Exam Hellishness
Not much in the way of posting for a bit....but to celebrate the licensing of Gurren Laggan, here is a pic of Yoko to tide you over....
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This seems overdone. I don't expect it to be official art, but stranger things happened. I have an Azumanga artbook where girls are quite off-canon.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Tue Apr 22 22:27:21 2008 (qNSKg)
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I was told this was official and that it is a picture of
Yoko in her 30s which apparently is a plot point and as such it is on model . I have no way of knowing if this is correct at this time and do not intend to find out as I am making an effort to avoid spoilers before seeing this cool looking series.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Wed Apr 23 08:31:07 2008 (CTUU/)
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Actually, she should be
21 in that pic. I have no doubts it's official. It's Gainax.
Posted by: Will at Wed Apr 23 12:00:51 2008 (WnBa/)
I have just noticed that some posts are appearing in categories in which they do not belong. (Chun Li's birthday is not actually rocket science).
For anyone offended by the appearance of an anime review in a collection of science posts or a right wing political rant in the alternate energy category, rest assured Brickmuppet Blog is working to correct the issue ASAP.
We regret any offense or bruised sensibilities this may have caused.
One of the Brickmuppet's Crack Team of Science Babes (tm)points the way to better living through chemistry with this report from Brian Wang on recent carbon nanotubedevelopments. It looks like commercial grade resins may be able to significantly bring down the cost of these light strong structures! w00t!
Chemistry doesn't always lead to breakthroughs...sometimes it just reminds us of the bleedingly obvious and tries to dissuade us from doing something stupid...like burning food. Yes, it seems that...(shock!!)....using food crops for fuel is bad...even if you are a green. More here.
Chemistry is founded upon the first law of thermodynamics which enables chemistry to point out even more fundamental stupidity. Like passing a law that violates...said law. Sacramento...meet science. California homes are NOT going to be able to generate as much power as they receive from the grid...even if you pass a law.
Good Lord look! Those little dotty things...they are ATOMS! Its an actual picture of ATOMS! Unbelievable! Of course Atoms can be split and that segues into one of the favorite topics here at Brickmuppet Blog,
You see, while atomic power is not strictly speaking chemistry, (it's physics) it involves doing physics stuff to chemicals...like uranium (or preferably thorium)...Said elements, in order to be used in most reactors must be refined...and refining is...a CHEMICAL PROCESS. Well, not all reactors are alike in this regard as the Mysterious Dr. Buzzo tells us with this post on the many merits of the Canadian CANDU reactor. This is a nuclear reactor which can actually run off unrefined uranium. This is a huge advantage! In fact the CANDUs are virtually flexfuel reactors in that they can run off a fairly wide range of nuclear fuels including some types of nuclear waste (!!) as well as abundant thorium. Here is CANDU...the motion picture!
UC Berkeley has invented a tape-like substance that has so much adhesive strength that a person clothed in such a sticky suit could conceivably scale a building like Spider-Man. ...well, there ARE issues to be sure but its more proof that the future is here!
Sorry, Brickmuppeteers, I've no idea who the miniskirted science babe is....but she cried out for a chemistry post.
Sounds to me like that hypothetical spiderman could at least take the first step up the side of the building.
But if that adhesive is as strong as described, how does he get his hands and feet loose to take step 2? He wouldn't be "spiderman", he'd be "flypaperman", and he's the one who would get stuck to the first thing he ran into.
I can see the characters in the title, and it looks like Pixy's fix to scrub those characters from the URL is working just fine.
I'm a little rusty (consult with a licensed professional on all of this), but I don't think you're allowed 2 "wo" particles in a sentence. I think what you probably want to say is "mee.nu de blog shimasu". (run that by your teacher though, I'd be curious to know if URLs are treated more like a place than a thing)
The only other thing I'd mention is that when stringing several sentences into a sequence like, "so-and-so is doing this, and doing this", rather than using the "to" particle, you conjugate the verb of each action to the imperative "-te" form (with the exception of the last verb, which establishes the tense).
sukai-san wa ika wo tabete batboy wo mimasu.
