Tag: english

last.fm discover

December 14, 2011
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You might or might not be aware how seriously i’m addicted to last.fm. Actually i’m rather addicted to music and i love statistics, so last.fm is just the perfect place for me. No surprise it’s always open in a browser tab and it’s among the top visited sites in all my browsers. However, i’m not subscribed, because the only reason i could imagine doing that is the Radio feature, but the times i tried it, it simply didn’t work so well. After 2-3 songs suddenly something totally out-of-place would pop up and i’d rather close it and return to my own library.

But now it’s all changed with seeing one single tweet. Last.fm announced the launch of their new service called Discover. It claimed that it’ll help me find me new favorite artist–and truth be told, it has the best of chance to do so. Unlike the Radio, i haven’t seen anything here indicating a limit on songs i can listen for free, and i definitely do love discovering new and/or underground bands. It works based on tags, so there might be some songs that seem out of place, but then i can just click “something different” to find something more to my taste or “more like this” if i liked something.

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Dear eBay

December 12, 2011
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You pissed me off. Really badly.

But first the backstory. A friend of mine, who helped me out greatly at the end of november when i was in the deepest pitch of financial crisis, asked me to get something for her from eBay. I have a PayPal account, and thanks to recent (and unexpected though very appreciated) donations and my translation payments, i have a non-negative balance on it, so i could help her.

The item in question was a refurbished 16GB HP Touchpad tablet on $100 sale. The sale was announced to start at 1800 central, and i was right there at the start line. And then eBay decided not to work. The “Buy now” button just wouldn’t work and the javascript console showed that it’s because the “back-end servers reached maximum capacity”. Then when i finally got past that it and tried to add the address of an american friend who was kind enough to agree to help, not even the “change” or “add adress” links would work. By the time i could get it to react at all, of course the item sold out. But after a quick exchange of mails i tried to get the 32GB version for 150 bucks, but the site again simply refused to react to the “Buy now” button. After over an hour of trying i gave up, went to the gym, and by the time i got back of course it was sold out as well. All variants.

So let me put this shortly: a leprous elk fuck you in the arse with its spiked bloody cock, dear eBay. Get your service working or fuck off.

That developer

December 9, 2011
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I don’t know how i managed to, but last week when i was speed-deving the new homepage for my club, i actually wrote it in a way that proved to be very efficient and with this i could avoid the biggest problem of developing the blog engine. That is, i simply couldn’t concentrate long enough, because after a while some weird problems started popping up from the MVC separation and the OOP, and at the same time it took enormous effort to get any output from the template.

With this new way i not only keep the whole thing more or less completely OOP, but i think MVC are separated well enough as well. Not to mention that the way i’m handling the nesting and inheritance of objects, i can get output from it in a very early stage, which makes debugging easier, lets me see design problems early on and also motivates me to actually finish the code. Which means that this might be the first time in god only knows how many attempts these past six years to rewrite the blog engine that i could get it done.

I’m so excited.

Misfits

December 7, 2011
radiátor
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So many people online-around me went on and on about how awesome and great and so on the british series called Misfits is, i gave in to the temptation and checked it. Must say it really is.

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The best anime of 2011, cont.

December 7, 2011
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I decided to put the one-shots and movies separetely… Though it’s only one one-shot and one movie i’d like to write about.

Just yesterday i translated Kyosogiga. It was… Well, it was quite unexpected. Reading the description on the charts i was expecting something like Yozakura Quartet (an anime i loved), but instead i got an anime scarily similar to FLCL (an anime i loved). The word puns are way tougher than anything even in Bakemonogatari. It was awesome, even if i’ve to admit that my translation is probably quite far from perfect. (Also, i’d like to shout out a big “fuck you” to the japanese people who scanned the hand-outs from the screening with the ED lyrics and uploaded only a thumbnail of it. I lack the required perk to catch any of that engrish crap.) If it was a series and not just a one-shot, it’d be on the top.

