Tag: japan

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October begins two-for-two with Pook-Emu Bee Links before our regularly scheduled Saturday off-day for the Newsletter Leaf Journal.

I think they’re hoping you get the hint

1 | Japan announces new permanent residency guidelines, foreigners must earn more than average Japanese person (Casey Baseel for SoraNews24. Oct. 1, 2026.)
The earning threshold shouldn’t be too hard to hit. 10 years residence for non-marriage cases however… They’re definitely trying to tell you something. To his credit, article author Casey Baseel appears to get the hint. Meanwhile, the United States still has the Diversity Visa program on the books, wherein we randomly hand out visas to people who have achieved a high school diploma (not great, not the best).

2 | Mamdani Will Be Honored Alongside Group with Alleged Ties to Iranian Regime (Adam Lehodey and Daniel Edward Rosen for City Journal. Oct. 1, 2026.)
I was all but certain the group would be NAIA before opening the article. Did this really need two enterprising reporters? We could also drop the “alleged” for a more to-the-point headline.

We’re going to need you to think this through

3 | Bishops warn inflexible vetting rules could bar eligible family members from taking in migrant kids (Tessa Gervasini for EWTN. Aug. 26, 2026.)
We had a four-year experiment with dropping vetting standards and the results were rather subpar on many levels, so this warning can be safely disregarded.

4 | Prostitution busts plunge 60% — but hookers multiply — in NYC’s infamous ‘Market of Sweethearts’ (Rich Calder, Tina Moore, and Adry Torres for the New York Post. Sep. 27, 2026.)
“But” is doing some incredible heavy-lifting in this headline.

Unexpected angles

5 | New York Public Library hosted author who compared Israel to a ‘dog shelter’ (Carl Campanile for the New York Post. Sep. 28, 2026.)
Does Nicholas Kristoff know about this?

6 | Anthropic Co-Founder Daniela Amodei Kept ‘Personal Advisory Council’ of Stuffed Animals to Solve Problems (Lucas Nolan for Breitbart. Oct. 1, 2026.)
My first though here was “this explains so much.”

It’s not bad

7 | Firefox 157 arrives with major UI redesign, compact mode, and hardware AV1 video decoding (Paul for AlternativeTo. Sep. 30, 2026.)
The new compact mode is good is welcome.

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Let us start October off on the right foot with an exciting new edition of the Pook-Emu Bee Links.

Oh no, whatever will I do?

1 | Reddit is killing RSS feeds and ending public API access because of AI bots (Sarah Perez for TechCrunch. Sep. 30, 2026.)
One may think that your favorite (I hope) feed proponent would be outraged about Reddit discontinuing its RSS feeds. To paraphrase the Reddit community: “Well ackshully….” Why in the world would I want to contaminate my feed collection with Reddit?

2 | Citi Bike user reveals outrageous ‘hidden tax’ slapped onto every e-bike (Aurielle Weiss for the New York Post. Sep. 26, 2026.)
These lunatics are complaining about the speed limit. The fees can’t be high enough.

Kitty

3 | Bronx Zoo welcomes adorable snow leopard cub threatened by extinction (Natalie O’Neill for the New York Post. Sep. 30, 2026.)
I too welcome the new snow leopard.

4 | Workers free kittens from shredder that could have ‘obliterated’ them in purr-fect rescue mission (Steven Vago for the New York Post. Sep. 28, 2026.)
A very timely kitten rescue.

Starcents

5 | Starbucks to close 250 stores: ‘Difficult decision’ (Anders Hagstrom for Fox Business. Sep. 24, 2026.)
I have never been a big burnt coffee fan, but there was once a time when Starbucks was clearing the bar many people

6 | Starbucks Japan releases new Pikachu Honey Cream Latte into the wild for new Pokémon collaboration (Oona McGee for SoraNews24. Sep. 29, 2026.)
I wouldn’t drink it because it looks like a year’s worth of sugar. But Starbucks did a surprisingly decent job of converting the Pikachu aesthetic into a drink.

Self-Hosting

7 | Radiology practices that own their imaging equipment less likely to face closure (Marty Stempniak for Radiology Business. Sep. 30, 2026.)
That checks out.

