Taylor Swift

We scored this one in Astronomical Units…

[Video][Website]
[7.36]

Madeleine Lee: When I heard Ladies’ Code was coming back a year and a half after the car accident that killed two of their members, I was skeptical. Not that I thought it would be bad — their singles as five were consistently exceptional — but I didn’t think it was appropriate. But then, I had no idea what was appropriate. Plenty of third-wave idol groups have come back after losing members, but not after a member’s death, let alone a member’s death that triggered industry-wide mourning. “Galaxy” is what I didn’t know I wanted, and exactly what this comeback should be. The triangle theme of the packaging is a little heavy-handed, but the song itself, all air and fire and water, is not. It doesn’t try to hide its context, but it resists sinking under its weight; the brief trip into jazz as Sojung sings “will you pull me from the gravity” really does sound like being released from gravity for a moment. And more than anything, I didn’t realize just how good it would be to hear Ashley, Zuny, and Sojung sing again.
[10]

Maxwell Cavaseno: Ignoring the tragic backstory of Ladies’ Code — which makes this song extra somber — “Galaxy” is such an off-putting song. At first, it seems like a mess of ectoplasmic afterbirth for the plunging sort of dreamy R&B one would associate in the United States with the likes of Jhene Aiko. Yet suddenly, the song seems to drag itself out of its slumber into that sinewy rare-groove styled chorus and these girls seem like a trio of modern day N’Dea Davenports briskly flicking the sleep sand out their eyes and grabbing whomever in the disconnect of space regardless of fear and apprehension. “Galaxy” feels much like the coven-soul of Red Velvet’s “Automatic,” but whereas the latter were overwhelmed and afraid of the hunger they sang of, Ladies’ Code deal with a craving for oxygen and light with a longing that holds some deeper more weighty need.
[10]

Leonel Manzanares: The moment that bass-heavy beat and those synth flourishes enter the scene, you’re already under their spell. But then the chorus comes in, and the source of this song’s power — the velvety funk of the guitar/bass combination — reveals itself. It’s an impressive move from Ladies’ Code, a band that was sadly struck by tragedy in 2014, to come back with such a beautifully layered, gracefully nostalgic R&B track. From any other group in a similar situation we could have gotten an upbeat, rise-from-the-ashes dance track, or worse, a tear-jerking ballad, but these girls proved they’re better than that. Also, that walking contrabass in the last chorus just made me lose my shit completely. 
[8]

Jonathan Bogart: Utterly gorgeous nostalgia for spacey late-’70s R&B, with acoustic instrumentation, Moogish textural burbling, and some of the most exquisite phrasing I’ve heard in K-pop. I’m often suspicious of current music that plays to my most-revered sounds of the past, but this is so well done, and such a rhythmically taut reverie, that it got past my defenses before I’d even noticed.
[8]

Cassy Gress: The synth strings bobbing to the surface are oddly muffled-sounding. I understand what they were going for here with the universe/galaxy metaphor and the synthetic jazz track, but this melody sounds to me like it belongs on a more uptempo, brassier track. That’d require a complete rework, but I wanted to hear that version so badly that my brain was snapping at them, “PICK UP THE PACE PLEASE.” In the last minute or so, some acid jazz drums and upright jazz bass show up, just overlaid atop the rest of the track and sounding out of place.
[5]

Alfred Soto: While the synth stabs recall late ’80s Vanessa Williams, the skill with which the vocalists step up and back and to the side is their own. The plushness isn’t a galaxy so much as a reflecting pool with colored stones.
[7]

Sonia Yang: Deliciously more downtempo than what I was expecting, “Galaxy” manages to be danceable while keeping a laid-back air. The song makes good use of space (pun intended), and the swirly chimes are a nice touch.
[6]

Jonathan Bradley: Ladies’ Code start “Galaxy” off as slinky and contemporary R&B, but, by the first chorus, they’ve transformed into a sumptuous lounge act, the jazz-funk arrangement expanding like a spotlight. It’s very smooth, and very well-played: I’d raise a glass at the end.
[6]

Will Adams: Like me and this song, the verse and chorus are at an impasse. One side offers gorgeous dream&B, like aural lava lamp bubbles; the other goes double time and clutters the space with a jazz band. Ladies’ Code do their best to mediate, which just tips me toward a higher score.
[6]

