Xander ✺

Hacking on a new feature to visualize connections between points in Spectral Codex, my geospatial project mainly covering Taiwan. Some locations have multiple coordinates (blue), while others have backlinks from other locations in the database (grey).

While reviewing traffic stats for my website I've been perplexed as to why Madou (麻豆) is regularly the top-ranking entry page... turns out it's also the name of a famous AV studio based in China 🍆 spectralcodex.com/regions/madou/

Some photos from a hazy afternoon at Shanlinxi (衫林溪) in the mountains of Nantou, Taiwan. It's been having a moment on social media recently, particularly for the cave + waterfall combo. Definitely very scenic, feels oddly like the Pacific Northwest at nearly 2,000 meters elevation.

I somehow managed to map out 513 Shinto shrines in Taiwan. The vast majority have long-vanished but a surprising number remain in some form or another, typically altered or left in ruins, some with only faint traces left behind. spectralcodex.com/themes/taiwa...

Exploring a WW2 tunnel complex beneath a cemetery in Yilan, Taiwan. It was a fallback command center in the event of an Allied landing but never saw any action. I visited twice and didn't follow all the side tunnels due to the incredible number of bats around 🦇 www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhG3...

Happy birthday, ROC! 🎂

The Eighteen Arhats Cave was a folk religious attraction established around 1971 in what was likely a derelict WW2 bunker in the hills overlooking the Port of Keelung, Taiwan. It was bricked up after suffering damage during Typhoon Herb in 1996. Let's go inside... spectralcodex.com/keelung-eigh...

An impressive Japanese colonial era monument from 1925 wedged between houses in Dongshi, Taichung. It honored Japanese who perished in the line of duty and was re-dedicated to ROC martyrs in the post-war period only to end up completely invisible from the street. spectralcodex.com/dongshi-loya...

Today would've been Nylon Cheng's 80th birthday, if he had not died for his values in 1989. The publisher and free press advocate made the ultimate stand by self-immolation when KMT police led by Hou Yu-ih, his party's 2024 president candidate, stormed Nylon's office to arrest him for insurrection.

Here's me on that Simon Shuster piece in The Atlantic. The reason why I think it struck a nerve is his sympathies are quite transparent. He spends two paragraphs at the start fawning over the grandeur of CCP state ceremonies

I'm splitting this account, which will remain focused on living in Taiwan, history/culture/politics of the region, and little hints of science and urbex here and there. For webdev/tech stuff I'll move things over to @synapticism.com so my interests aren't so tangled up in the same account.

Appeared on @aljazeera.com to discuss what could occur in the event of an invasion. You see a lot of Daybreak in here a lot as well! Thanks again @mikg.bsky.social

criiiiiiiiiinge

This site commemorates Eguchi Ryōzaburō for his contributions to developing the Port of Hualien, ignoring his brutal subjugation of Taiwanese Indigenous peoples. The county restored the discarded stele in 2008 and added a torii that might have never been there. spectralcodex.com/hualien-eguc...

Taiwanese stamps from the late 90s

Support for same-sex marriage in Taiwan has risen to 54.3%, up 12 percentage points from 7 years ago, when it became legalized, according to a survey by a non-profit civic group.

El tiempo no borra: transforma. Spectral Codex: un viaje por las huellas invisibles de Taiwán. humantraces.net/spectral-codex #spectralcodex #taiwan @spectralcodex.com

🧵 I'm experimenting with Threads a little more these days since it's way more Taiwan-centric and generally better vibes than some other places. For anyone also using the service you can find me there with my IG handle: www.threads.com/@synapticx

Boys Day with “koinobori” (traditional carp windsocks). Early 20th century, Japan. The carp is a central symbol in this celebration, representing strength, courage, and the determination to overcome obstacles—qualities inspired by the legend of the carp swimming upstream to become a dragon.

Inside the dictator’s bedroom: A judgmental jaunt through Chiang Kai-Shek’s winter residence in Kaohsiung, Taiwan… #台灣 #高雄 #部落格 #taiwan #blog www.taiwanquest.com/chiang-kai-s...

Another sign of the apocalypse 🍃 focustaiwan.tw/society/2026...

It would be pretty funny if Taiwan went around making up pet names for every country that gives in to Chinese irredentism.

Hinamatsuri, brought to you by the Fukui Dinosaur Museum.

INBOX: South Korea's birth rate increased(!) for a second straight year(!!), with the highest year-over-year growth rate since 2007(!!!) For the first time since 1981 (!!!!), both monthly births and marriages increased for all 12 months: www.chosun.com/english/mark...

Workers make the world, including the Dragon Horse statue. Poster courtesy of Kaohsiung Museum of Labor

"The transformation of a dark remnant of Taiwan's authoritarian past into a venue for human rights education began in 2009, with the discovery of dozens of formalin jars containing human body parts inside an abandoned building in New Taipei's Xindian district." (CNA) focustaiwan.tw/culture/2026... 🧋

Surface Ruptures of the 2022 Guanshan–Chihshang Earthquake Sequence, Eastern Taiwan: Implications for Fault Behavior and Recurrence Available #BSSA⚒️ Satellites, photos and field observations help scientists map surface ruptures in Taiwan. buff.ly/Pt25VXK

Cyberpunk's not "dead," but it's old-fashioned, even tenderly nostalgic, like being a poetic '50s beatnik rebel in 1985 Countercultures get assimilated. The very fact that ChatGPT can slop-out a cyberpunk with such chatbotty confident-wrongness... it's not "electronic frontier" here in 2026

In a new #BSSA paper, scientists discuss Taiwan’s response to earthquakes and how it has evolved from 1999 to 2024. ⚒️ pubs.geoscienceworld.org/ssa/bssa/art...

The handbook you hope never to use: What Taiwan’s civil defense manual reveals about democratic resilience Jozef Huljak unpacks 🇹🇼’s national civil defense 📙 & contrasts it with 🇪🇺 preparedness handbooks, showing how threat perception shapes preparedness & public messaging. ceias.eu/the-handbook...

If you can substitute "hungry ghost trapped in a jar" for "AI" in a sentence it's probably a valid use case for LLMs. Take "I have a bunch of hungry ghosts in jars, they mainly write SQL queries for me". Sure. Reasonable use case. "My girlfriend is a hungry ghost I trapped in a jar"? No. Deranged.