Weekly Notes 26-28 2025

July 12, 2025

Last weeks: trip to Japan, Chronicle news, and links.

For folks not in the know, this is a weekly stream of consciousness zero-agenda “here’s what’s happening” or “here’s what’s interesting” post.

What’s been happening

We were in Tokyo! We’ve visited European cities mostly until now, so it was a shock to be in a city larger than a lot of Indian ones. It’s cool how well organized Tokyo is compared to an Indian city though. And that when we’re staying in Shibuya, right next to the Scramble, and it’s crazy to see so many folks just passing through each other without a fuss.

While that’s the Studio Ghibli version, here’s how it’s in real life while we became a couple of crazy drunk gaijin doing the usual in the square:

And also Anime. So much anime everywhere. It’s on every street corner, metro station, and advertisement. We also visited Akihabara, and got into Don Quijote, which is just an explosion of color everywhere.

Did a trip up to Fuji-san as well, especially the iconic Fuji + Chureito pagoda photo that everybody takes. We also clubbed in a Shinkansen visit with it, and that day was super fun.

The touristy places in Japan are super crowded. We liked the Sensoji-temple, but it is just crawling with tourists. I think part of the reason why Ammu & I get out of India is to escape the crowd, so Tokyo definitely did not check those boxes.

One of the fun things we did was to see a Sumo show. It was definitely not authentic, but it was super fun and we really enjoyed the antics of the retired rikishis.

The food has been excellent as well. We tried a bunch of Japanese restaurants and bars, and found a few gems all around the Shibuya area.

Team Labs was crowded too, but it was just magical. We went to Borderless, but it’s definitely one of those things that’s worth it despite the crowds. One of the nicest things we did was to color our own sea creatures and then watch them come alive on big aquatic animated screens.

Some of the rooms were really mesmerizing.

Chronicle is now the #1 product of the month at Product Hunt. It’s been pretty cool working at a design-lead startup after a while. Do try it out if you haven’t already, have gotten a bunch of nice feedback from my friends.

Try out the gachapons: these are literally lined up all over Akihabara, and are probably in every konbini as well: simple machines that accept coins, and chuck out a tiny package with a toy in it. There’s something about turning the dial and getting something random that speaks to the kid in you. Here’s me breaking open a few yesterday:

If there’s one thing I took away from my trip to Japan (& this is why traveling is so wonderful) is everybody’s commitment to excellence. There’s a word for it: shokunin, and while I’ve seen it before in movies like Perfect Days, to see it in real life was just amazing. This isn’t to say every Japanese is like this: we were staying in Shibuya and saw our fair share of drunks passed out on the street and wonderfully disinterested teenagers, but there’s enough of them in a crowd to make a difference: from chefs in small restaurants to artisan shop owners to train station attendants.

Bought a Time Timer this week to try to get into pomodoro again and take more breaks. Always wanted one, and it’s definitely so much. more tactile and easy to turn that dial than click on some buttons. As an aside: one of the things we’re missing out in this move to all screen interfaces is more affordance: look at all the new cars for example: even to change the AC or the volume, you need the screen.

Claude Code seems to be picking up a lot of momentum, and frameworks like Super Claude seem to make getting started easier.

Been using Dia for a bit now, and while it’s good, its AI features are not fully fleshed out. I wish it could read not just open pages, but links in it as well.

I’ve always thought like this, but it’s becoming more obvious now that engineering is getting a leg up from models: being a product-driven engineer is the future.