langblr ahoy　(´∀｀)

Today's phrase is "頭剃るより心を剃れ（atama soru yori kokoro wo sore）".

【Vocabulary & Grammar】

1．頭（あたま, atama） It means “head.” Here it refers to shaving one’s head, often associated with monks or symbolic purification.

2．剃る（そる, soru） Verb meaning “to shave.” Used in its dictionary/plain form.

3．より (yori) A particle meaning “rather than,” “instead of,” “more than.” Used to compare two actions or states.

4．心（こころ, kokoro） It means “heart,” “mind,” “spirit,” “inner self.” It refers to one’s inner attitude or moral character.

5．を (wo) Direct object marker. It indicates that 心 is what is being shaved (metaphorically).

6．剃れ（それ, sore） Imperative form of 剃る. Strong command: “shave!” or metaphorically “purify!” “cleanse!”

Put together, 「頭剃るより心を剃れ」 means to value inner purification over outward rituals. It reminds us that true discipline comes not from changing our appearance, but from refining our heart and mindset.

There are people who shave their heads as a sign of remorse. Visually, it may seem effective, but hair isn’t the only thing that needs to be changed. When we express regret, we should also aim to grow in our hearts.

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OpenAI scraped the entire web. All of which had been a labor of love from humans. Wikipedia is the backbone of a lot of LLMs, and that was volunteer human labor. They stole it and now they're selling it back to us.

If you study Japanese you may have noticed that there are a lot of kanji and words that have the pronunciation of かえる (kaeru).

I wanted to make a quick list of words with this pronunciation and their meanings and kanji.

Verbs

帰る　かえる　to return; to come home; to go home; to go back

私は毎日六時に家へ帰ります。 わたし は まいにち ろくじ に いえ へ かえります。 I go home at six o’clock every day.

返る　かえる　① to return; to be returned; to go back; ② to revert; to be restored to an original state

借りた本が図書館に返りました。 かりた ほん が としょかん に かえりました。 The borrowed book was returned to the library.

変える　かえる　to change; to alter; to modify; to transform

私は髪型を変えました。 わたし は かみがた を かえました。 I changed my hairstyle.

替える　かえる　to replace; to exchange; to substitute; to switch

車のタイヤを新しいものに替えました。 くるま の タイヤ を あたらしい もの に かえました。 I replaced the car tires with new ones.

換える　かえる　① to exchange; to convert; to trade; ② to change something into something else

日本円をドルに換えました。 にほんえん を ドル に かえました。 I exchanged Japanese yen for dollars.

代える　かえる　① to substitute; to replace; ② to take the place of; to act on behalf of

彼が先生に代えて説明しました。 かれ が せんせい に かえて せつめい しました。 He explained it in place of the teacher.

Noun

蛙　かえる　frog (often written as カエル)

So, in terrible news, Trump's trying to pull some strings to pass this massive internet censorship bill, featuring all the kinds of internet censorship we're terrified of, including mandatory ID for accessing basically any website, specifically to crush state regulation of AI, because apparently this man will always see the moral bottom of the barrel and start digging.

6/14/2026

i was reading monster recently (perfect edition vol. 6 pictured above) when i came across this instance of an onomatopoeia that caught my eye. here's how we can probably interpret these two panels:

upper middle: カタカタ = shaking, trembling upper left: ガタガタ ガタガタ = trembling harder, shuddering

there are two basic differences here:

amount of onomatopoeia: four moras (カタカタ) vs. eight moras (ガタガタ ガタガタ)

quality of consonant: カ vs. ガ

now if you know me, you know i'm going somewhere with this vague "quality" term, but let's hold off on that for just a second to state the obvious: more is more!

more is more

well, duh, right? but it's still worth saying! compare these two sentences:

どんどん暖かくなっていく。 = it's getting warmer.

どんどんどんどん暖かくなっていく。 = it's getting warmer and warmer.

the difference carries over into english pretty nicely. it's a little redundant, or even childish-sounding, but it makes sense! so we can apply the same principle to the monster panel above:

カタカタ = shaking

カタカタカタカタ = shaking and shaking

so, with more of the onomatopoeia, we get more of the action, because it's lasting longer or getting stronger or for whatever other reason. but what about the other change in the onomatopoeia...?

