The People's Republic of Fub

Finished series: Sky Girls

2010-01-04T20:09:31Z

We've finished watching Sky Girls. My first episode review is here.

Sky Girls starts off as a simple enough fanservice-fest: girls dressed in swimsuit-like "nanosuits" in exoskeleton-like mecha! They're the 'ultimate weapon' against the cyber-enemies 'WORM' -- battle machines that have wiped one third of humanity. The 'Sonic Diver' mecha have been created to fight against a re-emergence of the WORM, and since males are in short supply because of the casualties in the previous war with the WORM, girls are recruited to pilot the mecha. Of course, there are many 'old hands' in the military who think it's a total disgrace to have teenaged girls do battle -- but at the moment the series starts, there is no alternative.
Main character is Otoha, who gets drafted into the Sonic Diver team. She is an expert in kendo (her family runs a dojo), but she's not especially skilled in anything else -- she is selected because her physique allows her to sync up with the nanoskin armor that protects the pilot. Together with the three other girls (with two more added in as the story progresses), she is stationed in Oppama base, forming the Sky Girls team.

It all starts off pretty innocent: the setting is pretty 'military light', with plenty of opportunities to get into trouble without any real consequences. There's sleuthing about who wears these enormous bras, the obligatory onsen episode, etcetera. But there's some serious stuff going on as well, with the team training a lot and learning what it means to work together.
It turns out that the WORM are actually a mutated form of nanobot, that was created by Dr. Krishnam to cure his daughter Aisha from a disease. However, the WORM now seem to think they should protect the Earth's ecosystem and have since been targetting polluting installations like coal power plants etcetera. Later on in the series, Aisha makes an appearance and shows limited remote control of the WORM.
The whole base is packed up and placed on a ship that sets sail to the WORM hive to destroy it once and for all. Of course, everything that the WORM have absorbed in the past gets thrown at the crew, and of course Otoha's twin brother who dissapeared long ago also makes an appearance. Through some intense fighting scenes, everything ends up OK again..

There's not much in this series that is extraordinary. Designs are kinda bland, animation is kinda bland, plot is meh. The usual themes like friendship, working as a team towards a common goal etcetera figure heavily in the series, but not in ways that are particularly novel. But there's not much to distinguish this series from many, many others.

Good points:
- Some episodes are amusing takes on common themes like "stranded on a jungle island";
- Enough fanservice.
Bad points:
- Bland all the way.

All in all, this series doesn't rise above a mediocre 6.

Le Randonneur

2009-12-31T17:15:25Z

It's hard to see (the camera of the G1 isn't really suited to these
low-light conditions), but we all arrived at Le Randonneur, the inn run by a
friend of mine. We'll be celebrating the new year here.

Hai, dekimashita!

2009-12-30T21:30:32Z

The whole patchwork. Truth be told, ingiechan did all of the patching -- I just ironed the seams left, right and down. :)

Gotta hurry

2009-12-30T20:09:18Z

Yesterday I got a voicemail from the furniture-store, so I called back today. Next week thursday we will get our new dining table, bench and chairs. So we have every reason to hurry up with the quilt!

This is the bottom quarter of the patchwork. I like it a lot -- can't wait to see the whole thing!

Making booklets

2009-12-30T10:56:42Z

If you want to check out some of the books that we've made, see this gallery.

What people want to hear

2009-12-30T09:46:49Z

As a way to recondition Kodama's old battery and to test the new one, I've been streaming live radio over wifi. It gives a constant network and CPU load, and you can hear when the battery gave out -- so that works quite well.
The station I've been listening to, 3FM, had their annual 'Serious Request' charity drive in the week before christmas. Three DJs were locked in in a glass house and had to make radio for 24x7 hours, while not eating. The public could pledge money to request a song to be played. They collected over 7 million euros for the Red Cross, which is no mean feat.
During the drive, they couldn't play all the records that were requested. So from Christmas to new year's eve, they've been playing the "Top Serious Request": a hitlist of all the records that were requested, with the most-requested ones at the top. And it's nothing like the usual radio they make. It's mostly music (instead of the incessant bantering that some DJs seem to be fond of), and the spread over the spectrum is pretty wide.

People paid good money to hear these records. So why is the regular radio not more like this? Surely you could gain a tremendous audience by playing music from this list -- it's what people really wanted to hear.

More power for Kodama

2009-12-28T13:57:20Z

The battery of Kodama, my EEE 900, is in pretty bad shape. The battery was quite anemic to begin with, so we were always pretty much tethered to the power cord anyway. And with the constant cycle of charging abit, discharging a bit and then recharing again -- the battery doesn't hold much charge anymore. I'm trying to re-vitalise the battery by running a few cycles of completely discharging it and then recharging completely, but I don't think it'll ever get to the old level.
And I want to use Kodama more and more as a laptop (which means: untethered to a power cord), so today I took the plunge and ordered a replacement battery. The 'normal' battery is only 4400 mAh, and the one I ordered is 10400 mAh! So that should mean a few more hours of using Kodama. I'm looking forward to that.

The only drawback is that the battery is much larger. But I can live with that.

Finished book: Artemis Fowl

2009-12-27T19:08:14Z

I've finished reading the first Artemis Fowl book. Enjoyable and easy read, but I won't be reading any of the other books in the series. It is very, very silly and written in a style that does not agree with me. The story is filled with wisecracking characters that seem to be in a constant fight with eachother -- but the cracks are not particularly wise. That kind of dimishes the idea that these are indeed hardened professionals.

Also, the Dutch translation is really, really bad. I know, I am not a professional translator, so what do I know about it? Well, enough to know that "sidearm" is not translated with "zij-arm". Clearly, Mireille Vroege doesn't know what it means and didn't bother to look it up. And if a camera is developed by Industrial Light & Magic, I wouldn't write in the translated text that it was developed by "Industrieel Licht en Magie".
It seems like most of the text was translated by Google Translate. Really dissapointing.

On the other hand, it was enjoyable. The story is pretty clever and the plot is quite innovative, so it's certainly not lost time. I bought the book on a whim, and I won't buy any more.

fub @ 2009-12-22T21:53:00

2009-12-22T20:53:50Z

Today was our last working day for the year. In contrast to other years, we are taking the time between christmas and new year's off from work.

Finished series: Bamboo Blade

2009-12-21T19:59:38Z

We've also finished watching Bamboo Blade. My first episode is here.

Toraji is the instructor of the school's kendo club. He's pretty poor and has lots of trouble making ends meet. One day he meets his sempai from the kendo club from his own highschool days -- the one he always looked up to, but whom he beat one time. The sempai, who also works as a teacher and who also is the instructor of a kendo club, makes a wager with him. If Toraji's female kendo team can beat his sempai's, he gets a year's supply of sushi! Toraji agrees, but he doesn't even have a full team!
Through various dealings and hasty recruitments, he manages to round out his team. Foremost is Tamaki, a shy girl who is a natural with the kendo blade. Her family runs a kendo dojo, and she regards kendo as just one of those things you do. But her sense of justice (instilled by watching too many superhero series, mainly 'Blade Braver') leads her to join the club to fight off a bullying sempai. Toraji convinces her to stay on for the tournament.

There's a whole cast of females in the team: energetic (but not too smart) Kirino, the captain of the club. There's the beautiful Miyako, who acts all cutesy but who has a dark side to her (which she hides when in the presence of her plain-looking and nerdy boyfriend Danjuro). There's the whimsical Sayako, who sometimes doesn't appear at the club for long periods of time. There's Satori, who is quite proficient at kendo but who has trouble keeping her test scores high enough without spending all her time studying.
The male cast consists of Yuji (pretty boring bright and positive guy) and the aforementioned Danjuro.

It all starts off as a typical sports anime: a rag-tag band of players get lumped together and they have to stick together through some hardships to get where they need to be. But slowly the focus of the series shifts to Tamaki. Because she gets to train with a lot of new friends, she slowly becomes less and less shy. And she learns some important life lessons, like what it means to lose (something she has never experienced before)! But of course her friends help her cope with that, and she comes back with a vengance!

It's a pretty decent series with enough plot to keep it interesting. It doesn't fall into the usual traps that most sports anime do, and instead focusses more on the characters and the way they cope with their situation. That's a pretty good mix!

Good points:
- Decent animation and voice acting;
- More character development than any sports anime I've ever seen.
Bad points:
- Drags slightly towards the end, when Tamaki is in her rut.

Don't expect any life-changing insights from this anime. But it's quite fun and keeps you watching. For that, I'll give it a 7.

Finished series: Hyakko

2009-12-20T18:55:58Z

The review queue has crept to 20 titles. Time to get crackin'!

