Here are the first 5 random art tips off the top of my head that won't really help you draw, but may help you draw better (YMMV):
1) Don't pet your lines, lay them down with confidence and if you get it wrong, erase with confidence. Unless you're using ink; then you're fucked. In that case, I like to deal with it by changing the lighting scheme and hiding my mistakes in dark, dark shadow.
2) Static poses aren't interesting, make the pose more interesting or change up the camera angle.
3) If you copy straight off a photograph, people will know. Camera lenses foreshadow more dramatically than human eyes; know to correct for it.
4) When using paints, mixing transparent pigments will give vibrant colours and mixing opaque pigments will give you mud. This is true irrespective of the medium (e.g. cadmium yellow is opaque whether it's watercolour or oil).
5) Don't waste your time drawing anime lolis, you'll never get anywhere doing that. <_<
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Is Britain retarded?
They are building 2 new Queen Elizabeth class carriers costing close to $5b, of which one will be immediately mothballed upon completion and possibly sold without ever being afforded an air wing. Because they're too expensive to operate and it's cheaper to build them than to cancel construction.
I'm so glad we don't have to deal with this kind of crap (hopefully).
Placing the HMS Prince of Wales indefinitely into "extended readiness" reserve though? How strangely appropriate.
I'm so glad we don't have to deal with this kind of crap (hopefully).
Placing the HMS Prince of Wales indefinitely into "extended readiness" reserve though? How strangely appropriate.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Friday, April 15, 2011
The alpha and the beta
Stats 101, just so everyone's on the same page: there are 2 types of errors.
Type-1 (alpha) error is a detection (false-rejection) error.
Type-2 (beta) error is a rejection (false-detection) error.
What does this mean for our lives?
Let's pretend there exists a social welfare program for people whose houses spontaneously combusted. In order to determine if they should be granted restitution, their situation is quantified on a scale by some means. Of course there will be people who burn their houses down to scam money and we would seek to exclude them from this system. In an ideal world, we would imagine a distribution of scammers and non-scammers on the scale as such:
Yes, prepare for a lot of bad MSPaint diagrams because I can't be assed to work with Illustrator.
So in this ideal world, it's simple. We set P as the cut-off point and exclude everyone who scores higher than P on the scale and accept everyone who scores less than P. Done!
Except no.
By central limit theorem, we would expect normal distributions of both populations centered around separate means (if this test has any amount of effectiveness):
At point Q is how the average Spontaneous Combustor shows up and point R is the average Scammer. Under the two bells are how the populations of both categories are expected to be distributed. Notice though, how they overlap! I guess you can argue that a better test would space the curves further apart, but realistically you rarely see that kind of thing in real life in any meaningful way even in stochastic processes that don't involve one set of sentient beings trying to appear like the other. What you can do, is tighten the acceptance criteria and shift P left, or relax it and shift P right.
Okay, here's where the math gets a bit sketchy with assumptions, but bear with me. You can decide if it makes sense or not (it does to me), but doesn't affect my core premises either way.
The population of Scammers is much less than the population of Spontaneous Combustors so our distributions actually look like this:
Now if P is where % alpha is equal for both hypotheses, the absolute alpha and beta for our leftmost graph is:
I might've eyeballed P too far right actually, but no matter. As you can see, because one group is larger than the other, even if we accidentally accept the same percentage of blue as we reject red, the absolute alpha is much bigger than beta.
So a huge part of social policy is really all about where we want to move P. We will never know absolutely how big each slice is because obviously if we had a foolproof way to detect it, we wouldn't be committing these errors in the first place! The question is in which direction do we want to err?
In every aspect of our social systems, Conservatives are so frightened of Type-2 errors that they cripple them to beyond usability for many people with legitimate needs for them. Whether this be something like unemployment insurance, disability insurance, or even something as fundamental to democracy as voting.
Realistically some number people in real need is going to look exactly like some number of people that aren't in whatever system you're using the quantify "need". I would argue the number of the former is much greater than the number of the latter in whatever confidence interval we're using, but for the sake of argument let's say it's 1:1.
You have 2 applicants to social welfare program x. One who is in dire need through no fault of his own and another one who is scamming for money.
You can choose to shut neither or both out. Which do you choose? Which do you think is the appropriate choice for a developed democratic society?
Either the CPC thinks that a token amount of infringement is unbearably galling that they would rather shut the door on someone who has paid into the social system in the expectation of being protected when luck turns sour or they are just looking for an excuse to Not Give a Damn.
Pathetic. Or evil. You decide.
Additional food for thought: Engineering stats begins at the CLT whereas that's about the point after the stats most math students take ends. It's almost as though they said to themselves, "whoa, we better stop now or else they might learn something useful!".
Type-1 (alpha) error is a detection (false-rejection) error.
Type-2 (beta) error is a rejection (false-detection) error.
What does this mean for our lives?
Let's pretend there exists a social welfare program for people whose houses spontaneously combusted. In order to determine if they should be granted restitution, their situation is quantified on a scale by some means. Of course there will be people who burn their houses down to scam money and we would seek to exclude them from this system. In an ideal world, we would imagine a distribution of scammers and non-scammers on the scale as such:
Yes, prepare for a lot of bad MSPaint diagrams because I can't be assed to work with Illustrator.
So in this ideal world, it's simple. We set P as the cut-off point and exclude everyone who scores higher than P on the scale and accept everyone who scores less than P. Done!
Except no.
By central limit theorem, we would expect normal distributions of both populations centered around separate means (if this test has any amount of effectiveness):
At point Q is how the average Spontaneous Combustor shows up and point R is the average Scammer. Under the two bells are how the populations of both categories are expected to be distributed. Notice though, how they overlap! I guess you can argue that a better test would space the curves further apart, but realistically you rarely see that kind of thing in real life in any meaningful way even in stochastic processes that don't involve one set of sentient beings trying to appear like the other. What you can do, is tighten the acceptance criteria and shift P left, or relax it and shift P right.
Okay, here's where the math gets a bit sketchy with assumptions, but bear with me. You can decide if it makes sense or not (it does to me), but doesn't affect my core premises either way.
The population of Scammers is much less than the population of Spontaneous Combustors so our distributions actually look like this:
Now if P is where % alpha is equal for both hypotheses, the absolute alpha and beta for our leftmost graph is:
I might've eyeballed P too far right actually, but no matter. As you can see, because one group is larger than the other, even if we accidentally accept the same percentage of blue as we reject red, the absolute alpha is much bigger than beta.
So a huge part of social policy is really all about where we want to move P. We will never know absolutely how big each slice is because obviously if we had a foolproof way to detect it, we wouldn't be committing these errors in the first place! The question is in which direction do we want to err?
In every aspect of our social systems, Conservatives are so frightened of Type-2 errors that they cripple them to beyond usability for many people with legitimate needs for them. Whether this be something like unemployment insurance, disability insurance, or even something as fundamental to democracy as voting.
Realistically some number people in real need is going to look exactly like some number of people that aren't in whatever system you're using the quantify "need". I would argue the number of the former is much greater than the number of the latter in whatever confidence interval we're using, but for the sake of argument let's say it's 1:1.
You have 2 applicants to social welfare program x. One who is in dire need through no fault of his own and another one who is scamming for money.
You can choose to shut neither or both out. Which do you choose? Which do you think is the appropriate choice for a developed democratic society?
Either the CPC thinks that a token amount of infringement is unbearably galling that they would rather shut the door on someone who has paid into the social system in the expectation of being protected when luck turns sour or they are just looking for an excuse to Not Give a Damn.
Pathetic. Or evil. You decide.
Additional food for thought: Engineering stats begins at the CLT whereas that's about the point after the stats most math students take ends. It's almost as though they said to themselves, "whoa, we better stop now or else they might learn something useful!".
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Answer me this, economists
Overmeyer got me started on this rant and now I can't stop.
These are the accepted facts:
1) The only way Western nations sustain GDP growth is through a larger workforce, this can come from children or from immigrants.
2) The most effective manner for governments to increase revenues is to grow the economy. Mind you, this doesn't necessary mean that tax cuts are always a good idea, but that is an optimization discussion to be had elsewhere.
Just one problem with this model...
It's a ponzi scheme! A literal ponzi scheme!
That's bad enough as it is, but it gets worse.
As you know, the Americans are facing a trifecta of spending problems in healthcare, defense and social security that will reach crisis levels by 2050 at this rate. These are systematic problems that all developed countries will face sooner or later.
Healthcare spending goes up because we know about more problems today, we have more complicated treatments today and we are better at keeping old people alive today. We have better quality services today than 50 years ago, but these services cost money and in combination with the other factors, we have more people using more expensive services more often.
Defense spending goes up because defense platforms get more complicated every generation, R&D costs goes up, maintenance costs go up, operating costs go up and then you don't even have a huge consumer base to spread capital costs. The opposite even, because you have the inherent inefficiencies with every country trying to maintain domestic defense production capabilities.
Social security is easy to explain, more old people living longer equals more money. This problem is most immediate in Japan because their low birthrate (even by developed standards) in conjunction with xenophobic immigration policies means they'll soon have gone from four workers sustaining every non-worker to half that. In this respect, we should be keeping an eye on how they deal with this as a lesson to the rest of us.
These are all structural problems! It's like building a skyscraper on a foundation of mud. You can try and keep building higher and propping it up with supports but eventually the entire thing is going to collapse. Euro nations have been keeping their defense budgets under control simply by buying less and less things (at this point the UK and Dutch armed forces have buckled), which is fine, but the other two things are things that constituents will absolutely not stand to cut and this puts politicians in a position where they are reluctant to make any big changes until shit actually hits fan.
And it puzzles me why people haven't been sounding the alarms decades ago. This is clearly unsustainable and, like it or not, we will see some hard choices being made in the upcoming decades.
These are the accepted facts:
1) The only way Western nations sustain GDP growth is through a larger workforce, this can come from children or from immigrants.
2) The most effective manner for governments to increase revenues is to grow the economy. Mind you, this doesn't necessary mean that tax cuts are always a good idea, but that is an optimization discussion to be had elsewhere.
Just one problem with this model...
It's a ponzi scheme! A literal ponzi scheme!
That's bad enough as it is, but it gets worse.
As you know, the Americans are facing a trifecta of spending problems in healthcare, defense and social security that will reach crisis levels by 2050 at this rate. These are systematic problems that all developed countries will face sooner or later.
Healthcare spending goes up because we know about more problems today, we have more complicated treatments today and we are better at keeping old people alive today. We have better quality services today than 50 years ago, but these services cost money and in combination with the other factors, we have more people using more expensive services more often.
Defense spending goes up because defense platforms get more complicated every generation, R&D costs goes up, maintenance costs go up, operating costs go up and then you don't even have a huge consumer base to spread capital costs. The opposite even, because you have the inherent inefficiencies with every country trying to maintain domestic defense production capabilities.
Social security is easy to explain, more old people living longer equals more money. This problem is most immediate in Japan because their low birthrate (even by developed standards) in conjunction with xenophobic immigration policies means they'll soon have gone from four workers sustaining every non-worker to half that. In this respect, we should be keeping an eye on how they deal with this as a lesson to the rest of us.
These are all structural problems! It's like building a skyscraper on a foundation of mud. You can try and keep building higher and propping it up with supports but eventually the entire thing is going to collapse. Euro nations have been keeping their defense budgets under control simply by buying less and less things (at this point the UK and Dutch armed forces have buckled), which is fine, but the other two things are things that constituents will absolutely not stand to cut and this puts politicians in a position where they are reluctant to make any big changes until shit actually hits fan.
And it puzzles me why people haven't been sounding the alarms decades ago. This is clearly unsustainable and, like it or not, we will see some hard choices being made in the upcoming decades.
Escalation, gentlemen?
So the 26th MEU had operating off the Kearsage in the Med for a while now.
What's interesting is that the USS Bataan (LHD-5) and HMS Albion (L14) will be heading into the region very soon carrying the 22nd MEU, troops of the Korps Mariniers and the 539 Assault Squadron of the Royal Marines.
Officially, the Bataan ARG is to relieve the Kearsage ARG and the Albion is participating in Exercise Green Alligator.