Patrick St. Michel: This is kind of a slightly larger-budget version of a feel Neon Bunny explored recently, as Ladies’ Code explore infatuation, the verses moving in slow motion as a way to emphasize the nerves at the center of this. The key difference is the hook lets in a little celebration, picking up the pace ever so slightly. 
[7]

Brad Shoup: So: they reference dropping oxygen levels, an endless emergency, and the pull of a black universe. All this is set against a track of elegant stop-start jazz/funk: Soojung matches the elegance on the refrain, but there’s a remove from everyone. It’s a reverie that tracks with the boutique production: the drums pounds rivets, to which the synths and harplike piano are so much pinned silk.
[8]

This one was spotted and sent in via swissdoc. It appears to be a one off SSM based DIY synth built sometime between 1981 and 1986. You'll find some info and demos on Technology Trendline here. I believe this is the first time it has been featured here on MATRIXSYNTH. "This keyboard was the manual from a Conn electric organ recovered from a fire and found in the rafters of a pipe and reed

The Senate nearly unanimously passed a bill for new programs to fight against opioid addiction. Something can be bipartisan! Well, sort of. Republicans did much of the legwork on this, particularly Rob Portman and Kelly Ayotte, both of whom really need to show they have actually done something in the last 6 years. So Republicans are finally see that spending resources on social programs can be a good idea, right? Ha ha, no. Of course these programs are unfunded.

It was threatened by Democrats who were angered that Republicans turned away an accompanying measure to provide $500 million in extra funding to pay for what the bill authorizes.

“What good are additional programs if they aren’t adequately funded?” asked Senator Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania. “We can’t ask medical professionals to do more to treat addiction if they don’t have the resources.” (Mr. Portman and Ms. Ayotte were among five Republicans to vote for the extra funding measure.)

But in the end, the bill was considered too urgent to dismiss over a funding fight.

But at least now Republicans can blame someone when this doesn’t work–lazy case workers and ineffective government. Better to devolve it all to the states where Bobby Jindal and Rick Snyder can lead!

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Blizzard has patched its classic action-RPG Diablo II almost 16 years after the game launched in July 2000.  ...

In this game, the controller is a USB gamepad with three popsicles attached to it. Use your tongue to propel your space monster through space, avoiding obstacles and eating planets as you go! ...

New deal between PSF and Black Editions brings lost classics back into print

Tokyo’s PSF Records, the label responsible for key Japanese underground releases by Nanjo’s original psychedelic speed freaks High Rise, Keiji Haino and Fushitsusha, White Heaven, free jazz saxophonist Kaoru Abe and more, has made a deal with the new US imprint Black Editions that will bring several “lost classics” back into circulation.

From its Los Angeles base, Black Editions states that it acquired the rights to the PSF catalogue in 2014, and its first run of releases will include Fushitsusha’s 2nd Live, High Rise’s High Rise II, the Tokyo Flashback compilation, and Che-Shizu’s A Journey. Plus, “through a special arrangement with the artist”, Keiji Haino’s solo debut album Watashi-Dake?, originally released in 1981 by the Pinakotheca label and reissued by PSF in 1993. Each record will be remastered from the best available source, and some of them will be pressed on vinyl for the first time.

“The albums of the PSF catalogue have achieved a legendary status,” continues Black Editions’ news announcement. “Ranging from psychedelic rock, folk and punk to jazz, free improvisation and the avant garde, the PSF catalogue has been defiantly eclectic and uncompromising.

“As the label founder Hideo Ikeezumi told us: ‘I only wanted to release music on PSF that refused to limit itself to genres, that had zero commercialism, that possessed kokoro (heart), and that had a feeling of freedom. In that sense, I was heavily influenced by Masayuki Takayanagi. I was very much affected by something he said when I was 19 – that an artist should put their life on the line in order to express themselves’.”

The full list of titles in the Black Editions catalogue can be found here.

PSF, meanwhile, is still championing different kinds of Japanese music, releasing guitarist Hideaki Kondo’s second album and saxophonist Makoto Kawashima’s Homer Sacer, both in 2015.

There's a sense of unrest surrounding Japan's mobile industry after Cygames allegedly used false advertising to encourage players to spend thousands of dollars to unlock rare characters in GranBlue Fantasy. ...

