h. Play

55 years of building state of the art prefab, system-built homes in Japan.

• 60% or more of those homes are made of recycled material.
• Lumber is acquired from Finland because of their top forest-management policies.
• Every single tree is used in its totality.
• Ceramics are heavily used (sand and limestone).
• All the details of a house design from bathroom fixtures to roofing material to door-knobs is determined before building.
• Everything that needs to be fabricated, wall panels, flooring sections, windows, is a CAD file sent to a factory.
• Basic structure is erected in a day.
• Completion of the house including landscaping is done in a month.

It is very hard to gather any information on Misawa, Sekisui and so on (Japanese websites being stuck in 1994).

It absolutely blows my mind that sustainable, healthy system-built homes exist for almost 60 years in a country, and are completely inexistent in countries in desperate need of exactly that!

I’d rather have Misawa homes than Sony PlayStations, 10,000%.

But we live in a world where a billionaire thinks he’s on top of challenges by buying a rotten network of mind farts.

Goddamn it’s frustrating.

(the book is called The Japanese Dream House by Azby Brown)

This is from Kodak’s Ergonomic Design for People at Work book.

It describes what’s the best design for a push button, using compiled data from 1998, 1965 and 1975, which combs through what a push button should be for men and women, small or tall, young and old.

It’s insanely detailed and yet, we rarely apply those designs that are meant to make our lives much better and easier.

What it tells me, which I really realize more and more, is that it’s not that we don’t have knowledge; it’s that we don’t do shit with it.

Even worse: we (and by we I mean you) believe in stuff! In this book I learned that screen glare is the absolute worst. Your eyes are going to work extra hard and you will end up with eye strain, headache, blurry vision, dry eyes and neck and shoulder pain.

That’s why all the most expensive laptops out there have mirrors instead of matte screens. Exactly. The company known as Apple is believed to be a design master by railing your eyes to the ground, starting at $999.

You don’t have to do it, though. Change. Seek good design.

I need to visit it again. It is pretty fabulous. Neutra VDL Research House II.

Dear future,

This is a picture of free, clean, public, crisp and fresh water in Los Angeles in 2022.

Pressing the physical button where my hand is, the water comes out from the tiny hose behind the fountain head, and I am about to drink this exquisite beverage for about 30 or 40 seconds straight from it.

Then I’ll inhale some air, and press the button again, feeling water’s power going through my limbs.

And then I’ll do it all over again.

I hope that you’ll have the same privilege, dear future.

I mean. What the hell???

One of the best young man in the NBA I had ever seen. So smart and smooth on the court.

Well, waived by the extremely caring Spurs organization. They even removed all of his jerseys from the store. They had signed him for an extension, two weeks ago. That is beyond wild.

What a 19 year old, 6’6 millionaire could do to get the boot like that? We’ll know for sure on Monday or next week, but I’d say sexual assault/rape or murder.

I really, really, really hope not.

Sir, everything is a metaverse today.

The NFL is a metaverse.

Kanye a metaverse.

NASCAR, Qatar, Poshmark, everything. Giant, opaque universes.

I really don’t see why people would like to jump into one with expensive, way too warm goggles strapped onto their faces, Mark.

I can now. It’s wild.

I never stopped voting in the French elections but it always felt like I wasn’t, not living there. Now I’m voting again where I live.

It’s when you lose your voting rights for years that you realize how important they are.

So now that I’m able to cast my vote into local and national ballots, it feels DOPE. Now, like everyone else, I can be disgusted at the wide corruption and hope that my vote will change that.

Imagine!

There’s always a dude instilling shit. The situation would be a little tense and there will be someone, usually a man, instilling the idea that all things should go south, right now.

It’s the dude that is in the crowd next to an upcoming fight and who will be the one throwing the bottle at one of the fighter.

It’s the dude talking in the ear of Putin, telling him that “we should just take over Ukraine, right now” even though there’s no need for that (the history of Russia and Ukraine is quite complex and didn’t need an additional 10 months of war and counting).

It’s the dude at a party who’s going to say “she’s drunk, let’s go!” while other dudes are giggling and feeling uncomfortable.

It’s the dude online who’s like “yeah, those CHINESE are definitely trying to TAKE OVER” making absolutely no sense in this giant, global economy (the 40 year old collaboration between the US and China in the ultra-complex world of semiconductors and logic boards, lmao).

Those men and women are not well and need to get their ass beat. Please do when you understand what this person is trying to do.

We want to live in a collaborative world, not a coercive one.

This man was playing roles back in the days, and people liked him. A pretty good and likable character on screen.

Then the 2000s and 2010s happened and for some reason, some folks started to treat him like a semi-god. The reason being social media clout and virality. “Protect Bill Murray at all costs!” They would yell on platforms.

It was weird.

And now well, Bill Murray always looked like what he’s being accused of (to be fair, that’s kind of his generation’s default behavior) this year so, I don’t know. Doesn’t sound like news to me.

I know this person, she was married to that man. A rather great individual, an eye surgeon.

I was on vacation at their Canary Island house and he was on a diet and working out. In his well-advanced sixties, he was swimming every day and eating simple, small meals.

Then one day, he stopped doing that. He started snacking whenever he wanted, just sitting in the pool etc. A few days later, we’re having a nice dinner and he’s eating well. Later he insists into gifting me clothes, really cool shirts –albeit too large that I still have.

He passed away that night. I always felt that he knew something that we didn’t, that he chose to leave this way. Of course, she was pretty devastated.

Well, she’s in her 80s now and about to get married again.

The human will to reach for happiness. I just find that fabulous. Whatever it is, it’s never too late. I say that often these days, paraphrasing Raph Koster: “happiness is a process, not a destination.” (meaning that happiness comes and goes and that you’re always looking for it; focus on elements that create happiness around, and you’ll be “happy” most of the time)