I think there is a more serious point to be made here.
While other minority groups (japanese/various asian/indians/bangladorians) are becoming well represented in the CS field, this has not cut over to the african american minority.
In my mind, affirmitive action has hurt this field because it gets people entry level jobs, without forcing them to learn the fundamentals, thus restricting them from rocking as a programer/sys-admin whatever.
We need more people with thoose kind of skills. Is it becaue people don't usually envision a african american programmer the reason why there are not alot? Or is it some other demographic trend?
Before we judge microsoft, lets find out what really happened. The amount asked for is extremly absurd, but adjusting the amount of money by a factor of 100 (5 million instead of 5 billion) is probibly in range. Each person probably walks away with 10x there salary.
This also brings into question when you can fire people. If you are afraid to fire a guy because of his ethnic minority status, they will never hire him in the first place.
I really doubt that CN is going to let Bebop thru. As it was, the best Bebop episodes (IMHO) did not even air in Japan due to timeslot considerations. Also, for the most part, the series we have seen so far have had typical "happy" endings. Several of these Animes do not.
Which is not to say that this is a bad thing per se. But...
The real question imho, is why someone has not yet picked up a series that is taylor made for America, plenty of explosions, slapstick humour, real plot and no nudity. Slayers.
(Rumour had it Slayers was picked up by SCI-Fi, but so far nothing).
Democracy in American 1850ish (don't rmeember exact year), Uncle Tom's cabin (about the same), The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (1900s) all had huge effects on governments.
What about the federalist papers? Mein Kampf....
The problem is, that people definition of "best of the millinium" is limited by their own life.
As much as I love LoTR (and I do), you are trying to tell me that certain books (the bible for instance) have not had a greater impact on world civilization then LoTR which "just" revitilized modern fantasy? (And even then, you can argue that Baum and Lewis were also critical to that).
Sorry, this offends my sensibilities a bit. What about books of chivilary, or UIncle tom's cabin?
Be sure to grab some themes at Netscape Theme Park, as well as here. I am using the new Orbit theme, and Sky Pilot. Both themes react very well, and make browsing a lot of fun.
These threads are severally begining to annoy me. NPR this morning had a german commentator ranting about how the "world" should vote for the US president. He argued that Europeans "care more" and are more cluefull. This is arrogant at best, eliteist at worst.
The President is ours. We are Americans, and the president is the symbolic American who makes sure that Congress does not over-reach. He is not a Prime Minister, something Europeans don't seem to grasp.
The President is not European, or Chinese, or Japanese, but American. We choose the president to govern us.
There are not Socialists in this country. Deal with it. The only reason Europe's economy didn't go to hell a couple of years ago, is because the US economy held. We are not Europe. American government was designed from the get-go to be as hands off as possible. Socialism and American doctrine rarely work.
By your logic (europe is socialist so Gore should be elected) we might as well elect Buchannen. After all, he will deal with the dictators in China/Iraq/Iran/etc better.
We are American's. Deal with it. Our political system is not yours, our views may not be yours. If we wanted to be European, thoose of us with European ancesstry would not have left.
As a staff member at NDK this year, I have to say "thanks" for the mention. The con was a blast this year (although I am still exhausted from the weekend)and many many thanks go out to our "other" guests as well.
Hiroki Hayashi of AIC. Co-creator of Tenchi, creator of El-Hazard and more directing credits.
Tanaka-san of AIC. Sound director for Rurouni Kenshin, Hand Maid May, etc.
Aro-sensei, manga-ka.....
ADV's announcement that they had taken the rights to Sailor Moon away from DIC was well-recieved.
Below are more details about Maho Yugi, Hayashi's new series.
First of all, for those of you who don't
want to bother to read the rest, here
are the highlights..
1) El Hazard is _done_. To quote Mr. Hayashi
(creator of El-Hazard). "Makoto goes back.....
that's it...they live happily ever after."
2) AIC is planning on a new Tenchi OVA,
(This probibly means that they are in the investor
stage right now) early next year. Hayashi-san
will not be involved with it, but he thought that
the other creator (Mr. Kajishima) might be.
3) Mr. Hayashi is working on a new Anime
entitled "Mahou Yugi" (Magical Play or Magical
Games). This anime loooks really really cool.
