Numbers: Cross-language baby name finder
Recently I released this bilingual baby name finder I called MixedName, as a result of brainstorming dozens of different domain na ...
Release: Cross-language baby name finder
Just released a cross-language baby name finder called MixedName. It shows you names that work in two different languages, so for ...
I asked GPT-3 to make a presentation for me
I told GPT-3 I would be presenting at a Hacker News meetup in Japan, and asked it to generate a presentation for me. Here's what i ...
What it's like to code for Roblox
Our son is heavily into two things on the computer right now: Minecraft and Roblox. Of these I only knew about Minecraft before, w ...
What I've been doing lately
Candy Japan has been paused for a while because of the COVID situation, so what have I been doing instead?
Swift
Before running th ...
Satisfactory way of thinking
I've spent hundreds of hours in the factory building game Factorio, and more recently Satisfactory. In both of these games you are ...
Received Japanese language malware link by text message
Was bicycling home the other day, when I noticed I had received a text message.
The message says "we tried to deliver a package, ...
Favorite quotes from 2020 so far
Last year I had just one post for all my collected quotes of the year, as I didn't have too many of them. This year the list is st ...
My latest sideproject: Craft QR
Since I've been playing a lot of Minecraft lately as my son is really into it, I wanted to create something related to it. Some ki ...
Be Careful with Pricing Experiments
This is a horror story of how I shredded at least ~$50k or more. Some may know me as the guy who runs Candy Japan, but this is abo ...
My favorite quotes from 2019
I've gradually started reading more, and like to collect interesting quotes I come across. Here are some of my favorite ones from ...
Why did we decide to build a house in Japan?
I don't mind renting. It can be more expensive, but for someone who isn't quite sure where to live, it's worth paying for the adde ...
What I've learned about Roblox after a few weeks of exploration
My 4-year old son has recently really been into Roblox, and I've found myself being surprisingly into it as well.
I found myself ...
How to find good books
I didn't use to read all that much, but gradually as I realized that I had already seen most of the great movies and after reflect ...
What I’m doing now
This is a now page.
I'm still living in Tokushima, Japan. Currently basically just doing a lot of self-directed studying. The rest ...
Reading books like reading blogs
I used to spend at least an hour each day reading various blogs, usually ones I'd discovered through aggregators like Hacker News, ...
Reading too many "startup stories" considered harmful
In the past few years a lot of websites have appeared that tell "startup stories" or "side-project stories". Typically in these st ...
The three states of a project
When you have a project bringing in some income, it can be in three states.
It could be growing, and you're happy expanding, sol ...
Sysop Chat
Back in mid-90s before anyone I knew had an Internet connection, a few of us had modems and would use them to call bulletin board ...
Keep building, even if your ideas are bad
I live off of my random online projects, but I've been in a bit of a rut lately. No new ideas that would be amazing enough to real ...
An example of dealing with paperwork in Japanese
The unsexy part about living in Japan is that you need to deal with official matters, and that usually means reading obscure lette ...
Get Started Easier: Build Momentum by Leaving Something Undone
Do you ever sit down at your computer, intending to work on your project, but end up putting
it off and wasting time instead? Ther ...
Abandoning projects is OK
Do you have a folder with many many abandoned projects in it? I have over 200 in mine.
Some I've abandoned in a week, some even i ...
Japanese vocabulary from "Mean People Fail"
Vocabulary notes from the Japanese version of pg's "Mean People Fail" essay.
Paragraph 1
「最近私は、自分が知る成功者の中には意地の悪い人がほとんどいないということに気がつ ...
Learning Japanese by reading bilingual blogs
Rote learning kanji and vocabulary is fine, but excessive reliance on flashcard-based learning has the risk of missing the proper ...
Running tip also helpful to developers: get your gear ready
There's a motivational tip I've read which is helpful to runners, which I think can also apply to developers. Prepare your gear in ...
Do you highlight all the text you read?
According to this poll, highlighting all the text you read is rather common behavior. Some do it to keep track of their reading po ...
Simplest lxml parsing example
Below is an xml document that is about as simple as one can get.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<cat>
<na ...
Backing up data from App Engine with appcfg.py
Even if you trust App Engine to keep your app data safe, you might still want to download a local copy. Why? Because you will want ...
