Category Archives: Stuff

Films I’ve always wanted to see but never could

Posted on July 14, 2011
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There is one thing that in the past years I was never having time for: watching movies. Sure, the occasional direct-to-video media such as anime and whatnot that would be available here in the U.S. where it would be sold in major chain video stores would be the only primary access but try something like the latest Japanese live action release and you have something that is hard to find at the time. Unless of course you went to the local International film festival which, still, did not really help much either when you were still stuck in school or at work.

So here’s a list of some movies that I’ve got listed to check out.

Pistol Opera
Hannah and Alice
All About Lily Chou Chou

And that’s just a few that I had in mind. There are others but the trailers are a bit hard to find (^_^);.

The great thing about live action movies is that, unlike anime, they really are catered to the audience intended. Particularly because, given that the subjects are live and part of the audience of which it’s directed to primarily. So you have this “mirroring” effect happen. In other words: the live action film is sometimes a reflection of what is somewhat immediately going on with the particular audience in that point in time. Their fears, their hopes, their wishes are all there on the screen. In anime, it’s not so much about that as it is about simply escapism for the sake of itself – which is not a bad thing at all and has demonstrated to being a particular common denominating thing as far as having people come together and appreciate aesthetics, art, function, technology, and all the fun things that geek-culture has to offer. And that’s what it’s all about right?

But for live action. I think it’s a bit of a matter of just sitting and watching to observe what is being said as usually the matter is a bit serious or sometimes there’s something that is wanting to be said.

The Pillows – Like A Love Song

Posted on July 8, 2011
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I stood there under the street lamp. I looked at her in the eye and saw that she was a bit transparent. I did not know that she was really just a shell this whole time. I did not realize that she was not that real as I thought. I realized then that she was nothing more than a figment of my imagination of someone else. Someone that was no longer near. Someone that just never was there to start with.

“I forgot the color of your eyes, the things we said…”

“You’ll forget more tomorrow..but you’ll still have what I’ve been trying to give you this whole time.”

Under the glittering diamonds that moved under the every changing dome of purple, scarlet, and orange with the smells of tangerines, with their juices spraying very lightly in the air.
And heat of the air that made her presence powerful…even if…

Recommended Software – Chromium

Posted on July 7, 2011
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Chromium. It’s no longer the name of the 24th element in the periodic table of elements, but also the name of one of the progressively developed web browser framework around. It’s what’s helped the development of the Google Chrome browser, the Linux-based Google Chrome OS and Chromium OS. And some of the development gone into Chromium has also spilled into the development of the Android OS which Google also is a part of working in for smartphones. Now the thing to remember is that this does not have any tracking software of any kind such as Google Chrome (which records the date and time specific when you have installed a copy of Google Chrome, Searches, time stamps sessions using Google Chrome, unique browser install identification numbers, and crash/bug reports automatically).

All of these things are shut off and can only be turned on if you register for synchronization in Google Chromium, so for those of you that are concerned over privacy that’s the reason I would encourage you to check out Google Chromium.

I would highly recommend, if you are the extreme adventurous type that is not afraid, to try out the bleeding edge of the technology going into testing for future Google Chromium (Chrome) releases.
It takes a bit of searching in the directories but fortunately I’ve provided a few links here for you to check out. One is for stable releases and the other is a separate set of releases that involve the latest advancements done to the Webkit rendering engine (along with changes to The V8 Javascript parsing engine).

You can either install them, if you have Windows, from .zip files and use the small install file to have the program formally “installed” onto Windows. Otherwise you’ll be prompted by Chromium if you want to have it be the default browser every time you start it up.

Latest Chromium Builds for Windows
Latest Chromium realeases with Web-Kit Engine changes

If you want to build from the source code, something I’ve yet wanting to try myself (^_^);, then I would recommend you to read the instructions for Windows, Mac, and Linux users.

