A nature article, discussing the use of traditional westerners in well-to-do societies as experimental subjects in psychological studies:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7302/full/466029a.html
BTW this acronym is awesome:
"This is in line with what anthropologists have long suggested: that people from Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic (WEIRD) societies — and particularly American undergraduates — are some of the most psychologically unusual people on Earth."
30.6.10
29.6.10
28.6.10
Kimi ni Gomen ne
Because it was GUMI's birthday two days ago I guess someone (I'm assuming the producer) re-did this old yet popular song. I remember when I first heard this song I thought it wasn't that good at all because GUMI's voice was done rather hoarsely (or rather, it just sounded slightly off). ...I THINK he redid it to make it sound better now, but I don't know if that's actually true or if I'm just getting way to used to GUMI's voice... there' still a trace of the hoarseness though. Still, aside from GUMI's voice this was a pretty good song.
26.6.10
HAPPY BIRTHDAY GUMI
I would post some long rave about how great GUMI is except I did that already a while back. Plus other blogger sites are doing it for me (with videos and pictures included)!
So this is just memoir to GUMI who's been mygateway into VOCALOID greatest virtual idol. :)
So this is just memoir to GUMI who's been my
25.6.10
Prosthetics
http://kotaku.com/5572324/bionic-cat-walks-on-metal-feet
Kotaku posts uh... weird science news sometimes. :V
Kotaku posts uh... weird science news sometimes. :V
GABA and Competition
http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v13/n7/full/nn.2559.html
Apparently, if you have lots of GABA in your system, you have good motion control, therefore better at EFZ!!
Apparently, if you have lots of GABA in your system, you have good motion control, therefore better at EFZ!!
K-On After School Live
http://www.moetron.com/2010/06/25/k-on-after-school-live-psp-game-trailer/
Why yes, if Guitar Hero/Rock Band was K-On, I'd play it.
Why yes, if Guitar Hero/Rock Band was K-On, I'd play it.
24.6.10
innovation
AGAIN from the same producer of EX-GIRL and CUTIE88. THIS GUY IS AWESOME. Unfortunately I don't think I like most of his recent works, save this one. It seems cute and a bit plain at first, but this song gets REALLY catchy.
Ragnarok Online
OH SHIET. I can't tell if I'm standing or lying down dead because I'm EQUAL ON ALL SIDES!!!!!!!
19.6.10
Yandere Vocaloid
http://www.moetron.com/2010/06/19/yandere-vocaloid-sukone-tei-appears-courtesy-of-vip/
LOL, WHAT?
LOL, WHAT?
18.6.10
CUTIE88
This is from the same producer as the one who made EX-GIRL, the Panel VL theme song. I'm thinking I'm starting to like the kinds of songs this producer makes...
15.6.10
9.6.10
Utsuro no Hako to Zero no Maria (Vol 1)
The tl;dr version: Utsuro no Hako IS: mysterious box (hey!!) + tsundere + Japanese schoolife + philosophical questions and the existence of life.
Overall it’s quite a good series and I can see why there’s so much interest in pushing the series to be translated (already 3 volumes translated!). Not like Sword Art Online which I swear only has popularity because right in the middle it says SEX SCENE DON’T SEE UNLESS YOU’RE OVER 18. (What.) But anyway.
I think why I’m not particularly excited about this series is that it doesn’t really have a sense of humor; its pretty serious for the most part. And when you consider that the first novel is like endless eight, it was easy to lose track of following it when I stopped in the middle (or rather, find the mood to pick it up again; its hard for me to pick up something again that’s not comedy or has comedic events). That being said, Utsuu no Haako is probably something I’d tell other people to look at because it has pretty good events. It has the element of surprise, somewhat, and if people like tsundere I guess they’d like the main character. I think the character designs for another girl are cuter and the girl herself eventually turns… interesting too… :V
As a bit of sidetrack, I notice in light novels its hard to get familiar with the side characters at first, particularly because we don’t know how they look yet. Its not like in manga or anime where when a side char is introduced we know what they look like immediately. Instead, they have to describe them in ways I usually gloss over so none of them catch my eye until like 4 chapters later when they suddenly do interesting things. (Or I look at the character illustrations).
I think that, in addition to the lack of significant comedic moments, the first volume also focuses more on romance than I like it to be, especially on ideals and dangers of love. Not to say Bungaku Shojo doesn’t have some romantic connections, but… I think they play more significant parts in Utsuro no Hako than in Bungaku Shojo, which may appeal to others, but not as much to me. The philosophical parts are still more important, though, and that’s always cool; its nice to ponder on the types of things for a while after you finish reading stuff like that.
