Another Typhoon?!?!

So there have been a lot of typhoons lately.

This would be great, if I were working.  I say this because it means all the public transport shuts down for a day which means the possibility of going home early, or not going into work at all.

It's not such a great thing when you consider people usually die.

The biggest one this year was no joke, killing dozens through flooding and landslides.  The problem is that the areas most affected are always rural (there's no land left to slide in Tokyo) which makes access difficult at the best of times (narrow one lane roads are fun to drive around, until you need to fit an ambulance and fire engine on them).  Couple this inherent inaccessibility with the destruction of the already cramped roads and you have a knotty problem.

Adding yet another layer is the demographics - rural dwellers skew older, meaning they are more fragile and less mobile.  Not a set of characteristics you want when you suddenly have to run away from a wall of mud that's bearing down on your house.

Anyway, todays typhoon is much weaker than that, and has created that gentle rain that I find incredibly relaxing, borderline soporific.  Perfect for writing, dozing a bit, then writing some more, so that's what I will do.



I attended an event last weekend, took some pictures and wrote a thing.

A few of the pictures I took are on that page, but I ended up with about 650 or so from the event which means I have a lot left over.

Smile pls

 So these guys made a game called Projection Remains.  It was actually really well made, felt good to play and was polished beyond reason for a student game.  The only downside was that I got there almost immediately after the event had opened on the first day and they were still sorting their stuff out.  The lights went out and there was a mouse cursor in the middle of the screen for the entire time I was playing.

I came back around towards the end of the event and they were much more relaxed so it was probably just first day jitters.

Seriously, smile!

 This guy was studying to be an environment artist and had made some pretty cool things.  I tried chatting to him about his work but no dice.  He probably couldn't understand my crappy Japanese.  Seemed like a nice enough guy though.

The robot future approacheth, one finger at a time

 I didn't see it moving, but I assume this thing is a robotic chess playing arm?  It looks like it would be a fairly formidable presence at any chess tournament, not least because it looks like it could flick a piece at you with deadly force and accuracy.

Oh Japan...

Look.  If the internet has taught us anything it's that the world is full of perverts.  The world has always been full of perverts, but now it is plain for all to see.  What I don't understand is why we're suddenly seeing weird shit like this pop up outside of the seedy sex shops.

They were pretty soft though.

Jazz hands

 This little thing was a great example of why VR is so cool.

It's a tiny demo, where you walk along that piece of wood in real life, but you're outside on top of a fucking tall building in the virtual world.  You walk along a short plank, pirate style, and try not to fall off.  If you go out of bounds (step off the plank) you fall to your death.  You may also fall over in real life because the disconnect between your eyes seeing the fall and your ears not feeling anything makes the brain freak out.

I was fine with the heights aspect of it - although it did make me step back (literally) and appreciate the view before I walked the plank - but the falling part of the demo was absolutely not okay.  Guys, seriously.

Plummeting a bajillion feet was fine because I could remind myself that I was in a game, but when the ground got very close, very quickly, I had a mini crisis of being.

When the ground was about waist level (I was falling very fast so I don't know exactly where the switchover occurred) I went from being consciously in control of my everything, to be subconsciously very afraid for my well-being.  It was much more primal than, say, a horror film.  It was a realisation that things were very not okay and that I was about to splat on the floor.

If you ever find yourself falling a long way to your death, take this advice:  Look up.  Look anywhere but the floor.  If you're going to splat, there's no need to pile on the dread before you do.

Then I took the headset off and all was well with the world.

10/10 would fall again.

Fully playable, if you are a pixie

This dude made a very tiny space invaders clone with an arduino, a tiny screen, and (presumably) the world smallest soldering iron.

I have literally no idea how he made something so delicate with those big paws, but it was fully playable and was surprisingly vibrant considering the size of the screen.  It has a speaker in it too.

Brilliant.

Ah yes, I too can relate to this scene.  I can't count the number of times I find myself playing a phone game with a controller, while laying down on the floor in my room with my stuffed toys and talking into a microphone strapped to my face while being watched by dozens of people and being filmed at the same time.  Truly a scene we can all identify with.