Partially this is because the entire Anime is
100% redered, and then CG-shaded. They can
do some pretty impresive shots that were never
possible w/ Cells (or at least, not very fesable.
Hayashi thought that they were about 6-9
months away from finishing it (not
neccessarily releasing it.)
Ok More details:
Mr. Hayashi and Mr. Kazuya Tanaka were invited
to NDK in colorado this year. I had the pleasure
of working with them for about 5 days for the con.
For the record, Both of them are just a blast to have
around. Mr. Hayashi is really laid back, a lot of fun
and very approachable. Mr. Tanaka is also a blast
to have around, and is very energetic ^.^
Hayashi-san directed Sol Bianca, Tenchi, El-Hazard,
Daiundokai, BGC2040 (as well as some of the original)
and more series then I can count. He also created some
of these series (Tenchi and El-Hazard in particular).
Tanaka-san did sound direction on anime's like the
new Sol Bianca, Rurouni Kenshin etc.
Hayashi-san speaks fairly good english.
Maho Yugi has to be seen (in motion) to believe.
Some of the animation stuff they can do is amazing,
and they come up with some shots that you never
think about when you are doing anime. The animation
is incredibly fluid, and while your mind knows that it
is CG, none of the usual problems (anti-aliasing,
"blurryness", etc) show up in the animation.
There was a AIC promo tape that had a high number
of series and remakes that I have never heard of before.
AIC has definitly returned to their original genre (Girls
w/ Guns) and there were two different new series that
just smaked of BGC.
ADV announced that they now had the rights to Sailor
Moon, and Sailor Moon R, not DIC.
Cowboy Bebop 25/26 aired at the con...... aiyaaaaaa.
...................i.c.a.n.t.s.a.y.a.n.y.t.h.i.n .g.m.o.r.e.o.r
...................i.w.o.u.l.d.s.p.o.i.l.y.o.u.
Mari Ijima was there, but I never had enough time to hit
her concerts...
I think that above does it.
Next year is going to be a blast. Find out more Here . Pre-registration forms are up.
Here is a bit more from my write up on the TenchiML (A fan group for the Series Tenchi Muyo
As someone who is both a Computer Scientist and History (and is getting degrees in both, and a honors thesis in History), the bad news is that the prospects at this moment are grim.....
The great news is that the prospects in 10 years will be great, esp with things like the NSA, Echelon, and other nice nasty things out there, they will increasinly play a role in history, and conversly, historians will have to know about CS to tell it as it is.
Unfortunitly, the typical definition of history is 25 years ago. This is just now hitting the Computer age. Give it a bit yet...
Ahh here we go again. I will try to throw in some stuff that mainstream anime fans have never heard off.
If you like Transformers and the Like, Macross Plus is a must. Awesome character dynamics, music, storyline and mecha. Parts of the prequel series to this, macross, was bastardizes mixed with other anime's and released as Robotcech.
Gundam is the other establishment Mecha anime. This series is the start trek of Japan.
For pure philosophical weirdness, Try Neon Genesis, Utena and Lain. The first is a mecha series, the second Shoujo (If any of you have just watched things like Dragon Ball, Tenchi and Ranma and have never seen Shoujo, you are missing half the story), the third is cyber-punk. All of these series will leave you with your head spinning.
For pure wackyness, I suggest Ranma 1/2, Tenchi Muyo, Urusai Yatsura, Dragon Half etc. These are usual Shonene fare.
If you want something really different,try shoujo, and you think anime is just about sex and violence, there is a entire branch of anime that has not really been released over here. Find a hard core anime fan and ask him about these. Fushigi Yuugi (although this is really a shonen series in disguise) is a classic, although the end leaves one wanting. Marmalade boy is the classic Shoujo series (so much your head hurts), Kodomo no Omacha is a coming of age story which oscillates between pure speed induced insanity and sudden moments of insane angst. If you watch this, watch all four of the first episodes. Ayashi no Ceres is new and excellent. I just watched the first episode of that. It is done by the creator of Fushigi Yuugi, and the animation is much better.
Love Hina and Excel Saga are two of the best commedies that I have seen lately. Excel Saga is absoultly insane. Weird and wacky for 23 episodes, and then one mega-episode of angst. ^.^ Love Hina is brand new, soap opery, but hey... I just like it.
