The English version of the site has stopped being updated.
In early spring, I worked quite hard to create an English version of Awaremitai OnTheWeb (awaremi-tai.com/en).
There was a marketing thought that English-language support would allow us to deliver information to people around the world who are not native Japanese speakers, but more than that, we wanted to try something new.
However, we have now completely stopped updating the English version. I still want to support English, but the queue of “articles that need to be written” is so long that I don’t have time for that.
In any case, I have been diligently climbing mountains this year, and the number of trips I want to publish in “Hebereke Kiko” has been accumulating rapidly. This year alone, I have climbed six of the “One Hundred Famous Mountains of Japan,” and if it takes one month to write a series of travelogues on each mountain, that would fill up six months of updates. In addition, there are many Oka Deus.
I feel like I’m drowning and struggling in the same place.
As more and more articles are not translated into English in this way, the English version of the site will be increasingly delayed. In the end, it is likely that the English version of the site will become troublesome and will be discontinued at some point.
Changes in the way photography and I interact with each other
In August, my previous phone, a Google Pixel 4a, broke.
I’ve just bought a new Pixel 7a and I’m still amazed at its camera performance.
But there is one thing that is very, very disappointing. That is, Google Photo’s unlimited capacity service is gone.
Google’s cloud photo storage service, Google Photos, originally had unlimited capacity. However, since there is a limit to things, at some point the rule was changed to “unlimited capacity only if a Google smartphone user uploads photos via his/her smartphone”. And that, too, ended with the generation of the Pixel 5a or so, I believe, and now even Google-owned smartphones eat up storage space when photos are uploaded to cloud storage.
Google Photos has become an indispensable infrastructure in my family’s daily life. Google Photos uses AI to analyze images, so for example, if I enter “birthday” in the search box, the photos that I think are taken on my birthday will be extracted. Similarly, typing in “Kamikochi” will bring up photos of a trip to Kamikochi, which is very useful for looking back and thinking, “When did that happen? It is very convenient to look back and wonder, “When did this happen?
The photos are also stored on the NAS at home, and it is possible to browse through the past photos themselves. However, since the photos are stored in folders by year and month, it is impossible to search for a photo unless you remember when it happened. If you are not sure if it was 2006 or 2005, you have to turn both folders upside down to find the photo.
So, for the past month or so, I’ve been concerned about the free space on my Google Drive (including Gmail, Google Photos, and all the other elements), because when I post 600 or 700 photos on a single climb, the space is quickly depleted.
This would change the way we take pictures.
In the past, I have taken a lot of pictures to explain the situation to others. When I say I went to a restaurant, I take pictures of the restaurant exterior, the entrance, the interior, the menu, and so on. The important thing is that there are only a few pictures of my family members looking happy during the meal.
However, now that I am concerned about storage space, taking such record photos seems like a waste of time. I want to limit the number of photos I take as much as possible. I am seriously thinking about it.
But sooner or later, Google Photos will reach zero free space. I have no idea yet how I will deal with it then.
One option is to pay Google for about 2TB of capacity. Instead, stop operating a NAS; NAS hard drives often break and need to be replaced after less than 2 years, so considering the cost (around 8,000-10,000 yen) and the daily electricity bill, relying on the cloud is not a bad deal.
However, once the data is deposited in the cloud, it is like being held hostage. When you decide that you want to quit, you will be at a loss because you will not have a receptacle to retrieve the enormous amount of data. Considering this, I feel it is better to operate a NAS.
About advertisements in articles on this site
As of October 1, 2023, articles that are advertisements but are not marked as advertisements, so-called stealth articles, will be charged with violations of the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations.
https://www.caa.go.jp/policies/policy/representation/fair_labeling/stealth_marketing/
There are many advertising articles on websites around the world, even if they are not stealthy. This is especially true in the personal blogosphere.
On the other hand, there is no stealth at all on this site. There are links to Amazon, Rakuten, etc. in some articles, and a few articles introducing products. But fortunately or unfortunately, there are no corporate projects on this site. To begin with, there are some articles introducing products that do not praise the products.
Companies that have been offering their products or money to influencers to promote their products are in trouble. After all, the Consumer Affairs Agency says
The regulation applies to businesses that supply goods and services (advertisers). Third parties such as influencers who receive requests from companies to advertise or promote their products or services are not subject to the regulation.
Stealth marketing has been a violation of the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations since October 1, 2023.
In other words, he is saying that the responsibility is not being placed on the site or individual who wrote or published the stealth article, but on the advertiser. In this way, when advertisers ask influencers to promote their products in the future, they should say, “Listen, make sure you clearly tell us that this is an advertising project. Otherwise, we will be held responsible.
Or perhaps the stealth will become even more sophisticated than before. Well, either way, it has nothing to do with this site.
BGM of the Month
Takuya Nakamura’s performance is my latest favorite. I had never heard of this musician, but I happened to discover him on YouTube and thought, “Wow!
(2023.09.30)
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