8 | Self Hosting Passwords (Chuck Carroll. May 20, 2026.)
He uses KeePassXC and Syncthing. He is a smart man. I hubly say that because I too use KeePassXC and Syncthing. With that being said, I would not necessarily recommend our combo to “normies.”

Photograph

9 | Sheep Tree (Jan Ulicki on Lens Culture. May 20, 2025.)
Great photo, baaaa.

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Quoted Toys R Us is leaving Japan after 35 years in the country by Casey Baseel (soranews24.com)
For the past nine years, Toys R Us has been part of this category too. Even after the chain closed its last U.S. branch in 2017, Toys R Us Japan kept chugging along. Sadly, though, the company has finally reached its limit, and says that it will be leaving the Japanese market.

Back in the 90s and very early 2000s, most of my video games came from Toys ‘R Us. See, for example, my discussion in Nintendo 64 at 30 and My N64 Memories (which includes a photo of my Toys ‘R Us-sourced copy of Mario Party) and EGM’s 2001 Sega Neptune April Fools Joke (referencing the Sega 32X I received from the store). Toys ‘R Us went under in the United States in 2017, although it may be making a small comeback. I don’t recall ever having thought about Toys ‘R Us’s presence outside the United States, but I learned from a SoraNews24 article titled Toys R Us is leaving Japan after 35 years in the country that Toys ‘R Us has (soon had) a notable presence in Japan. From the article:

Since arriving in the country in 1991, it’s grown to approximately 150 stores across the country and currently employs a total of around 6,000 full and part-time workers.

It had a good run. While the sun sets on Toys ‘R Us in Japan, I would not mind seeing it make a successful comeback here in the United States. Good memories.

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Two Pook-Emu Bee daily links in a row? What in the world is going on here?

2000 model Casio G-SHOCK watch.
My new (old… 2000 model) atomic G-SHOCK has arrived.

1. Mega Drive, Saturn And Dreamcast Watches Are Coming To Japan (Damien McFerran for Time Extension. July 5, 2026.)

The Dreamcast watch looks cool. The other two are a bit too dark (granting the Genesis and the most well-known Saturn model were black).

2. Random: Fire Emblem’s New Game Adds Some Serious Firepower (Liam Doolan for Nintendo Life. July 5, 2026)

The new Fire Emblem looks great. I would be excited but for the fact I’m not planning to get a Switch 2 ($450, going on $500, plus the price of the games makes me a bit squeemish). That curtails my excitement.

3. DOJ Secures $3.2 Million Settlement with Sam Altman’s OpenAI for Discriminating Against Americans in Favor of Hiring Foreign Workers (John Binder for Breitbart. August 4, 2026.)

When he backtracks on saying that AI won’t take everyone’s jobs, he doesn’t specify by citizenship or nationality.

4. ‘Hoodwill’ vs. Goodwill (Simone Seiver for The New York Times. August 4, 2026.)

I have been there. “Hoodwill” is turning that whole block into a dump. Shut it down.

5. RFK Starts Off Cooking Show With Reminder To Always Cook Raccoon To At Least 165 Degrees (The Babylon Bee. August 4, 2026.)

The “tough badger” line got me. Babylon Bee at its best.

6. U.S. government reportedly planning to close Nagoya consulate (Casey Baseel for SoraNews24. August 4, 2026.)

I didn’t expect the State Department to weigh in on the disappointing performances by the two Yokozuna at the Nagoya Basho.

7. Brooklyn records just 2 homicides in July, marking safest month on record (Olivia Seaman for Brooklyn Paper. August 4, 2026.)

Some positive crime news from my home city (or as some would call it, “borough”).

8. I’m Scared a Stranger Will Call My Novel AI, So I Built GitHub for Words (Meet VellumProof, Formerly WritHub, Lol) (Dylan’s Blog. August 3, 2026.)

As I opined in Staying the Course in Writing in the LLM Moment, I doubt there is much one could do to satisfy baseless allegations of AI usage (not to say that there are not countless cases of bad actors using AI and lying about it). Thus, my approach is to just continue writing as a human being and not worry about the possibility that someone may care enough about what I write to make false allegations. With that being said, this “VellumProof” is an interesting idea that may be worth developing, especially in the context of looking for a publisher.

