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Post by tangerinesun on May 19, 2016 23:08:40 GMT -5
headlines.yahoo.co.jp/videonews/fnn?a=20160519-00000191-fnn-sociYahoo News picks up a Fuji News Network report on a visit to Kumamoto, May 19th, by their Majesties the Emperor and Empress of Japan. The video footage is something to see, especially if you've ever wondered how you should receive dignitaries in your pipe-and-drape temporary living room. The elderly supreme national figureheads showed up wearing plain clothes, looking like a couple of frail, middle-class retirees. Applause on entering the school gymThey walked around here and there, standing patiently to talk and to be photographed, kneeling on hard floors. Now you're glad you stood in line to get a bath yesterday.The E&E were really there to be seen touring the Mashiki relief shelter and South Aso Village. In the news clips, they pay a visit to the South Aso Middle School gymnasium where Yahoo said 212 people are living still (down from a high of 900+). They are among the twenty percent of those most affected who've really got nothing to go back to. The Juicy Heart girl thought the occasion called for a spring bouquetHouse slippers couldn't be found for the guests. So we see the Emperor and his retinue respectfully padding around the lanes between plastic tarps in their stocking feet. They go from one family to the next, listening to stories and offering encouragement. The Empress comes close to embracing one woman, to comfort her and also just to be able to hear what she's saying. That's right, "Hang in there" she told me. I cried a lot. Peoples' reactions? They were deeply humiliated by their circumstances, and deeply gratified to be made important by two exalted personages they could never have expected to meet. One after another, they broke down in tears. At the end of the day, their Majesties headed back to Tokyo, where TV viewers at home were also aware of having some kindness in their hearts. 〜〜〜〜〜 That's already yesterday's news. There's an update daily at one of NHK's news blogs: nhk.or.jp/news/liveblog/kumamoto/index.html#detail1741
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Post by mikado-AKA-Shoknifeman on May 24, 2016 10:42:10 GMT -5
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Post by tangerinesun on May 24, 2016 15:54:48 GMT -5
Sad news from Japan, pop singer Mayu Tomita, in critical condition, after being stabbed by crazed fan... Get better, Mayu — but she needs a minor miracle. This is terribly extreme, but not isolated or even unusual. It's the limit of an obsessive fan culture that runs the gamut from posters on the bedroom wall, through angry demonstrations of displeasure like smashing a collection of artist CDs, to personal targeting of individuals. The attacker is out of his mind, but if he had been less crazy and full of hate he'd be a very good customer. It's not that the idol industry created this guy, but they *are* doing their best to make everyone just a little like him. Celebrities live with this, even relatively minor ones like Mayu. In hindsight you can say, should have hidden, should have had security, should have had police escort. But she's just a college student. Protecting herself would have stopped her whole life. I do hope the police learn something about how to tell when a real threat shows up. This guy was covered with red flags according to the news.
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Post by mikado-AKA-Shoknifeman on May 24, 2016 22:30:14 GMT -5
"I do hope the police learn something about how to tell when a real threat shows up. This guy was covered with red flags according to the news." Agreed, sadly, according to a Police statement, the Japanese stalking law is 100% toothless, until someone is actually killed! She looks as if she is a very sweet person, who never hurt anyone... If she dies, which seems likely, I hope this @#%!#% hangs!
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Post by mikado-AKA-Shoknifeman on May 25, 2016 19:52:40 GMT -5
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Post by tangerinesun on May 25, 2016 21:43:57 GMT -5
About the stalker and stalker laws in Japan... The worst of it is, the police could well have acted on the information they had. They failed to connect behavior on Twitter with real-world actions like sending packages, and they showed great deference to the stalker, who is male, while dismissing the complaints of the two women. They couldn't shut off the tweets, but they had grounds to pay a call on that guy, which might have chilled him for awhile, and also might have produced more evidence. I love the ugly-minded Texan commenter who thinks guns and personal bodyguards solve everything. He's completely crazy himself, on the evidence of what he writes.
