chanson

But that doesn't mean he's not onto something.

Scott Adams, The End of Humanity (The Dilbert Blog):

They say that many technologies owe their existence to sex. Porn drove the cost of VCRs down, for example. And porn was the early fuel for the growth of the Internet. I see one more area where this phenomenon is likely to repeat: robots.

Have you heard about the company that’s making realistic life-sized sex dolls? They cost up to $10,000. I haven’t seen one in person (really, I haven’t) but they reportedly weigh as much as a real person and are eerily lifelike.

I've said since the late 1990s — ever since I first learned of them, really — that the first fully ambulatory, fully interactive androids would come from RealDoll or a company creating something similar. And though I had seen Cherry 2000 at the time, it was well before I'd even heard of Chobits. (Note for anyone who cares — very minor spoilers follow.)

Chobits depicts fairly well what a world where might wind up looking like — especially in the book-within-the-book A City With No People. The route it takes is a bit more circuitous than just sex robots, however; the robots in it are personal computers that are more personal assistants that eventually become the centers of their users' lives.

Not like that would ever happen. No way, no how...

Demonstrate your adoration well, my subjects!

(Really, you don't have to get me anything. I know you all adore me already, and can't wait for me to take my rightful place as your Great Leader. This is more so I have links to my wish list somewhere "permanent" so I can pass them along to those who really do want it. Honest!)

My new big, flat screen worked very well last night as a computer monitor. If I sit back on the couch it's just a little tough to use iChat and Xcode, though I suspect an updated prescription for my glasses could fix that. However, sitting forward makes everything just fine for browsing, coding, chatting, whatever. Not only that, but with picture-in-picture, I can have Adult Swim on in the corner of the screen while I hack!

In addition, the screen is so bright I had to turn it down to 75% brightness! I suppose it is 550cd/m^2, and the displays I'm used to are only about 300cd/m^2, so I shouldn't be too surprised. Still, it was impressive next to my MacBook Pro's otherwise-very-bright display.

The next addition is going to have to be a Mac Pro with a nice video card. The combination of a great display and a very fast computer will make it the ultimate gaming and development rig.

I just took delivery on my new big, flat screen today. It's a Westinghouse LVM-42w2 42-inch 1080p monitor. No tuner — Who need one for HD, anyway? — and a 1920 by 1080 LCD panel with performance rivaling those of the Apple Cinema Displays. And lots of useful inputs.

I took delivery and set it up this afternoon to make sure it's all working and, um, wow. It's gorgeous. DVDs look great, and I bet high-definition content looks incredible. Plus, since it has a matte rather than glossy finish on the screen, it's a lot easier to view in my living room with the blinds open (or even closed) while the sun's up.

Tonight, I'll venture up to Fry's and pick up a DVI cable so I can see how usable Xcode is from my couch.

By the way, Appleseed makes for great demo material.

One of the things that I've missed most at anime conventions has been the room parties. At none of Fanime, JTAF, and Anime Overdose were there any room parties; all of the partying was part of the con itself, which meant that things wound down quite a bit at night. At science fiction conventions like Windycon, Capricon, and Baycon, the partying is split between con events (masquerade, dance, con suite) and member-run room parties. And the room parties can be a blast.

Fortunately it looks like Con-X-Treme is going to try bucking that trend; their web site doesn't mention much, but it does mention room parties. It's also going to be held at the DoubleTree San Jose — the same hotel as Baycon — so it's in one of the best con hotels around.

Anyone planning on running a room party should check out the guide to throwing a large room party at a science fiction convention by Teresa Nielsen-Hayden. It's pretty familiar given all of the very well-run and well-attended GT suite parties I've been to over the years, which means that it'd be a good model to emulate.

In particular, let me restate this section:

Be a little wary of partygoers who aren't wearing convention badges, especially if they don't look like convention attendees. They may be perfectly all right, but you need to know who they are, and let them know they've been noticed. Shaking hands and asking their names will usually do it.

My position is that if they don't have a current convention membership, they don't get to join the party. There have been cons in Chicago which got reputations as places for particular social crowds to descend upon and drink and eat and be rowdy and, oh yeah, not contribute anything back — not even a con membership.

In other words, they're not interested in the con, but what the con has that they can consume like locusts. I'd hate to see the same thing happen in the anime community (which has at least a "generational" overlap with the locusts) so the folks running room parties should be pretty strict on badging.

All in all, room parties — and especially the GT suite at Chicago-area cons — are what I've really missed when I moved to the west coast and started attending anime instead of sci-fi cons. I hope they make a comeback.

Fanime + BayCon = Crazy Delicious

Must not read them all in one sitting. Too much to do to read them all in one sitting. Need too much sleep to read them all in one sitting.