But unofficially it looks like a surge of 3 marine battalions' strength + support off the coast of Libya.
Hmm...
What's interesting is that the USS Bataan (LHD-5) and HMS Albion (L14) will be heading into the region very soon carrying the 22nd MEU, troops of the Korps Mariniers and the 539 Assault Squadron of the Royal Marines.
Officially, the Bataan ARG is to relieve the Kearsage ARG and the Albion is participating in Exercise Green Alligator.
But unofficially it looks like a surge of 3 marine battalions' strength + support off the coast of Libya.
Hmm...
Monday, April 11, 2011
Redundancy
Why isn't this text displaying properly?
Control panel says I got "Gill Sans" and "Gill Sans MT" installed already.
Oh!
"Gill Sans MT Pro".
Control panel says I got "Gill Sans" and "Gill Sans MT" installed already.
Oh!
"Gill Sans MT Pro".
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Fire sale!
Rumours are that the Dutch plan to liquidate their entire Leopard 2A6 inventory.
LET'S BUY THEM ALL!
LET'S BUY THEM ALL!
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Spoilers
In season three Liz briefly dated her neighbor Dr. Drew Baird (played by Jon Hamm)
Pffffft-
Soda -> Monitor
That's it, I have to make it to S3.
Monday, April 04, 2011
This show is the best
"This is the worst!"
"Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt were 5th cousins"
"Okay, on a count of three, say what level of cousins we'd have to be for this to be okay...1...2...3"
"5th!"/"Unacceptable no matter what!"
"This is never going to work"
...
"I think we're 3rd cousins"
"Yeah...I'll see you at the reunion"
Annex:
"Yo, remember when we got that email from those Nigerians that needed our help getting all that money out of Africa? We did it! Got the cheque today!"
"Word"
"I would've been happy if it were just for helping the dethroned prince of Nigeria; this is great, we should treat ourselves"
"You want to go to Vegas and buy a bunch of sarcophagi?"
"Nah, I don't even use the ones I have"
"We could add someone to the entourage"
"Yo that's a good idea, what's Young Larry doing these days?"
"He's in Jay-Z's entourage"
"What about Cheese?"
"He's rolling with Ghostface Killah now"
"Fatboss?"
"Studying Hotel Administration at Cornell"
Monday, March 28, 2011
So you want to be a rapper
But can't find a good rhyme? Well you could always rhyme with the same word, or even the same sentence, but I'm going to show you some other options you may not have considered.
A) Drag out the words so long and hope people forget about the rhyme:
B) Make up your own language:
C) Brute force:
D) You are just not trying hard enough:
Finally, I would like to remind everyone why Lil Jon is amazing:
A) Drag out the words so long and hope people forget about the rhyme:
"Cause you'll never get on top off this, so mommy's best advice is to get on top of this
Have you ever had sex with a pharoooOOOoooah?"
Have you ever had sex with a pharoooOOOoooah?"
B) Make up your own language:
"Waiting on the Pizzle, the Dizzle and the Shizzle
G's to the bizzack, now ladies here we gizzo"
G's to the bizzack, now ladies here we gizzo"
C) Brute force:
"So no matter what been through, no matter what you into
No matter what you see when you look outside your windu"
No matter what you see when you look outside your windu"
D) You are just not trying hard enough:
"Opened up your heart 'cause you said I made you feel so comfortable
Used to play back then, now you all grown-up like Rudy Huxtable"
Used to play back then, now you all grown-up like Rudy Huxtable"
Finally, I would like to remind everyone why Lil Jon is amazing:
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Libya air gambit failed
The best possible outcome was that Gaddafi's forces would recoil immediately in the face of Western air supremacy and force a turnover of government.
Unfortunately that's not what happened. So short of miracles, we have two options now: further escalation (we go land) or defeat (of course when we lose, it won't be spun that way).
The general public still has hope that the rebels can go it all the way with Western air support. Can we trust the rebels to win a war? Quite bluntly, no. They have no C2 and they have lawyers and accountants for soldiers. We've spent a decade training the ANA and they still have essentially no capability for directing NATO air on their own, so there is zero chance of that with the Libyans. They'd need SpecOp support at minimum and realistically more like a couple of battalions of marines.
Who would've saw this coming? Quite possibly every milblog network ever. Anyone who actually knew anything about military operations had this kind of mess predicted well before the campaign even began. By all sensible calculations, this war should not have happened.
The public is fickle though. And so is France.
Update 03/29/11: Stavridis testifies that NATO has not ruled out the possibility of ground peacekeeping forces in the future; US Congress is outraged. Shit, since it's a NATO commitment now, is our [Canada's] 3 month withdrawal timeline scrubbed? The US doesn't plan to withdraw any assets from theatre except a 688. Actually, Warthogs and Spookys are giving CAS now, it's like they're not even trying to pretend anymore. An A-10 and P-3 took out 3 Libyan patrol boats. Peculiar. Either we're seeing AirSea Battle concepts permeate in operations or the enemy is just such a piece of 3rd world rubbish that the powers that be decided anything that flies and would lob a 125lb warhead is good enough.
Update 04/02/11: WTF B1-Bs in Libya are they carpet bombing the whole damn place
Unfortunately that's not what happened. So short of miracles, we have two options now: further escalation (we go land) or defeat (of course when we lose, it won't be spun that way).
The general public still has hope that the rebels can go it all the way with Western air support. Can we trust the rebels to win a war? Quite bluntly, no. They have no C2 and they have lawyers and accountants for soldiers. We've spent a decade training the ANA and they still have essentially no capability for directing NATO air on their own, so there is zero chance of that with the Libyans. They'd need SpecOp support at minimum and realistically more like a couple of battalions of marines.
Who would've saw this coming? Quite possibly every milblog network ever. Anyone who actually knew anything about military operations had this kind of mess predicted well before the campaign even began. By all sensible calculations, this war should not have happened.
The public is fickle though. And so is France.
Update 03/29/11: Stavridis testifies that NATO has not ruled out the possibility of ground peacekeeping forces in the future; US Congress is outraged. Shit, since it's a NATO commitment now, is our [Canada's] 3 month withdrawal timeline scrubbed? The US doesn't plan to withdraw any assets from theatre except a 688. Actually, Warthogs and Spookys are giving CAS now, it's like they're not even trying to pretend anymore. An A-10 and P-3 took out 3 Libyan patrol boats. Peculiar. Either we're seeing AirSea Battle concepts permeate in operations or the enemy is just such a piece of 3rd world rubbish that the powers that be decided anything that flies and would lob a 125lb warhead is good enough.
Update 04/02/11: WTF B1-Bs in Libya are they carpet bombing the whole damn place
Crying for you, Canada, I'm crying for you
Why is my best case scenario a government that runs itself in circles just so another worse government doesn't go around punching holes in the ship's hull?
x_x
x_x
Friday, March 25, 2011
Food for thought
Why haven't governments around the world been contributing money to Japan (like after Haiti)?
We are, we're backing up their currency behind the scenes.
What does that mean?
It means Japan can print its own damn money.
We are, we're backing up their currency behind the scenes.
What does that mean?
It means Japan can print its own damn money.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Two thoughts
America has launched 160 cruise missiles into Libya thus far. Every Tomahawk costs a million and a bit dollars, so when you think about it, it'd actually be cheaper for them to be dropping Ferraris on their enemies. But here's the really nuts part: the US Navy can shoot up to 255 of these every year without affecting their budget because they buy about that much every year anyways just to keep their stocks current. They had just used ~180 million dollars worth of ordinance, triple Great Britain's entire inventory, and it literally has no effect on their budget. Needless to say, I think their defense spending could stand to be cut a bit.
Theoretically NATO allows alliance members to have a very robust C2 capability in coordinating their efforts. Yes, NATO's C2 structure is indeed very good. The problem is that it seems most of the time when they get involved, its member nations have their own ideas about mission scope and are all off doing their own thing simultaneously. And of course America is always doing its own thing. It's like adding another head to the same mess of limbs. Time to reconsider the concept I think.
Fun fact: "Norway grounded its F-16s in Crete simply because it had no idea who was who and why."
Theoretically NATO allows alliance members to have a very robust C2 capability in coordinating their efforts. Yes, NATO's C2 structure is indeed very good. The problem is that it seems most of the time when they get involved, its member nations have their own ideas about mission scope and are all off doing their own thing simultaneously. And of course America is always doing its own thing. It's like adding another head to the same mess of limbs. Time to reconsider the concept I think.
Fun fact: "Norway grounded its F-16s in Crete simply because it had no idea who was who and why."
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Election Blues
As far as I'm concerned, one party is the avatar of evil and the other one is so inept as to lose a popularity contest against an avatar of evil.
There are also some regional flavors too, I guess.
I wonder if Japan is the final evolution of democratic societies: bankrupt, ineffective, childrenless.
There are also some regional flavors too, I guess.
I wonder if Japan is the final evolution of democratic societies: bankrupt, ineffective, childrenless.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
What are they supposed to be rescuing people from again?
As you may have heard, Tokyo's elite Hyper Rescue Force has been dispatched for operations.
These are the possibilities that come to mind:
This.
Or this.
Maybe even this.
I sincerely hope this is what Japan has been up to.
These are the possibilities that come to mind:
This.
Or this.
Maybe even this.
I sincerely hope this is what Japan has been up to.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Cacti are pretty easy to take care of
"Hey, I just bought a cactus, how often do you water yours?"
"Never! I thought you watered them!"
They look like they're doing well to me... <_<
Update: "Overwatering of cacti is the single biggest cause of plant loss." Well, glad I got that covered.
"Never! I thought you watered them!"
They look like they're doing well to me... <_<
Update: "Overwatering of cacti is the single biggest cause of plant loss." Well, glad I got that covered.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Let's see
Not a fan of intervention in Libya, because I think it's a campaign the Arab-NATO alliance can't afford to lose once we get involved and then it will inevitably escalate into a clusterfuck. It will be interesting though because the UK and France are going to take the lead on this one. And we all know the UK forces are on collapse, so I guess France. Whoo!
France spends a lot on its military and will almost certainly send in the FS Charles de Gaulle (R91). Italy has dispatched the Giuseppe Garibaldi (551). [1] Gosh, France and Italy! Okay, let's see what they got. There's a lot of honour to be reclaimed here. [2]
Canada is sending over 6 Hornets. Those are CF-18s, totally different, they got a "C" in front. And cockpits on their bellies. This is good, if all the other NATO countries pitch in a few fighters like this, there will be a good number available for constant CAPs.
USS Enterprise (CVN-65) is still chillin' in the Red Sea. I think America will have to move it; they are taking their sweet time though. USS Florida (SSGN-728) did just sail into Naples though.
Hmm...
The thing you got to know about these guided missile subs is that they can carry about an entire surface group's worth of Tomahawks with them. [3]
Someone is thinking ahead...
Update: Obama has told Congress that US fighters will not be involved. Looks like Enterprise will not be recalled. Administration sucks at communicating. W/e, we don't need any more fighters, tankers will definitely be in demand though.
Update 2: American (mostly American) and British subs and destroyers have lobbed 110+ cruise missiles into Libya. Charles de Gaulle should be sailing from Toulon right about now. Our planes have landed in Sicily with the Danes. The operation is finally rolling now.
Update 3: Harriers from Kearsage have done...stuff. Enterprise might be going to relieve USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70); Carl Vinson is with the 5th fleet right now, not even close.
1. I know these French and Italian ship identifiers are useless for identifying what kind of ships they are, but I feel I have to add it for consistency; they are catapult and ski-jump carriers respectively. Ski-jumps only have a small complement of fixed-wing aircraft though (10ish), so the reliance is going to be mostly on Italian airfields and the nukes.Plural assuming Enterprise ever gets there.
2. Obvious joke is obvious. It had to be made.
3. On destroyers and cruisers alike, obviously only a small number of cells are made available for TLAMs; a majority are probably filled with anti-air.