9. Is an RSS or Feed Reader Robbing Your Experience? (Adam Douglas. July 23, 2026.)

I agree that “using a feed reader aplication [does not] take away from the [reader’s] experience.” Moreover, I would add from a webmaster perspective that people who offer feeds (they should) and want people to visit their sites should make sure to make visiting worthwhile. There are some sites that I make a point of visiting directly instead of reading through my feed reader. For whatever it is worth, I will note that I don’t think either this site or NLJ suffer from being enjoyed in a stripped-down feed reader or read-it-later interface, but I encourage people to nevertheless stop by once in a while and appreciate my handiwork.

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Replied to Cup Noodle unveils first-ever cold-water instant ramen in Japan by Oona McGee (soranews24.com)
The new noodles were in development for five years, with Nissin adopting a new noodle-making technology that allows the noodles to rehydrate using chilled water. The patented “Cold Rehydrate” process was developed specifically for the chilled Cup Noodle range.

SoraNews24, which covers news from Japan, is a long-time member of my feed collection and a regular article contributor to the “Around the Web” secution of my weekly newsletter. They cover some “news” news, see for example an article I wrote based in significant part on a SoraNews24 report about dress code rules in Japanese schools. But they also cover less serious matters such as food and snack trends in Japan. I recently read an article about Nissan introducing code Cup Noddle instant noodles which are prepared with cold water and eaten cold. I like the idea. While the kimchi flavored offering did not strike me as inspiring, I was intrigued by the second flavor described by SoraNews24:

Chicken Salt Lemon offers a lighter option, combining chicken, bonito, dried sardines and lemon in the broth for a refreshing finish. The topping contains steamed chicken, egg, green onions and red bell peppers.

While I doubt that the opportunity will present itself, I will keep an eye out for the Chicken Salt Lemon for a potential article to go with what would probably be a month’s worth of sodium in a small cup of cold noddles.

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Liked Nagoya 2026: Shin-Makushita (新幕下) by hochiyamahochiyama (Tachiai)
This helped me, a 30-plus year sumo fan learn the concept of 'tatakiage / 叩き上げ'. A tatakiage is actually my favorite type of recruit, one who comes straight from middle school without any prior experience and is 'built from scratch' in the stable.

I watched all the matches in the first three grand sumo tournaments of 2026. Because I am following sumo this year, I looked for a couple of sumo blogs to add to my feed collection. One is Tachiai. On June 27, 2026, author Hochiyama covered the lower divisions (which I have not watched in 2026, I only saw the top division matches). In going through some up-and-coming prospects to watch, Hociyama shared a new term he learned: “tatakiage / 叩き上げ”. A tatakiage is a sumo recruit is is picked up out of middle school with no prior sumo experience and is developed by a sumo stable from scratch. In the case of Sachinofuji, we learn that he did attend high school as a correspondence student while dedicating himself to sumo. He is quite small (by sumo standards), but he sounds like someone to watch in the months and years ahead.

Aside: For readers who are not familiar with school in Japan, middle school (aka junior high school) runs through 9th grade there instead of 8th grade as in the United States. I discussed this in the context of translating Japanese media into English in Localizing Japanese High School Classes.

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Liked Oldest iron saw in Japan identified by livius (The History Blog)
An iron object bent over on one side has been identified as an ancient saw. Dating to the late Yayoi period, the late 2nd century A.D., it is the oldest found in Japan, pushing back the introduction of saws to the Japanese archipelago a hundred years.

I follow The History Blog by psuedynmous blogger livius. It features blog posts about history (surprise?) focusing significantly on archaeology news. Significantly, The History Blog links to sources. Take for example a June 6, 2026 blog post titled Oldest iron saw in Japan identified. The post summarizes a linked Asahi Shimbun report on what appears to be a saw found in Japan dating back to the second century A.D. Significance of the find other than its age:

Iron was not yet produced on the Japanese islands during the Yayoi period, and the advanced techniques necessary to manufacture a saw like this indicates it was made elsewhere, namely China, and imported to Japan.

The History Blog is also useful because it sometimes covers stories that first appear in non-English articles. See, for example, livius’ June 9, 2026 post Celtic elite grave discovered in the Taunus mountains. I have included The History Blog posts in many editions of The Newsletter Leaf Journal. See, for example, Newsletters 180, 250, and 276.