But in this case, she's doing it right now and continuously, so
sukai-san wa ika wo tabete batboy wo mite imasu.
would probably be more accurate.
(and for some reason, my wapuro suddenly isn't letting me paste kana into the comment box, otherwise that wouldn't all be romaji)
Posted by: Will at Thu Jan 17 10:15:50 2008 (E3UGR)
It's an easy language to loose in a hurry. I've got the basics down pretty well after having to relearn them about three times now.
The longer I'm away from formal practice (subbed anime really doesn't count), the more I want to go back for more classes. I was starting into the middle 200 and low 300 level classes when I had to buckle down and focus on my engineering degree. Unfortunately, I don't have a good feel for where I could safely jump into a community college program (and I'm done paying university tuition). Yeah, I'm rusty, but I don't need to relearn basic grammar, kana, and vocabulary.
What I really need is speaking/listening practice. That was always my weakest area. Going back to my old University teachers to pair up with a speech partner would be a little weird though. There's a noticable level of ("sanctioned") match-making that seems to go on in those programs between guys with Asian-fever and Japanese girls looking to rope a gaijin and escape the homeland. Showing up on their doorstep looking for real practice would probably just confuse them
Posted by: Will at Thu Jan 17 19:50:30 2008 (WnBa/)
Yay!
The crackerjack staff of Pixy the Wonder Techie at Mee.Nu has fixed the blog-bug that was causing problems. It turned out not to be an issue with their Software at all but some program being beta-tested for some barbarians outside the gates of Mee.Nuvia.
Quick courteous professional service such as this is just one more reason all bloggers should move to Mee.Nu!
Meta Blogging
Yes, Meta Blogging is a terrible faux-pas, but, as I'm (obviously) tweaking the look of Brickmuppet Blog comments on readability and appearance in non-Firefox browsers are welcome.
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Whatever else you did, you made it so that "followed links" and "unfollowed links" are now the same color, so that I can't tell what I've clicked and what I haven't clicked.
The trip is going great, though I'm having some issues with uploading pictures.
I head for Kyoto/ Nara tomorrow.
I spent most of last night (Tokyo night/ Virginia day) trying, apparantly in vain, to clear up an issue with my tuition assistance and find out about my grandmothers condition as she was rushed to the doctor. (she's OK)
So I was on the internet a bit last night and as I make my train reservations I feel I should post something here.
A few completely unrelated things caught my eye that I have no time to comment meaningfully on here.
There is a facinating and scary post on creepy obsessive Munchausens and other vermin over at Colleen Doran's blog.
Hitchens has an interesting and typically merciless piece on the "real war". I've a few minor quibbles regards the difference between Alquaeda and their franchisees but thats a post for later.
Over at Volokh Conspiracy Ilya Somin looks at the iconography and reality of Che' and the teflon that seems to coat his sucsessors.
PIXY ALERT...same as before but this time I get serendipity error at the hyperlink in "you go girls".
Posted by: Ken Talton at Tue Aug 14 08:52:41 2007 (JZPnT)
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Ken, this one doesn't work for me, either... I'm getting network timeouts for the link as is and for the top level (http://snappedshot.com/). The one in the previous post worked fine just now (both from the link within the post and from the one in the comment).
Posted by: Old Grouch at Wed Aug 15 19:58:42 2007 (Ppaxm)
This was my drill weekend with theCoast Guard Reserve and despite the fact that the drill weekend once again involved no helicopters, motor lifeboats, or dramatic camera angles... I'm beat.
No sea-stories as none of the ships we boarded had any violations...any of them! Now that I think about it...that might indeed be a sea-story in itself.
You had asked how a published diary on the Internet (World
Wide Web) came to be called a "blog".
