Haibane.info

Author: Otaku-kun

  • Fractale – finish

    I binged on Fractale one afternoon, thanks to Hulu Plus (which has a surprising amount of anime in its archives). I found the series as a whole enchanting but not addicting, the characters interesting but not captivating, and the world unique but not provoking. (spoilers…)

    (more…)

  • Space Shuttle Program coda: There and Back Again

    STS-135, 7/21/11

    But Sam turned to Bywater, and so came back up the Hill, as day was ending once more. And he went on, and there was yellow light, and fire within; and the evening meal was ready, and he was expected. And Rose drew him in, and set him in his chair, and put little Elanor upon his lap.

    He drew a deep breath. “Well, I’m back,” he said.

  • Rory Williams, destroyer of worlds

    This is hysterically funny.

    (assuming you’re a fan of the Matt Smith Dr Who era)

  • Sherlock returns this winter

    Excellent.

    Details just revealed by co-creator/writer, Mark Gatiss, has the three proposed episodes as A Scandal in Bohemia, Hound of the Baskervilles and The Final Problem. Gatiss went on to explain that he will adapt ‘Hound’ for television, while co-creator Steven Moffat will write the series premiere. “Steven wanted to do the twisted love story [of ‘A Scandal’] because he likes that,” he said. “I’m doing the gothic horror, and Steve Thompson is doing ‘The Final Problem‘. Originally set to begin filming this month, it was pushed back a bit to allow Martin Freeman to complete filming on Peter Jackon’s, The Hobbit, which had experienced its’ own filming delays earlier this year.

    The Grand Moffat teased everyone with a simple tweet: “… it begins” and a photo of a very famous door. I really think that the first few episodes of Sherlock were better than the new season of Dr Who thus far – though not by a large margin. It seems that as Syfy wanes, the BBC waxes. I do miss Stargate but the Brits have plenty for me on tap. Just need to be patient until Fall… and, Warehouse 13 just returned, so I have something to keep me occupied till then 🙂

  • Google+ is closed, Facebook and Twitter are open

    There’s a simple reason that Google+ can not be a facebook killer – it adds to social noise and creates a walled garden where data can not be exported from nor imported to. There are no RSS feeds generated by Google+ that you can pipe into Twitter using Twitterfeed, nor can you import tweets to Google+ the way you can with Facebook. There is no Google+ API like the Facebook API that allows data import to the service from other services.

    This is a huge, critical flaw in Google+ that guarantees it won’t be a Facebook killer.

    A better use of Google+ would be to unify Gmail and Circles such that you can create whitelists for email with a single click. There’s no email service at present that permits a user to create a whitelist easily – you have to tediously set up manual filters instead, and even then there’s simply no way to say “send all emails (except some) to Trash”. A simple whitelist functionality is the real way to declare email independence. I fully support what MG Siegler is trying to achieve here but until we can say “receive mail ONLY from X, Y, Z” we will never be free of the tyranny of the inbox.

    Maybe Google+ is the first step. But we need to stop treating it like Facebook and start thinking about how it can be used to improve the original social network – email. If Circles can be used to define whitelists, that’s real value.

    Related: a little slideshare I put together a few years back about managing social noise. Still relevant, if a little outdated.

    The Problem With Web2.0

  • Puella Magi Madoka Magica

    This from Darkmirage caught my eye – a typical mahou shoujo tale at first glance, but with some very unique choices for artwork. But DM sells it well, just short of overselling:

    Beneath the cutesy surface, there is an unspoken air of uncertainty, paranoia and even fear. There is a subtle hint that something dark and horrible lies just out of sight and things are not as simple as they appear to be. Refuge from the unknown is only temporary and peace can at any moment be replaced by chaos. The music and the otherworldly art style bring that message home perfectly.

    Adding this to my Watch Eventually list… anyone else seen it?