France spends a lot on its military and will almost certainly send in the FS Charles de Gaulle (R91). Italy has dispatched the Giuseppe Garibaldi (551). [1] Gosh, France and Italy! Okay, let's see what they got. There's a lot of honour to be reclaimed here. [2]
Canada is sending over 6 Hornets. Those are CF-18s, totally different, they got a "C" in front. And cockpits on their bellies. This is good, if all the other NATO countries pitch in a few fighters like this, there will be a good number available for constant CAPs.
USS Enterprise (CVN-65) is still chillin' in the Red Sea. I think America will have to move it; they are taking their sweet time though. USS Florida (SSGN-728) did just sail into Naples though.
Hmm...
The thing you got to know about these guided missile subs is that they can carry about an entire surface group's worth of Tomahawks with them. [3]
Someone is thinking ahead...
Update: Obama has told Congress that US fighters will not be involved. Looks like Enterprise will not be recalled. Administration sucks at communicating. W/e, we don't need any more fighters, tankers will definitely be in demand though.
Update 2: American (mostly American) and British subs and destroyers have lobbed 110+ cruise missiles into Libya. Charles de Gaulle should be sailing from Toulon right about now. Our planes have landed in Sicily with the Danes. The operation is finally rolling now.
Update 3: Harriers from Kearsage have done...stuff. Enterprise might be going to relieve USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70); Carl Vinson is with the 5th fleet right now, not even close.
1. I know these French and Italian ship identifiers are useless for identifying what kind of ships they are, but I feel I have to add it for consistency; they are catapult and ski-jump carriers respectively. Ski-jumps only have a small complement of fixed-wing aircraft though (10ish), so the reliance is going to be mostly on Italian airfields and the nukes.
2. Obvious joke is obvious. It had to be made.
3. On destroyers and cruisers alike, obviously only a small number of cells are made available for TLAMs; a majority are probably filled with anti-air.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Japan: Tsundere for America
A picture is a worth a thousand words. I guess what I have is an encyclopaedia on the tsunami right here.
The Big Picture is one of the best photoblogs on the internet. They always have high quality shots of current events. I never noticed how depressing all their titles were before though:
Massive Earthquake Hits
Aftermath
Vast Devestation
Tragedy Deepens
Continuing Crisis
Hopes Fade (Seriously guys??)
Oh no! Not Mio!
The Struggle to Recover (More optimism! Oh boy...)
R3
Aftermath
This is probably the most uplifting one. You know how Okinawa has been trying to kick the Americans out for years? Guess how much goodwill a fleet of circling Seahawks carrying relief brings? Answer: A lot.
Operation Tomodachi
Heartwarming.
The Big Picture is one of the best photoblogs on the internet. They always have high quality shots of current events. I never noticed how depressing all their titles were before though:
Massive Earthquake Hits
Aftermath
Vast Devestation
Tragedy Deepens
Continuing Crisis
Hopes Fade (Seriously guys??)
Oh no! Not Mio!
The Struggle to Recover (More optimism! Oh boy...)
R3
Aftermath
This is probably the most uplifting one. You know how Okinawa has been trying to kick the Americans out for years? Guess how much goodwill a fleet of circling Seahawks carrying relief brings? Answer: A lot.
Operation Tomodachi
Heartwarming.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Nukes again
Of course the situation in Japan is still developing, maybe for the worst, but I am going to stand by my man:
I have faith in all of you, engineers. Don't let us down.
I have faith in all of you, engineers. Don't let us down.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Acronyms
I like it when acronyms stay as just acronyms; no need to get clever with them.
AEUG - The prettiest acronym I know, I wonder if someone's taken it on their license plate already.
BASF - Also very pretty; got to support the industry. Elle oh elle.
I think at one point they tried having AEGIS as a backronym. Guess it was stupid, now it's just Aegis.
Throwing numbers in is interesting too. Maybe not aesthetically, it's fun to say though.
AEUG - The prettiest acronym I know, I wonder if someone's taken it on their license plate already.
BASF - Also very pretty; got to support the industry. Elle oh elle.
I think at one point they tried having AEGIS as a backronym. Guess it was stupid, now it's just Aegis.
Throwing numbers in is interesting too. Maybe not aesthetically, it's fun to say though.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Going nukes
Here's the thing, Fukushima I-1 is one of the oldest reactors in service with TEPCO, built to withstand 8.2 earthquakes. It survived an earthquake 5 times the intensity, followed by a tsunami and ultimately failed because the backup backup generators shipped in by the military had the wrong power sockets.
And nobody died.
Nobody will die.
By all means this should be indicative of how safe nuclear power is. But that's not what the public is going to take away from this. For instance, Sen. Lieberman (I-CT) wants to impose a moratorium on further building any plants in the United States. I wasn't aware that the midland United States was tsunami central; just, keep these things away from Cali.
I guess expecting the media, as stupid as they are, to get nuclear reactors right was a doomed prospect from the beginning. Not that TEPCO did much to help, I heard the press conferences on the NHK being described as, "shit from the source".
Okay.
Hey, Mr. Lieberman! Mr. Lieberman! You live in Connecticut right? That's where Electric Boat is; how do you feel about the nukes getting built in your backyard right now? 774s don't sail on lollipops and sunshine, you know.
And nobody died.
Nobody will die.
By all means this should be indicative of how safe nuclear power is. But that's not what the public is going to take away from this. For instance, Sen. Lieberman (I-CT) wants to impose a moratorium on further building any plants in the United States. I wasn't aware that the midland United States was tsunami central; just, keep these things away from Cali.
I guess expecting the media, as stupid as they are, to get nuclear reactors right was a doomed prospect from the beginning. Not that TEPCO did much to help, I heard the press conferences on the NHK being described as, "shit from the source".
Okay.
Hey, Mr. Lieberman! Mr. Lieberman! You live in Connecticut right? That's where Electric Boat is; how do you feel about the nukes getting built in your backyard right now? 774s don't sail on lollipops and sunshine, you know.
Playing it straight
Canada's administrative divisions are pretty straightforward: 10 provinces, 3 territories, all with a capital and one more for the country.
And that is a bit unusual.
America has got Washington DC as a separate entity from the other states. Then they got little oddities like Puerto Rico.
The United Kingdom is made of four countries, which is peculiar enough.
Germany has their city-states like Berlin and Hamburg.
China has certain cities (like Shenzhen and Shanghai) designated as "special economic zones", Hong Kong and hot potatoes like Tibet. I'm not even going to touch Taiwan.
Japan has designated cities (like Sendai and Osaka[1]), and Tokyo itself is a prefecture. Former Tokyo city is subdivided into wards that would all be considered cities unto themselves anywhere else.
I don't know much about France, I expected to turn up something funny about their arrondissements but got nothing. You can amuse yourself by repeating the name though. Arrondissements. Arrondissements. Arrondissements.
1. Lol, Osaka.
And that is a bit unusual.
America has got Washington DC as a separate entity from the other states. Then they got little oddities like Puerto Rico.
The United Kingdom is made of four countries, which is peculiar enough.
Germany has their city-states like Berlin and Hamburg.
China has certain cities (like Shenzhen and Shanghai) designated as "special economic zones", Hong Kong and hot potatoes like Tibet. I'm not even going to touch Taiwan.
Japan has designated cities (like Sendai and Osaka[1]), and Tokyo itself is a prefecture. Former Tokyo city is subdivided into wards that would all be considered cities unto themselves anywhere else.
I don't know much about France, I expected to turn up something funny about their arrondissements but got nothing. You can amuse yourself by repeating the name though. Arrondissements. Arrondissements. Arrondissements.
1. Lol, Osaka.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Your parents must be soo hood, Oleksi
The hottest fires don't actually make the hardest steel; the trick is fast quenching of γ-iron to under the martensitic transition temperature. Admittedly, the truth is quite poor as a tagline.
Thanks, internet
Someone has kindly provided ASCII art illustrating the difference with a tsunami:
●[４m Wave]
波
波
波波 ●
波波波 人
波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波－－－－－－－－－－－－－－
●[４m Tsunami]
←[Extending offshore for miles]
ゴゴゴゴゴゴゴ‥
波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波
波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波
波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波 Σ ●
波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波 人
波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－
Peter Wu says
gogogogo
wait are the waves made of waves?
lol, yeah I think they are
crobert says
no it's made of mud and cars and buildings and other shit it swallows
Peter Wu says
no I meant in the ascii
crobert says
lol yes
there's a version where it's made with
waves and mud and cars and buildings and fire
●[４m Wave]
波
波
波波 ●
波波波 人
波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波－－－－－－－－－－－－－－
●[４m Tsunami]
←[Extending offshore for miles]
ゴゴゴゴゴゴゴ‥
波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波
波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波
波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波 Σ ●
波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波 人
波波波波波波波波波波波波波波波－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－
Peter Wu says
gogogogo
wait are the waves made of waves?
lol, yeah I think they are
crobert says
no it's made of mud and cars and buildings and other shit it swallows
Peter Wu says
no I meant in the ascii
crobert says
lol yes
there's a version where it's made with
waves and mud and cars and buildings and fire
Friday, March 11, 2011
Hey America!
The 2nd Amendment was never intended as a provision for self-defense.
Can you be less retarded about gun control?
Can you be less retarded about gun control?
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Koreans have invented the worst chopsticks in the world
1) They are flat. In a bad way. They're just annoying to hold and manipulate.
2) They are metal. I.e. they conduct heat. That would be bad if there were a culture out there that likes to serve food in scaldingly hot stone bowls. Good thing this culture doesn't exist and is certainly not the same culture that invented those ridiculous chopsticks.
2) They are metal. I.e. they conduct heat. That would be bad if there were a culture out there that likes to serve food in scaldingly hot stone bowls. Good thing this culture doesn't exist and is certainly not the same culture that invented those ridiculous chopsticks.
Monday, March 07, 2011
Data Synchronization
I've long given up on it: too many platforms, too many operating systems. What I've ended up doing is designating devices for particular functions and never using anything else for that.
Blackberry: Contacts -> Backed up on desktop
Macbook: Music -> Backed up on desktop
Desktop: -> Everything else, backed up on external
I also assume everything on the cloud is backed up on the cloud. Photobucket, my magical girl image collection rests in your hands.
There might be an easier way, I don't know. I haven't seen anyone with multiple computers do better.
Blackberry: Contacts -> Backed up on desktop
Macbook: Music -> Backed up on desktop
Desktop: -> Everything else, backed up on external
I also assume everything on the cloud is backed up on the cloud. Photobucket, my magical girl image collection rests in your hands.
There might be an easier way, I don't know. I haven't seen anyone with multiple computers do better.
Sunday, March 06, 2011
Different Strokes
12:50
Peter ] ] ] ] ]
get a ps3
and play
catherine
12:50
crobert
i stopped becoming interested
after i realized there's no demon summoning
and it's just a half naked dude climing up blocks
12:50
Peter ] ] ] ] ]
yo
that's when I became interested
Peter ] ] ] ] ]
get a ps3
and play
catherine
12:50
crobert
i stopped becoming interested
after i realized there's no demon summoning
and it's just a half naked dude climing up blocks
12:50
Peter ] ] ] ] ]
yo
that's when I became interested
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Clarification
That is not a dig at our maritime forces. The Single Halifax Class Vessel has done excellent work in Somalia and Haiti.
More that as dictated by logistics our response to anything is largely uniform.
Sure gives our generals less to think about.
More that as dictated by logistics our response to anything is largely uniform.
Sure gives our generals less to think about.
On Libya and airplanes
Enforcing a no-fly zone in Libya is a bit like moving all the furniture from your living room into your basement. Nobody doubts that it can be done, but it'll take strenuous effort. Especially that 50 inch internal projection TV from 2002.
There's a good rundown of all the problems here so I won't bother listing them.
I don't know where the 5th Fleet order of battle can be sourced but based on all the talk about USS Enterprise (CVN-65), I assume that there are no other carriers that are surge available for the region on short notice.
And Enterprise had just sailed through to the wrong side of the Suez just a couple of weeks ago, where plans are for it to hold station.
Two amphibs (LPD-15 and LHD-3, Ponce and Kearsage respectively) are being surged but that's just sensible in case there's need for a forcible NEO; the area is going to be swimming with these things from all nations.
