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Randomwire
Personal blog · randomwire.comculturehardwarewriting
Randomwire is a personal blog at randomwire.com about culture, hardware and writing. Since 2011, 36 different Hacker News readers have linked it 45 times, most often “Why Japanese web design is so different (2013)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-21, and you can follow it by feed.
Most-linked posts?
- Why Japanese web design is so different (2013)20 people · 21 mentions · first linked 2016-02-08
- Why Japanese web design is so different3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2013-11-13
- /kowloon-walled-city-rebuilt-in-japan/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-04-26
- The User Experience in Japan2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2013-10-23
- /storing-sensitive-data-in-the-cloud2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-02-20
What Hacker News says?
This article reminds me of Japanese web design and how dense it is. It's almost a bit like the 'western' web when Craigslist was first launched. Ultradense, kind of ugly, but extremely utilitarian. https://randomwire.com/why-japanese-web-design-is-so-differe...
Comment linking /why-japanese-web-design-is-so-different/
on “Whitespace killed an enterprise app”Submitted Why Japanese web design is so different (2013) as a story · 367 points
HN discussionIt's not just Japanese, Chinese also. An article not long ago theorized some reasoning behind it: https://randomwire.com/why-japanese-web-design-is-so-differe...
Comment linking /why-japanese-web-design-is-so-different/
on “24-core CPU and I can’t type an email”Submitted Why Japanese Web Design Is So Different as a story · 270 points
HN discussionBecause most people accessed the internet on their clamshell phones and not through a PC/laptop. So most websites were designed to be mostly text and easily browsed from clamshell-phone internet browsers. Now that smartphones have become ubiquitous more sites are finally being designed to look nice on smartphones - sometimes still at the consequence of desktop use. It took a few years after the iPhone release (aka:…
Comment linking /why-japanese-web-design-is-so-different/
on “Yahoo Answers to shut down May 4, 2021”Submitted Why Japanese web design is so different (2013) as a story · 257 points
HN discussionBetter to link to the original source article: https://randomwire.com/why-japanese-web-design-is-so-differe...
Comment linking /why-japanese-web-design-is-so-different/
on “Why Japanese web design is so different (2013)”Submitted Why Japanese Web Design Is So Different (2013) as a story · 183 points
HN discussionThis page is down but it just copied the article, here's the source link: https://randomwire.com/why-japanese-web-design-is-so-differe...
Comment linking /why-japanese-web-design-is-so-different/
on “Why Japanese web design is so different (2013)”Submitted Why Japanese web design is so different as a story · 26 points
HN discussionIt's reputational hangover from I would say maybe the 80s. My experience in Japan was totally the opposite. Most people's emails are something like abc3fa3a11fe.afj.kl@softbank.co.jp because that's the email their phone provider gave them, and they don't know how to check their email if they lose their mobile phone. Internet access is sparse - not even the starbucks at the famous shinjuku intersection had wifi when…
Comment linking /why-japanese-web-design-is-so-different/
on “Uber Loses at Least $1.2B in First Half of 2016”Submitted Hong Kong Locations in Ghost in the Shell as a story · 16 points
HN discussionThe "Japanese theme park" mentioned in the lead is this video arcade (!) in Kawasaki, Japan, not far from Tokyo: http://randomwire.com/kowloon-walled-city-rebuilt-in-japan/
Comment linking /kowloon-walled-city-rebuilt-in-japan/
on “Kowloon Walled City”Submitted The User Experience in Japan as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI love that Shimadzu ad with the DeLorean in the Edo period later into the article. https://randomwire.com/wp-content/uploads/japan-back-to-the-... 江戸時代から科学の子ども。 "From the Edo period, science's children." My translation here may not be super great - it's backed up by looking up and seeing that the Shimadzu Corporation has always made instruments for educational scientific measurement and was founded in the Meiji, 18…
Comment linking /wp-content/uploads/japan-back-to-the-future.jpeg
on “Why Japanese Web Design Is So Different (2013)”Submitted Why Japanese Web Design Is So… Different as a story · 3 points
HN discussionShould move the corporate to China and clone the heck out of everything. Facebook -> RenRen Twitter -> Weibo YouTube -> Tudou Google -> Baidu Flickr -> YuPoo See http://www.randomwire.com/chinese-web-20-clones Yeah, Trolls, go ahead and sue them.
Comment linking /chinese-web-20-clones
on “The Rise and Fall of the Independent Developer”Submitted Kowloon Walled City rebuilt in Japan as a story · 3 points
HN discussionGood article on this from a few years ago https://randomwire.com/why-japanese-web-design-is-so-differe...
Comment linking /why-japanese-web-design-is-so-different/
on “Why Japan Didn’t Create the iPod (2008)”Submitted 8 things I'd like to see in future eBooks as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI've lived in public housing in Singapore and have experienced the noise (and sometimes worse) of neighbors above and below. The cheapness of construction is definitely a factor in the experience - in nicer (private) apartments, there's less disturbance, and less chance of being dripped on by an air conditioner or hung-out washing. That said, when I visited Hong Kong, I stood at the base of the gigantic blocks of ho…
Comment linking /kowloon-walled-city-rebuilt-in-japan
on “Hong Kong’s Massive High-Rise Neighborhoods”Submitted Why Japanese Web Design Is So Different (2013) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIn Japan they have a game arcade inspired by the KWC: http://randomwire.com/kowloon-walled-city-rebuilt-in-japan/
Comment linking /kowloon-walled-city-rebuilt-in-japan/
on “Kowloon Walled City: City of Darkness Revisited”Submitted Everyday Usability in Japan as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThat just looks like a different aesthetic. Much like Korea and Japan[1]; they could make minimalist webpages in the Western style, but they choose not to. [1] https://randomwire.com/why-japanese-web-design-is-so-differe... and https://www.translatemedia.com/translation-blog/website-desi... and http://digitalcommunications.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/2016/03/03/... and so on
Comment linking /why-japanese-web-design-is-so-different/
on “Taiwan’s Technology Secrets Come Under Assault from China”Submitted Why Japanese Web Design Is So Different: Cultural, Linguistic, Technical Factors as a story · 2 points
HN discussionInterestingly, there are some cultural differences in web design, Japanese for example expect a cluttered website: http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/big-in-japan-web-desi... https://randomwire.com/why-japanese-web-design-is-so-differe... http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/why-is-chinese-web-design-so-b...
Comment linking /why-japanese-web-design-is-so-different/
on “Amazon Building Global Delivery Business to Take on Alibaba”Submitted Kowloon Walled City Rebuilt in Japan (2013) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionWhat is considered as good design depends a lot on the zeitgeist and culture. For example in Asia (e.g. China, but also Japan) there is a rather different taste what is considered as a well-designed website: https://econsultancy.com/blog/67466-why-do-chinese-websites-... http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/why-is-chinese-web-design-so-b... https://randomwire.com/why-japanese-web-design-is-so-differe...
Comment linking /why-japanese-web-design-is-so-different/
on “HTML 5.1 is the gold standard”Submitted The Case for WordPress as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
