This, in a nutshell, is why i loved that show.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
Month: December 2008
the very, VERY large Hadron collider
This Onion story about the Very Large Earth Collider is hilarious for all the right reasons:
“There will always be Chicken Little types,” theoretical physicist and futurist Michio Kaku said. “When the first nuclear reaction was achieved, there were those who said its very existence made it a weapon of unspeakable power, and there is evidence they may have been right. It’s probably worth asking if the Very Large Earth Collider may in fact pose some minute danger to the Earth.”
While the project remains controversial, physicists agreed in late November to reconvene and evaluate the risk factor of the project after a small-scale field test, during which the Very Large Earth Collider will be turned on at 10 percent capacity, catapulting Earth into the moon at only half the speed of light.
Of course, since a hadron is just a bound state of quarks, then protons and neutrons are also hadrons (specifically, baryons which are a subset of hadrons). Which means that in a sense the Earth is a big hadron itself… hmm. Has anyone checked the website of the LHC to see just exactly what they have in mind?
Felix Gaeta – the Face of the Enemy?
There’s a new 10-part series of weekly webisodes at scifi.com featuring Lt. Felix Gaeta at scifi.com beginning today. The title of the series is “The Face of the Enemy” and given my earlier speculation on the identity of the final cylon, I am going to have fun mining these webeps for more data to support my theory 🙂
There’s a brief summary of the overall plot of the webeps at io9. Some minor commentary of my own below the fold… Continue reading “Felix Gaeta – the Face of the Enemy?”
Anime bending
Steven has ordered the first season of Avatar, largely based on my recommendation, which both gratifies me and also makes me squirm, because my reputation is on the line now 🙂
The first season is in many ways a very straightforward one. It aims to set the scene, introduce the characters, and give them a nice clean goal and a clear-cut villain. At least, that is what you’re supposed to do in a first season of a multi-season arc; the genius of Avatar is how they subvert every one of those aims, both subtly during season 1 itself and then in a major way in the later seasons. For season 1, though, the viewers’ job is simple; to fall in love with the characters alone. There are plenty of things going on right before your eyes that have massive significance later on, but on the first viewing that stuff is just not as important as understanding who Aang, Kitara, Sokka, Iroh, and Zuko are. The storytelling is simply effortless in this regard – the season ended far too quickly for me, but then I realized looking back just how much actually happened (quite a bit, plotwise, though you are barely aware of the larger arc at this stage).
very mild spoilers follow, so I am putting them below the fold… Continue reading “Anime bending”
The Simpsons meet the muslims
Earlier I mentioned the Arabic-ized The Simpsons starring Omar Shamsoon. Now the Simpsons have introduced a token muslim family, as well as engaged in some Apple bashing. Yet despite this high convergence with my blog topic pastimes, I was less than impressed. I was particularly disappointed that they didn’t make more of the fact that Dan Castalleneta, the voice of Homer, also voiced the Genie in Aladdin, for Homer’s magic carpet ride dream sequence.
There’s sldo some discussion of the episode over at Talk Islam worth checking out.
Animeme
Mark has an anime meme that I think I’ll give a go:
• What anime are you watching now?
I am watching Samurai Champloo and Fate: Stay Night. The latter I’ve had on my hard disk for almost a year but only got motivated to start watching it when I saw that other otaku had started giving it a shot. I’ve only finished disc 1 of Champloo but I am already on episode 20 of FSN.
• What is your favourite time to watch?
In the evening, when I am waiting for Baby Otaku to finally stop fighting sleep, and sometimes during the day when I’m feeding her a naptime bottle.
• And your favourite place?
On the floor in front of my sofa (it’s comfy to lean against) watching on my television. I am either watching a DVD from Netflix or using AVI files on a USB stick attached to my DVD player.
• Who is your favourite auteur?
Easily Makoto Shinkai. Easily. I have my eye set on this but can’t really afford it right now. Patience is a virtue…
• Your favourite OST?
If we are limiting this to anime, then the only one I’ve been moved to buy so far is the Haibane Renmei soundtrack. It’s amazingly moving and ethereal.
• What is the most difficult anime you’ve ever watched?
Grave of the Fireflies. It almost killed my interest in anime forever (not to mention turning my wife away from anime completely, until Sugar came along).
• What was the first anime you remember watching?
Does Robotech count? if not, then Akira, like everyone else.
• Do you have a comfort show that you re-watch?
If I owned Samurai Jack, that would be my preferred one. I like rewatching Sugar: Snow Fairy with my daughter.