"Play as Renfield, Count Dracula's lowly servant, during a trying time for the vampire lord." - Author's description

Download on itch.io (Windows)

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Maya's appearance in the upcoming Ace Attorney 6 reminds us why we fell in love with the Phoenix Wright games to begin with.

San Francisco harbor, 1851

This is a pretty amazing project, allowing you to do keyword searchers of old American newspapers all at one site. So if you want to look up newspapers talking about the Pinkertons or using 19th century political terms like “scalawag,” you can now do so. The project covers newspapers from 1836 to 1922.

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All weekend long we are bringing you previews from 2dcloud’s exciting Winter Collection. Don’t forget to pledge on their ongoing Kickstarter campaign, which ends Wednesday March 9th!

To be continued in Mirror Mirror – Support 2Dcloud on Kickstarter! – Campaign ends Wednesday March 9th!

 

the original vaporwave [via] 

Fox Sports’ Alex Marvez reports that Terrance Gerin aka longtime ECW fixture Rhyno, has announced his intention to run for State Representative in Dearborn, MI. Gerin, seen most recently starring for WWE’s NXT development arm, tells Marvez, “I think candidates that run against me will try to make fun of (wrestling) to discredit me, which is understandable. But I want to go out and discuss how we can make this state better, how we can make people’s lives easier and educate the kids.”

“The cool thing about what wrestling has done for me is opening a lot of doors,” Gerin told FOXSports.com during a Friday phone interview. “It’s given me a loud voice. That’s very important when you represent people and want to try to get stuff done. You want someone representing you who knows how hard it is to get doors open.”

Gerin said he let WWE owner Vince McMahon know backstage about his plans to run for office.

“I told Vince, ‘I hope I make you proud,’ ” Gerin recalled. “He said, ‘You already have.’ He then followed up by saying if there was anything (WWE) can do to help to let them know.

“He didn’t ask what party I was running for or this and that. The McMahons’ love for their country is just contagious.”

Contagious is certainly one word for it.

the data and source are available on Pwanson's site  

Clip via Crossing Broad. By the time this segment is over, I’m sure you’ll be asking the same question as me ; “how directly is this woman related to Roy Ziegler?“.

In this blog post from the History Respawned crew, trained historians discuss Paradox's Crusader Kings II: Sword of Islam and weigh its design against its historical accuracy. ...

We spotted Asachill – a techno pop singer (check her music video), fashion model, and monster at the Kawaii Monster Cafe – on the street in Harajuku after dark.

Asachill is wearing a white leather jacket from Joyrich over a Spinns top, a colorful animal print mini skirt from the Japanese brand Galaxxxy and Jeffrey Campbell platform booties (with American dollars in the see through heels). Accessories include neon hair tubes from the popular salon Hair Janie Jones, colorful nail art, and a smiley face backpack from UNIF.

Asachill’s favorite fashion brands include 6%DOKIDOKI, Galaxxxy, and Joyrich. She likes the music of Yuki and Chara. Follow Asachill on Instagram or Twitter – or check her website – for more info!

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

When a very big band makes a song for a very big game, you get something that's a little weird, a little over-earnest, and thoroughly enjoyable.

The impact of the “Self Control” video…

[Video][Website]
[6.83]

Iain Mew: This is SO MUCH. It gets going with a pitched-up vocal that seems just too incredibly plaintive to fit into any kind of song. Then they create this song which is hypnotic and dreamy but clearly a single with beats and drops and everything, and yet at the same time is entirely suffused with that same strength of feeling. I need to catch my breath every time I’m done taking it in.
[9]

Will Adams: “Chayeb” covers a lot of ground in its four and a half minutes, from manipulated vocal to blustery rap to two (!) passionately sung hooks. The music keeps pace — the sudden acceleration at 1:43 is a lovely twist — resulting in a listen that, while a bit turbulent, is engaging and intriguing.
[6]

Juana Giaimo: By reading the English subtitles of the lyrics on the music video of “Chayeb”, I found out that this is a song about being forced to get married to an old man. The desperation and impossibility to speak for yourself is present in the distressing and claustrphobic atmosphere of the song caused by the pitched vocals and minimalistic beat. However, while the idea is interesting, the result is a bit too overwhelming. 
[6]

Alfred Soto: “That’s a bad idea,” said the student in my office who happened to hear the pitch-altered vocals. Not so fast. The beats in the verses squelch and grind. But, yeah, not so fast. That’s a problem.
[5]