So we've finished watching Hyakko. My first episode review is here.

Ayumi has been able to enter a rather posh highschool! She is a bit shy and thus has real trouble making friends. But she is full of resolve to make a fresh start at her new school and make lots of friends! Except that she is really shy and even gets lost on her first day of school! While wandering around, she meets three other girls who happen to be in the same class and who are also lost.
There's the haughty daughter of a rich industrialist, Tatsuki. She is pretty concerned about appearances and 'proper' behaviour. She is often bothered by the happy-go-lucky behaviour of Torako, who is a bit of a loose cannon. The quartet is rounded out by Suzume, Torako's bosom friend who is immensely strong and not concerned about appearances and modesty at all.

There's not much about this series: it's a series of whimsical stories -- most initiated by the mischief of Torako. All the stories (most of which span half an episode) have something about a tiger ('Toraya') in them. There's Torako who punches their homeroom teacher in the face, or the time she decides to change the hair styles of the people around her, or when Torako is made a member of the Public Morals committee and has to check the outfits of the students against the dress code.
There is some plot, in the sense that Torako's home situation (which is initially unknown to everyone except Suzume) fuels Torako's erratical behaviour. Her older sister and brother pop up as well, which are the only times that Torako is pushed into the defensive. It explains a bit how Torako became how she is. But it's all quite lighthearted, and doesn't dig too deep.

The whole thing is pretty nice but won't last for the ages. The series is attractive but nothing too special. Just a nice, short series to watch if you're not in the mood for too much thinking. The voice acting is nice too, with a special mention of Suzume's quiet voice.

Good points:
- Looks pretty okay;
- Funny;
- Lighthearted.
Bad points:
- The plot doesn't dig too deep.

All in all, good in what it aims to be. I'll give it a 7 for that: slightly above average, but nothing much special.

fub @ 2009-12-20T12:17:00

2009-12-20T11:17:49Z

Happy birthday, vleeg!

Cancelled!

2009-12-20T11:14:31Z

Our D&D session of today was cancelled. This means we have to prepare and freeze copious amounts of curly kale mashpot to be consumed at a later date.

Cuddly cat

2009-12-19T16:49:58Z

The cat had been lounging on the window sill (above the radiator, nice and
warm), but he thought it was time for a cuddle. He always goes to ingiechan's desk, because mine is so full of stuff.

Growing rabbits

2009-12-19T15:09:23Z

I fear there's too little time left to grow our own rabbit in time for the
christmas dinner...

Stamping workshop

2009-12-17T20:48:11Z

Yesterday was the last lesson of the graphics course. As I wrote about earlier, I was asked to do a workshop about cutting stamps. So I threw everything stamp-related in a large bag and went to the course, quite ill-prepared.

It was a great success. Most of the participants of the course joined in. I started out by handing out small pieces of scrap rubber that I still had lying around and explaining how to cut lines and arcs. Everyone was amazed by the material I had -- the graphics course does use linoleum, but that's so much stiffer than the stamping rubber, so it's impossible to make fine lines on it.
In only a few minutes, people were trying out their stamps:

Someone even did a small print run with their first stamp:

It was a small christmas tree, and when I explained the technique of using felt tipped pens to color in a stamp, and he used that too:

(It turned out that those were envelopes for his christmas cards that we got from him at the end of the lesson. ^_^ )
The teacher had gotten a stack of drawing paper to print on, and soon everyone was printing their try-out stamp on paper:

After that, I distributed pieces of 5x6 cm for them to turn into a 'real' stamp. While they were working on that, there was a festive intermezzo. One of the people from the course, who had been following courses at the local cultural centre for 25 years(!) is moving to Amsterdam in January. So yesterday was the last day he would follow a lesson there. We had all chipped in to give him a print from a beautiful etching made by the teacher.

We all had to sign the backside of the frame.

After that, I showed some more printing techniques: especially the gold embossing powder was a huge hit. Even though most of my fellow students have been making prints from linoleum and etchings for years, they had never seen an ink pad up close or considered using those techniques in their work. I think it was an enriching experience for quite a few of them. The teacher made me write down the carving medium and where I ordered it -- we'll see if that ever amounts to anything.

In the end, the common piece of paper looked like this:

Good fun!

fub @ 2009-12-17T20:49:00

2009-12-17T19:49:19Z

Happy birthday, culculhen!

