Hanging by a thread

“Fukushima Daiichi Reactor No. 4 building is on the verge of collapsing… Seismicity standards rate the building at a zero, meaning even a small earthquake could send it into a heap of rubble. And sitting at the top of the building, in a pool that is cracked, leaking, and precarious even without an earthquake, are 1,565 fuel rods.” If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain, this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire that could wipe out most of the northern hemisphere; certainly it would be a massive civilization-breaking event.”

read more @ Dr. Sircus’ blog

plz also check

- a  time-lapse map of the 2053 nuclear explosions which have taken place between 1945 and 1998 created  by Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto here

- Michael Madsen’s documentary “Into Eternity”,  a walk into Onkalo nuclear waste repository, Olkiluoto, Finland.

Aftermath of the tsunami

Photo taken on April 18, Spring  2011 – one month after Japan’s massive earthquake and tsunami. From the  “Aftermath of the tsunami” series by Japanese photographer Yasuyoshi Chiba 

via spoon & tamago

Koban police box

Police station in Kumamoto, Japan designed by the Tokyo based architectural studio Klein Dytham.

via  the fox is black

You may aslo check a fabulous police sign in Chicago here

Bloom skin

Installation of 8 computer controlled fans and a single piece of fabric, created by visual design studio WOW for Issey Miyake’s S/S 2012  ELTTOB TEP collection

via spoon & tamago

Photon

LED light/ sculpture by Japanese artist Makoto Tojiki

photo by Ryo Ishihara

Eikoh Hosoe

Works from master Japanese photographer Eikoh Hosoe

Split-racing

This actually exists!!!

 

o house

Family house h in Kyoto, Japan, created by Hideyuki Nakayama (previously presented here) for Eizo Okada, editor of influential Tokyo-based design blog dezain.net
The narrow two-storey design features a fully glazed street facade that puts on display the activity of the house.
In order to create privacy while controlling the amount of natural daylight entering the interior, textile designer Akane Moriyama has custom-made a single curtain that hangs from floor to ceiling. During the evening, the slight translucency of the fabric allows the house to glow from inside out.
Check a similar project here.
More details and pics here and here.

2012dragon

Dragon head made by the Makedo‘s master maker Tanaka Satoshi

9h+58min

An absolute surreal video of a Japanese man named Masanobu Sato, the winner 2008 and 2009 Masturbate-A-Thon, held by the Center for Sex & Culture in San Francisco. Soto begins his day with a 2 hour “practice session” peacefully watching the news, while his girlfriend sews, cooks or even helps him “train” by timing him. Finally  the champion says that he likes specifically adult anime, explaining that a “real female” can be both smelly and dirty, when the women in anime are nice and clean..

via coilhouse

Karasu

From Masahisha Fukase ‘s book (1986), Karasu a.k.a. Ravens,  photographed 10 years before it was published on a trip of the artist to his birthplace, following a recent divorce.  Most shot are through the windows of a train, focusing obsessively on the flocks of ravens. The book was selected as the best photo-book of the last 25 years by The British Journal of Photograph

Vol

“Vol” is a pair of portable speakers that look like the typical hi-fi volume button, by Japanese designer Hironao Tsuboi.
Found here. More pictures here.

The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet.

Hybrid Assisted Limb(HAL) is a robotic exosceleton (a.k.a. “wearable robot”) byDr. Yoshiyuki Sankai, developed to strengthen soldiers and factory workers or to assist people with difficulties in walking.
More info, here.

To Serve and Protect

15 meters high metal statue of Tetsujin-28-go aka Gigantor, the brainchild robot of Mitsuteru Yokoyama @the quake-flattened Wakamatsu Park in Kobe, Japan.

The statue was created to symbolize the city’s recovery in the aftermath of the devastating Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995.
Found here.

Yosuke Goda

Room drawings by Japanese artist  Yosuke Goda

via bo00000om

necomimi

Necomimi by Japanese Neurowear is a hair band with sensors that pick up on brain signals and convert them into visible actions, specifically the wiggling of the cat ears.
When you concentrate, the ears point upwards and when you relax the ears flop down and forwards. I soooo want them!
Check out people trying necomimi @stores:

Found @nercore. More info and pics @wired. Links to video1 & video2