Day events in retrospective

About the news, I was unfortunately right...even cnn had a release.

Still. The bad guys will be punished. Hopefully the system will be fixed and damage control will not concentrate only on the PR spin thingies.
In the end, I still am pro-A and pro-invasion. Just wish some higher-ups head would roll as well (the guys responsible for poor planning...eh...) but that is for another time.

So I am back from first day of ConQuest (well, it is still going on, but as I have no close friends there, I didnt see much point in staying for all-nighter stuff). Good prelections, I can't complain. Pilipiuk great as well, and the others I have seen were not bad either - much better then the standard university lecturers, obviously.

Anegdote for the day? I actually got recognized by a fellow Usenetian, who (I wish :D) fondly remembers my controversial innovation into sf-golf, the irrergular tournament on pl.rec.fantastyka.sf-f. I was the first to introduce multimedia and foreign language quotes...and I will admit, I could have done it a bit better. Still, the first is the first, right? Show the way and let others learn on your mistakes...oh well. I arranged to be an organiser of one of the next edtitions, so apparently it wasn't as bad (or they belive in second chances ;o).

So...till tommorow. Or later.

Media manipulation...yuck

For starters, read those two views of the same poll:
- CNN view
- Back to Iraq independent journalist view (arpil 29 blog entry)
In the end, your own brain is still the best tool And looking at CNN article, I am reminded why I stopped watching all TV news. I hate propaganda. Even in a 'good' cause.

And my pro-American stance took a further hit today. Although I still need to verify this...hope this is some hoax.

In other, brighter news, interesting thought about blog impact on media on Back to Iraq 26th arpil entry. Or just read introduction to his book here.

Oh well, I am off to the ConQuest, hopefully looking at such nice ppl will lift my spirits. :)

Just few words...and quotes

Did some things on Uni. Met a nice girl, got dumped by a nice girl. Same ol', same ol'.
Tired. But will give u a nice quote to think about :)

Look at any photograph or work of art. If you could duplicate
exactly the first tiny dot of color, and then the next and the
next, you would end with a perfect copy of the whole,
indistinguishable from the original in every way, including
the so-called "moral value" of the art itself. Nothing can
transcend its smallest elements.

-- CEO Nwabudike Morgan,
"The Ethics of Greed"

High spirits

I am in, since I will be living for ConQuest. Did I mention it? So dont expect much update till Tuesday (umm...who am I kiddin'...like anybody is reading this :D).
For those poor souls who have never heard of a convention - see more info here (yes, it is a Wiki entry ;p).

In case I am wrong, here is something interesting I found for ya. Of couse I am bit late, but still...maybe they will do another one soon. Just I dont understand why it is only for those American d00ders? Oh well. Credits to Smash blog for pointing me in that direction.
Oh, what am I talking about? This: Spirit of America

The quiet days

Writing more @. Doing more work on Wiki.
Reading some books ('Rats, Bats and Vats'). Watching some anime.

I plan to be here this weekend. ConQuest'2004

I will post more interesting things when I think of it.

And if anybody beside me was to read it, it would help, ya know :)

Yet another anime review, and some other goodies.

Posted another review on Them forums. This is a second opionon, so just maybe I will get some flamed :) One way or another, I think AD Police is a good show.

Title

AD Police TV

Genre

Science Fiction, Cyberpunk, Action, Drama

Length

12@25mins

Distributor

US: ADV Films

Info

© 1999 AIC / TV Tokyo

Status

Full (12/12)

Version

prerelease fansub

AKA

AD Police

Related Series

AD Police Files/OVA, Bubblegum Crisis, Bubblegum Crash, Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040

The Synopsis

Japan. 2040. Tokyo. Genom City. Alongside humans exist their robot servants - boomers (aka voomers). They come in various humanoid shapes, have limited inteligence, no free will and are destined to do all the tasks that their human masters order them to. But from time to time, the boomers go bersek, and their superhuman strenght and agility requires that a special police unit must be created to deal with the boomer-related crime. That is where AD Police section comes in. This is the story of one of AD Police officers, Kenji Sasaki, and his squad...

The Review

Most people reading this piece want either to confirm their own opinions of that series or to learn if they should have it in the first place.

So is AD Police good? Well...kinda.

What? That is not enough of an answer for you? You want more?

Oh, ok. It depends.

Hey, that's twice as many words as in the previous one. Still not good enough? Well, we can do it the classical way, but remember - you asked for it.

