July 16, 2018
Yamato 2202
I didn't realize this was running, so I powered through the first ten episodes this weekend.
First reaction was nostalgia, as soon as I heard those organ chords.
It is a worthy followon to 2199. Lots of familiar faces from the previous series.
And hey, we get to SEE those faces, since I am guessing the previous director got sacked. Along with his midget cameraman doing all those Perineum-Cam shots. The Fan Service has been way toned down this time.
This telling of the tale is much richer than the first time out. I learned stuff about Gatlantis that I never knew when they were called the Comet Empire.
Even though I know where it's going, it's going to be an interesting ride.
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July 07, 2018
Uptown Funk - Space Dandy
A friend pointed me at this one doing Uptown Funk with scenes from Space Dandy. But this is something special and unique. I've never seen the comic book format before in an AMV.
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June 30, 2018
Fizzle...
New post on my SF Writing blog.
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June 21, 2018
Stop! Watch this now!
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June 10, 2018
Cooling off
Success! Today I had rounded up components to add a separate, replacement pump and a reservoir to the crappy Antec CPU cooler I have in Himawari.
I say crappy because annually the pump has started failing, initially leading to brief temperature surges, but sometimes failing for so long the heat indicating LED on the CPU block goes to a hellish red, and then my PC goes into thermal shutdown. Amazingly this hasn't caused damage yet, but I'm sick of the need to use the admittedly good warranty service. This is my third unit, and it was just starting to fail.
A couple weeks ago I bought a pump, and then had to figure out what else I needed to do to splice it in. I realized I'd need a reservoir, since this would no longer be a factory sealed system. I went to Fry's in search of cooling system components, but they only had complete kits, or hyper expensive parts designed to fleece the casemod community.
But one thing I DID find at Fry's was a small plastic food storage box with a flip-down airtight lid. It was fairly heavy and rigid plastic, so it would stand up to what I had in mind.
I bought some tubing, hose clamps, and some tubing to 1/4" pipe fittings. I happened to already own a 7/16" drill and a 1/4 NPT pipe tap. (Don't ask). So I drilled two holes in the side of the container, one high, one low, and threaded the holes. The fittings were nice and snug.
I set up the pump and the reservoir temporarily, just looping to each other to make sure it worked, and plugged them in to a spare fan power connector on my motherboard. It worked, quite energetically.
I was going to get into it later this week, since I have so many other projects going on, but then while I was firing up World of Warships, the thing forced my hand, going deep brick red. I shut it down manually as fast as I could.
So even though it was after midnight, I had to give it a go.
One of the reasons I hated the annual warranty exchange (aside from having to put in a full price deposit and pay to ship it back) was that taking off the CPU block is a potential disaster (Trying to remove the original finned heat sink, I actually ripped the CPU out of the socket while it was locked and bent a pin!) since the attachment system is under spring tension. Hopefully this would be the last time it would have to come off.
Fully disassembled, it was time to cross the line, and I cut the tubes leading to the pump. I kept that end high to avoid losing all the coolant. I had bought some distilled water, but it would be nice to save as much of the antifreeze as possible. Only a little dripped out.
One issue is that the original hoses are small rubber ones, and the pump fit 3/8" Inside Diameter hoses. The rubber ones were 3/8" Outside Diameter, so the solution was obvious, slip the new hoses over the old ones and apply hose clamps.
Once I wrestled the CPU block and radiator with the fans (and without the original attached pump) back into place, I threaded the hoses through two convenient holes in the back of the case. Then I had to take them out again because I needed to access the SysFan connector to wire power to the pump.
Finally I had all the hoses connected to the pump and reservoir, I topped off the reservoir with distilled water, and then contorted everything to try to clear all the air from the lines. My earlier testing showed the pump REALLY doesn't like getting any air in it.
Then, the moment of truth, turning it on. And it worked, the pump pumped, the coolant flowed into the top of the reservoir (but not nearly as fast as when there was nothing else in the loop), and the CPU did not fry, and no water went spraying everywhere.
