My Problem with the Foundation Trilogy

This will probably come across as sacrilege to some, but I need something to write about this week, and this is recent enough to be relevant.

I read the original Foundation book many years ago and I loved it at the time. I immediately went out and bought the whole trilogy so that I could continue it, but for whatever reason I got drawn away to something else. I finally got around to picking it back up late last year, and I finished all three books a couple weeks ago. I have since donated the books as I feel no need to read them again.

So what happened exactly? The Foundation trilogy is generally regarded as a science fiction classic and was liked enough to spawn several more books after the trilogy was completed. And I will agree that the original book, Foundation, is a classic. Reading it again years later, it didn't amaze me the same way it did the first time around, but it still stands as a collection of engaging short stories in an intriguing world. To some degree, I will even agree that Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation have the right to be considered classics, but I couldn't get into them at all. Trying to finish them ending up being a slog.

Thinking on it, I can point to two main reasons why it didn't work for me.

The first one is that the second and third books went away from the short story format that made the first one so interesting. What I loved about the original book was that each short story acted as a brief look into a different period of time, focusing on a different problem that had to be solved by, usually, a different person. The stories were good about dripping information to you, giving you enough things to build the universe in your head but never getting bogged down in details. The characters were all interesting too because they were just normal folks who were each faced with a crisis that needed to be handled, and they used their brains to address it. And with all the short stories, the driving point was that technology was powerful when used creatively and for the right reasons.

The other two books completely move away from this format in favor of more traditional novels that cover fewer plotlines in a bigger way. With this transition, it removes all the good points I just mentioned. There are too many details such that you can see everything so there’s no mystery left. There are too many characters and very few of them are interesting. The whole story just grinds. And when you finally get to the twist at the end of each book, it's not satisfying enough to justify the build up.

This leads me to the second thing I didn't like about these books. As I said, the message of the first book was that technology is powerful when used creatively. The message of the second and third books is that technology can indeed do amazing things, but superpowers are more powerful. The big twist of each book is essentially that psychopathic powers exist, and anyone who has them is basically a god. I'm not against this idea in general, I've enjoyed many stories where superpowers were involved. But coming from the original story of science doing cool things, it is super lame and unsatisfying.

I will say that I did like Second Foundation more than Foundation and Empire, mostly because the characters were a little more fun to be with. The way they go about finding the agents of the second foundation is clever and brings the story back into the realm of science being cool. But at the same time, there are so many twists near the end that essentially everything you are being told is wrong, so why bother believing any of it? I don't plan on reading any more of the books, but I can't help feeling that the “truth” at the end of Second Foundation will probably also end up being a lie in order to keep the series going.

Finishing this trilogy left me with the same feeling that Wool did when I read it long ago. Another case where the original short story was fantastic. It built up the world enough that you knew what the stakes were, then it gave you a twist to make you believe things are not what they seem, only to then twist back and you come to realize just how sinister that world actually is. Then the author wrote four more stories, each longer than the last, and just pulverized everything I liked about it into the ground. The more you learned about the world of Wool, the lamer and more stereotypical it got.

I suppose this is a fairly common affair in book series though, particularly in science fiction. There are so many classic books in sci-fi that receive a bunch of sequels, but none of them come close to the original, and they just keep pulling the whole franchise down. I suppose there's something we should all learn from that.

Idle Champions and My Relationship with D&D (So Far)

This is not necessarily going to be a review, though I will be talking about a couple of games I've been playing. Since the idea this year is to just write about whatever comes to mind, it stands to reason that I should devote some time to explaining how Dungeons and Dragons has been invading my life.

The primary thing to know before I start is that I have played exactly one game of D&D. Ever. It was just an introductory game where we created some characters and tiptoed into a dungeon. Through a combination of not knowing everyone in the group, the inexperience of the DM, and the stilted enforcement of role playing, it wasn't fun for me at all. I can’t say I’ve ever been intrigued by the actual act of role playing. I've played my fair share of video game RPGs, it was my favorite genre when I was a teenager and had all the time in the world. But I've never been drawn to creating my own character and pretending to be that character.

So, I bounced off it for a decade or so. I still haven't actually played another game, though I've done a couple one-shots of other systems. But thanks to the emergence of D&D-based shows, like Penny Arcade's Acquisitions Incorporated, I have slowly gained respect for the system. And somewhere along the way, it clicked for me that it really is the system that I care about, the mechanics of battle and interaction with the world. The lore that has been built around D&D is pretty cool too, you have a lot of elements that get shared between different groups so you can have those common experiences.

