...of the tabs.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 11:34 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Just a few observations.

It's really nice to see that Kurihara actually enjoys her work... a lot.

It's somewhat reassuring that princesses are not exempt from child labor laws.

Slower than light generation starships ought not to be making hyperspace jumps.

I predict whining about the weather, as nebulae just aren't that thick. However, they established earlier that our heroes would be inspecting proto-stars and getting perilously close to black holes. The "turbulence" is arguably consistent with those.

Having watched the series thus far in 3 sittings it occurs to me that I've caught up...and need to wait a WHOLE WEEK until I can see more. That sucks.

For those than know not of what I speak...you are sad, deprived, pitiable souls and you have my deepest sympathies.

Here's a hint...

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Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 08:50 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Don links to an interesting post over at Spike Japan which describes a ghost town.

It's of particular interest to me because, I'd narrowly missed this ghost town due to poor timing. 

Let me explain.

On my last foray into Japan, I took a detour when the bullet train stopped at Sakurandai and (as I was often wont to do) got off on a local line (the Koumi line) to explore the less traveled areas. The abandoned town Kiyosato is near the end of the of the line and by the time I got there it was already dark. Had I come the other way, via the Chuo line past Mt Fuji, I'd have seen it.

What I DID do was bumble between nearby Anonuma and Usuda looking for what turned out to be a more or less abandoned museum that was quite peculiar in its location...amongst other things. I also stopped in Koumi, and Shinano-Kawakami which is only two stops from the ghost town at the link...(たいへん!).

 See here.

While walking to the "turret" I encountered an abandoned building that appeared to be a rec center (but I can't quite make out the kanji)

And of course there was the much photographed shrine which appeared to have been abandoned. As well as lots of half finished landscaping that had not been worked on in a while and had washed out a bit.

 Spike Japan says that Kiyosato was abandoned due to consolidations resulting from local mismanagement.

This certainly jives with some of the oddball things I photographed nearby like the museum and the seemingly outsize, yet unfinished station at Koumi proper,. It had a skyway across the tracks, but no stairs to the other side, causing passengers to have to walk across the tracks to get to one of the platforms. I saw a few other projects that looked like they'd just stopped in mid construction...a few years ago.

My Japanese is very cursory and I only know about 200 kanji (so I'm functionally illiterate). For this reason I'm loathe to comment on Japanese  politics , however the local take on this ( near the Koumi line and at Washinomiya) was slightly different.

In both cases, I ended up asking about the consolidations because maps and signs were not quite updated yet..causing me additional confusion. The locals story (to the extent I understood it) was that the DPJ was consolidating the towns for political reasons . That is, they'd take several local towns and merge them...into a town that was controlled by the DPJ thus the local officials and  chambers of commerce were effectively purged of non-DPJ people. I got an earfull of this from a convenience store owner in Washinomiya who was quite upset that Kuki, and not the ancient shrine town was the city that was now on the map.

Keep in mind again that I'm NOT fluent, proficient or even amusingly awkward in the language. I can get by as a tourist and describe symptoms to a doctor if needed. Lord knows I've heard commentary on US politics from English speaking countries that indicates a serious lack of understanding of issues AND THEY SPEAK THE LANGUAGE so take this  survey of two people, one of whom seemed...bitter...with a grain of salt.

Note too that neither explanation is mutually exclusive of the other either.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 06:29 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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 Andrew Breitbart died last night.
 11 months older than me...which...I'm thinking is really too young.

Few have had as much impact. With Drudge he really changed the media world.

More here and here.

In any event, reaction to this individuals passing reinforces my view that however infuriating it is to be on team stupid, it is a far more noble calling  then the other side. Ace has further thoughts on that.

Note that this headline at the Telegraph seems to kick the guy by focusing  on the Shirley Sherrod controversy, claiming that he maligned the woman through editing. That's not quite what happened.

(More behind the spoiler tag)

I remember that because it was the moment I upgraded my opinion of Glenn Beck from entertaining crazy person to principled crazy person. Short version: Glenn Beck saw the video and then interrupted his show to do a presentation on context. He felt that the bit at the end of the released tape seemed to indicate that Sherrod was actually making a quite redemptive point. I should note that several right wing bloggers took up Sherrods cause too. None of this stopped the white house from insta-firing Sherrod. Beck actually castigated theAgriculture Dept. and tried to get them to rehire Sherrod.

