On Internet Connections and Master Chief

I've been struggling with my home internet connection for the past couple weeks, which has probably single-handedly ruined my enjoyment of doing nothing over the summer. Trying to troubleshoot network problems is like trying to wrestle a angry shark while trying to weave a basket underwater while being dressed like a giant steak. You just don't know what you're doing, and you want to give up 30 seconds into doing it because it's just ridiculous.

Also, speaking of ridiculous, there's the Halo anime. I can't say that it will suck (the Halo game has spawned a number of best-selling spin-off novels), but I can't say it's going to be good either. Master Chief is hardly a compelling character, but since five of the biggest Anime production houses (Bones, Casio Entertainment, Production I.G, Studio4 C, and Toei Animation) are supposedly handling the animation, at least it'll look good. Hopefully.

Anime Quick Look: K-ON!

I was hoping that K-ON! would be Beck v2.0, or at least Beck Lite. K-ON!'s premise of four girls forming a band in high school had great potential of unfolding into something very interesting. But unfortunately, it's nowhere near the epic musical journey that Beck (the anime, not the artist mind you) was. You see the screen shot above? I wish it was more like that, and less like this:


I may sound a little harsh on the anime series that came out this past winter season (really, it isn't too bad), but it's only because I came in with a certain expectation that the anime would be about music. Instead, I found out that K-ON! is simply a wannabe Ichigo Mashimaro/Lucky Star mash-up with guitars thrown in occasionally. Heck, the main characters spend over half the show drinking tea and eating snacks.

If this was The Mild Adventures of Four Girls During Teatime, it would make sense. But I wouldn't watch it either.

Unfortunately, all of the good stuff in K-ON! is crowded out by all the moe-moe (translation: cutsy) stuff that were thrown in. Plus it doesn't help that 99% of the characters are about as two-dimensional as the art. What little plot or tension there is comes across as rather forced, or just absurd, which cements K-ON!'s status as Yet Another Generic Anime.

If there's one thing to see from K-ON!, it's the ED song and animation. K-ON! provides some safe fun and tons of moe for those who like it, but don't expect anything more.

[EDIT 1/8/10] - Ok, I was smoking something when I wrote this. Disregard most of what I said here. If you come in without any expectations, K-ON!'s a fun slice-of-life show that's really charming.

This makes me proud that I go to UCSD. Sorta.

The scientific geniuses at UCSD have been in the news a lot lately, from Wired to Engadget, with all of their inventions/crazy projects. But this one takes the cake. The researchers at UCSD have created a robot that can make facial expressions, but going beyond the Japanese robots, this one learns from the facial expressions that it makes, teaching itself how to make new facial expressions.

Yea. Creepy. UCSD is at the forefront of technological innovation. Too bad I'm not an engineering major. My tuition is just going to pay for tired old Political Science professors with horrible foreign accents. Now if you excuse me, I think I'm going to go into that corner and cry for a little bit...

Source: Engadget

Yet another Japanese video

SOUR / 日々の音色 (Hibi no Neiro) MV from Magico Nakamura on Vimeo.
But this one is tons better. The Japanese Rock/Pop/Jazz hybrid is awesome by itself (even if you don't know Japanese), but the video collage made up of various international fans via web cam is even more awesome. Enjoy :)

Google OS FINALLY Becomes Official

Google's desire to make their own computer operating system is old, old news. But they finally officially acknowledged its existence, and the details that they have released about it so far are very interesting. Their new OS, set for release in late 2010, will strictly be for netbooks, and it will be free. Yea, that's right. Free.

Wrap your minds around that for a bit. It's like those fridge magnets that you get from real estate agents in the mail, except for your computer and infinitely more useful. Bad analogy, I know, but in our present world of expensive-ass software, it's hard to believe a whole operating system can be free. Plus, being for netbooks, Google has an opportunity to expand in a market that Microsoft has ignored for the most part.

A free OS means cheaper netbooks, which is going to be ridiculous. And knowing Google, their OS is going to challenge our pre-conceptions of what an OS should be like. I don't know about you, but I'm freaking stoked about this OS. Hey Google, want to make an OS for desktops?

