Slashdot Mirror

Lothar+0 writes to tell us MSNBC is reporting that Daisuke Enomoto will be the next passenger to visit the international space station. Daisuke is a former executive of 'Livedoor' and creator of DICE-K who now lives in Hong Kong as a private investor. Apparently a long time self proclaimed fanboy of the Gundam anime series Daisuke says he will be dressing up as "Char Aznable" if the Russian agency will allow him to.

E-Rock-23 writes "Anime News Network has the scoop on more Anime series Cartoon Network plans to bring to the Adult Swim block next year. Witch Hunter Robin (2) has been confirmed for a February run. On the "Probably" list are Wolf's Rain in April and Ghost in the Shell in July, though they didn't specify if it'd be the Mamoru Oshii film or the Stand Alone Complex TV series. Either way, the latter will most likely have to be rather heavily edited for TV. Looks like I have a few more reasons to stay up past my bedtime..." Or get a tivo. Witch Hunter Robin & Wolf's Rain are both really excellent shows- it's very cool to see them hit mainstream TV.

Fans of the excellent Cowboy Bebop anime series have been eagerly awaiting the movie, released on Friday in major U.S. cities. The critics seem to like it overall, and, skimming through the reviews, the ones who dislike it seem to do so for the usual reason: it's a cartoon.

First impressions: It's quite good, good enough to show even non-anime fans. Visually very pretty, plot is perfectly adequate, entertaining yet moderately deep, it's about all I ask for in an anime movie: it's fun.

The movie is strongly reminiscent of the animated series - if you lengthened and filled out one of the standard episodes, boom, you've got a movie. All of the Bebop crew are present, which would put it, time-wise, roughly in the middle of the series. Each of them plays a significant part in tracking their latest target, a bio-terrorist who plans to unleash an unpleasant plague on the population of Mars, but as in the series, they work side-by-side but not necessarily as a team, rather as a loose affiliation of, err, cowboys. The plot is simple but reasonably compelling. The antagonist's motivations are laid out; I didn't find them particularly sensible, but, ignoring that, the actions of the characters make sense and everything pretty much holds together.

The movie is significantly prettier than the series. Instead of the computer-generated beauty of Spirited Away, there are quite a few exquisitely drawn backgrounds. Most of the action takes place in a city on Mars which bears a strong - very strong - resemblance to modern-day New York City. Shadows are rendered with great care, leading to a number of scenes where the shadows play as much of a part in the scene as the character casting them. Although the rendering of Martian daylight is not, perhaps, very realistic (Mars is going to get a lot less light than Earth, even if it's massively terraformed...), the artists do take the opportunity to show us several beautiful sunset shots. The movie is worth watching for the art alone, IMHO.

Fans of the series will know that it's known for its jazz (or maybe jazz-like is more descriptive) numbers. The movie still has some jazz, but there's a lot more rock, leading to a more fast-paced feel. The soundtrack is quite good without being overpowering and without losing the feel that "made" the series. The voice acting is as good as the series, which is not surprising.

At least two of the showings in the movie theater I saw it in were sold out. I imagine that won't continue, since this is a bit of a niche market and the movie hasn't been advertised at all that I've seen, but perhaps it will be enough to get a wider U.S. distribution for the movie, and Spirited Away picking up an Oscar shouldn't hurt either. It's worth seeing in the theaters, I think, assuming there's one near you. If you've ever wondered what sort of beating Spike can dish out when he's really upset at someone, this movie will answer that question. :)

MoeMoe writes "Well I was just watching Cartoon Network and it looks like Trigun will begin airing in just a couple of weeks. The CN website gives a brief description here" Trigun is among my favorite anime series. It gets a little crazy by the end, but for the most part it's pretty lighthearted fun, with some great action. CN sure seems to love the Anime Sci Fi Westerns. I wonder if they'll carry some of the fluffier stuff besides Tenchi. Love Hina would be a fun choice. Or Excel Saga.

randomErr writes "ZDNET has this article about how a universal network similar the one in SE Lain will evolve. The author say it's not a matter of 'if' but 'when' this network will happen."

TTop writes "As part of the Lindows lawsuit, the judge has preliminarily ruled that there are 'serious questions regarding whether "Windows" is a non-generic name and thus eligible for the protections of federal trademark law.'" I've always been bothered by Microsoft's habit of naming things using common words (Then again, my history of naming things includes confusing and bizarre names like 'Slashdot' and 'AnimeFu' so what do I know? :)

darketernal writes "Escaflowne is appearing in theaters nationwide on the 25th, depending on your location. Rated PG-13. Here is a Yahoo! Review." If you've seen Escaflowne in japanese, you probably know that its a pretty cool show, and while its not one of my all time favorites, if the big screen release gets anywhere near me, I'll be there. Perhaps even bigger news is that the mega anime film hit Metropolis is being release at the same time.

darketernal writes "Escaflowne is appearing in theaters nationwide on the 25th, depending on your location. Rated PG-13. Here is a Yahoo! Review." If you've seen Escaflowne in japanese, you probably know that its a pretty cool show, and while its not one of my all time favorites, if the big screen release gets anywhere near me, I'll be there. Perhaps even bigger news is that the mega anime film hit Metropolis is being release at the same time.

An anonymous reader submitted a NY Times story (you know what that means: annoying free registration required) about anime as Japanese Film's 2nd Golden Age. It covers a lot of ground, as well as a lot of really amazing films including (obviously) Miyazaki's work, but also stuff like Ranma 1/2, Perfect Blue, Cowboy Bebop and Evangelion to pick a handful of my favorites. In short, it's a good piece with its share of criticisms and commentary, but it's cool to see a mainstream source talk up something that was so much subculture just a few years ago.

An anonymous reader submitted a NY Times story (you know what that means: annoying free registration required) about anime as Japanese Film's 2nd Golden Age. It covers a lot of ground, as well as a lot of really amazing films including (obviously) Miyazaki's work, but also stuff like Ranma 1/2, Perfect Blue, Cowboy Bebop and Evangelion to pick a handful of my favorites. In short, it's a good piece with its share of criticisms and commentary, but it's cool to see a mainstream source talk up something that was so much subculture just a few years ago.

An anonymous reader submitted a NY Times story (you know what that means: annoying free registration required) about anime as Japanese Film's 2nd Golden Age. It covers a lot of ground, as well as a lot of really amazing films including (obviously) Miyazaki's work, but also stuff like Ranma 1/2, Perfect Blue, Cowboy Bebop and Evangelion to pick a handful of my favorites. In short, it's a good piece with its share of criticisms and commentary, but it's cool to see a mainstream source talk up something that was so much subculture just a few years ago.