 Breitbart's full piece however, puts the video into context...Sherrod was not the point of the clip, the reaction of the audience was.

In the first video, Sherrod describes how she racially discriminates against a white farmer. She describes how she is torn over how much she will choose to help him. And, she admits that she doesn’t do everything she can for him, because he is white. Eventually, her basic humanity informs that this white man is poor and needs help. But she decides that he should get help from "one of his own kind”. She refers him to a white lawyer.

Sherrod’s racist tale is received by the NAACP audience with nodding approval and murmurs of recognition and agreement. Hardly the behavior of the group now holding itself up as the supreme judge of another groups’ racial tolerance.

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 ....so you have one extra day to order a lot of things from Colleen Doran.

Due to a very high work load, we regret to announce that the shop will shut down all art and custom book orders on March 1st. A selection of signed books will remain available.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 07:00 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Things are hectic but improving.
In lieu of actual content here is some useful information.

******************************

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 01:07 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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People keep telling me to look at this trailer, saying things like...

^{"Oh my! Yes please!"}

^{"I am SO ready..I've got my Wave Motion Goggles and everything!"}

So I figured I ought to at least look at it...

^{It's in Hi-def so you can embigulate it!}

Oh my stars and garters! That looks really..really nice!

Yamato 2199 looks to be a straight-up remake of the 1974 series, and aside from the character designs and a few added female crewmembers, it looks astoundingly faithful. This is obviously a labor of love for Enagio.

Interestingly, although it will be a 26 episode series, it's going to be released in theaters as seven full length features!

I'm very curious as to whether this will be brought over  eventually (given the state of the market) and if so if it will be released as SCY or Star Blazers. Star Blazers was actually quite successful and aside from  "That Knox thing" was as faithful as 1979 Standards and practices would allow, in some ways improving on the original.

I'd be quite pleasantly surprised if there were to be a Star Blazers revival, but whatever form the US release takes (If it does so at all) I am seriously looking forward to this.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 10:27 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 04:07 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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 Well, I'm back on my feet, but I was not fully prepared for how much I've missed.  I'm almost 2 weeks behind in my classes. The Japanese class in particular changed the syllabus shortly after I stopped coming.  I've got much cramming to do.

 I'm just about tapped out thanks to hospital/doctor bills. I've missed 10 days of work in 3 weeks and as a result  I haven't been paid in over a week. I have to come up with summer and fall tuition in 3-4 months...so the kidney stone treatment will have to wait until  the summer. (That's actually no real biggie).

Anyhoo...I'll be occupied with non blog matters until at least sometime this weekend.

In the meantime :

When the girls aren't intact
And they break your impact
That's..ballistics.
When they make people stare
But send you through the air
That's ballistics
If there's one thing that those
In student councils oppose
It's ballistics
But you should still try
To go "Hnnng!" in the sky
Wiiiith...Baliiistiics.

^{Scary Pink Thing  is from Katawa Shoujo.}

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 08:24 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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YAY! IT'S KIDNEY STONES!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 05:35 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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 History is neither preordained nor a straight line. It is a fiendishly complex game of billiards or perhaps a massive pachinko machine. The cascade effect of screwing with a few variables is inherently unpredictable as the tapestry of history is bound together with a collection of seemingly insignificant threads, the removal or reordering of which will unravel said tapestry in unknown ways.

  Pondering such things is often dismissed as silly fantasy or mental masturbation, but our future will soon be history, and it behooves us to remember what a near run thing our existence is. Such reflection might, for instance,  have made a great deal of difference in the August of 1914.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 04:24 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Via Lileks.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 04:03 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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...might be interested in going to the Studio Theater  which will be featuring the show Astro Boy and the God of Comics. It tells the fictional story of Astro Boy, and the historical tale of his creator Osamu Tezuka.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 08:53 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The Most Inane Article in the History of the Internet.

 
^{An actual photo of the author...thinking REALLY hard.}

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 10:53 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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.....I mean, a REAL thing?

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 01:47 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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A few days ago, I received in the mail a parcel from some place called Duckford. It contained about 5 feet of bubble wrap and this....

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 07:58 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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BURN 'EM!

A TEAM of Russian scientists has mysteriously lost contact with colleagues in the U.S. as they drill into a lake buried beneath the Antarctic ice for 20 million years.

^{Dramatic rendering by Agent Orange.}

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 03:48 AM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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1 WHAT THE HELL IS THAT???

Posted by: Wonderduck at Sun Feb 5 09:40:34 2012 (DxepM)

2 That's one of the Old Gods.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Sun Feb 5 12:52:29 2012 (+rSRq)

3 Ah, something that belongs in the Moe-Moe Cthulu Encyclopedia Moe-Moe Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia! The Amazon preview doesn't include my favorite; I'll have to scan in the Shoggoth sometime.
Perhaps those Russians are now starring in the Living with Monster Girls comics Living with Monster Girls ... (and I hadn't known until just now that they're being turned into games)
-j

Posted by: J.Greely at Sun Feb 5 13:51:09 2012 (EJaOX)

4 I added NSFW tags at no extra charge.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun Feb 5 13:53:52 2012 (EJaOX)

5 How did you do that? I didn't think we had the ability to edit comments.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Mon Feb 6 11:16:04 2012 (+rSRq)

6 We don't.
I copied and pasted it into the next comment along with his signature, added the tags then deleted the original. It defaulted back to #3 just like if a spam had been deleted. This is clumsy and runs the risk of people comment on the comment one deletes before one reposts it.

I didn't want to delete his comment but the links went to pages that would cause some  of my readers nosehairs to curl which would no doubt precipitate a fit of sneezing which could conceivably cause a lamp to get knocked over, thereby starting a fire which, if the reader is in an apartment complex could kill lots of innocents and precipitate a gas explosion thereby raining debris onto a nearby interstate thus causing a multi-car pile up that could conceivably include a truck carrying numerous prototype kill bots that due to damage to their programing might slaughter thousands and then make their way to the CDC  in Atlanta where they no doubt would unleash smallpox, marburg, Spanish influenza and airborne Ebola, starting a worldwide series of terrible pandemics killing millions and destroying civilization and ushering in a new Hobbesian dark age for the few scattered survivors.   

...and I just didn't want to have to deal with that.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Mon Feb 6 11:58:16 2012 (EJaOX)

7 Had I known that I was going to destroy civilization, I'd have added some creepy overspecialized Tumblr-porn links just to finish the survivors off in style.

(his editing technique was revealed by the hash at the end of the comment)

-j

Posted by: J Greely at Mon Feb 6 12:15:49 2012 (2XtN5)

8 I saw a picture recently, that I wish I could find again.

It was purportedly of the Lake Vostok drilling site, and prominently featured a large red transporter or crane or something with the words "Natural Environment Research Council" (a UK group that seems to be involved in the project) stenciled in white.

Only, somebody had 'shopped the last word into "Venture", instead.

Posted by: BigD at Wed Feb 8 19:34:48 2012 (qLkdZ)

9 BigD, eath_C0015_wings-of-light.jpg">this was pretty much what I though of when the news broke that they lost contact with the team.

Posted by: JP Gibb at Wed Feb 8 20:53:49 2012 (VSD03)

10 The hell? I swear that worked when I previewed it.

Posted by: JP Gibb at Wed Feb 8 20:55:00 2012 (VSD03)

11

You have to use BBCode. It looks like this:

(left-square-bracket)img="filepath"(right-square-bracket)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Thu Feb 9 14:22:03 2012 (+rSRq)

12 However, don't do it. Deep linking a picture from someone else's server is rude.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Thu Feb 9 14:22:53 2012 (+rSRq)

13 That's the weird part, I was trying to link to the image, not display it (which is rude not only to the host, but often screws with the formatting in the comments too).

Posted by: JP Gibb at Thu Feb 9 21:37:03 2012 (VSD03)

14

The easiest way to do that is to just drop the URL inline:

http://ai.mee.nu/ 

The code here will automatically change it into a link.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Fri Feb 10 18:58:57 2012 (+rSRq)

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