To start it was running a good 30 degrees cooler than normal, nearly room temperature. It HAS been climbing slowly, probably as the system becomes heat soaked (I'm running some CPU intensive stuff right now), but it's still cooler than before, and more importantly, it's WORKING.
Once I'm sure everything's fine, I'm gonna add velcro to the bottom of the pump and reservoir and stick them to the top of the case. But so far, so good.
I say crappy because annually the pump has started failing, initially leading to brief temperature surges, but sometimes failing for so long the heat indicating LED on the CPU block goes to a hellish red, and then my PC goes into thermal shutdown. Amazingly this hasn't caused damage yet, but I'm sick of the need to use the admittedly good warranty service. This is my third unit, and it was just starting to fail.
A couple weeks ago I bought a pump, and then had to figure out what else I needed to do to splice it in. I realized I'd need a reservoir, since this would no longer be a factory sealed system. I went to Fry's in search of cooling system components, but they only had complete kits, or hyper expensive parts designed to fleece the casemod community.
But one thing I DID find at Fry's was a small plastic food storage box with a flip-down airtight lid. It was fairly heavy and rigid plastic, so it would stand up to what I had in mind.
I bought some tubing, hose clamps, and some tubing to 1/4" pipe fittings. I happened to already own a 7/16" drill and a 1/4 NPT pipe tap. (Don't ask). So I drilled two holes in the side of the container, one high, one low, and threaded the holes. The fittings were nice and snug.
I set up the pump and the reservoir temporarily, just looping to each other to make sure it worked, and plugged them in to a spare fan power connector on my motherboard. It worked, quite energetically.
I was going to get into it later this week, since I have so many other projects going on, but then while I was firing up World of Warships, the thing forced my hand, going deep brick red. I shut it down manually as fast as I could.
So even though it was after midnight, I had to give it a go.
One of the reasons I hated the annual warranty exchange (aside from having to put in a full price deposit and pay to ship it back) was that taking off the CPU block is a potential disaster (Trying to remove the original finned heat sink, I actually ripped the CPU out of the socket while it was locked and bent a pin!) since the attachment system is under spring tension. Hopefully this would be the last time it would have to come off.
Fully disassembled, it was time to cross the line, and I cut the tubes leading to the pump. I kept that end high to avoid losing all the coolant. I had bought some distilled water, but it would be nice to save as much of the antifreeze as possible. Only a little dripped out.
One issue is that the original hoses are small rubber ones, and the pump fit 3/8" Inside Diameter hoses. The rubber ones were 3/8" Outside Diameter, so the solution was obvious, slip the new hoses over the old ones and apply hose clamps.
Once I wrestled the CPU block and radiator with the fans (and without the original attached pump) back into place, I threaded the hoses through two convenient holes in the back of the case. Then I had to take them out again because I needed to access the SysFan connector to wire power to the pump.
Finally I had all the hoses connected to the pump and reservoir, I topped off the reservoir with distilled water, and then contorted everything to try to clear all the air from the lines. My earlier testing showed the pump REALLY doesn't like getting any air in it.
Then, the moment of truth, turning it on. And it worked, the pump pumped, the coolant flowed into the top of the reservoir (but not nearly as fast as when there was nothing else in the loop), and the CPU did not fry, and no water went spraying everywhere.
To start it was running a good 30 degrees cooler than normal, nearly room temperature. It HAS been climbing slowly, probably as the system becomes heat soaked (I'm running some CPU intensive stuff right now), but it's still cooler than before, and more importantly, it's WORKING.
Once I'm sure everything's fine, I'm gonna add velcro to the bottom of the pump and reservoir and stick them to the top of the case. But so far, so good.
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May 25, 2018
Have you ever wanted to play with MMD?
I have found the perfect starting point, a site named LearnMMD.com, and the page, appropriately named "Start here"
The latest versions in x32 and x64 are available there, and fortunately for me, they did not need any additional runtime libraries, but they have those linked too if you need them. There's no installer, you just unzip the folder and click the .exe to run (And yes, I checked with MalwareBytes first, the x64 is clean). I loaded up a sample and it ran. And this version is in English, as well.