Look how fluffy her socks are.

I have no idea why I'm including this picture, but I didn't want to interrupt her stage show performance (demonstration?) to say thanks for the pic, so I threw up the peace sign and she reciprocated, then immediately got told off by a producer.  I felt bad.

Sorry.

Damnit Bill from marketing, you had one job

This costume looks like it took flippin' ages to make.  Then they stood her in front of the single busiest backboard at the entire show, making it nearly impossible to make out any of the details on the costume itself. 

The model was good (she actually smiled!) but I have no idea what game this was for, so I don't know if it served its purpose particularly well.

The same hat for 4 days too...

Indies are where it's at.  This dude stood behind this screen for four days, showing it off to anyone who wanted to play.  I'm not entirely sure whether he has any intention of ever selling this, whatever it is, but that dedication is something to be admired.  Also, he was wearing a chicken hat.

I mean, it's nearly a smile.  Sort of

The cosplay section was absolutely jam packed.  The effort they put into their gear was universally amazing, and I don't think a single one of them were anything less than 100% committed to the thing.

I don't really get it personally, but talking to some of them outside the show it's an interesting mix of getting to be something they are not in real life, designing and making clothes and accessories, and outright showing off hot bods in a somewhat socially acceptable way.

I feel like the last type of person would be better served going to the beach and wearing something skimpy, but there aren't any good beaches within 100km of Tokyo, so it's certainly easier this way.

This character is from a game called Nier Automata which no one can pronounce correctly

The cosplayers are overwhelmingly female, and this is going to surprise no one, the photographers are overwhelmingly male.

I didn't know it, but it turns out there is a definite 'nerd with camera,' type, and he is a distinct beast from 'doesn't leave the house and only plays games,' nerd.  I don't know how, but 'nerd with camera,' has absolutely shit tons of money (seriously, I saw a guy carrying four Nikon SLR's each with multi thousand dollar lenses) and absolutely no manners.  'Nerd with camera,' is, alas, easy to dislike because of both these factors.

I was, at first, worried that I too was 'nerd with camera,' but then I remembered my bank account balance and worried no longer.

The character is called 2B, and yes it has a distinctly philosophical bent

I don't know how this woman sees where she is going, but she looked at the camera the whole time so I assume she can.  Either that or she is secretly a bat and doesn't need her eyes to see.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is the show these characters are in.  Yes I consider the robots characters.  No I do not know what 'Neon Genesis Evangelion,' means.

 The dude in this suit was sweating his ass off the entire time.  It wasn't even that hot outside, but I don't think inch thick acrylic is particularly breathable.

Hakodake no blues.  The sadness that comes from only having a box?  The blues of only having a box?  Only having a box sadness?  That feeling you get when you've only got a box?  I'm not sure how to translate the title of this one.

 This game was another fun one.  The guy on the screen is constantly running to the left (side-note, games run from left to right (think Mario) because early platformers (like Mario) did, and the tradition has continued ever since.  A lot of the world, and most early game designers wrote with their right hands, from left to right, so games followed suit.  This guy is breaking with tradition, go guy!) and when you lower the cardboard box and hide inside, the running guy does too.  The objective is to make it home without being spotted.

The one pose to rule them all.  If you want to be a model in Japan, learn how to do this.

 This is probably my favourite model photo.  The background is a bit busy, the hair is a bit frizzy, there's some moire if you look hard enough, but overall I think it's pretty good.

Shout to shoot.  Writes itself.

The great thing about the indie and student section is that there's always a game with a simple premise that is surprisingly fun.  This guy is shouting into a microphone in order to fire a gun which he is aiming with his right hand.  Simple, effective, fun, makes you look like an idiot to any observer.  Ticks all the boxes you need for a good VR experience.

Overall it was a solid event with tons to do.  It helps that I played all the games on Thursday and Friday before General Public came in and made the lines really long, but I'd probably still go even if I didn't have a press pass.