An anonymous reader submitted a NY Times story (you know what that means: annoying free registration required) about anime as Japanese Film's 2nd Golden Age. It covers a lot of ground, as well as a lot of really amazing films including (obviously) Miyazaki's work, but also stuff like Ranma 1/2, Perfect Blue, Cowboy Bebop and Evangelion to pick a handful of my favorites. In short, it's a good piece with its share of criticisms and commentary, but it's cool to see a mainstream source talk up something that was so much subculture just a few years ago.

peter_gzowski writes "Well known film critic and closet otaku, Roger Ebert, has a bi-weekly segment on his website where he reminisces about the greatest films of all time (in his opinion, anyway). The most recent installment covers My Neighbor Totoro. This is the second anime to make the list, joining Grave of the Fireflies. For those unfamiliar, Totoro is a film by anime master Hayao Miyazaki, the man behind Princess Mononoke, amoung many other great films (Castle of Cagliostro being my favorite)." Always pleased to see anime get more mainsream cred. And Miyazaki always deserves it.

An anonymous reader pointed us to The Dirty Dozen which lists the most dangerous toys for children. #1 on the list is Metal Gear Solid 2 (which I finished this weekend and highly recommend) Also making the cut are Gundam and Dragonball Zaction figures (nothing scarier then Bulma on a bad hair day I guess), Super Street Fighter II and Doom. Of course the specific version of doom they classify as one of the most dangerous toys of 2001 is the Game Boy Advanced port, and I gotta agree with them on the GBA thing, those things are dangerous. Play for more then 30 minutes, and you go blind.

An anonymous reader pointed us to The Dirty Dozen which lists the most dangerous toys for children. #1 on the list is Metal Gear Solid 2 (which I finished this weekend and highly recommend) Also making the cut are Gundam and Dragonball Zaction figures (nothing scarier then Bulma on a bad hair day I guess), Super Street Fighter II and Doom. Of course the specific version of doom they classify as one of the most dangerous toys of 2001 is the Game Boy Advanced port, and I gotta agree with them on the GBA thing, those things are dangerous. Play for more then 30 minutes, and you go blind.

mvw noted that Toonami is serving up the four videos directed by Star Blazers creator Leiji Matsumoto for the first four tracks on Daft Punk album Discovery. The album is an absolute masterpiece and one of my favorite CDs. The videos are impressive too, telling a continuing story through each of the four songs with that distinctive style. Anyway, I was just pleased to see them online since I only got to see them once when Toonami aired them. and figured others would enjoy this.

Deliri...uhmmm writes: "Cowboy Bebop, which was not shown last week on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, is back this week. Apparently it was just a temporary reaction to the events of 9.11. Here is the The Adult Swim website" Does anyone have any word on the return of Mobile Suit Gundam? Anyway, Cowboy Bebop is simply one of the best shows ever made and I'm glad that Cartoon Network isn't dropping it. I hope they show more Anime, and maybe someday we could even get a dedicated Toonami channel.

Deliri...uhmmm writes: "Cowboy Bebop, which was not shown last week on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, is back this week. Apparently it was just a temporary reaction to the events of 9.11. Here is the The Adult Swim website" Does anyone have any word on the return of Mobile Suit Gundam? Anyway, Cowboy Bebop is simply one of the best shows ever made and I'm glad that Cartoon Network isn't dropping it. I hope they show more Anime, and maybe someday we could even get a dedicated Toonami channel.

NeoCode sends tons of juice starting with "Ghost in the Shell creator, Masamune Shirow, has talked about a sequel to GITS in a recent interview. The director of the original is working on GITS2. The Matrix Revisted is essentially a prequel to the original Matrix movie. My guess is that the anime story might be along the lines of the Matrix comics that are on their website. Anyways, here are some tidbits about the Matrix anime. And lastly, CartoonNetwork has a interviewed Daft Punk about their anime video and their anime" I saw the Daft Punk (as well as all 3 Gorillaz!) videos on Toonami last friday. Had to immediately hit Cheap CDs and buy the album. (Yes, I'm buying CDs again. I ended my boycott now that Napster battle is over) I thought it was just Gap commercial soundtracks, but those are sweet videos.

An anonymous reader sent us an interesting little article about Miyazaki and Disney. Disney of course owns the rights to distribute his films (like to pick a gigantic example Princess Mononoke) to worldwide audiences. Apparently lackluster profits from Mononoke may jeopradize future Miyazaki titles release in the US, which would be terribly unfortunate considering that in the end, the DVD release of Mononoke was absolutely wonderful (although its a somewhat dark film for Mouse) This is all tied to Spirited Away, his latest film which is apparently doing great things at the Japanese Box Office.

Midnight Thunder writes "The Japanese have come up with a bionic suit designed to allow nurses to lift patients with out damaging their backs. This is just the sort of thing I need for lifting the monitors at work." And then there was mecha. Pretty cool idea - and maybe it could have helped Scoop.

Greg Lee writes "Pioneer Entertainment has re-released Akira! Originally released in 1988, this film is still cutting edge 13 years later. Two versions of the film have been re-released on DVD: One is a regular version, and the other is a special edition in a metal case with a second DVD filled with goodies. (Mine also came with a free animation cell from the movie!) Pioneer's website has not yet been updated to reflect the release." The deluxe DVD looks great - THX certed, Dolby 5.1, remastering script.

Bonker writes: "Anime News Network Says: The Tenchi Muyo! Galaxy Police TV/OVA series (also known as Tenchi Muyo! GXP) as well as the first episode of the third Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki OVA series are scheduled to be released in Spring, 2002 in Japan." Both very exciting bits of news for anyone who happens to be a fan of Tenchi and the gals. I'm especially excited to see another OVA since those are far superior to the television shows.

da3dAlus writes: "Anime Tourist has a confirmation about the fall programming on Cartoon Network, as mentioned at the San Diego Comic Con. Of greatest note is the mention of Cowboy Bebop: "It was disclosed that Cowboy Bebop will air this fall in the Adult Swim block on sunday nights. The source was unsure as to how much editing would be needed and admitted that it was 'something of a stretch for them.'" The 'Adult Swim' block begins September 2nd, and is geared towards the older Cartoon Network audience." If this is true, this is great news. Cowboy Bebop is one of the best science fiction tales that has been animated ever. I just can't explain it, but I hope they don't have to butcher it to put it on U.S. TV. Also worth noting is that a trailer for the Bebop movie is online if you can watch quicktime.

Linux won't ever be accepted as a truly mainstream OS by most vendors. The reason for this is quite simply the users. And I'm not talking about everyone, I'm talking about the 31337 h4x0r kids with the bad attitude. They're posting right here on this system, intermixed with others who often share the attitude, but also have a bit more civility. I saw this once again while learning about the Hewlett Packard 3300C flatbad scanner ... which has zippo Linux support from HP. And I don't see that changing. Keep reading and maybe I can explain why.

So I collect anime cels. I have a fairly nice collection now. Cels from Tenchi, Trigun, Ranma 1/2 among others. It's a fun hobby that I find gets me a little more involved with some of my favorite shows to have a little piece of them. Sometimes it can be horribly expensive, but often really nice cels for just a few bucks can be found.

But what do you do with these cels? Well, I framed several. Museum-quality glass ensures that they'll stick around for awhile. But I have dozens of cels, and I travel a lot ... so scanning them in and making nice wallpaper images for my desktop sure will make KDE look nice. So with that in mind I began hopping around looking for an inexpensive flatbed scanner. And I thought I had found it in the HP 3300C. At only $80, it seemed like a great deal: I didn't need 2400x2400 scans or anything, I just wanted to get 1280x1024 images off 8.5x11 cels. A quick glance through /etc/usbmgr/usbmgr.conf revealed a line for it, so I figured I was all set. OK, that was a major mistake on my part -- I should have looked a little harder, I just made the ill-fated assumption that a line in this file meant someone had made the 3300C work under Linux.

I was wrong. I've set up USB devices before. I've set up scanners before. And this one bugger wasn't about to work. So I figured I'd hop over to google and search around and see if I was missing something. After browsing around a few sites that provided me with no information whatsoever, I stumbled upon Linux-USB. Duh, the source, right? Probably should have looked there in the first place, but hey, I never claimed to be a genius. My heart sunk when I found the supported scanners list and found my cheapy HP 3300C, conveniently listed with an icon so obvious that even a moron could clearly see that his quest to scan in cels was going to be fruitless: The Red X of failure.

The site helpfully provides a little more info link with a discussion board that I figured I would read to see if perhaps work was underway. And this is where I made a shocking discovery. And if I was HP, I sure wouldn't be taking the abuse that so many people are dishing out. The discussion starts off fine. An email address to someone at HP to ask for specs. A comment about how HP should make their specs available since they are supposedly an Open Source company (even having gone so far as hiring Bruce Perens to do ... something. Well nobody is really sure what, but he does something for Linux at HP ;). The next comment was a user who returned his scanner. Another user glad that he found this page before he bought the scanner. Lucky bastard. I wish I had.

But this is where things turned sour. The messages turn from disappointed to just plain mean. HP employees are called bastards and assholes. Threats are made. They are referred to as lots of words that I would happily use in friendly conversation with a friend, but never post in a public forum read by strangers.

And thats where all of this is leading. Intermixed with this embarassing dialogue is legitimite stuff. One guy wants to write a driver. Others provide links to various support channels at HP where perhaps a request for the scanner specs might not come up empty.

But somehow I can't get the bad taste out of my mouth. I see it on Slashdot all the time, and I find it really disheartening. Its an attitude that many people have: The "You Owe Me" attitude. Certainly I'm not exempt from this attitude. If I pay for a device, dammit I want specs. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to call a company with thousands of employees "cockmasters" just because they don't want to support my operating system.

I've met a lot of people who've written a lot of open source code. Window Managers. Ethernet Drivers. X extensions. GUI Toolkits. And these people are almost always totally cool. Sure they have attitudes. They are pompous. They are proud of their work. And in most cases they deserve many more accolades then they get. But I think most of them wouldn't say something like "HP seems to be still smeeling Gates' asshole rather than coming out of it. Beware Hp, Linux is going strong and unless you recognize that and properly support your hardware under Linux, you are going to Piss in your pants one day." I'm embarassed to run the same OS as 'Casablanca' who provided Linux-USB with that choice quote. No doubt that Linux is going strong. But what does that have to do with the offensive statement that leads off? How does saying that advance anything?

This is at its worst in public forums. Mailing lists are often much more civil. I'm not saying always because every mailing list with more then a few people explodes into flames every now and then. But at least then you're talking about a private forum. There's just something about a public web board that brings the worst out in some people. Its unfortunate that because you don't sign your name, some people interpret that as a license to be a jerk.

I'm not saying drop the attitude. Linux is a superior operating system to the one that HP usually supports. But that attitude is a double edged sword. If welded childishly, it will hurt us all. I don't care if 'Casablanca' chops off his own leg, but damn it sucks that his attitude might hurt the dozens of other posters on that forum who all paid cash money for their HP 3300C scanner and may never see it supported.

The reality is that HP sells scanners and printers almost entirely to users of that "Other" OS. Writing a driver probably won't make them much money: especially not for a scanner that is going for less then a hundred bucks. Of course, releasing their specs costs them next to nothing, and for a company that has been working hard to embrace Open Source and Linux, it certainly is something cool that they could do.

In conclusion, I had to boot up windows to use my scanner. The Diablo 2 Expansion is the only other software on the partition. I scanned in a half dozens cels, rebooted, and did the rest of my work in The GIMP. It took me much much longer to get things done then I would have liked and it definitely detracts from the usability of the scanner. The scans were fine, but the overhead it required forces me not to recommend the scanner to anyone. But if HP would release the specs to this thing, I know there would be a lot of happy people besides me. HP makes quality hardware and the price is definitely right on this one.

If they don't, I have a hard time blaming them. I know that the bitchers and moaners that are so loud in random forums throughout the net (and yes, even here on Slashdot. Maybe especially here) are actually a minority. The vast majority of Linux Developers and Users are sane and calm. Sure, we have that inner glow of satisfaction that comes from knowing we have uptimes of 200+ days and we only reboot to try out newer devel kernels. But we don't feel the need to call people names because we don't get our way. I admit that I've stepped over the line more times then I should, but I try to be cool about it. And I hope others do to.

Soapbox mode: off.

Linux won't ever be accepted as a truly mainstream OS by most vendors. The reason for this is quite simply the users. And I'm not talking about everyone, I'm talking about the 31337 h4x0r kids with the bad attitude. They're posting right here on this system, intermixed with others who often share the attitude, but also have a bit more civility. I saw this once again while learning about the Hewlett Packard 3300C flatbad scanner ... which has zippo Linux support from HP. And I don't see that changing. Keep reading and maybe I can explain why.

So I collect anime cels. I have a fairly nice collection now. Cels from Tenchi, Trigun, Ranma 1/2 among others. It's a fun hobby that I find gets me a little more involved with some of my favorite shows to have a little piece of them. Sometimes it can be horribly expensive, but often really nice cels for just a few bucks can be found.

But what do you do with these cels? Well, I framed several. Museum-quality glass ensures that they'll stick around for awhile. But I have dozens of cels, and I travel a lot ... so scanning them in and making nice wallpaper images for my desktop sure will make KDE look nice. So with that in mind I began hopping around looking for an inexpensive flatbed scanner. And I thought I had found it in the HP 3300C. At only $80, it seemed like a great deal: I didn't need 2400x2400 scans or anything, I just wanted to get 1280x1024 images off 8.5x11 cels. A quick glance through /etc/usbmgr/usbmgr.conf revealed a line for it, so I figured I was all set. OK, that was a major mistake on my part -- I should have looked a little harder, I just made the ill-fated assumption that a line in this file meant someone had made the 3300C work under Linux.

I was wrong. I've set up USB devices before. I've set up scanners before. And this one bugger wasn't about to work. So I figured I'd hop over to google and search around and see if I was missing something. After browsing around a few sites that provided me with no information whatsoever, I stumbled upon Linux-USB. Duh, the source, right? Probably should have looked there in the first place, but hey, I never claimed to be a genius. My heart sunk when I found the supported scanners list and found my cheapy HP 3300C, conveniently listed with an icon so obvious that even a moron could clearly see that his quest to scan in cels was going to be fruitless: The Red X of failure.

The site helpfully provides a little more info link with a discussion board that I figured I would read to see if perhaps work was underway. And this is where I made a shocking discovery. And if I was HP, I sure wouldn't be taking the abuse that so many people are dishing out. The discussion starts off fine. An email address to someone at HP to ask for specs. A comment about how HP should make their specs available since they are supposedly an Open Source company (even having gone so far as hiring Bruce Perens to do ... something. Well nobody is really sure what, but he does something for Linux at HP ;). The next comment was a user who returned his scanner. Another user glad that he found this page before he bought the scanner. Lucky bastard. I wish I had.

But this is where things turned sour. The messages turn from disappointed to just plain mean. HP employees are called bastards and assholes. Threats are made. They are referred to as lots of words that I would happily use in friendly conversation with a friend, but never post in a public forum read by strangers.

And thats where all of this is leading. Intermixed with this embarassing dialogue is legitimite stuff. One guy wants to write a driver. Others provide links to various support channels at HP where perhaps a request for the scanner specs might not come up empty.

But somehow I can't get the bad taste out of my mouth. I see it on Slashdot all the time, and I find it really disheartening. Its an attitude that many people have: The "You Owe Me" attitude. Certainly I'm not exempt from this attitude. If I pay for a device, dammit I want specs. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to call a company with thousands of employees "cockmasters" just because they don't want to support my operating system.

I've met a lot of people who've written a lot of open source code. Window Managers. Ethernet Drivers. X extensions. GUI Toolkits. And these people are almost always totally cool. Sure they have attitudes. They are pompous. They are proud of their work. And in most cases they deserve many more accolades then they get. But I think most of them wouldn't say something like "HP seems to be still smeeling Gates' asshole rather than coming out of it. Beware Hp, Linux is going strong and unless you recognize that and properly support your hardware under Linux, you are going to Piss in your pants one day." I'm embarassed to run the same OS as 'Casablanca' who provided Linux-USB with that choice quote. No doubt that Linux is going strong. But what does that have to do with the offensive statement that leads off? How does saying that advance anything?

This is at its worst in public forums. Mailing lists are often much more civil. I'm not saying always because every mailing list with more then a few people explodes into flames every now and then. But at least then you're talking about a private forum. There's just something about a public web board that brings the worst out in some people. Its unfortunate that because you don't sign your name, some people interpret that as a license to be a jerk.

I'm not saying drop the attitude. Linux is a superior operating system to the one that HP usually supports. But that attitude is a double edged sword. If welded childishly, it will hurt us all. I don't care if 'Casablanca' chops off his own leg, but damn it sucks that his attitude might hurt the dozens of other posters on that forum who all paid cash money for their HP 3300C scanner and may never see it supported.

The reality is that HP sells scanners and printers almost entirely to users of that "Other" OS. Writing a driver probably won't make them much money: especially not for a scanner that is going for less then a hundred bucks. Of course, releasing their specs costs them next to nothing, and for a company that has been working hard to embrace Open Source and Linux, it certainly is something cool that they could do.

In conclusion, I had to boot up windows to use my scanner. The Diablo 2 Expansion is the only other software on the partition. I scanned in a half dozens cels, rebooted, and did the rest of my work in The GIMP. It took me much much longer to get things done then I would have liked and it definitely detracts from the usability of the scanner. The scans were fine, but the overhead it required forces me not to recommend the scanner to anyone. But if HP would release the specs to this thing, I know there would be a lot of happy people besides me. HP makes quality hardware and the price is definitely right on this one.

If they don't, I have a hard time blaming them. I know that the bitchers and moaners that are so loud in random forums throughout the net (and yes, even here on Slashdot. Maybe especially here) are actually a minority. The vast majority of Linux Developers and Users are sane and calm. Sure, we have that inner glow of satisfaction that comes from knowing we have uptimes of 200+ days and we only reboot to try out newer devel kernels. But we don't feel the need to call people names because we don't get our way. I admit that I've stepped over the line more times then I should, but I try to be cool about it. And I hope others do to.

Soapbox mode: off.

Linux won't ever be accepted as a truly mainstream OS by most vendors. The reason for this is quite simply the users. And I'm not talking about everyone, I'm talking about the 31337 h4x0r kids with the bad attitude. They're posting right here on this system, intermixed with others who often share the attitude, but also have a bit more civility. I saw this once again while learning about the Hewlett Packard 3300C flatbad scanner ... which has zippo Linux support from HP. And I don't see that changing. Keep reading and maybe I can explain why.

So I collect anime cels. I have a fairly nice collection now. Cels from Tenchi, Trigun, Ranma 1/2 among others. It's a fun hobby that I find gets me a little more involved with some of my favorite shows to have a little piece of them. Sometimes it can be horribly expensive, but often really nice cels for just a few bucks can be found.

But what do you do with these cels? Well, I framed several. Museum-quality glass ensures that they'll stick around for awhile. But I have dozens of cels, and I travel a lot ... so scanning them in and making nice wallpaper images for my desktop sure will make KDE look nice. So with that in mind I began hopping around looking for an inexpensive flatbed scanner. And I thought I had found it in the HP 3300C. At only $80, it seemed like a great deal: I didn't need 2400x2400 scans or anything, I just wanted to get 1280x1024 images off 8.5x11 cels. A quick glance through /etc/usbmgr/usbmgr.conf revealed a line for it, so I figured I was all set. OK, that was a major mistake on my part -- I should have looked a little harder, I just made the ill-fated assumption that a line in this file meant someone had made the 3300C work under Linux.

I was wrong. I've set up USB devices before. I've set up scanners before. And this one bugger wasn't about to work. So I figured I'd hop over to google and search around and see if I was missing something. After browsing around a few sites that provided me with no information whatsoever, I stumbled upon Linux-USB. Duh, the source, right? Probably should have looked there in the first place, but hey, I never claimed to be a genius. My heart sunk when I found the supported scanners list and found my cheapy HP 3300C, conveniently listed with an icon so obvious that even a moron could clearly see that his quest to scan in cels was going to be fruitless: The Red X of failure.

The site helpfully provides a little more info link with a discussion board that I figured I would read to see if perhaps work was underway. And this is where I made a shocking discovery. And if I was HP, I sure wouldn't be taking the abuse that so many people are dishing out. The discussion starts off fine. An email address to someone at HP to ask for specs. A comment about how HP should make their specs available since they are supposedly an Open Source company (even having gone so far as hiring Bruce Perens to do ... something. Well nobody is really sure what, but he does something for Linux at HP ;). The next comment was a user who returned his scanner. Another user glad that he found this page before he bought the scanner. Lucky bastard. I wish I had.

But this is where things turned sour. The messages turn from disappointed to just plain mean. HP employees are called bastards and assholes. Threats are made. They are referred to as lots of words that I would happily use in friendly conversation with a friend, but never post in a public forum read by strangers.

And thats where all of this is leading. Intermixed with this embarassing dialogue is legitimite stuff. One guy wants to write a driver. Others provide links to various support channels at HP where perhaps a request for the scanner specs might not come up empty.

But somehow I can't get the bad taste out of my mouth. I see it on Slashdot all the time, and I find it really disheartening. Its an attitude that many people have: The "You Owe Me" attitude. Certainly I'm not exempt from this attitude. If I pay for a device, dammit I want specs. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to call a company with thousands of employees "cockmasters" just because they don't want to support my operating system.

I've met a lot of people who've written a lot of open source code. Window Managers. Ethernet Drivers. X extensions. GUI Toolkits. And these people are almost always totally cool. Sure they have attitudes. They are pompous. They are proud of their work. And in most cases they deserve many more accolades then they get. But I think most of them wouldn't say something like "HP seems to be still smeeling Gates' asshole rather than coming out of it. Beware Hp, Linux is going strong and unless you recognize that and properly support your hardware under Linux, you are going to Piss in your pants one day." I'm embarassed to run the same OS as 'Casablanca' who provided Linux-USB with that choice quote. No doubt that Linux is going strong. But what does that have to do with the offensive statement that leads off? How does saying that advance anything?

This is at its worst in public forums. Mailing lists are often much more civil. I'm not saying always because every mailing list with more then a few people explodes into flames every now and then. But at least then you're talking about a private forum. There's just something about a public web board that brings the worst out in some people. Its unfortunate that because you don't sign your name, some people interpret that as a license to be a jerk.

I'm not saying drop the attitude. Linux is a superior operating system to the one that HP usually supports. But that attitude is a double edged sword. If welded childishly, it will hurt us all. I don't care if 'Casablanca' chops off his own leg, but damn it sucks that his attitude might hurt the dozens of other posters on that forum who all paid cash money for their HP 3300C scanner and may never see it supported.

The reality is that HP sells scanners and printers almost entirely to users of that "Other" OS. Writing a driver probably won't make them much money: especially not for a scanner that is going for less then a hundred bucks. Of course, releasing their specs costs them next to nothing, and for a company that has been working hard to embrace Open Source and Linux, it certainly is something cool that they could do.

In conclusion, I had to boot up windows to use my scanner. The Diablo 2 Expansion is the only other software on the partition. I scanned in a half dozens cels, rebooted, and did the rest of my work in The GIMP. It took me much much longer to get things done then I would have liked and it definitely detracts from the usability of the scanner. The scans were fine, but the overhead it required forces me not to recommend the scanner to anyone. But if HP would release the specs to this thing, I know there would be a lot of happy people besides me. HP makes quality hardware and the price is definitely right on this one.

If they don't, I have a hard time blaming them. I know that the bitchers and moaners that are so loud in random forums throughout the net (and yes, even here on Slashdot. Maybe especially here) are actually a minority. The vast majority of Linux Developers and Users are sane and calm. Sure, we have that inner glow of satisfaction that comes from knowing we have uptimes of 200+ days and we only reboot to try out newer devel kernels. But we don't feel the need to call people names because we don't get our way. I admit that I've stepped over the line more times then I should, but I try to be cool about it. And I hope others do to.

Soapbox mode: off.

Gather round kids and let me tell you a story. A story of "Convergence": a nasty buzzword many of us have dreampt of in hot lusty dreams that we wouldn't admit to our mothers. The dream is the borged media box: combining the functionality of your Tivo, your MP3 Box, DVD Player, CD Player, and so much more. It's not here yet despite lots of trying, but its getting closer.

If your closet looks anything like mine, its full of stereo equipment. Some obsolete (VCR?), and some of it is critical to survival (Tivo). But the stack of components are seperate devices which provide flexibility, but are unable to integrate cleanly into each other. What I'm describing here is The Dream. A simple box that can fulfill the tasks of my tuner, reciever, CD Player, and has a ton of new tricks that nobody has done yet.

As always, I'm looking at this through the eyes of an open source hacker. Where possible I mention projects that could provide a framework. And I also make a huge assumption about disk space. Right now 80 gig hard drives are available for only a few hundred dollars. But since it'll be years before this box really exists, we will presumably have hundreds of gigs at our disposal. When we cross 500 gigs, things get interesting... we suddenly can store a few hundred movies... a month of TV... a few months of your favorite radio broadcasts... all in one beautiful box. This project could certainly be done on windows, but ideally it wouldn't matter, since most people would never see the underlying OS, and besides, the massaging of closed source applications to fit within this framework wouldn't be possible.

Devices

The most important devices are those that are already critical in a stereo today. We need to build upon that base before we can really start breaking new ground. That said, first and foremost, we must have a CD Player. But not just any CD Player, this CD Player should automatically rip every CD you insert and store it in Ogg Vorbis, ideally at a high bit trate. While programs like Grip and FreeAmp provide an excellent foundation, the interfaces to each will need work to fit within the Borg Box.

Why stop with a CD? We have to dedicate the physical space to read discs, lets include a DVD Player. VideoLAN has a pretty solid player for Linux now. But why stop there? Like our music, we should automatically rip, catalog, and store our DVDs. This should be optional of course because the disc space required to store DVDs is going to be fairly huge. But imagine if the last 20 DVDs you watched were stored on this box? It might take 50 gigs to store at a good compression rate, but when your buddy comes over you could quickly show him that scene you mentioned the other day without rummaging through that pile of DVDs and CDs that inevitably accumulates on top of every flat surface without 5 feet of your stereo. And in 3 years, that terebyte disc may be real. And since the player is purely a software thing, Dolby Digital, DTS 5.1, and future 6.1, 7.2, and whatever else comes next could be provided with a software upgrade (unlike today where you may need a new DVD Player or Reciever)

The DVD storage leads me into what is the new essential video component: Tivo . Anyone who uses a Personal Video Recorder for more then a few weeks knows that going back is just not an acceptable solution. Tivo simply makes TV tolerable again. But Tivo has its problems. We need bigger hard drives and more storage. The Tivo interface breaks down as the number of programs increase: the 35 Hour DirecTivo model becomes unmanagable when you have 60-70 shows on it. What happens when we can stick a half a TB of disc space on this? But afaik, no open source application duplicates the functionality of the Tivo.

We should include a Tuner as well, but I'd like it to be able to play a few tricks that most can't. I enjoy listening to Howard Stern in the morning. So my mega media box should start recording it at 6am. And the audio it records should be indexed nicely with the other audio we have. Audio compresses extremely well so we could keep a lot of it around. Recording a 5 hour radio show is only going to be a few hundred megs. I've seen bits and pieces of this software in place, but with Tuner cards available for less then a hundred bucks, this should be a negligible addition. The real effort will be the programming, but since we're already doing much of these things already, it shouldn't be that hard: The PVR will need the ability to record time/date, so radio stations could simply be extra channels. And the audio stuff already is encoding CDs, and providing a nice interface for selecting music. It won't be as simple since most radio stations won't have accesible "Guides" for what is on when, but we could make do with simple time/duration/station.

While we're at it, users with high enough bandwidth should be able to stream audio and video from the net. URLs are just channels and stations. A nice internal list of popular sources of content would be a nice start. This won't matter today, but as broadband becomes the norm, web based TV should start not sucking.

We'll also need to provide a few inputs for other devices. The real trick here is that since we're going to want to do things like crossfading and overlaying audio, so these will be hard to do. Honestly, with all the devices that this box has, hopefully we wouldn't need more then 2 spare inputs, but that is a big issue that remains to be seen.

Wishes I'd love to see a version with an integrated DirecTV reciever (ala the DirecTivo which has some really great features, but no traditional cable tuner which really sucks). But that is a very difficult step and don't see that happening in any sort of open source project, so this may be an unattainable dream for our Borg Box.

A version capable of being a Cable Modem would be awesome. The cable company could make some serious bread selling something like this. They are already leasing Cable Modems and Digital Cable boxes. This would cost far more, but they could also charge a lot more for the huge gain in functionality. But imagine plugging this in to your cable jack, and being done. DHCP handles the net connection. Digital Cable. Its all done. DSL for those folks would be nice too, but you'd still need a cable input for video.

X10 Control would be sweet as well. Then events could be raised to do anything that X10 can do. The doorbell could trigger the front door camera, and change the video source to the camera by the front door (the X10 devices to do this security stuff is only a hundred bucks, so its not cost prohibitive). There are countless nifty things that you could do, and the only cost to the box is a few dollar firecracker to broadcast and recieve X10 signals, plus code to configure simple event handling. And that would be the ahrd part: coding a clean and flexible X10 system would be tricky work.

De-Interlacers are somewhat expensive devices that could probably be reasonably implemented as part of the playback. I'm sure it wouldn't be as top notch as a dedicated processor or high end progressive DVD Player, but it seems like this could be done nicely, and then we could pull one more component out of the chain. I suspect doing a good job with this would quickly become clock cycle consuming. Maybe co-processors could be employed for the job. This would only affect HDTV users, although in 18 months, that might be the majority of users for this device. Lets face it, this thing is going to be high tech, and the mainstream isn't even ready for Tivo yet!

New Tricks A phone jack will be necessary for a variety of purposes (CD Lookups, TV Guide Information) for users without ethernet access to the world. Why not rig it up to allow notification of phone calls? You're watching a movie and the phone rings. The audio fades, and optionally the video pauses. A window pop's up and tells you who the call is from. Festival could even say it out loud.

Since we'll have a net connection, various reports could easily be generated. Some things could be snarfed automatically. Perl modules exist to get things like weather, stock quotes, and status of your pop mail. I'd love to wake up, press a button, and hear "Its 65 degrees and sunny with 10 mph wind from the northwest. LNUX is trading at 12 cents a share. And you have 1092 messages waiting". Well, I'd like it better if those last 2 numbers were switched, but you get the point. Advanced users could code simply scripts to acquire new information making the options limitless: Traffic reports ("It will take you 12 hours to get to work because you live in California dumbass") and any compliant rss website could give you news headlines. Couple that with X10, and you could make it so a motion sensor triggers your report. Add bounds for time. If the borg box detects motion between 8am and 10am in the living room, give the morning weather report. Suddenly, you have the report as you're getting your keys and wallet, and know without even looking outside if you need your coat.

While we're at it, why not provide an alarm clock? Its easy, but overlooked. Your alarm could be your customized news report I mentioned above, your favorite morning radio show (starting at the beginning, and not at 7:45 during the middle of that annoying commercial for the head shop), or your choice of obnoxiously loud ringing tones guaranteed to raise the dead.

Since all the devices are integrated, we have a variety of controls available that most recievers don't have. We could crossfade one device into another. I know its picky, but hey, it sure would be cool. You could fade the radio volume 50% to get your caller ID spoken to you. Its the little details that would really make this stand out.

Interaction The real trick is going to be the interface. If I tell my amazing media box that I'm interested in Tenchi, it should be able to provide me with the Tenchi Soundtrack that I ripped. The Tenchi DVDs I watched a few weeks ago (and if its not on the hard drive, it could at least remember what I watched and when). And the episodes that have aired recently on Cartoon Network. And since we have a net connection, why not search Napster, Gnutella, and Google? There's a plethora of solid sources of multi media out there. The real trick is going to be providing a clean interface for picking what it is your want. The UI will provide you with key information. Icons representing local media, media you've already seen, DVDs you have but maybe haven't ripped, things that could be streamed, things that are coming soon. But it can't be overly complicated (by default. There always should be advanced options).

Actually communicating with the device should be available on many levels. A simple remote control for the bulk of normal everyday functions: Play. Pause. Fast Forward. Menu Navigation. "I Like This Thing I am Seeing, so show me more like this in the future". A wireless keyboard should be an option too. With this GUI, more complex features would be available: writing perl scripts, typing in more complex search requests.

Someday voice interaction would be excellent as well, but thats a bit off yet. Today's voice recognition is not up to the task of taking commands from a room full of ambient noise: it simply can't figure out when it is being addressed. But its not far off. "Borg Box, Good Morning" could be the trigger for your morning weather report. "Borg Box, Good Night" changes to a play list containing mellow Brian Eno tracks. Can you imagine? It sounds like the high tech star trek stuff, but the parts are all getting really close.

Hardware Interfaces Ideally we would provide component video with options for 480i for backwards compatibility, and 480p at the minimum for HDTV. If we could do 780p, we could provide a very crisp video signal, and make a lot of nifty things possible, like fitting sharper smaller fonts on screen. Maybe a VGA adapter too. We could probably do this the same way the Playstation 2 does: a nice little dongle gives us all the options necessary even for older sets, without cluttering the actual device.

Audio should by default come out via optical toslink cable. Admittedly, many recievers don't support that, but backwards compatibility to to channel RCA stereo plugs would be nice. Surround sound would only be available through the optical channels, just as the PS/2 operates today. We won't make the mistake that the DirecTivo does of only sending the principle signal to the optical port, and only mixing in other effects to the RCA ports.

Obviously we will need a phone jack for primitive net access, and for phone functions. But also an ethernet port for the lucky folks with DSL, Cable, or real network connections.

We'll need a cable jack. Ideally it could handle Cable Modem input, Digital Cable Input, and just plain old cable. But for starters, just cable is enough. If cable companies participate, a lof of magic is possible.

An IR port could provide input for a remote control and a full blown wireless keyboard. The keyboard could be sold seperate to keep costs down if necessary, but wireless input is cheap, as are remotes.

We probably also should have power too, although a future version should also include a cold fusion module so that this box can power your house as well. Hey, we're dreaming, why not go all out ;)

Costs Expensive. We're talking thousands of dollars for this hardware. And who knows how many hours for the software. Much of the functionality I've described already exists in various forms, but writing a consistant, well designed UI requires rare skills in the open source world. And a device like this is almost entirely about the UI. Many Slashdot readers could build this box, but its going to take special people to actually make the UI friendly enough to gain mass acceptance.

Costs could potentially be taken on a bit by Cable companies leasing these an alternative to cable boxes/cable modems. Since they already lease those for 5 bucks a month each, customers are used to it. And this provides the functionality of a thousand dollars worth of hardware.

Adversiting is also a huge potential revenue stream. Yes its annoying, but if it meant you could get this box for $1000, would it be worth it? Personally I'm all for highly targetted advertising. If I search for Tenchi, my ad should be about anime. While the banner ad market is poop, this kind of targetting could be hugely valuable. Cartoon Network runs hundreds of ads a week for anime, but they are preaching to the converted: you're already watching their network when you see this ad. This method could get anime fans who maybe didn't realize that Big O is running on Cartoon Network, and is a really excellent show worth watching. You may have a lot of anime DVDs, and not know Cartoon Network's lineup changed. And nothing irritates me more then mismarketing. If I am alone in my basement, I should never ever ever see an add for feminine hygiene products. I will never purchase them. They wasted their advertising dollar and my time. Its one step away from telemarketers interupting me and my pizza.

Ideally you can build the box yourself, choosing the functionality you want and need (Don't want a tuner? click a checkbox during install, save $100 on the tuner card). The most expensive part would probably be the hard drives. Right now, 2 80 gig hard drives would be the best place to start, and thats going to run $500. The PC might only run another 500, but we'll need things like a Tuner, an mpeg encoder and decoder, a DVD Player. Ideally sources exist for getting a pre-fabbed box. I don't think my dad wants to build his own, but he sure loves his tivo.

Conclusion People talk so much about the inevitable convergence of all media. But it sure is taking a long time. The device I describe is an undertaking on the scale of a project like the kernel or GNOME. So many bits and pieces of the puzzle are available: we have IR reading software, rippers, mpeg encoders and decoders. Its just a matter of time before someone puts the parts together. It could be built using GPLd parts, but if nobody does it, it won't be. Many companies have started down this road: Indrema bottomed out, Tivo sales continue to be lackluster, ZapStation will most likely never ship anything more then a press release. But none of them have truly addressed the big picture... I only have time to talk about it. Does anyone have the time to actually do it?

Phunky Monkey writes: "'Manga Entertainment has announced the release dates for both End of Evangelion and Death and Rebirth as October 31, 2001! They to plan to release them in subtitled and dubbed VHS tapes as well as bi-lingual DVDs for each movie.' Got this little snippet over at www.eva2000.com. Although Manga's site doesn't reflect this, I havn't seen anything more accurate than 'summer 2001' until this. " Evangelion has gotta be among the coolest series, and I'm stoked to see a movie coming. Meanwhile I'm just waiting for my copy of Eva 6 to ship.

Phunky Monkey writes: "'Manga Entertainment has announced the release dates for both End of Evangelion and Death and Rebirth as October 31, 2001! They to plan to release them in subtitled and dubbed VHS tapes as well as bi-lingual DVDs for each movie.' Got this little snippet over at www.eva2000.com. Although Manga's site doesn't reflect this, I havn't seen anything more accurate than 'summer 2001' until this. " Evangelion has gotta be among the coolest series, and I'm stoked to see a movie coming. Meanwhile I'm just waiting for my copy of Eva 6 to ship.

Starting the show off with some cool do-it-yourselfer sorta projects: Diederik Meijer submitted the The Silicon Graphics Refrigerator Project (or: How To Turn a $175.000 High-End SGI Challenge DM Server into a Fridge). Next up, mdaughtrey built a Mechanical Hit Counter jrbx1 sent us a link to an in-dash Atari 2600. Even coolor is that the dash its in is attached to a 1978 volkswagon ;) rednax sent us a review of a kit for adding neon to your PC. If you're not skilled enough to hack how it works, at least you can pretend you're cool and hack how it looks! I Nothing is more dangerous then glewtion's link to a story about a sculpture in england that that worries people since the heat it generates cook fry a bird mid-air. Oh, and I lied: even more dangerous then art is amasci's link to making pet ball-lightning. In your microwave, duh. If you've got some spare time, MxTxL submitted something that we've been seeing more of, email games. This one is battlemail, which apparently is glorified addictive paper rock scissors. f you were an Anime character, here's some helpful hints to keep in mind. Hieronymus Coward sent us a bit about The Drew Carrey Show featuring a 2 minute segment based on the sims. I wonder if they will use the vibromatic bed, actually the next expansion comes out soon (today?) so I probably am gonna have to resurrect my neighborhood sometime soon. Thirsty? Dipfan sent in a story about Coke wanting to put soda fountain style coke in every house right next to the water dispenser. Got Carbonated Milk? Finally for a little random product plugging, Rustin H. Wright found a place selling penguin crossing signs. Finally, anotherone noted that you can use Google in full swedish bork bork chef glory.

Gendou_Knepper writes: "The ancient and beloved proto-anime classic, Robotech, is being brought to DVD by AD Vision at only $15 per six-episode disc. Check out the article at the new official site. On a side note, the original Japanese version, Macross, is being brought to us by the wonderful folks at Animeigo." Now if only someone would do the same for Starblazers (in Region 1 anyway)... also interesting, moonboy submitted an AICN story linking to info about Ghost in the Shell 2 .

paranormalized sent us this link to Animenewsnetwork.com's Interview with Hayashi Hiroki. He talks a lot about his work on El Hazard, Black Heaven, and of course, Tenchi Muyo, which are coincidentally enough, three of my favorite series. Interesting points about Ryoko's relationship to 'I Dream of Jeanie,' and why he tends to make shows about a young boy surrounded by hot girls (and why he strayed so far from that to make Black Heaven)."

paranormalized sent us this link to Animenewsnetwork.com's Interview with Hayashi Hiroki. He talks a lot about his work on El Hazard, Black Heaven, and of course, Tenchi Muyo, which are coincidentally enough, three of my favorite series. Interesting points about Ryoko's relationship to 'I Dream of Jeanie,' and why he tends to make shows about a young boy surrounded by hot girls (and why he strayed so far from that to make Black Heaven)."

paranormalized sent us this link to Animenewsnetwork.com's Interview with Hayashi Hiroki. He talks a lot about his work on El Hazard, Black Heaven, and of course, Tenchi Muyo, which are coincidentally enough, three of my favorite series. Interesting points about Ryoko's relationship to 'I Dream of Jeanie,' and why he tends to make shows about a young boy surrounded by hot girls (and why he strayed so far from that to make Black Heaven)."

paranormalized sent us this link to Animenewsnetwork.com's Interview with Hayashi Hiroki. He talks a lot about his work on El Hazard, Black Heaven, and of course, Tenchi Muyo, which are coincidentally enough, three of my favorite series. Interesting points about Ryoko's relationship to 'I Dream of Jeanie,' and why he tends to make shows about a young boy surrounded by hot girls (and why he strayed so far from that to make Black Heaven)."

Dr. Worm writes: "AIC's Web page has an interview with the Tenchi Muyo guy (Kajishima Masaki) confirming a third OVA series. Finally, we get to find out what happens after the king of Jurai leaves Earth..." One of my absolute favorite series. I'm as excited about this as the rumors of the Cowboy Bebop movie.

Dr. Worm writes: "AIC's Web page has an interview with the Tenchi Muyo guy (Kajishima Masaki) confirming a third OVA series. Finally, we get to find out what happens after the king of Jurai leaves Earth..." One of my absolute favorite series. I'm as excited about this as the rumors of the Cowboy Bebop movie.

Christopher Cashell writes: "The critically acclaimed Anime film by Hayao Miyazaki and Ghibli studios, Princess Mononoke, has been released on DVD. The DVD release was initially delayed due to the public outcry when it was discovered that the original Japanese dialogue wouldn't be included. In this case, the effort from people writing Miramax paid off, as this release does include Japanese language tracks. This movie was reviewed on Slashdot when released in theaters. More information on Princess Mononoke can also be found here." and on AnimeFu (fwiw, that is Kurt The Pope & I's anime review site, check it out if you're curious). My copy hasn't arrived yet (Express.com fails me once again. When they stopped being DVDExpress, their UI went to poop, and now I have to wait weeks for titles.) but I hear they really did this disc up right; they've even got Gaimen's subtitles or Miyazaki's original script subtitles. I'm excited to see this disc. And hear Gillian Anderson again. I got to see the movie in an old local artsy theater. What a great movie.

Christopher Cashell writes: "The critically acclaimed Anime film by Hayao Miyazaki and Ghibli studios, Princess Mononoke, has been released on DVD. The DVD release was initially delayed due to the public outcry when it was discovered that the original Japanese dialogue wouldn't be included. In this case, the effort from people writing Miramax paid off, as this release does include Japanese language tracks. This movie was reviewed on Slashdot when released in theaters. More information on Princess Mononoke can also be found here." and on AnimeFu (fwiw, that is Kurt The Pope & I's anime review site, check it out if you're curious). My copy hasn't arrived yet (Express.com fails me once again. When they stopped being DVDExpress, their UI went to poop, and now I have to wait weeks for titles.) but I hear they really did this disc up right; they've even got Gaimen's subtitles or Miyazaki's original script subtitles. I'm excited to see this disc. And hear Gillian Anderson again. I got to see the movie in an old local artsy theater. What a great movie.

Fuzzy_Damnit! pointed us at a site where a guy has built authentic looking Anime Hardsuits that he's selling on eBay. Features a quite impressive Nene (from Bubblegum Crisis). No. It doesn't fly. Or have weapons. You might still be able to ride a motorcycle.

Yes ladies and gentleman, its Rob's favorite time of year: No not the seasons with the fat red-suited man, or the candle thing, or that manger thing, but rather the time when the new Disney flick hits theaters. Its been a long time since Tarzan, and I've watched around 250 hours of anime since then, so click on to read my full review of the flick. (The short spoiler free version: its fun, but its very kid oriented.)

I'm betting I had the same impression as most of you when I saw the ads for Disney's new Emperors's New Groove flick. Frankly, It made me quite ill. It sounded quite stupid. The other thing that was different about this movie is that I've watched so much anime, that I hadn't even tracked Groove's production. All the animated features released in the last decade I researched quite extensively. Voices, songs, writers, directors, who was animating which character. In most cases I even bought the sound track and was right there singing along. This time I knew nothing.

So, it's a good movie. Despite the stupid name, it's very fun. Of course it has a wicked villian and her henchman ... at least one of them isn't a trio of singing wise cracking henchman. The sidekick is Crank, (rhymes with Bonk) and he's probably the highlight of the film. Voiced by Elaine's boyfriend from the last season of Seinfeld (I think that excluding maybe Terry Hatcher, every actor who did a guest spot on the show will be known in terms of their Seinfeld character instead of their actual name). He's right on the money as the big goofy sidekick. They poke fun at some many conventions with this guy, I laughed out loud countless times.

The star, however, is of course David Spade, who besides starring on the vomit inducingly bad Just Shoot Me sitcom on NBC (god bless Tivo) hasn't been doing much since Chris Farley died. Fortunately the writers apparently gave him room to read funny lines, but also improvise. Not since Robin William's Genie have I seen an actor more accurately have their comedy animated by Disney. Then again, if you loath Spade's whiney sarcastic stand up, you're gonna hate this movie.

The animation is really quite good, although during the Emperor's stint as a llama, he's very disturbing. They handled him well, but man, with that long neck and that stretched out face and Spade's voice, well, it's a crazy creature.

It looks to me also that Disney shaved the budget down to nothing compared to other recent theater outings. The special effects in this film are virtually nil. No wild panarama shots. No amazing CGI. I mean, the fx are there, but they are relatively subtle, and never jaw-droppingly impressive.

And the music: What's a Disney movie without a rousing musical soundtrack? Well, I guess its Groove. It isn't a musical. Tarzan was different as far as musicals go, but it did feature a great soundtrack (despite winning a grammy against South Park which frankly pushed the envelope much more entertainingly the little old Phil "I wish I was Peter Gabriel" Collins ever could have). Groove does have a reasonably cute Tom Jones Disco bookend, but its nothing that you'll leave be talking about when you leave the theater. And my last comment on sound, usually I see movies like this in a theater with a good sound system, but I caught this one at the local Holland 7, which boasts a sound system with approximately the same fidelity as a realaudio porno stream. So take this with a grain of salt: I thought the sound was lame. The voice acting was nice, and the surround sound was used nicely, but the music and sound effects never just got into your skin like Mermaid, Beast, Aladdin, Lion King, Hunchback, Hercules, and Tarzan did. It's flat. Then again, when the DVD is released I'll watch it on my home system and maybe rethink this judgement.

I'll leave the story summary short, because if you're still reading, you'll probably wanted to see the movie before you started reading my little review ;) Spade is the spoiled brat emperor. He wants to build his new summer home on a Peasants hill (played blandly by John Goodman). He runs amuck with his evil Jafar/Cruella advisor and is transformed into a llama. Thanks to Hercules style sidekick incompetance he accidentally ends up with the Peasant, and must work through his spoiled nature, turn himself back into a human, and reclaim his thrown.

As you might have noticed, there are so many pre-fabbed molds used in this movie that you might have expected me to hate it. But I didn't. The comedy is the fastest of any disney movie ever (even exceeding Aladdin which dragged until the Genie came along). The pacing is obviously designed for children, with major jokes and changes occuring constantly. It always feels rushed ... but it never gets boring.

If you like silly animated adventures, or just need a movie to take a kid to, this will do nicely.