Food in Kobe Modernark All vegetarian, mostly vegan, but many non-vegan desserts and drinks. Well labelled on the menu. I went here twice, once with a fairly big group of carnivores who were reasonably impressed or at least polite about it. It's open late which is a plus, has a nice atmosphere, and free wifi (you have to ask for the password, when I was there it was 88888888). They also sell some organic groceries, vegan cookies, etc. Food was delicious and portion sizes were reasonable. I tried the vegetarian plate (a selection of things), teriyaka wrap (contains wheat gluten and salad), and a curry and rice bowl. All dishes come with salads and soups. I also had a vegan lassi which was an unusual (but delicious) raspberry flavour, and coconut 'tiramisu' cake, which wasn't really like tiramisu, but was delicious anyway. Pricey in general, but average for the area. Natural House Food Court Tried to go here twice. The first time, though HappyCow says it's open until 2000, they told me they close at 1600. The grocery store part is open later, just not the restaurant. The second time I got there at about 1430 and they told me they'd sold out of curry. Oh well. Picked up some snacks from the store instead, which is extensive and healthy organic produce, though not cheap. Pink Weed All vegan, and proud. Loved this place, but maybe by this point the lack of options in Kobe was wearing on me. It's frustrating that it's only open for lunchtime. There's no wifi, but comfy seating and graphic novels and books to read. I went twice anyway and got a different lunch set each time. The curry was excellent, and more filling than it looked. The sandwich was interesting, I'm not sure what was in it, but it did the job. Accompanying salads and soups were great. I tried cheesecake and poundcake, and chai and iced black tea. Again, pricey in general but normal for this kind of place. It's also about a 15 minute walk from Sannomiya station, which is handy. Follow the trainline west (mountains on your right) until you reach the next station, then it's off a side road. Vegan dessert stall Close to Chinatown we stumbled across a vegan dessert stall. They had waffles, doughnutty cake things, and chocolate cake. We bought one of everything. Kusum Indian All vegetarian, thali and chapati seem to be vegan, though the dessert that comes as part of the dinner set (ice cream) is not. Declined that, but paid the full price anyway. The thali was three curries, rice and chapati, and they were delicious and homecooked. There was no menu, we just sat down and the owner brought out dish after dish. The samosas were great, I could have eaten them all night. Good job I didn't though, or I wouldn't have had room for the curries. As it was, I took some leftovers home. Food all cooked by the owner and his wife, though they seemed kind of despondent. There wasn't anyone else there when we were, early evening. Difficult to find, the map marker in HappyCow was about 15 minutes too far west. But some googling for the name and different parts of the address eventually got us there. We almost walked right past, but I was lucky to see the sign fro the Indian supplies store that is right below the restaurant. Food in Osaka atl All vegan, located upstairs, just off the side of the enormous indoor mall arcade thing that runs through the center of the city. Their specialty for some reason is bagels and hummus, which are made fresh onsite every day. They have three set lunches, which include starters and drinks, and three dessert options for a little extra. It was all really good, filling.. felt expensive, but actually normal for vegan restaurants here. Mel Coffee roasters Friendly, young, husband-and-wife team running this teeny tiny coffee roasters which has been carved out of a corner of a building. They have a bench outside, but no real seating. Any space inside not taken up by the counter is occupied by coffee roasting equipment, and you can watch the beans go round. Seriously good espresso, and a wide selection of hand-drip, too. Plus, the cheapest coffee we found between Kobe and Osaka at 190 JPY for an espresso! And by far the best. Did I mention it was great? Their English is fluent, and as an added bonus had a good working knowledge of vegan restaurants in the area. Wad This is a tea (and cereamics) shop, recommended to us by the folks at Mel's. We tried two different types of sencha, which was produced with great ceremony. It was very pretty, with teeny tiny cups, pots and timers. We initially tried to share a pot (it's expensive!!), but we were required to make an order each. We got three infusions, at different temperatures, and finally - the part we'd been excited about after reading it on the menu - they brought us the tea leaves to eat. Except they returned them seasoned with soy sauce and bonito flakes. D'oh. They have a bunch of tea-appropriate nibbles on the menu, many of which look vegan, but I didn't try any. They sell a very small selection of tea to buy by the gram as well. Paprika Shokudo All vegan and proud. They used a button system to call servers, but it was chronically slow anyway, including the food coming. In the end it took so long we decided not to get dessert. But the food we did get was great. 'Oysters' made from mushrooms, fried soy meat, and cheesey vegetables. They also brought us some small starters to choose from a plate. Prana All vegan, macrobiotic, healthy food. There's a kitchen right across the street from the actual restaurant which was at first confusing. No English menus, but the server/chef did her best to explain what the dishes were. We picked two out of the three lunch sets at random, and tried miso soup, salad, curry, and ramen. The ramen were bland but a large portion. The curry was on par with other curries we've had a vegan restaurants. We followed up with two (small) slices of apple cake. The food was all good, but definitely on the more expensive side. Aju This place. Wow. All vegan, and proud. Reviews on HappyCow claim it only has four seats, and a grumpy owner/chef, but I found a much bigger space and a cheerful, curious, talkative waitress. Their space was occupied by a prebooked large party, but they managed to dig up some extra chairs and repurpose a storage table so that we could stay! Not on the cheap side, but we ordered as much as possible. I finally got to try oknomiyaki which was maybe one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten. Plus a pizza with something spam-like, and potato. It was so cheesy and absolute comfort food. We also tried deep fried soya meat, which came topped with more grated radish than one should reasonably try to eat. We got a platter of sides, including bizarre 'squid' (which I was reliably informed had a texture very close to actual squid), and soy meat chunks, and various salad-y bits. There was a poster on the wall with a picture of some ridiculous looking Hallowe'en dessert, and I had to have it. It was pumpkin soft-serve ice cream, matcha ice cream, red bean goo and mochi balls. Plus little biscuits shaped like a bat and a pumpkin. I regret nothing. This was my last night in Osaka, and I was tempted to stay longer just to come back here. Accommodation in Osaka I stayed in a small self-contained apartment near Tennoji. It had a balcony, and a small but functional kitchen. It also came with a portable Mifi hotspot which was fast and the most useful thing ever. Also posted to AirBnB: Great communication from Keisuke right up until I arrived. Really great place, clean and minimal and comfortable. Also a good location, for a train to the airport, and for central Osaka. In fact, I walked into Osaka; it takes more than an hour but is a great way to see different areas. The apartment is also close to a large park and many tourist attractions, including Tsūtenkaku tower. Thanks! Food in Tokyo I have a separate post about vegan food in Tokyo.
