Culture Japan Night 2014 Singapore

The annual meet-up with Culture Japan's CEO, Danny Choo, is back!. Usually held the day after the large annual event Anime Festival Asia (AFA). If you do not know who he is or what is Culture Japan, please visit his website.

Danny Choo

Singapore Cosplay Club Show 2014

Held over three days from the 12th to 14th of September at Marina Square, this event was organized by the Singapore Cosplay Club. The theme for it was based on the anime/manga/game "JoJo's Bizarre Adventures"

Ora! Ora! ORA! ORA!

Istana Singapore

Istana is the Malay word for Palace. It is one of the remaining buildings from the British colonial era. It occupies an area of 106 acre (0.4 km²) along Orchard Road and is opened to the public on selected public holidays (Chinese New Year, Deepavali, Hari Raya Puasa, Labour Day and National Day).

The Main Building

STGCC 2014

Almost overdue by 1 month but what the heck, better late than never.

It was held at Marina Bay Sands on the 6-7 September. You can find the guest line-up and a short description of STGCC here. The turnout was very good but I couldn't figure out what was the theme this year (Iron Man last year). It was kind of a mixed bag. As usual, lots of toys on display as well as cosplays. Not forgetting the indie art scene which was present as well.

Star Shaped Stars?

Ever wondered why when we look at stars or a bright point light source it has pointy edges? Read on to find out.

3rd Singapore Harajuku Fashion Walk

Harajuku fashion is Japanese street fashion, a fashion style in which the wearer customizes outfits by adopting a mixture of current and traditional trends (Wikipedia). People (aka general public) usually confuse it with cosplay but it is not.

Group photo at the National museum of Singapore

ComiFest 2014 (Singapore)

ComiFest is another annual event which focuses on animation, comics and games (ACG). This is a small event which coincided with the the 49th national day of Singapore.

EOY 2014

EOY is an annual non-profit event run by local volunteers who love and are passionate about Japanese pop culture. This is my first time attending it which was held at the Marina Barrage. This event is very much focused and supported by local performers and artists.

NDP 2014

It's the time of the year again where Singapore celebrates it's national day which falls on the 9th of August. This year would be the final time where it will be held at The Float @ Marina Bay as the following year will be at the Padang and the next will be at the new Singapore National Stadium.

Guest Line-up for STGCC 2014

Singapore Toy, Games & Comic Convention (STGCC) is like Southeast Asia's Comic-con. It is also where Western and Eastern pop cultures meet. Expect lots of cosplays, toy exhibitions, comics and more. This year it will be on the 6-7 September at Marina Bay Convention Center.

Watching Clouds from the Plane

Clouds. Those white fluffy things floating in the sky. Most of the time we only get to see it from the bottom or at best a side view of them. Ever wondered what does it look like if we viewed them from the top?

A typical view from the ground

Insects: The Future of Food?

Insects have been known to be more nutritious than any livestock that is being produced and consumed. In addition, insects are much more efficient to be produced and consume less resources. Besides, they are consumed in various countries in Southeast Asia. If so, why is it that it is not widely consumed?

Funan Anime Matsuri 2014

Funan Anime Matsuri (祭り matsuri means festival) is one of the annual Japanese Pop culture events organized by Anime Festival Asia (AFA). This time, it features guest cosplayers from Taiwan, Malaysia, China, South Korea and Japan. It features the usual things such as the Maid n Butler Cafe, a Creator's Hub for local artists, an area for merchandises such as figurines and titbits from Japan and an area for card games.

Sound at Work

Presented at TEDxCannes around the theme of "Happiness and Business", an interesting talk by Julian Treasure regarding sound at work and how it affects the people within the workspace. Design is heavily biased towards appearances but not much towards what we hear. He used various sounds during his talk to demonstrate the effect that we usually just brush off, suppress, ignore or get as far away possible from the sound that we do not like.

Women/Females are Stripey!

No, I am not being sexist here. This is a fact. This short video by Veritasium explains it.

Alan Lim on Street & Travel Photography

This is a follow up to the previous post on copyright but nothing to do with copyright. Alan Lim is one of Singapore's well known photographers especially for his work in street and travel photography. He is also the founder of the School of Photography Singapore and Eleven Photography. Check out his works here.

Alan Lim

First Info-Connect Session on Photography

Organized by the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS), it is an initiative by the Singapore Government to educate the public on intellectual property. In this case, copyright for images and photographs. Before saying that it is going to be boring, have you ever thought what are your rights or what rights do you have on your photos?

Those black lines are monitor bezels.

Gigapixel Macro

Up until now, I have only heard of and seen Gigapixel panoramas. Gigapixel panoramas are basically a stitch and combination of multiple individual photographs. Gigapixel panoramas allows you to zoom in to very detailed areas of a scene.

Asia Cosplay Meet 2014

This event was held in conjunction with the DBS Marina Regatta 2014 dubbed 'Singapore's biggest water sports festival' over two days. I was only able to attend for the final day because of other things that I had to attend to. You can find out more about the main event here.

Timelapse at the Grand Canyon by Gavin Haffernan

This timelapse video by Gavin Heffernan from SunchaserPictures is just amazing. Shot at Grand Canyon National Park with stunning Milky Way shots together with star trails.

New Wide Angle Lenses from Canon

Canon has just announced two new wide angle lenses: EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM and EF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 IS STM.

So, now you can kiss Miku...

If you do not know who Hatsune Miku is, you can read it up here. In short, Miku is a humanoid persona voiced by a synthesizer or also known as a vocaloid. She is just one of the MANY vocaloids that are available (Full list here). I believe she is the most popular of them all. In addition, Lady Gaga is currently on her Artpop Ball tour together with Miku!

Song About Ramen

I am sure there are quite a number of songs about food, but this one by Otsuka Ai is quite catchy and funny at the same time. Yes it's an old song and don't ask me how I some how stumbled across it.

Enjoy the miso, shoyu, ramen & to-to-tonkatsu...ssllluuurrrrpps!

Astronomers Discovers Sun's 'Sibling'

Astronomers from the University of Texas announced that they have discovered the 'sibling' of our star. The team lead by Ivan Ramirez has identified the 'sibling' star is most likely formed from the same gas and dust cloud as our sun from 30 candidate stars. The identified star is HD162826, located in the constellation of Hercules at a distance of ~34 parsec (~110 light years) from us. It is an F-type dwarf star about 15% more massive than our sun and it can be observed using small/medium sized telescopes. They have also ruled out any possibility of hot-Jupiter planets, a high chance (2/3) that there are no Jupiter sized planets but could not rule out any smaller size planets.

Violin String in Slow-mo

This is my first time watching a violin string in action in slow motion. The vibrating string looks like it is going to snap at the bridge just from bowing! It was really unexpected.

And you just 'wasted' 3 minutes of your life.
Seen on Gizmag