As most shows, AD Police has its good and bad sides. Unfortuntely, the bad ones are most releveant in the 'canon' parts of an action show - the plot is a no brainer (stop the evil mastermind, geez, haven't we heard that one before?) and the action parts are mostly done in the convention 'behold, the immortal invincible handsome good guys take on impossible odds and destroy the military mecha with a screwdriver'.

So you may ask - what was with that 'kinda' or 'depends'? What on earth can make one want to watch this apparent crap'o'rama? Well, one thing. The characters rock. You identify with them, you weep with them, you love them, you hate them...They are flesh and blood. They need friends and family to function. They don't always get well along with each other. On the same day they will fight one another in the locker room over some stupid comment, save the other guy's life, hide under the table becouse they don't have the money to repay that last week debt, and in the end, get drunk together listening to the bartender story about lost love and a glass. They say that good actors can make bad story seem great. AD Police is a prime example of this.

The main plot, while going on to the predictable big fight in the end, does take a single good twist which involves the death of one of the main characters in the mid-series (yes I am a sick person who digs such stuff), so it is not a complete write-off. The aftermath of the final fight is nicely done as well. When one comes to think of did, don't top productions like Bebop or Trigun end in a similar way? Unfortunately, most episodes in AD Police will be action based, and that guts this show.

Consider this - in this supposedly action story my favourite episode is the one that takes place in a *bar*. Twenty five minutes of talking, no fights at all. It is a show when you dont want the action to start, you want the characters to keep on interacting. I'd call it an orginal cop show, at least...and although I don't think this is what the producers intended, it does make it stand out from the crowd. Both in a good and bad way. In the end, AD Police is an excellent drama (or is tragedy more appopriate?) with way to much bad action sequences thrown in.

Oh yes, I almost forgot. Animation and music are decent. No cgi. Good opening and ending. The standard.

Rating

4 stars. Remove one if you dont care much about character interaction. Remove one if you want realistic action. Remove one if you want orginal plot. Remove one if you dont like tragedy. And yes, I think that the characters are good enough for 4 stars if you dont mind the rest.

Audience Appropriateness

There will be fights even between good guys themselves. There will be blood, death and tragedy (although not too graphic). It is not comedy, it is real, and bear this in mind - it is no fun for small kids. At best, they will be bored.

CONTENT RATING

PG-13 I guess

Recommendations

Bubblegum Crisis
Patlabor TV
You Are Under Arrest
Armitage III

Reviewed by

Piotr Konieczny

What other goodies I promised for you?
More reviews :) Don't worry, I've got a new article thingy planed soon.

So, what is the site? Well, it is the site of a publishing house. Baen. What is interesting in a company website, on Earth sake, you ask?
Well, they got a FREE LIBRARY. As in FREE LEGAL EBOOKS in many formats you can download and read. And they have dozens of good books there. I recommend 'On Basilisk Station' by David Weber and '1632' by Eric Flint. Space opera and alternative history, for a good start.
The other good parts include the schedule calendar going at least a year forward, so you can know when the next dose of series you are addicted to is coming and the Baen's Bar, a lively forum which among other things includes snippets of not yet published books. The bookworm heaven. Hail Baen. Baen is your friend. You will listen to Baen...ummm...did I mention you gotta look out for sublimal programming? Oh, who cares, new snippets of 'Saganami Island' are up, gimme!!!!

Comment This!

I promised to implement the comment function, and here it is. I hope :)

I've chosen the free Comment This! service, FYI.

Feel free to, well...comment :)

Whoa! The XMAS is early this year :)

Behold! I updated my creative page with new stuff - articles, short stories, essays...in 2 languages :)

So when u feel u need to sleep and counting sheep doesnt work, help yourself to some of it.

In other news, I received a nice reply from Uni of Pittsburg - I just might go study there (post doctoral) next year (2 late for this one). Which means I have 10 months or so to figure where to get funds for this :) Oh, the joys of life never end!

Evolution of naval tech

Recent post on the Bar have pointed me in a direction of an interesting article disussing the evolution of naval combat from ancient history to the speculation of space battles (with the controvertial assumption that technology would not change much from what we know today).

