2026-03-13 08:00:00
I’m software bonkers: I can’t stop thinking about software. And I can’t stop building software.
I’ve always been opinionated about how software should work. Mainly, it should be fast. The bounds of it should be “knowable.” The contract you have with it should be “sane” (i.e., you just own it). But I’m busy, and I’m an OK-but-not-great coder. So all of these software opinions largely stayed locked in my noggin. Then, a year ago, Claude Code appeared.
2026-03-12 08:00:00
Ridgeline subscribers —
Hello from Toyohashi, a city between nowhere and somewhere else. A Tōkaidō city I’ve walked through on my two trips back and forth between Kyoto and Tokyo. A city with a space shuttle on top of a building and the letters USA strangely emblazoned below.
On both of my Tōkaidō walks, one particular bit of Toyohashi has stood out to me and has intrigued me in ways few other little bits along the old road have: A stretch of shotengai called (variously) Daiho Shoten or the Suijyō Buildings — literally, “Above the water.”
2026-02-22 08:00:00
Ridgeline subscribers —
I like the blue skies of early January Kanto Japan. It’s usually warm, certainly in the sun. Looking out at that winter ocean heals a feral heart. Starting the year off with a mega walk is never a bad idea. Muscles, ya got ‘em. Legs, they work. So, that’s how this year started.
Trained to Misaki-guchi — a cute little town on the tip of the Miura Peninsula. Then from there: A bus into the village proper. (The train drops you quite a ways away from the fun.) Eight years ago a friend and I stayed at a hostel in town on December 30, and then walked the whole way back up to Kamakura. This year, us — a group of dorks — got up “early”-ish and took the train, took the bus on January 2. Nothing was open. Conbini coffee and snacks standing in the that winter light in the center of town. Then: The walk.
2026-02-11 08:00:00
Roden Readers —
Hello from the backside of some Tokyo snow. It was purty. I miss snow. Maybe not as much snow as New York’s been gettin’, but still — I wish we had a good five or six snow days in Tokyo each year. As is, we’re lucky to get one, and then it’s all gone in twenty-four hours. I still remember a Valentine’s Day night some thirteen years or so ago — a mega blizzard hit Tokyo. I popped out of a restaurant with a friend and we just laughed and laughed at all the snow, everywhere.
2026-02-04 08:00:00
Hello there. I’m Craig Mod. And we just entered Year Eight of my SPECIAL PROJECTS membership program. Time passes, things get done. Here we are with seven giant years under our belt. Seven of the biggest years of my life, by far. Much of it thanks to this membership program. Truly, I wouldn’t have done a fraction of what I’ve done without the support (financial and spiritual) of members. Membership programs aren’t for everyone, but they seem to be (at least in part) for me.
2026-01-24 08:00:00
Ridgeline subscribers —
I like “eras.” That is, named chunks of time.
Japanese history tends to periodicize based on locus of power. The Tokugawa Shogunate reigned for hundreds of years, and so: Edo, where the power was, becomes the period (a big sweeping one). Post-Shogunate, power was restored to the emperor, and so we get: Meiji (1868–1912), Taishō (1912–1926), Shōwa (1926–1989), Heisei (1989–2019), Reiwa (2019-). Periods aligning with imperial reign. (It’s a bit wacky though: The era name is not the emperor’s name while he’s alive; upon death, the emperor is posthumously renamed the era name (which was chosen by a governing body of scholars); so the Shōwa Era emperor was named Hirohito (but just called “Emperor” while alive), but is known as “Emperor Shōwa” historically.)