What's Up

 So we start with a sign I saw on the way to badminton.  I'm not entirely sure what it's trying to say, nor am I sure what the picture is of.  For reference this was taken outside a hairdressers.

 I've been growing strawberries for a while, and the harvest has really increased towards the end of Summer.  Apparently strawberries are at their best one year after planting, so year two will hopefully be even better.

 I've got 3 different types.  One is a great plant with amazing red flowers, that produces half a malformed strawberry ever 3 months.  One is a monster that creates great big thumb sized things, but once ever month or so.  The last type is what produced the above.  Sometimes they're big, sometimes they're small, sometimes they even look like strawberries - but they're far more productive than the other types I have.

 I don't know about you, but I love playing happily to exhaustion.  Especially when I can do so at the popular spots of the metropolitan area.

There are so many native english speakers in tokyo and they couldn't find a single one to point out how weird this sounds.  Amazing.

(Foreign visitors only)

 I went to watch the sumo this week.  I'm not sure what this sign is trying to say, but I hope Will is okay.

It turns out that I'm not a big fan of sumo.  It's pretty dull, and the slowness isn't helped by the fact that each bout lasts less than 5 seconds with a 10 minute break between.  I'd like to think I'm fairly patient, but good lord a whole lot of nothing happens for a long time.

One weird thing I noticed is that even though I had less than zero interest in proceedings, when the crowd roared the hairs still raised as if I were watching something I cared about.  I found it pretty interesting that this is a human reaction seemingly regardless of situation.

Bonus - Wally of Where's Wally fame is somewhere in this picture.  Can you find him?

 After finding Wally, we found this burger in the local supermarket.

 It was less than a quid, and tasted bad.

 Really, really bad.

 My latest plant growing project is the mighty pineapple.  Pineapples are great because they're the only fruit/vegetable I know of that eat you, as you're eating them.  They also looking incredibly cool when they're growing in your house.

So the search was on for a system that would let me know one.

There are basically two techniques people use to grow them on.  Both start with buying a pineapple.  You rip the top off (or cut it off, making sure to get rid of as much flesh as possible) so you're left with the above.  Take off the bottom few leaves.  And this is where the techniques begin to diverge.  Do you take off a lot, or a few?  In the early stages there aren't many roots which means the plant will be losing a lot more water through evaporation than it will be pulling in through the roots.  I'm not sure how bad this is, but I bought 4(!!!!) pineapples and did a test.  I left a lot of leaves on two, and only a few on two.

The next step is another divider.  Do you leave the bottom of the this bundle of leaves to dry for a day before planting?  I did with this one, but the results were unfavourable, so I didn't with the others.

The last point is whether to plant these stems directly into soil, or start them in water first.  Those initial 4 were split 2 by 2, water/soil.  Unfortunately only one survived.  So I bought a couple more.  So far, of those two, only one is left.

For those interested, what keeps happening is the middle leaves keep rotting from the inside out, so I'm fairly sure that you have to stop water getting into the leaves before they're growing.  One has tons of tiny little roots sprouting and I'm hopeful it'll turn into a plant one day.

The other has a few roots but is much younger than the other so it's still early days.

The plants take 3 or 4 years to mature and develop fruit, and require another plant to fertilise the fruit (which is why I've bought so many). 

In Vietnam we saw loads, and they look like they've been glued onto an entirely unrelated plant by a vandal.  Seriously, check them out on google.

This is my mint plant.  It's growing like mint, which is to say like a weed.  What I didn't know was that the mint flowers are absolutely miniscule and incredibly dainty.  Totally at odds to the plant itself.

I'm including this picture because it made me laugh.  It's an ad call for engineers, but if you make them look like utter idiots why would they join your recruitment company?

Anyway, that's it for now.  I've finished some more exams, but I have some more important ones coming up (nearly finished with it all!) which is why I've not updated in a while.

I'll keep taking pictures of engrish wherever I see it though, so next update hopefully I'll have some more pics.