Other than that, Spain could possibly divert Príncipe de Asturias (R-11), a ski-jump carrier.
So it looks like the chances of NATO/American intervention are slim.
In other news HMCS Charlottetown is going to be deploying in that region. Typical. I predict that, for now and the next 10 years, Canadian naval response to the greatest crisis in the world at any given time will be the deployment of a single Halifax class vessel!
There's a good rundown of all the problems here so I won't bother listing them.
I don't know where the 5th Fleet order of battle can be sourced but based on all the talk about USS Enterprise (CVN-65), I assume that there are no other carriers that are surge available for the region on short notice.
And Enterprise had just sailed through to the wrong side of the Suez just a couple of weeks ago, where plans are for it to hold station.
Two amphibs (LPD-15 and LHD-3, Ponce and Kearsage respectively) are being surged but that's just sensible in case there's need for a forcible NEO; the area is going to be swimming with these things from all nations.
Other than that, Spain could possibly divert Príncipe de Asturias (R-11), a ski-jump carrier.
So it looks like the chances of NATO/American intervention are slim.
In other news HMCS Charlottetown is going to be deploying in that region. Typical. I predict that, for now and the next 10 years, Canadian naval response to the greatest crisis in the world at any given time will be the deployment of a single Halifax class vessel!
Trials and tribulations of used car shopping
After getting reared by an SUV and scrapping the Accord, I found a newer Maxima with lower mileage for $1800 more than the insurance reimbursement.
Turns out what I thought was a great deal has a couple of flaws.
Passenger window is gimped.
Okay, whatever. Easy fix, the internet tells me.
Rear ABS sensor has salt corrosion.
Ooops! Goodbye VDC, traction, ABS!
Well that has to be fixed, no question. On the brighter side, the car drives well; the shifts are virtually unnoticeable, which is a step up from the Honda.
Still, Great-Deal had just turned into Okay-Deal post-purchase.
And what the hell was the previous owner doing, ricing the vehicle instead of fixing a bad ABS sensor?
"It's okay, I know how to pump the brakes"
Because that is totally the same, right?
My mother had comforting words.
"Look at this stack of papers you removed from the old glove compartment, it's every time your father took it to service without telling me; they're all like $400 and $500 each!"
Damn! No wonder that Accord worked flawlessly.
Turns out what I thought was a great deal has a couple of flaws.
Passenger window is gimped.
Okay, whatever. Easy fix, the internet tells me.
Rear ABS sensor has salt corrosion.
Ooops! Goodbye VDC, traction, ABS!
Well that has to be fixed, no question. On the brighter side, the car drives well; the shifts are virtually unnoticeable, which is a step up from the Honda.
Still, Great-Deal had just turned into Okay-Deal post-purchase.
And what the hell was the previous owner doing, ricing the vehicle instead of fixing a bad ABS sensor?
"It's okay, I know how to pump the brakes"
Because that is totally the same, right?
My mother had comforting words.
"Look at this stack of papers you removed from the old glove compartment, it's every time your father took it to service without telling me; they're all like $400 and $500 each!"
Damn! No wonder that Accord worked flawlessly.
Damn enivros... [Part II]
"What time did you get in today?"
"Hey! I got in early today! 7:50!"
"I'm surprised, why?"
"I slept in and couldn't bus it in time so I drove"
*facepalm*
"Hey! I got in early today! 7:50!"
"I'm surprised, why?"
"I slept in and couldn't bus it in time so I drove"
*facepalm*
Friday, February 18, 2011
Damn enviros...
{I told myself that I would enjoy my break to the fullest on my last day here}
{Did you enjoy it the fullest?}
{It took and hour and a half, it's the fullest break I've had yet}
{That's not what I meant, but yeah an hour and a half is pretty long}
{Not as long as Margaret}
{Margaret is unbeatable}
...
"Hey, did you guys have to go to that meeting?"
"No, why?"
"I fell asleep"
{Margaret just slept through her meeting}
{She's unbeatable}
...
*20 minutes to quitting time*
"Have a good weekend!"
{I think Margaret just left}
{Damn}
{Unbeatable}
{Did you enjoy it the fullest?}
{It took and hour and a half, it's the fullest break I've had yet}
{That's not what I meant, but yeah an hour and a half is pretty long}
{Not as long as Margaret}
{Margaret is unbeatable}
...
"Hey, did you guys have to go to that meeting?"
"No, why?"
"I fell asleep"
{Margaret just slept through her meeting}
{She's unbeatable}
...
*20 minutes to quitting time*
"Have a good weekend!"
{I think Margaret just left}
{Damn}
{Unbeatable}
Thursday, February 17, 2011
When did Watson become so tank?
Last I heard of him months ago, IBM had him in the 70th percentile and was desperately trying to squeeze a few more points of performance out of him.
Anyways, job well done.
Anyways, job well done.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
I understand now
I think a while I posted my surprise at the DDG-1000s being unable to support Standard Missiles.
Why not? They got the radar, they got the launch tubes.
Except I managed to overlook that the AN/SPY-3 is a Raytheon system and AN/SPY-1 Lockheed Martin. Oops.
It has been commentated that Raytheon has been re-inventing every wheel to avoid using Aegis.
Relatedly, the LCS platforms had (still have?) this problem of integrated weapons systems where the arguably inferior Lockheed platform couldn't possibly lose the downselect while the General Dynamics/Austal platform's got nuthin'.
Well played, defense industry, just as planned.
Why not? They got the radar, they got the launch tubes.
Except I managed to overlook that the AN/SPY-3 is a Raytheon system and AN/SPY-1 Lockheed Martin. Oops.
It has been commentated that Raytheon has been re-inventing every wheel to avoid using Aegis.
Relatedly, the LCS platforms had (still have?) this problem of integrated weapons systems where the arguably inferior Lockheed platform couldn't possibly lose the downselect while the General Dynamics/Austal platform's got nuthin'.
Well played, defense industry, just as planned.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
One shot, one kill?
Preposterous! The winning move is clearly to launch all of your missiles at once at the first sign of provocation!
You can see where Eureka 7's choreography was inspired from at 2:22.
Incidentally the VF-1 design was based off of the F-14s, which, being designed as a fleet interceptor, was intended to dash out at high speeds, let loose its payload of Phoenix missiles and then dash back.
You can see where Eureka 7's choreography was inspired from at 2:22.
Incidentally the VF-1 design was based off of the F-14s, which, being designed as a fleet interceptor, was intended to dash out at high speeds, let loose its payload of Phoenix missiles and then dash back.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Saturday, February 05, 2011
Thursday, February 03, 2011
Hold on a minute!
I know the Egyptian military is being criticized for standing by while protesters clash in the streets.
Well, what the hell do you want them to do?
I can see the appeal behind having some heavy armour backup when you're a rebellious teenager hurling rocks, and I would be slinging stones with the best of them if all my friends called me up and told me they were going downtown, but getting the military involved in civil matters is a bad idea because you are escalating the force. By a lot. You don't give riot police guns, you don't deploy the National Guard for security and you don't bring a grenade to a boxing match. I would hope that the people in charge are more responsible than that and I'm convinced the US administration is principal in urging restraint with their secretive backroom deals (as is their way).
So shooting is out, what's the next best thing? Well, I guess it'd be trying to segregate the violence with their armoured columns. Which is what the army is at least attempting to do through the melee in the streets, so credit to that.
7 dead? That's a papercut compared to what'll happen if some yahoo hijacks the .50 cal off an M1's turret. And when you have people outnumbering tanks a thousand to one, something is bound to happen if you give it reason.
Made in the USA, baby. Made in the USA.
Well, what the hell do you want them to do?
I can see the appeal behind having some heavy armour backup when you're a rebellious teenager hurling rocks, and I would be slinging stones with the best of them if all my friends called me up and told me they were going downtown, but getting the military involved in civil matters is a bad idea because you are escalating the force. By a lot. You don't give riot police guns, you don't deploy the National Guard for security and you don't bring a grenade to a boxing match. I would hope that the people in charge are more responsible than that and I'm convinced the US administration is principal in urging restraint with their secretive backroom deals (as is their way).
So shooting is out, what's the next best thing? Well, I guess it'd be trying to segregate the violence with their armoured columns. Which is what the army is at least attempting to do through the melee in the streets, so credit to that.
7 dead? That's a papercut compared to what'll happen if some yahoo hijacks the .50 cal off an M1's turret. And when you have people outnumbering tanks a thousand to one, something is bound to happen if you give it reason.
Made in the USA, baby. Made in the USA.
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
Hōkago no Pleiades
Looks like Gainax is jumping on the moeblob bandwagon now:
Good thing too.
Because Fuji Heavy Industries didn't have enough magical-girl mascots before.
Good thing too.
Because Fuji Heavy Industries didn't have enough magical-girl mascots before.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
In a nutshell
CivFanatics has a pretty well written guide for beginners. But that's long.
So here's my condensed new player guide for Civ4:
Tile Improvements:
1) Never work an unimproved tile
2) Food is the most important resource
3) Never work an unimproved tile
4) About 1.5 workers per city early game
5) Overlap is fine; every city only needs a few good tiles, when are you going to get to Pop 20 anyways?
6) No seriously, go Slavery and just whip the guy working that bare grass.
War:
1) Your army should be 50% siege units
2) If you settle a hill city near an AI that might war, it'll be pretty unassailable with archers then longbows.
3) It could happen at anytime
Economy:
1) Cottages on all the grass you can support, Emancipation + Free Speech + Emancipation + Free Market
2) Alt: Farms + Workshops + Windmills + Watermills + Specialists, Representation + Caste + State Property; try to build Pyramids
3) Alt 2: Espionage
City Improvements:
1) Granaries, Forges, Aqueducts mandatory
2) If you don't have anything useful to build, switch the city to Wealth or Research
3) That Bank you're building in that hill city with 5 gold per turn? That falls under Not Useful.
4) If you don't know whether you need that Wonder, you don't
So here's my condensed new player guide for Civ4:
Tile Improvements:
1) Never work an unimproved tile
2) Food is the most important resource
3) Never work an unimproved tile
4) About 1.5 workers per city early game
5) Overlap is fine; every city only needs a few good tiles, when are you going to get to Pop 20 anyways?
6) No seriously, go Slavery and just whip the guy working that bare grass.
War:
1) Your army should be 50% siege units
2) If you settle a hill city near an AI that might war, it'll be pretty unassailable with archers then longbows.
3) It could happen at anytime
Economy:
1) Cottages on all the grass you can support, Emancipation + Free Speech + Emancipation + Free Market
2) Alt: Farms + Workshops + Windmills + Watermills + Specialists, Representation + Caste + State Property; try to build Pyramids
3) Alt 2: Espionage
City Improvements:
1) Granaries, Forges, Aqueducts mandatory
2) If you don't have anything useful to build, switch the city to Wealth or Research
3) That Bank you're building in that hill city with 5 gold per turn? That falls under Not Useful.
4) If you don't know whether you need that Wonder, you don't
Friday, January 28, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
And you thought the Hodge Conjecture was impenetrable...
I started listening to Kotoko from clicking through moon links on Youtube.
Anyways, it piqued my curiousity with Baldr Sky, so I go to Wikipedia and the article pretty much made no sense.
Well okay...then I thought maybe the article would be more comprehensible if I had a character list.
Instead I found this:
Okay, maybe that's not entirely indeciphera-whaat??
What the fuck?
Screw this, imma listen to Calamity Trigger.
In hindsight, impenetrable is probably the wrong choice of word.
Anyways, it piqued my curiousity with Baldr Sky, so I go to Wikipedia and the article pretty much made no sense.
Well okay...then I thought maybe the article would be more comprehensible if I had a character list.
Instead I found this:
Okay, maybe that's not entirely indeciphera-whaat??
What the fuck?
Screw this, imma listen to Calamity Trigger.
In hindsight, impenetrable is probably the wrong choice of word.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Can you imagine the engineering discussions that preceeded this?
Management: So you say this is the best solution your team has come up with?
Lead Engineer: Yes
M: This is the most practical and economic solution to our problem?
E: Yes
M: Well, this seems like a really complicated system...
E: Having a distributed platform is great, because it gives our system robustness, of course ideally we'd want to have all the parts working but we can still go on if some parts fail.
M: ...and there are some unorthodox components...
E: It's true that there are some parts we are going to have to build ourselves, but you'll see that a lot of these are also modifications of proven technology that we can license from third party vendors.
M: ...and this user interface...
E: We've come a long way with our voice activated technologies, you'll find it to have excellent reliability in part because the keywords we chose are very unambiguous.
M: Okay I'll trust your judgment on the hardware side, but are you certain we need to have one person directing and another person performing the authorizations?
E: You'll find that separating tasks so that there's always an independent reviewer is quite common in safety critical industries. Besides, for all the money that is involved in the project, the cost of hiring another body is hardly significant.
M: Fair enough then, for now you have my probationary approval if you can implement the proposal within the specified budget.
Thus.
Lead Engineer: Yes
M: This is the most practical and economic solution to our problem?
E: Yes
M: Well, this seems like a really complicated system...
E: Having a distributed platform is great, because it gives our system robustness, of course ideally we'd want to have all the parts working but we can still go on if some parts fail.
M: ...and there are some unorthodox components...
E: It's true that there are some parts we are going to have to build ourselves, but you'll see that a lot of these are also modifications of proven technology that we can license from third party vendors.
M: ...and this user interface...
E: We've come a long way with our voice activated technologies, you'll find it to have excellent reliability in part because the keywords we chose are very unambiguous.
M: Okay I'll trust your judgment on the hardware side, but are you certain we need to have one person directing and another person performing the authorizations?
E: You'll find that separating tasks so that there's always an independent reviewer is quite common in safety critical industries. Besides, for all the money that is involved in the project, the cost of hiring another body is hardly significant.
M: Fair enough then, for now you have my probationary approval if you can implement the proposal within the specified budget.
Thus.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
SIGH
So remember there was a guy a while ago who got Fate tattooed on his back.
This guy.
Anyways, at the time he was saying he wanted to get Nana Mizuki (alternatively know as Fate-chan's voice actress) tattooed on him next. Of course people called him an idiot.
But that was then and now is now:
What gets me though is that as far as ink goes, that is a damn fine tattoo. He found an excellent tattoo artist-to do this?? ARGGHHH!
edit: Incidentally, he hopes Nana Mizuki would get married soon because that's how he rolls. Wut.
This guy.
Anyways, at the time he was saying he wanted to get Nana Mizuki (alternatively know as Fate-chan's voice actress) tattooed on him next. Of course people called him an idiot.
But that was then and now is now:
What gets me though is that as far as ink goes, that is a damn fine tattoo. He found an excellent tattoo artist-to do this?? ARGGHHH!
edit: Incidentally, he hopes Nana Mizuki would get married soon because that's how he rolls. Wut.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Sunday, January 09, 2011
Saturday, January 08, 2011
Sunday, January 02, 2011
Five stars
The OST for Panty & Stocking is out.
The cover and tracklist is noteworthy:
1. Theme for Panty & Stocking
2. Immoral Church
3. Fly Away
4. Daten City
5. Beverly Hills Cock
6. Pantscada
7. Dancefloor Orgy
8. D City Rock
9. Juice
10. EPTM feat. Kodai of KinKieS (Booty Bronx Remix)
11. Cherryboy Riot
12. Technodildo
13. CHOCOLAT
14. Theme for Scanty & Knee Socks
15. Schranz Chase
16. Tenga Step
17. See-Through
18. Corset Theme
19. Champion
20. Fallen Angel
I have to say my favourite title is Technodildo.
The cover and tracklist is noteworthy:
1. Theme for Panty & Stocking
2. Immoral Church
3. Fly Away
4. Daten City
5. Beverly Hills Cock
6. Pantscada
7. Dancefloor Orgy
8. D City Rock
9. Juice
10. EPTM feat. Kodai of KinKieS (Booty Bronx Remix)
11. Cherryboy Riot
12. Technodildo
13. CHOCOLAT
14. Theme for Scanty & Knee Socks
15. Schranz Chase
16. Tenga Step
17. See-Through
18. Corset Theme
19. Champion
20. Fallen Angel
I have to say my favourite title is Technodildo.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Come to think of it...
Exposé is pretty much Strategic Zoom for my operating system.
We all know how much I love Exposé.
We all know how much I love Exposé.
Strategic Zoom
After playing Supreme Commander, it's evident that Strategic Zoom is pretty much the best function in gaming ever. Now I can't live without it.
Civilization: Strategic Zoom
Homeworld: Strategic Zoom
Starcraft: No Strategic Zoom
I'll never be able to play it again. Like what the fuck, I can only see like 8 units on my screen at a time? I'll send my wraith to scout and it'll get lost and I'll never be able to find it again.
I bet after Advanced Warfighter, I won't be able to play even first-person shooters without Strategic Zoom.
Civilization: Strategic Zoom
Homeworld: Strategic Zoom
Starcraft: No Strategic Zoom
I'll never be able to play it again. Like what the fuck, I can only see like 8 units on my screen at a time? I'll send my wraith to scout and it'll get lost and I'll never be able to find it again.
I bet after Advanced Warfighter, I won't be able to play even first-person shooters without Strategic Zoom.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Friday, December 17, 2010
Pretensions
Check out this concept:
It's fresh, friendly, good looking and absolutely useless.
I can only imagine trying to find my 2% in an aisle stocked with nearly identical yellow boxes typefaced with difficult to distinguish text. You know, of all the things she decided to emphasize on the box, it's the words "Drink ME I AM MILK". Thanks. This is not helpful from a consumer's perspective. Someone will be sorely disappointed when they walk home with a box of cheese instead of a stick of butter.
These things can be fixed; there are simple fixes. That's not the point.
These issues are things that should've been at the forefront of consideration but wholly overlooked. So many designers are preoccupied with making something distinct and beautiful that they forget about the importance of function of form.
It's worthwhile to make something aesthetically pleasing, but products are made to be used, not to be displayed in a museum.
It's fresh, friendly, good looking and absolutely useless.
I can only imagine trying to find my 2% in an aisle stocked with nearly identical yellow boxes typefaced with difficult to distinguish text. You know, of all the things she decided to emphasize on the box, it's the words "Drink ME I AM MILK". Thanks. This is not helpful from a consumer's perspective. Someone will be sorely disappointed when they walk home with a box of cheese instead of a stick of butter.
These things can be fixed; there are simple fixes. That's not the point.
These issues are things that should've been at the forefront of consideration but wholly overlooked. So many designers are preoccupied with making something distinct and beautiful that they forget about the importance of function of form.
It's worthwhile to make something aesthetically pleasing, but products are made to be used, not to be displayed in a museum.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
I had foie gras once
It was underwhelming.
Somehow it looks a lot more appealing in pictures.
Anyways, here's an interesting article.
Somehow it looks a lot more appealing in pictures.
Anyways, here's an interesting article.
Windows 7 First Impressions
I'm finally running a modern Windows system on one of my own boxes now.
Hey, I am a Mac user after all.
First off, it looks very nice. Straight up one of the best looking operating systems around, though I do believe KDE has had that style for a long time now.
The problem with 7 is that there is never a new feature there that makes me think, "I wish I had that before" or "that's a really great idea". I got that feeling all the time with OS X. Or even with major revisions of Firefox.
I don't care about how much they've changed under the hood; I don't have lasting virus issues (which can be about 80% attributed to "not being a retard") and it just doesn't affect me as an end user.
What does affect me is their silly pop-ups that come up anytime I want to do anything. I understand the reasoning behind it, but (a) once some average user sees it come up a million times a minute, they'll just ignore it and click affirm to everything and (b) doesn't ask for your admin password to make modifications so while it might protect you from random internet programs, it doesn't prevent some guy from just screwing around with your computer. The Windows convention of always running as admin is dangerous, SUDO is a very good idea.
The new taskbar looks nice, but the latency from me hovering over an icon to it showing me what windows are open is aggravating. The worst part is, this is actually a good idea; just let me change the timings.
The new Start menu is stupid. I can't rely on the Search function to find what I need since it selectively indexes and I have no clue how it chooses to either. Then when it inevitably fails, I am forced to dig through all my folders to find what I need because it apparently never occurred to Microsoft that there are files I use often enough to want to keep in a location that is easily accessible while not often enough to be on the Desktop or Taskbar. Argue about indexing optimization all you want, all I know is that Spotlight never fails to turn up what I want (even if it's some text file in an obscure directory) while Search comes up empty quite often.
I could talk more, but my feeling has been conveyed. I think what Microsoft did was hire a lot of graphical designers in recent years, but neglected interface designers. Because Windows Phone 7 looks quite good. Bing looks quite good. Windows 7 looks quite good. But they all have tons of shortcomings in their functionality. This is why Google and Apple are running circles around, because at the end of the day Google's page-rankings give me what I want and Bing's doesn't.
Bonus story: This morning I wanted to check something in another browser so I literally opened IE 8, typed something into Bing search and pressed enter. This naturally caused Windows to come collapsing down around me as IE failed, and Explorer, and Task Manager, and every other possible program except (ironically) Firefox. Fresh install, brand new computer; should not be happening, Microsoft. No excuse.
Hey, I am a Mac user after all.
First off, it looks very nice. Straight up one of the best looking operating systems around, though I do believe KDE has had that style for a long time now.
The problem with 7 is that there is never a new feature there that makes me think, "I wish I had that before" or "that's a really great idea". I got that feeling all the time with OS X. Or even with major revisions of Firefox.
I don't care about how much they've changed under the hood; I don't have lasting virus issues (which can be about 80% attributed to "not being a retard") and it just doesn't affect me as an end user.
What does affect me is their silly pop-ups that come up anytime I want to do anything. I understand the reasoning behind it, but (a) once some average user sees it come up a million times a minute, they'll just ignore it and click affirm to everything and (b) doesn't ask for your admin password to make modifications so while it might protect you from random internet programs, it doesn't prevent some guy from just screwing around with your computer. The Windows convention of always running as admin is dangerous, SUDO is a very good idea.
The new taskbar looks nice, but the latency from me hovering over an icon to it showing me what windows are open is aggravating. The worst part is, this is actually a good idea; just let me change the timings.
The new Start menu is stupid. I can't rely on the Search function to find what I need since it selectively indexes and I have no clue how it chooses to either. Then when it inevitably fails, I am forced to dig through all my folders to find what I need because it apparently never occurred to Microsoft that there are files I use often enough to want to keep in a location that is easily accessible while not often enough to be on the Desktop or Taskbar. Argue about indexing optimization all you want, all I know is that Spotlight never fails to turn up what I want (even if it's some text file in an obscure directory) while Search comes up empty quite often.
I could talk more, but my feeling has been conveyed. I think what Microsoft did was hire a lot of graphical designers in recent years, but neglected interface designers. Because Windows Phone 7 looks quite good. Bing looks quite good. Windows 7 looks quite good. But they all have tons of shortcomings in their functionality. This is why Google and Apple are running circles around, because at the end of the day Google's page-rankings give me what I want and Bing's doesn't.
Bonus story: This morning I wanted to check something in another browser so I literally opened IE 8, typed something into Bing search and pressed enter. This naturally caused Windows to come collapsing down around me as IE failed, and Explorer, and Task Manager, and every other possible program except (ironically) Firefox. Fresh install, brand new computer; should not be happening, Microsoft. No excuse.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
I dimension the die!
What's the functional difference between rolling a 12 sided die and two 6 sided die? Well, for one you can't roll a 1 with two dice. More importantly though, you'll see a stronger regression to the mean with more dice.
Let's say theoretically we have a 10-sided die numbered [0,9]. Your probability of rolling a 5 is 10%.
If you have three 4-sided dice numbered [0,3], the probability of rolling a 5 suddenly becomes 19%.
If you flip 9 coins, the probability of landing 5 heads is now 25%. Moreover, the probability of rolling either 5 or 6 (the expected value is 5.5) is 49%. Of the 10 possible numbers, half the time you'll only get 2 of them!
I assume this is why a lot of boardgames roll two dice, because it normalizes the probabilities; you're 6 times more likely to roll a middle value like 7 over something extraordinary like 2 or 12.
With Betrayal, the rolls consist of up to eight 6-sided dice with two faces each numbered 0, 1 and 2. Basically 3-sided dice. Therefore we should see some strong regressions to the mean; for instance, if we were to roll five such dice the probability of getting at least a 4 is 79%. To roll 3 or lower and be beaten by a roll with 3 dice has a probability of 11%. To do so twice in a roll is literally a 1 in 100 proposition.
So basically Michael really sucks at rolling.
Let's say theoretically we have a 10-sided die numbered [0,9]. Your probability of rolling a 5 is 10%.
If you have three 4-sided dice numbered [0,3], the probability of rolling a 5 suddenly becomes 19%.
If you flip 9 coins, the probability of landing 5 heads is now 25%. Moreover, the probability of rolling either 5 or 6 (the expected value is 5.5) is 49%. Of the 10 possible numbers, half the time you'll only get 2 of them!
I assume this is why a lot of boardgames roll two dice, because it normalizes the probabilities; you're 6 times more likely to roll a middle value like 7 over something extraordinary like 2 or 12.
With Betrayal, the rolls consist of up to eight 6-sided dice with two faces each numbered 0, 1 and 2. Basically 3-sided dice. Therefore we should see some strong regressions to the mean; for instance, if we were to roll five such dice the probability of getting at least a 4 is 79%. To roll 3 or lower and be beaten by a roll with 3 dice has a probability of 11%. To do so twice in a roll is literally a 1 in 100 proposition.
So basically Michael really sucks at rolling.
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Plausible campaign platform?
No tax raises!
In order to pay for everything...
...we'll hire more auditors!
In order to pay for everything...
...we'll hire more auditors!
Sunday, December 05, 2010
Irregardless, Penny Arcade is objectively good. Literally.
I was reminded of this comic today. It is one of the most profound series of web comics I've ever seen:
Gabe usually hits homeruns when he's on a fatherhood theme.
Much better than miscarriage comics.
Gabe usually hits homeruns when he's on a fatherhood theme.
Much better than miscarriage comics.
Additionally
I believe that the existence of a systematic problem with "welfare queens" has always been a myth perpetuated by Conservatives to channel money away from programs that don't involve oil or missiles.
...and hell, they're doing a terrible job with the missile things too; what good are they?
...and hell, they're doing a terrible job with the missile things too; what good are they?
Saturday, December 04, 2010
Ridiculous
Our disability claims system intentionally rejects the majority of claimants for their first application because they believe this deters fraudsters?
This is stupid!
Absolutely stupid!
Hey, government, guess what group of people have the most dedication and time to jump through your stupid hoops?
Hey, guess what group of people get fucked over the most?
Who was the fucker that came up with this brilliant idea?
This is stupid!
Absolutely stupid!
Hey, government, guess what group of people have the most dedication and time to jump through your stupid hoops?
Hey, guess what group of people get fucked over the most?
Who was the fucker that came up with this brilliant idea?
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Terse Messages
The United States is rush deploying some ships for training Westwards.
USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70), refueled and overhauled in 2005:
USS Bunker Hill (CG-52), upgraded in 2006:
USS Gridley (DDG-101), commissioned in 2007:
USS Stockdale (DDG-106), comissioned in 2009:
And they're probably picking up some new members in Pearl Harbor. This is going to be literally ship-for-ship the most modern, most powerful surface combatant group in the world.
The most logical explanation is that it's headed to North Korea's vicinity. You know, where Yokosuka's George Washington Group is already conducting exercises in the Yellow Sea.
But they're not signaling North Korea. Nope. This is a message to China: Get the North in line or we will raise such a shitstorm in your backyard that it's going to spill onto your front porch.
Speaking of China, wonder what they're up to?
USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70), refueled and overhauled in 2005:
USS Bunker Hill (CG-52), upgraded in 2006:
USS Gridley (DDG-101), commissioned in 2007:
USS Stockdale (DDG-106), comissioned in 2009:
And they're probably picking up some new members in Pearl Harbor. This is going to be literally ship-for-ship the most modern, most powerful surface combatant group in the world.
The most logical explanation is that it's headed to North Korea's vicinity. You know, where Yokosuka's George Washington Group is already conducting exercises in the Yellow Sea.
But they're not signaling North Korea. Nope. This is a message to China: Get the North in line or we will raise such a shitstorm in your backyard that it's going to spill onto your front porch.
Speaking of China, wonder what they're up to?
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Schooling Math
There are always people giving talks about math education.
I always hear, the way math is taught is boring.
Boring boring boring.
No, some people find it boring. But others will enjoy mastering the system.
The truth is, you can make math the Amazing Race and some people will hate it. The point is there are some things everyone needs to know, and if you have a good teacher, he/she will make sure everyone knows it.
Everybody should be able to understand up to fractions and algebra. It should be expected in that we expect everybody to be able to write coherent sentences. No, not everyone can do it with the same amount of effort, but that's just a matter of applying oneself.
Why? Because you literally need to know 8 things:
1) Addition and subtraction
2) Multiplication and division
3) What a numerator and a denominator is
4) Multiplication of fractions and inverse multiplication of fractions
5) Finding common factors; how addition and subtraction apply to fractions
6) You want to isolate the unknown in an algebra statement
7) If you move something to the other side, invert the operation
8) How to translate a word problem into algebra
From grade 1 to 8, we have eight years to teach this! EIGHT YEARS! Fractions might be hard for some people, but not literally "can't memorize 4 rules in a year of practice" difficult!
Look at the mathematical proficiency in China. India. Japan. Are their kids smarter? No, they're told to suck it up and work harder. Are their systems the best? Definitely not in all ways but with respect to math, it gets the material taught and it proves that the material can be taught.
What about people who need to know more math than that? Well anyone who needs to know more math than that is going to need to know a lot more math than that, and when you get to higher levels, looking at "boring equations" and learning "boring rules" is not going to go away.
Aiming to teach people how to formulate their own solutions sounds clever, but when your problem is fluid dynamics, nobody has the time or energy to rediscover the Navier-Strokes equations on their own. You get your stupid equations, you get your stupid rules on how to use them and you learn to plug numbers in. If you can't handle that, look into doing something else.
The curriculum is fine; if you want to overhaul the educational system it always comes down to finding the best teachers and attracting them. Overhaul that instead.
I always hear, the way math is taught is boring.
Boring boring boring.
No, some people find it boring. But others will enjoy mastering the system.
The truth is, you can make math the Amazing Race and some people will hate it. The point is there are some things everyone needs to know, and if you have a good teacher, he/she will make sure everyone knows it.
Everybody should be able to understand up to fractions and algebra. It should be expected in that we expect everybody to be able to write coherent sentences. No, not everyone can do it with the same amount of effort, but that's just a matter of applying oneself.
Why? Because you literally need to know 8 things:
1) Addition and subtraction
2) Multiplication and division
3) What a numerator and a denominator is
4) Multiplication of fractions and inverse multiplication of fractions
5) Finding common factors; how addition and subtraction apply to fractions
6) You want to isolate the unknown in an algebra statement
7) If you move something to the other side, invert the operation
8) How to translate a word problem into algebra
From grade 1 to 8, we have eight years to teach this! EIGHT YEARS! Fractions might be hard for some people, but not literally "can't memorize 4 rules in a year of practice" difficult!
Look at the mathematical proficiency in China. India. Japan. Are their kids smarter? No, they're told to suck it up and work harder. Are their systems the best? Definitely not in all ways but with respect to math, it gets the material taught and it proves that the material can be taught.
What about people who need to know more math than that? Well anyone who needs to know more math than that is going to need to know a lot more math than that, and when you get to higher levels, looking at "boring equations" and learning "boring rules" is not going to go away.
Aiming to teach people how to formulate their own solutions sounds clever, but when your problem is fluid dynamics, nobody has the time or energy to rediscover the Navier-Strokes equations on their own. You get your stupid equations, you get your stupid rules on how to use them and you learn to plug numbers in. If you can't handle that, look into doing something else.
The curriculum is fine; if you want to overhaul the educational system it always comes down to finding the best teachers and attracting them. Overhaul that instead.
] ] ] ] ]
Like how after KyoAni made K-on, they didn't know how to unmoeblob their other works (Haruhi), Shaft is having a had time unwinding after they made Sayonara, Zetsubou Sensei.
[Yes, I did just use "moeblob" as a verb]
Bakemonogatari (Ghostory)-
[I'm fascinated at how the title portmanteau translates into English]
keeps the best parts of (Zoku/Goku/Zan:) Sayonara, Zetsubou Sensei (wordplay and reducio ad absurdum), while tossing the worst (opaque references to Japanese culture) and throwing in some of its own (staplers).
[My knowledge of Japanese culture goes as far as Dragonball Z]
After a terrible first impression (immediate and uplifting wind) I've decided it's pretty much great.
[That's not true; the first scene is awful, but my actual first impressions were internet pictures of floating girls and staplers]
[Which is actually a great first impression]
In summary, staples staples staples staplesta plestaples staplestaples staples staplestaplestaplestaples staplestaplestaplestaplestaplestaplestaplestaplestaples staplestaplestaplestaplestaplestplestaplestaplestaplestaplestaplestaplestaplestap-
[Yes, I did just use "moeblob" as a verb]
Bakemonogatari (Ghostory)-
[I'm fascinated at how the title portmanteau translates into English]
keeps the best parts of (Zoku/Goku/Zan:) Sayonara, Zetsubou Sensei (wordplay and reducio ad absurdum), while tossing the worst (opaque references to Japanese culture) and throwing in some of its own (staplers).
[My knowledge of Japanese culture goes as far as Dragonball Z]
After a terrible first impression (immediate and uplifting wind) I've decided it's pretty much great.
[That's not true; the first scene is awful, but my actual first impressions were internet pictures of floating girls and staplers]
[Which is actually a great first impression]
In summary, staples staples staples staplesta plestaples staplestaples staples staplestaplestaplestaples staplestaplestaplestaplestaplestaplestaplestaplestaples staplestaplestaplestaplestaplestplestaplestaplestaplestaplestaplestaplestaplestap-
Friday, November 26, 2010
The Blues
A logical consequence of creatures getting stronger, is that control magics have become more expensive.
This is Mind Control. It's 5cc. I hear it's quite a Limited bomb.
This is Control Magic. The original, as you can see, it costs a full mana less than Mind Control. What should you be demanding for 5 manas instead?
How about, repeatable effect?
How about, untap all your lands?
How about, search your opponent for Emrakul and beat his face in with it?
Oh well, at least it's not Followed Footsteps.
This is Mind Control. It's 5cc. I hear it's quite a Limited bomb.
This is Control Magic. The original, as you can see, it costs a full mana less than Mind Control. What should you be demanding for 5 manas instead?
How about, repeatable effect?
How about, untap all your lands?
How about, search your opponent for Emrakul and beat his face in with it?
Oh well, at least it's not Followed Footsteps.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Just as Planned!
North Korea is pretty much succeeding in its plan of being a country so poorly run that no other country wants to take control of it.
Well played Dear Leader, well played.
Well played Dear Leader, well played.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Actually Paul Martin was pretty good
He balanced the budget and didn't rock the boat.
He wasn't perfect, but you really can't please everybody.
It's impossible for any country to have nothing but exceptional leaders, but every country needs plenty of stalwarts to keep everything running and making sure nothing breaks.
The problem was that he was no fun, not charismatic, people didn't like him.
This is the damn problem.
When leaders have fun, you end up in fuck nowhere Durkadurkastan for a decade.
So back to my point.
Here we are with Mr. Harper on the throne, slowly burrowing the country into the ground, screw by screw.
But you don't care, Canada.
At least he's not boring.
He wasn't perfect, but you really can't please everybody.
It's impossible for any country to have nothing but exceptional leaders, but every country needs plenty of stalwarts to keep everything running and making sure nothing breaks.
The problem was that he was no fun, not charismatic, people didn't like him.
This is the damn problem.
