What happened to Japanese men? When I was in college, everyone respected onsen etiquette—washing before entering a public bath. Today, the majority just splash water on their junk and jump in the water
Worldwide, right-wing political lurches seem to give men cover to be assholes
I visited とんかつ ひな太 on January 15, 2026. I gave it a 3.6 on Tabelog.
特上ロースはとても柔らかくてすごくジューシーです。旬の広島産牡蠣も美味しかった！
I must admit, Japan's wholesome spin on absurdist nationalism is cuter than what we've got going on in the states. Leading morning news in Tokyo is the "drum diplomacy" between Japan's PM and Korea's President youtu.be/RE6vr_ZpUHM?si=BYzd1Yew43X9JHZw
It is Twenty Fucking Twenty Six and iMessage still thinks that a phone number without a country code and a phone number with a country code belong in the same message thread (good!) but different contacts (bad!). What am I supposed to do? Save +1 and non +1 variants for every US phone number in my contacts?
I'm a shameless iPhone Air booster, but this is killing me:
iPhone 17 supports DisplayPort over USB-C: apple.com/iphone-17/specs/
iPhone Air doesn't: apple.com/iphone-air/specs/
So much for watching movies on smart glasses on my flight to Tokyo 🤦♂️
One of the many subtle frustrations I have with the Airpods Pro 3 is that the redesigned case actually results in a slightly-askew magnet alignment, which results in several (official!) MagSafe chargers failing to charge the case. Well, while the iPhone Air MagSafe Battery may not fit any other model iPhone particularly well, it's actually a super handy way to recharge your AirPods! Just plop the fucker on the back and twist until you hear that familiar ding and see the light turn on.
Might come in handy on a long flight.
Secondary PSA: engraving is free and AirPods are disposable: put your e-mail address on your AirPods.
Yet again, I finally sit down to tackle something I've been procrastinating for a month because I was afraid it would be a huge pain in the ass, only to be proven right and it really is a huge pain in the ass, which just reinforces that I should procrastinate even more in the future.
Video of this episode is up on YouTube:
I'm about to get on a plane and will be gone for a couple weeks, but didn't want to leave you Breaking Changeless so I did the thing where I stand up in front of a microphone and talked at you. Again. Like I do.
Fun fact: this is the first and only time I've taken a phone call live, on-air! I was just too lazy to edit that out gracefully.
Whenever I go to Japan solo, I experience moments of loneliness, so I'd really appreciate it if you sent me some praise or complaints or ideas to podcast@searls.co and I'll feel comforted by the knowledge that you exist. Your engagement sustains me.
Lotta weird and dumb links this go-round:
Becky and I are wrapping up a rewatch of Mad Men this week, and throughout the first several seasons, she'd point out the artwork hanging near the entrance of Peter Campbell's apartment, a screenshot of which I shall now hotlink from Blogger's CDN like it's 1959:
(Of course, Pete Campbell is so classless that in my head canon, Trudy must have picked this out.)
Anyway, every time the giraffes would show up, Becky would snap her fingers and point at the TV like Leo in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood before commenting on how much she loved the piece. We are not art people, and I can take a hint, so I ordered a recreation made by this guy on Etsy and hid it in a closet for a few months before giving it to Becky to unwrap on Christmas.
Well, I finally got around to hanging them up last night, and they look pretty good! It helps that I had a huge blank wall framed by white trim and surrounded by mid-century modern furniture. I loved the little touch that Peter D. Campbell was written in huge lettering (larger than the artist's) across the center of the middle giraffe.
Classic Pete. What a prick.
Oof. Adam Wathan and his colleagues on the Tailwind team deserve better. One case where AI is eating a business that was doing right by everyone involved. I bought Tailwind Plus last year to support their work. github.com/tailwindlabs/tailwindcss.com/pull/2388#issuecomment-3717222957
The curse of productivity is that it's self-perpetuating. Respond to e-mails with lightning speed and you just get more replies. Demonstrate your reliability to others long enough, and they'll just bring you more shit to do. Develop productive routines and habits and—before you know it—your natural disposition will shift towards being done with things and away from actually doing things.