A big thanks to Alexis for pointing me out to Google Chromium two years ago (・ω・　)

Traveling to Japan during the 1950′s

Posted on July 1, 2011
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After World War II, Japan bootstrapped itself to undergo a massive reconstruction effort. The country was almost, in less than a decade, immediately ready to start over in full stride. With many Japanese countrymen ready to start over and to begin new lives (as some were veterans from the war and would, even then, never discuss about it with others). They started to rebuild and as a result, it start to later on by the 1960′s become an international superpower in Asia. It’s rapid turn from a war-torn country to one that is as we know it today, is one story that has been described by some as “an economic miracle”. One thing to keep in mind about Japan, as far as the person that has never been there is concerned, is that it’s a country that frequently undergoes change. It has been that way always almost and, as a result, can cause some to lose some things that they should have kept in the past. That explains why there is always redevelopment projects throughout the urban areas of Japan and why some business are “here today and gone tomorrow” as far as your local mom and pop shop is concerned.

So it’s sometimes not just a curiosity for those outside of Japan, but also those that live in Japan, to look at movies, photos, and relics of times past and cherish them as they really have a charm that comes from being a part of that particular time period of Japanese history (especially recent modern history).

There is a coffee table book that had all these pictures of people’s living spaces called Tokyo: a certain style (click here). The book was published during the 1990′s so most of the photographs show apartments and houses with many things typically found in homes at the time. It was a bit of a popular reference book for those that are wanting to understand about living in Japan and what to expect (the “cockpit feel” of typical Japanese apartments being one of them).

To the point: Each decade of Japan during the 20th century was dramatically different and each one spelled the frequent undertaking of change. Which is why the following film is one of many cherished memoirs that many, Japanese and those that take interest in Japan, find quite precious.

Software Recommendations – RSSOwl

Posted on June 30, 2011
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RSSOwl Logo
If you find yourself using your web browser for handling many of the RSS, Atom, and RDF feeds, then you can be sure that at some point you’ll find yourself compelled to just want to get rid of them for good. And why would that be the case? Simple: the clutter, the lack of being able to organize the feeds, and to mange each of them individually as you would like to. So what then? Another plugin for your web browser? No. The answer: an RSS feed client. Now you might think that this would be too much for something so simple as feeds. But, as you – who may be reading this and have some 100+feeds – may have found out, that handling a ton of feeds is not something to simply ignore after a while.

That’s where RSSOwl comes in. It’s a powerful multi-platform (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux) application that handles RSS, RSS 2.0, RFD, and ATOM feeds. It can allow you to use your system default web-browser, or preferred particular web browser, or the internal web browser (which will be always Internet Explorer in Windows – which is not so bad now since it’s fighting to be the most standard’s complaint among the browsers).

It allows you to also manage feeds individually or in groups and even does periodically do “clean ups” of old feed entries and delete defunct RSS feeds from web sites that are no longer live.

But that’s not all, it also is able to synchronize with your Google Reader feeds and star ratings of feeds. So now you can have your rss feeds that you have stored in RSSOwl to be synchronized with your Google Reader account. This makes it extremely convenient as you can now have Google Reader as the simple “go-to” feeder web-based handler while you can then use the more powerful and feature-rich of the desktop client which is RSSOwl when you are at a terminal that you are comfortable in viewing and managing your feeds.

If you wish to check out RssOwl, then by all means check them out (click here)

Software Recommendations – Notepad++

Posted on June 28, 2011
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If you are a Windows user then you know that it’s sometimes a pain to work with the default “Notepad” application given that it does nothing but just have you write your text and then save. There is nothing more that program does really.

There are other solutions out there that enhance Notepad in one way or another or reinvent the wheel and add their own spin to Notepad. But the thing is, they’re not always that good and always come with mixed results.

Luckily there is one that I could recommend right off the bat for most Windows users that need something that is straightforward, but offers a more robust set of features to get you started in doing whatever text editing or coding you need. And that is Notepad++.

Notepad++ is not another enhancement to the standard Notepad that comes with your install of Windows (of whatever version). It’s a text editor application that features a lot of many things that many would want from a text editor: tabbed windows, syntax highlighting, sometimes even auto-completion for certain languages.

If you want to check out Notepad++ (click here).