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I have more work ahead of me today. But once again, I refuse to let work stand between me and another edition of our regularly scheduled Pook-Emu Bee links.

1. Can an ESPN analyst revive the Scripps Spelling Bee? (Molly Liebergall for Morning Brew. May 28, 2026.)

The premise presupposes that the spelling bee needs to have big (it’s relative) TV ratings.

2. Hochul tries to dunk on Trump over Knicks fandom — but it totally backfires (Haley Brown, Mark Lungariello, and David Propper for the New York Post. May 27, 2026.)

I have an upcoming NLJ article planned that should help the Governor keep her New York Knicks NBA Finals history straight. (Aside: Why does this article have three reporters on the byline?)

3. Japanese government to allow desecration of flags on kids’ meals (Master Blaster for SoraNews24. May 25, 2026.)

Say what one will but the Diet is thorough.

4. Obviously AI, totally acceptable (Herbert Lui. May 5, 2026.)

My policy is … If you didn’t put yourself into it, I don’t want to read it.

I agree with Mr. Lui’s post in full. But I would add as an addendum that if the prose reeks of AI, I will probably click away regardless of the profundity of the insights (it’s not that, it’s [list of three things]…)

5. WordPress 7.0 (Gordon McLean at Happily Imperfect. May 22, 2026.)

I’m on WordPress 7.0 and hadn’t noticed the new “Connectors” option under settings. My life goes on well. But it is clutter so I’ll figure out how to make it go away later.

6. Your WordPress Site — From RSS Feed to Social Account (Matthias Pfefferle at ActivityPub for WordPress Blog. May 22, 2026.)

I looking forward to these new features making it to self-hosted WordPress.

7. This Is Your Reminder to Go Touch Grass (Absurd Pirate’s Internet Blog. May 26, 2026.)

Photograph of the Manhattan Skyline and Brooklyn Bridge Park from the Fruit Street Sitting Area in Brooklyn Heights. The BQE is the immediate foreground. The trees and grassy hill Brooklyn Bridge Park is in the middle. Off in the distance we can see the southern tip of Manhattan, a Staten Island Ferry, and the Statue of Liberty.
I took this photograph this morning from the Fruit Street Sitting Area in Brooklyn Heights. We see the BQE, Brooklyn Bridge Park, the East River, and Manhattan/New Jersey/Governor’s Island off in the distance. The orange just leaving Manhattan is the Staten Island Ferry. If you squint, you can also see the Statue of Liberty way out back. No fires in New Jersey today.

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I have a busy day ahead of me, but not too busy for Pook-Emu Bee links. Before getting to links from around the web, I note that I just published the sixth and final part of my New Leaf Journal sixth birthday project, Be the Blogger You Want to Be (Or Read). Now watch me follow my own advice.

Photograph of the East River and Manhattan Skyline from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, with Brooklyn Bridge Park in the foreground. The sky is foggy. Off in the distance, you can vaguely see a Portuguese Flag attached to a ship docked at the South Street Seaport.
I took this photo from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade on the morning of May 27, 2026. If you squint, you can see a Portuguese Flag attached to a ship by the seaport across the river.

1. Government says 5.7 trillion yen of Japanese media was pirated last year, thinks AI could help (Casey Baseel for SoraNews24. May 26, 2026.)

I assumed by “AI could help” that the Japanese government was thinking that AI could help track down copyright infringement. Not so: “However, one of the ideas being floated by the researchers is to promote the use of AI in production to lower costs and secure profits.” Well… depending on the uptake, I suppose that could also reduce piracy.

2. Magnifica Humanitas (Peter’s Path. May 26, 2026.)

It’s on my reading list, and perhaps my future article list.

3. Zubac remembers the shock of his first NBA paycheck being cut in half (Bruno Feliks for Basketball Network. February 9, 2026.)

A star NBA center on how he learned about California tax rates.

4. Freedom 250 Announces Free FIFA World Cup Fan Zone on National Mall (Jasmyn Jordan for Breitbart. May 20, 2026.)

This isn’t what General Washington fought for.

