30 degrees in May Edition
Man, it is hot for the end of May. At least the humidity isn’t bad yet, so as long as you are not in direct sunlight it is really pleasant here in Sendai at the moment 🙂
The yakiniku restaurant opposite my wife’s school is amazing. We’ve known the owners for ages. That is a big (大) rice, by the way. They have bigger ones! Karubi and the most amazing basashi 🙂
YouTube
The RetireJapan YouTube channel is still creaking along. Actually, I think our third video was quite a bit better 🙂
I switched to Davinci Resolve to edit, learned how to put titles in, and chopped out a lot of silences. Unfortunately the sound isn’t as good as the first two because I wasn’t using my fancy mic. Will definitely fix that in future videos!
If you have any suggestions for things you’d like to hear me ramble on about, feel free to post them in the comments on this post or on YouTube.
The Forum
The Forum is doing well (21,223 posts so far). Here are the latest active threads:
This week’s books
Finished The Premonition, by Michael Lewis. It was fascinating, thrilling, and a bit depressing. Very much recommend!
Started reading Will, the Will Smith biography. I bought it because it was ghostwritten by Mark Manson, and I’m a fan of his. Fairly interesting so far.
This week’s thing
I used to be a Bose fanboy. I got a pair of the Quiet Comforts and was blown away by how good they were, and how much more pleasant they made air travel.
Then last year I picked up the Sony WH-1000XM4 headphones, and they were even better. The noise cancellation is amazing, and they are really comfortable to wear.
Sadly I haven’t had much chance to travel recently, but I use them to work, to listen to music at home and at work, and to watch TV at night without disturbing my wife (the Bluetooth connects to our TV). Very much recommended.
This week’s links
- That is one hell of a graph: Vanishing People: the Population Crisis
- Lots of ideas, but seems a bit over-optimistic (RJ has been running for almost ten years now, and makes nowhere near 1000 GBP a month): BEST SIDE HUSTLE IDEAS UK | 50 Ways to Make Extra 1000 a Month
- Some thoughts on how to build a house: Designing a New Old Home: Beginnings
- This sounds heavenly: How to be a poet
- This Twitter graphic is really significant (India’s fertility rate).
- I find the most enjoyable things in my life are free or close to free (but depend on having time): The rising cost of living: how to maintain your quality of life
- I thought my Zoom setup was good, but this is another level: A Quick Tour of Tiago’s Zoom Setup
- Great advice here: How to Get the Magic Back
- A good question (audio). Which Japanese Index should you Buy: Nikkei or Topix?
- “Good luck”: How To Restore Japan As A Startup Nation
- I did this. So far so good: Switching your search engine
- Very nice background here on vote redistricting plans in Japan: Media watch: LDP heavyweights scramble to kill own redistricting plan
- Huh, wonder how many people read these? The Ministry of Finance English language monthly newsletter, and the Financial Services Agency weekly English language update
What do you think? Anything interesting in there?
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I will check out your YouTube stuff in the evening!! Looking forward to it. I have a question that I have yet to get a clear explanation for and not sure if you have written about it or know where the answers are. If someone has worked in their Country of birth (for me, it’s Canada) and then worked many years here in Japan, I heard (depending on the country) you can combine the years of both places for nenkin. I’ve no idea how that works. Should someone apply now or when they retire and so many more basic questions around that. It would be a great resource to understand how to go about doing this properly.
Thanks always for your Monday Reads. Love what you do.
Kelly
Thanks Kelly! Pension agreements between countries depend on the particular treaty between them. Here is some info on the Japan-Canada one: https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/publicpensions/cpp/cpp-international/japan.html
My bad for making you do that research for me. Sorry. But many thanks just the same. I tried to search and ended up on lawyer sites etc.
Could perhaps be good for your website to have links to several of the most common country’s agreements? It feels like at times the government of any country makes it purposely difficult to get stuff done just so most won’t do it! haha.
Thanks again, Ben. You are greatly appreciated.
Kelly
From #10:
“Out of 64 countries, IMD rated Japan 62nd in the digital skills of its population. One reason is that, among 80 countries, Japan’s schools come in dead last in teachers’ knowledge of digital technologies and their ability to teach it, and in resources to aid these teachers. Since these skills are not included in university entrance exams, teachers see no reason to teach them. In 2025, digital questions will be added to the exams, but who will teach the teachers?”
Wow, I knew it was bad but this is ridiculous! As a teacher, I know how digitally illiterate my students and especially their parents are, because most can’t handle the move of textbook audio from CDs to online. About the only thing they can do online is watch YouTube, so we sometimes have to burn CDs and/or create private videos containing just the audio (probably infringing copyright), so all the students can hear it. Thankfully most of them can click on a YouTube URL sent by LINE or email… but that’s about it.
Recommend QR codes for that 🙂
Yeah, almost no one has a CD player now so using CDs stopped being an option a couple of years ago!