Face swelling is even worse today. Dave says I looke like a hamster.
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A solid effort this time, but Delta might want to revise their 'vegan' sides. Dairy butter is common in my flight experience so far, and dressing not uncommon, but like the regular meals didn't even come with a random piece of cheese. Special treatment.
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How do I know the reviewers are experts? I don't know who they are. I know the context and background of my facebook friends, I can critically interpret their replies. The reviewers are anonymous. They're people who had some time, just barely, probably during a commute or on the toilet. Or who owed someone a favour. I've reviewed papers, usually having been asked to by the person who was supposed to be reviewing, about topics I barely know. I think: "it's okay, the other reviewers will swing it if I'm wrong." ...
Why is three positive conference reviews more reassuring than one thousand facebook comments?
@KKjernsmo Yes, with those canaries explicitly not being vulnerable minorities.
Amy wrote about decentralisation, & socialwg
Working from Commune246 today, a cute hippie food court nestled in what appears to be a pretty upscale neighbourhood in Omotesando. It has vegan food, coffee, wifi, power (courtesy of Wired) indoor and outdoor seating with lots of laptop/notebook space, and a much better playlist than most public places in Japan.
Amy wrote about vegan, Tokyo, Japan, & travel
As I work - on writing standards, writing code, studying centralised and decentralised systems - and as I read the news and watch events unfold around me, bubbling away under the surface is always an unease. What if we're making it worse? We all have blind spots, limited experiences. And especially so since many of us working on decentralisting the Web are not amongst those who would benefit most from the purported advantages. Some of us have been working (or watching) in this space for years, decades, longer than the Web. But more of us, an only ever increasing number, have not. We are privileged, we are nerds, most of us don't have all that much experience, and we do not know best. We've jumped on this decentralisation thing as a solution to lots of global problems. Towards the end of last week, Tantek prompted me to actually articulate some of what were previously just subconscious discomfort. How are the decentralised technologies we're working on going to make people more vulnerable? Smaller attack surfaces: Large centralised systems have robust network architectures; lots of money and expertise to keep things running even if under attack (except when someone uses all of the Web-enabled kettles to DDOS them, but that aside). Many decentralised architectures imagine smaller 'pods' which federate. It's possible many of these servers will be run by volunteers, hobbyists, or small/poor organisations, and could be easily knocked over and kept down by malicious actors. Quieter takedowns: We want it to be easier for small communities, perhaps vulnerable minorities, to create safe spaces in their own corner of the Web, and to be able to keep out those who jeopardise that. If these communities are 'disappeared' (perhaps made easier by the previous point) the rest of the Web might not notice until it's too late. Illusion of control: We promote decentralisation as a way to control who has access to your personal/social data, and to be able to move it somewhere else if you want. But a key part of decentralisation is federation, or enabling access to your data by other systems, ie. so that you and your friends can use a different applications for the same thing, without that getting in the way of your interactions. This involves open data formats and standard APIs and likely complex access control setups. Most people tell me they can't get a handle on their Facebook privacy settings, and these are for a single unified system. Just because you could move your data to a different service, doesn't mean it's safe where it is. Illusion of control 2: Normies look at me like I'm nuts when they find out I share more about myself on my personal website than they do on social media. I tell them I know exactly what I'm sharing, rather than having it slurped up by algorithms which monitor everything they click or hover over. My explicit sharing is greater, but my implicit sharing is reduced. Or so I think. Related to the previous point, my data is all public and nicely marked up to be machine readable. The confidence I have about the fact that I have to jump through inconvenient hoops of my own making to get it online is dangerous. If social media has normalised dangerous oversharing, and the general populace is starting to clock the 'dangerous' part, then decentralised social media runs the risk of convincing people their oversharing is 'safe' again, setting us back a decade. The filter bubble: The easier we make it for people to avoid abuse online (just imagine for half a second that the decentralisation efforts are even close to solving this, k?), the easier we make it for people to filter out diverse points of view. The first thing I noticed when Twitter introduced its recent phrase filtering thing was a bunch of privileged liberals screaming about the filter bubble and completely missing the point. But anyway. If this is an either/or we're in trouble. This is doubtless just the beginning of a very long list, and there are others thinking/writing about this as well. I'll update this post to list other articles as I come across them.