A specialist knows everything about nothing

2009-12-16T21:42:04Z

There are people who know everything about etching inks, but who do not know where to get an ink pad. :)

Fantasy banks

2009-12-13T21:42:25Z

Two weeks ago, in the previous session of nathreee's D&D campaign, we escorted a scaredy-cat magician to the bank to make a withdrawal to pay our fee. The whole thing left me wondering about fraud prevention... I got the impression that the system would be quite easy to crack.

The bank had armed guards at the entrance who stopped anyone carrying weapons from going in (except of course our Dwarf, who claimed his double-bladed axe was merely ceremonial). Inside the bank, there was another armed guard and a magician who was now and then casting 'Detect Magic' to see who was using magic. Then the client would be recognised by face by a clerk who would then count out the money.
There are spells that make someone look like someone else -- so magic easily would defeat the identification process. Of course, you'd have to defeat the Detect Magic -- but it is also possible to have an Alchemist put a spell in an item, creating a magic item with that particular effect. Sure, the item is detected with Detect Magic, but your average adventurer or magician would light up like a christmas tree when viewed in such a way. I think my character, who is not especially keen on magic, has some three or four magic items on him. Other characters have even more. Some characters have magic jackets -- would those not hide anything magical under them?

So the fact that someone is carrying a magical item is not enough evidence. The magician in question also has to be able to determine what spell is being used in the magical item -- which is a separate feat. And he has to do this constantly. Sure, high-level magicians can cast these things at will and have a good chance to identify the spells in effect. But if you have to have an army of specialist working around the clock, it just doesn't scale anymore. A magician that spends all his daily magic at the bank has to be handsomely compensated -- he could make loads of cash by selling his magic to the highest bidder or by adventuring. Surely the bank should match that price.

'Detect Magic' (page 219 of my 3.5 PHB) lasts 1 minute per level, but the cast has to concentrate. So a level 10 mage can detect magic for 10 minutes per spell, if his concentration is not broken (by a loud noise? Someone talking to him?). A level 10 mage can cast 20 spells per day. So that makes for 200 minutes (slightly over three hours) of security. Suppose the bank is open 8 hours per day, that would mean the bank has to retain three level 10 mages!
My character is level 8, and has, next to a wide array of various expensive weapons, trinkets and artifacts, about 2000 gold pieces in cash. A mage who's 2 levels higher should make much more. So in order to be secure, the bank has to charge enormous interest on loans, or something. It can't be commercially viable!

Graphics course

2009-12-13T14:07:27Z

Last Wednesday, I had another session of the graphics course. It was a busy evening!

I continued with my plate for the sugar-lift technique. I started off with applying really soft wax to the plate with the sugar-water painting. When that had dried (which was pretty fast) I held it under hot running water. The sugar melted, taking the wax with it -- exposing the plate where the sugar had been. This went into the acid for about an hour(!).

Meanwhile, I made a print of the soft-wax pressed plate that I made the week before.

As you can see, it came out quite nicely. The tiger lily stamp has a weird effect going on: the lines are etched pretty deeply, but the parts that are supposed to be clear is shifted ever so slightly. I think it's a very attractive effect. The hydrangea leaves didn't leave much of an impression -- if you look really closely, you see the capillaries. The two parts are quite apart in this print.

So I decided to do some aquatint. The stamp-part would be left as it is, but the area around the hydrangea leaves would get darker. After slightly longer than 15 minutes in the acid, this came out:

Much better.

Also, last week I made another print of the Daruma doll plate, in a sand-tone:

And for all of you who were curious as to what it would look like with the face-stamp applied:

I didn't have time to process the sugar-lift plate any further, but it got processed quite nicely. Next Wednesday is the last lesson of the year, and I was asked to do a workshop for cutting stamps. I'm honored, but it will also mean that I won't get to progress with my plates any further.
Contrary to my previous musings, I have decided to continue on next year as well. I have things I want to make -- I guess that's a good sign. And seeing others work on their own projects is pretty inspiring as well.

Truth and fiction

2009-12-13T13:33:48Z

Yesterday afternoon, we went to nathreee's birthday party. I leafed through the main book of the fourth edition of Shadowrun there.

Yesterday evening, we went to usmu's birthday party. There we met someone who works as a shaman.