If you like Tenchi, try Photon and Dual. Same guy created them, slapstick and funny.
I have to disagree with some of what is written here. I run a anime club at a university, and also am on staff with one of the Major Cons . This article, if written two years ago, probibly would be correct.
But the fact is that Anime is mainstreaming. It is liked just for it's plot (A lot of Anime fans also happen to like Robert Jordan, for example), character dynamics etc. That transceneded demographic groups.
When I first joined the anime club, it was around 8 guys and 1 girl. At the last meeting of last year we had 53 people, 24 of them female. There were probibly 10 students from the school of engr, the rest either from the school of arts and parties, granduated, or from local high schools.
Anime deals nicely with engrs, simply because engrs can keep track of complicated storylines (not to say that other don't... but the media sure thinks that their attension span is 15 seconds).
Simply put, people enjoy good storlines, with things that make you think, things that make you wonder (anyone here seen the Escaflowne movie yet?) and things that make you laugh (Dragon Half anyone?)
Look at Mozilla XPCOM for this. They are not that far away. Replace the usual RPC mechanism with SOAP, and you have something a bit bloated (not nearly as bad as CORBA tho) but completly open, and understandable.
It really does not matter what you use. If you use something like RDF or SOAP to handle the low level, you can use something very light wieght (XPCOM or perl namespace munging) to deal with the actuall calls.
CORBA is slow, overweight and has no policy. These are problems with it. DXPCOM would be my first choice, but it does not exist yet.
If I were to actually code this, I would probibly use XPCOM. I have enjoyed using it for the most part.
I agree 100% with what you wrote. This is something that concerns me a great deal in general. If Microsoft has their way with.NET there will be no room for Linux. So what are the biggest elements with.NET?
The ability to mix and match objects.
Fairly transparent object invocatation, and the ability to access your information anywhere.
What if we had some kind of system that stored everything in a browsable tree. Ie, any object could serialize itself to the tree, and anyone (provided they had access permisions) could access, store, read and run parts of the tree. Even more so, what if everyone could access their tree locally.
For example, In c++
umGeneric = new obj_from_tree("oft://objects.blah.com/World/object s/default_printer");
assert(obj_from_tree->isA("printer"));
printer->print(string);
Parts of the tree could be simple dictonaries (in java, or hash's in perl) that have configuration files etc.
Here is my point. It isn't just CORBA. Corba is a neat way to force applications to talk in a non-pointer determinate fashion. It's about the policy (that is what bonobo partially delevers).
There has to be a way that a system can serialize data, provide access control to serialized objects, and store thoose objects. This is what Linux is missing in a big way.
Componets are cool, but if we are going to add componets, lets add a constant model or policy, and flexability in. Let's also make it so that there is a common configuration interface, a block or object interface, and some heirchal or non-heirchal way of looking at it.
You are missing the point. CORBA does not implement policy, only a mechanism. This is policy on top of any object model you choose. That is why it is powerful.
The point is that there needs to be some sort of policy that is loose enough so that anyone can use and understand it, but rigid enough to enforce a metaphore that works and in understandable by non-computer-cluefull people.
The article is really good, but I think that he falls into the same trap as everyone else. What do I mean by that? He is creating another system to do componet level reuse when they should instead be focusing on a unifying policy. There are no less then four different object models at this point (Mozilla's XPCOM, Gnome's Bonobo, KDE's whatever their new name of the day is, and gnustep's ib).
Instead they should be looking at a unified policy. The reason that Linux will never rule the desktop the way things are is because Microsoft is simple. You want to change a setting for the system? Goto the control panels. Change a setting for a application goto options->preferences.
I am not saying that these are the options to use, but instead imagine the following. Envision something like the/proc filesystem called/options. If you want to change something, cat a new value into it. If you want to find out what something is set to, read the file. Include interpreters to map sendmail options into the tree (something like/options/senmail/rulesets/6) and someway to store that either by a translator or in XML.
Better yet, do it in RDF and let any arbitrary program write to the RDF tree like a filesystem. For example, a translator could map the filesystem into something like/World/Home. Options could be mapped into/World/Preferences/User or/World/Preferences/System). Persistantly write objects into somekind of back store by their Corba id or XPCOM id in/World/Objects/serialize/global or/World/Objects/serialize/local.
