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Friday, January 23, 2009

Tiny Living Doll FOR REALS 

I heart Japanese science!!!

People at University of Tokyo created a 5-millimeter tall living doll out of living cells.


It reportedly lived for more than a day in a culture solution. The goal of the project seems to be to be able to build human tissue and organs from scratch. But what a way to start!

(via Pink Tentacle)

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posted by Christopher at 8:23 AM

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Tuesday, January 13, 2009

ューュー 500 

This weekend I did something so awesome that it deserves an X. I performed some aweXome surgery on my MacBook.

Here's some background first: I tend to name all of my computers. Usually they have something to do with pop culture. My first laptop was named Raichu. My tandem PC towers that are in my office right now are named Totoro and Voltron. These names just kinda find their way into my lexicon; I never really sit down and think, "What would be a good name for this computer?"

Except that's exactly what I did when I got my white MacBook almost 2 years ago. I thought, "I need a better way to identify it rather than just 'laptop' or 'MacBook.'" I wondered (probably because I'd been hanging out with tangentbot) what the Japanese word for computer was. So I typed "computer" into Google Translate, and it came back as コンピュータ (sorry for anyone who doesn't have Japanese character fonts installed).

With my limited knowledge of katakana (and help from Wikipedia) I figured out that コンピュータ is pronounced "konpyuta." So the Japanese word for "computer" turned out to be "computer" pronounced with a Japanese accent. I began calling my MacBook "Konpyuta," saying it with the accent and everything.

Quickly, though, with my wife and I talking about it quite a bit (mostly asking where it was and if the other one of us had it or not), Konpyuta developed a nickname: コンピューュー, or "Konpyupyu," which was very quickly shortened to simply ューュー, or "PyuPyu" (pronounced like you're shooting a tiny, cute laser pistol—"Pew! Pew!").

PyuPyu came with an 80 gig harddrive, which seemed like a lot at the time. But Carrie & I like to have a wide variety of music on hand, and I've made quite a few videos and movies for Fools Play. As you might know, audio and video are two of the most expensive things to put on a computer from a memory-hogging perspective.

When I got under 8 gigs of free space I knew it was time to do something.

So I spent my Christmas money and did this:

500GB MacBook Harddrive Upgrade for Under $100

I simply followed all the steps and it was absurdly easy. Copying PyuPyu's harddrive to the external took about two hours. Actually swapping the harddrives took about 20 minutes.

So now instead of a dwindling 8GB of dwindling space, I have in the neighborhood of 400GB to luxuriate in. That's a lot of audio. That's a lot of video. And that's plenty of space to finally be able to dual-boot with Windows XP (on my to-do list for Saturday).

To commemorate this aweXomeness, PyuPyu has been renamed "PyuPyu 500." But we still just call it "PyuPyu" for short.

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posted by Christopher at 8:58 PM

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Friday, December 19, 2008

Japan's 2008 Robot of the Year 


i-SOBOT FTW

This year's Grand Prize goes to the 6.5″ i-SOBOT, a ¥30,000 (about $300) domestic entertainment robot that can do all sorts of fun stuff and has internal gyroscopic balance sensors.

Special Jury Prize went to a GPS-equipped, autonomous, rice-planting robot.

(via Pink Tentacle)

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posted by Christopher at 7:23 AM

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Wednesday, April 16, 2008

オバッチの Jacket Lunch Box 

Whoever runs the オバッチの Jacket Lunch Box has the unusual hobby of re-creating album covers using only ordinary bento lunch box ingredients.



(via Pink Tentacle)

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posted by Christopher at 3:22 PM

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Sunday, January 13, 2008

Katsu Kraziness 

This story kinda starts a while back, quite a ways before Christmas.

I was up in Seattle hanging out with Tangetnbot's wife, waiting for him to get off work. She was prepping a dinner of pork katsu with panko bread crumbs and tonkatsu sauce. It ended up being delicious.

Then in her Christmas stocking(s), Carrie received both a bottle of tonkatsu sauce and a package of panko.

So a while after Christmas Carrie & I made chicken katsu for dinner with equally delicious results. The sauce and the crumbs were both from the inimitable Uwajimaya up in Seattle. I love Uwajimaya, but Seattle is just a bit too far away for a casual jaunt out to get some Japanese foodstuffs. So I started wondering if there were any Asian markets closer by.

A quick search told me that there was a place called East Asia Super Market (note "Super Market," not "Supermarket") just a stone's throw across I-5 from us. Tacoma Mama gives it a sterling review (Tacoma Mama is, by the way, a great resource for things in Tacoma), so I'm curious to go check it out sometime soon. I doubt it can be anywhere near as cool as Uwajimaya, but at least it's something, eh?

By the way, Tangentbot is posting some tasty recipes on his site if you wanna make some good food. He hasn't posted a katsu recipe yet, though, so here's what Carrie & I did!
Chicken Katsu
INGREDIENTS
Chicken cutlets (or chicken breast halves, pounded until they're as thin as cutlets)
All-purpouse flour
1 egg, beaten
Panko bread crumbs
Salt & Pepa to taste
Tonkatsu sauce
DIRECTIONS
  1. Set up three shallow dishes: 1 with flour in it, 1 with a beaten egg in it, and 1 with the panko in it.
  2. Season the chicken to taste.
  3. Dredge the chicken through the flower to coat, then through the egg, and then through the panko until it is thoroughly coated with bread crumbs
  4. Heat about ¼" of oil in a pan over medium to medium-high heat. Fry the chicken in the oil 3-4 minutes per side (until golden brown and cooked through)
  5. Let the chicken rest for several minutes, then slice on a diagonal (like you're julienning a carrot).
  6. Serve on a bed of steamed white rice and drizzle with tonkatsu sauce (you can add purple cabbage to the rice for even more authenticity)

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posted by Christopher at 9:28 PM

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Saturday, January 12, 2008

USAVICH 


From Japan comes a very strange CGI-animated series of shorts: Usavich. It's about two rabbits in prison. They're all under two minutes, and most-surprising of all is the fact that they have continuity! Once you get into their rhythm, they're rather hilarious.

[Found via Cartoon Brew]

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posted by Christopher at 3:41 PM

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