• What is the most erotic anime you’ve watched?
My answer will probably make some of you laugh, but I’d have to say Ranma 1/2. I’m just not into the fan-service titles and largely avoid them. I described earlier what types of anime interest me.
• Which classic should you have watched?
Probably Evangelion. I also should have finished Noir.
• Which series did you never want to end?
Ranma! which is good, because it never did 🙂 Seriously, though, I pretty much always want a series I am enjoying to never end. Though the two series I think I wanted most to continue indefinitely were Samurai Jack and Kino’s Journey.
• What is your most overrated anime?
I tried very hard to like a tale of ef, but I just couldn’t get into it. I have yet to find a single person who’s seen it who hasn’t loved it, so I am clearly in the extreme minority here.
• Which character could you have an affair with?
• Who is your favourite character?
• Which character do you most dislike?
In one sense, the answer to all three of these questions could be Reki from Haibane Renmei. However, in the interest of being more accurate, I’d say tsunderes in general for the first question, mahou shoujos in general for the second, and heroes who fail themselves for the third. This also means that I could just as easily answer Nayuta from Shingu instead of Reki for all three, actually…
• Which character do you identify with most?
That’s a better question than the previous three. I think in some sense, absent the physical prowess or skill, I identify with Samurai Jack and Ranma, which is why those series resonated so well with me. It’s the (male) hero who strives to do the right thing, and in so doing characterizes what it means to be a man, who appeals to me.
• Which anime changed your life?
Probably Robotech came closest, by almost making me fail out of my first semester of exams in college (finals week is a bad time to get addicted to anything, let alone a 50+ episode epic series). Haibane Renmei was the impetus for me starting this blog, which has also been a great thing for me.
Well, that was fun, and gave me an excuse to link some old posts for fun, too. I am unsure of the usual protocol for internet memes, but I am going to risk a faux pas and “tag” Nick, Astro, and Pete for the animeme next.
Hitler wants a united Eid
This is hysterical.
Here’s some context – but it’s funny even if you don’t care about the religious angle.
Take that, dour mullah!
Mac myths: virus immunity
For the first time, Apple is recommending the use of anti-virus tools to protect Mac systems.
Long something of a phantom menace, strains of malware capable of infecting Mac machines have gradually been increasing in prevalence over recent months. In addition, VXers are making more use of web-based attack and applications specific vulnerabilities to infect PCs whatever their underlying operating system might be.
Windows-specific malware attacks are still orders of magnitude greater than assaults on Mac machines, but the risk to Apple fans is now enough for the Church of Jobs to admit a risk exists.
The admission that security scanner software was a good idea for Mac users came in an unheralded update to Apple’s support site made on 21 November, first picked up by Brian Krebs at Security Fix on Monday.
Apple goes further than just recommending the use of one scanner to advise the use of multiple tools. “Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple anti-virus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult,” it said.
The supposed invulnerability of Macs to viruses has long been a selling point and marketing mantra for Macs’ superiority over the Windows world – as the screenshot I’ve taken of Apple.com’s “Why a Mac” page demonstrates (see above). The idea that you need two anti-virus tools by Apple’s own recommendation is actually pretty funny; if I were Microsoft I’d cut an ad saying that the Mac platform is so unstable, just one virus scanner doesn’t cut it!
Samurai Champloo: initial thoughts
Champloo is (so far) a tale of two samurai who hate each other, but who are (ostensibly) helping a young girl find a mysterious third samurai who “smells of sunflowers”. It’s set in historical Japan but has giant disclaimers about historical accuracy in the title credits (which are annoyingly set to harsh hip hop music; thankfully the actual score during the episodes is much more bearable). The basic theme so far is that Japan has slipped from its moral moorings, and now power matters more than honor – with many of the secondary characters they meet (so far) being enmeshed in the transition between the older tradition and the new lawless era, particularly the two rival yakuza gangs that they deal with in episodes 3 and 4.
It’s a pretty gripping story. It’s actually quite violent, with plenty of blood and suggestive sexuality (but not overt). However it doesn’t stray into gore, but rather conveys the brutality of the era quite well in a restrained way – characters limbs are severed, but you don’t seethe actual limb, just the agony on the loser’s face, for example, or a fatal blow is inflicted below camera and the victim’s mouth fillls with blood. The characters so far have managed to distinguish themselves from each other, and the usual samurai stereotypes, quite well. The first disc has done enough to capture my interest that I’ve added the whole series to my queue.