I finally got the first three trades of The Maxx by Sam Keith, one of the seminal comics of my youth. The Maxx is the comic that really showed me, over a dozen years ago, that sequential art was a mature medium for mature readers. And now I own all of it in trade paperback, in addition to many (but not all) of the original issues (of the first storyline)!

If you haven't read it, and you like comics, or you think you might like comics, you need to read it. Get it at your local library, or have them order it via interlibrary loan. Someone is bound to have it since many libraries have surprisingly good graphic novel sections, though they're sometimes filed under "teen" or "young adult." And it's really, really good.

I also just got the first four volumes of the Shadow Star manga from Dark Horse. It's the manga upon which the anime Shadow Star Narutaru (which I mentioned a couple days ago) is based.

I finished watching the anime, which only sparsely covers a few volumes of the Japanese edition of the manga. And damn was it disturbing. So of course I needed more. I just need to be sure to pace myself.

I discovered that my cable system's video-on-demand service is carrying Shadow Star Narutaru. It seems that I saw part of the fourth episode at a convention somewhere, but I don't remember anything more about the series.

It starts out kind of cute and slice-of-life with just a hint of darkness. But it gets pretty damn dark pretty damn fast. I'm nearly halfway through, watching it in English since that's my only option, and I'm going to have to rent the rest soon.

Must! Not! Read! Spoilers!

I'm headed up to Japantown Anime Faire 3 in San Francisco today. I'm not planning on staying in the city, but I am planning on having a good time nonetheless!

Anyone who happens to read my blog and see me there should say hi. I should be fairly recognizable, what with the big pictures of me and all.

So I really enjoy Fullmetal Alchemist and want it on DVD. It's produced in the US by FUNimation. And unfortunately, FUNimation screwed it up.

I understand that most American anime viewers watch English dubs. I've done so myself. But I like to watch in Japanese with subtitles. And FUNimation, in their wisdom, decided to publish Fullmetal Alchemist in the US with an English dub in both stereo and Dolby 5.1 surround, but with the original Japanese audio in mono.

What the hell? I'm used to seeing "Japanese 2.0 Stereo" on the back of DVD cases. I know that I'm unlikely to get most series in 5.1 surround. But mono? That's just a bit insulting...

Even worse? This is only the case on some of the discs! Some of them have Japanese stereo.

Like many other people, Neon Genesis Evangelion is one of my favorite anime series. Unlike many, I understood it on the first viewing because I got the references.

As a teenager, I read The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Shea & Wilson. It was a fun trip, and it also led to a research interest in secret societies and various mystical traditions (which are often interrelated). By chasing references, I picked up a lot of random bits of knowledge about the Kabbalah, Freemasonry and related orders, and some of the odder bits of Christian mythology and Eschatology that Evangelion was built on. I grokked the Lance of Longinus. I recognized the lamb with seven eyes. I had seen a Tree of Life and Sephiroth. So I was hooked from the start.

I recently started watching RahXephon and, just as I'd heard, the similarities to Evangelion are striking. By "striking" I mean they're the same damn show. Only, well, not. In pretty much the same way as Andromeda is and isn't Star Trek.

For one thing, RahXephon is a couple years more recent than Evangelion, and it shows in the technical quality of the show. I haven't seen any of the latest remastered versions of Eva, but I think it's due to the increased use of computerized production. Furthermore, many of the themes of the show are similar but are explored in different ways: Evangelion deals with technology-enhanced mysticism, RahXephon deals with mysticism-enhanced technology. Both put heavy emphasis on music, though it's given a much more central place in RahXephon.

The single most noticeable difference, though, is in the mystical basis. Evangelion is ultimately based on a combination of Kabbalah and Christian eschatology. RahXephon on the other hand is based on Aztec, Maya and other Mesoamerican religions. This gives it even more of a familiar-unfamiliar feeling than Eva, to good effect.

If you enjoy the genre, check it out. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

I picked up 攻殻機動隊 Stand Alone Complex O.S.T.2 via YesAsia.com yesterday. It's just wonderful. Yoko Kanno. Origa. Jazz. Electronica. Rock. Mmm.

I wasn't really that into Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, but the soundtracks are excellent and the entire series has been growing on me as a result. Last weekend I rented the original Ghost in the Shell and Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence and watched them back to back, and they've left much more of an impression this time around than they did when I rented the original many years back.

What I like about them is that they explore the run up to a Kurzweilian intelligence amplification Singularity.

