Japanese Analysis Search Results

News: Make Zelda's ocarina out of a carrot

From Japan hails this magical man and his homemade ocarina. First, this loveable vegetable musician plays "Song of Time", from the video game Zelda: Ocarina in Time, with perfect pitch and clarity. The catch, of course, is rather than a gourd pan flute or even a Nintendo, Mr. Heita uses a carrot. From Japan hails this magical man and his homemade ocarina. First, this loveable vegetable musician plays "Song of Time", from the video game Zelda: Ocarina in Time, with perfect pitch and clarity. T...

WTForeign Fridays: 9 Crazy Festivals from Around the Globe

In many ways, we center a large portion of our lives around festivals. They provide us days off from work, allow us time to be content with our families and loved ones, and a give us a chance to eat as much as we want without Aunt Carol saying something about our necks (it's thyroidal, Carol). However, some festivals are determined to push the needle to crazy. Here, for your consideration, are those offenders.

How To: Recognize Crowd Control - Part 3

For our final part of recognizing crowd control, we shall look at the mind. It's the most complicated thing in the universe, but also the most easily influenced. What makes us to gullible? What methods to commercials, companies and the media use to influence our position on things? These are just a few of the questions we will answer.

News: Until Project Rainfall Succeeds, We Must Hack the Wii for Xenoblade Chronicles in North America

For as much money as they've made from North American video game audiences over the years, Japanese game developers don't seem to have very much faith in them. Dozens of great titles from their 40 years in the industry have appeared in Japan and across Europe, oftentimes even in English. But they never make it over to America, like Mother 3, Last Window: Midnight Promise, Dragon Force 2, and Tobal No. 2 (that one didn't even hit Europe).

News: Bullet Hell or Bullet Heaven? The Case of Trouble Witches NEO

The Xbox 360 is America's video game system. It was designed in America, it has better market share in America than anywhere else, and it has the most overtly macho game catalog of any console. For many Xbox fanboys, gaming heaven is shooting hordes of really well-animated things in the most intuitive way possible. Trouble Witches NEO - Episode 1: Daughters of Amalgam, released last week on Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) for $10 by Japanese developer Adventure Planning Service, is a typical Xbox 360...

How To: Prevent Post-Earthquake Nuclear Meltdown in the US

After getting slammed with a crazy-big earthquake/tsunami, the Japanese nuclear plant Fukushima Daiichi might be on the brink of meltdown. Not as bad as Chernobyl, but maybe as bad as Three Mile Island. Nobody wishes such a disaster on anyone...anywhere in the world. In the US, there are about 100 nuclear facilities, about 8 of which are located near hot beds of seismic activity.

News: Shibumi

In the dojo, what ISN’T said is often as important as what IS said. To most of us who’ve been raised in the USA, the reticence we encounter in the dojo can be off-putting. American society is very “content” oriented. Our legal contracts, for instance, run for pages and pages. Everything needs to be spelled out. In “context-oriented” societies there is far less reliance on such a literal approach. Much more importance is placed on the relationship between the two parties entering into an agree...

News: Waza and The Green Room

“On this day he had lived with that feeling, with death breathing right in his face like the hot wind from a grenade across the street, for moment after moment after moment, for three hours or more. The only thing he could compare it to was the feeling he found sometimes when he surfed, when he was inside the tube of a big wave and everything around him was energy and motion and he was being carried along by some terrific force and all he could do was focus intently on holding his balance, ri...

IPsec Tools of the Trade: Don't Bring a Knife to a Gunfight

Pull up outside any construction site and you'll see tools scattered about—hammers, jigsaws, nail guns, hydraulic pipe benders—these are the tools of the trade. You would be hard-pressed to build a home or office building with just your hands! On that same page, security professionals also have their own go-to tools that they use on the job site, only their job site is your server.

How To: Don't Get Caught! How to Protect Your Hard Drives from Data Forensics

With the mass arrests of 25 anons in Europe and South America, and the rumors of an FBI sweep on the east coast of America floating around, times look dicey for hackers. Over the past few days, a lot of questions have been posed to me about removing sensitive data from hard drives. Ideas seem to range from magnets to microwaves and a lot of things in-between. So, I'd like to explain a little bit about data forensics, how it works, and the steps you can take to be safe.

News: Millenium Challenge

In 2000, the U.S. Joint Command Forces, a sort of think tank within the military, began planning a war game named Millennium Challenge. The scenario of the game was as follows: a rogue military commander had broken away from his government somewhere in the Persian Gulf and was threatening to engulf the entire region in war. He had a considerable power base from strong religious and ethnic loyalties, and he was harboring and sponsoring four different terrorist organizations. He was virulently ...

News: Analysis of the England vs. USA match

Posted with permission via HereComeTheYanks.com Ok, so my prediction of a 3-1 USA victory didn't come true. But I can honestly say that I am extremely happy with a 1-1 draw!! There were times where we looked shaky (first 15 minutes). But there were also times when we were taking it to them (Jozy's great run down the flank only to be denied by the woodwork).

News: Opening game in 3D. First impressions.

I've been curious to watch one of these famed '3D' games for a while now. Last April at NAB, I attended several 3D panels and folks from ESPN suggested that one of the strongest experiences that would bring 3D into the home would be live sports. I've missed opportunities to watch the PGA Masters broacasts, and NCAA games, but being a hardcore Soccer (Futbol) fan, I've been most excited about this possibility. It did not disappoint, but not without some concessions. I will be as detailed as po...

News: Hideo Kojima and Fox Engine Make Special USC Appearance

Hideo Kojima is one of the biggest names in Japanese game design. He's the man behind every Metal Gear game, each of which has been beautiful but divisive. He's an auteur, a rarity in AAA game design, managing business, design, and programming for Kojima Productions. Last week he made a rare public appearance at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, which contains the school's video game programs, and gave a 90-minute talk about his career, influences, and the specifics of his new Fox game design...

News: Operation Rainfall Fails to Secure Great RPGs for America... For Now

Different genres of social media have changed the world, but they are not omnipotent. In most cases this is a good thing, but not in the case of Operation Rainfall. It has been a purely well meaning social media movement that should have led to a great boon for the North American gamer public, but instead has served as a reminder of how stone aged Nintendo of America's (NOA) corporate thinking remains.

News: Want a Next-Gen Old-School Final Fantasy Game? Go Cheap. Go Cthulhu.

I was raised in the glory days of Japanese RPG's (JRPG's) on the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest were the biggest game franchises, and real gamers could debate their merits endlessly. We remained engaged in the stories of the games, even though the soldiers, princesses and schoolchildren all had spiky day-glo hair. We waded through hours of randomly triggered menu-based battles instead of playing Doom or baseball. And we loved every minute of it.

News: Truck Driver Reverse Engineers Atom Bomb, Rebuilds Little Boy

You're walking down the street, minding your own business. Then you see it—a large, bright fireball in the near distance. A tremendous heat wave speeds towards you at one thousand miles an hour, and before you can think, before you can even blink, the extremely heated wind pushes right through you. Your skin melts, your eyes liquefy—your face disappears into the wind. Before you know it, your pancreas collide with what’s left of the person next to you, your duodenum is dissolving faster than ...

How To: Fold Wet Origami

Sounds like an anomaly, right? When I was a kid folding frogs, my mother gave me origami paper that was most certainly dry. But the works below by Vietnamese-American artist Giang Dinh were folded with one *wet* piece of paper. It's a technique called "Wet-Folding", invented by the great Japanese origami master Akira Yushizawa (pictured right).

How To: Measure Radiation in Japan, Plus Other Sources of Common, Everyday Intake

In the wake of the recent tragedy in Japan, Southern Californians have been hyper alert to any news regarding dangerous levels of nuclear radiation drifting over from Fukushima. At this time, official statements from the California Department of Public Health and the EPA are assuaging the population that there is nothing to fear. While there has been some detection of radiation in the air, the current levels recorded are "thousands of times below any conservative level of concern". But despit...

News: 5 Ways You Can Help Japan's Tsunami Victims Right Now, From Your Couch

A devastating tragedy occurred in Japan on Friday when a monstrous 8.9-magnitude quake hit, causing a 10 meter (33 foot) tsunami to engulf the northeastern coast of the country. There are reports of over 1,000 people who have lost their lives, tens of thousands evacuated, and massive damage. Whether you have a lot or a little to give, here are five ways you can aid in the relief effort this very moment, without even leaving your couch.

News: Laying the Foundation pt.4

Huzzah! My sentences have been recorded! This is normally the most exciting part of beginning a language with this method, because you actually had another person do something for you that is really of great value. I remember receiving my first recording in Japanese. I listened to that thing about 100 times. I shadowed it, repeated it to my family multiple times and still hear it in my head from time to time.