I’m generally a big fan of Kurzgesagt, a channel of animated explanations/explorations of various topics ranging from the Fermi paradox to fracking. But the videos would not be nearly as enticing without the Epic Mountain soundtrack. The music playfully blends piano with 8-bit beeps & boops and the occasional epic theme reminiscent of a Hans Zimmer soundtrack, or even a jazz detour.

I enjoy listening to this music for concentrated work where the goal is to attain a flow state, but also just for its own sake. As with many soundtracks, there are recurring themes in the different Kurzgesagt tracks, but this only enhances the feeling of being transported into a carefully crafted, interconnected soundscape. If you want to listen in, I suggest starting with some of their most popular tracks: Emergence, War, Optimistic Nihilism.

lib.reviews is an open platform to post reviews and a one- to five-star rating on basically anything. Anything with a URL, that is, and sensibly you are not allowed to review individual persons unless they act as a business. The system is actually pretty clever: every review is attached to an object, which is identified by one or more URLs. And if the URL points to a supported source — at the moment primarily Wikidata — the system will automatically pull in metadata such as a description from the data source.

I also like that the site is actually quite easy-to-use and uncluttered and built with full internationalisation in mind: the interface is available in many languages and supports non-English reviews as well. The only UI issue I have is that the language your review gets assigned to is based on the interface language you have chosen. This is not that intuitive and leads to quite a few mislabelled reviews, because the reviewer might be using lib.reviews in e.g. Portuguese but write an English review, not noticing that this review will be labelled as being in Portuguese. (It also makes writing reviews in multiple languages a hassle, as you always have to switch the interface language.)

I believe the future for Internet reviews should lie in decentralised networks, either federated (e.g. using ActivityPub) or fully peer-to-peer (e.g. built on top of Secure Scuttlebutt). But lib.reviews, by being open source and open data and being available in the here and now, can be an important first step towards that goal: by being open source, the platform itself can evolve towards enabling decentralisation. And even if it doesn’t, by being open data the reviews posted on lib.reviews can form initial content for any future platform.

I like writing reviews. I like helping out others in discovering new bars or restaurant, avoiding tourist traps or crappy products and in general discovering cool new stuff. However, it has always nagged me that I am really writing for free for those huge corporations that then go on to sell ads (or apply, as with for example Yelp, even shadier business tactics) next to my reviews.

So, for me at least, lib.reviews is the solution: Not only can you review everything that has an URL (which, let’s face it, today is basically anything), but your reviews will be published under an open license so that everyone can freely download and benefit from them (similar to Wikipedia or OpenStreetMap). And by integrating with open data sources such as Wikidata or (hopefully in the future) OpenStreetMap, the reviews will be tied into a vibrant, open and truly free data ecosystem.

Life at the Edge of Sight by Scott Chimileski and Roberto Kolter is one of those rare books that makes a complex subject — microscopic organisms including bacteria, fungi, protozoans, viruses, phages, archaea — genuinely exciting and wondrous, not by over-simplifying it, but by illuminating it through brilliant photographs and lucid explanations.

You may have seen the authors’ photographic and micrographic work before, for example, in this Quanta article: The Beautiful Intelligence of Bacteria and Other Microbes. If you find the images stunning, the book provides the additional context to understand what’s going on. How and why do bacteria form biofilms, and how do they communicate with each other? What are mycelial networks, and how do they interact with plants? What exactly is a slime mold, anyway, and what makes these brainless creatures so smart?

The slime mold Physarum polycephalum. (Credit: Scott Chimileski and Roberto Kolter. Fair use.)

The book succeeds in conveying a view of the “web of life” that makes humans seem less like a pinnacle and more like one element in an ever-changing, ever-adapting network that transforms our planet both at the smallest and the largest scales. Moreover, life we may consider to be purely microscopic or single-celled often goes through macroscopic or multi-cellular stages.

To drive this point home, the authors include a chart that show the “size ranges” of different organisms, from individuals to collectives. The largest single living organism on Earth may well be a humongous fungus in Oregon— while human spermatozoa exist at the microbial scale.

The Verdict

This is a great book for anyone curious about the smallest dimensions of life. The list price of the hardcover edition as of this writing is $35; you will likely be able to get it for less. That’s a very reasonable price for a gorgeous, 370 page science book that’s also—for the most part—a great read.

If I have one criticism, it’s that the book goes into jargon-heavy explanations early on, which might deter some readers before they have a chance to really dive in. Here’s a quote from page 19:

Archaea, like the gram-positive bacteria, have one cell membrane, but the archael membrane is composed of different lipids than those in the bacterial membrane. Archael cell envelopes often also have an outer crystalline lattice of proteins called an S-layer.

Judging by some of that early writing, you might think the entire book is going to be highly technical, but it isn’t. For example, there’s an extensive description of the microbial life inside a block of cheese; the description is given in the form of an imaginary journey of an explorer who shrinks herself to the microscopic scale and gets into a fight with a cheese mite. In other words, this is a book that allows itself to have a little fun with its explanations.

The bumpy beginning is a minor concern, and I highly recommend this book regardless. If you do pick it up and don’t already have the domain expertise to parse the above quote, don’t give up too quickly; the writing becomes a lot more accessible in later chapters.

Em geral bem gostoso e com boas ideias. Só não recomendo o hamburguer de shiitake, que tem um gosto enjoado, mas o Quinoa Solar Vegano é delicioso! O bolinhos de feijoada e o quibe também são uma boa recomendação.

Cuidado porque nem tudo é vegano (mas tudo é ovo-lacto), então é sempre bom perguntar antes.

O preço é um pouco alto (mas talvez esperado pra um lugar vegetariano de frente pra praia da Barra). As porções, a primeira vista, parecem pequenas mas de alguma forma te deixam bem cheio e satisfeito.

Recomendo fortemente, principalmente pra apresentar o vegetarianismo pro seu amigo omnívoro que acha que você só come alface.

Les Cousins is a mixture of French bakery and café. They sell a variety of pastry, including savoury dishes like pizza or pies that you can take home and heat up in the oven. But they are also a café with great cappuccino bowls and different sweets to accompany them.

Due to the mixture of bakery and café, it is not the most cozy café I have ever been to, but personally I like watching the people going in and out. And did I mention that they have great coffee and sweets? They also always have a broad newspaper selection available. And in summer they also have a terrace where you can enjoy the sun and watch Avenue Cartier.

Seriously. I can’t stress just how delicious the okonomiyaki is! I went with a non-vegan Japanese family and they all enjoyed it as well and seemed surprised with how it is similar to the original. I can’t say for myself since I have not tried the original okonomiyaki recipe.

We also tried the fake meat skewers, which were delicious. The food is a bit on the oily side, but if you don’t mind that, you’ll love it like I did.

Be aware that the establishment is not fully vegan so, when in doubt, ask. Vegan restaurants in Japan are visited by foreigners en masse, which means there’s a good chance the waiter will speak English. If not, well, better work on that vegan-survival-Japanese.

This coffee shop, near Waseda University in Tokyo, has a unique atmosphere, centered around veganism and the constructed language Esperanto. Its intended goal is to introduce veganism to Esperanto-speakers, Esperanto to vegans and both ideas to everyone else!

It’s not crowded at all, probably because neither veganism or Esperanto are well-known in Japan. The good thing is that means you’ll likely have a more intimate vibe.

The food is pretty delicious, cheap (!) and it comes in pretty sizeable portions (Japanese portions are notoriously small). Also, the owner is very kind and loves to chat, if you feel like it.

One of the available meals at SOJO (Own work. License: CC-BY-SA.)

The one thing that could improve is the menu: there aren’t many options, and since it’s a tiny shop run by only one man, that might continue to be the case for the time being.

Disclaimer: I’m both a vegan and an Esperanto-speaker, so my take is probably somewhat biased, but if you look around, other reviewers share similar opinions.

More Perfect is an spin-off of the popular Radiolab podcast that specifically focuses on US Supreme Court Decisions, from well-known cases like Citizens United vs. FEC to more obscure but highly consequential cases like Baker v. Carr. In the casual tone typical for Radiolab, each episode brings together many voices on a given case: plaintiffs, legal scholars, historians, activists, and so on. Jad Abumrad, the show’s host, tends to ask flippant questions along the lines of “How does this even make sense?”, channeling a bit of the everyman who knows little about the legal system.

If you’re thinking this premise makes for a dry program, you couldn’t be further from the truth. The court’s decisions have impacted the lives of millions, and the show succeeds in making that impact understandable, from parents fighting to keep their adopted daughter to civil rights activists mourning the loss of voting rights achievements through the landmark Shelby v. Holder case.

I have listened to a handful of episodes so far, and have very much enjoyed them. If I have one criticism, it is that the show can be a bit myopic at times, very much focused on looking at an issue from both sides (e.g., Edward Blum’s test case litigation, which is advancing a conservative agenda through the courts), without providing sufficient societal context: what is the likely impact of this litigation going to be? Who is driving this agenda? Who is benefiting from it? Naturally, some episodes do a better job at this than others.

Still, I recommend the podcast to anyone who cares about the US legal and political context; it provides valuable background about the court cases that made the news, the ones that made the history books, and the ones that didn’t (but should have).

Tobira is one of the most often recommended Japanese textbooks for pre-intermediate learners in communities like /r/LearnJapanese for good reason. It is a great book with very useful grammar explanations and examples which themselves use grammar points previously learned. The essays contained in the book are interesting and not overly difficult.

Also, the accompanying official website offers extra resources like audio and even pre-made Anki decks! It’s very convenient, and it would be even better if the decks contained example sentences as well instead of isolated words.

This book definitely does not hold your hand with English translations and it feels like a shock to many students who recently finished Genki II, and rightly so. But if you bear with the initial discomfort, you’ll see your Japanese visibly improving.

I have only two main problems with it: the grammar notes section is way too far away from the reading material, which is a nuisance. Also, the vocabulary list sometimes contains words that are too basic and some more complex expressions used in the texts don’t make it into these lists for some reason. Apart from that, it’s a great book and I feel fortunate to have stumbled upon it. Don’t let the lack of English scare you, embrace it!