BLOG was one of the protocols built upon IP (such as TCP,
UDP). It was an acronym for "Brilliant Literature / Obnoxious Grunting". There
was a certain amount of punning involved, since it could be used as a verb to
describe singular and plural-voiced publication (iBLOG and weBLOG).
Some claim it was also derived from the old Kiltiberian
blaugh (pronounced "blaugh") meaning compulsive chatter. Our modern terms
"blather" and "blah blah blah" descend from that root; possibly "blarney" does
also. The content of the typical blog displays a distinctive and memorable level
of taste - reminiscent of Sturgeon - suggesting this family of terms should
include "blah" and "bleah".
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I'll take a look and see if I can find out what's going on.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sat Jul 7 14:53:22 2007 (PiXy!)
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Okay there is something interesting going on here. Yes, things are messed up in a browser-dependent way. Everything's fine in Firefox, but a number of things are broken in IE - and not the normal things.
I'll grab a copy of your blog to the test environment so I can take a proper look.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sat Jul 7 15:20:37 2007 (PiXy!)
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Thanks for the quick response. "Interesting"...that sounds ominous. I'm sorry my blog seem to be such a bother.
Thanks Again, Ken
Posted by: Brickmuppet at Sat Jul 7 22:22:34 2007 (V5zw/)
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That's what it means to be part of a "beta". You and I have been turning up problems, and that's exactly what Pixy hoped we'd do. It's the reason he offered us free use of the system.
Better by far to find those problems now than to have them turn up after this place gets established with hundreds of paying customers.
Both of us are what are known as "black box" testers. The opposite is "white box" testing, which means that the tester understands the internals and is deliberately shooting for the places where problems are most likely to be found. Pixy has been doing his own white box testing.
But there's no substitute for black-box testing. "Black Box" testers don't know what's going on in the code so they attack with less predictability, across a wider front. To some extent a white box tester is limited by his preconceptions, but black box testers have no such limitations and will find some of the damndest things. I speak as a software developer myself when I describe this, and believe me, black box testing is essential.
So don't apologize for making things break. I haven't been. You and I have been doing exactly what Pixy hoped we'd do: to use the system heavily and to turn up problems he himself can't find.
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Hmmm, I seem to have failed my post roll as well...
OK, here is what I did Tuesday that may or may not have precipitated the issue.
I attempted to insert a picture into both the HEADER and BANNER sections of the TEMPLATE page. (I was unsure which controlled exactly what)
I failed of course (My Computer-Fu is weak) and carelessly lost the page with the original template for BANNER....this is why I asked if you has cheeseburger had stock templates or a reset to default function. As I generally use Firefox, I was unaware of the image issue at the time. I noticed it on AOL last night, and Wonderduck informed me mere minutes later that it was not a buggy Cybercafe computer, but an actual issue.
Both IE, and AOL refuse to show images. Additionally I've noticed today that when I follow an intra-blog link like the ENTRY hyperlink in the "Recent Comments" section I get a "Cant Find Web Page" error.....but #500 rather than #404.
Ultimately I'd like to put an image into the header or sidebar, be able to play with the site colors, have categories listed on the respective posts and possibly have category icons similar in principal to those on Shamus's site.
Note that despite the issues (which may or may not be self inflicted) I'm still quite happy with the move, for one thing customer service actually exists here, there has been no condescension, and the crack staff of support Pixies has been very quick at addressing all issues.
This is highly appreciated, especially since I am woefully ignorant web design.
Thank you for your professionalism and your patience.
Posted by: Brickmuppet at Sat Jul 7 22:56:20 2007 (V5zw/)
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"You and I have been doing exactly what Pixy hoped we'd do: to use the
system heavily and to turn up problems he himself can't find."
Yay us! Woot!
Thanks Stephen
I was worried that my lack of knowledge would make me of limited usefullness as a a beta tester (Ye Gods I can barely type).... But that makes perfect sense actually.. I'm just sorry I didn't post a full explanation sooner (I was unaware of the issue as I've been hella busy).
