The Monday Read

Where did Autumn Go Edition

Well, it’s actually cold today. Felt like I wanted my woolen hat.

And a couple of days ago it was 29 degrees in Sendai. It’s getting hard to keep up with the temperature swings.

Saw Dune on Friday. It was good!

I’m a bit of a fan, so I was a bit nervous going in, but they managed to cut the book down to film size without doing too much damage to the story.

Jason Momoa was great, the visuals and soundtrack were stunning, and even my wife enjoyed it (she hasn’t read the book and knew nothing about it going in).

Hopefully Villeneuve will get to make part 2 now.

The Forum

The Forum is doing well (16,309 posts to date). Here are the latest active threads:

RetireJapan Online Conference (save the date)

The inaugural RetireJapan online conference will be held on Labor Thanksgiving Day (November 23rd). It will be free and held through Zoom. More details nearer the time. Recordings will be made available for people that can’t make it on the day (where possible) but do come and join us if you can.

This week’s books

Finished Dune Messiah! It’s quite a short book, but a bit of a slog as it is such a downer. I’m a couple of chapters into Children of Dune now, and that is much more enjoyable.

I also read 2034, a book about a possible future war between China and the US. It was a very quick and enjoyable read. Reminded me a bit of Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising, which is a similar book about a conflict between the Soviet Union and the US. 2034 is much shorter though.

This week’s links

  1. Travel has been an important part of my life in the past, but this makes sense: Train or plane? The climate crisis is forcing us to rethink all long-distance travel
  2. Pretty basic stuff but crucial: Savings rate to the rescue
  3. Some compelling arguments here: Please Don’t Give Up On Having Kids Because Of Climate Change
  4. There are some really old companies in Japan: Corporate Japan: Built to Endure
  5. This is a really interesting take on goals and effort: Half-assing it with everything you’ve got
  6. This sounds just like the Billions storyline: Meet Ramzi Musallam, Wall Street’s Top-Secret Billionaire Investor
  7. Important concept, but this article seems a bit muddled: Time millionaires: meet the people pursuing the pleasure of leisure
  8. Good answers: Five Common Questions People Ask About Investing
  9. List of prefectures ranked by ‘charm’. Don’t see too much to disagree with here. Miyagi was #13: 都道府県魅力度ランキング（地域ブランド調査2021）
  10. Wow: Why Nobody Invests in Japan
  11. Well, this seems completely unfair: Medieval Coasean warfare?
  12. New series by Sean -looking forward to seeing more: Some Distant Memory – Lake Biwa
  13. I read this article and understood all the words, but it made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever: Punks, Squiggles, and the Future of Generative Media
  14. Self-sufficiency is a good idea: America Is Running Out of Everything
  15. Mine is 2-5 decades: Time Horizon is Everything For Investors

What do you think? Anything good in there?

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5 Responses

  2. Dune Messiah is indeed a slog – Children of Dune is much more enjoyable especially the last 3rd of the book. I honestly think that is where Herbert should have ended the series. The last 2 books were just too weird and removed from the original story to really engage me. Can’t wait to see it in IMAX. Waiting for the crowds to go down a bit before I am willing to sit in a Tokyo cinema for 3 hours.

    #9 – it boggles my mind that Chiba ranks # 12 – I feel Disney is doing all of the heavy lifting on that one. Happy to see my prefecture remain in the top 10.

  3. The fourth book, God Emperor of Dune, is absolutely nutty.

    You could probably stop after that one.