Don't feel guilty about hundreds of unfinished projects
If you're like me, you have a projects directory with many many entries in it.
I have over 200 in mine.
Some I've abandoned in a ...
Three years after LASIK eye surgery
Three years have passed since I decided I'd had enough of wearing glasses and decided to go get LASIK eye surgery done. It isn't ...
How to create a pull request on GitHub
I use git mostly as a backup mechanism. Meaning I just write
git commit -a -m 'yep'
as if it was some kind of magical incantation ...
The most popular countries on Reddit
Countries with the most mentions
Here are the countries ranked by how many post titles mention them.
Rank
Country
Mentions
...
Which countries are mentioned the most on Hacker News?
As I was walking around Osaka with Sacha, we started talking about Hacker News and how there seem to be a lot of popular stories a ...
What I learned from the Priceonomics "Content Marketing Handbook"
I read through a guide called The Content Marketing Handbook recently after seeing it on Hacker News.
The guide instructs how to w ...
Monkey Light M232 review
While browsing Amazon for something cool, I happened to notice an item for sale called "Monkey Light". It's a circuit board w ...
Launch press release
Congratulations! You did your first newsworthy thing by launching your product. If your concept is something unique, you may be ab ...
0.01 + 0.001 + 0.0002 + 0.00003 + 0.000005 + 0.0000008... = 1/89
The fibonacci sequence shows up in surprising places.1/89 = 0.01 + 0.001 + 0.0002 + 0. ...
Two years after LASIK eye surgery
Two years ago I decided I'd had enough of wearing glasses and decided to go get LASIK eye surgery done. How do I feel now?The ...
DRAFT - Buying the perfect domain name
Instead of working on your idea, you are stuck trying to find the perfect domain name for it. Let me give you a push.Should y ...
How I became and un-became a manga translator
Recently Forbes published an article titled "How American Fans Pirated Japanese Cartoons Into Careers". After reading that I thoug ...
Startup School London trip report
TL;DR;By attending Startup School, you'll get infected by a burning desire to start something big. If you already have an idea wha ...
Candy Japan crosses $10000 MRR
It's been a while since I blogged about Candy Japan (http://www.candyjapan.com). If you've been actively reading Hacker News for s ...
AirWheel X3 Electric Unicycle Review
On my first ever visit to China, I saw a bunch of people riding these strange devices (the red one on the left in the picture ...
How to bet against bitcoin by shorting
If you think that the price of bitcoin is going to go up, buying and holding on to some can be profitable. But what if you believe ...
LASIK 6 months later
Around half a year ago I made a detailed post about getting LASIK eye surgery. In short this is a surgery which enables nearsighte ...
Hack your motivation
Nothing is better than being truly motivated by an exciting project. But if you're stuck, here are some things to try out that can ...
JLPT test
The Japanese Language Proficiency Test is the most recognized standard test for judging your Japanese language ability. It has sev ...
Life as an expat coder in middle-of-nowhere Japan
Living in Japan was my dream. Being a programmer was another, and getting paid to work on my own projects directly from individual ...
AirBnB censors the word "CouchSurfing"
AirBnB offers a range of more interesting places to stay than a predictable hotel room. Like a hotel, you pay per night ...
Intensive Japanese course @ ICU
I was on a two-year exchange program to ICU in Tokyo, Japan. This is a short description for those considering taking part in such ...
Oculus Rift first impressions
Want to be immersed in a virtual world that only exists inside a computer? Have your own holodeck and experience the virtual reali ...
Two years of life as an expat coder in middle-of-nowhere Japan
I was living in Finland and about to fulfill my ultimate anime geek dream of living in Japan for good. I had already made shorter ...
Facebook event search coming soon?
Being an expat in Japan, I'm often looking for events in the area to get more connected in the local community. Facebook pages sup ...
Getting LASIK eye surgery
This is the story of how I decided to fix my eyes with LASIK, how the experience was and how the result is turning out, written fo ...
What it costs to live in Japan
Two years ago I moved to Japan, working from home and hacking full time on what I would have used to call side projects in Finland ...
Competitors can target ads at your Facebook fans
Ever thought all those Facebook fan page likes you've been gathering for your business page might actually give your competitors a ...
