Abdulaziz Alhamidi

“Cat”, “Duck”, “Dog”, “Fox”.

Egypt-based graphic designer Mahmoud Tammam creates simple modifications of Arabic words, transforming the language into visual representations of their meaning. The words Tammam chooses to design are often animals, turning long slopes into a llama’s neck, or a series of curves into an octopus’s tentacles. By creating these pictorial translations he allows the words to be understood by those not familiar or well-versed with the Arabic language, a minimal gesture that leads to a much greater understanding.

You can see more examples of Tammam’s illustrated language on his Instagram and Behance. (via My Modern Met)

This mesmerising video gives us a unique perspective of what it’s like to be a Japanese “hikikomori” social recluse.

In Japan, individuals who shut themselves up in their homes and withdraw from society and social interactions for half-a-year or more are known as hikikomori. It’s a phenomenon that’s often discussed in local and international media, with people struggling to understand what goes through the minds of these modern-day hermits, and government bodies looking for ways to re-integrate them back into the workforce.

One way to understand the life of a loner is to look at the world from their point-of-view, and this new video clip for British musician Bonobo’s new track, “No Reason” featuring Nick Murphy, does exactly that. Using a very big set and a very small camera, the clip gives us a sense of the confined space, mental anxiety, and never-ending sense of time that afflicts Japan’s estimated 700,000-strong population of hikikomori.

Check out the music video below.

The clip begins with a young man lying on his futon on the floor of his room, in front of a wall-scroll that reads “My Small Home” in Japanese.

As the camera moves through room after room, the boy can be seen playing video games, reading manga and eating instant noodles as his increasingly cramped surroundings fall into greater states of disarray, resembling his psychological state.

After we get to the final tiny room, the camera pulls back through all the scenes, taking us back to where it all started, giving us the sense that there’s a new start and a fresh range of choices lying beyond the door of the recluse.

Directed by Oscar Hudson, the creative team behind the scenes has also released a video on YouTube showing how the music clip was created. The video shows how a small Codex action camera was used to capture the images for the clip as it travelled on a track through 18 individual rooms which were connected together to form a large set.

Homes in Japan are known for being notoriously small, and this clip gives us a sense of what it can feel like to be trapped inside a Japanese room for too long. For many of Japan’s hikikomori loners, however, this is the life they are compelled to lead, and governments are doing what they can to support these individuals as they face harsh criticism from members of Japanese society.

Source: Vimeo/Oscar Hudson h/t Gizmodo
Images: Vimeo/Oscar Hudson

Here’s a fun piece called Radio Garden. It’s exactly what the title says. Pan the globe and listen to live radio at all the green dots.

Tags: globe, radio

All images via @liamwon9

Art Director Liam Wong spends his days directing the visual identity of video games at Ubisoft, while his nights are spent exploring the neon-splashed streets of his city of Tokyo, and sometimes London. Wong places these images, that seem to mimic the appearance of a video game themselves, on Instagram. Here he has a huge archive that explores how the digital has embedded itself within the cities’ landscapes, meshing reality with flashing LED lights, scrolling messages, and neon signs. You can also see more of Wong’s imagery on his Facebook, and Society6 where you can buy his prints. (via My Modern Met)

by Mr. Lovenstein

Nailed it.

gifaknet:

video:  Dad Gives His Daughter a ‘Virtual Reality’ Bike Experience

This video might not help you ace a final, but it will definitely help you get motivated to study Japanese history.

Japanese history can be pretty complicated and detailed when you start looking at all the specifics, but if you’re looking for a quick review from pre-history to modern times, this video will certainly get the job done!

Titled simply and directly “history of japan,” this nine-minute, highly stylized YouTube video, complete with 90s-style animation and musical highlights, features humorous narration that will help you remember everything you learned (and then forgot) in class.

But our description can’t do it justice — you’ll just have to watch it to get the full enjoyment!

All photos © Masashi Wakui

Tokyo is an infinitely photogenic city. And there’s no shortage of photographers capturing its vibrant landscape. But local resident and photography aficionado Masashi Wakui has a unique, surreal style of capturing Tokyo by night and making it look like an animated still from Akira or a Ghibli film.