Plus, it’s a story that revolves around boxes. MYSTERIOUS boxes. MYSTERIOUS BOXES WHICH GRANT WISHES. DUDE CAN IT GET ANY COOLER THAN THAT? I NEVER FELT SO IMPORTANT, AS A MYSTERIOUS BOX MYSELF.
I’d say take a look at it if anyone has any time to read it.
http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Utsuro_no_Hako_to_Zero_no_Maria
Overall it’s quite a good series and I can see why there’s so much interest in pushing the series to be translated (already 3 volumes translated!). Not like Sword Art Online which I swear only has popularity because right in the middle it says SEX SCENE DON’T SEE UNLESS YOU’RE OVER 18. (What.) But anyway.
I think why I’m not particularly excited about this series is that it doesn’t really have a sense of humor; its pretty serious for the most part. And when you consider that the first novel is like endless eight, it was easy to lose track of following it when I stopped in the middle (or rather, find the mood to pick it up again; its hard for me to pick up something again that’s not comedy or has comedic events). That being said, Utsuu no Haako is probably something I’d tell other people to look at because it has pretty good events. It has the element of surprise, somewhat, and if people like tsundere I guess they’d like the main character. I think the character designs for another girl are cuter and the girl herself eventually turns… interesting too… :V
As a bit of sidetrack, I notice in light novels its hard to get familiar with the side characters at first, particularly because we don’t know how they look yet. Its not like in manga or anime where when a side char is introduced we know what they look like immediately. Instead, they have to describe them in ways I usually gloss over so none of them catch my eye until like 4 chapters later when they suddenly do interesting things. (Or I look at the character illustrations).
I think that, in addition to the lack of significant comedic moments, the first volume also focuses more on romance than I like it to be, especially on ideals and dangers of love. Not to say Bungaku Shojo doesn’t have some romantic connections, but… I think they play more significant parts in Utsuro no Hako than in Bungaku Shojo, which may appeal to others, but not as much to me. The philosophical parts are still more important, though, and that’s always cool; its nice to ponder on the types of things for a while after you finish reading stuff like that.
Plus, it’s a story that revolves around boxes. MYSTERIOUS boxes. MYSTERIOUS BOXES WHICH GRANT WISHES. DUDE CAN IT GET ANY COOLER THAN THAT? I NEVER FELT SO IMPORTANT, AS A MYSTERIOUS BOX MYSELF.
I’d say take a look at it if anyone has any time to read it.
http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Utsuro_no_Hako_to_Zero_no_Maria
Vacation
Since I was away for two weeks you get TWICE THE COMICS!! Plus commentary that you probably will go tl;dr.
Disney World
-The first and probably most memorable thing that happened while attending the four parks was at Hollywood studios. The weather in Florida is hot, humid, and rather spontaneous in that randomly, while me and my sister were walking across the park, it started raining. At the time we were going to the Hotel Elevator ride which seems distinctly the same as the one in a particular park closer to where we live, but we decided to cancel when we realized the line was waiting outside and we didn’t want to get soaked while waiting in line. So we got a fast pass and decided to go to another ride except that was outside as well! So we loafed around like idiots.
-Then the rain stopped. Then we went on the ride. I think the ghosty people are supposed to be scary but the little girl was cute! I’d get lured into the twilight zone that way…
-The funny thing was that, when we went back to the hotel elevator ride with our fast pass it wasn’t raining, but then when we went in it had apparently started raining. So when we were in the elevator at the top, we had a split second to notice it was raining and say/think “IT’S RAINING” before we became concerned on… more pressing issues. Like falling down.
-Aside from that, we watched lots of shows. In some car stunt show the main guy looked like my boss in my lab. It was awkward. :V
-The Animal park (I forgot the name) and the Magic Kingdom park wasn’t too particularly exciting. In fact Magic Kingdom was pretty much all the rides exactly the same as Disneyland. Except for Splash mountain, which seemed to have a completely different plotline than the one at Disneyland. What? :V
-We watched some president’s show which was pretty cool in Magic Kingdom. I learned Baraak Obama had to serve jury duty while being a president. That would be awkward. Especially if you disagreed with the president’s opinion on jury. Oh the things you learn in Disney World!
-Epcot was my favorite park. It’s sciencey and all the rides and shows are pretty much different from what you see in the parks here. Except “Soaring” which we went on here. And over there. So we went from California to Florida to ride on a ride that takes us back to California. Wonderful. :V
- But Epcot had a 30 MINUTE RIDE with BILL NYE (and some other comedian named Ellen) now THAT WAS AWESOME.
