Sanshin notation uses kanji as a form of tablature: each glyph corresponds to a unique position on a particular string on the fingerboard. However, some of the characters used to indicate less-common positions higher up the neck use kanji that aren’t used in normal language.

When writing, you can create novel kanji by combining any components you wish, but if they don’t have corresponding encodings, you can’t actually represent them on a computer. Even if you could, they don’t necessarily have glyphs in the font you want to use, or perhaps in any font at all.

You can fake these kanji by squishing together existing components, so ｲ + 老 looks like ｲ老, and it doesn’t look too bad.

But I’m a perfectionist, the shortcomings are more perceptible in print, so I made a complete set of SVG versions of the kanji used for sanshin notation, including all the characters that don’t exist in fonts, in Unicode, or in any other context.

Screenshot of directory view of SVG files containing kanji

Some of the kanji

Maybe I should see about trying to get these characters into Unicode. It would make some things easier to have standardised codepoints for them, even if they didn’t have glyphs in any existing fonts. The experience of the team that shepherded the IEC power symbols into Unicode might be useful.

We went to a book launch on Thursday: Tansy Hoskins’s new book Charity Shop World is an investigation into textile waste and what happens to the clothes that get donated to charity shops. Spoiler: some of them are making the billionaire prince regent/oligarch of weird microstate and absolute monarchy Liechtenstein even richer.

It’s fascinating. Also, please wash your clothes before donating them!

Fascism is on the march, literally in the case of England. Hundreds of black-clad, masked men, organised by a far-right organiser and convicted kidnapper, gathered in Dover and blocked access to the port to express their “legitimate concerns” about immigration.

While the main entrance to the port attracted most attention, a smaller group gathered at the Western Jet Foil facility, used to process incoming asylum seekers, where they defaced the road outside the entrance with the slogan “Blood is on your hands”.

Despite having been tipped off, the police were unprepared, and their response was feeble. Not a single person was arrested.

And then, the next night, the same goons turned up in Portsmouth to interfere with the rescue of people from a dinghy in the Channel.

Even though police were injured, once again, no-one was arrested.

There have been 6,539 arrests linked to terrorism-related activity since 9/11 in Britain. Of these, 2,819 (43 per cent) were linked to expressing support for Palestine Action following its proscription in July last year, according to latest police data on terror arrests up to March 2026.

At the time of writing, there have now been over 3,200 arrests in the past 14 months for crimes like holding signs and chanting slogans in support of Palestine Action.

The police arrest grandmothers holding placards under the ludicrous pretence that they support terrorism, but when masked thugs in uniform – actual blackshirts – turn up to block national infrastructure or terrorise lifeboat volunteers, they get away without consequence.

This is how fascism thrives, with the acquiescence of the state.

Meanwhile, in Germany, fascism is closer to being the state, at least in one of them. Alternative für Deutschland received 43.8% of the vote in the Saxony-Anhalt state election, leaving them just three seats short of an outright majority. (In the United Kingdom’s absurd voting system, those kinds of numbers would give you an unassailable supermajority, so be grateful for small mercies.)

The AfD is officially listed as a “far-right extremist party” on the state government’s website.

On 7 November 2023, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution confirmed, in response to enquiries from members of the press, that the Saxony-Anhalt regional branch of the AfD had been classified as a confirmed far-right extremist organisation within the meaning of Section 4(1) of the Law on the Protection of the Constitution in the State of Saxony-Anhalt (VerfSchG-LSA).

I wonder how long that will stay up. Here’s an archive link just in case.

Liens de la semaine:

  • I Don’t Have a Smartphone…. “[This] is, according to my experience, the easiest explanation, the shortest way to force people to get their shit together and take the required actions to allow me to live without being glued to a small screen dependent on a huge American megacorporation.”
  • Radically is a “component-based CJK character search engine” that’s far more comprehensive than any other I’ve seen.
  • Bad Vibes Coding. A very enjoyable and insightful rant: “Today I’m just sad, seeing people so eager to throw away their principles for the sake of saving a little time and effort. (Or more accurately, believing that they’re saving themselves some time and effort).”
  • 1Password wades into a right-wing mess after funding a Linux project. “1Password faced immediate backlash from customers this week over a $300,000 pledge in support of a Linux distro created by David Heinemeier Hansson, who has regularly published overtly racist blog posts that include comments calling for deportation of ethnic minorities in Europe.” At least the word is getting out beyond the programming world.
  • There is no ethical consumption of HBO’s Harry Potter series. “Rowling has been transparent about her desire to keep assisting people in their efforts to rob transgender people of their dignity and human rights. That seems very much to be the entire point of The J.K. Rowling Women’s Fund.”
  • It’s Time To Grow Up. “You should tell people discussing the show [Harry Potter] that you’re not watching it, and why, and you should let yourself openly cringe at your sister-in-law’s Harry Potter tote bag, and you should bring up unprompted that the onslaught of legislation against trans people makes you sad and angry, presuming it does, and you should do this because, not despite, the fact that it will make you look annoying as hell and may make everyone present uncomfortable.”