Frank Bennett 🇯🇵

Pronouns: he/him

#Japan 🗾 #Nagoya 🐋#cycling 🚴💨 #gardening 🧑‍🌾 #software 👨‍💻
Retired 🦥
Widower 😔💔

(Profile pic is a scene from Robert Altman’s “The Long Goodbye,” [1973])

Project site: https://juris-m.github.io
Personal site: https://fgbjr.name

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Last Notes

2026-02-18 05:26:11 GMT

I'm gonna try to help sustain the herb plot this year with olla.
#Japan #gardening
https://cdn.masto.host/indiewebsocial/media_attachments/files/116/089/946/574/856/194/original/4128eeddc366d795.jpg

2026-01-18 08:50:15 GMT

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Not in the US anymore, but a thought from across the water. It's a good time for civil resistance to organize at the local level. Simple things like trusted contact networks, stocking in food for strike action, getting protest & med kit ready. It can be seen as a preparation race with the junta against the day that the country goes on tilt.

2026-01-15 01:23:30 GMT

It's time to finish off the citrus harvest. Bitter orange are ready for processing, and very welcome as I've run out of marmalade. I'm again overwhelmed with hassaku. This haul is from only the windfall and the portion hanging over the fussy neighbor's fence: the main part of the tree is still to come. Some of the haul will end up juiced and frozen as raw material for the year's lemonade.
#gardening #cooking
https://cdn.masto.host/indiewebsocial/media_attachments/files/115/896/442/134/313/366/original/bfe84f7c5631c821.jpg
https://cdn.masto.host/indiewebsocial/media_attachments/files/115/896/442/414/161/159/original/bd121ca1b4f6bc62.jpg

2025-12-09 02:01:32 GMT

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Is there an early bird discount?

2025-11-15 07:29:48 GMT

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It looks like YAML, extended with some header data to support faster processing. And pushed out as "LLM friendly" to gain extra traction. Because "AI" is the latest money pit that Silicon Valley has chosen to toast its marshmallows in.

2025-10-29 06:35:32 GMT

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He knows that with futures markets he and his inner circle will make money no matter what the effect of policy changes. The only imperative is that policy must keep changing.

2025-09-20 16:20:49 GMT

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I later pulled the Slant Six out of it, and moved it to a Valiant that originally had a V8 with four on the floor, matching the two up with a rare bell housing scrounged from a junkyard. Such a long time ago!

2025-09-20 16:02:36 GMT

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The cheapest car I ever owned (purchased for $90) was a Dodge Dart station wagon someone had chopped into a pickup with a hacksaw. It had a pushbutton automatic.

2025-09-18 23:32:05 GMT

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I'm from LaMalfa's district. My high school Civics teacher was Bernie Richter, a SoCal transplant who owned a few liquor stores, and went on to become our state Assemblyman. Ahead of his time, he seized on "reverse discrimination" as his signature issue following the Bakke case. A master of "counter-intuitive" argument in the style of a Charlie Kirk, he often joked that his liquor businesses were instrumental in holding marriages together. Always good for a laugh.
NorCal needs help.

2025-09-14 02:03:33 GMT

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I guess it's time for me to complement my snail's crawl toward acquiring Japanese citizenship with a look at asylum application procedures.

2025-09-14 01:20:44 GMT

A desultory planting of sesame only sprouted a dozen plants, some stronger than others. But they somehow survived the heat, and have yielded 65 grams of seeds. When Mieko planted sesame once, the flavor of the freshly harvested seeds was amazing, and we still spoke of it ~20 years later. These with be shared with her household memorial for a time before they're put to use when the spinach comes on.
#gardening #japan
https://cdn.masto.host/indiewebsocial/media_attachments/files/115/200/014/049/114/362/original/d1c14012f192c740.jpg

2025-08-25 13:22:32 GMT

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It'd sure be a shame if popular overseas tourist destinations started requiring proof of vaccination.

2025-08-17 23:41:54 GMT

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That's generally an author problem not an audience problem.

2025-08-16 13:29:27 GMT

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Sharpie?

