“It is a little different, more like pollarding, and it doesn't work with any other conifers than saplings from one specific mutant cedar in a shrine near Kyoto.”
Also known as 'Thing, Japan'. HN eats up articles like this every single week.
Your comment feels somewhat reductive as well, you could basically replace "Japan" with a lot of things that are appreciated by some sizable subset of HN readers.
But, for some reason Japan does seem to inspire a certain fervor in both the otakus and weeaboos and their inverses. I think it's because it's the closest thing to an alien civilization for Westerners.
> the lumber produced in this method is 140% as flexible as standard cedar and 200% as dense/strong,
?
The lumber is dense/strong because the shoots have a robustness advantage due to being part of a mature tree with all its resources.
The strength & flexibility I would guess are attributable to the lack of knots and the straightness of the grain.
One thing both writers keep doing that's annoying is calling it a cedar. The tree is cryptomeria japonica, known as sugi, which in English is sometimes known by various misnomers such as "Japanese cedar" and "Japanese redwood," both of which should be taken as more poetic than scientific.
Some previous discussions: