sábado, noviembre 26, 2005

Ningen to ha, gakushuu ikimono na no da naaa

Err... just random stuff. It's from the My HiME CD drama. One of Tokiha Mai's (the starring character) girl friends tries to tackle her in the classroom. Mai dodges and says something like "do you really I'm going to fall for the same trick again?". And thus her friend replies the above line, meaning something like "human beings can learn by observation... very interesting".

Yes, "gakushuu" means "to learn by observation". Blame the Japanese for having a word for every single nuance.

Now, what was I going to talk about? Oh yes, my uni project. It's so silly. Since in my uni there's no first, second or third year for the CS major, I've got to complete the minor and then switch. That includes the end of degree project, gah.

It's about a postprocessor for the output produced by an interactive theorem prover called ACL2. It's based on Common Lisp, and I believe the program itself is written in Lisp. There's some really advanced work being done on it.

I've got to make a Perl backend to turn ACL2 output into XML code which can then be easily accessed by a Java application. Interesting it is, but complicated it is too, young padawan. More than anything, ACL2 is COMPLEX.

Thank the Kami we're going to start with lil' prototypes and then build up from there. It's a software engineering thing: the development process is organized in a life cycle according to a model. Mine is called the prototype building process and it's pretty much a cycle: develop something simple, test it, improve on it, rinse and repeat.

Yep, the whole process is to be documented using software engineering methods. Oh well, it'll be good practice.

"Quidquid latine dictum est, altum sonatur", (Highlight the line below for the translation)
Anything said in Latin sounds profound.
~Zio

Purdy circuit!

Well, actually, it's nothing special. It's just that I'm going to make my first circuit ever for that Microcontrollers project. It's pretty simple. Ever heard of the game Simon? You know, the one with the buttons and the lights, where you have to repeat the pattern displayed by the computer.

It's just that. Last Friday, my teacher helped me place the components on the board. Half the stuff I bought didn't work in the end =|. We desoldered some buttons from an old printer's control panel, and then added the LEDs I bought (red, green, yellow and orange), 4 resistors from some odd box in the lab (got to look up their resistance, but they're prolly around 1k ohms) and a pin strip my teacher brought.

Then basically, solder, solder and solder. Looks purdy now. Next Friday we're going to connect everything. We might in the future add its own CPU and power supply (i.e.: batteries) so it'd be autonomous, but that's just a possibility.

Soldering isn't all that hard, it just takes some getting used to. That, and watching the soldering alloy melt like *poof* is a little unnerving. It's good to know it's actually because it's made that way.

Well, that's it for this post.

Spirits are always with you,
~Zio

martes, noviembre 01, 2005

Sing Ho! for the life of a Pooh!

Another silly quiz - heh.
Not sure I quite agree, but then I guess we all have felt like one or another Pooh character every now and then in our lives. I tend to identify myself with Pooh in my cheeriest and with Eeyore in my gloomiest (and whatever the appearances, that is quite gloomy). Here we go!


Take the 100 Acre Personality Quiz!


Did I say Rum-tum-tiddle-um-tum? I'll take the chance and do it now!

p.s: Just remembered I have an appointment with the dentist tomorrow. Oh dear.

My birthday pressies

So I thought I'd chat a bit about my birthday pressies, which I've loved. I've even made piccies for the curious XD!
First pressie I got was a jewelry box from Carmen two days ago. It's beautiful and actually makes a set with my two other j. boxes (a big square one and an hexagonal one) - I'm not sure she knew, but it was lucky, wasn't it?




My mom woke me up this morning singing Happy Birthday. So we had my birthday cake (nice chocolate and cream one) for breakfast - I would have taken pictures, but I had dinner early yesterday and ... well ... I just wasn't in my right mind and ate it before considering actually capturing the mo for the future. Tut tut. Base human instincts. Then came the pressies.











Yay! Exactly - a Kakashi and Pakku keyring! This was from the little brother, who knows what a great Kakashi fan I am (he is my fav Naruto character, with Naruto himself, Rock Lee and his sensei). I love the weird hairdo, the drooping eyes, his laidback attitude, but also his great judgement and fighting skills. And I love it when he blushes and giggles while reading his favourite book (included and painted with full detail in my keyring), Icha Icha Paradise. I also love his one-sided rivalry with Gai-sensei, and how the latter complains about how cool Kakashi always looks. Heh. Oh what a lovely series Naruto used to be! Thank you thank you thank you for the gift, otouto!



Somewhat related with Naruto is the other pressie I received from Zio. My very own cute Tigger bowl for eating ramen! I had a smaller sort of bowl (an Eeyore one - I don't see clearly about these things, they do me in at first sight!) but I can hardly pour any soup in that one - and that would make it noodles rather than ramen, uh? (the glories of having had an oriental supermarket open locally :P). I'm using it in brief - it's almost time for dinner and anime watching.



And my parents got me loads of pressies too. A lovely pyjamas and dressing gown in shades of my favourite colours (blue and lavender), heart-shaped bath salt, and scented body milk and gel (orchid, rose-raspberry, orange - I'm also done in with fragant things, cute and/or fragant are the keywords for me). And a loooovely Pucca metallic coin purse! (isn't it cute or what?)




Two friends (Carmen and Gema) and my sister phoned to wish me a happy birthday. All in all, a very pleasant day. I've spent it having fun around - playing Neopets, updating my blog, writing reply emails one should have written ages ago, reading and watching "Murder She Wrote" on the telly (yep, oldie but goodie, I love detective fiction)! Not much else. Like all good days, peaceful and nice.

Gory stuff which goes thu-thump - Inuyasha

Zio [a.k.a the otouto, or the little brother] said:

meesa no like gory stuff which goes thu-thump and is squishy.


I just had to laugh at this one - it sounds so dreadfully like my own idea of Naraku! Just the sort of villain I wouldn't find one inch appealing. He's so yuckie and so...!!
So... shall we switch the topic to Rumiko Takahashi's Inuyasha?

Naraku went squishy and th-thump all the while. I'm so happy the manga is now focusing on his alienated heart and now rebel minion, Moryoumaru , who goes thu-thump and all squishy quite often, but not quite as much. And there's lots of new interesting stuff - like Seshie-sama developing actual feelings towards another creature (about Kagura's death) and his sword having been forged into a fighting (rather than healing) weapon in consequence. And Inuyasha's Tesseiga has new powers (yet more powers, I meant!), and he's finding it hard to control them without hurting himself. And he needs them if he's to do something against Naraku/Moryoumaru. So he's been to a friend of Totousai's, a powerful youkai, and has had a sort of informal training lesson when he thought he was saving his sensei to be from an evil youkai. Great fun and better art as was to be expected from Takahashi sensei. I have mentioned I'm a huuuuge fan, have I?
If you folks are for her works and you still haven't visited Ear-Tweak, what are you waiting for? The webmistress translates the weekly installment from Shounen Sunday quite punctually ( it's usually up on Thursday) - not only does her translation sound natural and smooth, also her editing is great, very comfy to read. She also writes notes to clarify aspects of her own translation and on top of that, her art is also wonderful. I love her weekly parodies of the installment - I so wish she'd put them all together somewhere, because they are so good. Do spend time on the site, she's got all sorts of very interesting info on Inuyasha and she updates often. Yup. A 10 out of 10.
Those are the two mangas I'm following closely online (as they are far from that advanced here in Spain) - Inuyasha and Fruits Basket. More on Fruits Basket when they release next chapter at Soul Society scanslations!

Kanji fun

Kanji are lovely. Always are.

See, the starring girl in Full Moon wo Sagashite is called Mitsuki, which is written like this: 満月. I originally thought it was 美月, in fact. Both are read みつき、"mitsuki", but the first one means "Full Moon" and the second one means "Beautiful Moon".

Actually, the word for full moon is indeed 満月, but it is read まんげつ (mangetsu).

Anyhoo, so 満月を探して, transliterated by fansub groups as "Full Moon wo Sagashite" is actually ambiguous: it could be
  1. mangetsu wo sagashite: (Please) search for the full moon. (there's references to it in the anime)
  2. Full Moon wo sagashite: (Please) search for Full Moon. (Mitsuki transformed)
  3. Mitsuki wo sagashite: (Please) search for Mitsuki. (well, she DOES run away now and then)
The -te form of any verb in Japanese can mean either a light order, the way something is done or addition of orders. By itself, it's a light order, used in informal situations by girls.

Yeah, don't you love homophones? Kind of explains why the Japanese haven't gotten rid of the kanji. Plus, it's easier to read if/once you know the kanji. MUCH easier, as they don't use spaces.

Quiz and some ideas

Keh. If I've ever seen a short quiz, this is it. Pretty superficial and just kind of gave itself out. I wonder if they couldn't just do things a little better? It's nice anyway, I do think I fit Dr. Wakaouji's personality the most.

Except for the doctor part: meesa no like gory stuff which goes thu-thump and is squishy. Oh yes, and the funny clothes and long hairdo he wore when he was in Route L.

Anyhoo, it'd be OK if the author weren't too good with making questions if they're already done, for example. This sounds silly, but it's like this: you could have a _big_ archive of already-made questions. Every question would contribute towards determining a certain attribute: likes, dislikes, personality traits.

They would be normal questions, with no reference to the anime itself (which makes sense in a PERSONALITY quiz).

The author would then just fine-tune the results based on a definition of the personality required to obtain the result. Then, the problem would only be in defining correctly their personality (which is more or less easy for a fan of the series).

I remember RPG games which made your character using such a system. The questions didn't really have much to do with the game. They were like "you find a purse lying on the floor, what would you do?" or "Is the glass half full or half empty?".

And what's better: once you filled in your data, _all_ the site's results would be available. Though I guess you could always retake some parts if certain necessary attributes of your personality weren't defined (because they weren't used in the quiz you wanted to take) or you wanted to fine-tune a little your data.

Wonder if there's already such a site... hmm... and besides, would there already be a basic quantifiable personality model anywhere I could use?

You are Doctor Wakouji!
You are Doctor Wakaouji!

brought to you by Quizilla

Birthday neopets

So, here I am, turned 27. In any case, my first online surprise of the day was to log in to my Neopets account and finding a different sidebar, birthday themed, with a beatiful cake with a Bloomaroo in it! XD They also had a different one yesterday - a very spooky one I loved! Unfortunately I didn't take a cap of that one, but I do have one of today's!



It was such a nice event yesterday, too. They had treat and trick places all over the site - you could get up to six goodie bags with nice Neopets items. I even got a gruesome spider wardrobe for my Neohome (which is in my deposit box now, in any case, I'm saving to get the 1000 items safety deposit box, heh). I quite like it - it's always something nice and unexpected to look forward to during the day, it is very entertaining, and you can devote it as much or as little time as you want. It is little in my case, but I like playing games every now and then - my favs are Warf Rescue and Hasee Bounce! (I'm also for Pyramids and Sahkmet's Solitaire). But it's good for busy people. Your pets will only get hungry every two or three days, and your dailies can be done in less than a quarter of an hour. And they always have new events and surprises coming on.
More on my bday pressies in a different post.

Full moon wo sagashite (Searching for the Full Moon)



We have just finished watching this series. We only have the OVA left to watch - that made 8 eps in a single day! (that also explains why I'm still up so late). The story was getting rather exciting, as it was affecting all characters that actually had grown into you. So I just thought I'd write a few lines about it.
It is basically the story of a girl who has been living for her grandmother two years, after being recalled from the orphanage where she spend her first ten years, and where she met her best friend and now beloved, Eichi. He wanted to be an astronomer and was adopted by a couple living in America, which is the reason why the promised to work towards their dreams until they met again. But the girl, Mitsuki, has developed throat cancer, and when two shinigami (Meroko, who is a bunny in her plushie form, and Takuto, who takes the form of a cat plushie) turn up she learns that she only has a year to live. Her dream is a singing career which will lead her back to Eichi. The shinigami pity her, and, so that she can actually audition, they turn her into a 16 year old, becoming the pop idol "Full Moon". This is the story of her singing career, of her will to live, of how she relates to other people. It is also about Meroko and Takuto's feelings. As an antagonist to these two shinigami there's a third one - not so sentimentally scrupulous as the former, and still in love with Meroko, who will do his best (or rather his worst) to win her back. I don't like the design for this character, Izumi. By his odd hat I assume that his plushie form would be a dog, but does or does it not like a bullfighter's hat?




It does, does it not? XD. But there was Ogata Megumi voice acting, so I couldn't have asked for anything else. I find her impressive - she's believable both as man and as woman, though she'll always be the voice of lovable Yukito from Card Captor Sakura (most of the cast was in love with him at some point of the series, so I guess it wouldn't be odd if I fancied him myself, a little bit at least!). I'm trying to listen to a few of her songs. Yes, I'm a classical music person, but I still feel curious and I enjoy a good tune as much as anyone else. What I've noticed with "popular" music is that it feels tiresome or boring sooner, just that. Which reminds me to say that, though the main two songs ("Myself" and "Eternal Snow") are repeated a bit too often, I quite like them. Especially "Eternal Snow", when sung by Full Moon (I like Takuto's too, certainly not Madoka's!). Though gosh, such a mixture of languages gets on my nerves - what's that of singing "I love you", "Hold me tight" so on and so forth in the middle of a song in Japanese. Hmm. I know it's common. But I still don't like it. It often does not even make sense!
Now, about the art. The little brother is just right. It is really average, but now I've been looking around for illustrations from the manga I realise its rather the studio's fault, not the author's, Tanemura Arina, whose art is definitively shoujo (all girly), but is rather beautiful. See Takuto, Meroko and Mitsuki in the illustration from the artbook. It is nice. And this is one of the simplest ones in the volume.
I've also enjoyed the end - it's as open-ended as one is used to expect from anime, but at least is sufficiently satisfying, it leaves threads resolved, you sort of know where characters stand as the action closes. Yup. Thumbs up for whoever decided not to frustrate fans!
More on what's next tomorrow - besides my 27th birthday, that is!
Oops, and here are my results for a Full Moon quiz. Hmm. I'm not sure I identify myself fully with any character, but I suppose Meroko would be first - she's loud and clumsy, too...

You are Meroko!