G-Drive dissapointment

2009-12-04T20:36:52Z

Using the research xaviar_nl had already conducted, I also ordered a G-Drive -- the 1TB version. Right now, we don't have a sensible back-up strategy, and when ingiechan's harddisks die, I don't want to mourn the loss of all her photos. And 1TB is big enough to back up both her and mine systems.

It took a while, but yesterday we finally received the package. Eagerly, I unpacked the drive, connected the power supply to the mains and to my system through USB... and nothing happened.

Checking the packaging yielded the information "formatted for Mac". Now, I am all for making the lives of Mac users easy (because we all know they can use all the help they can get when dealing with technology ;) ), but I'm not too thrilled when that means it doesn't work for me. The damn thing didn't even show up in Gparted! I switched it over to ingiechan's machine (which runs WinXP), which also could not do anything with the drive. Strike one.
Turns out that it was partitioned with a "GPT Protected Partition" that neither Linux nor WinXP know what to do with. Some searching found this forum post where the 'Technical Support Manager' from G-Technology suggested getting a Mac (out of the question) or installing a trial version of Mac filesystem driver software for Windows (not bloody likely to happen on my watch). The person who asked the question was (rightfully) pissed off at the answer, after which the support person never responded anymore. Strike two.
If everything else fails, read the manual -- right? So we popped in the included CD and searched for the manual. But wait... the G-Drive wasn't mentioned. So they included a disc with manuals, but the manual of the product we bought was not on the disc! Strike three. Also, the instructions for the other types of drive were all the same -- but those could only be followed if the protection was lifted. And no word in the manual as to how to do that!

I tend to see these things as quality indicators. Your product may be so good, but if you can't get these easy things done correctly, you are bound to mess up in some unforeseen area. And frankly, G-technology does not impress me in that department. I will never buy any of their products again -- but then again, I'm not the target audience anyway, because I don't use a Mac. I guess.

In the end, I found a blog posting that mentions using Diskpart (on WinXP) to remove the protection, and after that I could reformat the drive into NTFS. We'll do some backups tonight.
Yes, it's a sturdy device with good cooling. But it's also noisy and the flickering of the (rather bright and large) white activity LED on the front is irritating. I foresee that we will only use it for backups, and nothing more.

Graphics course

2009-12-03T20:29:11Z

Yesterday evening, at the graphics course, I had a very productive evening -- but not much to show for it.

I started off with de-greasing the plate for the sugar-lift etching. This time I succeeded, and I painted a five story pagoda. The plate is now drying off in the closet -- I expect to be able to etch it next week.
After that, I got another zinc plate and did the usual cleaning routine, to use a soft wax technique. I had mis-interpreted how it's supposed to work, and it turned out that I needed stuff that could be run through the press. I didn't have such things with me -- except that I had taken a few stamps with me to show to the group. So we experimented a bit with the press and managed to get a pretty good impression of the stamp into the wax! The other half of the plate was pressed with a few hydrangea leaves.
While that was etching, I made another print of my Daruma plate -- because there was not much else to do for me at the time. Making one print takes me slightly less time than half an hour...

So next week, I expect to be able to etch the sugar-lift plate and to make a few prints of the soft wax plate!

Also, for the last evening of this year, everyone wanted to join in on a workshop cutting stamps... Now I have to think of what to teach 'em...

Mouse in the house

2009-12-03T19:56:25Z

On Monday, we heard something scuffling in the kitchen. We couldn't find the source of the noise at first, but when the noises persisted, further scrutiny revealed a mouse sitting on top of a box of some kitchen machine we got as a gift -- which we had put on top of the kitchen cabinets.
We waited for the mouse to dissapear and then I took the box outside. We shook the contents to the floor -- and sure enough, we saw a mouse scampering away. It had gnawed on the carton packaging of the machine, so no real harm done. We have packaged all of our food in impenetrable containers anyway.

Fabric came in!

2009-11-28T14:31:39Z

Earlier this week, we got a rather large envelope from the Fat Quarter Shop. It held the two Bali Pops that we ordered.
Each bali pop has 40 strips of fabric, but for a single quilt we need only 10. So now we have enough fabric to make four quilts. We had to get two of the same assortment, because the strips of a single bali pop weren't long enough to make the quilt long enough. So this morning we sorted the fabric in four groups of ten strips. Perhaps we'll make a quilt for every season, but we haven't really decided on that yet.

This is the first batch. We both liked this the most, so this will be used for the first quilt we'll be making:

Here are the others, in no particular order: