Haibane.info

Author: fledgling otaku

  • Star Trek XI poster

    wow. A single image reveals a lot about what – and when – the next Trek movie is going to be. Look below the fold. I considered the choice of JJ Abrams as director to be brilliant – it’s clear that he gets what made Star Trek so captivating the first time around; the characters, especially the Trek Trinity. The image brings a real mix of emotion and sentiment back with full force .. it is familiar, achingly familiar, and yet also full of promise at the same time. (more…)

  • The Dark Knight

    Heath Ledger will be the Joker in the second Batman movie. I have to admit that my respect for Ledger grew quite a bit after seeing the movie Cassanova (which I went into with low expectations). I think that he’s going to bring some genuine style to the Joker, something that was sorely missing from the Nicholson era. In fact the best thing about this Batman franchise reboot is that the primary characters are more heroic overall – even the villains.

  • Conroe and Merom are here

    The new processors from Intel have arrived.

    For a fantastic overview of the road to Conroe, check out this retrospective from Tom’s Hardware. Intro:

    History may credit AMD almost as much as Intel with the creation of the Woodcrest, Conroe, and Merom architectures, the latter two of which Intel released today. In 2004, AMD effectively threw down a very sizeable gauntlet, challenging Intel on every conceivable front, including retail outlets and courtrooms, to innovate or perish. In good time, Intel responded, with a marketing program and technology initiative that many felt was contrived, inconclusive, lacking vigor.

    Intel’s Israel design team spelled out for the company the extent of what it had to do to meet AMD’s challenge: The NetBurst architecture was a physical and thermal dead end. Intel had to stop, repurpose itself, and build the most convincing low-power, high-performance architecture in history, from scratch. It would be an impossible task for any other company. Whether Intel has actually succeeded will depend on the next few months of extensive user testing. But we’ve seen the power of Intel’s new launch vehicle, and the capability for it to meet and probably exceed anything AMD ever anticipated, appears to be there.

    Giving credit to AMD for Conroe might just cause Sharikou‘s head to explode 🙂 But the benchmarks are pretty clear: Core Duo 2 blows the Athlon FX away – with no sacrifices in price, performance, or power consumption. The time has come for mobile-on-desktop computing.

  • mouse envy

    behold! only for the Mac faithful. Bluetooth versions of the Mighty Mouse are not compatible with Windows XP. The scroll ball is what really inflames my geeklust. I suppose I could go for the wired version – sure to be drop in price now – especially given that I already have a sexy charcoal V270 for my Thinkpad…

  • Super-rational

    Steven made the following comment at Chizumatic recently: “The fact that you and I disagree about something doesn’t mean you know more about it than I do. Sometimes people who have exactly the same body of knowledge will disagree anyway.” He correctly notes that I am a disciple of this axiom. In fact, I even launched a blog dedicated to that idea. The blog, Super-rational, makes reference to a very interesting experiment run by Douglas Hoftstadter, a variation of a single-shot Prisoner’s Dilemma. That blog is really structured as an extended discussion, between contributors as carefully filtered as the participants in DH’s priginal experiment. I consider the blog itself to be a meta-discussion on the statement above – and the statement above to be self-referential in a sense because the point it makes is itself an unprovable statement, to which different observers will come to different conclusions!

    Ultimately, why do people disagree? Because we never are able to truly have the same body of working facts? Or because of a deeper flaw with the very process of reason itself?

  • Japan: day book?

    playing around with the Babelfish, I see that Japan is 日本. However, the translation for æ—¥ alone is “Day”, and for 本 alone is “Book”. The translation for 本日 is “This day”.

    No clues to why this might be so at the Wikipedia entry or casual googling. Of course, the Fish might just be on crack today. I need to ask an expert or two…

  • Stargate sequels?

    Stargate DVDThe most magical thing about the original StarGate movie was how it took our own ancient history and intertwined it into something epic. It took the Erich von Daniken mythos and gave it a serious treatment, asking What IF? as only SF can do. And the result was a blast of a movie that the television spinoff never really rivaled.

    Well, Dean Devlin is back and has plans for two sequels. Via AICN:

    Devlin is currently in negotiations with MGM regarding the development of two STARGATE theatrical sequels. These would complete the trilogy originally planned by Devlin and then-partner (but still friend) Roland Emmerich – and would stand independently of television spin-offs STARGATE SG-1 and STARGATE ATLANTIS. Devlin indicates that original leads Kurt Russell and James Spader have already expressed interest in returning.

    If memory serves, Devlin once suggested that STARGATE sequels would be different in tone and setting than the original film — each continuing an arcing storyline of humankind –VS- alien opportunists/overlords, but in divergent locals. Could be interesting to see where this goes…especially if issues like cultural connection are played upon as they were in first film. Wonder how the conceit might feel in today’s splintered world?

    More details at SciFiWire.

  • Season 3: October

    Also some spoilers via AICN below the fold… (more…)

  • also makes Julienne fries

    MacBook owners rejoice!

    cooking an egg with a macbook1. Get a macbook and turn it over so the screens over the edge of your desk/counter (shown in picture)

    2. Run your favorite process intensive program to get it to heat up

    3 Some tinfoil on uper left part of the laptops underside (the hottest part of the macbook

    4. Put your cup of coffee on the power supply to keep it warm

    5. Cook your egg on the tinfoil, it will take longer than normal

    6. Enjoy your breakfast

    I suppose this is part of the value-add of the black casing. Should I be envious?

  • Last Exile

    I am definitely adding this to my List. Shamus posted some screengrabs and they remind me of Myst, brought to life. There’s an over-exposed quality to the artwork that adds a layer of both realism and fantasy at the same time. He found the ending to be unsatisfying, but maybe this is one of those anime where the story just takes a backseat to the craftsmanship.