It’s through these shows and the lore that I ended up jumping into some recent D&D video games, namely Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms and the Neverwinter MMO. I enjoy the lore, I like the systems (though these games only loosely use them), and it was easy to give them both a shot since they are free to play.

Idle Champions was my first dip into this world of D&D games, and part of me feels like it was great but also a mistake. For those who don't know, Idle Champions is a clicker game where you play a scenario over and over again, earning money to buy upgrades, which allow you to get more money for more upgrades, and you just keep going until you hit the wall of the exponential curve. Idle Champions uses that formula but adds enough to it to make it stand out. For one, most of the characters you can use and unlock are known into the D&D world or come from well known D&D shows (like the aforementioned Acquisitions Incorporated), which lends it some fun fan service. Another aspect is that even though you are starting from zero each time, you’re not really because various achievements and unlocks give you permanent boosts across campaigns and the whole game.

What surprised me most about this game though is that it actually has strategy in it. Sure there's not a lot of strategy to: kill enemies, get money, go as far as you can before you get overwhelmed. But with each scenario you get a formation that you have to put your characters into, and you can only have 10 characters max (out of 40 or so, so far). So, the real fun of the game for me is figuring out the best formation to use in a scenario, which can take many times to optimize. The game is also good about offering challenges that put twists on the scenarios, and having events where certain characters are buffed for a period of time, which force and encourage different ways to approach it. There are some tactical decisions you can make too, though they only provide temporary advantages. It really comes down to the formation, and also how much money you've earned from previous scenarios. Yeah, it's kind of cheap that way, but that is the whole point, you are trading time played for progress, it’s not inherently a skill-based game.

My computer has put an obscene amount of hours into running this game, and the time I've spent interacting with it is probably higher than I'd care to admit, hence why it might have been a mistake. It's not much of a game since it largely plays itself, but I have fun with it. As far as free to play time wasters go, I've certainly played worse.

Now what surprised me even more than liking that game, is that I also ended up really liking Neverwinter when I gave it a go. I've been traveling a lot lately getting ready for my new job so haven't had a lot of time to play it, but I do think about it often. I don't have a lot of MMO experience to compare it to, maybe 10 or so hours in World of Warcraft is about it, but they have certainly done a good job of making quests quick and easy enough that I find it hard to step away. Much like Spider-Man from last week, Neverwinter is good at the "just one more" loop.

As far as gameplay goes, Neverwinter is pretty standard stuff. Run around and attack baddies, pick up items to complete quests, get gold and other currency that you use to buy equipment. As you level up you get access to different abilities you can pick and choose from. You also get various perks that permanently boost your stats, including points you can add to the standard 6 D&D attributes. And as you go along, more and more systems get introduced to you to expand what you can waste your time on.

The nice thing that Neverwinter has going for it is that right from the start it was fun to play the main game of running around and attacking. Since I chose a sword fighter, running is particularly important as it's how I escape from getting hit by attacks. I did a lot more dodging in the early game, but I'm usually powerful enough now that I can just tank in order to finish enemies off faster. At this point, some 30 hours in, the main game loop isn't quite as fun on its own as it was starting out, but there are other systems that I enjoy to keep me engaged.

Two systems in particular that I like are the workshop and the campaigns. The workshop is sort of the crafting system for the game, where you hire workers to make weapons, armor, materials, and other tools. You get a worker, you select what you want them to make, you get the right materials, and then you pay them to make as many you want. After a certain amount of time, the items are crafted and ready for pickup. There is also a job for fetching materials from the wild that other workers use. In the grand scheme of the game, the workshop isn't that useful, but it really scratches that itch I have for management sims.

The other system I like is how they do campaigns. Campaigns are essentially chains of side quests that go for an extended period of time and provide unique loot. I've only been able to dig into two campaigns at this point, but I think it's a great way of incentivizing side quests that you can otherwise skip. One of the reasons I even took a look at this game is because one of the campaigns is for Acquisitions Incorporated, and I have to say it's quite enjoyable. Yeah, I may be a bit of a fanboy when it comes to that kind of stuff, but what do I care? I'm having fun.