One of the things I've loved at vegan restaurants in Japan is deep fried soy meat. Most have it, and meat-eaters I've dined with have compared it favourably to fried chicken or other meat. It's crunchy and juicy and just really super satisfying. So naturally I decided to make my own. As usual, the following image sums up my cooking style: And as usual, I googled it a bit, skimmed a couple of articles or recipes, and then closed everything and jumped in working on Web-refreshed instincts. Well, first I went to Seiyu and bought soy meat (obviously) and katakuriko, a potato starch that I'd read was much better than using normal wheat flour. I found it by screenshotting a google image search result and searching the supermarket to match the kanji on packaging. In case you were interested. I marinated the soy meat in soy sauce, ginger paste, garlic paste, and sesame oil for about 20 minutes. I deep fried some potatoes in the mean time, because I read somewhere you are supposed to fry vegetables before using the oil for meat or something. Also because I love fried potato. Then I rolled the soy meat in the katakuriko until it had a thin coating. Then I deep fried it. Success! This was delicious. The chunks weren't as big as the ones I've had in restaurants, but that's all Seiyu have. It was so good I'd already eaten half before it even occurred to me to reach for the mayonnaiase. While I was at it, I did the same with some thin slices of konnyaku. Also successful, though not quiet as delicious. I think I should have probably made an effort to make a thick, consistent coating of flour.
aka. The Tooth Hurts aka Visting a dentist as a foreigner in Tokyo, Japan, since I need a more SEO friendly header After minor face explosion due to wisdom teeth over the weekend, I eventually decided I should go see a dentist rather than try to wait it out until after my upcoming trip to the US. I am extremely thankful to Mike and Nao for taking me to their local dentist, and translating forms and conversation for me. It's nice to have W3C family all over the world :) We dropped by about 3.30 in the afternoon, without calling ahead, and I was seen within about five minutes, after filling in (or mostly, as it was all in Japanese, Nao filling in) a form. They estimated the prices upfront (without being asked) and to check that I was okay with it, promising for sure less than 10,000 JPY. This is about what I expected following extensive googling yesterday. First was an xray. The xray machine played like 8bit elevator music, and I had to stop myself from laughing. Then some waiting around, and then I was seated in a dentist chair. Then more waiting around. Everything seemed to happen at a very leisurely pace, but staff were friendly and smiley and chatty (in Japanese). The dentist talked to Nao for ages while I was in the chair, and Nao periodically gave me one-sentence summaries. I was reminded of the "moar... intensity" scene in Lost in Translation, and again had to stop myself from giggling. The xray was produced, and I got a detailed explanation of everything wrong with my wisdom teeth. My left side is infected right now, but the right side is just as at risk. The dentist noted that were she to be removing them, she'd take the top ones first. She showed me the best angle at which to clean the emerging tooth, and put some gel on it. She produced antibiotics and very strong painkillers. Yay! And if I'm still in pain on Thursday, I'm to go back. This came to 7,790 JPY - less than expected, though not something I had budgeted for. I'm going to see if I can claim any of that back from World Nomads. I was in there for probably just under an hour.
Every single church, school, town/village hall, community center, library, any public space you can think of, probably public toilets, are polling stations in the UK. I'd walk past ten on my way to the office. I guess the US is like really big and far apart and everything, but something just seems really badly organised.
Follow the song, whither you will, yet force is wrong. Use none, or the song will bring you ill.
J taught me to make gyoza today. We even found soy meat in Seiyu (Walmart/Asda). The gyoza wrappers are on the top shelf in a fridge full of packaged meat. It never would have occurred to me to look for them there. The soy meat was not dry, but in a packet of liquid, and needed draining. All of the vegetables get finely chopped and mixed together, plus ginger paste, garlic paste, and sesame oil. Add filling to skin, wet around the edges, fold, squeeze, crimp. Ta da! And fry. And dip! In a mixture of soy sauce, vinegar, and chilli oil. Delicious!
So I had this plan of going somewhere cheap and warm for the winter. Then I went to Japan for a month and after that Boston for two weeks. Both of those places are very expensive and fucking freezing. Must try harder. *shivers*
Twitter DM is no longer an immediate way to reach me. Made space for Signal. Ping me on Telegram (rhiaro) or IRC (rhiaro on Freenode and imaginarynet.org.uk) for my mobile number.
Amy wrote about twitter, life, contact, & irc
I was just getting the hang of Japan, but now I have to leave :(
Living vicariously through Google Streetview.
Maybe having all of the deeply ingrained social bullshit laid out in plain sight, rather than quietly affecting things from under the surface, will make it easier to deal with. or maybe we'll see the end of our species in our lifetime, who knows
Might just mute everyone who tweets about politics for a while. Or maybe just closing twitter would be less work..
I have never had to wait more than like five minutes to vote in a general election. This queuing for hours thing in the US is insane.
Overhearing a guy explaining his app/startup to some people... the pitch is that the more time people spend getting 'sucked in' to online interactions on social media the less they manage to do offline meetings and stuff, and people want more of that. SO GUESS WHAT. THEY SOLVED IT WITH AN APP. lol. Oh but ugh, the next thing he says (which sounds like the reason for this meeting) is that they want to start using all the information they are collecting on people for something. Oh I want so badly to sidle over and ask him about his ethics but I'm not going to. OH GOD his "primary mission" is to "get into political stuff" :'(
I opened DreamHost's email newsletter to unsubscribe, but then I saw this: Well played.
Amy wrote about DreamHost, politics, & email
Public Service Announcement: This is not peanut butter. Neither is Skippy. Get it together Japan.
