Chris Covell posted images and translations of Stars of Famicom Games, a children’s book showing how Nintendo games were made, from start to finish. The book focused on the making of Super Mario Bros. 3, and includes shots of Miyamoto, developers and artists. He also posted scans from a book about Dragon Quest VI.
If You Knew Sushi examines the world’s biggest seafood market, where a bluefin tuna can fetch the price of a small home. Japanese fish buyers have a finely honed craft.
“I tell you, Nicky, these Japanese guys, they take a little, thin slice from the tail, hold it to the light, look at it for a minute, then make an offer. God knows what they see.”
What the Japanese buying agent determines by his quick and practiced analysis of that sliver of tail is an indication of the tuna’s inner color, its oil content, and the presence, if any, of parasitic disease. A smooth-grained and marbled tail is a prime indication of quality. The richness of the tuna’s lipid content, its fat, can be gauged by how slippery the slice of tail feels between the fingers. Pockmarks reveal parasites. It’s a complex diagnostic method that is mastered only with years of practice. The overall form and color of the tuna are also quickly assessed at the same time. The ideal of these qualities, inner and outer—the word for this ideal is kata—is also a bit of a mystery to outsiders.
A team of researchers from Cornell, University of Chicago and iRobot, have created a robot gripper that can pick up almost any small object. It uses the jamming of particulate material inside an elastic bag to hold on to things, as opposed to traditional designs modelled around the human hand.
The gripper consists of a rubber membrane around a granular material that can form around objects, then grab them when a vacuum pump is used to harden the material. The gripper was designed to allow robots to pick up various objects without a lot of computational overhead.
A visualization of the American soft drinks industry. Despite the apparent abundance of choice, three firms control 89% of the market.
Eightface is a weblog by Dave Kellam. It's largely just a collection of links to things I find interesting, with some attempts at pithy commentary interspersed.