Use translators to set options for apache etc. Use mozilla or IExploder to set your configuration. You can probibly serialize objects into the RDF tree and bingo, you have poor-man's DCOM and object sharing. Wouldn't it be cool if you could write something like this in perl
#!/usr/local/perl5
use UnifiedModel::RDF
my $print = new RDFNode("/world/www.ahost.com/objects/default_prin t");
$print->isA("Printer") || die 'Could not Open\n';
$print->print($text);
Why should we do this? By having a loose policy implemented via RDF or something, we have a single simple policy for storing information and a powerfull way to share componets.
I am seriously considering coding something like this. Anyone else interested?
Really. He had a stand in there? Wow. I must have missed it. He was too busy complaining about the cockroaches, the police and everything else around him. If he was a protestor, he seemed to miss the fundamental point which is to raise awareness of issues.
In this case, given the way he treated everyone around him, I am not suprised that they snagged him. There is no excuse for treating other human beings without respect. Just because someone disagrees with your outlook on life does not mean that you instantly fall into cursing etc...
I feel real sorry for these guys. Protests are one things, whining is another.
Guys like this twit gives real causes that need help a bad rep. I will admit being conservitive and republican, but I have been cheering on the anti-WTO just as much as the next guy (who would have figured that both conservitives and radicals have issues with large multi-national power structures?).
On the other hand, it's all about the press for these guys. (It is always about the press to some degree, that's why you protest). But rather then press for some greater purpose, this is just a attempt for lime-light time. How do I know? Where in this article (which is being read by thousands of affluent americans) does the author even mention what he protesting. You don't protest to protest (you riot to riot), you protest to raise the social cost and awareness of issues.
On the other hand, this guy now has his 10 seconds of fame, gets to call policy various names (gee.. anyone else walk away feeling sorry for the police in this story). If I were them I would have simply hand cuffed him, read his rights and dealt with it later.
To badly quote Bush, So much talent to no great purpose.
>I I fully support you in telling us your opinion about GWB. Slashdot is read internationally, and I can tell you, GWB is seen as real freak from Europe.
That's just fine. The first American's were never part of Europse, and the USA brach of that particular insane asylum started leaving several hundred years ago. I have no issues with either canidate when Britan is doing it's thing w/ e-mail and france makes encryption illegal.
Personally, I happen to like that the fact that we have a government who's entire philosopy can be expressed in a simple document + a few admendments that does not get reviesed every ten years or constitute more pages then the remaining trees in South America.
If we are going to have a thread about politics, lets go ahead and have a article. However, to attach a political opinion on something unreleated (The protesters happened to be in Phil to demonstrate about their views, but the RNC do not control the politice, left the police and the protestors alone, and ran hospitality suites for the protestors) is a bit low and underhanded, and is "guilt by assocation". You might as well blame the fact that during the last democratic convetion the mayor sent all the poor packing out of the city.
I do think that people on Slashdot need to be more involved in the poltical proccess. There are good and serious debates both socially, the role of internation orginzations, the enviornment etc, as well as nationally (the role of China in the world, America's treaty obligations to taiwan), economically, finance reform, stock market etc.
Bush made a major political shift the other day, from conservitive to progressive. Read the pundit's editorials about it. It was interesting. Al gore needs to do something desperate to catch up on the 20pt lead Bush has.
All of these are important issues (and if there is a legit thread, I will be right in the middle of the frey) and should not be overlooked. But to post the political manner in the way it was posted was ir-responsible.
I was actually refereing to the character design and the lack of hair that resembles modern art. Blame that on sailor moon. Tenchi, of course, takes that to the ultimate extreme.
There are plenty of series that fit into what you are trying to see. While some anime quality has gone downhill (observe the sheer number of wacky ideas in Urusai Yatsura vs. Ranma 1/2) much of it is still awesome. Here are some I particullarly like.
1) Ghibili's work... I can hear the see, as well as the more traditional "Nauscaa, Mononoke, Laputa etc". These are great stories with fairly good animation. The character designs are not real extravagent, but in the post-sailor moon days that's probibly a good thing. They all tell a story (most of which I disagree with) but are excelent. This tends to be the man vs. nature themese that were so prevelant early on in the century.