Amy wrote about peanut butter, japan, & food
Current status:
Amy wrote about current status, socialwg, & w3c
This post is my own opinion, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of the Social Web WG! We met at MIT in Cambridge, MA, on the 17th and 18th of November. See also day 1 minutes and day 2 minutes. tl;dr Everything is progressing. Naming things is hard. We need your implementations please or features may be dropped from some specs. We hope to extend by 6 months, not so we all make more work to do, but just so that the newest spec has time to make it to rec given process timing requirements. We're transitioning any other work into a CG. Community Group The Social Web Incubator Community Group, should be pronounced swi-kig, but by the end of the meeting everyone had taken to calling it swish. I think it was Evan's fault. Anyway it's live, and is where we'll continue to develop on top of the things we started in the WG, as well as think about how to tackle things we haven't got to yet. Aaron and Chris are chairing it, and plan for discussion to take place primarily on github and IRC, with mailing lists for broadcast only. You should join. The spec formally known as PubSubHubbub At the last face-to-face we renamed PubSubHubbub to PubSub. We subsequently realised this is too generic a term for quite a specific spec, and as a result is hard to search the Web for, and hard to find/name libraries and packages for. Renaming it again took the better part of a month. Heh. A few weeks ago we developed a fairly long shortlist on the wiki, listing pros and cons, and a few people voted and left their rationale. On day one of this face-to-face, we ruled out every single one of those suggestions, and came up with three new ones (WebSub, WebFollow and WebSubscribe). We slept on it, and just before lunch of day 2, voted between these three. WebSub won. I like it for its closeness to PubSub; WebFollow is a good name for a user-facing feature that implements the WebSub protocol. Then we proceeded to brainstorm more names in the google doc, progressively making the font smaller and introducing columns so we could see them all at once. <img src="https://i.amy.gy/2016-11-boston/notpubsub.png" alt="WebSub, WebFollow, WebSubscribe, Hublish, Sublish, Weblish, Caster, HubCaster, WebCaster, SubWebCast, HubHub, InternetSubPro, GoSub, iSub, OSub, OSubStatus, SubStandard, PubStandard, TheStandard, DefinitelyNotPubSubHubbub, Evan Prodromou's PubSubHubbubbub, Hubble, HubNet, The Spec formerly known as PubSubHubub, HobNob, HubNub, BubHubSubPub, RubNubSubPub, DubDubDubSub (WWWSub), DubSub, DubDub, YetAnotherPubSub (YAPS), YubNub, YetAnotherPubSubHubBub (YAPSHB), WebPro2000, StalkerSpec, README.TXT AS A SERVICE, InternetFriendFinder, GNU Pub/Sub/Hub, PleaseReadMyUpdatesPlease, follow-metadata.csv, iNeedAttention, Hubscribe, WeSub, Webscribe, HTTPSub, BeerPub, PubStep, Vaporwave, MicroHub, MicroSub, WebScaleHub, Encrypted Media Extensions Sub, MESub, WazzzzzSub, NeXTSub, WasHubi, NotificationHub, Notifhub, nh;df; (no Hub didn't follow), NoHub, SoHub, PumpHub, InstantMessenger, ActivityHub, ActiveHub, Rubadubdub (3 men in a Hub), InstantWebNotification, AllHandsOnDeck, SemHub, LubDubHub, Sublime, JSub, HubStep, Internet Push Notification (IPN), World Wide Notifications, World Wrestling Notifications, PubSubDubstep, SUP (Simple Update Protocol), WHAT-SUP, GitHub, GitSub, SubSlab, GrubHub, Rub-a-dub-hub, HubHub, Hodor, Micropub, EvanPub (the free version of EvanPro? (that's OpenEvan until it gets forked, then it is LibreEvan)), PuSHPuSHButDifferent, Pubsubhubbub2.0, SubWay (always fresh), MakingSubscriptionsGreatAgain (too soon?) TOO SOON, LinkedDataSubscriptions, WebizingPuSH, PubSubHullabloo, Hubby, IrishPub, VegiHub, PubIsland2, HubDuty, HubDoobie, GetAHub, Subtastic, SuberHubonic, HubGear777, PubSubulater, SoftHub, HardHub, HardyHarHarHub, Mr. Hubato, HubsConsideredHarmful, SUuuBer!, SlapASub, HubbaHubba, PSNPuSH (PubSub Not PubSubHubbub), BikeShedHub, BikeSubHubDub" title="WebSub, WebFollow, WebSubscribe, Hublish, Sublish, Weblish, Caster, HubCaster, WebCaster, SubWebCast, HubHub, InternetSubPro, GoSub, iSub, OSub, OSubStatus, SubStandard, PubStandard, TheStandard, DefinitelyNotPubSubHubbub, Evan Prodromou's PubSubHubbubbub, Hubble, HubNet, The Spec formerly known as PubSubHubub, HobNob, HubNub, BubHubSubPub, RubNubSubPub, DubDubDubSub (WWWSub), DubSub, DubDub, YetAnotherPubSub (YAPS), YubNub, YetAnotherPubSubHubBub (YAPSHB), WebPro2000, StalkerSpec, README.TXT AS A SERVICE, InternetFriendFinder, GNU Pub/Sub/Hub, PleaseReadMyUpdatesPlease, follow-metadata.csv, iNeedAttention, Hubscribe, WeSub, Webscribe, HTTPSub, BeerPub, PubStep, Vaporwave, MicroHub, MicroSub, WebScaleHub, Encrypted Media Extensions Sub, MESub, WazzzzzSub, NeXTSub, WasHubi, NotificationHub, Notifhub, nh;df; (no Hub didn't follow), NoHub, SoHub, PumpHub, InstantMessenger, ActivityHub, ActiveHub, Rubadubdub (3 men in a Hub), InstantWebNotification, AllHandsOnDeck, SemHub, LubDubHub, Sublime, JSub, HubStep, Internet Push Notification (IPN), World Wide Notifications, World Wrestling Notifications, PubSubDubstep, SUP (Simple Update Protocol), WHAT-SUP, GitHub, GitSub, SubSlab, GrubHub, Rub-a-dub-hub, HubHub, Hodor, Micropub, EvanPub (the free version of EvanPro? (that's OpenEvan until it gets forked, then it is LibreEvan)), PuSHPuSHButDifferent, Pubsubhubbub2.0, SubWay (always fresh), MakingSubscriptionsGreatAgain (too soon?) TOO SOON, LinkedDataSubscriptions, WebizingPuSH, PubSubHullabloo, Hubby, IrishPub, VegiHub, PubIsland2, HubDuty, HubDoobie, GetAHub, Subtastic, SuberHubonic, HubGear777, PubSubulater, SoftHub, HardHub, HardyHarHarHub, Mr. Hubato, HubsConsideredHarmful, SUuuBer!, SlapASub, HubbaHubba, PSNPuSH (PubSub Not PubSubHubbub), BikeShedHub, BikeSubHubDub" /> In less important news, we added Aaron as a coeditor of the WebSub spec, resolved a bunch of issues, and there's an updated working draft up. ActivityStreams 2.0 We decided to go ahead with a new CR for ActivityStreams 2.0. Though it's frustrating to increase the time to exit, it's also not infeasible that