I believe that we're headed for the Singularity within my lifetime, unless someone royally fucks our world up. But it will take a lot to fuck up the progress of science and technology — a lot more than making kids stupid by teaching Creationism instead of science, a lot more than trying to undermine the US technical job market, a lot more than trying to bankrupt Social Security and permanently trash our economy, and even a lot more than trying to hasten a psychotic religion's End Times prophecies.

Technological progress will not only continue but continue to accelerate, and sooner or later we'll pass the knee of the exponential curve. And that's when things will get really interesting.

Putting some anime in the DVD player…

…and getting the DreamWorks SKG intro sequence.

I've been getting in touch with my inner Japanese schoolgirl lately, which means I've been enjoying Azumanga Daioh. (Wikipedia has a good Azumanga Daioh entry. Go Wikipedia!)

It's got a lot of cuteness, and it's just very pleasant and funny all around. I also like the way that it's organized. It's based on a four-panel comic strip that's been collected as a manga, and the anime reflects that: Each episode is a series of short vignettes that are more or less connected.

The only downside is that I wound up with a favorite character that doesn't get anywhere enough screen time...

Last night, I went out and got a new toy: The redesigned PlayStation 2. It's been 7 years since I bought a dedicated video game system, and I know I'm more than a bit behind the curve in buying a PlayStation now, but I have to say that it's pretty damn nice.

And it's tiny! It's the size of a hardcover business book. (Which, if you don't read them, are generally about one half to one third the thickness of, say, a harcover Neal Stephenson novel.)

I picked up two games with it: The game I bought it to play, Robotech: Battlecry, and the game that made me decide to take the plunge, Robotech: Invasion. Both are pretty good, but Robotech: Battlecry is the better. Veritechs! Cel shading! Lisa Hayes! I just wish it had real network play. Full-on cel-shaded Macross-style dogfights with communicating teammates — could it get any better?

I'll try to post reviews of those at some point. I'm also planning on picking up the Grand Theft Auto games, Katamari Damacy, DDR Extreme, and of course Ico.

Oh, and maybe I'll try some of that Final Fantasy crack at some point. But not the online version — thankfully, I won't be able to play that since the new PS2 doesn't have room for an internal hard drive.

I've found something new to obsess over: Haibane Renmei.

It's beautiful and sad and very affecting. I'm about halfway through the series (episode 7) and I don't want it to end and I don't want it to suddenly get all happy and cheerful either.

It's strange that I'd be seeking out heartache, I know. But as soon as I saw five minutes of the first episode at Capricon, I knew I needed to experience it all. And the I saw the complete series on the shelf at R&K...

Today is Day 2 of FanimeCon, an anime convention in downtown San José. It's also Day 2 of BayCon, a science fiction convention in downtown San José. Decisions, decisions.

So I'm going to Fanime. This was a tough decision for me because I know a bunch of people attending BayCon, whereas I know only a few people going to Fanime. Plus I know exactly what to expect at a sci fi con, so I don't have any social nerves jangling. (Well, not many.) But I want to meet new and interesting people who are around my own age and Fanime will likely be the better place for that.

Why? There's a phrase that sums it up: "The graying of fandom." Science fiction fandom isn't attracting much new blood, and hasn't been for many years, for a number of reasons. Some of it has to do with media and specialty conventions — like Buffy cons, and anime cons — siphoning off the younger crowd.

But a large part of it, I think, has to do with finances. Science fiction conventions are simply getting too expensive for high school students, college students and recent graduates to attend, and if people don't start attending then there's a very low chance they'll start later. Anime cons aren't cheap but do tend to be cheaper, especially in their at-the-door rates. ($55 at the door for a weekend membership to Fanime, $75 for BayCon.)

Also, from the looks of them anime cons seem to have more of a DIY feel than sci fi cons these days. Sci fi cons are still fan-run, but the fans running any given con tends to be the same small group that ran it the year before, and the year before, and the year before, and the year before, and... Since anime cons are still young, and new ones are springing up everywhere, they're new for everyone.

OK, enough writing. Time to go meet people and have fun!

Thanks to kasra_c and R&K Comics in Sunnyvale, I now have new Last Exile to watch!

I also have a copy of the second print volume of MegaTokyo.

Where do all the cool kids go in Silicon Valley to rent copious amounts of current anime?

Responses that will garner a Boot to the Head:

1. Netflix
2. BitTorrent
3. "They buy it!"

I need more Last Exile, man... It's been two months since my last hit!

m_chris_stevens will soon learn that household appliances don't really need to be bathed.

And actually, Wolfwood's a good icon for Chris. Despite his claims to the contrary, he looks more like Nicholas Wolfwood of Trigun than Davan MacIntire of Something Positive. Even though he dresses like Davan, and has since before S*P.

(I bet the chicks would really dig it if he started dressing like Wolfwood...)