Wakui has a penchant for the backstreets of Tokyo, specifically those with plenty of lanterns, streetlights and neon signs that only add to the surreal, cinematic quality of the scene. And those who have spent any number of nights wandering these streets will find Wakui’s photos achingly captivating.

Once the scene is captured Wakui then digitally manipulates the image, giving it a color grading effect that works perfectly with his busy nighttime cityscapes. There are tutorials that have even sprouted up, analyzing the “Masashi Wakui Look,” as its been coined. Wakui himself even points to one, admitting it’s close but not perfect.

You can see many more of Wakui’s photos on Flickr, where he constantly posts new work. (syndicated from Spoon & Tamago)

(via kkcollins)

CityLab website ran this story about a train in a very rural area of Japan that makes only two stops—one when a lone high-school student leaves for school and the other when she returns.

For years, there’s only been one passenger waiting at the Kami-Shirataki train station in the northernmost island of Hokkaido, Japan: A high-school girl, on her way to class. The train stops there only twice a day—once to pick up the girl and again to drop her off after the school day is over.

It sounds like a Hayao Miyazaki film. But according to CCTV News, it was a decision that Japan Railways—the group that operates the country’s railway network—made more than three years ago.

At that time, ridership at the Kami-Shirataki station had dramatically fallen because of its remote location, and freight service had ended there as well. Japan Railways was getting ready to shut the station down for good—until they noticed that it was still being used every day by the high-schooler. So they decided to keep the station open for her until she graduates. The company’s even adjusted the train’s timetable according to the girl’s schedule. The unnamed girl is expected to graduate this March, which is when the station will finally be closed.

People are tipping their hats to the Japanese government for making education a top priority. “Why should I not want to die for a country like this when the government is ready to go an extra mile just for me,” one commenter wrote on CCTV’s Facebook page. “This is the meaning of good governance penetrating right to the grassroot level. Every citizen matters. No Child left behind!”

Others, like the creator behind this YouTube video, grieve over the struggling railways of rural Japan. With the country’s record-low birthrate, aging population, and the threat of losing a third of its population by 2060, Japan faces a number of crises including a surplus of vacant housing and a shrinking workforce. The nation’s railroad system is being hit by these shifts.

The train’s time-table. One train at 7:04AM and another at 5:08PM.

Japan’s impressively efficient high-speed rails have continued to expand to the outskirts of the country, rendering many of Japan’s older, low-tech railways obsolete. Kami-Shirataki station, for example, sits in the town of Engaru in the rural part of Hokkaido, which lost at least 20 rail lines in the past few decades, according to Fortune.

But if this story of a young girl and her special connection to the Kami-Shiratki station is any indicator, Japan’s disappearing rural railroads will be remembered for their service to even the most remote parts of the country.

Encrypted messaging app Telegram today announced the release of inline bots, a new approach to using bots inside the app. With this latest update for iOS, Android, and desktop versions of Telegram, users can make bots do things like send off a GIF from Giphy within a chat, even if the bot wasn’t previously added to the chat.

“With the new inline mode, bots become omnipresent and can be used as a tool in any of your chats, groups or channels — it doesn’t matter, whether the bot is a member or not,” the Telegram team wrote in a blog post on the news.

Above: Telegram’s inline bot for YouTube videos.

Image Credit: Telegram

To demonstrate the potential of this feature, Telegram has put together several bots that tap existing application programming interfaces (APIs) to bring in content from third-party services. There are bots for IMDb, Bing Image Search, Yandex Image Search, YouTube, Giphy, and Wikipedia. There’s also a new markdown bot for making your text bold, italicized, or set in monowidth fonts.

This builds on Telegram’s work last year that made it possible to play content from YouTube, Vimeo, and SoundCloud within chats.

The inline bots should make Telegram a bit more fun for beginners to use. And the move also shows Telegram getting more aggressive in the area of bots, which team communication startup Slack has doubled down on with the launch of Botkit to enable third-party apps in Slack.

The news is also interesting because Google last month was reported to be working on a mobile messaging service that uses bots to communicate with people.

Telegram was delivering more than 12 billion messages a day, the company reported, as of September.

Documentation for the new inline bots is here.

The 2015 was the best year for Steam yet.