There's plenty about the game I don't care for though. Like other MMOs, it has the problem of throwing too much at you from the start. It does a better job than most (from what I hear) since many systems are gated by level or story progression, but I feel like more can be done to make it less overwhelming. Just the sheer number of currencies in the game is insane. No one can keep track of all that. And speaking of currency, the other major thing I dislike is how much is locked behind the money gate. Sure, it's free to play, and that is how they fund development. But it just feels like too much is behind that gate, and they bother you about it a lot. Again, it could be done better.

Anyway, there isn't much of a point to this post, just wanted to give some thoughts on the D&D stuff I've been doing lately. One day I'd like to try getting into the real game again and play some of the older D&D games (like Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment). But for the time being, these will keep me going for a while.

Being a Jack of All Trades: Breadth vs Depth

One of the most wonderful things about the times we live in is that the variety of things we have available to us is as diverse as it has ever been in the history of our species. It is also, arguably, one of the worst things. I know that just for me personally, having so many options leaves me with analysis paralysis, so I end up doing nothing a lot of the time. But at the same time, I can’t help but want to do so many different things because my mind feeds off the diversity and the idea that I can do anything I devote my time to. Yet, in recent months, I have found that this is not always the best course of action. This post is going to be about the difference I’ve found between going broad and diving deep.

Breadth vs Depth

In essence, the distinction between breadth and depth is that breadth is shallow and random while depth is narrow and focused. For example, if you are having dinner, you can eat your food in two different ways. The first, breadth, is to take a bite or two of your steak, then take a bite of your mashed potatoes, then a bite of salad, or you could mix two or more items together in one bite, and you continually go back and forth between each food item. This has the advantage of knowing how the whole meal works together because the flavors get mixed up. The second, depth, is to take one food item and just keep eating it until it is gone, then move onto the next one, so you might start with a food you don’t like as much to get it out of the way, then onto the next least favorite food, and finally finish with your favorite item. This has the advantage of really being able to savor and fully experience each piece of food since your taste buds aren’t getting confused by the other foods.

This applies to all areas of life, though when it comes to things we want to do, the dinner plate is endless. I will use myself as an example here. When I am at home, I have a lot of things that I like to do. I can read a book, play a video game, watch a movie or TV show, surf the Internet, practice playing music, spend some time writing (like I’m doing right now), or just have a nice chat with my fiancee. And those are just the categories. When you take the choices in each category into play, my options increase exponentially. Not to mention these all need to fight against the things that I have to do, like apartment upkeep, cooking, and exercising. This can often be confusing and leave me not knowing what to do, but, at the end of the day, I love having so many options.

Where this distinction between breadth and depth becomes important is when it comes to skills. I think most people fall more on the breadth side of the spectrum when it comes to skills. I know I certainly do. People who take a breadth approach to skills end up being a jack-of-all-trades. They have some skill in multiple areas, but they will never be great at any of them. In order to be an expert in something, you really have to take a depth approach. This is simply because you have to devote time to something in order to become great at it. It goes back to the 10,000 hour rule, popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers. Most experts become experts because they focus on one skill and do it for years. There are few people who have that kind of focus, which is why true experts are so rare and valued.

Depth is Important; Breadth is Fun

The reason I bring this up is because I have recently experienced, for the first time really, the drawbacks to having a broad knowledge base instead of a deep one. Over the course of my career, I have prided myself on being an incredibly diverse worker. In all of my jobs, I have had to adapt to things quickly, constantly having to learn new frameworks and languages to get the job done, and I have been recognized and praised for that ability. But I have come to the realization that if I actually want to advance beyond where I’m at, I need depth too. Most companies are not inclined to advance people who are not experts in their domain, though it does depend on the company and its needs. Smaller companies are more inclined to want people with a broad skill set since they can’t hire as many people to do all the things they need done. While I personally think that versatility is a better trait to have than being an expert in only one or two fields, my industry doesn’t think so. Thus, I will have to make a compromise somewhere. And in truth, it’s not a bad thing to try to be an expert in a field, just as long as I don’t get myself pigeon-holed into that field. As I said before, I thrive on variety.

So, as a piece of advice, even to myself, it is vital to have deep knowledge where you intend to work. Not doing so runs the risk of being blockaded by other people. But when it comes to hobbies and doing what you want, I feel like having breadth is more fun. I understand that there are people out there who find it easier to go deep in a hobby, like becoming a hardcore marathon runner, or a crafts artist on Etsy, or a professional video game player. And they get lots of enjoyment out of those pursuits. But for me, the world just has so much to offer, and I love learning new things all the time, so dabbling a bit in everything tends to make me more happy than focusing in just one area. Sure, I may never be more than above average in any of those hobbies, but I don’t have to be. They are hobbies. If I want to be an expert, I should do it in my work, since that is where it really counts.

