How to not look like an idiot when posting online

Taken from a WSJ comment section, this is the best way to not appear stupid on the internet:

"Here is a novel thought. When you are going to state a theory or premise; test it first. For instance, if a light bulb flashes and the thought arises from the recesses of your less than agile mind, "I will suggest a link between small government and adultery", quickly jot down the names of famous politicians caught with their pants down. If the names you write down, Sanford, Ensign, Clinton, Edwards, Spitzer, Hart, McGreevy, et al, are not consistent with your premise; abandon the post so as not to appear silly."

Credit for that goes to  John Cunnane, whoever that is.

The article being commented on was: An Economy of Liars, and while the comment is more or less irrelevant, the article is dead on concerning the economy.

WHAT ARE YOU WANT?

I love fansubbers that don't TLC (Translation check), QC (Quality check), or edit sometimes.

House of Five Leaves

So I haven't actually watched any of this show myself, but I've read a lot of comments on it, and there seems to be a lot of argument over the unorthodox character design.

There are two main camps here. First, you have the pretentious morons who seem to love the show, but won't say more than how much they love the character design. This group also claims it to be "art", and yet contrasts it against other shows, such as Angel Beats, which is apparently not art? If you consider one anime to be art, you have to look at all anime as art. Now, some art is good, and some is bad, but you can't have it both ways. The most common assertion they have of the other side is that "They are 7 years old and have no taste in art."

The other camp are the shallow idiots, who claim the character design is "ugly", and can't seem to grasp that not everyone has the same taste they do. Indeed, they are willing to write an entire show off based entirely on it's character design. Now, they do have the right to do that. It's perfectly normal to make a snap judgment on whether you'll watch something based on how it appears. It's anime for god's sake, it's not that important. The problem with this side then, is not that they dislike the show due to appearance, it's that they feel the need to go and post online about how hideous it is. I even saw one person go so far as to say it made him nauseous. Why is it people can't just quietly dislike something and let others enjoy themselves?

The funny thing about this argument is that both sides have the same argument, in essence: "If you don't like what I like, you're (insert shallow or pretentious here)." Now, I am personally not a huge fan of the character design. I hear it looks better in motion, and it might. However, the character design isn't even the reason I haven't watched it. I haven't watched it because I can't find it for the life of me. Not that I really have the time to watch *another* new show this season.

Google vs Apple vs Microsoft

Since this seems to be the "war" the tech world wants to talk about, this quote sums up each company (and their shortfalls) pretty well. Taken from a comment to a Gizmodo article of similar name: Link

"If Microsoft had the bomb, they’d stuff it with so many useless features that it could never fit through the bomb bay doors.

If Apple had the bomb, they’d make it so friendly and easy to use that they’d have to remove the warhead to fit in all the neat stuff.

If Google had the bomb, they’d realize that killing the people below would diminish the advertising audience, so they’d launch a blimp with “Bang” on one side and targeted ads on the other."

(Above quote was edited for spelling)

K-ON!! Season 2

It's K-ON!!(Yes, the !! is part of the title), and thus awesome. Review over.

Seriously though, season 2 seems to be shaping up much like season 1 did, although if it's 26 episodes long, it might get stale.

K-ON!! is awesome, but I really liked Sora no Woto better. They had pretty much the exact same production team/studio, which is why K-ON skipped a season.

I liked Sora no Woto better in part because it wasn't such a moeblob show. I'm not being very fair there, K-ON did develop into more than moeblob later in it's first season, but they seem to have lost their momentum or something. Really episodes of K-ON can do two things: focus on music, or focus on moe. The first two of season 2 focus on moe, and the show is much better when it focuses on music.

For those not anime-savvy, a moeblob show is one in which at least the main character (In K-ON all 5) is not so much a person as a blob of moe. It's probably best you look that word up on Wikipedia or something. Technically, moe translates to "budding", and moe can be roughly translated as "a turn on" depending on usage, but it's very hard to describe accurately. It's one of those things you just kinda pick up from watching a lot of anime. Not even Japanese otaku can define it in less than an essay and do it justice.

In fact, a real definition of it is widely debated in the anime community, particularly in Japan. I would agree with Joseph L. Dela Pena when he argues that moe is a pure, protective feeling towards a female character, without the sexualization of lolicon. But even that doesn't really capture it.

Dance in the Vampire Bund

So I finished Vampire Bund finally. It wasn't great, mostly because it moved way too fast and all of the character development was rather arbitrary.

It had a lot of potential, but kinda fell flat after episode 3 or 4, which is pretty common.

I suppose I shouldn't expect much from a show best described with 3 words: Naked, Loli, and Vampires. (Okay they never really show any nudity, but it's like the heroine is allegic to clothes or something.)

Sakuracon 2010 AMV Contest

So after reading on the forum a bit, I've come to realize I was not the only one that had a problem with the AMV contest this year. It also helped me realize what my big problem with the "Best in Show" winner was: It wasn't an AMV, and according the the rules of the contest, shouldn't have even been allowed in the contest.

An AMV is an Anime Music Video. While Ginta Reviews a Movie was certainly hilarious and well lip-synced, it wasn't an AMV, because there was no music. According to the rules of Sakuracon's AMV contest, 70% of a video must be video with music playing in the background. Let's face it, when people voted for Ginta Reviews a Movie, they weren't voting for the video itself, they were voting for the sound clip associated with it. It could have just that sounds clip with a still image of a random anime character and still won. How can you really say a video is "Best in Show" when it was nothing more than admittedly well done lip-syncing? I saw several videos that did an amazing job of showing a clip or even a still image that captured the particular part of the song that was playing at the moment. Ginta Reviews a Movie had little to no "interaction" between the video and the "song", something I consider essential to a good AMV.

I almost want to say that comedy videos should be ineligible for the Best in Show prize, or there should be some kind of weighted judge vote to counter the audience in situations like this. I say this because the video that wins Best in Show is almost always the one that won the Comedy category, at least in the years I've watched the contest. Now, this is mostly because the majority of people really don't care for "serious" AMVs at all, so a lot of them only vote in the comedy category.

I also think that when the videos are shown to be voted on, they should not display the name of the person that created it. This would be to avoid people voting for their favorite creator as opposed to the best video. In the re-showing and showing the winning videos there would be no issue with this, as votes are already in.