-It also had a greenhouse ride where you rode through a greenhouse. ISN’T THAT EXCITEMENT. Almost made me interested in botany. Almost. :V
-Also Epcot is the best park because 90% of it is indoors. The rest is some world showcase thing where it has pretty buildings from other countries. And Mexico has a ripoff version of Small World. Somehow I found that appropriate. And I learned things about Canada. Like, uh… a lot of actors are from Canada.
…
-ON TO FIREWORKS. Epcot also had the best fireworks show. I thought it was cool how most of the fireworks were just over the water instead of high in the air. AND THEY HAVE AN HDTV GLOBE SPHERE THING. Although the quality of the video wasn’t as great as I thought it would be. Either that or I was just too far away to notice.
Carnival Cruises
-Really it wasn’t that exciting. It was here I realized that my ideal vacation is what I’ve been doing every weekend for the past year or longer already and that involves sitting in front of the computer doing whatever I find fancies me. I can’t even do this here… well family time isn’t bad. We played cards. Cards is good.
-The comic basically sums up my shore excusion attempts. Although we DID get to go on a submarine ride in Cozumel where we saw coral! In blue. In everything blue. Everything so blue that even when I closed my eyes and covered it all I could see is red because my blue cones burned out so anything not blue my brain now interpreted it as red.
-I read books. The first book I attempted to read was this “13 unsolved mysteries in science” which I eventually thought their arguments were weak and not concretely supported. At first it seemed cool though. But then it started to look like a bunch of bs… The other was some dilbert business thing and I gained a lot of insight into how business works. Yes lots of insight. :V
-The cruise had a “chocolate buffet” on one of their days. I never saw so much chocolate stuff in my life. Except they didn’t have Chocolate Mousse (my favorite) or chocolate covered strawberries (2nd favorite). ARE YOU SERIOUS
-Also on the last day we went to Kennedy Space Center which when abbreviated appears like a popular fast food chain. My dad really liked it. I thought it was an immense amount of propaganda. Not that that’s really bad, but they make everything seem so… dramatic. Even though I’m pretty sure its not exactly that exciting. But hey they’re losing funding in some parts so they need to make their stuff look good, I suppose.
-Then we went home and took another kind of vacation. :V
Disney World
-The first and probably most memorable thing that happened while attending the four parks was at Hollywood studios. The weather in Florida is hot, humid, and rather spontaneous in that randomly, while me and my sister were walking across the park, it started raining. At the time we were going to the Hotel Elevator ride which seems distinctly the same as the one in a particular park closer to where we live, but we decided to cancel when we realized the line was waiting outside and we didn’t want to get soaked while waiting in line. So we got a fast pass and decided to go to another ride except that was outside as well! So we loafed around like idiots.
-Then the rain stopped. Then we went on the ride. I think the ghosty people are supposed to be scary but the little girl was cute! I’d get lured into the twilight zone that way…
-The funny thing was that, when we went back to the hotel elevator ride with our fast pass it wasn’t raining, but then when we went in it had apparently started raining. So when we were in the elevator at the top, we had a split second to notice it was raining and say/think “IT’S RAINING” before we became concerned on… more pressing issues. Like falling down.
-Aside from that, we watched lots of shows. In some car stunt show the main guy looked like my boss in my lab. It was awkward. :V
-The Animal park (I forgot the name) and the Magic Kingdom park wasn’t too particularly exciting. In fact Magic Kingdom was pretty much all the rides exactly the same as Disneyland. Except for Splash mountain, which seemed to have a completely different plotline than the one at Disneyland. What? :V
-We watched some president’s show which was pretty cool in Magic Kingdom. I learned Baraak Obama had to serve jury duty while being a president. That would be awkward. Especially if you disagreed with the president’s opinion on jury. Oh the things you learn in Disney World!
-Epcot was my favorite park. It’s sciencey and all the rides and shows are pretty much different from what you see in the parks here. Except “Soaring” which we went on here. And over there. So we went from California to Florida to ride on a ride that takes us back to California. Wonderful. :V
- But Epcot had a 30 MINUTE RIDE with BILL NYE (and some other comedian named Ellen) now THAT WAS AWESOME.
-It also had a greenhouse ride where you rode through a greenhouse. ISN’T THAT EXCITEMENT. Almost made me interested in botany. Almost. :V
-Also Epcot is the best park because 90% of it is indoors. The rest is some world showcase thing where it has pretty buildings from other countries. And Mexico has a ripoff version of Small World. Somehow I found that appropriate. And I learned things about Canada. Like, uh… a lot of actors are from Canada.