Jonathan Bogart: The comments on the YouTube video are lit. Some Arabic speakers, especially from the Middle East, are complaining that they need a translation because Fnaïre’s Moroccan accent is so difficult; some are condemning the video’s somber, hip-hop-infused style and protofeminist message as being a product of Western imperialism; a bunch are doing the usual fan fawning over whatever their faves produce; and then there are the French speakers engaging in some nasty racism over the cultural norms of Muslim-majority countries. Fnaïre themselves walk a delicate tightrope between their Western (particularly French) influences and their Moroccan identity, positioning themselves as criticizing from within but, with English translation on the closed captions, pitching their case to an international audience. None of which has a lot to do with the music, the kind of claustrophobic mood piece that beatmakers have been using to signal This Is A Serious Song for decades.
[7]

Brad Shoup: It keeps raising the stakes: the pitched-up nonsense, then some blowed rapping, then the gorgeous sung bit, then another gorgeous sung bit. They reset, but now the trust is there. Resonant percussion throughout, a generally thin atmosphere: a triumph.
[8]

I was on a client call and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The client contact had discovered that if she resized her desktop browser to mobile size, showed and hid the mobile form, and then resized back to desktop size, the previously-visible desktop form disappeared. “Do we anticipate a lot of people doing that?” I asked. “Well, you never know,” she responded.

I muted the phone and sighed heartily. The bottom line was the client contact cared about it and needed it fixed—I knew that. I just didn’t understand why.

Irrationality is one of the most frequent complaints of creatives and devs dealing with clients. “Clients just don’t get it,” I hear frequently. I’ve been there. We all have.

But our coworkers aren’t much better. There’s that project manager who thinks that the only solution for a project behind schedule is more status meetings. There’s that account manager who thinks that even the most mundane detail needs to be clarified and confirmed ad nauseam. There’s that supervisor who feels the need to micromanage your every move. What’s up with those people?

Doesn’t anyone get it? Isn’t irrationality just the worst?

The anxiety problem

A few weeks after the conversation I mentioned above, I was on a call again with the same client, but this time the client’s boss was also on the line. It was a much different conversation. The client’s boss berated all of us, client contact included, for a solid hour. It turns out the client had missed their budget goals for the last two quarters, and the blame fell squarely on the marketing team—whether deserved or not. Our client contact was under a tremendous amount of pressure, so even the slightest mess-up, if noticed, could have disastrous results.

What I realized then was that the problem wasn’t irrationality—in fact, it rarely is. The problem was anxiety.

We’re going to do some math with our emotions. Ready? Good. Here’s the formula:

Anxiety + Time = Drama

That’s right, when anxiety goes up against an approaching deadline, it grows and that results in drama. And when there’s drama on a project, everyone feels it.

I often hear people say, “I don’t do drama.” What this basically means is that they don’t deal with emotional issues in the people around them. Ironically, this results in drama surrounding these people everywhere they go. You wouldn’t hear a developer say, “I don’t do bugs.” You wouldn’t hear a designer say, “I don’t do revisions.” As web professionals, those things are your job. If you work with people, it’s your job to take care of drama, too.

Taking care of drama means learning to recognize and deal with the roots of anxiety. Anxiety comes from a few different places, but it’s at the center of a number of problems in the workplace. Understanding it is the key to defusing a lot of those problems.

Power and responsibility

We’re going to do some more math with our emotions. Here’s a formula for anxiety:

Responsibility − Power = Anxiety

The more pressure someone is under, the greater the responsibility. And our client contacts (as well as our accounts teams and project managers) have very little power to fix these problems. This is a classic recipe for anxiety.

It’s a concept we, as problem-solvers, may not be familiar with in a workplace setting. After all, people come to us to solve their problems. We rarely have to go to others to solve our problems.

Remember those irrational coworkers I mentioned above? In all cases, they suffered workplace anxiety due to responsibility minus power. They were being held responsible for something they didn’t have the power to directly do. They may not state it. They may not even realize it. But anxiety is a way of life for the people you work for.

Clients, too, suffer from this anxiety. In fact, the very act of a client coming to you means that they’ve realized that they can’t solve the problem on their own, even though they’re responsible for the outcome. Every client relationship is fundamentally based on the root of anxiety.