2D skeletal animation
One of my various side-projects is getting some simple 2D skeletal animation working, since dealing with that would be a useful sk ...
Japanese study tools
Compared to languages like English or Spanish that use the familiar latin alphabet, for learning Japanese many more software tools ...
Would you like to glance at my lousy Japanese garden?
Japanese is a fascinating language. The most remarkable features of it are the honorifics and the writing system. Even physicist R ...
Bemmu Sepponen
This is the blog of Bemmu Sepponen, an expat living in Tokushima, Japan.I run Candy Japan, a Japanese candy subscription ...
Panty by Post founder Natalie answers my questions
Running a business based on a monthly subscription fee (subcom) is an attractive model, as it gives added predictability to your i ...
Thanks for the suggestions for Candy Japan
It's been a while since I last posted an update on Candy Japan. Last time I got tons of useful feedback, so ...
PayPal payments standard
I've had to refuse money from people, because my system simply isn't up to the task yet.
It's kind of amazing how many small deta ...
It's easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to get permission
Candy Japan has scaled from sending just a few envelopes a month, to a few hundred and now nearly a thousand envelopes a mont ...
Python ImageFilter for fun, profit and spinning candy
Having product images increases sales, but post-processing is a chore which involves clicking around in Photoshop/Gimp to isolate ...
First year of Candy Japan
Last July I posted on Hacker News about an experiment to start a Japanese candy subscription service. I live in Jap ...
I heard you like A/B testing
While doing split testing for Candy Japan I started thinking if there could be a better way to decide which page variation to ...
Stats from advertising Candy Japan on Reddit
Three months ago I started a Japanese candy subscription service called Candy Japan. It is growing well from word of mouth alone, ...
Brief report and August numbers for Candy Japan
As you may already know, Candy Japan is a subscription service for random Japanese sweets that we run from our living room in ...
How I listed my first item for sale on Amazon.com
I recently listed my first item just to see how difficult the process is. About 2 hours of learning about the service and 2 weeks ...
I just gave advertising a try.
As you might already know, I run a service called Candy Japan which mails subscribers Japanese sweets twice a month. It has been m ...
Candy Japan: Anxiety of the month club
My Japanese candy subscription service Candy Japan has been steadily growing. While the club is still small and sending the envelo ...
How I decided the price for my Japanese candy subscription service
This is just a small update to show that Candy Japan is alive and well. There are now 180 subscribers. My ramen-profit ...
Candy Japan: Huge subscriber growth
Candy Japan is a subscription service for Japanese sweets. In this blog I have been writing openly about the business side of it.
...
Candy Japan: June & July subscriber stats
Two months ago I started a club which sends random surprise candy directly from Japan to subscribers paying on a monthly basis. Th ...
Candy Japan: Variable cost breakdown
Candy Japan is a subscription service delivering bi-monthly envelopes of random Japanese sweets. In this post I am going int ...
Candy Japan: Getting my first subscribers
Candy Japan is a subscription service where for a monthly fee you get a surprise envelope filled with random Japanese candy ...
Experiment: Japanese candy subscription service
Instead of a single up-front fee many services are now based on subscriptions, since the web makes it easier to offer services on ...
Facebook page apps, an opportunity you might not have considered
Platform launches are exciting times. A lot of small players turn into big ones as their apps take off and their studios expand fr ...
Profit from the inevitable Google+ app platform launch
Here's my own limited perspective on how Google+ apps will offer new opportunities for budding entrepreneurs. The release of suc ...
A world without advertising
Most people would agree that cold calling, unsolicited email and advertising are annoying things that the world would be better of ...
Additional ads made no difference in conversion rate
Inspired by patio11's comment on Hacker News, here are the results of my latest A/B test that I ran on Coolest Friends.& ...
The Antiviral Effect
I am the author of "Coolest Friends", a viral (and at times antiviral) MySpace application about ranking your coolest friends. Pat ...
This is the blog of Bemmu Sepponen, an expat living in Tokushima, Japan.
I run Candy Japan, a Japanese candy subscription service. Recently I also started an online fax sending site, which is particularly useful if you need to get a temporary fax number.
Candy Japan also has its own blog.
Get in touch: