An abandoned Taiwanese courtyard house in Tainan County, 2014. The courtyard is partially submerged due to subsidence and there is green algal scum everywhere. The reflection of the main hall can be seen in the reflection.

🧵 I'm experimenting with Threads a little more these days since it's way more Taiwan-centric and generally better vibes than some other places. For anyone also using the service you can find me there with my IG handle: www.threads.com/@synapticx

This early 20th-century photograph captures the vibrant tradition of koinobori (carp windsocks) flown in Japan to celebrate Boys' Day (Tango no Sekku), now known as Children's Day. The image shows several large windsocks attached to a tall bamboo pole, billowing in the breeze above a village landscape. The carp is a central symbol in this celebration, representing strength, courage, and the determination to overcome obstacles—qualities inspired by the legend of the carp swimming upstream to become a dragon. Traditionally, the black carp (magoi) represented the father, the red carp (higoi) the eldest son, and additional smaller carp for younger brothers. In the background, children and adults walk along a path near thatched-roof houses, providing a glimpse into the communal and festive atmosphere of rural Japan during the Meiji or Taishō eras.

Boys Day with “koinobori” (traditional carp windsocks). Early 20th century, Japan. The carp is a central symbol in this celebration, representing strength, courage, and the determination to overcome obstacles—qualities inspired by the legend of the carp swimming upstream to become a dragon.

Inside the dictator’s bedroom A judgmental jaunt through Chiang Kai-Shek’s winter residence in Kaohsiung, Taiwan…

Inside the dictator’s bedroom:

A judgmental jaunt through Chiang Kai-Shek’s winter residence in Kaohsiung, Taiwan…

#台灣 #高雄 #部落格 #taiwan #blog

www.taiwanquest.com/chiang-kai-s...

Sugar-coated, flavored betel nuts prompt calls for regulation - Focus Taiwan Sugar-coated and flavored betel nuts have been sold in Taiwan since last year, the Taiwan Betel Nut and Oral Cancer Prevention Association said Friday, calling for the early passage of a bill to regul...

Another sign of the apocalypse 🍃 focustaiwan.tw/society/2026...

The controversial Olympic legacy of “Chinese, Taipei” - Taipei Times Bringing Taiwan to the World and the World to Taiwan

The history of the name is rich and fascinating... and the plot twist? It's a name imposed not by China but by the martial law era KMT! www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/ar...

It would be pretty funny if Taiwan went around making up pet names for every country that gives in to Chinese irredentism.

Two human-sized figures in colorful traditional Hinamatsuri doll wear--but they both have dinosaur heads and hands.

Hinamatsuri, brought to you by the Fukui Dinosaur Museum.

Taiwan relies heavily on imported energy. In 2024, about 95% of its fossil fuels were imported.

Around 70.3% of Taiwan’s crude oil comes from Middle Eastern countries. Developments in and around the Strait of Hormuz are therefore closely monitored, as disruption affect global supply chains.

South Korea Birth Rate Rises 6.8% South Korea Birth Rate Rises 6.8% Largest Increase in 18 Years as Fertility Rate Reaches 0.80

INBOX: South Korea's birth rate increased(!) for a second straight year(!!), with the highest year-over-year growth rate since 2007(!!!)

For the first time since 1981 (!!!!), both monthly births and marriages increased for all 12 months:

www.chosun.com/english/mark...

Screenshot of the original post on Threads showing 21.3k likes, 299 comments, 2.4k reposts, and 6.4k private sends.

The same post on Threads somehow racked up 342k views (and counting) 😲

A screenshot of a map of Taiwan populated by hundreds of clustered data points representing former Shinto shrine sites from the Japanese colonial era.

Here's a screenshot of the map as of today. Every point has a corresponding entry with additional information, although data quality varies quite a lot. Some of these places are long-vanished, but the remnants of many of these still exist in some form or another.

Shinto Shrines in Taiwan (台灣神社) - Spectral Codex Documenting the original locations and remaining relics of the hundreds of Shinto shrines built in Taiwan during the Japanese colonial era, most of which were destroyed following the end of colonial r...

I've been documenting the locations and conditions of former Shinto shrines in Taiwan for several years by now. This map now shows 464 sites... and I'm sure there are dozens more to uncover! ⛩ spectralcodex.com/themes/taiwa...

Workers make the world, including the Dragon Horse statue.

Poster courtesy of Kaohsiung Museum of Labor

I went to check it out for the 228 memorial holiday a couple years back but the site was guarded and not open to the public at the time. Glad to see CNA shining a light on this place.

How a site of White Terror persecution became a human rights venue - Focus Taiwan The transformation of a dark remnant of Taiwan's authoritarian past into a venue for human rights education began in 2009, with the discovery of dozens of formalin jars containing human body parts ins...

"The transformation of a dark remnant of Taiwan's authoritarian past into a venue for human rights education began in 2009, with the discovery of dozens of formalin jars containing human body parts inside an abandoned building in New Taipei's Xindian district." (CNA) focustaiwan.tw/culture/2026... 🧋

(Posting this on Bluesky ironically.)

Facebook really feels like a retirement home for aging millennials.

Dahu Fusheng Hospital (大湖傅生醫院) - Spectral Codex A private hospital on Yongle Street established in 1917 by Dr. Fu Bo (傅波), a graduate of the Taiwan Governor-General Medical School. After his death in 1938 the hospital was abandoned and has remained...

I also blasted out a brief report about a famous old hospital in the oldest part of Dahu... seems like it may have been abandoned for at least a half century! I was interested to learn silent movies were screened in the forecourt in the 1930s. spectralcodex.com/dahu-fusheng...

Nanhu Police Station (南湖派出所) - Spectral Codex One of three Japanese colonial era police stations established in Dahu. It is the only one that survives today, though it has long been abandoned after a newer station was constructed immediately next...

A serendipitous find from the same bike trip... just south of Dahu I noticed an old building while passing by and turns out it was an abandoned Japanese colonial era police station, the only one remaining in the township! Not too many of these left in 2026... spectralcodex.com/dahu-nanhu-p...

Also posted to test the snazzy new OpenGraph image generator I'm using on the site. 6000+ custom graphics ready and waiting for the most obscure locale to blow up on social media for whatever reason (as happened with a children's playground in Keelung the other week).

Dahu Little Tianmu Villas (大湖小天母別墅) - Spectral Codex An unfinished townhouse complex on the edge of central Dahu that became a symbol of developer fraud in rural Taiwan. Construction began in 1993 but the 54 units were never completed; buyers were left ...

It's pretty sad that so many of these ruined townhouse complexes you find around #Taiwan are the result of developers swindling people who are then stuck holding the bag. Anyway, here's another #urbex post from a recent bike ride... spectralcodex.com/dahu-little-...

Surface Ruptures of the 2022 Guanshan–Chihshang Earthquake Sequence, Eastern Taiwan: Implications for Fault Behavior and Recurrence Available #BSSA⚒️

Satellites, photos and field observations help scientists map surface ruptures in Taiwan.

buff.ly/Pt25VXK

Cyberpunk's not "dead," but it's old-fashioned, even tenderly nostalgic, like being a poetic '50s beatnik rebel in 1985

Countercultures get assimilated. The very fact that ChatGPT can slop-out a cyberpunk with such chatbotty confident-wrongness... it's not "electronic frontier" here in 2026

In a new #BSSA paper, scientists discuss Taiwan’s response to earthquakes and how it has evolved from 1999 to 2024. ⚒️

pubs.geoscienceworld.org/ssa/bssa/art...

The handbook you hope never to use: What Taiwan's civil defense manual reveals about democratic resilience - CEIAS On the opening pages of Taiwan’s national civil defense manual, citizens are confronted with a stark question: “In the event of aggression, are you aware that adversaries will flood the internet with ...

The handbook you hope never to use: What Taiwan’s civil defense manual reveals about democratic resilience

Jozef Huljak unpacks 🇹🇼’s national civil defense 📙 & contrasts it with 🇪🇺 preparedness handbooks, showing how threat perception shapes preparedness & public messaging. ceias.eu/the-handbook...

If you can substitute "hungry ghost trapped in a jar" for "AI" in a sentence it's probably a valid use case for LLMs. Take "I have a bunch of hungry ghosts in jars, they mainly write SQL queries for me". Sure. Reasonable use case.

"My girlfriend is a hungry ghost I trapped in a jar"? No. Deranged.

Wang Shui-ho (王水河) - Spectral Codex Prolific Taichung-born artist whose multidisciplinary practice spanned painting, sculpture, neon signage, and commercial design for theaters, nightclubs, and hotels across Taiwan.

This post also gave me an excuse to start mapping the more idiosyncratic architectural works of Taichung artist Wang Shui-ho. So far I’ve mapped 21 sites but the list is far from complete. Many no longer exist and only survive through records and old photos. spectralcodex.com/themes/taiwa...

Taichung Nanye Dance Hall (台中南夜大舞廳) - Spectral Codex Established in the early post-war era as Coffee Honolulu (南夜咖啡), it was converted into a bar, nightclub, restaurant, and concert hall in the early 1960s. It was abandoned for much of the 2000s and 201...

Built around 1962 in central Taichung, Nanye Dance Hall (南夜大舞廳) first opened as Coffee Honolulu and was later renamed Honolulu Club. It was designed by local multidisciplinary artist Wang Shui-ho (王水河) and features an unusually expressive façade. spectralcodex.com/taichung-nan...

I'm glad to see you've resurfaced but wish you hadn't been going through much hell since we heard from you last. You work is hugely inspirational and I hope you can hammer down the bullies and get back into the flow!

This result shows s the total number of Stack Overflow questions asked each month. THE SQL query is https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/1926661#graph: ``` SELECT DATEFROMPARTS(YEAR(CreationDate), MONTH(CreationDate), 1) AS [Month], COUNT(*) AS [Questions] FROM Posts WHERE PostTypeId = 1 GROUP BY DATEFROMPARTS(YEAR(CreationDate), MONTH(CreationDate), 1) ORDER BY [Month] ASC ```

This chart shows the total number of Stack Overflow questions asked each month. As you can see, AI summaries in Google and AI coding tools have nearly killed the site. It is only a matter of time before the site shuts down completely. The golden age of independent web is over.