I could discuss it at length here, but it is being done in more details on many groups and such (the Bar, for example), and the comments function is not yet implemented here (but I am working on it!) , so just a few notes:
- I dont agree that MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) logic is valid in space, as there are no civvies there, therefore nukes would be used
- I agree with Karl Popper logic (that philosphy stuff can make some sense, belive me or not :D) that forseeing future is impossible. The assumption that techs development will stall is as likely as usage of any sf techs, so arguing how likely it is is pointless. Agree with the assumption that tech will not change for the discussion sake - or go read an sf novel :)

Anime review: Patlabor TV

Well, since my first review was not beaten to death on THEM forums, I decided to give it another try. Let's see how many of those they can stomach ;d

Title

Patlabor TV

Genre

Science Fiction, Mecha, Almost Everything*
*read the review

Length

47@25mins

Distributor

US: US Manga Corps

Info

@Sunrise 1989

Status

Full (47/47)

Version

prerelease non-english fansub

AKA

Mobile Force Patlabor

Related Series

Patlabor OVA 1 (The Orginal Files)
Patlabor OVA 2 (The New Files)
Patlabor Movie 1,2,3

The Synopsis

In the near future, Japan becomes one of the places that rely on industrial mecha - called labours - for most labour intensive projects. Those machinges are not autonomus, they require human operator. And when some of those operators go bad, normal police are out of their league when they have to stop the huge armoured metal robots. This is when Mobile Police, Special Vehicles Sections One and Two, comes into action. What follows is the story of the (in)famous Section Two.

The Review

First, a technical note about Patlabour chronology. OVA 1 - Orginal Files - is the alternative take on the figrst part of TV series. OVA 2 (New Files) and Movies are the continuation of TV series. This should clear any misunderstandings about what to watch and when. Now, onto the main review.

Mecha. They are in the main title, the show is about police using mecha, so that means the show is full of mecha fights, duels and such, yes? *BEEEEP*. WRONG! Do you remember the * I put in the show genre? Yes, mecha stuff is a part of Patlbour. There will be superpowerful bad mecha, guest appearances by miliary combat dedicated units and battles spanning more then one episode.

But it is only a PART. An I'd say it is not even the most important one. That would be reserved for the characters. In the space of TV series we meet many of those, from the crew of SVS2 (and with dozens of mechanics, it's not a small one) to scores of recurring characters. All unique and giving the story the 'human' feel.

And that is only the begining. You want comedy? Patlabor has some comedy episodes that I rank among most hilarious ones I have ever seen. You want serious? Patlabor has some heart breaking episodes. You want romance? Sure, there are two going from the very begining to the end and several romance dedicated eps as well. There is the alien episode, the horror episode, the parody episode...

Maybe it would be easier to just say what is not in Patlabour. No hentai/ecchi, no excesive violence. Ummm... I dont recall an episode involving time travel...hmmm...but I might have forgot that one...

The plot itself is rather simple and actually apears in few episodes - most are 'sidestories'. Although all sidestories are connected whith regards to the character development issue (and there are actually *cast changes*). Think of Patlabour as of many small movies with same cast then one big one, and all will be fine.

What about visuals and sound? Keeping in mind that the series is more then a decade old (1989), it is extremly well drawn (some of the artists are responsible for today eye candies like GitS SAC, to name just one). Several openings are a standard these days (although they were not THEN). Music is noting to write home about, although some intro songs are nice.

In the end, what makes this show stand out of the crowd? My vote is characters, who like good actors, can make any script seem good, be it a comedy, action or horror.

Rating

5 stars in 5. Remove two stars if you want a superpower superhero action-only show. Remove a star if you want a series centered about one plot with very few sidestories.

Audience Appropriateness

While there is no extreme violence nor any R stuff, kids may be simply bored with little action episodes. I would say the right audience is anybody who wants to watch it after this review :)

CONTENT RATING

Umm. Forgot the one for 'everybody' :)

Recommendations:

You Are Under Arrest
Gundam Wing
Bubblegum Crisis

Reviewed by

Piotr Konieczny

Voices of the Magister

First of all, I have received my Master of Arts title today. Short story, I got a commendation for extremly high results during my studies (4,96 on scale 2-5,5). Good news. Bad news is that of course I ended celebrating almost alone. Oh well...life is not perfect.

More bright news. I have seen an awesome anime today. One episode - whole series. 24 minutes - and many say that it gives more then titles with 24 episodes. So very true. Voices of the Distant Star. Animenfo gives it only 8.8 in 10. Them - 5 stars in 5 :) Watch it. It is just 24 minutes and it will be more then worth your time.

