With its many sensors (touch, proximity, direction, sound, camera) the iPhone has become a versatile platform for both developers and artists alike. Apps like Drum Meister, Bassist, iDrum, NLog Synthesizer, I Am T-Pain, Ocarina, and BeatMaker (to name but a few) turn the iPhone into a veritable collection of musical instruments in a single device which you may or may not look stupid using!
A friend of mine has recently opened a quaint cafe in Wonju, South Korea (1 hour from Seoul) called Apple Farm / 사과농장. It serves hot/cold drinks and light food daily in a cozy relaxed atmosphere where even well-behaved pets are allowed:
Continuing my series of quirky videos about Japanese culture here’s a beautifully executed infographic introduction to the country created from a foreigners point of view (by Kenichi Tanaka, a Japanese designer):
Apologies for the site downtime yesterday – it appears the server was having a major panic attack but hopefully things are stable for now. We’ll be moving to a new server in the near future which should hopefully improve matters. On a related note I’ve been thinking about making a few changes to Randomwire to make old content more accessible and better highlight interesting things to new visitors.
I’ve long been fascinated by the density of housing which can be found in many parts of Asia, and in particular Hong Kong where high-rise living has been taken to the extremes of both human and technological limits. I find it remarkable how people are able to adapt to their particular circumstances, be they due to space or resource constrains, and still retain their sanity (mostly).
One thing Shenzhen is not noted for is its architecture. If ever you wanted to see a vision of communist urban planning turned into a nightmare of concrete uniformity then this is the place to come. It’s like a bunch of uninspired architects were given a massive budget and then vomited a million lifeless tower blocks over green pastures turning them grey.
To get a sense of what you want to do in life a good place to start is to look at what interests you (and conversely the opposite). This is exactly what I attempted the other day when I basically made a long list of stuff I like. To make things a bit more visual I then thew the list into Wordle which generates pretty “word clouds”.
For the first time in two years since I moved to China I was struck down by a rather nasty case of food poisoning last Friday which scuppered any prior plans for the weekend. It did however leave me with plenty more time to waste surfing the www and I came across this hilarious set of videos about Japanese culture that I felt compelled to share.
Hong Kong is a mesmerizing city unlike any other. Each time I visit there’s never a lack of interesting streets to wander through and at night the mass of concrete and steel are brought to life by thousands of neon lights.