Earlier this week I mentioned the upcoming North American theatrical release of Your Name, and included the main theme by RADWIMPS. I thought this was a good opportunity to share a few other of their many songs, the first of which is the 2017 version of Iin Desu Ka, AKA Is That OK?, recorded just a few weeks ago. The next track is KigÅ to Shite or As a Sign from December of 2015, the third is their 2009 song The Mind, the last is 2011’s With You and Sheep and Blue, or close to that. The band’s been around since 2001 and got their first major record deal in 2005, and have released a lot of music over the years. If you like what you hear, there is a lot more of it to track down and listen to.
Terrestrial Human
Over at Deviant Art the creator Breath Art has posted some excellent images of the Planets as Stained Glass in his Solar System series. I am putting a few here to give you the idea, you can click one to go directly to that images page. These are absolutely amazing, you should go take a look at the entire collection.
solar system:Saturn by breath-art on DeviantArt
solar system:Jupiter by breath-art on DeviantArt
The folks at Blitab have created a tablet with a touch screen to search and select with, but it is not the main display. Instead it translates text from the Web and other digital sources into Braille at about 65 words per display (depending on what you are reading). There have been Braille display devices for a while, but they have been limited to a single line which can only hold about 5 words on average by moving rigid pins up and down to form each letter. They also cost thousands of dollars. The Blitab Braille display uses layers of fluids and a special proprietary membrane they aren’t talking about to form an entire screen’s worth of words, and when they finish refining it they plan to put it on sale in the fall for around $500. Using it 8 hours a day to read will give you a battery life of 5 days, a discharge rate I wish my own tablet could match. This has the potential to open up a lot of the online world and its resources to the visually impaired at an affordable price in a way that has never been available to them before. There is a similar project in development at the University of Michigan, but so far it is mostly in the research stage. Thanks to the MIT Technology Review for the heads up on this one.
Japan’s number 1 film of 2016 was Your Name from Makoto Shinkai, and it will be in movie theaters in the US beginning on April 7th. Funimation Films is presenting it, with the options of seeing it in the original Japanese with English subtitles, or with an English language soundtrack. If you don’t know Makoto Shinkai, you have probably already seen one of his groundbreaking animations, such as 5 Centimeters Per Second or the Children Who Chase Lost Voices, or the amazing Voices of a Distant Star which he did entirely himself. He is being referred to as the Next Miyazaki by a number of critics and reviewers around the world, and he has also written novels, stories, and Manga, and helped create video games. If this movie is playing anywhere near you, you should absolutely check it out. Did I mention the RADWIMPS had a hand in the soundtrack for this one, and are translating four of their songs into English for the English language version? I added the full length version of Zenzenzense as the last video in this post, the tease in the trailer was not enough.
This weekend you can swing by the UK’s National Space Centre for an out of this world experience featuring the Science of the Time Lords exhibit. On the 28th and 29th they will be doing a presentation about the science behind the UK’s most popular TV franchise, Doctor Who. Each year they set up a fun family weekend where they look at the fact behind the fiction of this iconic program, and this time they are focusing on the core concept of the show: Time Travel and the ultimate Time Lord vehicle, the TARDIS! The schedule includes workshops, competitions, challenges, talks, exhibitions, and so much more. The exhibits I would most like to see in person include the fully realized recreation of the 1978 TARDIS Control Room from the Tom Baker era, and the Members of the UK 15th Cyber Legion showing off their costumes and detailing how you can create your own. From my perspective, the only down side to these events are the fact that they will be happening on a continent different from the one I live on. I intend to do my best to attend next year, though!
The winner this week has to be Kung-Fu Yoga, Jackie Chan in a comedic adventure that is a joint venture between Bollywood and Chinese film production companies. And yes, that does mean he gets to sing and dance in this one, as shown in the trailer I just recently posted. It should be playing in large multiplexes in major cities, particularly AMCs. If you are not lucky enough to have it playing near you, in wide release Resident Evil: The Final Chapter may finally close out that story arc. There is also the family fantasy A Dog’s Purpose, about a reincarnating K9.