…
-ON TO FIREWORKS. Epcot also had the best fireworks show. I thought it was cool how most of the fireworks were just over the water instead of high in the air. AND THEY HAVE AN HDTV GLOBE SPHERE THING. Although the quality of the video wasn’t as great as I thought it would be. Either that or I was just too far away to notice.
Carnival Cruises
-Really it wasn’t that exciting. It was here I realized that my ideal vacation is what I’ve been doing every weekend for the past year or longer already and that involves sitting in front of the computer doing whatever I find fancies me. I can’t even do this here… well family time isn’t bad. We played cards. Cards is good.
-The comic basically sums up my shore excusion attempts. Although we DID get to go on a submarine ride in Cozumel where we saw coral! In blue. In everything blue. Everything so blue that even when I closed my eyes and covered it all I could see is red because my blue cones burned out so anything not blue my brain now interpreted it as red.
-I read books. The first book I attempted to read was this “13 unsolved mysteries in science” which I eventually thought their arguments were weak and not concretely supported. At first it seemed cool though. But then it started to look like a bunch of bs… The other was some dilbert business thing and I gained a lot of insight into how business works. Yes lots of insight. :V
-The cruise had a “chocolate buffet” on one of their days. I never saw so much chocolate stuff in my life. Except they didn’t have Chocolate Mousse (my favorite) or chocolate covered strawberries (2nd favorite). ARE YOU SERIOUS
-Also on the last day we went to Kennedy Space Center which when abbreviated appears like a popular fast food chain. My dad really liked it. I thought it was an immense amount of propaganda. Not that that’s really bad, but they make everything seem so… dramatic. Even though I’m pretty sure its not exactly that exciting. But hey they’re losing funding in some parts so they need to make their stuff look good, I suppose.
-Then we went home and took another kind of vacation. :V
8.6.10
Panel VL
Panel VL is a vocaloid puzzle game I found on iPhone.
It had an awesome song which I really wanted to find.
I found it.
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
EDIT:
MORE EPICNESS
THIS IS PROBABLY GOING TO BE JUNE'S SONG IN SPITE OF IT BEING 3 YEARS OLD
It had an awesome song which I really wanted to find.
I found it.
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
EDIT:
MORE EPICNESS
THIS IS PROBABLY GOING TO BE JUNE'S SONG IN SPITE OF IT BEING 3 YEARS OLD
6.6.10
Koe De Oshigoto Anime
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-05-24/koe-de-oshigoto-manga-gets-anime-adaptation
HAHA THIS IS NEWS TOO
I currently have this as one of my top favorite manga on MAL. Whether this is the case or whether I was just filling in whatever I had read recently during the time is up for questioning, but I really do enjoy the manga since it was entertaining. :V
World God Knows and Koe de Oshigoto? WHOOO I PREDICT A GOOD ANIME SEASON COMING UP
HAHA THIS IS NEWS TOO
I currently have this as one of my top favorite manga on MAL. Whether this is the case or whether I was just filling in whatever I had read recently during the time is up for questioning, but I really do enjoy the manga since it was entertaining. :V
World God Knows and Koe de Oshigoto? WHOOO I PREDICT A GOOD ANIME SEASON COMING UP
Horie Yui at AX
Vacation post to come soon, but:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-05-26/anime-expo-to-host-voice-actresses-yui-horie-eri-kitamura
Wow really? AX is getting everyone this year...
I'm not a huge Horie Yui fan, however she voiced Kotori who is (if anyone knows) my absolute favorite character of all time. Unfortunately I don't recognize her voice easily and I don't always like the characters she voices so I'm not quite as keen on her...
Actually I don't really like the characters Megumi voices either but she made GUMI which is my current obsession these days so I can't really, well... :x
...maybe I need to find a Kotori pic and try to get it signed. :V
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-05-26/anime-expo-to-host-voice-actresses-yui-horie-eri-kitamura
Wow really? AX is getting everyone this year...
I'm not a huge Horie Yui fan, however she voiced Kotori who is (if anyone knows) my absolute favorite character of all time. Unfortunately I don't recognize her voice easily and I don't always like the characters she voices so I'm not quite as keen on her...
Actually I don't really like the characters Megumi voices either but she made GUMI which is my current obsession these days so I can't really, well... :x
...maybe I need to find a Kotori pic and try to get it signed. :V
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