Taylor Swift

After years of effort, the source code of the first graphical MMO from Lucasfilm Games has been restored and uploaded on Github. ...

Disc drive failure is no longer the end of the road for the Saturn, as an engineer has found a way to run games and other software straight from a USB stick. ...

London arts space marks what would have been the late saxophonist’s 80th birthday

13 July would have been the 80th birthday of the great free jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler, who was found dead in New York's East River in November 1970. The South London arts space DIY Space For London and its in house record shop Tome Records are marking the date with an event called Mystic Tenor.

The event will include screenings of two films: Michael Snow's iconic 1964 experimental short New York Eye And Ear Control, for which Ayler's group provided the soundtrack; and Kasper Collins's acclaimed 2006 documentary My Name Is Albert Ayler. As well as the screenings, Custodians Of The Realm, a trio of Adam Bohman and saxophonists Adrian Northover and Sue Lynch, will perform a set based on Ayler's music.

Full details are available on DIY Space For London's website.

Nosuke is an 18-year-old fashion college student with blonde hair who we met on the street in Harajuku.

His look features a resale dragon print shirt with wide leg pants by the Japanese brand Comme Des Garcons and Demonia platform boots.

Nosuke is active on both Instagram and Twitter if you’d like to see more pictures of his fashion and life.

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

This is K, a student and wearing all black fashion and a horns beret, who we street snapped in Harajuku.

His bomber jacket is UNIF, his t-shirt is Bump, and his ripped jeans are Bershka. His backpack is from UNIF as well, and his boots are Dr. Martens. He is also wearing a choker, a Morph8ne tote bag, piercings and Vivienne Westwood accessories.

K likes shopping from Faith and he likes listening to Fear, and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

The deal would be worth around $685 million, and would see GungHo repurchases its own shares for 294 yen ($2.74) each.  ...

A good while back a reader asked about a strange line in Suikoden for the PlayStation. I haven’t played the game myself but I hear it’s full of interesting translation choices, so this is my chance to dig a little deeper into the game!

First, the question was about a line in the English version. Basically, a short cutscene begins with a party member named Kirkis saying:

After returning from Dwarves’ Village

That’s it, there’s no punctuation and none of the other characters respond to his strange outburst at all. Fans seem to be curious about this line, why it cuts off, and why it sounds like Kirkis is suddenly narrating the game.

The answer is pretty simple: this strange line was intended as a developer note for the localization team, but some sort of formatting or technical mistake caused it to be included as standard text in the game. The result is that the first line of the scene has the developer note, which pushes every line in the scene down one “slot”:

Genso Suikoden (PlayStation)	Suikoden (PlayStation)

From this it’s clear how all of the English lines gets pushed down, which causes each character to say a line that’s not intended for them. This ultimately leads to the final line getting cut from the scene entirely!

Off the top of my head I don’t know how common this problem is in other games, although I do know it sort of happened in EarthBound’s localization too – some internal developer text wound up being included with the main script. It’s been “skipped over” in the final release, but the text is right there and accessible if you’re technically-minded:

EarthBound (Super NES)

Anyway, hopefully this solves the mystery of this strange scene in Suikoden. And if you know of any other games that have internal developer notes mixed in with the main text like this, let me know! I love this sort of crazy stuff

Related posts:

Suikoden and the Googly-Goo Zombie Q&A: Why is Conversation Prohibited at the Well in Suikoden? Q&A: Is the Starbeans Cafe Guy Actually Sad or What?

The big subway systems of New York, Washington, and Boston are just getting worse and worse. Cities and states are struggling to keep up the maintenance. Commuters are getting frustrated. But the problem simply won’t be fixed without major federal investments in them. If federal transportation funding remains flat, as it surely will at best under congressional Republicans, it’s going to be a losing game for all three cities. This of course relates to the larger infrastructure disaster in the United States poisoning people in Flint and allowing bridges to collapse. But, far more important to make sure the rich pay low taxes!

Share

Taro is a 19-year-old guy with pink hair and pink eye makeup who we street snapped in Harajuku. He works at the popular boutique Wall Harajuku and we often see him around the streets.