Posted by: Brickmuppet at Sat Jul 7 23:02:22 2007 (V5zw/)
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Steven's exactly right. The point of having beta testers is that they'll do things that I wouldn't expect. Which you have done.
I'll have it all sorted out soon - just a busy Sunday here, with annoying life-type-stuff interfering with my important coding. (You know, having lunch, talking to my family, that sort of thing.
)
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sun Jul 8 01:35:27 2007 (PiXy!)
Hobby Space News of the commercial space industry A Babe In The Universe Rather Eclectic Cosmology Encyclopedia Astronautica Superb spacecraft resource The Unwanted Blog Scott Lowther blogs about forgotten aerospace projects and sells amazingly informative articles on the same. Also, there are cats. Transterrestrial Musings Commentary on Infinity...and beyond! Colony WorldsSpace colonization news! The Alternate Energy Blog It's a blog about alternate energy (DUH!) Next Big Future Brian Wang: Tracking our progress to the FUTURE. Nuclear Green Charles Barton, who seems to be either a cool curmudgeon, or a rational hippy, talks about energy policy and the terrible environmental consequences of not going nuclear Energy From Thorium Focuses on the merits of thorium cycle nuclear reactors WizBang Current events commentary...with a wiz and a bang The Gates of Vienna Tenaciously studying a very old war The Anchoress insightful blogging, presumably from the catacombs Murdoc Online"Howling Mad Murdoc" has a millblog...golly! EaglespeakMaritime security matters Commander Salamander Fullbore blackshoe blogging! Belmont Club Richard Fernandez blogs on current events BaldilocksUnderstated and interesting blog on current events The Dissident Frogman French bi-lingual current events blog The "Moderate" VoiceI don't think that word means what they think it does....but this lefty blog is a worthy read nonetheless. Meryl Yourish News, Jews and Meryls' Views Classical Values Eric Scheie blogs about the culture war and its incompatibility with our republic. Jerry Pournell: Chaos ManorOne of Science fictions greats blogs on futurism, current events, technology and wisdom A Distant Soil The website of Colleen Dorans' superb fantasy comic, includes a blog focused on the comic industry, creator issues and human rights. John C. Wright The Sci-Fi/ Fantasy writer muses on a wide range of topics. Now Read This! The founder of the UK Comics Creators Guild blogs on comics past and present. The Rambling Rebuilder Charity, relief work, roleplaying games Rats NestThe Art and rantings of Vince Riley Gorilla Daze Allan Harvey, UK based cartoonist and comics historian has a comicophillic blog! Pulpjunkie Tim Driscoll reviews old movies, silents and talkies, classics and clunkers. Suburban Banshee Just like a suburban Leprechaun....but taller, more dangerous and a certified genius. Satharn's Musings Through TimeThe Crazy Catlady of The Barony of Tir Ysgithr アニ・ノート(Ani-Nouto) Thoughtful, curmudgeonly, otakuism that pulls no punches and suffers no fools. Chizumatic Stephen Den Beste analyzes anime...with a microscope, a slide rule and a tricorder. Wonderduck Anime, Formula One Racing, Sad Girls in Snow...Duck Triumphalism Beta Waffle What will likely be the most thoroughly tested waffle evah! Zoopraxiscope Too In this thrilling sequel to Zoopraxiscope, Don, Middle American Man of Mystery, keeps tabs on anime, orchids, and absurdities. Mahou Meido MeganekkoUbu blogs on Anime, computer games and other non-vital interests Twentysided More geekery than you can shake a stick at Shoplifting in the Marketplace of Ideas Sounds like Plaigarism...but isn't Ambient IronyAll Meenuvians Praise the lathe of the maker! Hail Pixy!!
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
blog-bug that was causing problems. It turned out not to be an issue with their Software at all but some program being beta-tested for some barbarians outside the gates of Mee.Nuvia.