5. Linux On Android Provides Inexpensive, Powerful Computing (Aaron Beckendorf for Hackaday. May 26, 2026.)

I should really mess around with Termux at some point.

6. Beloved NYC bakery faced stomach-churning issue before suddenly closing (Nicole Rosenthal for the New York Post. May 24, 2026.)

I’m glad I didn’t buy anything from there before it closed (it was right by my favorite spot for buying coffee beans).

7. DuckDuckGo installs are up 30% as users reject being ‘force-fed’ Google’s AI Search (Rebecca Bellan for TechCrunch. May 26, 2026.)

Google’s AI search push is working very well for me so far. I have not seen a dip in Google traffic to NLJ, but I have seen a big uptick in the last week and a half in DuckDuckGo traffic. While Google is my biggest referrer by a good margin, DuckDuckGo has always been second and clearly sends much more traffic relative to the size of its user-base.

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I missed publishing daily Pook-Emu Bee links yesterday due to a work deadline. But we are back today with nine new links from around the world wide web.

1. Famed Atheist Richard Dawkins — Author of ‘The God Delusion’ — Believes AI Is Conscious (Scott Pinsker for PJ Media. May 5, 2026.)

My conscious brain is struggling to decide which of many possible one-liners to go with. Let us keep it simple and just say that I guess Mr. Dawkins is taking a leap of faith in the pages of UnHerd. (Now that he is done, I humbly and respectfully suggest that he put away the electronic devices and go outside.)

2. The NIH Has a Chance to End a 35-Year Taxpayer-Funded Failure (Liam Gray and Ryan Merkley for PJ Media. May 5, 2026.)

No beagles would be hurt in that operation.

3. NYC judge ponders hellish squatter’s right to ‘liberty’ — as tenants live in fear: ‘What more does it take?’ (Peter Senzamici and Georgett Roberts for the New York Post. May 5, 2026.)

Law abiding citizens have a way of coming in last in New York City.

4. Tensions Continue to Brew at Brooklyn Marine Terminal Board Meeting (Andrew Karpan for Brooklyn Reader. May 4, 2026.)

Karen Blondel, president of the Red Hook West Resident Association, said she was not happy with being “intimidated” by volunteers from the Columbia Waterfront Neighborhood Association, that allegedly likened her to President Donald Trump as she sees opportunity for the NYCHA housing complex to join the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT) program, which would fund overdue renovations by bringing in private management.,

I appreciate that what we have here is a purely internecine Democrat struggle involving people in 90-10 Democrat neighborhoods in a city with single-party Democrat government, and their frame of reference for insulting each other is President Trump. Localism is dead. Long-live localism.

5. Answerman – The Crunchyroll Anime Awards (Jerome Mazandarani for Anime News Network. May 4, 2026.)

I will submit for the record that I did not take the Crunchyroll Anime Awards seriously when I wrote about my picks last year. But my not taking them seriously is not why I am not publishing my picks for this year. That would be because I am almost a full year behind on anime at this point.

6. Mythos, Not the Iran War, Is the Most Significant Geopolitical Warning of Our Time (Frederick Kempe for Atlantic Council. April 30, 2026.)

While I am not a big fan of the big AI players, I begrudgingly respect their ability to generate earned media coverage and free advertising from all corners of the internet.

7. Critics question whether keffiyeh-wearing Mamdani staffer was sending message of hate (Doree Lewak for the New York Post. May 2, 2026.)

Speaking of begrudging, while I do not respect the outfit or the use of my tax money for never-ending campaign operations, I must begrudgingly respect the trolling.

8. The tournament is expanding. God help us all (Eamonn Brennan. April 29, 2026.)

Expanding March Madness is obviously a money-grab, but in the end I must side with the disaffected take that it will not ultimately negatively effect the quality of play.

9. Bunny Garden 2 debuts as Japan’s number one top-selling game on both Steam and Switch (Dorde P for Automation West. April 17, 2026.)

I have reviewed many Japanese visual novels. But this leads me to believe I do not have my finger on the pulse of what is popular over there.

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Saturday was Newsletter day and I was busy on Sunday, so our daily Pook-Emu Bee links had the weekend off. But there are no such impediments this Monday, so I am back with my regularly scheduled links.