getting implementation reports which sufficiently cover all features will take another month anyway. Plus, this extra time ensures that the ActivityPub implementations will make it into AS2 implementation reports. So we have a bunch of changes to AS2 since we entered CR, although none of them affect implementations or are technically normative changes, which is why we could get away without restarting CR if necessary. But we decided updating the spec with these changes (mostly editorial, clarifications, etc, which do not change the intent of the spec) is important enough not to save them all for the PR publication. Personally I think we should publish a version with the new wording around name and summary (a plaintext summary for all objects is required in the absence of name) as soon as possible. Another useful clarification is explicitly stating that the value of the @context key may be a plaintext string, an array, or an object. We added examples of each of these, so it's clear for consumers what to look for. This is particularly important for making sure implementations which include extensions - for which the @context is necessarily an array or an object - are not completely dropped on the floor by consumers. Consumers can of course ignore extension properties they don't understand, but they should not ignore standard AS2 properties just because there are extensions alongside it. This also means that it's possible to use the JSON-LD @language construct properly (inside the @context object) to set the base language for a whole AS2 object. As there are other ways to set the language, for individual objects or for specific values, setting the @language is not required. Further, you should not set a language if you don't actually know what it is. And we haven't dumped language tags in all of the examples in the spec, in order to avoid people copying and pasting the examples without updating the language tags we use. Apparently this phenomenon is seen all over the Web, with EN language markers alongisde text that is most certainly not EN. Other CRs We skimmed through a few issues for each of Micropub, LDN and ActivityPub, and checked in on how test suites and implementation reports are doing. The editors (Aaron, Sarven, and Chris respectively) are working exceptionally hard on building the test suites and chasing implementors. They are all at various stages of progress, and we know we have at least some implementations of some features of each. Micropub: Tests, Implementation reports LDN: Tests, Implementation reports ActivityPub: Tests, Implementation reports Extension The Working Group's charter expires at the end of this year. Due to minimum time constraints on various parts of the publication process, as WebSub was late to join the WG we need until at least April to take it through to a recommendation, and that's with absolutely nothing going wrong. We were aiming, obviously, for all of our other specs to be wrapped up before the various December holidays, but it'd be tight. Adding buffer time for unexpected issues, and editors-not-having-to-make-themselves-ill-with-allnighters time, we figured they'll be exiting CR in January or early February at the latest. So we expect to get an extension of 6 months, and reduce our telecon time to monthly after January. The extra time on top of April means we won't need to freak out if for any reason WebSub has to have a second CR. This also overlaps with the opening of the Community Group, so it should help with the transition. Implementations An extra shoutout to anyone who is thinking of or starting to implement any part of any of our specs! Please let us know, either by filing implementation reports (even partial ones are helpful) or pinging us on IRC (#social) or the mailing list so we know to chase you at some point in the future. If you don't want a feature of a spec to be dropped, ie. because you want to use it, we have to prove it has been implemented. If possible, don't wait around for us to exit CR, because we need your implementations to make it that far.
How do we get people to mistrust the media? How do we get people to take context into account? Are food bloggers the bane of professional chefs? How do I prove I know what I'm talking about? How do I know I know what I'm talking about? Why would anyone care what I think? Should I publish it anyway? Why is three positive conference reviews more reassuring than one thousand facebook comments? What will I do when the Web runs out? What comes after? Where can I hide?
Gatekeepers are required in academic publishing to enforce quality, coherance and to lend authority. When anyone can publish anything, as is the case on the Web today, lies and misinformation spread much faster than the truth. People publish opinions as facts, distorted interpretations of data, make general statements based on samples and take things out of context. Academia is better than this. We value scientific rigour. We value evidence for claims, and repeatability of experiments. Nothing is more important to us than seeking the truth, whole and unbiased. Except tenure or grant funding. People all over the world write about their experiences, but these are anecdotal. If I want to understand a topic, I read about it in an established journal or conference proceedings. I can tell it's reliable because I have to log in from behind my institution's IP address to access it. It's great that the taxpayers generously cover the cost for me to access material that most of them can't. Not that they want to. The general public, and even our world leaders, are skeptical of 'experts'. Despite the fact that we have devoted our lives to specialising in one topic so we can understand it to its fullest, so that others don't have to. They deried us as 'out of touch'. Meanwhile continuing to proliferate their gut feelings on social media, spreading nonsense, missing nuance. It's a good job we can rely on our trusty paywalls to keep the real knowledge separate from all of that.
Today I learned buckwheat is nothing to do with wheat (via being told soba is not made from wheat).
Amy wrote about japan, food, & noodles
Being vegan in Japan is this emotional rollercoaster, being stuck between the two extremes of hunger-weighted frustration that there's nothing to eat, and wallet-weighted frustration that there are too many good things all in one place all at the same time, which are all really expensive. Groceries A lot of Japanese food is vegan by default, including loads of desserts made from rice (mochi!), tofu, or agar agar. A lot is mostly vegan. In the latter case, restaurants either can't or won't substitute ingredients upon request, if they understand what you're asking. Plus things that look vegan probably have secret fish in. Similarly, grocery shopping is fine; buying staples is easy. But there are loads of super interesting looking unfamiliar things that I want to eat but I don't know what they are... they're probably soy, or vegetable, or seaweed, or bean... but I can't be sure. I carried around a list of all the kanji I needed to look for to read ingredients lists, but this is exhausting enough in English. First I googled the problem, and found pictures of things that the internet said are definitely vegan, and hunted some of those down. This includes this brand of soy milk, and these azduki bean ice creams: // Todo photos Then I obtained the services of my brother's Japanese girlfriend, J, and took her grocery shopping so I could point at things and ask what they are. I got all sorts of treats (descriptions on hover): <img class="w1of2" src="https://i.amy.gy/2016tokyo/IMG_20161101_144158.jpg" alt="Flavoured savoury silken tofu. This one is mushroom and pine. I also tried edamame. I tried spreading it on bread, but J told me it is to be eaten with a spoon, with soy sauce." title="Flavoured savoury silken tofu. This one is mushroom and pine. I also tried edamame. I tried spreading it on bread, but J told me it is to be eaten with a spoon, with soy sauce." /> <img class="w1of2" src="https://i.amy.gy/2016tokyo/IMG_20161105_123040.jpg" alt="Soy meat. In Seiyu, it comes in small chunks (like ground meat) or bigger ones. There's not much in a pack, and it's stored in liquid. Dried would probably be more economical." title="Soy meat. In Seiyu, it comes in small chunks (like ground meat) or bigger ones. There's not much in a pack, and it's stored in liquid. Dried would probably be more economical." /> <img class="w1of3" src="https://i.amy.gy/2016tokyo/IMG_20161106_194652.jpg" alt="Konnyaku! Comes sealed in clear plastic surrounded by liquid. Colour varies depending on what else is in it. Clear/white has nothing added, this one has seaweed." title="Konnyaku! Comes sealed in clear plastic surrounded by liquid. Colour varies depending on what else is in it. Clear/white has nothing added, this one has seaweed." /> <img class="w1of2" src="https://i.amy.gy/2016tokyo/IMG_20161111_151412.jpg" alt="Sesame tofu plus sauce sachets. Definitely dessert but not very sweet. Pack contains two. Sauce tastes like if soy sauce thought really really hard about caramel." title="Sesame tofu plus sauce sachets. Definitely dessert but not very sweet. Pack contains two. Sauce tastes like if soy sauce thought really really hard about caramel." /> (Close up of the last one). I learned other things like: There are a million different types of miso. I thought there were maybe three kinds of miso. There are a million. I just picked the cheapest one, but J laughed at me and said it has rice in, it's not for miso soup. Then she laughed at me again when I told her I'd put in the curry she was eating. It was tasty though. Tofu is SO CHEAP. It's awesome. Rice is surprisingly expensive. Vegetables and fruit are also expensive, less surprisingly. Mushrooms get cheaper the weirder (more unfamiliar to me) they are. Which is awesome. Konnyaku is a wonderful gelatinous blob made from yam powder. It's banned in the EU in 2002 because 18 people choked on it, so this is why I'd never heard of it. I blogged separately about making gyoza and deep fried soy meat. Restaurants Vegan and vegan-friendly restaurants in Tokyo are not too hard to come by, but also clustered together, and pretty expensive (like everything else I guess). But they're also fucking good. I had to decide this was just something I was budgeting for. Ain Soph There are a bunch of these around Tokyo, all with different hippie names like 'Journey' and 'Ripple'. Ain.Soph has some poor reviews on HappyCow for being very expensive but with very small portions. J and Dave picked this for me on my first night in Tokyo (to the same branch I'd been to for dessert when I was last in Tokyo, in fact) and I warned him on the way about the small portion reviews (he's a hungry growing boy). But it turns out we needn't have worried. I had a taco salad which was huge and delicious. Dave had a green curry, which was plenty of food for him, and J had fried soy meat and rice, and as a dedicated fried chicken eater, was suitably impressed. We split two desserts between us - the lemon cheesecake and chocolate cake. The chocolate cake was hypnotic. This came to just under 60,000 JPY (~$60) in total (which I paid for because I'm an awesome big sister). A modified version of this review posted to HappyCow. Kerela Bhuvan On one of my first evenings in Nerima, I set out to hunt for groceries. Came upon this place by chance near Nerima station and as I was peering at the menu in passing the waiter who stuck his head out to invite me inside was so friendly that I went in. I'm so glad I did. This is mostly South Indian, and serves meat, but with a decent array of vegetarian options. The waiter was happy to point out which are vegan (I expanded 'vegan' to 'no milk, no butter, no egg' just in case, which I think helped), and we also chatted about where I'd been in India and how much I like Indian food. I was unfamiliar with a bunch of the curries on this menu though, as I know less about South Indian food in general. This was exciting. I picked one at random, which was Rasam (600 JPY) and accompanied it with coconut rice (500 JPY). For an extra 150 I was offered Indian rice instead of Japanese rice, but I had to break the news that I actually enormously prefer Japanese rice. I was able to ask for it hot, and the waiter reassured me that the rice would be fried in oil not butter. I'm not sure if the default is butter, but this is nice to confirm. The food came really quickly, and I ate it just as quickly. It was really good. The rice plate was huge, and the curry was hot and tomatoey and full of delicious. I just managed to finish it all. I came back a second time with Dave (he loves curry) and J, and they both had something with chicken and enjoyed it. J's naan bread was enormous. Dave spilled his curry all over the table. I had aloo bondy to start (deep fried spicy potato balls) and chapati with avial, a coconutty curry full of veggies. All up to standard. A modified version of this review on HappyCow (pending). Veganic To Go This is proximate to Roppongi station, and all of the art exhibitions and museums and park thereabouts, so really handy if you're visiting that area. The first time I went was tipping down with rain so I didn't wander around much. I also didn't fancy splashing out for the museums. But this was worth the trip alone. I wanted everything here. So much. They have four burgers, six or so rice bowls (most topped with not-meat of some kind), a selection of desserts, and various sides and accompaniments. The burgers seem to be mostly made of hemp. The first time I went I had the teriyaki burger, and a side of fried soy meat. Both super delicious. The bread itself was pretty incredible, and the burger patty was made of some kind of beans, and smothered in sauce and salad. It could have been bigger, but maybe I got used to US portions. It certainly left room for dessert. The burger and side together came to 1,490 JPY which is pretty steep. But it was good. The second time I had a slice of chicken mayo pizza, more deep fried soy meat, and hemp milk almond pudding (1,544 JPY). The pizza slice was small and fine, but nothing to go crazy for. Man I love the soy meat though. Veganic has free wifi, but not much seating so I wouldn't feel comfortable bedding in here. They close at 5 on some days, which isn't a big deal if you're there in the evening, as you can just pop across the road toooo... This review on HappyCow Cafe 6BT ... which is open til late. And also has an incredible menu, of ramen and not-meats and massive, hearty looking dishes. The first time I went (immediately following Veganic) I had a soy latte and the chocolate gateau made with rice flour, accompanied by soy ice cream. Dense and totally satisfied the chocolate craving I'd been accumulating. This set me back 540 + 750 JPY. Has free wifi too (which works better than Veganic's) and much more space, plus a few power outlets if you look in the right place, so I can stick around and work here without feeling guilty for taking up space. I returned to try the ramen, and loved the Soy milk tantan, which is a decent 800 JPY. I didn't get the set, but tried a couple of other peoples' sides and they were great. Get a set if you're really hungry, but otherwise the ramen alone is a decent portion size. This review adapted for HappyCow. Monk's Food This isn't a vegan restaurant, but a 'healthy' one, and seems to always have one vegan item on their set lunch menu. If you order this, they also check with you about whether to make the miso soup with dashi or not. The set I ate was vegetables in broth, and tofu, plus sides of pickles, soy beans and seaweed, miso soup, mushrooms, and tea. It was really delicious, and very authentically Japanese. The space is cosy - not really suitable for big groups, though you could take over the whole of the upstairs. The lunch set is 1,080 JPY. This review on HappyCow. Doughnut Plant I first tried to go to the one in Kichijoji, but this turns out to be the main kitchen (though it also appears to sell doughnuts) and it's open between the odd hours of 8pm and 2am. I was too early. I went to the outlet in Lumin Est, right outside Shinjuku Station instead, and got to try two: maple walnut and cranberry. Great! The larger doughnuts are 350 JPY, and they have a huge array of other flavours (containing dairy, though not eggs), with smaller ones starting at less than 200 JPY. Review adapted for HappyCow. Tsuyukusa This place was busy when I arrived, and it turned out there was a special event on. There were crochet things and bags and jewelery for sale, but not lunch. Nonetheless I was welcomed with friendly smiles and a little English by customers and staff alike, and got two small cakes and some really delicious black soy bean tea for 500 JPY. The cakes turned out to be enough to fill me up for a few hours, so a real lunch wasn't missed. Review adapted for HappyCow. The Hawaiian food truck at Commune264 I went to Commune264 for Cori vegan food truck, but it is closed on Tuesdays. Fortunately right across is another food truck with a vegan plate for 1000 JPY. It consisted of a variety of exciting vegetables, beans and pickles, brown rice, and fried soy meat. Lots of food, good value, friendly service. Came with a bottle of water too. Commune246 is a covered outdoor seating area with a whole bunch of food trucks, and a really nice vibe. Part of it is Wired cafe, which provides wifi, power and plenty of seating - a great spot for digital nomadding. Cori Vegan food truck at Commune264 I went back on not-Tuesday, and ate the vegan plate from here too (1000 JPY). Points because they gave me an actual plate instead of disposable stuff. The food was a mix of the usual salad, pickles, fried soy meat and mushrooms but also included the best scrambled tofu I've ever had. It was squishy and creamy, possibly the closes to eggs I've come across. It was only a small amount, but worth trying the plate for that I think. They have lots of other options too, and some interesting drinks on the menu. This review adapted for HappyCow. Brown Rice Cafe Brown Rice is about a 5 minute walk from Commune246. They serve lunch until (last orders for food) 5pm, and are open til 6, so I squeezed in an early dinner here. They are all vegan, and have three main plates plus a special. I chose the curry, which was full of beans and pulses, and pretty good (1,300 JPY). It came with brown rice, and a drink (I had hojicha). I also had a pumpkin soup with mochi for dessert (700 JPY). The food was filling and the space is nice, but nothing to rave about. This review adapted for HappyCow. Magokoro Not actually Tokyo, this is a seafront Hemp cafe in Kamakura, a short walk from Hase train station. It serves fish, but is otherwise vegan. It's very clear which dishes contain fish. Everything has hemp involved somehow. I had a plate with breaded tofu, and the usual selection of rice, pickles and vegetables, miso soup, plus a hemp coffee (tasted like normal coffee). They had a few interesting desserts, but I was full from the plate and short on time. The food was tasty, people were friendly, and the sea view is excellent. This review adapted for HappyCow. Harukucchii All vegan! Also not Tokoyo but a five minute walk from Fujisawa train station. I was on my way back from Kamakura, but I'd recommend visiting Fujisawa just to eat here. It. Was. Spectacular. I had actually changed the day of my visit to Kamakura so I could go here (it's closed on Tuesdays) and I thought I was being silly, but this was a great decision. It's a really tiny space (maybe ten or twelve seats) and it's not cheap, but boy is it good. Did I mention it was delicious? I would normally be hesitant with these prices, but thanks to their free wifi (password: harukucchii01) I found out the US election results after a day of being offline and decided to just drown my sorrows in gourmet vegan food. The menu is not available in English, but the waitress gladly translated every single