8bitkick is a deck of 42 printed cards featuring photos of retro computers (and also a Raspberry Pi that got thrown into the mix because it’s cute). In order to create the product a Kickstarter campaign started with a funding goal of $750.

The campaign ended a few hours ago. The amount raised? $12,233. About 16 times the amount needed. Looks like there are a few of us (retro computer enthusiasts) out there.

Oh, I forgot to mention: one of the cards features the Ferrari of 8-bit computers: a red Sony HB-101:

You may have seen this photo somewhere before. :-)

All cards will be freely available for download after they’ve been produced.

Relevant link: http://www.8bitkick.cc

I had these very old photos lying around and scanned them. This was my desk in my room around 1993. The computer on the left is an MSX2 (a Philips NMS 8280). The other one is a Commodore Amiga 500 with a 1084S display.

On the shelf to the right there were a few boxes of floppy disks containing several hundreds of them. (Click to enlarge)

Philips NMS 8280 with an FM-PAC clone and Philips’ Music Module. I used the cassette deck to amplify the sound from the MSX2. (Click to enlarge)

How about yours? Do you also have photos of your old computers?

Well, not really. It’s just the Humax Pabillion building.

The Aoyama Cemetery (青山霊園, Aoyama Reien) is located in central Tokyo, very close to Roppongi. It’s huge (263,000 squared meters according to Wikipedia), and it is completely open to the public at all times. It was founded in 1872 and it is Japan’s first public cemetery.

It has a foreign plot (外人墓地, gaijin bochi) near the center where many foreigners and their descendants are buried,  but the most popular grave is Hidesaburo Ueno’s, owner of Hachiko. I’m sure you’ve heard his story already, but in case you haven’t, here’s a short summary:

Hidesaburo Ueno was a professor in the Tokyo Imperial University in the early 1900s. In 1924 he adopted Hachiko, an Akita dog, as his pet. Every morning on the way to work they walked together to the Shibuya station, and every evening Hachiko went to the station to wait for Professor Ueno’s return from work.

They continued this routine daily until May 1925, when the Professor didn’t return. He had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died. For the next nine years, Hachiko kept coming to the same spot every day to wait for Ueno’s return, until he too died on March 8th, 1935, aged 11.

There’s a bronze statue of Hachiko in the spot where he waited every evening. This is without doubt the most popular meeting spot in Tokyo.

Hachiko is not actually buried in the Aoyama Graveyard (his stuffed remains are exhibited in the National Museum of Nature and Science in Ueno), but there’s a small shrine dedicated to Hachiko inside the plot of Professor Ueno’s grave, and also a commemoratory pylon just outside the plot.

In late December 2013 I moved to a new apartment just a few minutes walking from the graveyard. Having nothing to do during New Year, I took my camera and went for a walk in the afternoon.

Download full resolution photos (144 MB)

Remember that all my photos are released as public domain. You’re welcome to use them for any purpose, whether commercial or not. Attribution is always welcome, but it’s not required.

Keep reading to see the photo gallery.

Nikko is a town, in Tochigi, a few hours by train to the north of Tokyo. It is mainly known for the Nikko National Park (日光国立公園, Nikko kokuritsu koen) and for Toshogu, the mausoleum of shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa, first of the Tokugawa shoguns. The shrines and temples of Nikko have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Toshogu itself is a very brightly decorated Shinto shrine deep inside a complex of shrines and temples inside the Nikko National Park. You can enter the shrine, but they don’t allow taking photos inside.

Walking in this area almost makes you feel as if you’re a couple hundred years back in time, if it wasn’t for the hordes of visitors and automatic vending machines. It is in my opinion one of the most beautiful places in Japan and I enjoy going there from time to time.

Keep reading to see the photos…

I’m at the Glass Building in the Tokyo International Forum right now. I can’t describe how much I love this place. I’ve traveled a bit, and so far this is the building I like the most.

From the outside this building looks like a gigantic ship hull made of glass, steel, concrete and wires. From the inside it feels as if you’ve been swallowed by a huge skeletal whale, or perhaps an alien spaceship. It stands seven floors above the ground, with a huge glass façade on one side, and conference rooms on the other. It also has two more floors underground, the first one connecting to the train and subway lines, and the second one housing a conventions center.

I’m standing now in the top floor. There’s a very nice Chinese restaurant here. It’s probably very expensive too. From here I can hear the sound the steel wires make as they handle the tensions of the building frame moving this way and that with the wind. There’s almost no other sound, other than the trains running outside towards Tokyo station and the strokes of a bell coming from the Yurakucho station.

This place both inspires and relaxes me. I could stay here the whole day just thinking.

If only there was a damn place to sit.

I live within walking distance to the Arakawa River in the northern border of Tokyo. The river acts as the border between the Tokyo metropolis and the Saitama prefecture. As in other parks and natural spaces in the city, there are always people jogging, cycling, praticing baseball, and even water skying! The well-known Sumida River branches from the Arakawa not far from where I live. It flows into Tokyo Bay near the Kasai-Rinkai Park next to Tokyo Disneyland.

I took these last year, during a walk a beautiful summer afternoon.

The photos are after the break.

Hakone is a mountainous area about 100km south-west of Tokyo. It is a very popular touristic destination because of its many onsen, beautiful scenery and its proximity to Tokyo. You can get there easily by train (JR East or Odakyu).

Hakone is one of my favorite places around Tokyo. I visit there from time to time, but I like it especially in winter. One of the best experiences you can have is being at a rotenburo (an open-air hot spring bath) while it’s raining or even snowing

More after the break.

Yokohama – Japan’s First Port City

In 1859, the Edo period came to a close and Japan opened itself up for foreign trade.  It chose the tiny fishing village of Yokohama to be its main port city.  Yokohama grew from a population of 600 to become what it is today – Japan’s second largest city.  It’s a beautiful city with its mix of architectural styles, spacious feeling, and internationalism.

More after the break.

Imagine that you’re a professional photographer: you earn money by taking photos and licensing them to customers who want to use them. One day while browsing the web you find a web site using one of your commercial photos illegally. You wonder how many people are doing the same, so you run an online search and find out that there are many, many web sites using your photo illegally.

You want these people to stop using your work. You could try and contact each of the web site owners, but you know that it’s going to be pointless because most don’t have contact information, or the contact person doesn’t have access to the web code, or they will just ignore you. You decide to send DMCA takedown notices to the companies hosting each of these web sites, so they will get in touch with their customers and ask them to remove your photo from their web sites.

As a result of the DMCA takedown requests, many of the web sites remove your photo, others offer to license it, as they should have done from the beginning. It seems to be going well.

Until a crazy psychotic person enters the scene.