Source: Wired

Another Example of How Crazy the Japanese Are

The Vocaloid voice synthesizer program has been around for a long time, but this is the first one that I've really paid any attention to. Ignore the nauseatingly-sweet J-pop, and listen to the video for a few seconds. While it's still easy to tell that this is a voice program, and not an actual person singing, the latest Vocaloid program is still pretty darn close to the voice of the singer Megumi Nakajima (anime nerdgasm: she was Ranka's VA in Macross Frontier).

Yea, the program was based upon her voice samples, but for a program that allows you almost infinite freedom in making music, it's impressively close to actual human voice. So will these robotic voice synthesizers take over the J-pop industry in 5 years or so?

I would say no, but then again I wouldn't have predicted that the Japanese would make a 18 meter tall Gundam complete with lights and moving parts. If there's anything we can learn from this, the Japanese sure love their robots. You heard it here first folks; A Jpop-belching, maid-uniformed, 18 foot robot girl will be built in Tokyo in 2012. Believe it.

Pirate Bay dies, techies everywhere weep

Even though the founders of Pirate Bay lost their trial, I never would have guessed they would sell it. But they did, and of all things they sold it to a company that promises to "compensate copyright owners" for whatever is downloaded on the site.

There's some other stuff that's going to change about Pirate Bay too, but they're all unimportant. Pirate Bay as we know it is dead, since they're going legit. They have already started moving torrent trackers off of the central servers. It's the end of an era now.

The Hollywood and music industry fat cats have won. This isn't about the people who make the music and movies that are pirated, since they get paid relatively squat compared to how much money is made by the companies that own the distribution rights. And let's not mention the fact that the entertainment industry will once again see no reason to change it's outdated physical media distribution methods and its stupid DRM-protected online media.

Long story short, the rich will get richer, and we'll have one less place to grab our media. Farewell Pirate Bay, you guys were awesome when you were around.

Sources: Gizmodo Joystiq

For ages 6 and up, even if you're 20

It's been a childhood dream to go to Legoland, and I finally went yesterday. I went with my brother's family (with all 2 nephews and the niece), and I realized how old I am, since I was easily 3 times older than the average kid there. Nothing can make you more depressed when you realize you've outgrown your favorite theme park.

That, and being kicked off the go-karts because I was too old didn't make it any better.

So I was of course, I was pleasantly bored of the place for the first couple hours. But then we hit Miniland USA, where the scale model cities (made out of Lego of course) were. Looking around at all of the little Lego people, their cars, and the massive scale model replicas of famous buildings in the US, a little something began to grow within me.

And it wasn't the burrito I had for lunch.

Fast forward a couple hours, and I was browsing the gift shop when I saw the Lego bulldozer set above. What caught my eye was not the set itself, but the tank treads that it had. All of a sudden I went into full-blown Lego constructor mode, building in my mind that battle tank I've always wanted to build. So I laid down the $43.50 for the set, and never looked back. When I got back home, I broke out my old Lego suitcase (yea, I have quite a lot from my childhood), and started constructing.

I stayed up well past 5 in the morning finishing that battle tank up. Now I'm tired as hell, my back hurts like no other, and I have stud-shaped indentations in my feet, but my 1:10 scale model Lego battle tank is AWESOME. Once I'm able to, I'll get pics of it up.

So the moral of the story? You're never too old for Legos. The other moral of the story? Don't throw me into a Lego shop and expect me to get out without draining my bank account.

Pandas + Rockets = Awesomeness

Really, don't think about the name. You're not supposed to think when you're on TEH INTERTUBES anyways, so I guess I shouldn't be worried. Soon I'll change this layout (because the graphic designer in me is screaming to do something), and I'll start posting exciting and thrilling things.

Ok, I exaggerate about the posting. Or was I exaggerating about the 'exciting' and 'thrilling' part? Who knows. Like a cheap soap opera, tune in next episode to find out!