DLG Gütesiegel in japanese TV commercials

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

Catching up to some YouTube things during dinner made us see a Japanese TV commercial sporting the German DLG quality seal. Funny to see that these kind of quality seals carry over even to Japan…

The German Agricultural Society (Deutsche Landwirtschafts-Gesellschaft), commonly known as DLG, is an international non-profit organisation for agricultural industry in Germany. DLG was founded in 1885 by Max Eyth, has over 23,000 members as of 2011 and is headquartered in Frankfurt am Main. Its main purpose is to promote technical progress and scientific advances in the food and agricultural industry, including setting standards.

DLG

Earth, Moon, Spaceship.

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

As you might know humans are going to go “back to the moon“. At least when you ask a certain eCommerce mogul.

We have been there already. 40+ years ago. And since then we have unlearnt how to do it.

Just to give an impression of what we as humans where capable to achieve 40 years ago:

Moon (below), Apollo 16 Command Module (left), Earth (right)

There’s a whole collection of these photos freely available for further digging. Go there and spend a day!

Imagine: Humans flew there and back. With 60s tech. What can we do now when we want it?

Of course. The important bit is not really flying there and back. The most important thing for me is perspective.

Look at that small blue-white marble. We should reset our perspectives regularly.

80s code editor theme

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

The beginning of the decade saw the continuation of the clothing styles of the late 1970s and evolved into heavy metal fashion by the end. However, it had a lot of changes considering that, this fashion became more and more extravagant during the 80s.

The 80s included things like teased hair, ripped jeans, neon clothing and lots of colours and different designs which at first weren’t accepted for a lot of people.

Popular Culture in the 80s

Do you remember that endless summer back in ’84? Cruising down the ocean-highway with the top down, the wind in our hair and heads buzzing with neon dreams?
No, I don’t remember it either, but with this experimental theme we can go there.

Synthwave’84 theme

Things you do with Microsoft Excel

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

Many of us are happy when they can accomplish the most simple tasks with Excel without pulling their own hair out.

And then there are these people who do something entirely different with Excel:

Excel Unusual

Finding engineering work quite unchallenging lately I decided to start this blog in which to share cool ways of solving engineering problems or just interesting modeling of natural phenomena in MS Excel 2003. I use mainly cell formulas with minimum of VBA in order to take advantage of the ease of “programming” and the native speed of the Excel spreadsheet.

http://www.excelunusual.com/

“Around Tokyo” project

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

If you are interested in even some older video recordings, pictures and impressions about some areas of Tokyo this is a good time-sink for you.

Lyle Saxon has several old-fashioned looking websites (wonderful) with lots and lots of browsing content as well as a YouTube channel with recordings from earlier times:

Tokyo resident since 1984. Video material from 1990-93, as well as newer material from 2008 onwards.

The “Around Tokyo” project was and is to document life in Tokyo and the surrounding areas, as well as some material from other areas of Japan.

YouTube Channel

QR codes – how do they work?

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

I came across a very nice explanatory piece for QR codes. If you always wanted to know the basic principles this is a good chance to get a grasp.

QR code (abbreviated from Quick Response Code) is the trademark for a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional barcode) first designed in 1994 for the automotive industry in Japan. A barcode is a machine-readable optical label that contains information about the item to which it is attached. In practice, QR codes often contain data for a locator, identifier, or tracker that points to a website or application. A QR code uses four standardized encoding modes (numeric, alphanumeric, byte/binary, and kanji) to store data efficiently; extensions may also be used.[1]

Wikipedia
Robomatics QR code explanation

I am using QR codes in several of my projects – one example: Miataru uses QR codes to encode the device ID and help with the device handshake. You scan the QR code of your friend with your Miataru client app and immediately will be able to see his location in Miataru. Without the need to enter long rows of numbers.

from now on console emulation will look much better

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

A modder going by the handle DerKoun has released an “HD Mode 7” patch for the accuracy-focused SNES emulator bsnes. In their own words, the patch “performs Mode 7 transformations… at up to 4 times the horizontal and vertical resolution” of the original hardware.

The results, as you can see in the above gallery and the below YouTube video, are practically miraculous. Pieces of Mode 7 maps that used to be boxy smears of color far in the distance are now sharp, straight lines with distinct borders and distinguishable features. It’s like looking at a brand-new game.

ArsTechnica

procedural generated traditional Chinese landscape scrolls

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

{Shan, Shui}* is inspired by traditional Chinese landscape scrolls (such as this and this) and uses noises and mathematical functions to model the mountains and trees from scratch. It is written entirely in javascript and outputs Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format.

https://github.com/LingDong-/shan-shui-inf

This is quite impressive and I am thinking about pushing that into the header of this blog :-) It’s just too nice looking to pass on.

file from the far future

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

I ran a VVV job to catalog a storage array I have. To my surprise at least one file had a very very strange timestamp:

Apparently the file in question was generated on an action cam which had lost its correct date and time setting at the time of recording…

The tool I am using to catalogue the storages is also worth a mention:

VVV is an application that catalogs the content of removable volumes like CD and DVD disks for off-line searching. Folders and files can also be arranged in a single, virtual file system. Each folder of this virtual file system can contain files from many disks so you can arrange your data in a simple and logical way.
 
VVV also stores metadata information from audio files: author, title, album and so on. Most audio formats are supported.

about VVV

let AI convert videos to comic strips for you

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

Artificial Intelligence is used more and more to achieve tasks only humans could do before. Especially in the areas that need a certain technique to be mastered AI goes above and beyond what humans would be able to do.

In this case a team has implemented something that takes video inputs and generates a comic strip from this input. Imagine it to look like this:

Input
Output

In this paper, we propose a solution to transform a video into a comics. We approach this task using a
neural style algorithm based on Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs).

Paper
click to read the paper

They even made a nice website you can try it yourself with any YouTube Video you want:

“Kowloon Walled City” themed arcade in Kawasaki (あなたのウエアハウス)

Posted on by Daniel Kirstenpfad

While we were visiting Japan we usually stay quite close to Kawasaki. And with some hints we found that a replication of “Kowloon Walled City” had been put up as a video game arcade there.

Kowloon Walled City was a largely ungoverned, densely populated settlement in Kowloon City, Hong Kong. Originally a Chinese military fort, the Walled City became an enclave after the New Territories was leased to Britain by China in 1898. Its population increased dramatically following the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War II. By 1990, the walled city contained 50,000 residents within its 2.6-hectare (6.4-acre) borders. 

Wikipedia: Kowloon Walled City
OpenStreetMap

A partial recreation of the Kowloon Walled City exists in the Anata No Warehouse, an amusement arcade that opened in 2009 in the Japanese suburb of Kawasaki, Kanagawa. The designer’s desire to accurately replicate the atmosphere of the Walled City is reflected in the arcade’s narrow corridors, electrical wires, pipes, postboxes, sign boards, neon lights, frayed posters, and various other small touches that 

Wikipedia: Anata No Warehouse

I did not know a lot about the Kowloon Walled City before we found this arcade. And it’s – as you can imagine – a very colorful reproduction of the ambiance that you – according to documentations and reports from the time – would have experienced. Especially in the entrance area, the theming of the rooms and some game cabinets as well as for example the rest-rooms.

Of course there is a full blown quite nice but – as it is good custom – extremely noisy arcade in there as well. We’ve easily ‘lost’ 3 hours in there. Be aware that smoking is allowed in these places in Japan.

The first floor contained the UFO catcher machines and a good portion of vintage and modern arcade cabinets. I’ve had a go and Gradius and greatly enjoyed it. There’s a battery of Mech-Pods as well as racing and rythm games.

The second floor had lots of pachinko and other medal and slot machines. Even more noise than any arcade cabinets could do.

The third floor finally contains Dart and Snooker / Billard tables.

All in all it was one of the nicer arcades. Much nicer than others because there was a lot more room. It did not feel half als claustrophobic as an arcade usually feels in Japan.