It brought over 3000 new games (compared to 1900 in 2014), increased the number of concurrent users on Steam from 8M to 12M and helped over 350 million paid games find new owners.

Important note: The following data was gathered using Steam Spy service. Steam Spy estimates ownership of games on Steam using statistical analysis and is not 100% accurate!

The number of monthly releases on Steam stopped growing

Remember the graph with growing number of monthly releases on Steam that scared every indie? Well, this number stopped growing.

Indiepocalypse is cancelled, you can stop worrying now.

December is the biggest month for Steam, but April was the second biggest month by revenue

While Steam undoubtedly makes a lot of money during sales, this is a marketplace for paid games and it is hit-driven. Several big releases in April (including GTA V) made this month the second best for Steam.

Important note: For the purpose of this article I’ve assumed all copies were sold at minimum advertised price during that period. It obviously not always the case, so the actual revenue is probably lower.

Summer and Winter Sales are the best periods to buy games on Steam

As if you were still unsure about that.

Paid Steam games market was worth over $3.5B in 2015

Not every dollar is going through Valve though, as some developers are selling their Steam games off Steam.

And remember — this figure doesn’t include free-to-play titles or DLC!

PC worldwide core games market is estimated to be around $27B in 2015 (Newzoo). So, including Dota 2 and Team Fortress 2 revenue, Valve is controlling around 15% of it. Pretty impressive!

Important note: Not all copies redeemed on Steam were sold through Steam and vice versa (GTA V, The Witcher 3). Some publishers report receiving up to third of their revenue from Steam games through third-party stores.

Monthly top charts are dominated by a small number of big expensive games

Not actually surprising when you think about it.

Important note: I did my best to account for free weekends and giveaways, but there might be some mistakes left.

GTA V and Fallout 4 were the biggest games this year

This time I’ve decided to provide you with two lists: one sorted by estimated revenue for all games sold in 2015 and one sorted by number of copies sold for games released in 2015.

As you can see Grand Theft Auto V and Fallout 4 are on top of both lists. And there is only a handful of indie games or PC exclusives in top grossing list, as it’s mostly comprised of multi-platform hits.

BTW, check out my previous post to get sales stats by country.

Do you want to know more?

If you’d like to learn more about Steam games and current state of its affairs, visit Steam Spy and follow me on Twitter.

You can also support me on Patreon and be the first to get access to all the cool insights and features of Steam Spy.

I don't know if things have changed much in 20 years, but this behind-the-scenes glimpse of the guy in charge of live editing the Oscars in 1996 is fascinating. I'd rather watch him than the stars.

Famed writer’s best-known novel served as basis for Studio Ghibli anime of the same name.

Born in the city of Kamakura in 1930, Akiyuki Nosaka didn’t have an easy childhood. His mother died two months after giving birth to him. His adoptive father was killed in an air raid on Kobe in the closing months of World War II, and growing up Nosaka would also lose an older sister to illness and a younger one to starvation after evacuating their home.

Nosaka would channel the pain of these experiences into his semi-autobiographical novel Grave of the Fireflies, which was published when the author was 37 and would be awarded the Naoki Prize for literature in 1967. While the novel has had limited exposure abroad, it was also adapted into an animated theatrical feature in 1988, which earned international acclaim for its powerful story, Studio Ghibli-produced animation, and direction by renowned anime icon Isao Takahata.

Nosaka suffered a stroke in 2003, and had been receiving convalescent care from his wife at their Tokyo home since then. On the morning of December 9, at roughly 10:30, Mrs. Nosaka discovered that her husband was not breathing. The 85-year-old author was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead by medical staff.

In addition to his wife, Nosaka is survived by his two daughters, both former members of the Takarazuka all-female stage troupe. The deeply respected writer’s passing brings great sorrow to fans of literature and animation alike, and its suddenness, like Nosaka’s signature work itself, is a solemn reminder of the preciousness of life.

Source: Nitele News 24 via Jin
Top image: Movie Steve

Origin: Akiyuki Nosaka, celebrated author of Grave of the Fireflies, passes away
Copyright© RocketNews24 / SOCIO CORPORATION. All rights reserved.

