The Kimono Project was launched in August 2014 by a Japanese organization called Imagine One World. It took six years to complete over 200 custom kimono that drew inspiration from each country’s culture, history, or architectural beauty.
The 213 kimonos and obis include countries that Japan has diplomatic relations with, including Niue and Vatican City.
The kimonos and obis are not on public display, as was initially planned, due to COVID-19 restrictions. However, it is hoped that they will be shown during Expo 2025, which is due to be held in Osaka, Japan.
A full outfit for one country cost around ¥2 million ($18,300), consisting of the kimono, obi, and smaller accessories. They have all been handmade with traditional methods, each taking between one and two years to craft.
Below is the Kimono for the United States created by Yu Naruse who describes it below:
“The image of a country consisting of 50 states called “United States” is expressed by “state flowers”. Designed with the national symbol “President” as “American Eagle”. Baseball, American football, Hollywood movies, and the goddess of freedom, which Americans love, are studded in the flowers of the state, and the great presidents Lincoln and Kennedy are represented by statues and Apollo programs.”
Molly’s Game was a really interesting, though somewhat quietly splashed movie. One might attribute it’s quiet success to the fact it was a real-life crime drama released Christmas 2017 and only saw expanded releases in early 2018. Conspiracy folks might think it was kept sedate since it involves a number of very famous Hollywood actors, Wall Street figures, and politicians (that are never officially named).
The movie does an excellent job telling the dramatic and real-life events of a high stakes poker game run for several years by Molly Bloom. The most interesting facts were that very famous and powerful Hollywood actors, professional poker players, politicians, and Wall Street execs attended the games this former olympic athlete stole away from a rather unsavory Hollywood star. Told through Molly’s eyes, it shows how she uses her smarts, insight, and decisiveness to keep the game going, the toll it took, and how it ultimately ended.
While the movie itself is excellent on its own, this follow-up interview with Molly Bloom, in my opinion, is even more interesting. Give the whole interview a read for sure – because it’s something I think everyone should read about the promises of power, money, and fame.
I particularly appreciated this set of quotes:
I was absolutely addicted to the lifestyle and to the role that I played in it – being the owner, operator and bank.
I had come to the realisation, at some point in my career, that what I was doing wasn’t exactly good and that I was using creativity and intelligence to lure people into these gambling events in which a high percentage of them were gambling addicts. It started to weigh heavy on my heart but I didn’t know how to leave because I was really consumed by the money I was making and the power that I had. So I stayed, even until I saw that it wasn’t aligned with my moral code. Ultimately, that made me really spiritually sick.
Now I think that true power is being solid no matter what and not having to rely on some ‘thing’ to make you somebody.
My two brothers are extremely successful human beings. Jordan is a Harvard-educated, cardiothoracic surgeon and Jeremy is a two-time Olympian who played in the NFL and now is a CEO of a very successful tech company. It’s exciting to allocate my time and resources and skills to something that makes the world a better place. I think you can build empires doing good in the world once you’re willing to make the purpose outweigh the financial return.
Also, the sound track for the movie was really good. Here’s on of my favorites by Daniel Pemberton that plays at the end as she pleads guilty and finally turns the corner. Give it a listen when you feel like you need to start again…
3D printed houses aren’t anything new; but still on the cusps of practicality. Hadrian X has created a robot that can cut and lay the bricks of a 3 bedroom 2 bath house in 2 days; working around the clock and in all weather conditions. Limitations still appear to be that this just places bricks – it doesn’t seem to do electrical, plumbing, ducts, initial foundation/etc. But this is just one more step forward into complete automation of construction. Likely something we’ll see by the end of our lifetimes.
File this in a ‘with a grain of salt’, but odds are good there is some truth behind this research. It would be great if benchmarking tools could detect the age of your GPU and see if they can corroborate this claim.
Palit Microsystems, a Taiwan-basedgraphics card manufacturer, is reporting that graphics cards in near constant use on massively compute intensive crypto currency mining degrade in performance by about 10% each year. Most cards in these environments run 24/7 and often on extremely compute heavy workloads. Proper cooling, power delivery, accelerated silicon aging, or a host of other factors could be leading to this
The caveat empeter here is that Palit is a manufacturer of new graphics cards, and gets no money from the resale market. So, they do have an interest in encouraging users to buy new cards. Too bad it’s impossible to get them…
David Mamet films are not for everyone, but they have an unmistakable style. I remember renting The Spanish Prisoner and being fascinated by it’s styling and story. As someone that has worked at a Fortune 50 company and been privy to many a secret project or two over the years, it was a great story about working on secret projects and the shadowy possibilities of espionage and double-dealing.
While it’s not the best movie (it has some odd holes and a good dose of deus ex machina), I remember the sound track fondly as setting the mysterious mood. It’s by Carter Burwell – so give it a listen and imagine yourself in a world where you never know who is really on your side…
Have you ever wanted to visit some of the more nerdy, local, and historical attractions around London and outlying areas of England? Perhaps visiting a abandoned postal rail network used during WW2, walk strange city alleys such as the Man in the Moon, or unusual art shows, talks, tours, or events?
Ian Visits lists many interesting local attractions in and around London that make for a fascinating addition to your next trip. It updates every day – so it’s a great way to catch short running attractions. Give it a look!
I’m a huge fan of the Fighting Fantasy book created in 1982 by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. I still have a good collection of them, but my first and favorite had to be Deathtrap Dungeon.
ChrisC has a nice Youtube channel with a few good playthroughs of some of my favorite adventure books. He does a good job on his walkthroughs and is a nice, calming listen. Honestly, I don’t know why more Twitch streamers don’t read old adventure books like this and let people vote on the next choice. Perhaps there’s an idea there…
Back to the topic. My first introduction to the books was as a middle schooler and I can’t tell you how many times I checked out this white-cover Dell version of Deathtrap Dungeon. I soon found the City of Thieves, Warlock of Firetop Mountain, and many others. Before the internet, one had to visit many libraries to find more of them. There is even a great fan site that has lots of details about each book – including interesting errors.
They did a reprint series a few years back, but that has ended as well. The books can still be had on ebay, or if you’re interested in a more professional production, Eddie Marston was hired to do an interactive video series that’s had much higher production values.