Left unconstrained, optimizing for a productive life can diminish the joys of living. Many of us who opt into the lifestyle of "staying on top of shit" do so, ostensibly, to maximize time for creative work, or for leisure, or for family. That's the spirit with which I first discovered Getting Things Done near the beginning of my career. And it really worked! I have no doubt I owe much of my success to adopting a clear productivity process, low-friction tools, and ruthless discipline.
But even for the handful among us who successfully find a productivity regime we can stick with, the technologies that both enabled remote work and unintentionally led to the disintegration of work-life boundaries have resulted in a situation where highly productive people often wind up cursed with the inability to turn it off. I had no problem forgetting about the hundreds of e-mails and things to do in 2009 when I would—get this—leave my computer at the office overnight. But once I started working from home, there was no longer a natural threshold through which to transition from being "productive" to being "unproductive". I doubt I am alone in this.
Depressingly, even after I retired and no longer had any job at all, I found myself continuing to be hyper-vigilant about checking e-mail, tackling todo after todo, and generally prioritizing productivity over whatever shit I claimed to want to do. I've been promising myself a hedonistic life of video games, vodka, and gummy bears since I was 19 years old. And yet, even though I have plenty of money, zero constraints on my time, and a backlog of thousands of games, here I am writing a fucking blog post instead of literally ever doing the one activity I set out to achieve before starting my career.
Moreover, when others look at me and how I go about getting shit done, and—rather than wanting to emulate it—they tend to walk away feeling grateful they're not as tightly-wound as I am. When I consider all the people in my life, it's starting to feel like there are essentially two classes of humans: people who never get shit done and people who never stop getting shit done.
This state of affairs was clearly suboptimal. That's why, last year, Becky and I adopted a bespoke weekly schedule that enables us to get things done without getting carried away. The key insight was, as usual, to implement a strict timebox. We call it "weekstart", and this is how it works.
Weekstart kicks off Monday morning and ends with the dinner bell on Tuesday.
AirPods Pro 3 are a disappointment. Seal is less reliable. They whistle from feedback when carried. 15s after popping in a second AirPod, it often still won't start playing. Reduced range. Running the microwave results in constant audio interference. Same issues on multiple pairs
Glad someone else wrote this. IDGAF about macOS Tahoe app icons because they're something I see for a split-second when launching apps, but the new contextual menu icons are far more of a nuisance to trying to use apps. So much visual noise. tonsky.me/blog/tahoe-icons/
This is a copy of the Searls of Wisdom newsletter delivered to subscribers on January 1, 2026.
As promised last month, this issue is just oyster meat. It's a new year and as good a time as any to hit reset and get this monthly newsletter back on its preordained beginning-of-the-month-ish delivery cadence. That makes this a quick turnaround after our last issue, so there's not much new to report. Good thing I asked you all to lower your expectations!
Let's see, since we last corresponded:
For the second year in a row, us kids paid a visit to dad's second-favorite spot in Walt Disney World on Christmas Day:
Fortunately, gallows humor has always played in the Searls family.
Stay tuned for next month's note, as I'll have just gotten back from the storied land of Shizuoka following the next chapter of our condo purchase journey. We're still on track to close in July, but in mid-January I have the not-technically-mandatory opportunity to pick out the curtains and the drapes at a sort of mini trade show event held by the developer. Well, curtains, yes, but also air conditioners. And tile. And how to finish the balcony. And how many mirrors we want, and where, and whether to tint them in sepia tones. And which LED mood lighting package should line the toilet. Should I pay for them to seal a brand new Japanese wood floor or is that a scammy upsell?
Reply and tell me what to do, please—the decision overload is truly overwhelming.
Anyway, the next week of my life is going to be spent poring over a dozen product catalogs. Bridging the language and cultural divide is extremely slow going. It's a good thing I failed to predict how much work this condo would turn out to be, or I'd never have gone through it. If you catch me having any fun this month, yell at me and tell me to get back to work.
Speaking of bridging language and culture, keep reading for one more stupid thing.