A few words on Lord of the Rings and of language

Posted on June 26, 2011
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Inscription that is found in the one wring in English: ...One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them...
After finishing Lord of the Rings a few days ago I finally came to get the feeling that I had not had in a long time. It was one that really reminded me of the ideals that some hippie communes had where it all was less about technology, industrialization, urbanization, and shiny, but cold, promises of tomorrow were less of a concern than the comfort and security of today. To hold on to certain things that are time tested than those that are new and yet to be proven. The basics: land, honor, bread, laughter, and song.

A bit of a reminder of the time when I read about the Volkish philosophy movement that stirred a nervous Germany that was concerned of losing it’s culture, value, and identity to the spurs and ambition of the industrial revolutions as those nations surrounding around them. And it was not simply a notion that only Germans would understand under that school of thought and under that brand.

 

Tolkien was one that shared similar thought. And although Tolkien’s outlook and distaste for industry was a reflection from personal experiences of seeing the industrial revolution touch close to things around his life: when he was growing up as a boy in the country side, fighting as a young man in World War I, and even the latter years of his life when it was time for him to publish Lord of the Rings (the cost of publishing immediately after World War II made it impossible to publish his entire work as one single volume).

But it was not only notions of how life should be lived quotidainly, but it was also about language. For one thing that is found in throughout the work is the proof that you are, definitely, what you speak. In other words: the language you use to speak, think, write, parse information with, all defines and shapes you the individual. And this is something that is not only exclusive to the English language as it’s the universal truth for all languages (natural  or synthetic).

Every language has a distinct history, a characteristic of it’s own right (irrelevant whether the language was developed with the help of another that had existed prior), they have their virtues as well as their weaknesses. But on thing is certain: that the individual is ultimately responsible to master that language in order to make good, exact, clear, concise, and thorough understanding of the information that is received, is in process and or is outputed within the parameters that are offered by said language.
Continue reading →

XMPP Joke Protocol Extensions

Posted on June 21, 2011
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While checking out the list of XEP (XMPP Extension Protocols), I found some that were down-right funny. The humor will over some that are not programmers or familiar with the XMPP protocol but the abstracts of each document should be enough to give you an idea of what the whole parody for an extension is about.

And who says that programmers are humorless?

Recommended Games – Minecraft

Posted on June 18, 2011
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There are a few games that exist outside of the gated community which is Valve’s Steam and Blizzards Battlenet communities that really take the internet gaming populace by storm. It’s not a first person shooter, it’s not a massive online multiplayer game, it’s not even some social networking web time killer.

What it is instead is a sand-box game with 8-bit graphics. And the name of the game is Minecraft. Since last year, I’ve been told to check out this game various times and it was not until recently that I finally understood the appeal to this game: it’s a game with the same appeal that Lego’s has to a child back then that wanted to build a house out of the various color pieces that were on disposal.

But the difference between Legos and this game is that this game you have to get your pieces through mining resources. So that block that has that smatter of pixle green on top? That’s a dirt block with some grass on top. That block that looks like slightly solid looking sand? That’s a block of sandstone. That grey block of uniform grey? that’s a block of stone. I could go on really as the visual following demonstrates:

Now the rules of “this and that; these and those”: some blocks you can use to build things or craft things(no pun intended) such as items and tools like pickaxes, shovels, books, wooden crates, and many other things.
And you are given a world that is automatically and randomly generated. No game started is ever the same as the next one in any way, so when you start playing a new game you’ll find yourself only wanting to quit the current game your in because you just don’t like the world you happen to be working with or you just ant to start afresh from your current world that your in working.

It’s very simple and the simplicity of the game lies partially the appeal to it’s addicting quality. The other part is, at least for me it is, the low hardware resources it requires to run: you don’t need a whole lot to run this game as even a machine with a low-level, yesteryear, dedicated graphics card with OpenGL support.

And that’s about it. I would really recommend this game as something to replace your run-of-the-mill web app game time killer as there is constant development done to the game and more and more things are going to be added to game as time goes on.

It costs €20.00 ($28.63 USD) but if you act now you’ll be able to get it while in beta for just €14.95 ($21.40 USD). Give Minecraft a look and buy a copy. You won’t regret it (^_^) (click here)

If you want to have an idea of what a typical game map looks like for single-player minecraft game, then check out this map of my current game right now.