Glad to see mentions to Peter Watts. His view of humanity is dry and take on real world is even grimmer, but it’s intriguing and backed by science. Also I’m the one of people dying to know what he said at the end of his lecture.

Japanese here. There are specific editors often categorized as “アスキーアートエディタ” (Ascii Art Editor). They often come with libraries of existing AA to modify, and can display image with low opacity to “trace” image.

Large part of jp ascii art made/appeared in 90s to early 00s at underground forums like 2ch. Those editors were tailored for their speifics such as font family (MS-P Gothic) and size. The display/font system is different nowadays, but unlike “AA artist” in those times who is 100% comitted to make vertical line aligning pixel perfect most of people find those AA displays ok.

Kiwi and pineapples have enzyme to break proteins down, causing it taste bitter if they have contact to diary products long enough. Canned pineapples don’t have this issue but I haven’t seen canned kiwi, maybe that explains no kiwi ice cream