When leaders have fun, you end up in fuck nowhere Durkadurkastan for a decade.
So back to my point.
Here we are with Mr. Harper on the throne, slowly burrowing the country into the ground, screw by screw.
But you don't care, Canada.
At least he's not boring.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Gundam Unicorn Episode 2
Anyone reading this probably knows that I am a fan of the mecha genre.
I also know that mechas are probably a bore for many people.
That's why I would never recommend Brain Powerd even though I enjoyed it; because robots aside, objectively it's a show that's 70% of the way there in terms of plot and characters.
That said, Gundam Unicorn is good.
You see, Gundam has always had a certain formula. Reluctant protagonist somehow gets finds himself piloting a extremely powerful weapon and gets taken into a conflict that he doesn't want to be a apart. Both sides are dicks, but he keeps fighting because he has people he wants to protect and along the way we see the personal tragedies of war and a message of hope at the end.
Yes, it is formulaic. Yes, there is a running joke about the consistently lax security surrounding powerful experimental weapons. But most good stories are derivative in some way; it's a matter of execution.
Gundam Seed is what you would call Doing It Wrong.
Unicorn on the other hand, takes all the unmistakably Gundam elements and hits all the high notes every time. We have high production values, great attention to detail and a suitably epic soundtrack that doesn't involve T.M. Revolution.
The first episode had the corrupt Earth Federation battling a resurgent Neo Zeon threat, our protagonist's colony is suddenly under-siege and he finds himself being the unlikely operator of a Gundam and joining the Federation's cause. This is the Ruy Lopez of Gundam openings.
By the end of the second installment, Banagher, has been captured by Zeon and is their prisoner on a colony sympathetic to the Zeon cause. The episode concludes with the Federation planning to assault the Zeon base and a side operation to rescue Banagher is being plotted by his friends.
Here's where the series distinguishes itself: In a lesser show, this would be an excellent turn of events. Our hero will be gloriously rescued in the next episode and the bad guys will be forced to retreat and regroup.
No.
The series makes it clear that this is going to be a very bad thing. By all indications it looks as though the Federation will get thoroughly beaten down in the subsequent assault and though the rescue may be successful, Banagher, who had just witnessed his own colony being trashed in a battle between giant robots, will witness this new colony suffer through the same fate. Plotting that out is one thing, but to make you feel it, that's not such an easy task. I certainly know that I can't.
And it does it with some of the best looking mobile suit designs in the entire franchise: Kshatriya, Unicorn, Sinanju and even the ReZELs.
Downside: As it manages to slot itself comfortably into the UC multiverse, it becomes very hard to comprehend the meaning of many events without knowledge of prior happenings. Which is a massive amount of story encompassing Mobile Suit Gundam, Gundam 0083, Zeta Gundam, ZZ Gundam and Char's Counterattack. Not all of them having aged well or being strong pieces to begin with. Unicorn isn't entirely incomprehensible otherwise, but the story does suffer.
Gundam checklist:
A Gundam being hijacked by an unlikely protagonist: Check.
Gundam breaking free of its restraints amidst flaming ruins: Check.
Someone exclaiming "It's a Gundam!" to great shock and awe: Check.
A Char: Check.
I also know that mechas are probably a bore for many people.
That's why I would never recommend Brain Powerd even though I enjoyed it; because robots aside, objectively it's a show that's 70% of the way there in terms of plot and characters.
That said, Gundam Unicorn is good.
You see, Gundam has always had a certain formula. Reluctant protagonist somehow gets finds himself piloting a extremely powerful weapon and gets taken into a conflict that he doesn't want to be a apart. Both sides are dicks, but he keeps fighting because he has people he wants to protect and along the way we see the personal tragedies of war and a message of hope at the end.
Yes, it is formulaic. Yes, there is a running joke about the consistently lax security surrounding powerful experimental weapons. But most good stories are derivative in some way; it's a matter of execution.
Gundam Seed is what you would call Doing It Wrong.
Unicorn on the other hand, takes all the unmistakably Gundam elements and hits all the high notes every time. We have high production values, great attention to detail and a suitably epic soundtrack that doesn't involve T.M. Revolution.
The first episode had the corrupt Earth Federation battling a resurgent Neo Zeon threat, our protagonist's colony is suddenly under-siege and he finds himself being the unlikely operator of a Gundam and joining the Federation's cause. This is the Ruy Lopez of Gundam openings.
By the end of the second installment, Banagher, has been captured by Zeon and is their prisoner on a colony sympathetic to the Zeon cause. The episode concludes with the Federation planning to assault the Zeon base and a side operation to rescue Banagher is being plotted by his friends.
Here's where the series distinguishes itself: In a lesser show, this would be an excellent turn of events. Our hero will be gloriously rescued in the next episode and the bad guys will be forced to retreat and regroup.
No.
The series makes it clear that this is going to be a very bad thing. By all indications it looks as though the Federation will get thoroughly beaten down in the subsequent assault and though the rescue may be successful, Banagher, who had just witnessed his own colony being trashed in a battle between giant robots, will witness this new colony suffer through the same fate. Plotting that out is one thing, but to make you feel it, that's not such an easy task. I certainly know that I can't.
And it does it with some of the best looking mobile suit designs in the entire franchise: Kshatriya, Unicorn, Sinanju and even the ReZELs.
Downside: As it manages to slot itself comfortably into the UC multiverse, it becomes very hard to comprehend the meaning of many events without knowledge of prior happenings. Which is a massive amount of story encompassing Mobile Suit Gundam, Gundam 0083, Zeta Gundam, ZZ Gundam and Char's Counterattack. Not all of them having aged well or being strong pieces to begin with. Unicorn isn't entirely incomprehensible otherwise, but the story does suffer.
Gundam checklist:
A Gundam being hijacked by an unlikely protagonist: Check.
Gundam breaking free of its restraints amidst flaming ruins: Check.
Someone exclaiming "It's a Gundam!" to great shock and awe: Check.
A Char: Check.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
I call it the Tunnel Boring Machine!
Because it digs and it bores.
I've avoided any obvious broken-ness (e.g. Tinker, Lotus, Ancestral), most marginal broken-ness (e.g. Grim Monolith, Ancient Tomb, FoW) and anything that would cost $Texas in real life (e.g. JaceMS, Mox Diamond, Mox Opal) so it should be fair in power.
It also has a grand total of 5 creatures, one of them being Simian Spirit Guide.
Might proxy it for EDH to see how it plays out. I mean, Puzzle Box + Orb on the table has to be interesting.
Bonus: Find all the win conditions.
Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind (2UURR) (General)
Teferi's Puzzle Box (4)
Mindmoil (R4)
Spellbook (0)
Feldon's Cane (U)
Trash for Treasure (R2)
Inkwell Leviathan (UU7)
Simian Spirit Guide (R2)
Lotus Petal (0)
Desperate Ritual (R1)
Seething Song (R2)
Goblin Charbelcher (4)
Izzet Guildmage (UU/RR)
Mana Severance (U1)
Lightning Greaves (2)
Alexi's Cloak (U1)
Curiousity (U)
Ophidian Eye (U2)
Foil (UU2)
Pact of Negation (0)
Counterspell (UU)
Cryptic Command (UUU1)
Tangle Wire (3)
Winter Orb (2)
Static Orb (3)
Icy Manipulator (4)
Pyroclasm (R1)
Evacuation (UU3)
Washout (U3)
Volcanic Fallout (RR1)
Earthquake (RX)
Nevinyrral's Disk (4)
Oblivion Stone (3)
Platinum Angel (7)
Opposition (UU2)
Capsize (UU1)
Treachery (UU3)
Lightning Bolt (R)
Shock (R)
Char (R2)
Psionic Blast (U2)
Crushing Pain (R1)
Spiraling Embers (R3)
Crystal Chimes (3)
Recall (UXX)
Brainstorm (U)
Ponder (U)
Preordain (U)
Compulsion (U1)
Sensei's Divining Top (1)
Fabricate (U2)
Reshape (UUX)
Merchant Scroll (U1)
Mystic Tutor (U)
Fact or Fiction (UU3)
Gush (U4)
Intuition (U2)
Izzet Chronarch (RU3)
Mulldrifter (U4)
Grixis Panorama
Terramorphic Expanse
Scalding Tarn
Maze of Ith
Mishra's Workshop
Forgotten Cave
Remote Isle
Lonely Sandbar
Smoldering Crater
Halimar Depths
Seat of the Synod
Great Furnace
Steam Vents
Izzet Boilerworks
Flooded Strand
Polluted Delta
Misty Rainforest
12 x Island
12 x Mountain
I've avoided any obvious broken-ness (e.g. Tinker, Lotus, Ancestral), most marginal broken-ness (e.g. Grim Monolith, Ancient Tomb, FoW) and anything that would cost $Texas in real life (e.g. JaceMS, Mox Diamond, Mox Opal) so it should be fair in power.
It also has a grand total of 5 creatures, one of them being Simian Spirit Guide.
Might proxy it for EDH to see how it plays out. I mean, Puzzle Box + Orb on the table has to be interesting.
Bonus: Find all the win conditions.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
I was like oh boy Gibbs energy of mixing!
I understand physchem!
But then I actually watched the video and I was like, oh crap, Reynold's numbers, that's not physchem, it's fluids; I don't know what anything is going on in fluids!
Actually, I think it's equivalent to a parallel plates flow problem. Since the outside wall is stationary and the inside is moving, the velocity gradient means the "mixed" colours are actually discrete sheets overlaid on top of each other. If you turn it enough, the process will still become irreversible.
But then I actually watched the video and I was like, oh crap, Reynold's numbers, that's not physchem, it's fluids; I don't know what anything is going on in fluids!
Actually, I think it's equivalent to a parallel plates flow problem. Since the outside wall is stationary and the inside is moving, the velocity gradient means the "mixed" colours are actually discrete sheets overlaid on top of each other. If you turn it enough, the process will still become irreversible.
Vintage Magic is pretty hilarious
A fairly recent breakdown of Vintage Top 8s and the most popular cards they ran gave 216 Force of Wills in 54 top 8 decks giving an average of 4.0 Force of Wills per deck. Any other card with that level of dominance in any non-eternal format would be banned, except Force is the rebar keeping Vintage from exploding under all the tension.
Tezzeret.dec over the past year has pretty much evolved from "Are we sure that a Tezzeret is strong enough to warrant inclusion in the deck?" to "I think having Jace 2.0 x3 is the right decision".
Blue is so overpowered that all else equal, a card literally becomes stronger just by being blue.
If you crack a fetch and you don't have a basic island, you'll probably want that over a dual because Islands have shroud from Wastelands. Islands are broken etc.
Tezzeret.dec over the past year has pretty much evolved from "Are we sure that a Tezzeret is strong enough to warrant inclusion in the deck?" to "I think having Jace 2.0 x3 is the right decision".
Blue is so overpowered that all else equal, a card literally becomes stronger just by being blue.
If you crack a fetch and you don't have a basic island, you'll probably want that over a dual because Islands have shroud from Wastelands. Islands are broken etc.
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
On music theory
I never noticed until recently how much music theory I've forgotten. But I'm pretty sure if I had an instrument just in my hands I'd be able to remember how things went.
I don't think I'm really unique in that respect; I remember in highschool there was a music theory test where they included a picture of a piano keyboard on the paper and people would come out being, "omg, piano keyboard was so overpowered, nerf paper keyboards".
Which, the silliness being as close to ad verbatim as I can recall, greatly amuses me.
I don't think I'm really unique in that respect; I remember in highschool there was a music theory test where they included a picture of a piano keyboard on the paper and people would come out being, "omg, piano keyboard was so overpowered, nerf paper keyboards".
Which, the silliness being as close to ad verbatim as I can recall, greatly amuses me.
Materials
Anytime I see an aeronautical piece of equipment contacting anything in a movie now, I am going to think, "Oh no! Crack propagation of scratches into catastrophic failure by metal fatigue!"
The exception is Iron Man; I will just continue assuming that his suit doesn't get scratched.
edit: To elucidate- given the same bulk material, surface smoothness increases stress cycles before failure. And this is true with roughness on the scale of angstroms, so visible scratches are huge.