item for me. There are loads of options, and really interesting ones that I haven't seen elsewhere. I had spicy edamame, which came with a warning from the chef: "this is too spicy. That red one is danger. Be careful, okay?" It was perfect (I love spicy food). I didn't eat the red chilli that sat on top because I didn't want to destroy myself for the rest of the meal, but I did lick it. I had also ordered rice milk, which was rich and creamy and a great compliment to the spice. I also ate fried potatoes, which were simple but perfectly seasoned and cooked, plus deep fried konnyaku, which came with lettuce and a little dish of salt to dip. Everything just tasted incredible. I followed up with hojicha, and matcha 'tiramisu'. I don't like tiramisu, but in my experience so far Japan's idea of tiramisu is varied and unusual, and I'm game for anything with matcha. It was a green, creamy layered sponge in a dish. Good stuff. I was seated at the bar so I could somewhat see into the kitchen, and chatted with the chef and waitress. I paid just over 4,000 JPY for the meal in total, which is more than I would normally pay for dinner, but for this quality of food and service was totally fine. This is probably my favourite so far, second maybe only to Aju in Osaka. This review adapted for HappyCow. Gonbachi Another one a bit far from Tokyo. Out in the remote fields nearby Keio Shonan-Fujisawa University campus, this is a very traditional feeling Japanese restaurant, which uses all local produce and has a homey vibe. There are a number of vegetable dishes, and they were able (upon request, in Japanese) to make the dashi for the mushroom hoto noodle dish without fish. It was a big, hearty noodle soup, full of veggies and mushrooms, which came with beans on the side and tea. We scoured the dessert menu (which is in Japanese), and it appears that most of them are likely vegan by chance, including both tofu and soy ice cream. There were several things I'd never seen before, and I ended up choosing kurogoma pudding, which is a black sesame seed jelly, very smooth and creamy. I also tried amazake, which is a thick, sweet drink made from fermented rice and something to do with leftovers from sake production. They also have a little corner for doing calligraphy. This review adapted for HappyCow. Lima Lima is a little cafe inside a health food shop in Shinjuku. They have all vegan food to go, and some seating. I tried the veggie burger, which was a good size and came with salad, miso soup for 900 JPY. I also tried soy ice cream and a super dense chocolate brownie. This review adapted for HappyCow. Coffee shops Tully's, Doutor and Starbucks are everywhere and all have soy milk options for their drinks, including matcha lattes. I didn't actually go to a Starbucks, but I read they take it very seriously to the point they give you a special 'soy' card to avoid mixups. Wired cafe also has a few outlets, and also have soy milk (cafe au lait though, not latte). Combini Convenience stores in Japan really take convenience to a new level. Not only do they contain a wide array of food at sensible prices (in contrast to the UK, where the closest equivalent to convenience stores are like double price compared to supermarkets), but they usually have free wifi. A surprising number have desks where you can hang out and work, and some of these even have power outlets. They also have decent hot coffee (freshly ground beans) and a selection of ready-to-go hot food as well. When on the move, I was relying on combini, like 7-11, Lawson and FamilyMart, for easy to grab onigiri (they have ume and seaweed flavours) and sushi (natto maki and inari), as well as lots of mochi. Sometimes you'll find bananas, and they have a lot of nuts, crisps, and dried fruit too. I never had chance to scrutinise the hot food until I was in Tokyo, and could see from the photos that they definitely had some steamed buns that look vegan - only they never had any left, whether I was there late or early. Finally I had chance to try one: a bun filled with sesame paste from 7-11. It was pretty great, warm and doughy. If you like that kind of thing. They also had a sweet potato one.
Today I'm working from the W3C office at Keio University.
Amy wrote about Tokyo, Japan, phd, & w3c
Copypasted results from #ownYourData paper into thesis chapter 3, and edited and added to other bits already in chapter 3. Helped transition LDN to CR and Webmention to PR. Published two WD updates to Social Web Protocols. Went to an Onsen. Learnt to count to ten in Japanese whilst waiting for the bus. Only the basic numbers though. There are whole different sets of words if you're counting something specific like people or things. Obviously. Gave a lightning talk at the W3C TAG Developer Meetup about some of the work the Social Web WG is doing. Fixed my homepage AS2 output (it's still not perfect, but it had disappeared completely for a while). Learnt to make gyoza.
Went to a Japanese dentist Outlined chapter 5 of thesis Started to make chapter 1 (intro) make more sense. Fixed more sloph bugs. Went to Kamakura to see temples and statues and stuff. Existed through the potential beginning of the end of the western world as we know it. Worked from the W3C office at Keio University Added ActivityPub terms to the AS2 namespace and made the human readable version. Went to Kawagoe with Dave and J, ate lots of sweet-potato based foods.
Went back to Boston. Bummed around feeling generally unhappy about being the US. Hung around at the very small pre-SocialWG IWC. Caught up on blog posts and logs, didn't actually code anything. Social WG 8th face-to-face. Saw Arrival. Subsisted almost entirely on leftovers from the working group meeting. Went looking for a coffeeshop to work from, and accidentally ended up touring the USS Constitution.
Continued to bum around feeling unhappy. Even though there are lots of wonderful people here whom I will miss enormously, I'm still itching to leave. I dropped in on a DIG meeting. Afterwards, talked to Timbl about decentralisation and the future (or not?) of the Web; and listened to an interesting chat between Sandro and David Karger. I had dinner at the new Cornish Pasty Co place with Liz and Beth. I skipped out on the final W3C lunch because I was feeling crappy, but wish I hadn't. I did manage to run into Amy vdH, Wendy, Philippe, Dmitri, DanF, Nicola, and others, before the end of the week (which came early due to Thanksgiving) though. I joined Ilaria's PhD student research group meeting, and ate Ilaria's delicious homemade risotto. I had my PhD review meeting. Could have been better. I need a better idea of what my final conclusion is, and how to evaluate it. I had dinner and very interesting conversation with John Klensin at Zhu. Watched rather a lot of Voyager, Scandal, and Black Mirror. Hiked in the Blue Hills Reservation. Saw Doctor Strange Read some papers..
My wisdom teeth are going all 2016 on me. My face is swollen.