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Bit of a short one this time, but it’s not a very broad topic. It was just something that I discovered late last year and felt that I needed to speak on it. I have also been working on putting a little bit of writing in each day, so this was a nice break from the other stuff I’ve been working on. I wouldn’t hold my breath on those projects coming out any time soon, but I am aiming to have some actual projects completed this year. My best friend has been really pushing me lately to actually get some progress on my various ideas, so I’m getting there. See you again!

Glass Houses: The End of Privacy

I know, I know. When most people think about glass houses, it’s usually in reference to the idiom where you shouldn’t throw stones. But it’s also an apt way of describing how privacy is getting harder and harder to enforce in the modern world. Technology continues to increase, as does the amount of data there is about people being passed around. Most of this information is not secured in any way, making it easy for data aggregators to get their hands on it, and there are plenty of times when even secure data is compromised. It’s a problem that is only going to get worse.

I had actually planned on doing this post before the recent news about the nude photos of several celebrities getting out into the wild, but that makes it even more appropriate. I fully agree that what happened is awful and they didn’t deserve to have that happen. No one does in that situation. However, I have to acknowledge that these things are inevitable, so what we as a society really need to do is accept that fact and learn from these events.

Privacy is Over

Make no doubts about it, privacy as we know it is ending. It will be a slow death, but it will come all the same. At least, it will for the people who don’t bother to do anything about it. This is the overwhelming majority of people on this planet. When it comes to privacy, there is a broad spectrum of people. At the one end you have the people who do not care at all and just let out any information that is asked of them. At the other end you have the people who are paranoid and spend a lot of effort protecting every single thing they do. Like all normal distributions, most people are somewhere in the middle.

As we have seen with the rise of the Internet and social media, people are not terribly secretive creatures. This has always been true, but now with these technologies, those secrets are easier for outsiders to access, and those secrets never go away. Once something is posted publicly, it is almost impossible to erase, especially if there are people who are interested in it. And the harder you try to erase it, the harder it becomes to do so (see the Streisand Effect).

The real trouble comes when people have an expectation of privacy, but their information gets out. Sometimes it just leads to an annoyance, like getting phone calls from telemarketers. Other times, it can be severely damaging, like getting your whole identity stolen. In lots of these cases, the root problem is that they had the expectation when there was nothing to back them up. When it comes to social networks in particular, assuming there is any privacy is a falsehood. As soon as one person can see it, any one can see it if there is malicious intent.

That is where the true danger lies. Not in technology, but in the people who are using it. More and more often, people are losing data through social engineering. There are certainly still hackers who just go after data, but preying on the mistakes that people make is becoming increasingly popular. And even if you are careful, that doesn’t mean someone else who has data about you is going to be the same.

Protecting Yourself and Letting Go

So what can people do about these things? No matter how careful one person is, they can be compromised by someone else. What can they possibly do in that kind of situation? Honestly, there are really only a few things you can do.

First and foremost, assume that everything you do can be compromised, especially if technology is involved at all. Anything you say to someone in confidence can still be leaked out. Any picture you take with your phone has the potential of getting stolen, even if you never post it anywhere. Think before you post: Will I be okay with this in a month? A year? Several years down the road? Don’t treat anything as sacred.

Second, focus on protecting the things that really matter. For the vast majority of people, this means your financials. Eventually technology will lead to better protections on our identities so that it will be almost impossible for them to be faked, but until that time comes, we need to be vigilant. Use credit cards whenever possible instead of debit (they generally have better protections). Avoid leaving paper with sensitive info on it around. Get a locking mailbox if you expect to get mail with sensitive info. Be careful about who you share information with (don’t go with unknown companies). Most other things are fixable, but having your financial information stolen is hard to recover from, so focus there first.

And lastly, know where it is okay to let it go. In many areas, we like to treat things as secrets when there is no real need to. My phone number, my address, things that are going on in my life, none of these things are truly secret, so it seems silly for me to assume that they are. But while that is true for me, it will not be for other people. For others, having their home address out in the wild can be potentially dangerous to them, especially when combined with other information. It’s just a matter of knowing what is okay and what isn’t. But in general, most information about you isn’t going to get you into trouble. If it doesn’t compromise your safety, it’s probably not worthwhile trying to keep it secret.