1. Indie developer lands in Steam approval limbo after being flagged for IP infringement over in-game references to their own past work (Amber V for Automation West. May 4, 2026.)

A cautionary and potentially instructive story for people who want to promote their own projects in games they publish to Steam (albeit very frustrating for the developer, assuming the facts are true as presented).

2. Ask.com, aka Ask Jeeves, has officially shut down after nearly 30 years online (Paul for AlternativeTo. May 4, 2026.)

You may read this story and think “what?” or “that didn’t die 15 years ago?” But I read it and sighed. I may need to write a Norton Safe Search follow-up article (see my original research article).

3. GameStop Proposes to Acquire eBay at $125.00 Per Share (GameStop Corp. May 3, 2026.)

Out: To the Moon. In: To the eBay.

4. Lipton releases… Pudding Milk Tea in Japan?!? (Oona McGee for SoraNews24. May 1, 2026.)

I’d try it. But it would probably take too much effort.

5. Reporting, the Easy Way (John Hinderaker for PowerLine. May 3, 2026.)

I publish long articles without compensation. Never once have I published a purported quote gleaned from a search engine’s AI summary of a query. But some N.Y. Times journalists who are being paid take a different, looser approach to gathering quotes. (Albeit credit to the Times for correctly identifying the error and not deflecting blame.)

6. Growing Sinkhole Causes Safety Concerns In Red Hook (Aurora Fowlkes for News12 Brooklyn. May 3, 2026.)

I walked by that intersection yesterday but did not notice the sinkhole. How close did I come to falling inside Red Hook?

7. Lime Wants Mamdani To Bring More Scooter Share To NYC (Sophia Lebowitz for StreetsBlog NYC. April 30, 2026.)

Absolutely not. This suggestion is a lemon.

8. Tucker Carlson nicotine pouches part of $4M in cargo recovered as theft ring exposed (Daniel Farr for the New York Post. May 2, 2026.)

Prediction: I wonder how he is going to attribute this to Israel and Mike Huckabee. Or has he already done so? I may not be upp to date.

9. The Wrong Kind of Black Poet (Ernest Jesuyemi for Compact. May 4, 2026.)

Interesting and thoughtful essay.

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Delayed by work, but not denied, The drags on, Pook-Emu Bee links for April 23, 2026.

1. Hochul’s Fast-Track Booze Permit Sets Stage for World Cup Street Parties Across New York (Reid Carlisle for Hoodline. April 22, 2026.)

Their desperation to pretend that the World Cup is happening in New York City continues to lead to public nuisance as public policy.

2. Listening to criticism (Andrés at Wawawa Comics. April 22, 2026.)

But my art teacher hated my work so much, I could hear his sighs every time I walked into the classroom, haha. One day he told me, “You should quit. You don’t have a future in drawing.”

No one needed to tell me that I didn’t have a future in drawing. I knew. But this inspires me. If Andrés could overcome that to make a popular online comic with cute little animal characters, I can do the same (with crooked stick figures).

3. 3. 8.1.0 — By the Numbers (Matthias Pfefferle at ActivityPub for WordPress. April 22, 2026.)

I have upgraded and see the new statistics chart. Fancy.

4. Read-Only Address Book (Brian Tremblay at BTrem. April 5, 2026.)

We begin with a question…

Can Thunderbird’s RSS support be extended to enable address book subscriptions?

I am all for creative RSS use-cases (albeit I don’t have a need for a read-only address book).

5. New flat M.2 SSD adapter doesn’t stick out from the motherboard, unlocking PCIe slots hidden under massive GPUs — JEYI’s new ‘ArcherX’ AIC lays completely flush and supports PCIe 4.0 speeds (Hassan Nasir for Tom’s Hardware. April 19, 2026.)

I’m not struggling for storage space but this does look like a neat expansion idea.

6. A Defense of the NBA Play-In Tournament (Neil Paine. April 14, 2026.)

I wouldn’t go so far to defend it and one could probably make a credible argument that it has made “tanking” worse (teams that want to guarantee a spot in the draft lottery need to finish 11th or worse instead of 9th), but it is not bad as far as NBA gimmicks go. I agree with Mr. Paine in full on one point:

My biggest complaint with it might simply be that its stats don’t count anywhere — they neither belong to the regular season nor the playoffs, so player accomplishments this week live in a weird record-keeping no-man’s land. But this would be easily corrected by simply counting them as playoff stats, which I think is plenty defensible.

