Tag: english

Little Brother

October 23, 2010
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I read about Cory Doctorow’s book at SeSam’s, and then i read the book itself (downloaded for free from the writer’s website and printed for free at the university) on the ferry to China (about which later). I couldn’t really stop once i started.

It’s a youth novel centered on technology, privacy and national security. To be exact, the point where these all clash. It has plenty of nerd talk, plenty of preaching about rights and lots of dissatisfaction with national security.

Except for a few bit forced “youthful phrases”, the whole thing feels natural, though i myself couldn’t really imagine high schoolers gathering on the seashore, get drunk and then exchange encryption keys. But it somehow fits in the near future America scene of the book.

This book should totally be made compulsory. Just as lectures about sexuality are compulsory in every school, the information literacy that one can get from this book is priceless in the age we live in and it will be even more as we go on.

But it was not actually the book that left the deepest impression in me, but a sentence in the foreword, saying that our world is one where any measure, including torture, could be justified just by waving your hands and shouting “Terrorism! 9/11! Terrorism!” until all dissent fell silent. So true.

Although i can say i didn’t learn anything really new from the book, being pretty much of a nerd before anyway, but it surely changed my way of thinking a bit and gave me a great reading experience.

Stargate Universe

October 22, 2010
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I started watching Universe right after i finished Atlantis, but it’s way too different. Not that i’d drop it, that would take a bit more. But even fifteen or so years ago, when Neon Genesis Evangelion was made, it was common sense that if you made a series with lots of mental problems and depression, you need to counterbalance that every now and then with some kick-ass action or no one will watch it. Apparently the makers of Stargate Universe think otherwise. Onboard the Destiny, everyone sulks, occasionally gets a conscience swap home, and that’s it. Maybe once every fifteen episodes something happens. Where by something i mean something different than the local heavy guy clashing with someone.

It’s boring. Okay the makers wanted to focus much more on character personalities and mental progress, but at the price of any story? Like any at all? You can’t make a story of people locked in a starship without something happening. Not through n+1 seasons where n≥0. If you don’t have any better idea at least let them go off-world for a change. Or make an arbitrary system of the ship brake down so that they can fix it. Make something happen. Okay that the people are going crazy with idleness onboard, but if you go on like this, it’ll drive the watchers crazy too. And that’s no good.

Free time zero

October 21, 2010
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My days are a series where the variable indicating my free time is a random number for each day between 0.1n and 0.5n where n is one hour. Not that i mind being busy with something all the time, just it’d be nice to finally be able to sit down and write a decent blogpost about something else than being busy too, maybe even before 2 in the night, or by any chance (God forgive my impudence) both… (Not happening.)

Today i woke half an hour earlier, because we had a short practice before the first period. At least, we would’ve had one, if our drummer hadn’t overslept. Nevertheless me and the guitarist played Anarchy a few times and then classes…

As soon as i got home (4 pm) i fixed the translations of the new opening and ending songs of Bleach and published ep 292.

Then i started practicing, first anarchy, then played around with the Red Hot songs… Ended up trying the guitar of Snow, but i need more practice to get the speed. Then i headed over to the Oasis songs (Don’t look back in anger and Roll with it) and got braindead. They are pretty much the same: same sounds, same progression, just a (not all that) different rhythm. Yet there are those tiny changes that i always miss. Annoying.

Then i realised i didn’t do the Xros Wars 13 translation yet, so i grabbed the raw‘s ass and translated it. Epic cliffhanger, can’t wait for the next episode.

Or to go to bed already.

Virtual tunnel

October 18, 2010
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Is there any program out there that can virtualize a whole hard drive partition? I want to use one of my (real) partitions in a VirtualBox virtual machine in real time, not just the virtual drive for the system. I’d imagine the whole process like this app i look for would act as a tunnel, appear as a virtual drive image that VB can use, act as a link and just forward all VB requests to the physical drive and the responses back. Is there such a thing out there?

Breathless

October 18, 2010
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When it came to subbing the latest Xros Wars episode, i was surprised no one was in the irc channel when i got there the usual hour or so after the episode aired to ask for the raw video and subtitles to translate… No one said a word while i was there for hours… Then i went to sleep. Next morning i got a notice from iMon that the WPP joint is over and we’re working by ourselves from now on. I’ve also seen the since deleted posts the WPP people left at the forums… As much as i knew them (not at all, it seems) i didn’t think they’d write such stuff without being seriously pissed off. That and knowing iMon’s habit to get a bit too 4chan-ish in arguments made me think he overreacted something and kicked them. Sorry about that, i really am.