What I do from there, who knows? Knowing me, I'll probably get distracted by something else shiny before too long, but maybe you'll be different.
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May 06, 2018
3D Kanojo - Real Girl
Rats, I had a nice long post about this show, and Facebook crashed my machine.
But the best summary is, while Hikari is an emotionally stomped down Otaku, it's quite possible that Igarashi, the 3D girl who enters his life may be far more damaged than he is. It's a very interesting show that strikes a little too close to home, but you have to be good at picking up the subtexts.
I'm really pissed that somehow the new, less worthy version of TextAreaCache was somehow disabled. So I got nothing.
But the best summary is, while Hikari is an emotionally stomped down Otaku, it's quite possible that Igarashi, the 3D girl who enters his life may be far more damaged than he is. It's a very interesting show that strikes a little too close to home, but you have to be good at picking up the subtexts.
I'm really pissed that somehow the new, less worthy version of TextAreaCache was somehow disabled. So I got nothing.
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April 22, 2018
Kizumonogatari
So, I finished the three movies in Kizumonogatari yesterday. It was great to finally understand the situation with Araragi, the vampiress with the ridiculous name, Oshino Meme (the negotiator), and the busty class rep, Hanekawa.
But it's going to be quite a jolt when I finally get back to the first installment of the series, because the direction is so different. One of the things Bakemonogatari was known for were the many brief flashes of interstitial text related to the story appearing on screen between cuts. This has been cut down extremely, mostly just red or black cards with words for red or black in different languages on them. Maybe not as interesting, but it helps it flow a bit better because you don't need to mash the pause button so much (On the earlier series, I recommend just watching it through once before even trying to read all the text).
The other stylistic difference that will clash is the use of simplified, near-chibi, and other odd character design shifts to go with the mood. There is also, in the third movie, a really over-extended fan-servicey scene with Araragi persuading Hanegawa to let him fondle her boobs before going to fight the vampiress, although I'm sure I've just persuaded some folks to seek this out with that....
The story is a a lot less talky and more action oriented than the previous (or technically following) chapters. That's not to say it's a wall-to-wall actioner. But having been turned into a Vampire by an especially powerful (although weakened) Vampiress has given him extreme regeneration powers. He can lose an arm (And does, many times) and have a new one appear in seconds. This is played out to absurd extremes in the final battle.
Despite all the differences, it is still very clearly in the same mold as the other Monogatari stories, with artistic settings and no unnecessary characters being shown.
It exists in this weird state of being the first story with all the background needed for the first released series, but perhaps not necessarily the best entry point either for the series.
(The other artistic difference in this set of episodes is they use that annoying red skin highlight with the white dot in the middle technique, which looks so much to me like it should be a first and second degree burn. I may be wrong, but I don't recall that being in the earlier releases.)
But it's going to be quite a jolt when I finally get back to the first installment of the series, because the direction is so different. One of the things Bakemonogatari was known for were the many brief flashes of interstitial text related to the story appearing on screen between cuts. This has been cut down extremely, mostly just red or black cards with words for red or black in different languages on them. Maybe not as interesting, but it helps it flow a bit better because you don't need to mash the pause button so much (On the earlier series, I recommend just watching it through once before even trying to read all the text).
The other stylistic difference that will clash is the use of simplified, near-chibi, and other odd character design shifts to go with the mood. There is also, in the third movie, a really over-extended fan-servicey scene with Araragi persuading Hanegawa to let him fondle her boobs before going to fight the vampiress, although I'm sure I've just persuaded some folks to seek this out with that....
The story is a a lot less talky and more action oriented than the previous (or technically following) chapters. That's not to say it's a wall-to-wall actioner. But having been turned into a Vampire by an especially powerful (although weakened) Vampiress has given him extreme regeneration powers. He can lose an arm (And does, many times) and have a new one appear in seconds. This is played out to absurd extremes in the final battle.