The other one is the movie Mardock Scramble. I haven’t actually translated it, just checked the translation, but that amazing cyberpunk sci-fi world was just… too great. I really can’t wait to watch the second movie in the series, and if it’s going to be just as awesome as the first one, chances are i couldn’t stop watching it on loop (just like i couldn’t stop watching for example the 2009 Star Trek movie). If you haven’t seen it yet, you must.

The best anime of 2011

December 7, 2011
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This year i haven’t really watched any anime i wasn’t working on. Luckily i worked on quite a few, so let me just write down which ones i enjoyed the most. Before anyone mentions Star Driver, which is obviously the best anime of the past 4 seasons, i don’t count that as 2011 since it started in 2010.

The first one i worked on was Gosick. I only translated the first five or so episodes, then watched another five or so, and then forgot about it completely. The next was Madoka, which i translated from episode 9 on, and it was fun, but looking back it’s a bit too insane for my tastes. It was the big hit of the year for sure though.

Then came a lot of stuff at once. C, Hen Zemi, Denpa Onna, Blue Exorcist. C could have been the best, because the whole idea and all the economy stuff was very close to me (studying economy), but the story and the ending was crap squared. Hen Zemi was pure fun, and the kind of fun i’d rather not show to kids before they could appreciate it (and thanks to this series i got to know the awesome band 横浜銀蝿), but i can’t really say it was the best. Neither was Ao no Exorcist, which turned out to be a bit too general shonen anime with a very weird ending. I’m still reading the manga though.

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Why Guilty Crown is crap

November 23, 2011
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tl;dr version: the main character is as annoying as nothing i’ve ever seen before.

Longer version: the main character is as annoying as nothing i’ve ever seen before. He really acts like a spoiled brat, only concentrating on his own pitiful little existence, while trying to tell himself how he cares about others. Then comes a depressive fit that would fit even in Evangelion, and he feels low because he was forced to face what an utter asshole he is again. But change? Or at least try to change? Not a chance. Just keep thinking about betraying the people who saved him and whom he saved plenty of times, even after six (six!) episodes (and i’m pretty sure he will actually do it once and then surprise surprise they’ll forgive him because he has the Hand). Just keep sulking about the girl superstar who he had a crush on, but who rather favors a military genius, the leader of the group, who is as awesome and cool as can get. Just keep acting as if you were more mature than the others and look down on them, don’t even consider that maybe all those adult men and women actually know what they are doing and signed up knowing all the risks–therefore they don’t need your little high-school worries.

This show would be so much better if this shitty brat just died in episode one.

Skyrim

November 21, 2011
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You might have wondered where have i disappeared to… The answer is: Skyrim. It’s damn addictive, and it takes a significant effort to start up Aegisub and get stuff done. At the moment as well I feel the urge to just reboot and dive into the frozen world of dragons, abandoned dwemer cities and catacombs full of undead. But still i felt the need to at least report in so that you won’t worry. Though what you should worry about is my finance. Donate using the widget on the right!

Starbucks House blend

November 15, 2011
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After the mild Breakfast blend, even the medium House blend feels bold. It’s as typical a Starbucks coffee as can be.

The steam is sweet and has something in it that reminds me of the warmth of an maple. The coffee itself is nicely sharp and crispy, but at the same time has the same warm taste to it, which turns out to be more like cocoa than maple. It’s more sweet and way bolder than i expected it to be, and that surprise is one of the few good things that happened to me today. I’ll enjoy drinking this coffee for a week (until it runs out).

Starbucks Breakfast blend

November 4, 2011
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I was not a bit hesitant to give the Breakfast blend a try (the same goes for the House blend). Why? Because i like bold coffee, and the Breakfast blend is labelled as “mild”. My first impression is that though it smells and looks like coffee and gives the impression of a coffee when tasted, i at first had trouble identifying what taste it is exactly. It has a fresh, sweet aroma, but that as well feels so… familiar? humble? quiet? that i got used to it in the matter of moments. The taste is likewise quiet, the usual “coffee punch” is more like a “coffee fondle”–it’s soft and clean. A bit of citrusy freshness, and the rest is just the coffee. I’m surprised though how long the taste lingers after a good cup, it’s so mild i expected it to vanish right away. I don’t yet know how well this blend will be able to wake me up. It’ll be tested tonight.