2025-06-18 06:03:48 GMT

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A larger sample is post-retirement divorce, when assets become available (pension + freehold).

2025-06-17 23:05:11 GMT

Parking the bike at a university for a rare talk with undergrads, I spotted an old steel-frame bike that, although rusty, someone has done up with ad hoc mods (?). Rear wheel has a freewheel (on the right, in use) and a fixie gear (on the left). Crank has also been repaired with bolts from a hardware store.
#bikeTooter #cycling #fixie
https://cdn.masto.host/indiewebsocial/media_attachments/files/114/701/194/518/346/112/original/b345f1686515c7bc.jpg
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2025-06-01 09:00:07 GMT

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This reminds me of what a colleague (prof of labour law) once told me about education and employment in Japan: 日本の制度がより早く諦めがつくように出来ている。I think he was just being descriptive, but translated that reads, "The system in Japan is set up so that a worker will accept the impossibility of their advancement relatively early." I'm not sure what his own views were, but I once met his toddler son, and judging from the child's attire, he was enrolled in private school. 😐

2025-05-23 05:58:17 GMT

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Yes, but RFK Jr is a eugenicist. Like Donald Trump he believes that nothing is lost if people who don't fit the standard type, or who develop chronic illness for *whatever* reason just die. He's a very dangerous crank.

2025-05-16 22:55:38 GMT

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ensituationalification

2025-05-16 16:03:35 GMT

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Yeah. Same thing with wood tones, I've noticed.

2025-05-15 20:22:28 GMT

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He started his career with a castoff hotel building that nobody wanted. A little marble, a little gold, the Trump Shuttle could make a comeback.

2025-05-08 06:25:21 GMT

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I for one am not looking forward to this. Even without knowledge of the details, it just seems imprudent to finalize a deal before the excruciating pain of shortages reaches US consumers and makes the junta desperate for something to show its public.

2025-04-11 21:17:24 GMT

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To be clear, when I say "I truly hope that Donald Trump and Marco Rubio will burn in Hell," that's an affirmation and a celebration of Christian belief.

2025-03-18 05:10:51 GMT

I've been pretty lazy about gardening overall through the winter, but the negi did well. I finally put up the please-use-these sign for neighbors and passers-by.
#Japan #gardening #allotments
https://cdn.masto.host/indiewebsocial/media_attachments/files/114/181/683/368/236/221/original/97d1a7fd666b613e.jpg
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2025-03-17 02:03:30 GMT

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Yes. 🙇‍♂️

2025-03-16 21:30:22 GMT

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The State of Israel and the Jewish people are not the same thing. Don't conflate them.

2025-03-10 07:17:24 GMT

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I had my first eye-opening exposure to hasbara in 1982, and it made my stomach churn even then. This stuff today is completely mad. I don't understand how anyone can sit in the same room with it, let alone digest it, without gagging.

2025-03-10 00:12:12 GMT

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A law school classmate wanted us to try a Japanese sushi place down the street from our flat, so we went there for lunch with him and his girlfriend. As we were scanning the menu a regular, a gregarious surfer sort of character, came in the door, called a cheerful greeting to the young chef at the sushi counter, and made great show of pointedly shaking his hand. The chef went straight back to work on what he was preparing.
Mieko said, "We'll have the tempura."

2025-03-08 10:39:22 GMT

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If firms were allowed to consolidate will-ye nil-ye, at least there'd eventually be armed clashes between rival private armies as the ultimate expression of the competitive market, which would be more fun to watch.

2025-03-08 10:34:48 GMT

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Undoubtedly worse. The ever-present credible threat of arbitrary enforcement action would convert firms left untouched into extensions of state power, but (as private enterprises) nominally beyond constitutional constraints on state action. With complicity from courts and corporate media, you could implement a police state with deep reach while pretending to be ever so fastidious about the Rule of Law.

2025-03-08 09:49:38 GMT

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I'm doubtful of the independence of anyone appointed by the junta. I don't know the actor, but from the general pattern of things I'd at least expect there to be pressure for selective enforcement.

2025-03-07 22:01:43 GMT

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I'll believe it when I see it.

2025-03-05 01:47:24 GMT

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Well at least there's always insurgency to fall back on.

2025-02-09 08:49:53 GMT

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Some of my colleagues in Japan openly deplored the United States, even before the fascist takeover of the federal government. It never occurred to me to sue.

2025-02-04 07:02:00 GMT

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Or did he just do a reverse George Soros on the US stock market, tanking shares whilst cronies shorted the index? Maybe it's all about the grift and only the grift.

2025-01-19 02:35:32 GMT

This mound of wheat stalks has been taking up space in my old study for almost a year. There's a story behind the delay, I guess. I harvested our first crop of wheat when Mieko was struggling with the first signs of ALS. I threshed and cleaned it by hand, working obsessively. This crop was planted after she died, and I think I've put off processing it to keep memory of that time under wraps.
But it needs to be done, and I'm ready for the work now. Small steps.
#gardening #baking #grieving
https://cdn.masto.host/indiewebsocial/media_attachments/files/113/852/636/856/908/739/original/5129fcf2d5761b1e.jpg

2025-01-17 01:53:25 GMT

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I don't know and can't help, but my late wife cultivated shiitake once many years ago, and they were *amazing* braised in butter. Seriously nothing like shiitake from the market, just exploding in complex aroma.

2025-01-16 03:53:01 GMT

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To reward myself for muddling through, I'm declaring October 11 to be Past Peter Thiel Day. The man is morbidly obsessed with longevity and its counterpart, and as I'm ten years his senior I just think it'll be hilarious if I end up outliving him.
It's a game for all ages, and anyone can play! Set a Past [X] Day for your own favorite billionaire or billionaire surrogate! To get things started …
I am not yet #pastPeterThiel
… and to catch up with January 12 …
I am #pastRushLimbaugh

2025-01-12 02:45:27 GMT

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Yay. 👍

2025-01-12 02:35:01 GMT

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I'm in a smaller version of the same boat. Over here I'm just juicing 'em.

2025-01-09 08:25:55 GMT

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He would sully the site with the moral stench his presence, and should certainly be arrested.

2024-12-24 21:57:21 GMT

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Well that was a waste of perfectly good plain brown wrapping paper.

2024-12-22 08:38:12 GMT

This year's modest crop of ginger—my first since Mieko passed away. The plants barely survived in the summer heat, and only a minority among the dozen plants produced significantly, but OTOH although I just stumbled in ignorance through the planting, they grew (!). I'm pretty happy to see a result, and next year I'll study up properly and do a better job at soil prep.
Now to begin baking carrot cake to sweeten the New Year correspondence...
#gardening #Japan #ginger
https://cdn.masto.host/indiewebsocial/media_attachments/files/113/695/528/477/295/941/original/e1daac2e0005da94.jpg

2024-12-13 22:04:36 GMT

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It's going to be insanely corrupt. Insiders are going to come away with vastly more wealth to invest in personal security. Probably not a model to emulate.

2024-12-08 11:41:06 GMT

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Maybe there's an opportunity for medical care investment bundles in the crypto space. I'm pretty sure the idea must have occurred to David Sacks, we'll soon find out if he has the brass balls to put something on the table. Put Mama on the Blockchain.

2024-12-08 08:47:06 GMT

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He's been oddly silent. It's a tough one to fold into his schtick. The general public, including his base, hates the profiteers with the force of a thousand suns, but his entire policy platform is based on unleashing corporate from constraints of any kind.
Back in the G.W. Bush years, PM Koizumi proposed to shore up the Japanese pension system with a dedicated lottery. That ghastly joke of an idea wouldn't help, but it'd fit Trump's style like a patent leather glove.