If anxiety is caused by holding responsibility for something without having the power to fix it, we can alleviate it by either taking on some of the responsibility or giving away some of the power to fix it.

“Not my problem” is a problem

Early on in my career at my current agency, I noticed a bit of tension between Dev and Creative over the usage of pre-built creative assets in our front-end framework of choice. Designers were designing elements from scratch, which meant that many of the built-in modules in our front-end framework were wasted. This also meant additional time in dev to build those custom elements, which was bad for both dev and the client. Developers were complaining about it. And designers had no idea this was going on.

Rather than complain some more about it, I created an in-depth presentation showcasing the creative capabilities of our front-end framework for our Creative department. When I showed it to my director, he said, “This is exactly what we need.” The problem had been on the back burner, boiling over, until I took it on myself.

When people complain about something, they’re acknowledging that something should be done, but refusing the undertaking themselves. Essentially, they’re saying, “It’s not my problem.” This isn’t always strictly due to negligence, though.

There was an experiment that placed participants in separate rooms with microphones and had them take turns talking about problems they were having and what they were doing to resolve them. The first participant would be connected with between one and five others, when one of the other participants would start having an epileptic seizure during the experiment. Here’s the catch: there was only one real participant in each round of the experiment. The other voices, whether one or many, were recordings—including the person having the seizure. Want to guess how many of the real participants went to the experimenters to seek help? 100 percent? 75 percent?

Would you believe only 31% of participants went to seek help for the (fake) other participant in distress? What’s more, the more participants the real participant thought were there, the less likely he or she was to do anything. Why is this?

Researchers have studied the behavior of crowds surrounding emergency situations. If you have an emergency in public and you ask the crowd for help, you’re probably not going to get it because of what’s known as the bystander effect. For a variety of reasons (including believing that someone more qualified will jump in, and worrying about the consequences of jumping in), the more strangers are present around an emergency, the less likely any one person is to help. The way to actually get help in a crowded emergency is to pick one individual and ask that person to do something specific, like phone an ambulance or help with first aid.

Bystander apathy is real. Understanding it can help you cope with emergencies, the zombie apocalypse, and even work situations.

People who are complaining probably don’t know whose responsibility it is to fix the problem—they just know it’s not them. This is your opportunity to be a helpful individual rather than an apathetic bystander.

Look for unidentified needs and projects that have been on the back burner so long that they’re boiling over. See about taking them on yourself. A word of caution: there’s a fine, fine line between stepping up and stepping on toes. If you’re going to step up, and the thing you’re taking on is someone’s direct responsibility, get their blessing first—especially if the person in question outranks you. And if stepping up would squash someone’s ego, that’s a good sign that you should focus your efforts elsewhere.

Taking this a step further, take responsibility for the end product, not just your part in it. I work in dev, but I’m known to give creative feedback when it’s appropriate, as well as helping think through any aspect of a client project. I now get called into meetings not just to lend my dev expertise, but also to help other teams think through their problems.

You don’t want to overstep your bounds, but simply caring about the end product and how each step is done is what responsibility-sharing is all about.

The power is yours

I have a kid. When he runs into situations where he has no control, no power, his anxiety builds and he panics. The quickest way to resolve that problem is to give him some choices to make within the bounds of his situation: do you want to go for lunch here or there? Do you want to wear the red shirt or the green one? Which punishment do you want?

Adults are slightly more sophisticated about this, but we never really outgrow the fundamental human need to have some control over our situations. With some degree of power, we remain calm and collected; with a loss of power, we become anxious and irrational.

What’s more, when people lose power in one area of their lives, they compensate by seizing power in other areas. If someone feels a situation is slipping out of their grasp, they will often work harder to exert power wherever they feel they still have some control. Those irrational coworkers at the beginning of this article were all compensating for losing control over the work of the project itself. The client’s extreme caution about site development was in reaction to them not being able to keep their budget in check.

Loss of power can take a lot of different forms. Not knowing what result is required of you can render power meaningless. The client at the beginning of this article was unsure how a minor bug would affect the outcome of the website, so they couldn’t gauge the level of risk in leaving the bug unresolved. Not having the right information is another scenario. This is often why clients come to us in the first place. And, of course, there’s the good, old-fashioned total loss of power due to lack of skills required to solve the problem.