カ vs. ガ

let's take a dip into romaji here: these two kana are ka and ga. thinking about it phonologically, they're a consonant+vowel group. let's look at the consonants:

/k/ = voiceless velar plosive

/g/ = voiced velar plosive

"velar plosive" sounds complicated, but it's just a scientific description of where the consonant is made (the velum = back of mouth) and how the consonant is made (by "exploding" = closing something, in this case your tongue, and then releasing it). what's important here is the voiceless and voiced distinction!

if you've never encountered this distinction before, here's your fun first-timer's experiment: touch your throat and say ssssssss. now do zzzzzzz. feel the difference? your vocal cords (yes, it's spelled cords) vibrate when you do zzzzzzz, but not ssssssss. that's the voicing distinction! sounds that vibrate (like /z/ and /g/) are voiced. sounds that don't (like /s/ and /k/) are voiceless.

ok, sure, but what of this voiced/voiceless distinction? well...you guys remember kiki and bouba? part of the difference between them is voicing: /k/ is voiceless and /b/ is voiced. as it turns out, the physical impression created by voicing is theorized to be universal in humans. in other words, voiced sounds "look" different than voiceless sounds! hence why kiki (voiceless /k/) is spiky and bouba (voiced /b/) is round.*

so what other impressions can voicing make? in general, voiceless sounds give a softer, lighter impression, while voiced sounds give a harder, heavier impression. this can even extend metaphorically to voiceless sounds giving a "good" impression and voiced sounds giving a "bad" impression. let's compare some pairs of onomatopoeiae with /k/ and /g/:

キラキラ /kirakira/ = glittering

ギラギラ /giragira/ = glaring

here's a famous one! the onomatopoeia /kirakira/ (with voiceless /k/) gives the impression of something light and pretty, while /giragira/ (with voiced /g/) gives the impression of something so bright it hurts to look at. we can even do a similar comparison in english: the double /t/ in glittering is voiceless, while the /r/ in glaring is voiced!

here's one that gives a physical impression instead of a visual impression:

コンコン /konkon/ = knocking

ゴンゴン /gongon/ = banging

our voiceless option, /konkon/, sounds like a polite knock on someone's office door. the voiced option, /gongon/, sounds like rapping a metal knocker as hard as you can (or like, a siege engine, lol). again, we can observe a similar pattern in english, with banging containing way more voiced sounds--in fact, in my english, that word is entirely voiced! (put your hand on your throat and test it!)

we can even have sensations playing out this way:

キンキン /kinkin/ = pulsing

ギンギン /gingin/ = throbbing

honestly, i would say neither pulsing nor throbbing is a particularly good sensation, but i definitely know throbbing is worse (or at least stronger...). again, for the english, the /p/ and /s/ in pulsing (the マシな option) are voiceless, while the double /b/ in throbbing is voiced.

last of all, let's return to the example from our monster panel above:

カタカタ /katakata/ = shaking

ガタガタ /gatagata/ = shuddering

i'm sure it's now blindingly obvious what's going on here, but let's spell it out for thoroughness's sake: if you're shaking or trembling a bit, that's カタカタ, but if it gets worse and bigger and harder to control, that's ガタガタガタガタ! basically, as poor detective suk gets more and more scared, his shakes get worse and worse. 可哀想にね。suk刑事、頑張れよ...!!

*there are other reasons for this specific case, too, so look it up if you're interested!

there's only so many sounds out there!

so, what did we learn? well, possibly we learned some useful new onomatopoeia, especially ones that you're likely to see in manga. but also, we learned how, on a very high level, sounds sound the same to everyone. the human vocal organs are restricted in size, shape, and acoustic power, so more or less everyone is making the same sounds as each other (compared to, for example, birds or whales or stars...). that means everyone's brain computes sound similarly, too, and we end up with strong, shared impressions like "/g/ is hard and heavy" or "/b/ is round and buoyant." this is phonology, but it's also phonetics and acoustics, and it's also even neuroscience and cognitive science!

I also happen to specialise in gambling addiction (although I'm not practicing in that area right now), and all I could fucking think about was how these fucking apps were conditioning me in the same fucking way gambling apps do. To be constantly plugged in, consuming. To not even think about just picking it up and having a look. To feel bored when I wasn't watching them, to think about watching them when I wasn't watching them....

That shit is fucking evil.

I deleted it. I'm not exposing myself to that.

That shit will fry your dopamine/reward system so fucking bad you will never read a book or watching a movie again without it.

Love yourself and your potential enough to put that fucking shit away. Watch longer form things that require focus and engagement. Listen to podcasts and audiobooks. Read books. DO ANYTHING BUT CONSUME SHORT FORM CONTENT IN AN UNSTRUCTURED WAY.

If you MUST consume it (I'm sure people will be like 'but my classmates' or 'but my own channel'.... etc), do it in a siloed and structured way. 30 minutes between x time and x time on x day. Focus on it. Don't eat and do it. Watch each short form video to completion. Engage critically with the content. ANd never watch them first thing in the morning or last thing at night.

Night in the Old Town

This post talks about a new DM feature in youtube. What it fails to mention is that as part of this new feature is that when you send someone a link to a video, and they open it in the youtube app, they will see who sent them the link. Specifically, your channel name.

If your google account name is your real name, so is your channel name by default.

This means the new default behavior is that everyone you send a youtube link to will see your full name if they open it in the mobile app.

To turn this off:

Go to your youtube app settings

Go to Privacy

Turn off "Channel visibility for shared links"