Japanese student creates Traditional Japan Bicycle

Lattice work seen in tea ceremony rooms finally gets to see the city streets.

Japan is often viewed as a glorious amalgamation of the old and the new, where hoodies are designed to look like traditional kimono and ukiyo-e prints feature Star Wars characters.

This restyling of old traditions is something that recently inspired one talented Japanese student to realise his own take on “Modern Japan” by building the bicycle of his dreams.

Setting it as an end-goal for his graduation project, Enji, who goes by @enjiblossomlily online, says he has now fulfilled his task of “melding a bicycle with a traditional craft”, and the result is this spectacular two-wheeler below.

Source: Japanese student creates Traditional Japan Bicycle, brings new life to centuries-old craft | SoraNews24 -Japan News-

Nicoco – Shanghai During Coronavirus Outbreak

My objective for this series was to capture the feeling of apocalyptic emptiness. Some of the photos may look as if they were captured at strange early morning hours, but as a collection, it seeks to reinforce there were no people, anywhere.These are Shanghai’s busiest locations that can compare to Times Square in New York City, Big Ben in London, the Bean in Chicago, or the Washington Monument in DC. They are very popular on an average day, and very, very popular during holidays as domestic tourists and residents spend time with their families and check out festive displays, shop, or just meander around.

You can find the photos on her Instagram.

Source: Ghost City Photos of a Usually Bustling Shanghai During Coronavirus Outbreak

Rotary Cellphone – Justine Haupt

Why a rotary cellphone? Because in a finicky, annoying, touchscreen world of hyperconnected people using phones they have no control over or understanding of, I wanted something that would be entirely mine, personal, and absolutely tactile,while also giving me an excuse for not texting.

The point isn’t to be anachronistic. It’s to show that it’s possible to have a perfectly usable phone that goes as far from having a touchscreen as I can imagine, and which in some ways may actually be morefunctional. More functional how?

  • Real, removable antenna with an SMA connector. Receptions is excellent, and if I really want to I could always attach a directional antenna.
  • When I want a phone I don’t have to navigate through menus to get to the phone “application”. That’s bullshit.
  • If I want to call my husband, I can do so by pressing a single dedicated physical key which is dediated to him. No menus. The point isn’t to use the rotary dial every single time I want to make a call, which would get tiresome for daily use. The people I call most often are stored, and if I have to dial a new number, or do something like set the volume, then I can use the fun and satisfying-to-use rotary dial.
  • Nearlt instantaneous, high resolution of signal strength and battery level. No signal metering lag, and my LED bargraph gives 10 increments of resolution instead of just 4.
  • The ePaper display is bistatic, meaning it doesn’t take any energy to display a fixed message.
  • When I want to change something about the phones behavior, I just do it.
  • The power switch is an actual slide switch. No holding down a stupid button to make it turn off and not being sure it really is turning off or what.

So it’s not just a show-and-tell piece… My intent is to use it as my primary phone. It fits in a pocket.; It’s reasonably compact; calling the people I most often call is faster than with my old phone, and the battery lasts almost 24 hours.

Source: Justine Haupt