Taro is wearing a pink leather biker jacket from Faith Tokyo over a blue knit sweater from the Harajuku vintage shop Funktique, resale pants, and Dr. Martens boots.

Taro told us that his favorite shop right now is Funktique Tokyo. Find him on both Instagram and Twitter for more pictures and info.

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

Mojang updates Minecraft's terms of service to prevent companies and politicians from promoting themselves using in-game Minecraft creations. ...

Towa is a 13-year-old Japanese student who we have been seeing around Harajuku a lot recently.

Her look here features a Zara leather jacket over a remake t-shirt by the American heavy metal band Sleep that’s been cute and safety pinned, resale sheer wide leg pants, and suede resale boots. Accessories – some of which came from Bershka – include sunglasses and a red leather purse.

Towa’s favorite designer is Vivienne Westwood and her favorite band is The Sex Pistols. Find her on Instagram or Twitter for more info.

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

“I’m wearing a self-made knot armor top, an old skirt from my grandma, and shoes by Trippen. I’ve been doing this spook-like look for a while now. Unusual, big silhouettes and too many layers look nice. The shapes of the human body don't really inspire me.”

2 June 2015, Suvilahti

Making games for Nintendo's original portable hardware was tricky -- and a new video sheds a light on exactly how it was done. ...

“It” being “that annoying tree to the east of Cerulean City,” right…?

Anjy Ou: I feel like OT Genasis is trying to be the rapping business guru of the drug world. This feels less like a celebration of balling like a drug dealer and more like a promo for his eventual NYT bestseller I Fell In Love With The Coco: How to Get Rich Selling Drug Music. It helps that OT knows how to write a catchy hook. The piano intro was unexpected, and the beat that it becomes is sparse but solid. The track loses steam once Young Dolph comes in, though: his rap is much less convincing, almost like he just popped in to say “Hey, I have money too!” But I doubt we’ll be going to him for advice on how to raise your net worth to $1.5 million.
[5]

Taylor Alatorre: The title of this song’s mixtape, R&B: Rhythm & Bricks, is so perfect that it will probably be reappropriated for a “New Atlanta” compilation album someday. Ironically, “Cut It” may not be considered memorable enough to make it onto such a compilation, but it also isn’t “memorable” in the forced way that “CoCo” was. With their skillful use of ad-libs and amiable vocal tricks, OT and Dolph are able to prevent this ode to single-minded trapping from descending into formalistic drudgery. The sense of organic collaboration is low-key endearing as well. Even if I could decide which one sounds more at home rapping over Zaytoven-inspired piano and organ flourishes, I wouldn’t want to play favorites. A well-earned retreat from Vine rap purgatory.
[7]

Brad Shoup: Everything beside the backseat slanging works OK: a couple guys happy with their work, figuring out how to spend their paychecks over members-only piano.
[6]

Ryo Miyauchi: OT Genasis tries to raise the bar by triple-timing his last words, but Young Dolph reminds that one thing people keep forgetting when they borrow from Migos — bugged-out energy.
[5]

Jonathan Bogart: Trap music in the mid-2010s reminds me of nothing so much as late 1940s and early 50s jump blues: they share formal limitations, comic hyperbole about criminal prowess, homosocial posturing, and a tidal surge of regional production as the old music distribution networks broke down. Once jump blues was adopted by the white overground, of course, it became rock ‘n’ roll, whereupon it was erased from history. Basically, I’m saying enjoy “Cut It” while you can.
[6]

Gin Hart: To interact with this song is to engage in multi-directional abstraction. Having never baked me a pie in the manner young Odis claims to have mastered, I strip back the alien connotation and am left with an imagined sensory whimsy: OT crimping the crust of the strawberry rhubarb confection he’s gonna serve all his friends at what’s shaping up to be a delightful block party. Smells great. It is indicative of my privileges that I get to rework the lexicon. As I’ve never participated in the economy of crack cocaine, the eponymous “cut” dips into the laid-back trap sound to gift me with a workable meaning. “Cut it,” rolls from OT’s tongue in a mildly peeved drawl, sounding like “cool it,” “chill out,” “relax, man.” I like this song. Every time I hear it, I check myself. Am I doing too much? Is my blood pressure high? Do I need to cut it? Thanks for keeping me grounded, OT Genasis ft. Young Dolph. 
[6]

Did someone say J-pop supergroup?

