These Just Thinking comics are memos and thoughts to me future self, in a different way than my diary is. The Blog posts are too. I get almost no comment on anything I post with them, as, really, they haven't got the context for my random thoughts. 😀
Saturday, April 27, 2024
Talking to My Future Self In Public
Sunday, April 21, 2024
PRIME Series FALLOUT
The description seemed interesting. And that was about it for deciding to watch it. The first episode then pulled me in.
"Ned Flanders in the Apocalypse" sums up one of the characters. After watching it all, it has given me a few things to think about, and having seen things been privatized for "shareholder value" don't see it as too far fetched at all. Especially with the size of the US Military Budget, getting a slice of that pie is irresistible for the worse kind.
I will get back to watching HOUSE on Netflix again after this diversion, but after seeing most of the first 2 seasons now, it isn't as new and refreshing as it was initially.
We can be found at ArtAndTechnology
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
Headphones & Earbuds: Thoughts 2024
We can be found at ArtAndTechnology
Friday, April 12, 2024
Japanese Musical Instrument Industry. A Brits view 1987
Hugh Ashton was born in the UK in 1956, and after graduation from university worked in the technology industry around Cambridge (the first personal computer he used was Sir Clive Sinclair’s personal TRS-80) until 1988, when a long-standing interest in the country took him to Japan.
There he worked for a Japanese company producing documentation for electronic instruments and high-end professional audio equipment, helped to set up the infrastructure for Japan’s first public Internet service provider, worked for major international finance houses, and worked on various writing projects, including interviewing figures in the business and scientific fields, and creating advertorial reports for Japanese corporations to be reprinted in international business magazines.
Along the way, he met and married Yoshiko, and also gained certificates in tea ceremony and iaidō (the art of drawing a sword quickly).
In 2008, he wrote and self-published his first published novel, Beneath Gray Skies, an alternative history in which the American Civil War was never fought, and the independent Confederacy forms an alliance with the German National Socialist party. This was followed by At the Sharpe End, a techno-financial-thriller set in Japan at the time of the Lehman’s crash, and Red Wheels Turning, which re-introduced Brian Finch-Malloy, the hero of Beneath Gray Skies, referred to by one reviewer as “a 1920s James Bond”.
In 2012, Inknbeans Press of California published his first collection of Sherlock Holmes adventures, Tales from the Deed Box of John H. Watson M.D., which was swiftly followed by many other volumes of Holmes’ adventures, hailed by Sherlockians round the world as being true to the style and the spirit of the originals by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Inknbeans also published Tales of Old Japanese and other books by Ashton, including the Sherlock Ferret series of detective adventures for children. He and Yoshiko returned to the UK in 2016 for family reasons, where they now live in the Midlands cathedral city of Lichfield.
He continues to write Sherlock Holmes stories, as well as various other fiction and non-fiction projects, including documentation for forensic software, and editing and layout work on a freelance basis, in between studying for an MSc in forensic psychological studies with the Open University.
He must have worked for Yamaha as a writer.
Many UK and American writers stories about Japan are to make their home audience feel better or superior. I remember clearly in the 1990s telling my Japanese bosses that the foreign press was saying how they were all saying the Japanese Economic Boom is Over, and being told they were just jealous of Japans success. In that case the foreign press was correct and the boom was truly over, but in many other cases they were not wrong of their assessment of Foreign journalists.
I will let you judge if you think any of his article above is condescending or not...
We can be found at ArtAndTechnology
Tuesday, April 9, 2024
"LATE STAGE" Life, 2024/4/10
A cartoon on being semi retired, not working fulltime any more, and the things in life you want to do, and those you need to do. I wrote "you" there, but it really just means "me".
I have been doing one of these Just Thinking... comics again everyday for the last week or two. Even did two on making them, combined here:
I did a lot of these during the covid years, some were 3 or more panel strips, others just this single panel. I have bought and used BLAMBOT fonts, I have also looked at his info about lettering comics and his book, but mostly do my own thing, inspired by memes, euro-comics and manga. His lettering comics book seems so American Comic only to me. I guess this is partly as I never read any American comics growing up, and only see them as a minor arm of the art. The first comic I ever really read was translated manga THE GHOST IN THE SHELL, then some collected volumes of SPAWN I bought during business trips to America in the 1990s. Memes, a photo with some text slapped on it, has become a significant format, but I want to do things a bit differently.
I do these for myself and expect my format will evolve more. Time Capsules for my future self. I may be able to take it somewhere interesting, but may just stop again and try something completely different. It isn't like I have an audience to consider.
Suzume was the TV movie of the week last week, and I recorded it to a BLURAY RECORDER. I useful gadget to have, that I didn't have to buy, as I was given this older model last year.