Despite all the differences, it is still very clearly in the same mold as the other Monogatari stories, with artistic settings and no unnecessary characters being shown.
It exists in this weird state of being the first story with all the background needed for the first released series, but perhaps not necessarily the best entry point either for the series.
(The other artistic difference in this set of episodes is they use that annoying red skin highlight with the white dot in the middle technique, which looks so much to me like it should be a first and second degree burn. I may be wrong, but I don't recall that being in the earlier releases.)
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April 14, 2018
___-Monogatari
I've been fascinated by the Bakemonogatari series, but I've never watched them all all the way through. It kept bugging me that I had missed the origin story.
Apparently I was wrong, but not by much. The original encounter between Koyama Araragi and the vampire was chronicled in Kizumonogatari, which actually didn't come out until 2016/17 (It's in three parts). A chance search today turned it up. Now maybe the completest in me can finally sit down and watch the whole thing IN ORDER! (At which point I'll probably find out there was another series I missed.....)
But at least there's a chance I'll finish them, unlike the Final Fantasy games 1 through 11 I accumulated for my Playstation, which hasn't been hooked up since my old Tube TV died.
ETA: Added a new tag in uTorrent just to group them all together, and according to this list I missed a LOT. Fortunately it all seems to be available, but what I DO have is a mess. A lot of circles stopped part way through, so I have some duplicates, and some single episodes, and at least one season says it has 13 episodes, but all the batches are 1-12. It's a mess everywhere, not just my directories.
Apparently I was wrong, but not by much. The original encounter between Koyama Araragi and the vampire was chronicled in Kizumonogatari, which actually didn't come out until 2016/17 (It's in three parts). A chance search today turned it up. Now maybe the completest in me can finally sit down and watch the whole thing IN ORDER! (At which point I'll probably find out there was another series I missed.....)
But at least there's a chance I'll finish them, unlike the Final Fantasy games 1 through 11 I accumulated for my Playstation, which hasn't been hooked up since my old Tube TV died.
ETA: Added a new tag in uTorrent just to group them all together, and according to this list I missed a LOT. Fortunately it all seems to be available, but what I DO have is a mess. A lot of circles stopped part way through, so I have some duplicates, and some single episodes, and at least one season says it has 13 episodes, but all the batches are 1-12. It's a mess everywhere, not just my directories.
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April 07, 2018
Steins;Gate
With a new series (Alternate ending) coming out, I realized I never finished watching the original. I started over. I was surprised when I realized my files were dated 2011! (Sheesh, was I on dial-up then? Or Clearwire?)
Annoyingly, the audio track on the first episode sounds like crap, like it's overcompressed or full of noise or something. A quiet scene sounds like it's got a rocket flying through it. Dunno if it's the file, or maybe the codec in the 64bit version of MPC-HC doesn't like the old encoding so much any more. I don't think it's corrupted, but I've never run into anything like this before. It's really annoying.
Further testing. Still bad when opened in Ifranview, but that could be using the same codecs. Still bad when opened on Etna, which has the 32 bit CCCP loaded (for some reason the 64 bit version started crashing on start, so I uninstalled.). So it must be the file. I guess everyone was compressing things to death back then. The episode is just over 281 meg,
Annoyingly, the audio track on the first episode sounds like crap, like it's overcompressed or full of noise or something. A quiet scene sounds like it's got a rocket flying through it. Dunno if it's the file, or maybe the codec in the 64bit version of MPC-HC doesn't like the old encoding so much any more. I don't think it's corrupted, but I've never run into anything like this before. It's really annoying.
Further testing. Still bad when opened in Ifranview, but that could be using the same codecs. Still bad when opened on Etna, which has the 32 bit CCCP loaded (for some reason the 64 bit version started crashing on start, so I uninstalled.). So it must be the file. I guess everyone was compressing things to death back then. The episode is just over 281 meg,
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