Katie Gill: There’s something weirdly haunting about this. It’s EDM mixed with traditional Japanese music run through a layer of Brian Reitzell. It’s a mish-mash of a compilation but I find myself adoring it all the same.
[7]

Taylor Alatorre: An entire concept album’s worth of ideas are crammed into this one mini-epic, but it works because the concept is elastic enough to accommodate them all. Their consistent refusal to go for the easy pay-off is admirable, and the lack of a real climax is justified by the meditative subject matter, as well as the wealth of electrifying moments to bask in. For example, I didn’t think it was possible to make a trap breakdown sound menacing anymore, yet here we are. Makes “7 Years” look like the scrawlings of a kindergartener.
[8]

Patrick St. Michel: This has been out almost a month now, but I still can’t believe it exists. FAMM’IN is a special one-off group taking three middle-of-the-road artists — FAKY, Yup’in, and walking .gif-reactions FEMM — created by major J-pop label Avex. The trio of acts here, in their individual states, exist in genres that go down easy and can be so bland as to be played in any mall anywhere in the world — from pleasant R&B to EDM pop — with fittingly broad lyrics. On “Circle” they created a nearly seven-minute meditation on the circular nature of life featuring vocals swathed in Auto-Tune and samples of traditional gagaku music swirling around trap beats. Every time it feels like “Circle” is going to break into something conventional — every instance where a drop could kerplunk in, or some awkward rap passage, or anything that could take it to the same exotica EDM territory as that boring Baauer song — it retreats back into sonic mist, opting for the formless over the familiar. Yet it isn’t total vapor, as everything clicks just right: when it does let go, it makes the most out of its sudden energy exertion. The label itself has labelled this “Japanese trap,” but the way it plays with modern-day and ancient Japanese court sounds is way more intriguing and unexpected than that marketing tag can convey. Nothing has surprised me more in 2016, and every time I listen to it, “Circle” demands attention on only itself.
[10]

Cassy Gress: Since FAMM’IN is a group composed of Yup’in, FEMM, and FAKY, I thought it might be useful to listen to their individual work first to see what insight it could give me into this. Turns out, they have more in common with each other than they do with this song, which makes the sound of this confusing. At six-and-a-half minutes, it needs to demonstrate a good reason for being that long, but it spends the first half of the song being something off Pure Moods Vol 3. It finally revs up and justifies FAMM’IN’s walk-dancing at around the three-minute mark, turning them into apparitions in a rainy cyberpunk future, but it doesn’t feel like the song used the prior three minutes effectively. Chop all of that off and market just the latter half, and you’re set.
[6]

Ryo Miyauchi: You can nix the middle breakdown, take away the remaining bells and sweeps, and still be left with an elaborate scaffolding all made up of the group’s vocals. Words get lost in translation in the hall of voices, but that seems to be the point: FAMM’IN have an overwhelming amount to share, and they can only express so much verbally at one time.
[8]

Will Adams: Six minutes of pure aural candy, presented without any packaging to hold it together and left to scatter across the floor.
[6]

Brad Shoup: It has the rhythmic pace and patience of “Chayeb,” just much, much greater amounts of it. “Circle” is stately. It ponders without being ponderous, and it has passages instead of hooks. It’s too brightly produced to bliss out to, which I guess means we’re supposed to pay attention.
[7]

Jonathan Bogart: From a Western perspective, a supergroup getting together to make ambient-folk-prog music with stoned New-Agey lyrics isn’t all that notable, but then from a Western perspective the people who generally do this are art-rocker dudes in their forties through sixties, not early-twenties pop starlets. The part where the koto and flutes get loud and the electronics wobble up to an almost EDM drop is pretty great, but then my tolerance for ambient-folk-prog is pretty high.
[7]