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This post was mostly to fill a gap while I finish up the last of a series of books I’ve been reading about self-improvement, so it’s definitely not one of my better efforts. Next week’s should be better though. I will be revisiting an old post and seeing how I am doing with my productivity goals. I will also be discussing the books I’ve been reading, either in the next post or another one soon. See you then!

Europe Trip 2014

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, my girlfriend and I just had a wonderful vacation (or holiday as they would say) in Europe. Specifically we stopped in Ireland, Scotland, England, and popped over to France for a couple nights. Despite the fact that we were moving around a lot, it was overall a very relaxing trip and it felt like it took a whole month rather than just two weeks.

I don’t want to do a full play by play of everything that happened, since that would be tedious for everyone. I’m just going to focus on the things that I found awesome in each city we visited, and general impressions about each place we went. Let’s hit it!

Dublin

I’d been to Ireland before on a previous trip in 2006, but we didn’t do very much in Dublin that time around, so I wanted to make sure we got the full experience this time. It wasn’t the best of times for me since I managed to get a nasty bug either at PAX or on the plane ride over, so I was having a lot of trouble sleeping. Despite that, we had an great time there.

We visited most of the obvious spots. Trinity College for the Book of Kells and Old Library (still stunning), Dublin Castle, Guinness Storehouse, and the Old Jameson Distillery to name the best ones. The one thing that really stood out to me about the Guinness Storehouse was simply how big it was. They put a ridiculous amount of money into making a very nice experience for visitors, way more than any other brewery I’ve been to. I ended up having a lot of Guinness in Dublin despite my illness because it is so much better than in the states. Touring the Jameson distillery was also great. One other thing I noticed between the two is that Jameson is obviously going for the higher end consumers while Guinness has stuff for everyone. I guess Jameson figures that their clientele are more sophisticated, which is probably true overall.

The thing that surprised me most about Dublin though was that the food was a lot better than I expected it to be. It was certainly better overall than what we had in Scotland and England, and was cheaper to boot. And it wasn’t just the native food, they had excellent Italian and Mexican food as well.

Scotland

In Scotland we spent a full day in Glasgow, a day travelling up to Loch Ness and Inverness, and a full day in Edinburgh. The highlight for me in Glasgow was absolutely the Necropolis. In fact, it is in my top three things for the entire trip. That graveyard is unlike anything I’ve ever seen, the sheer size of the place and most of the tombs and tombstones are elaborate and unique. It really is breathtaking. The cathedral nearby is also pretty cool, but it pales in comparison.

The trip up to Loch Ness and down to Edinburgh was kind of funny because it felt almost exactly like driving in Washington. The road up to Loch Ness was like driving on Highway 2 through the mountains, while going to Edinburgh was like using I-90. There was only one section where this wasn’t true, and that was during the stretch when we first got into the highlands, and I can definitely say that that was unlike anywhere else I’ve been. My girlfriend said that it felt like another planet, and I fully agree. Loch Ness itself wasn’t anything particularly interesting, but stopping by Urquhart Castle on the way was cool. Inverness on the other hand was pretty lame.

Luckily Edinburgh was there to make things cool again. If we were to go back to Scotland, I think it would be to just spend more time in Edinburgh. There is so much to do there that we didn’t have time to do having only one day. The zoo they have there is pretty good, especially their famous penguins (including the parade, where penguins will walk around outside their cage, and yes, it is just as adorable as the videos you will find online). Edinburgh Castle in the middle of the city is also very impressive. It’s the only castle in the UK I’ve been to that feels like an actual fortress (the only one that comes close is the Tower of London).

London

I distinctly remember back in 2006, when I visited London for the first time, I decided that if I didn’t live in Seattle, London would be my second choice. This trip pretty much confirmed that. It is still my favorite city to visit. I love the culture, I love the history, I love the transportation options, and I like that the location is much closer to other places I would love to spend more time in.

