Two of the slickest magicians in the business attempted to break the Guinness World Records title for the Most costume change illusions in one minute by an individual…(Read…)
Fail Army presents a cringe-inducing roundup of the best and funniest fail videos that hit the Internet during the month of September 2016…(Read…)
Tony Hawk special tricks in real life..(Read…)
It’s called “coprophagia,” and lots of dogs do it…(Read…)
Hello Neighbor is a Stealth Horror game where you sneak into your neighbor’s house. You play against an advanced AI that counters your every move…(Read…)
It promises to be a memorable acceptance speech tonight at Michigan’s Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center. Gary Graff, a long time Detroit-based music journalist who has written for publications ranging from Billboard to The New York Times, is set to receive the BBAC’s 2016 Cultural Arts Award at a ceremony beginning at 6 p.m. ET.
Ahead of the honor, Jay Grossman, a reporter for USA Today’s hometownlife.com, shared a very entertaining Q&A. Graff ranks Bruce Springsteen and Bob Seger at the top of his favorite stars to interview, and also honestly answered when asked which were some if his least-favorite interviews:
“There was the two-minute exchange with Rickie Lee Jones, after which we mutually decided this was not going to work. And Brian Wilson remains a great frustration; A truly brilliant artist and national treasure, but someone who’s so damaged that there’s no hope of getting any real insight out of him.”
Graff just wrote again about Wilson. He also in the Q&A references, several times, a “drinking adventure” with Keith Richards. The Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center was founded in 1957 with a mission to support local visual arts.
This is hilarious, and a prime example of how Japan is able to perfectly blend old and new things to create unique experiences: They’ve got a virtual reality videogame called “Fear of Heights” where your sole mission is to rescue a cat that has crawled onto the edge of a plank protruding from a skyscraper. Here’s what the player sees:
Here’s what they’re actually doing:
Note the stuffed catIf it’s not clear from the photo, the board isn’t quite fixed, but is laid atop unsteady supports that provide wobble. Coupled with the VR, it’s as low-tech and as hi-tech as you can get.
Now imagine you’re the designer of a virtual reality videogame with more action, like a first-person zombie shooter set in a hospital. The issue is that players can get so wrapped up in the action that they can lose their balance, get nauseous, fall and possibly injure themselves. How do you solve this?
In this case, the designers’ brilliant solution was to safely relegate the players to a wheelchair that they self-control with a joystick. For the able-bodied person unaccustomed to such limitations, this increases the terror factor of the zombie setting. And it means that wheelchair users that have the use of their hands get to play the game, too.
These are just a couple of the innovations enjoyed by attendees of videogame arcades in Japan. In the following video, George Weldman of the Super Bunnyhop channel runs through a bunch of them and explains some of the cool interfaces. He also puts on his sociologist hat and puts forth a theory for why arcades in Japan enjoy a popularity not seen elsewhere, based on the existence of both a comprehensive train system and a cash economy:
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