  • On approach to 80

    My main is approaching level 80, which has only taken me about two years of play 🙂 Of course the Flame Festival is going on now which will distract me once I get online again (today doesn’t look great for that, maybe tomorrow?). But as I get to “endgame” I am finally going to be eligible for raids and Wintergrasp and all that stuff which until now has been inaccessible.

    The question is, what do I want to do? and how do I start?

    I used to run battlegrounds when I first started but tired of the Kobyashi Maru aspect of them. I almost had the achievement for winning every BG once but then they changed it so that all BGs give the same kind of honor point (or is a valor point? I get confused). At any rate I have a good number of those saved up but am not really sure there’s any useful gear if any I could buy that would be useful to me now.

    Also, I am trying to run a random dungeon every time i log on (which isn’t always possible) and thus am accumulating the other kind of Points there, too. Again, not really sure how many I need and what they are good for.

    In a nutshell, I am a PvE player – I like to quest. I also like to do dungeons, in order to complete the questlines and get the achievements. What I want is better gear, I am very poorly equipped as most of my gear is quest reward stuff and I don’t have much gold to spend at AH.

    From this comprehensive guide to PvP gear for the new 4.2 release, most of which is utterly incomprehensible to me, it seems like some PvP gear would be hugely useful for PvE. So, should I try to get some? How? What’s the best way to go about this?

    I dont know if I will enjoy raiding, but right now I’m so under-equipped that it’s not even an option. I’d like to at least try it out. But again, no idea where to start.

    I need a Newbie Eighty Guide to Gear. Tell me what to do, what the basic due diligence is. Any and all guidance appreciated!

    UPDATE – should have mentioned, my main is a human Arms spec warrior, level 78 on Staghelm.

  • The Supervan

    ok, forget Sienna or Town and Country. I want the SUPERVAN

  • Chrysler, Toyota, and the reliability doctrine

    We are trying to decide between two new minivans and are finding ourselves torn, over the issue of “reliability”. I’ve posted a note at Facebook asking for feedback, and wanted to reprint the note here to get your all opinion.

    Let’s discuss reliability of cars. We are trying to decide between a 2011 Chrysler Town and Country and a 2011 Toyota Sienna. Toyota has a massively better reputation for reliability than Chrysler, but we liked the T&C more. Do we play it “safe” and get the Toyota? Or is the reliability of the Chrysler probably comparable, and there’s just no data?

    Consumer Reports is probably the least biased source, and they did rate T&C “very good” but did not give it a Recommend (same as iPhone 4, but I digress). However, CR’s reliability score is based on surveys of existing CR subscribers, who skew towards owning Siennas. So, sampling bias is a problem (and CR had admitted this – see:

    http://blogs.cars.com/kickingtires/2011/03/consumer-reports-admits-reliability-data-was-scarce-for-chrysler.html

    btw – the Toyota is $5k more expensive, but has AWD. Both the Sienna and the T&C are full redesigns. The latter has a new pentastar engine which is the same as the one in the CR-recommended Dodge Ram pickup. The Sienna has nicer 2nd row seats, but the T&C has blind-spot detection and cross-aisle detection. T&C has a better powertrain warranty (100k vs 60k) and Sienna gets ranked first by all the car review sites.

    I’d be happy in either van, frankly. I’d like to solicit opinions from *all* of my FB friends – what do you think of Chrysler reliability? Should we get the “safe” van or the one we actually liked more?

    Would really appreciate feedback from everyone on this.

    I’m also inviting comment over at Dean’s. I will update this post with various links to comparisons and data.

  • fear Japan, part 3,343: the poop burger

    look, you really don’t need to click this link, because you basically have already figured out what lies at the other end. This is far, far worse than the synthetic poop machine, or nuclear poo, or walls of poop. This is a poop burger. I mean, why bother clicking? Just know that the link exists, it’s real, and that it’s Japan. That’s basically enough.

    You can’t imagine how much it pains me to assign this post to the Food category. Given how many posts on this blog involve the topic, I am surprised I haven’t created a poop tag before now, though.

    unchi!