Japan to introduce six-month residency visa for 'digital nomads'
IT workers can work remotely while traveling around the country
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Japan-immigration/Japan-to-introduce-six-month-residency-visa-for-digital-nomads

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In the “you had one job!” department https://www.cnn.com/videos/entertainment/2024/02/01/raccoon-marriage-proposal-moos-cprog-orig-bdk.cnn

Unlike the biblical water-into-wine Miracle at Cana, there was no divine intervention to credit in this case. Rather, it was just a valve malfunction at a local winery, Cantina Settecani, which is connected to the public water supply. (from 2020)
https://vinepair.com/booze-news/italy-lambrusco-wine-taps/

ChatGPT can assist people during their technical interviews. An experiment on how much the tool can help and how easy it is to cheat uncovered an urgent need for companies to immediately change the types of interview questions they're asking. https://interviewing.io/blog/how-hard-is-it-to-cheat-with-chatgpt-in-technical-interviews

We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?--Jean Cocteau

Ground Control to Major Tom https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/07/how-nasa-steers-the-international-space-station-around-space-junk/

The court ruled that Trump “has no reasonable grounds for bringing a claim for compensation or damages, and no real prospect of successfully obtaining such a remedy”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/01/donald-trump-sex-bribes-data-protection-claim-rejected-by-uk-court

Forsea Foods in Israel is the first company to produce lab-grown freshwater eel meat. It aims to have its product on sale in about two years. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/22/reinventing-the-eel-first-lab-grown-eel-meat-revealed

If you are of a certain age and geek history, this video needs no explanation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRm0NDo1CiY

Local Animal Shelter Will Name a Feral Cat After Your Ex-Boyfriend — Then Neuter Him https://www.phillymag.com/news/2024/01/29/valentines-day-animal-shelter-cat/

"So the new Atari 400 isn't as sexy as a NES or Sega Mega Drive 2 Mini, but it does bring back some memories and has that distinctly 70s / 80s design aesthetic that everyone loves to hate."

https://www.creativebloq.com/news/atari-400-pre-order

Why NASA Is Watching Where Idaho’s Parachuting Beavers Landed
The mini-paratroopers have a new role to play today.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/beaver-nasa-project

The text is actually coded telegraph messages describing the weather used by the US Army and (later) the weather bureau. https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/01/someone-finally-cracked-the-silk-dress-cryptogram-after-10-years/

How come entire families would pose so elegant, just to end up in headless portraits? It seemed like complete madness, but once I found out the reason behind these gloomy portraits, everything began to make sense. And soon, you’ll find out too.
https://culturacolectiva.com/en/art/photography/victorian-headless-portraits/

What the heck is going on with the UX job market?
Everything she says seems to apply to other tech jobs too.

https://www.amysantee.com/post/what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-the-ux-job-market

A swathe of fledgling entrepreneurs have taken the plunge and set up their own companies, with review site Yelp counting a record number of new business openings last year. All told, Yelp tallied a total of 762,200 new ventures in 2023, representing a 20% uptick on 2022. https://data.yelp.com/business-openings-report-2023#methodology