Jessica Doyle: Spikier than its first thirty seconds would suggest — and that’s what I got out of the second listen; I’m looking forward to the discoveries of the third, and fourth, and fifth.
[8]

That feeling when both the artist and song name sum up your last semester of college :(

Katherine St Asaph: There’s no way the rich, eerily Tori-esque part of Shirley Manson’s voice is new, but it’s welcome to notice. The rest — the pleading/steely processing on the bridge especially, and the #1 crushstuff — I’m near-physiologically unable not to love.
[7]

Jer Fairall: I revisited Version 2.0 not long ago, and it remains as solid a set of songs as any one-trick-pony band gifted with a fantastic vocalist has ever tripped over. If it is the Pretenders-quoting “Special” that I remain most fixated on, though, blame my insistence that Shirley Manson displays all the marks of a performer capable of Chrissie Hynde’s level of emotional range but remains tied to an outfit that whose status as alt.rock elder states-persons ensures that they remain, in their third decade, ironically risk-adverse in their insistence upon formula. “Empty” is every bit tuneful and well-crafted as I would have expected, and I will have forgotten it minutes after I finish typing this. 
[5]

Alfred Soto: “Feelin’ so frustrated/I’ll never be as great as I wanna be,” Shirley Manson moans over post-’90s grind-guitar, and I feel her pain. Eighteen years after delivering modern rock’s only answer to Parallel Lines, she and her ugly mates have shuffled from context to context like vagrants in alleys. In 1998 they amalgamated several decades of pop; in 2016 they amalgamate the amalgam and dare you to call them empty because they beat you to it. The “oh all I talk about hook” buttressed with synth strings is their most inventive moment since the middle eight in “Cherry Lips (Go, Baby Go!).”
[7]

Cassy Gress: I’m irrationally disappointed that Shirley Manson doesn’t sound quite as impudent as she did when I was 12 and I thought she was one of the coolest women on the planet. She’s got a more Gwen-like vibrato to her voice now. I also get fed up with lyricists who don’t ensure that the words match the rhythmic flow; there’s always another way to say something, and “good THINGS come TO those WHO wait” is bizarre. This chorus is jacked straight out of 1998 though, particularly that slithery doubled guitar line, so it’s ringing nostalgia bells all over the place for me; “about, about, oh oh, about, about” unfortunately also reminds me of the stupider parts of 1998.
[4]

Ryo Miyauchi: Nineties nostalgia has turned more to Butch Vig’s slicker take on grunge and his wall-of-sound production, so “Empty” fits into place better than Garbage’s last effort in 2012. They get back to basics by focusing less on electronic beats for spectacle. The band, in turn, becomes more anonymous, and Shirley Manson’s one-size-fits-all brand of ennui doesn’t help. But it’s a welcome move. All I want whenever I return to their debut are oversized riffs and Manson snarling a mean chorus anyway.
[6]

Thomas Inskeep: Garbage return, the world has moved on. Shirley Manson sounds, sadly, like a tiger who’s been declawed.
[4]

Brad Shoup: Now the stuffiness sounds like shoegaze, and Manson worries the word “about” until she sounds like Gwen Stefani. Both approaches are tossed for the bridge: her vocal is slathered in noob processing, unable to reach the suddenly meaty riff.
[6]

Jibril Yassin: Those Drop D chord sequences had me worried this would take us head-first into the worst parts of the post-grunge years but there’s a pop heart underneath all the cybernetic, industrial barrage. There’s a galvanizing darkness to “Empty” that even those synths can’t seem to punch through. 
[7]

Edward Okulicz: For all the talk that every song/album is a RETURN! TO! THEIR! ROOTS! this is still more lo-fi than even the debut’s most basic track and is much the same as one of the charmless rockers on their last two albums. Of course, it’s easier to hear the power and character of Shirley Manson’s voice, but Garbage have never been the great rock band they dreamed of before they even were a rock band. Give or take “Sex Is Not The Enemy” this is probably the worst single by a band I take as a sentimental favourite on the basis of those first three shiny pop records.
[4]