark side too, so a friendship that can come back together after a fight feels all the more precious.
  The protagonists are trying to find their friend. The fate of the world barely matters.
  Even though the budget shortages are obvious, and the show literally hit recap-episode territory (~~a respectful bow to Shirobako~~), you can still feel how seriously the staff took it.
  Every week after the broadcast, director Tsutomu Mizushima would go to Twitter and dump another pile of setting notes, because apparently one cour is nowhere near enough space for the number of ideas in his head.
  The small episodic adventures also meant that, while following it week to week, I genuinely could not predict where the next episode would go. That’s exactly the kind of freedom animation as a medium can offer.
  My verdict: a feast of imagination. Total wavelength match.
- 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.
  Strong source material is clearly doing a lot of work here, even though I still haven’t read it myself, and Trigger’s production is mostly solid even if a few spots wobble.
  The imagination goes everywhere, but the careful worldbuilding gives the setting a strange sense of reality. It’s a huge fantasy world, detailed and internally consistent enough to feel immersive instead of random.
  The characters all have distinct personalities, and more importantly, they all seem to possess functioning brains. There isn’t anyone on screen who makes me want to yell at the plot.
  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
  The production is good, but the original story and the anime script drag it down badly.
  Every time the show is supposed to get fired up, it suddenly stuffs in some limp joke and kills the momentum on the spot. The emotional flow is a mess.
  Also, watching a guy in his thirties clown around like a middle schooler is not funny to me at all. What did those thirty years accomplish, exactly?
  I was ready to drop it after episode 7, but the later fight animation was decent enough that I kept going a little longer. As long as the protagonist keeps his mouth shut, the show becomes noticeably easier to watch.
  Overall, I don’t really recommend it. You would be better off listening to the songs or watching MADs with the action cuts.
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 thereputation 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.

There really weren’t many movies I wanted to see this month. The only one that genuinely caught my eye was the Fujimoto Tatsuki adaptation at the very end of the month.

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

Random Thoughts

Skipped.

Output

I basically slacked off this month (

I originally meant to pull Toshiba Future Science Museum out and give it a standalone post, but laziness won, so into the Monthly Log it goes (

Travel

Toshiba Future Science Museum

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

【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 a heroic amount of persistence (procrastination), I finally made it there in late June.
I had assumed it would be a small museum that I’d finish in no time, but I ended up wandering around for two or three hours.

Some exhibits don’t fully reveal their charm if you only look at them by yourself, but once a staff member starts explaining them, they become much more interesting.
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 parts I cared about most were the flight performance and the GIRLS BAND CRY cast performance by トゲナシトゲアリ.
But the latter needed a paid ticket, and there was no way someone as cheap as me was going to hand money over for that (
~~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 the first genuinely clear day in almost a week. The weather was kind, and the flight show went ahead without trouble.

My longest lens is only 200mm, so I did what I could.
It was my first time trying to photograph planes, and several times I lost the aircraft entirely the moment I zoomed all the way in.
By the time I zoomed back out, found it again, and tried to zoom in once more, it had already disappeared somewhere else. Much harder than it looks.
There were a few veteran-looking photographers nearby carrying absurdly long lenses, and they all looked like they knew exactly what they were doing.

It flew back and forth a few times and then it was over. Nowhere near enough.

Two days later, YouTube pushed me a video of the 2016 Iruma Air Base Air Show:
[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 one had a lot more tricks in it. I looked up 入間基地航空祭, and apparently it is traditionally held every year on November 3, Culture Day.
First things first: put it in the calendar.

Misc

Perplexity AI

SoftBank ran a campaign where anyone using their mobile plan or broadband could claim a free year of Perplexity Pro.
Thanks to SoftBank for the free fleece. I, too, have now entered the age of large models (

Perplexity seems to be trying to replace the current search engine model. After using it for a few weeks, my impression is that it’s pretty decent.
Pro Search lets you keep asking follow-up questions and does understand context, though there were a few times when a follow-up somehow produced exactly the 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.
It’s especially convenient for figuring out command-line usage. Sometimes it’s nice not to stare at --help output and manually piece the flags together yourself.

For example, camera photos are too large. I wanted to use ImageMagick to resize post images by 50%.
I asked Perplexity and got mogrify -resize 50% *.JPG, ready to use as-is. Very nice.

Studying NISA

The yen has been collapsing lately. Salaries aren’t rising, but the exchange rate sure keeps moving in the wrong direction…

So I started looking into investing a little (~~if you don’t manage your finances, your finances will manage to leave you anyway~~

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 very long thread. The threadreaderapp summary version is easier to read in one sitting.

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 very compact summary.
This approach to investing seems pretty good to me: intuitive, straightforward, and something you can actually implement. I’m planning to give it a try.

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 came across an analysis report. The opening made me go a little emmmmm…, but the main body was interesting.
It looks at the behavioral patterns behind making money and losing money in the A-share market (~~wait, people make money in A-shares?~~).
Its actual advice turns out to be very plain: invest regularly, hold for the long term, and trade less often.

Maybe that really is what “大道至简” looks like (

Closing

This month felt a little too thin. I didn’t learn all that much and mostly just handled miscellaneous things.
2024 is already halfway over, and there are still several things I need to do, and several more I want to do.
Hopefully the next stretch of life will be a bit more regular, and I’ll manage my time with something closer to an actual plan.

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