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Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt

October 18, 2010
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Take two totally unangelic angels, a priest and a city, write murderously hilarious stories and turn the whole thing into a strictly 18+ anime with the looks of Invader Zim and the Powerpuff Girls. That’s Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt. Panty is the slutty angel who uses her panties as a gun to kill ghosts, Stocking is the gothloli angel addicted to sweets who turns her stockings into swords and Garterbelt is their mentor priest-looking madman who gives the girls missions and seems to be just a bit too fond of young boys.

There’s no much story to this anime, but it’s frenetic. If one likes this kind of filthy humour, the adventures of Stocking and Panty will cause a warp in timespace: bringing infinitesimal amounts of fun in the very limited time of an episode. When i say the series’ humour is filthy, i mean it: if the above character descriptions are not enough, the continuous stream of shit and sex jokes will prove the point.

There’s also a cute doggie-like something that looks very similar to GIR from Invader Zim and dies even more often than Kenny of South Park.

And whenever the girls finish a ghost off, it dies exploding just how a stereotypical Kamen Rider Hibiki or Power Rangers enemy would.

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Searching for a game

October 16, 2010
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I’m trying to find a certain computer game. I hardly remember anything about it, so it’s not easy. I got it ages ago with a computer mag, but it seems to have been just a demo—and in the heap of almost eight years’ worth of a collection, i can’t just look through them all without any clue as to what i’m looking for…

It’s a RTS, and it’s not new. I’d say it’s been at least four or five years, if not more. Its menu is dark blue color. What i remember of the gameplay is that you have insane long range artillery, which shoot pretty much vertically up, then after a long while the projectiles fall down roughly where you originally aimed. Also the camera can be rotated totally freely, so you can actually see those projectiles’ path in the sky. In the sky, where a huge planet or moon is visible most of the time, and is very well designed.

Any ideas what it could be?

Edit 2021/11/9

Thanks to helpful people on Twitter and Discord, I now know the game in question was Ground Control II: Operation Exodus. Thanks!

Movie night: Tekken, Prince of Persia

October 15, 2010
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Last night as my connection was down, i decided to have some offline fun: watch movies. Thus i watched the two seemingly lightest pieces, two game cover movies, Tekken and Prince of Persia (note here, it’s annoying like hell that sites try to serve me content in japanese based on my location). I decided to write just one post about the two movies together, for the simple reason i can sum them up better this way.

Game adaptations, with loads of action, american movie cliches and practically no story (even less than with the games, not to mention the movies’ storylines are just vaguely similar to the games’). That’s all. Great visual effects, easy to watch, quick to forget. Good exactly for the reason i watched them: light but exciting entertainment. I got it.

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After dark, aka. the intermezzo between Okinawa and China

October 15, 2010
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Unrelated, though looking at my financial status my next gig will probably be an Ajikan in november. The point is, after my adventurous trip back to Naha, the next day i woke up in time, packed my stuff, bought a bottle of awamori for souvenir, got on the plane at Naha, Okinawa prefecture and flew back to Osaka. There i changed trains a few times, walked a while, and here i was in my good old room in Hikone, Shiga prefecture, Japan.

But it was not a day of rest. It was already late and my club friends just happened to ask me if i wanted to go to karaoke. Yeah, i wanted to. So i went to karaoke, and i got back home around 4 am. A bit late, considering i was supposed to wake around 6 so that i could catch a train to Osaka to get my visa in time… Obviously it didn’t work out. I didn’t even wake when my alarm went off, so i still didn’t have my chinese visa, even though i was leaving the very next day.

No surprise i was a bit anxious all day, but at least i got a charger for the ipod and a voltage converter so that i could use it at all. I had to wake early again…

Third day

October 13, 2010
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Today was unexpected. I mean, not that the sun rose up, and with it i, but the events later. First, for some mysterious reason i woke up almost an hour before my phone’s alarm went off. Nevermind, at least i had time to do everything i wanted to do, nice slow.

Then it turned out we didn’t have afternoon classes (which would’ve been two english lessons), instead some meeting of non-sports clubs, which included us, the music club too. It was dead boring, and apparently it was not only me who couldn’t get what was going on at all—the fellow japanese looked just as bored as i did. Not to mention it was frickin long. We had to get there at three pm, and it was almost seven by the time i got home. I could’ve spent those hours better, for example practicing… I have six songs to learn (four of which i play the bass, two just vocals) asap, so i won’t have much free time…

Anyway, just before eight our drummer called if i wanted to go karaoke… Sure, why not. Thus i went to karaoke again, after a month or so… It was fun. I more or less am able to sing enough japanese songs to go one western – one japanese. Yeah, i still love karaoke.