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Post by mikado-AKA-Shoknifeman on Jun 8, 2016 1:58:06 GMT -5
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Post by tangerinesun on Jun 8, 2016 6:16:45 GMT -5
WONDERFUL NEWS!!!!! MAYU HAS REGAINED CONCIOUSNESS!!! Yeah — the police department is controlling the updates from the ICU, but they said a day or two ago that she'd been out of her coma for 3 days. How great this is, we don't know. Not being dead is usually pretty good, but the damage must be fearful. How much brain function she's got would depend. She's a singer, and we can't assume she still has her voice now. Just have to hope!
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Post by lazybone712 on Jun 10, 2016 21:51:14 GMT -5
From 2003
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Post by tangerinesun on Aug 1, 2016 16:30:30 GMT -5
teamLab★Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, JAPAN Art collective formed in 2001. team-lab.net/concept/"Referring to themselves as 'Ultra-technologists,' [teamLab aim] to achieve a balance between art, science, technology and creativity." At YouTube youtube.com/channel/UCYab90rmhVPfbrnmN-ZmwhgAt Facebook facebook.com/TEAMLAB.incOn Twitter twitter.com/teamlab_newsOn Instagram instagram.com/teamlab_news/So, you could say that teamLab Inc. is an orphanage full of solutions looking for their special problem. We have all this digital representation technology, there must be something we can use it for. In among the math and science is some old fashioned baloney. Possibly this is because teamLab think you like baloney better than math, possibly it's just keeping trade secrets, but when they describe what they're thinking they go vague in the most maddening places. At other times, they sound like the worst art history dissertation. The constant in all that they do for show is that they try to create installed environments that play with your senses and melt your mind. Some of it is just fooling around for kids of all ages. Sketch Aquarium / お絵かき水族館2013 NOV 20 by TEAMLABNET (00:49) This is an aquarium where sea creatures drawn by children come to life! Children create their own original sea creatures by using their imagination to color in an outline of a fish on a special paper designed for coloring. These sea creatures then come to life as projections that enter a virtual sea, and begin to swim about freely.
When children get close to the display, a piece of food appears before them, causing the creatures in the virtual sea to gather around it.team-lab.net/en/all/pickup/aquarium.htmlSome work is installed outdoors. Resonating Forest / 呼応する森2016 JUL 29 by TEAMLABNET (03:01) Forest trees along the lakeside are brightly lit up. The light of each tree is autonomous, slowly breathing it shines brightly and then fades.
When people pass close to the trees, the light color changes and a tone color resonates out. Then, the light of that tree radiates out and is transmitted to nearby trees. The propagated light of the trees, will again resonate, and the color tone will continue to resonate along to the next trees.
When a light resonates from deep in the forest it signifies the presence of people. Perhaps people will become more aware of the existence of other living things in the same space. team-lab.net/works/resonatingforest2016/The following belong to the major DMM.PLANETS show running though the end of August at Odaiba Aomi area, Tokyo. exhibition.team-lab.net/dmmplanets2016/en/One of their greatest hits makes use of a smartphone app for wireless control by visitors. Wander through the Crystal Universe2016 JUL 16 by TEAMLABNET (01:59) This artwork uses accumulated light points to create a sculptural body, similar to the way distinct dots of color form an image in a pointillist painting. In Crystal Universe, the particles of light are digitally controlled, and change based on the viewer’s interactivity with the work. The result is an installation consisting of an accumulation of lights, forming a sculpture that expresses the universe.
Viewers are invited to enter and walk around within the three-dimensional light space. This movement affects the light particles and creates changes in the installation. Viewers can also interact with the work by using their smartphones to select elements that make up the Crystal Universe.
While Crystal Universe is created by elements selected by the viewers, each action or change affects the other. The viewer's position within the artwork also influences how the work is created; thus, the artwork is continuously changing.For this fabulous date night activity, you wade in a milky indoor pool while digital fish trails are projected all around you in response to your movements. 2016 JUL 20 by TEAMLABNET (01:40) "Koi" swimming on the surface of the water, which extends to infinity. People can walk into the water. The swimming koi are affected by the presence of humans in the water as well as the influence of other koi. When koi collide with people, they scatter into flowers. The path the koi traverse, influenced by the presence of people, is plotted continuously.
The video is continuously depicted in real time by a computer program, not the playback of a pre-recorded movie. The entire pre-existing state is constantly transformed under the influence of viewer behavior, never to be repeated. The image of this moment cannot be seen again. team-lab.net/jp/works/koi_and_people/Another smartphone interaction installation. There might be a little post-production enhancement, but not much. This is live video of the space in operation. Floating in the Falling Universe of Flowers2016 JUL 16 by TEAMLABNET (02:20) A seasonal year of flowers bloom in this ever changing universe of flowers that spreads out into infinity in the dome art installation space.
Viewers can use their smartphones to select butterflies and release them into the flower universe.
Neither a pre-recorded animation nor on loop, the work is rendered in real time by a computer program. The interaction between the viewer and the installation causes continuous change in the artwork. Flowers are born, they grow, bud, bloom, and in time the petals fall, and the flowers wither and die. The cycle of birth and death continues in perpetuity.
Previous visual states cannot be replicated, and will never reoccur.www.team-lab.net/works/fitfuof/
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Post by thegl0r on Aug 3, 2016 0:32:42 GMT -5
Those are some nice instillations by teamlab. That forest one almost makes me want to dig out that arduino kit I've got hidden in a box somewhere then learn to use it properly for something I could put in the garden. Or perhaps I'll just get an outside light and keep switching it on and off from time to time.
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Post by tangerinesun on Aug 3, 2016 16:50:37 GMT -5
Those are some nice instillations by teamlab. That forest one almost makes me want to dig out that arduino kit I've got hidden in a box somewhere then learn to use it properly for something I could put in the garden. Or perhaps I'll just get an outside light and keep switching it on and off from time to time. Arduino or there's no point! We're building toward machine consciousness here, so we can finally give control of the world to something qualified to run it. Have your security cam post photos automatically when done.
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Post by tangerinesun on Aug 6, 2016 20:31:50 GMT -5
Another August 6 came and went in Hiroshima. There were the usual observations, with the difference that for the first time ever, a US President had recently made a delicately balanced symbolic visit to the city. Shozo Ideguchi, Yoko Suzuki, Michiko Yagi survived the nuclear bombings and their long, terrible aftermath.NHK-TV archival multimedia presentation, " The Hiroshima A-Bomb" (Japanese) Eyewitness interviews, same-day photos, hellacious illustrative CG animations. The farther removed in space and time from detonation itself, the more opinions about it vary. There's the appearance of an age gradient among Japanese citizens who get interviewed by media. The older you are, the more you agree with the idea that the bombings were a cruel necessity. The younger you are, the more you show resentment against such horrific attacks by a so-called friendly country. As a matter of national policy, young people in Japan are not formally educated about the Japanese Empire's role in its own demise. When Americans are polled, they are evenly divided about whether the atomic bombings were right or wrong, but again, most people know next to nothing of the circumstances. China and Korea have their own reasons to reject any pity toward their neighbor across the water. Show us some real accountability and then we'll talk sympathy. The Japanese government echoes the call for an end to nuclear weapons, while internally weighing the idea of its own nuclear capability. Russia, China, Taiwan, both Koreas — all are exerting steady and sometimes alarming pressure against the US-sanctioned balance of power in the region. The position of Hiroshima's mayor is the only one that make sense to me. Never mind about why such a thing happened, take a good look at how it happened and then take steps so as not to let it happen again.
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Post by tangerinesun on Aug 8, 2016 20:34:29 GMT -5
Annnnnnnd 71 years ago today, Japan Time, it was Nagasaki's turn. By simple misfortune. Because of a Mitsubishi torpedo factory, the city was a secondary objective, and the primary was under too much cloud on August 09 to target from a safe altitude. Famously, one exceptionally unlucky engineer was directly in the way of not one but two atomic bombings. Mitsubishi sent its employee Tsutomu Yamaguchi on business to Hiroshima, where he was badly wounded, but still returned to his hometown... Nagasaki... in time for a double helping. In later life, he wrote a book about his experiences and grew to be an outspoken ban-the-bomb activist. His remarkable fate became fodder for a comedy quiz show on BBC TV, which treated him as an entertaining curiosity. That caused a minor diplomatic incident in 2010. His daughter Toshiko commented on Japanese NHK TV, "I think this shows that the horror of the atomic bomb is not well enough understood in the world."
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Post by tangerinesun on Nov 24, 2016 11:33:31 GMT -5
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