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Up until the 1970s, color photography was extremely rare, and so when we think about history prior to that time, we often envision it in black and white. Today’s technology now enables us to “colorize” historical photos, giving us our only chance at seeing what the world really looked like back then. And it was truly spectacular.

Take a trip back in time through these photos below.

The Harlem newsboy, originally captured by Gordon Parks.

Seeing these photos in color for the first time makes it easy to imagine we could all have been part of a world that we’ve never even seen. It literally changes our perspective of history.

Booker T. Washington in his Tuskegee University office, 1906.

Picnickers at a Sarasota trailer park, 1941.

Armed troops blocking off a road near an explosion at an oil factory near Texas City, Texas, April 17, 1947.

Frank “Slivers” Oakley, the Baseball Clown, 1904.

General Robert E. Lee a week after surrendering to General Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the American Civil War, April 16, 1865.

The Luna Park Promenade in Coney Island, New York, 1905.

Louis Armstrong practicing in a dressing room, 1946.

Boys buying flowers in Union Square, New York, 1908.

The Jersey Shore, 1905.

Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, 1935.

Women painting World War II propaganda posters in Port Washington, New York, July 8, 1942.

Portrait of a family near Muskogee, Oklahoma during a drought, August 1939.

“Cab Stand” in Madison Square Park, New York, ca. 1900.

Norman Rockwell entering his Stockbridge studio in Massachusetts, 1966.

A man flipping burgers, 1938.

Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial, 1939.

Comedian and singer Ernie Hare, expressing his thoughts on Prohibition, ca. 1920.

Portrait of Hall-of-Famer John ‘Muggsy’ McGraw, the legendary manager of the N.Y. Giants from 1902 to 1932.

“An Oasis in the Badlands”, Red Hawk of the Oglala Sioux on horseback, 1905.

College students pile into a Volkswagen Beetle, 1965.

Old Orchard Beach, Maine, 1904.

Tufts University baseball team studio portrait, 1890.

Elvis Presley meets secretly with President Nixon, 1970.

Buses leave in the shadow of the Washington Monument following the March On Washington, 1963.

Brigadier General and actor Jimmy Stewart. Stewart flew 20 combat missions over Nazi-occupied Europe, and even flew one mission during Vietnam.

Pablo Picasso

Lee Harvey Oswald, 1963, being transported to questioning before his murder trial for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Winston Churchill, 1941.

Albert Einstein, 1921.

Marilyn Monroe

Samurai Training 1860.

Hindenburg Blimp crash.

British Soldiers Returning from the front in 1939.

Joan Crawford on the set of Letty Lynton, 1932.

Country store in July 1939. Gordonton, North Carolina.

Mark Twain in 1900.

Albert Einstein on a Long Island beach in 1939.

Audrey Hepburn

Union Soldiers taking a break 1863.

Charles Darwin

WWII soldiers on Easter.

Clint Eastwood, 1962.

W.H. Murphy testing the bulletproof vest in 1923.

Charlie Chaplin at age of 27 years old in 1916.

Elizabeth Taylor in 1956.

Big Jay McNeely, Olympic Auditorium, 1953.

Babe Ruth’s 1920 MLB debut.

A Washington, D.C. filling station in 1924.

Louis Armstrong plays to his wife, Lucille, in Cairo, Egypt 1961.

Two Boxers after a fight.

1920s Australian mugshots from the New South Wales Police Dept.

Sophia Loren and Jayne Mansfield.

Brothers Robert Kennedy, Edward “Ted” Kennedy, and John F. Kennedy outside the Oval Office.

Clint Eastwood working on his 1958 Jag XK 120 in 1960.

Cornell Rowing Team 1907.

View from the Capitol in Nashville, 1864.

Baltimore Slums, 1938.

Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels scowls at a Jewish photographer, 1933.

Henry Ford, 1919.

An RAF pilot getting a haircut while reading a book between missions.

Unemployed Lumber Worker and His Wife 1939.

A car crash in Washington D.C. around 1921.

President Lincoln with Major General McClernand and Allan Pinkerton at Antietam in 1862.

h/t: vintag.es, reddit, boredomtherapy

tepitome:

Obama drops the dad joke of 2015.