The exception is Iron Man; I will just continue assuming that his suit doesn't get scratched.
edit: To elucidate- given the same bulk material, surface smoothness increases stress cycles before failure. And this is true with roughness on the scale of angstroms, so visible scratches are huge.
Monday, November 01, 2010
Not better than squid puns after all
Well, I've given up on Oreimo because, this is just too stupid. I guess that didn't take long.
Besides, she's too much tsun and not enough dere.
On the other hand, Panty & Stocking is still amazing.
Maybe if Gainax had been the ones to do Powerpuff Z, it wouldn't be totally retarded.
Besides, she's too much tsun and not enough dere.
On the other hand, Panty & Stocking is still amazing.
Maybe if Gainax had been the ones to do Powerpuff Z, it wouldn't be totally retarded.
This machine makes quite a nice flame
But crappy cellphone cameras are crappy.
It changes colour if you start burning metals.
I liked the oxidant dial, which basically went: Off -> Air -> Nitrous Oxide.
It changes colour if you start burning metals.
I liked the oxidant dial, which basically went: Off -> Air -> Nitrous Oxide.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Something
I watched the first episode of Ore no Imouto, which has basically turned my mind to mush, so I am going to collect my incoherent thoughts here.
To start, I've had to Pause to Recover several times during the episode, which usually happens for terrible shows but this one is...good? -Ish?
The opening is called Irony, which is (ironically) a more apt description of irony than the Alanis Morissette's own song, Ironic.
Unlike salt, which is, in fact, rather ionic.
Kyousuke, the main character, is voiced by Nakamura, who is notably the VA for Okazaki (Clannad) and Alto (Macross F). I bring these roles up because it means he's been a harem lead and a tsundere (respectively) before. Uh. Oh.
Kirino, main's sister, is voiced by Taketatsu who was Azusa. Yes, that Azusa.
*pause to recover*
Kirino is basically like having Haruhi for a sister. This one, not the BL one. Yeah, I'm calling that BL. Just look at them! Look at their hair!
In other words she's sociopathic. And a tsundere.
Also, she's a closet otaku.
*pause to recover*
Who pays for her eroges by modeling as a gravure idol.
*pause to recover*
"Why did you buy so many copies of the same thing?"
"As an offering!"
*pause to recover*
So, sucks to be Kyousuke.
On the other hand...
Maybe this is better than squid puns.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
I don't even...
So is GQ some sort of welfare Esquire?
It's like a trainwreck, you just can't look away.
Though I am amused that Monteith is remains significantly more clothed throughout than his co-stars. Significantly.
Also, no doubt Grondin has found these pictures of Lea Michele's "tiny" breasts already.
It's like a trainwreck, you just can't look away.
Though I am amused that Monteith is remains significantly more clothed throughout than his co-stars. Significantly.
Also, no doubt Grondin has found these pictures of Lea Michele's "tiny" breasts already.
Didn't see it coming
Insane drug laws + right to bear arms.
Who would've thought that was a bad combination?
Well played, America. Well played.
Who would've thought that was a bad combination?
Well played, America. Well played.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Canadians like chef Michael Smith too much
I spent the day watching Iron Chef America.
The outrage from Michael Smith losing is ridiculous.
First of all, Iron Chef isn't exactly serious business. I mean, I love Jamie Oliver and he lost. Oh well, time to move on. I don't respect him any less because of that.
Secondly, the show isn't that biased towards Flay. His record is 69% (lolol), which is good (~2 wins per loss) but actually puts him percentile-wise in the bottom-half of the Iron Chefs (not including Wolfgang Puck). And a 54-40 point domination is something I've rarely witnessed on the show, so Smith must've put on a really weak defense.
Thirdly the ingredient was a damn avocado, not elephant bushmeat. Don't act like it was super-weighted towards Flay, if you're a world class chef, you should know how to use something like that. Besides, Smith used canned tuna. Really? Really?
Finally, what's all this talk about the American judges not understanding Canadian cuisine? Come on, sauerkraut is more foreign than we are.
The outrage from Michael Smith losing is ridiculous.
First of all, Iron Chef isn't exactly serious business. I mean, I love Jamie Oliver and he lost. Oh well, time to move on. I don't respect him any less because of that.
Secondly, the show isn't that biased towards Flay. His record is 69% (lolol), which is good (~2 wins per loss) but actually puts him percentile-wise in the bottom-half of the Iron Chefs (not including Wolfgang Puck). And a 54-40 point domination is something I've rarely witnessed on the show, so Smith must've put on a really weak defense.
Thirdly the ingredient was a damn avocado, not elephant bushmeat. Don't act like it was super-weighted towards Flay, if you're a world class chef, you should know how to use something like that. Besides, Smith used canned tuna. Really? Really?
Finally, what's all this talk about the American judges not understanding Canadian cuisine? Come on, sauerkraut is more foreign than we are.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Interview with John Sculley
Followed a link to Cult of Mac:
I can attest to the truthfulness of this on circuit boards; I remember when I first cracked open my 'book I was to exclaiming to people about how beautiful it looked in there. But FFS! What a waste of money.
The thing that separated Steve Jobs from other people like Bill Gates — Bill was brilliant too — but Bill was never interested in great taste. He was always interested in being able to dominate a market. He would put out whatever he had to put out there to own that space. Steve would never do that. Steve believed in perfection. Steve was willing to take extraordinary chances in trying new product areas but it was always from the vantage point of being a designer. So when I think about different kinds of CEOs — CEOs who are great leaders, CEOs who are great turnaround artists, great deal negotiators, great people motivators — but the great skill that Steve has is he’s a great designer. Everything at Apple can be best understood through the lens of designing.
Whether it’s designing the look and feel of the user experience, or the industrial design, or the system design and even things like how the boards were laid out. The boards had to be beautiful in Steve’s eyes when you looked at them, even though when he created the Macintosh he made it impossible for a consumer to get in the box because he didn’t want people tampering with anything.
In his level of perfection, everything had to be beautifully designed even if it wasn’t going to be seen by most people.
Whether it’s designing the look and feel of the user experience, or the industrial design, or the system design and even things like how the boards were laid out. The boards had to be beautiful in Steve’s eyes when you looked at them, even though when he created the Macintosh he made it impossible for a consumer to get in the box because he didn’t want people tampering with anything.
In his level of perfection, everything had to be beautifully designed even if it wasn’t going to be seen by most people.
I can attest to the truthfulness of this on circuit boards; I remember when I first cracked open my 'book I was to exclaiming to people about how beautiful it looked in there. But FFS! What a waste of money.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Album Art: Take Two
This time though, I am posting covers that suck.
Keyar may check for approval:
[ ] Y
[ ] N
Keyar may check for approval:
[ ] Y
[ ] N
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
Backwards
CiV is as of current broken in half on high difficulties.
Apparently it has REX syndrome worse than CivIII; you can keep settling onto tundra to happiness limit and it does not matter because they are powered by maritime food engine and you just run libraries/specialists in all of them.
The AI is also notorious for its terrible tactical awareness. This is counteracted by its production bonuses as you crank up the difficulty.
"This is feeling less strategic and more tower defense."
Interestingly enough, this runs counter to their selling points of less cities, more strategic combat.
Apparently it has REX syndrome worse than CivIII; you can keep settling onto tundra to happiness limit and it does not matter because they are powered by maritime food engine and you just run libraries/specialists in all of them.
The AI is also notorious for its terrible tactical awareness. This is counteracted by its production bonuses as you crank up the difficulty.
"This is feeling less strategic and more tower defense."
Interestingly enough, this runs counter to their selling points of less cities, more strategic combat.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Literal Civ4
<< 15:03:35: immortals are pretty hax
>> 15:03:53: raeps archers
<< 15:04:25: why does that make any sense
>> 15:04:50: YOU try fighting immortals with a bow and arrow
>> 15:05:00: you may have multiple arrows
<< 15:06:26: phalanx should
<< 15:06:39: actually
<< 15:06:45: they rape immortals already
>> 15:07:07: phalanx is a formation
>> 15:07:11: should've been hoplites
>> 15:07:15: it was hoplites in civ3
>> 15:07:18: dont know why they changed it
<< 15:07:52: theoretically when athens builds a hoplite
<< 15:08:04: they are not literally building
<< 15:08:13: one hoplite
>> 15:08:27: lol
<< 15:08:49: they should pluralize everything to avoid confusion
<< 15:09:08: alternatively
<< 15:09:13: do 3 hoplites form a phalanx?
>> 15:09:44: you need two endpoints for a line
>> 15:09:47: so i guess 3 is sufficient
>> 15:09:54: it'll be a pretty shitty phalanx though
<< 15:11:47: but the thousand nations of the persian empire
<< 15:11:52: will also only have
<< 15:11:55: 3 immortals
>> 15:12:00: lol
<< 15:12:14: each nation is contributing
>> 15:12:26: 0.003 men
<< 15:12:56: they can't spare too many
<< 15:13:13: they only have 3 pop/nation
>> 15:13:19: athens houses
>> 15:13:21: 4 people
<< 15:13:35: the 5th one
<< 15:13:37: is a dick
<< 15:13:41: and won't work
>> 15:03:53: raeps archers
<< 15:04:25: why does that make any sense
>> 15:04:50: YOU try fighting immortals with a bow and arrow
>> 15:05:00: you may have multiple arrows
<< 15:06:26: phalanx should
<< 15:06:39: actually
<< 15:06:45: they rape immortals already
>> 15:07:07: phalanx is a formation
>> 15:07:11: should've been hoplites
>> 15:07:15: it was hoplites in civ3
>> 15:07:18: dont know why they changed it
<< 15:07:52: theoretically when athens builds a hoplite
<< 15:08:04: they are not literally building
<< 15:08:13: one hoplite
>> 15:08:27: lol
<< 15:08:49: they should pluralize everything to avoid confusion
<< 15:09:08: alternatively
<< 15:09:13: do 3 hoplites form a phalanx?
>> 15:09:44: you need two endpoints for a line
>> 15:09:47: so i guess 3 is sufficient
>> 15:09:54: it'll be a pretty shitty phalanx though
<< 15:11:47: but the thousand nations of the persian empire
<< 15:11:52: will also only have
<< 15:11:55: 3 immortals
>> 15:12:00: lol
<< 15:12:14: each nation is contributing
>> 15:12:26: 0.003 men
<< 15:12:56: they can't spare too many
<< 15:13:13: they only have 3 pop/nation
>> 15:13:19: athens houses
>> 15:13:21: 4 people
<< 15:13:35: the 5th one
<< 15:13:37: is a dick
<< 15:13:41: and won't work
New Nano
The UI actually makes me want to seek out some album art for my songs; not like space is an issue on PMPs anymore.
Here are some covers that I like:
I'm giving a special mention to the Cowboy Bebop OST 1, because I love that they made it in the style of bebop era jazz albums.
Here are some covers that I like:
I'm giving a special mention to the Cowboy Bebop OST 1, because I love that they made it in the style of bebop era jazz albums.
Sunday, October 03, 2010
Panty & Stocking Quite Something
Actually, quite good.
Also, I liked the BGM there. Apparently, Gainax is barely avoiding the banhammer from censors with this one.
Also, I liked the BGM there. Apparently, Gainax is barely avoiding the banhammer from censors with this one.
Saturday, October 02, 2010
Richard Stallman et alii are crazy et cetra
The usual arguments aside, has it ever occurred to these guys that software often needs to leverage proprietary technologies outside of the software realm entirely?
How are you going to deal with that kind of third party licensing?
Answer: you don't.
That's why GIMP will never support things like Pantone colours. Hell, they're barely competent enough to have CMYK support at all.
Good luck being taken seriously.
Also, Inkscape sucks and people should be ashamed of using it.
Who'd have guess that well paid developers make better products?
How are you going to deal with that kind of third party licensing?
Answer: you don't.
That's why GIMP will never support things like Pantone colours. Hell, they're barely competent enough to have CMYK support at all.
Good luck being taken seriously.
Also, Inkscape sucks and people should be ashamed of using it.
Who'd have guess that well paid developers make better products?
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