This trip had a couple repeats and a couple new things. Westminster Abbey is still my favorite church, and it ranked in my top three things for the trip, which is impressive since I already knew how awesome it was. It just blew me away again. The Tower of London was also a fun revisit. As far as new things go, Buckingham Palace is one of the most incredible buildings I’ve ever seen. I expected it to be lavish, but it managed to completely blow away my expectations with its splendor. It puts every other castle I’ve seen to shame. The other new thing was a quick trip to the British Museum, and like Buckingham, I was floored with how awesome the building is. I loved how every room felt like it was designed specifically for the exhibit that it contained (which may be the case, I didn’t really look into it). I was also surprised at how many things weren’t being protected by glass, they just trust people to leave them alone, even things that are millennia old.

The other thing we did that was worth noting was a visit to one of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants. I’ve had fancy meals before but nothing quite like this one. It shows off how meals like that really are a different experience from simply eating to fill oneself. And this wasn’t even the flagship restaurant. We will try to get to that one next time.

Paris

Paris ended up being the most difficult part of the journey for multiple reasons. One, obviously, the language barrier was hard to get over. My attempt at learning French for the trip proved to be mostly futile. Two, being near the end of our trip, we were exhausted. And three, since we only had a day and a half, we tried to pack in as much as we could, which resulted in us not having a lot of time to get food, which is one of the main reasons to go there in the first place.

We did some of the obvious things like visiting the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and Notre Dame. What we did not expect was that Notre Dame was actually kind of bland compared to some of the other churches we’d seen. That became even more clear after we visited Sacre Coeur. That church is the most beautiful one I’ve ever been to. Not the most interesting, not by a long shot, but without a doubt the most beautiful.

The last thing we did on the trip was see the show at Moulin Rouge. This also got into my top three for the trip, it was a blast. A lot of guys like that show simply because of the amount of topless girls, but I was really impressed with the stunt work they did. I wasn’t expecting there to be any at all, but what they did was outstanding and unique. The ventriloquist during the break was also a joy to watch. Seriously, you can’t beat doing an act with an actual dog that opens its mouth on command.

Random Observations

• Since we had some places to go to in the UK that are hard to get to with public transportation, I had my first experience driving over there. It took about three days to get the hang of it, but once I did, I found it surprisingly relaxing and fun. I enjoyed it more than I normally enjoy driving in the states.
• Following up on that, I absolutely love the way they’ve done their roads over there. Roundabouts are great no matter what anyone else says. This trip proved to me that freeways with anything less than 3 lanes are awful (seriously, having that extra lane makes a huge difference). I also love how big and descriptive their signs are. Every sign tells you everything you need to know about what’s coming up, and they repeat it several times to make sure you got it. Way more useful than the signs we have here.
• The only thing that sucked about driving was that our rental car had no acceleration at all. Going on the freeway, if we started going up an incline at all, the car would just start to slow down, no matter how much gas I gave it. I had to downshift a lot, even on freeways.
• The people in Dublin walk a lot faster than anywhere else we visited. They also tended to be the most brazen when it came to jaywalking, though it was common everywhere.
• While driving in England was pleasant, I would never want to drive in Dublin or Paris. Good lord those people are crazy.
• London is unparalleled when it comes to the number of buses you see driving around. Seriously, I’m pretty sure they count for 60% of the total cars on the road there. Taxis account for 35%. The rest are delivery trucks and the occasional personal car.
• Paris really is as dirty as people say it is. The smells of urine and BO are omnipresent.
• I suppose it shouldn’t have surprised me that much, but the first thing I noticed when getting to Paris is how much more diverse it is compared to London (and most places I’ve been to in the US for that matter). The rest of the UK I can understand being mostly white, but I figured London would be more diverse. It doesn’t hold a candle to Paris.
• While I can appreciate that the Paris subways are easier to navigate and their trains move much quicker, I still like the Underground of London better. Mostly because it’s cleaner.
• I also found it interesting just how many people don’t pay to use the Paris subway. Almost every time we went went in or out, we would see someone jumping the turnstile or going in through the exit door. And no one seemed to care.
• Trips like this make me really wish that Seattle had the same kind of density that every city has over there. Not just in people, but in shops and restaurants/cafes. It was super convenient to have small markets everywhere. And because there are so many places to eat, we almost never had to wait at any restaurant. There were no lines anywhere, which makes sense. If a place is full, you just go down the street to the next place. That would be awesome to have here.

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Overall it was a great trip, probably my favorite vacation yet. Absolutely cannot wait to go again next year. Next week I will be getting back to writing about topics, starting with my views on privacy and where it is going. See you next time!