As a problem-solver, you hold a lot of the power that other people depend on for resolving their problems. Sharing that decision-making power is a surefire way to calm down the people involved in a project.

When solving a problem, you make countless decisions: how to solve it, how thorough to be, how to integrate the solution into the existing product, and sometimes whether to solve the problem at all. Giving away power means sharing decision-making with others. The people responsible for the outcome usually appreciate being a part of the process.

When I managed of a team of designers and developers, I frequently encountered this kind of scenario: an account person came to me in a panic, asking for an emergency change to a website based on client feedback. I wasn’t handed a problem, but a solution. With a little reverse engineering we arrived at the problem, which made it a lot easier to see what was being attempted.

A better solution was available in this case. I explained the options to the account person, the pros and cons of each, and we settled on my solution. I typed up an email to aid the account person in explaining the solution to the client. In the end, everyone was happier because I took the time to share some of that decision-making power with the account team and client.

As an architect for a front-end development team, sharing decision-making power often means explaining the options in terms of time and budget. The language is different, but the principle is the same: educate and empower the key stakeholders. You’d be surprised how quickly some seemingly irrational revisions get nixed after the options—and expenses—are discussed.

Getting to the heart of the matter

Anxiety’s causes run deep into human nature, but knowing how to calm it can go a long way in preventing workplace drama. Remember: irrationality is not the issue. People are a lot more complex than we often give them credit for, and their problems even more so. Dealing with them is complicated—but vital to getting ahead in the workplace.

massively-multiplayer Minesweeper [via] 

Rizurit is a friendly lolita who we met on the street in Harajuku after dark.

Her look features a print dress from the Japanese lolita fashion brand Angelic Pretty with boots and a faux fur Baby The Stars Shine Bright capelet. Her accessories include lots of badges, charms, and plush dolls featuring Rin from the Japanese anime LoveLive!

Rizurit’s favorite fashion brands include Baby, The Stars Shine Bright and Angelic Pretty. You can find her on Twitter or Instagram for more information and pictures.

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

When a game shares a name with a different but much better known game it can prove tricky to track down, and, in cases where nothing is known other than the title it’s difficult to know if you’re looking for an original game, a license, or a bootleg.

Philko’s Lock On is one such game, sharing it’s name with the still rather obscure, but better known (in part due to emulation) Tatsumi game from 1986.

Until yesterday we didn’t really know what to expect from this game, but completely out of the blue a user called ‘marcus’ dumped a PCB for it and submitted it for us to emulate.

There are a few Philko games in MAME already, a couple of shooters running on hardware that was cloned from Side Arms (Whizz / Dyger / Turtle Ship) and some simple puzzle style games on a sprite-less System 16 hardware clone (Atomic Point and Snapper)

Looking at the PCB / roms the hardware here didn’t quite fit either of those profiles, it was 68k based, so no the sidearms derived hardware, but it also had sprite roms, so it wasn’t identical hardware to the System 16 titles, also it had an OKI M6295 in sound section which none of those have either.

The sprite roms were clearly non-tile based, and looked clearly like Sega System 16 format sprites, so the first and most logical route to explore was that this was a more complete clone of Sega System 16 hardware than used by the other Philko titles. There were a couple of issues with this assumption, first of all, the tile roms were clearly 4 bits per pixel graphics whereas the original System 16 hardware and Philko clones were all 3bpp. (In English this had 16-colour per tile, not 8-colours per tile)

Either way, I quickly hooked it up in the System 16 driver, and it booted, even showing me some sprites, the assumption WAS correct, however it would need further work, Philko had made significant changes to the hardware while copying it. It was immediately obvious that the palette RAM was bigger, again, fitting with what had previously been observed, if you have 16 colours per tile then you need more colours in total. Oddly, even with that all set up, and the base of the sprite palettes adjusted accordingly the colours were still off. It turned out that palette format had also been changed here, from the xRGBRRRRGGGGBBBB format of the original hardware to a simpler xBBBBBGGGGGRRRRR (where each R/G/B letter represents a single colour bit) Adding support for that alt format fixed the colours.

Sound was also different, I used the emulation from Whizz as a base, because clearly, from observing the reads / writes that’s what Philko had done, but here there was also an extra port used to access the OKI M6295 sample playback chip. As none of the clocks were measured on the PCB, nor the divider pin for the OKIM6295 I’m not 100% sure the sound is perfect.