2024-12-04 22:17:06 GMT

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I once visited Yangon for scholarship interviews when Myanmar was under (pure) military rule. The busses were absolutely packed, and there were no two-wheeled vehicles of any kind. No scooters. No bicycles. When I asked about it, I was told they'd been banned from the city for security reasons.
#bikeTooter

2024-11-26 09:44:11 GMT

Such good luck today! Oblivious to weather forecasts, I guilted myself into topping up fertilizer on long onions and ginger this week, and managed to get garlic in the ground. And tonight we have proper rain, as if putting up tools tripped a switch on the clouds. I sure hope the plants mistake this for careful solicitous planning and not a fortuitous accident stumbled into by their indifferent garden boss.
#Japan #gardening #weather

2024-10-29 23:11:28 GMT

Two tiny snaps from the garden.
🔲 We have a mat of something resembling lamb's ear (?) that Mieko planted in a sunny spot out back. I somehow kept it going through the summer, and it's now decided to burst into bloom.
🔲 I picked up a couple of tiny struggling globe amaranth for cheap at the market at couple of weeks ago. With repotting, dead-heading, and a dose of plant food, their blossoms are coming back. Soon they'll go back inside to frame Mieko's shrine in the house.
#Japan #gardening
https://cdn.masto.host/indiewebsocial/media_attachments/files/113/393/180/916/803/544/original/44b2ab4bd7866eed.jpg
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2024-10-23 10:00:13 GMT

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I don't know what to tell ya other than goodbye. So goodbye.

2024-10-23 09:44:36 GMT

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Not quite sure what you're on about there. Trump is an ageing authoritarian, and habitually applies empty Cold War era in-group/out-group signifiers to tell his core audience who they should hate on a given day. He's morbidly fascinated with violence done by others in his name, and he's pushed that envelope to the point of openly calling for the assassination of his rivals. If calling the movement he heads up "fascist" is a semantic boo-boo, then I dunno. Okay.

2024-10-21 22:41:53 GMT

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When I researched the genesis of Japan's licensing regime for used goods dealers, I came across parliamentary debates over the post-WWII reform/reenactment, in which a Communist Party rep attacked police oversight of mandatory used-book sales records (justifiably) as a surveillance mechanism.

2024-09-24 06:08:38 GMT

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I would say that's a tactful detour around unbridled capital accumulation, which is the engine *shaping* the kind of innovation that happens in VC funded, billionaire-controlled firms. Tax the billionaire class out of existence, and innovation will still happen, it'll just be driven by different priorities, and be more amenable to regulation on account of legislatures and the rest not being owned.

2024-09-16 05:02:52 GMT

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Oh great ... So on the return trip from the latest bike tour, I walked this spur along a freeway, through dense undergrowth, and came across the hulks of two small cars, which I assumed had just been ditched at the end of a joyride or something.
Now I'm gonna want to go back and peek inside to be sure they didn't figure in suicides or gangland killings ...
https://fgbjr.name/galleries/bike-tours/gero-1/geromap-1-06/

2024-09-15 19:05:31 GMT

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That would make a cool ligature.

2024-09-14 13:04:59 GMT

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Yeah man, it's hard to adjust man.

2024-09-14 07:26:28 GMT

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My read on the mess back home is that our aspiring oligarchs see the manipulability of the ageing narcissist as a feature, and that a significant swath of the voting electorate targeted by the well funded right-wing media firehose are already in the habit of sidling up to strongmen for protection and advantage in the corrupt environment of their local communities and workplaces, and so don't smell a rat in openly fascist rhetoric.
(Now off to explore ways of cheering myself up!)

2024-08-15 05:49:39 GMT

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How much longer before it overshoots the population of the planet?

2024-08-08 05:32:37 GMT

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It also makes SpaceX a monopolist and single point of failure. In a world with sane budget priorities the enterprise would be nationalized and well funded. It's gonna be costly and won't end well.

2024-07-23 18:30:34 GMT

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Not only that, it'll be faster than the dryer.

2024-07-23 00:53:13 GMT

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Yeah, I wasn't responding properly to your question, it was more a normative thought on where current arrangements fall down. Ideally one firm shouldn't have such broad and deep access to the PCs of the world.

2024-07-08 21:42:07 GMT

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Great to see the generosity, but it seems like adjusting the filter for entry into a lucrative profession is a different thing from lowering the cost of services it provides.

2023-02-25 03:36:02 GMT

Every time I am pointed at some well-heeled media star's hysterical rant about Woke This or Woke That, my first thought is of George Carlin's calm observation that they call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.