Archive for the Running Category
into the mild [jatp]
Posted in Mountains, pictures, Running with tags alpine marsh, Alpine meadows, boardwalk, clouds, Hakuba, hiking, into the wild, Japan, Japanese Alps, jatp, Nagano, Tsugaike Nature Park, vacations on August 3, 2026 by xi'an
a journal of the Hugo year (quintum et ultimum)
Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel, University life, Wines with tags Arthur C. Clarke Award, Black Plague, book reviews, COVID-19, Daniel Defoe, driving licence, fantasy, Hugo Awards, ice cream, Japanese Automobile Federation, Japanese translation, Journal of the Plague Year, LAcon V, lost in translation, meme, science fiction, wasabi, world building on August 2, 2026 by xi'an
Read a further and last Hugo best novel contender, Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky, already an Arthur Clarke Awardee 2016 for Children of Time (another first contact story). Of all the works I have read for the Hugos, this is by far the most intellectual and the most hard science book. There is a massive investment in constructing a coherent, ultimately alien, world with its own chemistry and biome. And in unwrapping the interactions between invasive if involuntary so humans and the intelligent species on the planet. This is the opposite of space opera, despite partly hibernating humans travelling in a gigantic spaceship towards securing mining planets. And slow-paced, following a pedestrian escape of an unlucky duo towards an unlikely rescue. What fails imho is the representation of the alien(s)’s train of thought, as it remains all too human. With, as a second, the ability of said aliens to incorporate and exploit human technology almost immediately. While the human technology does not seem to rely in the least on artificial intelligence, apart from autonomous drones. Hence, not ranking first in my list.
Cooked more of the same (soba, tuna, vegs) while in Japan. And visited a wasabi farm!, dating from 1915, cleverly made into a tourist trap. (Where we made fresh wasabi paste from the (local) wasabi root to mix with rice and condiment. And had a wasabi ice cream, in a clash between creamy sweetness and strong pungency! Much more a successful clash than the lavender ice cream the day after….) Also tasted oyaki dumplings filled with pumpkin, daikon, and nozawana, a local delicacy of Nagano.
Travel-wise, the trip through Japan has been mostly seamless (with no bear sighting so far), except for a rental car reservation cancelled for bringing the wrong translation of our licences. I had not realised only official Japanese services by the Japanese Automobile Federation can deliver said translations. This constraint makes sense on one level, as nobody knows the translation was made by a dog on the Internet, but is also past its shelf-life in the era of LLMs and automated translation engines. (The issue got solved within two days, inducing a big saving on the rental!)
enlightened Tateyama range [jatp]
Posted in Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel with tags Hakuba, Hida mountains, Japan, Japanese Alps, jatp, light, Matsumoto, Nagano, Omachi, Tagakariyama, Tateyama range, Tateyama-san on July 31, 2026 by xi'an
a journal of the Hugo year (quatro)
Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel, University life, Wines with tags Black Plague, book reviews, buckwheat, COVID-19, cultural appropriation, Daniel Defoe, fantasy, grilled eel, Hugo Awards, Journal of the Plague Year, LAcon V, Nebula Awards, racism, Russian invasion, rye bread, science fiction, soba, world building on July 27, 2026 by xi'an
Read not a further Hugo best novel contender, but a true (i.e., printed on paper!) book for a novel unconcerned by the Hugo Awards, Yellowface by Rebecca F. Kuang, Who earlier wrote Babel, which I rather enjoyed. This book is not set into a fantasy universe, but deals with a stolen document and the ensuing consequences, mostly in relation with different racial and racist reactions. And accusations of cultural appropriation. This is a very US-centred book, with publishers banking on minorities markets and social media pouring oil on inter-community tensions, and as such not very appealing! Here is yet another infinite-mirror story where an author writes about an author and then more, with too many entries from social media, and an inconsistent, not particularly enticing, main character. In connection with the Hugos, I also read The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar, already a Nebula Award Winner, 2025, and a nice, short, tale of an enchanted land bordering a Victorian England. If nothing like Johnatan Stranger & Mr Norrell (Hugo and Locus awards 2005). The first pages are annoying but then the true story quicks in, more poetical than usual and of a fairy tale quality. And now one more Hugo to go! (Or less!)
Cooked my own okomiyaki in a small restaurant in Omachi, near Nagano, where each table had a hot plate set for this purpose and a detailed set of instructions in Japanese, with pictures. (As well as for the less solid monjayaki.) I had cooked some earlier and it proved as easy this time, with the realisation that many ingredients could be added. Kimchi octopus and black inked squid for ours. And we had cold soba on the menu for most HM meals since buckwheat was grown in the region. (But no luck with soba or raimogi breads on that week!)
bothsidesism in Nature
Posted in Books, Kids, Running with tags bothsidesism, doping, drug testing, East Germany, Enhanced Games, GDR, Nature, Paris 1924 Olympics, Paris Marathon, World Anti-Doping Agency, World record on July 24, 2026 by xi'an
In its 21 May issue, Nature prints two columns back to back, “Can the ‘steroid Olympics’ show the sporting community how to support athletes better?” by April Henning and “The Enhanced Games miss the point: science can clean up sport“, by Kim Wolff. They are both about the so-called “Enhanced Games” that were to take place a few days later, on 24 May, in Las Vegas (where else?!), with competitions in swimming, athletics, and weightlifting, and no drug test. With only one World record unofficially broken at the event. (Fortunately no one died. So far.)
The first column argues that those games are exposing how many elite athletes are struggling with financial, physical and psychological issues. And how the current anti-doping system, built around the agency WADA (whose French branch is located in the town next to mine) is getting it wrong… The second one is warning about the impact of this deregulation on athletes’ welfare and integrity. Especially when the impact of most drugs on health is unknown, esp. in the long run (!). The author is thus calling for improved anti-doping protocols, rather than a return to the 1980’s GDR State-sanctioned doping. I find it terrible that Nature brings those two opposite points with no balancing towards the reasonable one, while no scientific argument in favour of live testing came out of the first column. Terrible.
