The Monk & The Business Hippie
If you’re standing on Changspa Road deciding where to spend your week, that you’re choosing between two different things wearing the same clothes.
Skiing, Onsen, and the Hokkaido Outdoor Life
Hokkaido gets the lightest, driest powder snow on earth. This is not local boosterism. It’s meteorology. Cold Siberian air masses cross the Sea of Japan in winter, picking up moisture from the relatively warm sea surface. When that moisture-laden air hits Hokkaido’s mountain ranges, it dumps. Ten to fifteen meters of accumulated snowfall per season, …
The Pashmina
To understand why a real pashmina shawl costs what it costs, and why the fake version is such an easy sell to someone who’s never touched the genuine article, you have to start with the goat.
Havelis, Riads, and Konaks:
Three Houses, Three Courtyards, Three Educations I have spent enough nights inside at least two of these to have opinions that don’t come from a guidebook, and the third I have started to get a feel for even with just learning about them. The riad education started in Morocco, years before Vagobond had much of …
Understanding Delhi Drivers and Traffic
I’ve been in Delhi long enough now to stop flinching at the horns. That took a few days. What replaced the flinch was something closer to fascination.
Can AI Write a Complete Novel Independently?
AI can generate novel-length text. But a novel isn’t just a long sequence of correct sentences. Here’s why the technical capability and the artistic achievement remain distinct.