With all that hooked up, inputs sorted out, and dipswitches deciphered to a usable level the game was playable. It seems like it was heavily influenced by Capcom’s US Navy / Area 88.

Interestingly the game doesn’t show a copyright on the title screen, but there’s a Philko disclaimer on the startup, Philko tiles in the tile ROMs, and a 1991 date on the bottom of the high score table, one of the dipswitches flips between ‘Korea’ and ‘Europe regions. Philko was also one of the few Korean manufacturers to actually have their own marked custom chips too (albeit only one of them on this PCB, the others had generic markings)

Also of interest is that the game does attempt to program what appears to be a clone of the Sega memory mapper chip (used for dynamic memory maps on System 16 etc.) although I haven’t currently hooked it up as dynamic, might have to see if it really does program valid values tho.

Again Big thanks to marcusfor dumping his PCB here. The picture provided alongside the ROMs is shown below.

I’ve also uploaded a video below, you can see some minor clipping issues on the left side in attract, but I’m 99% sure those will happen on a PCB too, the image it’s scrolling around is part of one of the tile layers and simply isn’t wide enough to cover the area where you can see the blank space.

Another one that was all but forgotten this time last week saved from extinction.

One of the best adventure games on my iPad was also one of the first I downloaded for the platform, Machinarium. It was one of the first games where I couldn’t believe something that looked that pretty and played that well was on this thin piece of aluminum and glass that I could hold in my hands. The game was developed by Amanita Design, which is known for creating surreal and beautiful puzzle games. Their first was Samorost, a flash-based browser game way back in 2003, and they followed that up with a sequel Samorost 2, which was available for PC/Mac. Apart from Machinarium, their only other mobile game is Botanicula which continues the trend of games with surreal and beautiful graphics and fun point-and-click puzzles.

Today Amanita announced that Samorost 3 is coming and will be released for PC/Mac on March 24. What’s more interesting for Pocket Tactics‘ readers is that it’s also coming to iOS and Android later this year. Unlike the previous two installments of Samorost, this one is a full game that combines the more puzzle oriented Machinarium with the laid-back and easygoing Botanicula, which sounds like a match made in heaven. Speaking of heaven, the game kind of looks like it, too. Once again, the visuals are pretty mindblowing.

We’ll fill you in when a mobile ETA is announced but, until then, have a gander at the trailer after the break and see what’s coming down the road.

Kanai is a 20-year-old model – with a short blue hairstyle – who we often see around the streets of Harajuku.

Her punk-inspired look features a yellow yellow jacket by the Japanese brand Sexy Dynamite London with plaid Super Lovers skirt pants, and studded Yosuke platform boots. Accessories include a cartoon print bag from Waga-ma-mind Tokyo, several charms, and a button from 8-Style.

Kanai’s favorite fashion brand is Hyper Core Harajuku and she likes the Japanese band Plastic Tree. Find her on Instagram or Twitter for more pics!

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

Thought experiment: The US Government definitely has the technical ability to take an older iPhone, decap the chips in it and extract whatever keys they need. This capability is just too juicy for a government agency to have left undeveloped.  The FBI is almost certainly lying about their inability to crack that 5c (okay, they might need help from a certain other agency).

But the FBI probably sees this as win-win for them:

• Apple refuses to unlock the phone. Regardless of whether Tim Cook goes to jail for contempt of court, or Apple wins in an eventual Supreme Court challenge, we should expect grandstanding legislation attempting to ban effective security on personal devices. “Apple is helping terrorists” and so forth.
• Apple unlocks the phone. Now we have a flood of requests, world-wide, for similar unlocks.

It’s not about the phone. It’s all about the corner they think they have Apple (and the whole information industry) in.

A series of FOIA requests about how badly 5s security has been broken by the spook world would be pretty interesting. Classic FOIA stalling tactics would not help the government’s case.

[edit: It’s a iPhone 5c, not a 5s]

This is 22-year-old student Ki Tan, a student wearing all black whom we street snapped in Harajuku.

Her long shirt dress is from Spinns with a resale hooded jacket featuring outer space patches. She is also wearing black milk crown shoes from Tokyo Bopper and several earrings and piercings.

Ki Tan told us she likes shopping at Spinns and that she’s a fan of Block B.

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