That will soon be a “thing I learned” post.

7. Cherry Blossoms (2026 edition) (David Billa for Liminal Web. April 12, 2026.)

Many pretty cherry blossom photos. It is warm in Brooklyn today, so it feels seasonal (some of our cherry blossoms are coming in).

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Pook-Emu Bee was off yesterday because it was Newsletter day. But the newsletter is out, and Pook-Emu Bee links are back.

1. FDNY changes policy after clout-chasing models turn NYC fire station into their own sorority house (Tina Moore for the New York Post. April 18, 2026.)

The change came after The Post exclusively reported Saturday that two models turned a Greenwich Village fire station into their own personal sorority house — sauntering inside with firefighters, climbing on a firetruck and shaking their booties to Lil Wayne’s ‘Fireman.’

I approve of keeping social media-addled idiots out of fire houses. I am sad that we needed a new directive to make sure that everyone is on the same page.

2. Life Sentence for Sinaloa Cartel Smuggler Busted with 2 Million Lethal Fentanyl Doses (Randy Clark for Breitbart. April 18, 2026.)

Life is the correct punishment for most fentanyl trafficking offenses.

3. When Did “The Nerds” Start Ruining Each Sport? (Neil Paine. December 20, 2024.)

I’d describe the trend as analytics strategies flattening the sports.

4. Daniel Jones’ Impossible Cap Math (Troy Chapman at Cap & Trade Football. April 17, 2026.)

Given the salary cap rules and number of players on football teams, making the math work is complicated.

5. Almost 90% of Japanese people dislike random and “blind bag” merch, but the majority still buys it, large-scale survey shows (Amber V for Automation West. April 18, 2026.)

I have never purchased “blind bag merch.” I have purchased Kinder eggs. I did not stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

6. E-bikes are all over mountain trails. Some want them banned (Jack Dolan for the Los Angeles Times. April 15, 2026.)

I don’t have a stake in mountain bike trails, but I do want to see e-bikes banned. I’m willing to make common cause with the California mountain bikers if they support me on the sidewalks.

7. The Black Hole of Brooklyn Heights Finally Lists (Adriane Quinlan for Curbed. April 17, 2026.)

I linked to an article about this house back in Newsletter 239.

8. Open-border legal activists instruct migrants to fabricate false gay asylum claims, BBC finds (Carl Deconinck for Brussels Signal. April 15, 2026.)

Likely common here in the United States as well since asylum claims based on sexual orientation are cognizable under controlling precedent and the stories can be structured in such a way as to explain the lack of corroborating evidence. That is not likely to say that they are likely to succeed, however, and these activists hurt applicants who have legitimate claims on this basis.

9. City Deems Fort Greene Manse Unworthy of Protection (Anna Bradley-Smith for Brownstoner. April 10, 2026.)

I like the house. Bad call by the landmarks commission.

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Today is Friday. That means it is time for our last Pook-Emu Bee link collection of the week (Saturday’s links come in the Newsletter Leaf Journal).

1. Gemini adds personalized AI image generation using your preferences (Fla for AlternativeTo. April 17, 2026.)

Google Gemini now enables users to generate deeply personalized images, with Nano Banana 2, by drawing on their preferences and Google Photos content. This new feature uses Personal Intelligence to automatically incorporate user context, reducing the need for detailed prompts or manual image uploads.

Cambridge Dictionary definition of facepalm.

2. Japanese man gets prison sentence and million-yen fine for writing monetized “spoiler-heavy” summaries of movies and anime (Dorde P for Automation West. April 17, 2026.)

While I support copryight, I’m not so sure about this one (on the underlying merits, separate from the stiff punishment). But I render no final “judgment” since I’m not familiar with Japanese laws or the website in question beyond the summary.

3. UK Greens demand US foots bill if fans barred over social media ahead of World Cup (Anne-Laure Dufeal for Brussels Signal. April 17, 2026.)