Street Fighter II: The Definitive Soundtrack now available ⊟

Sorry about the vinyl, those all sold out before I could get a post up! But if you want CD or digital, I got you. Here’s where you can order that stuff.

The CD version ships in mid-December, and the digital release is available right the hell now, with multiple versions of all the music from the arcade game. Let’s see if I can remember to get this on our holiday guide, because this would make a rad gift!

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It will be ok, as long as we take care of each other. One ship, one crew, Earth and Humanity.

I’m not sobbing, you’re sobbing.

Close call.

It’s turning out to be an interesting post-season in Major League Baseball. In the American league we have the Toronto Blue Jays coming off a stellar late regular season and into their first real World Series attempt since the 90s. Meanwhile, over in the National League the Cubs are inching closer to a possible first World Series win in over a century, made even more eerie by its prediction in Back to the Future II (minus the Miami Gators).

As an added bonus, more games for Toronto means more interviews with infielder Munenori Kawasaki. Charged up by their victory over Texas in the AL Division series, Munerin was in rare form.

First Kawasaki ran into Hazel Mae and Buck Martinez of Sports Net who tells them his feelings about moving onto the League Championship Series after they explain to him what “LCS” means.

He immediately lets them know there was “no hangover” today. He also explained the team’s strategy of: “Don’t thinking! Don’t don’t thinking. Just swing! Just catc…uh throw! Just catch. Don’t think everybody. Just win!”

Munerin then asked how his “KawaEnglish2015” was, to which Mae and Martinez both expressed their amazement. Kawasaki explained it was because he has “two books, bro” and signed off.

Next Kawasaki came across Greg Ross of CBC News when, as the CBC put it: “Things kind of go off the rails.”

After singing the opening lines to the Alphabet Song, Munerin tells Ross about how just like the CBC his son is also a “Canuck” having been born in the country. Then understandably tired from giving so many interviews in English, Kawasaki explains in surprisingly sober Japanese how he and his team will continue to advance all the way to the World Series and sincerely thanks his fans for their support.

Reaction to Munenori’s interviews show how beloved he is by fans.

“Kawasaki is probably my favorite person who ever lived.”
“There’s no one else like him on planet Earth. Truly a one of a kind individual and a heck of a ball player.”
“CBC, hire Kawasaki.”
“Mune is the best!”
“How can anyone hate this guy? He’s the best.”

As of this writing, the Blue Jays are down by two games against Kansas City. They managed to come from behind against the Rangers in the ALDS, but can they do it again? Let’s hope so, because we need to keep Kawasaki in front of a camera as long as possible!

Videos, screenshots, featured GIF: YouTube/SPORTSNETCANADA, YouTube/CBC news
Original article by Takashi Harada

Origin: “Don’t thinking! Just swing!” Munenori Kawasaki is our favorite thing about baseball【Videos】
Copyright© RocketNews24 / SOCIO CORPORATION. All rights reserved.

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Traditional Japanese musical instruments are not as well known as they should be. While most people know a shamisen from their appearances in geisha shows or taiko drum from their use in festivals, there are many more instruments, such as the hyoshigi (clappers), biwa (lute), and sanshin (Okinawan banjo).

Perhaps this will help bring some global fame to them. After all, what could be cooler than Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal”, played on traditional Japanese instruments?!

Here Yoshimi Tsujimoto plays the shakuhachi (bamboo flute), with backing by two koto (harp).

There’s not a whole lot to say about this, except watch and enjoy!

When thinking about how to produce genres of music like techno, industrial, or trance, the first thing that comes to mind is giant sound systems, laptops, emulators and turntables. What doesn’t come to mind is old pots and pans, buckets, chains, and dangerous shards of rusty scrap metal. And yet these are the instruments of choice for musician Dario Rossi who produces some of the most intensely percussive music you could possibly imagine from the hands of a single person.

Born in 1988, Rossi studied at the Accademia Musicale di Ariccia in Rome from the age of 10 before he began to perform with local bands only two years later. He now teaches in Rome and tours frequently, bringing his supernatural drumming performances to public streets around Europe. If you like these three videos, there’s tons more here.

Everyone: “Hey, Snake, why do you ask so many questions?”

Snake: “QUESTIONS?”

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