Philosophy

Everthing comes to an end. Does it sound philosphical? Not sure. But I am sure that my days of being a studend are coming to an end - tommorow I will defend my MT and very likely become a Master of Arts soon afterwards...(economy for those who care).

I have been studying in preparation some ideas of this philospher: Karl Popper. Now philosophy is difficult (why do they have to use those strange terms all the time!) but wiki hypertext makes it easier to understand. Simply put, Popper said that a theory that cannot be proven wrong has no scientifical value. This led him to condemn totalitarism goverments based on historicism, which I wholehearthly agree with (condemnation, that is). He also supported liberal democracy, which is ok with me as well, atlhough I havent understood what his critical rationalism theroy has to do with that. Oh well...

But dont despare. If all goes well, in a few month I will start doctoral studies somewhere. Either Poland or soem English speaking country. Any suggestions for a person intrested in evolution of political systems and impact of technology on societies? Send me an @ (info on my contact page, see links to the left).

Now if only I knew that sb is actually reading this...oh well. Nothing is perfect. Now is that another philosophical statemnt? You tell me :)

Illusionary Magic

Do you know I canNOT do illusion tricks?

Big suprise. But what I can do - is to prepare a generic magic system for rpg :)
With a list of nifty spells. Dont believe me? Shame. See for yourself what I have done so far: here

Don't forget your allies

Found a very nice article lately. I definetly agree with it.

Those who give gifts to their enemies and have nothing for their allies are not acting very wise, don't you think?
But that is what US is doing...don't believe me? Read here.

The World

Or what I have been doing those past few days?

It appears a certain rpg forum I helped to create one year ago is having some problems. PKs, and such. So I am doing some investigations, revising the rules and such.

Feel free to sign up and play along :)

Oh. In case you are wondering - this has sth to do with anime, of course. The World is a name for the fictional mmorpg game, form dothack anime/manga series. Read THEM review of hack//SIGN if u want :)

Small update. AMV and TROMA.

Just to let you know that a friend of mine has a few nice AMV of her own.

And between Go plays I have watched The Toxic Avenger. Ouch. That hurt. Ever heard of Troma? Their films should have a speciall class of their own. But I think they run out of alphabet :)

Go

Go. You know what that means, right?

Wait! I didn't mean for you to *go* away. No, no! I mean Go. A game.

For detailed info, feel free to see the above wikipedia link, but if u dont want a long version, a short one is: Go is a board game, much like chess, only...diffrent :) And, oh, that's important - it is quite likely thee *oldest* board game known to men.

That's not all. It is actually FUN. Believe it or not, it is also connected with anime. Hikaru no Go manga and anime were a hit...can u believe it? Japanese managed to make a fun comic and tv series about a board game. I am not joking, it is #36 top anime ever on Animenfo with average points 9.3 in 10. And Them review gives it 4 stars in 5. Anime was fansubbed by sereral groups and those of you lucky to live in US or Japan can buy licensed version :) Same with manga.

Now on to the game itself. Well, I am still a beginner. Better then listening to me rambling, check some the wikipedia links - for mathematical analysis, tutorials, online freeware and multiplayer software...

Wiki is good. Go is good. Hikaru is good. What about hikaruwikigo page? :)

Sayonara and may you achieve the Hand of God...

Wiki busy

I am still here. Just playing with Wiki. Great stuff.

You can see what I have been up to by looking at my contribution page to wikipedia.

Love Easter. Love my mum's cakes. Life is good.

One update per day. AMV

I *am* going to try to make one update per day. AND I will try to make each post worth your time. Ya know, reviews, articles, stuff.

Ok, u don't believe me - fair enough, I dont believe myself.

What do I have for today?

AMV. Side note - Wikipedia is cool, it has an entry for AMV :)

No, thats not Alien Machine Vendor. It is for Anime Music Videos. Kind of like music clips from MTV, just better - becouse clips come from ANIME.
So u can treat them as trailers with awesome music. Isn't it great? :)

It gets even better. You see, AMVs are FREE. You can download them from AnimeMusicOrg - if u can stomach waiting 2 weeks before your account is activated. If u want a fast free sample, the NHMK homepage has some nice ones.

Of course I am assuming you have broadband and know what DivX / XVdis is. I cant help u much if u dont have broadband, but for DivX stuff what u need is to install some codecs. I recently use K-Lite series - download them here.

So, for today, enjoy some nice AMVs along with your easter eggs.

Anime Review Update

I have actually posted my Scryed review on the THEM forums. I wonder how badly I am going to get trashed... :)