I understand the concerns of the UK Green Party in light of their foreign policy positions, which are often contrary to U.S. foreign policy positions and terrorism designations. Having considered their concerns, I render my response as an American: “No.”

4. Apple and Google Continue to Offer ‘Nudify’ Apps that Use AI to Generate Deepfake Porn (Lucas Nolan for Breitbart. April 16, 2026.)

Yes, but at least Google banned Doki Doki Literature Club. Please focus on the important things.

5. President Trump congratulates Tanajit Sandhu on becoming Lt. Governor of Delhi (Donald. J. Trump (via Trump’s Truth). April 16, 2026.)

Mixed in with many “truths” about ball room litigation and legal standing, potentially compromised former intelligence officials and podcast hosts, war in Lebanon, and local race endorsements. Sure, why not?

6. George Washington University Hires Federal Judge Overseeing Antisemitism Lawsuit Against It To Teach ‘Ethics and Discretionary Judgment’ (Jessica Costescu for The Washington Free Beacon. April 16, 2026.)

I find myself reminded of the legal manuverings of Frank Seddio in Brooklyn (see Newsletter 252 comment).

7. PC Makers Have Apparently Cracked the Code on Supply Shortages: Stop Making Hardware Regular Gamers Can Afford (Muhammad Zuhair for wccftech. April 3, 2026.)

Not a problem if you stick to my al|together visual novel review series.

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Today marks the 1957th anniversary of the death-by-suicide of the short-reigning Roman Emperor, Otho. I note this because my longest NLJ article, clocking it at more than 18,000 words, is about Otho. Fortunately, I also published some shorter Otho reading. But Otho aside, it is time for today’s edition of Pook-Emu Bee links from around the web.

1. Gov. Mikie Sherrill demands FIFA foot the bill for World Cup transportation after reports NJ Transit could inflate train tickets by 775% ( Caitlin McCormack for the New York Post. April 15, 2026.)

I don’t live in New Jersey and I have only been to the state a few times. But I must note New Jersey has not one, but two, NFL football teams. Both the New York Jets and Giants play in New Jersey. New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the United States. Why are they pretending that the World Cup is going to a small town in one of the Daktoas? Speaking of the World Cup in New Jersey, see my quip from the April 6 Pook-Emu Bee about its effect on New York City.

2. Mullin: I Have Issue with TPS as a Whole, We Have ‘Pretty Generous’ Asylum Laws (Ian Hanchett for Breitbart. April 15, 2026.)

Asylum and TPS serve different purposes. The latter does not require an individual to establish that he or she has a fear of persecution, and TPS does not preclude someone from applying for asylum. But the Secretary’s concerns about the abuse of TPS to create de facto amnesty/resident status are correct, which is a problem since TPS does not select for people beyond their countries of nationality and when they happened to arrive in the United States (save for a limited sets of bars to TPS status).

3. Anna’s Archive Loses $322 Million Spotify Piracy Case Without a Fight (Ernesto Van der Sar for Torrent Freak. April 15, 2026.)

Two bad actors collide. No one actually wins. Almost status quo ante bellum.

4. Rival Brownsville gang alliances dismantled after investigation into 36 shootings (ABC 7 NY. April 15, 2026.)

“Prosecutors said this all stemmed from a long-term investigation into two rival gangs, WOOO and CHOO.” Imagine being a grown man who brags about being a member of the “WOOO” and dedicating your life to trying to win control of a street corner from adult and children members of the “CHOO.” How are these people not crushed by the worthlessness of it all?

5. Rose Guns Days Launches in the West on PC, Bringing 07th Expansion’s Post-War Visual Novel to Steam (Azario Lopez for Noisy Pixel. April 9, 2026.)

I should be excited about this but I am still recovering from Umineko: When They Cry (I like Umineko, for the record).

6. You can absolutely have an RSS dependent website in 2026 (Matt Duggan. April 9, 2026.)

I agree with preferring feeds to newsletters but I do not view it as an either/or proposition. I prefer offering both but making a special effort to promote feeds and feed readers.

7. Manga is losing young readers in Japan as kids and teens move away from print but can’t afford digital platform subscriptions, industry researcher suggests (Dorde P for Automation West. April 7, 2026.)

Forcing kids to ask their parents for manga subscription services may be a questionable commercial approach, yes.