2) Cowboy Bebop
Is a effort to tell stories about the greys. There arn't any hero's per se, but the story is a bit more day in the life. The artwork is excellent.
3) Gundam Wing.
(Don't scoff). Wing takes a long hard look at pacifism and war. It examines everything from the commonly held belief that war is needed to "refresh" civilization (Jefferson and Hitler both though this) to the idea that violence is never sanctioned.
4) Lain
Umm... good... evil? Not in this series. Not that there arn't absolutes, but rather that the story is about the melding of life with electronics. How people act, see the world, and commuincate are all very affected.
5) Rurouni Kenshin (Samurai X)
See the OVA's. From what you have written This may be the closest. It follows the Meiji Restoration (civil war) and also goes over themes like what I have mentioned above.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, there will be a new movie for Cowboy Bebop.
It will take between episodes 22/23. More Spike and the crew....
I think there is a more serious point to be made here.
While other minority groups (japanese/various asian/indians/bangladorians) are becoming well represented in the CS field, this has not cut over to the african american minority.
In my mind, affirmitive action has hurt this field because it gets people entry level jobs, without forcing them to learn the fundamentals, thus restricting them from rocking as a programer/sys-admin whatever.
We need more people with thoose kind of skills. Is it becaue people don't usually envision a african american programmer the reason why there are not alot? Or is it some other demographic trend?
Before we judge microsoft, lets find out what really happened. The amount asked for is extremly absurd, but adjusting the amount of money by a factor of 100 (5 million instead of 5 billion) is probibly in range. Each person probably walks away with 10x there salary.
This also brings into question when you can fire people. If you are afraid to fire a guy because of his ethnic minority status, they will never hire him in the first place.
I really doubt that CN is going to let Bebop thru. As it was, the best Bebop episodes (IMHO) did not even air in Japan due to timeslot considerations. Also, for the most part, the series we have seen so far have had typical "happy" endings. Several of these Animes do not.
Which is not to say that this is a bad thing per se. But...
The real question imho, is why someone has not yet picked up a series that is taylor made for America, plenty of explosions, slapstick humour, real plot and no nudity. Slayers.
(Rumour had it Slayers was picked up by SCI-Fi, but so far nothing).
Democracy in American 1850ish (don't rmeember exact year), Uncle Tom's cabin (about the same), The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (1900s) all had huge effects on governments.
What about the federalist papers? Mein Kampf....
The problem is, that people definition of "best of the millinium" is limited by their own life.
As much as I love LoTR (and I do), you are trying to tell me that certain books (the bible for instance) have not had a greater impact on world civilization then LoTR which "just" revitilized modern fantasy? (And even then, you can argue that Baum and Lewis were also critical to that).
Sorry, this offends my sensibilities a bit. What about books of chivilary, or UIncle tom's cabin?
Be sure to grab some themes at Netscape Theme Park, as well as here. I am using the new Orbit theme, and Sky Pilot. Both themes react very well, and make browsing a lot of fun.
Elections were , once upon a time, a larger holiday then Christmas in America.
This was pre civil war.
1) Check out the math on Bush's tax cut. The newest newsweek has a good breakdown.
1) Make less then 25k year a year? Your takes go from ~2,500 to ~700. That's pretty damn good for a tax cut that is a "gift to the rich".
2) The top 10% in america pay 1/3 of the taxes. Their take of the cut is about 1/5. This is 1/3 of the surplus.
Please don't quote Rhetoric.
These threads are severally begining to annoy me. NPR this morning had a german commentator ranting about how the "world" should vote for the US president. He argued that Europeans "care more" and are more cluefull. This is arrogant at best, eliteist at worst.
The President is ours. We are Americans, and the president is the symbolic American who makes sure that Congress does not over-reach. He is not a Prime Minister, something Europeans don't seem to grasp.
The President is not European, or Chinese, or Japanese, but American. We choose the president to govern us.
There are not Socialists in this country. Deal with it. The only reason Europe's economy didn't go to hell a couple of years ago, is because the US economy held. We are not Europe. American government was designed from the get-go to be as hands off as possible. Socialism and American doctrine rarely work.
By your logic (europe is socialist so Gore should be elected) we might as well elect Buchannen. After all, he will deal with the dictators in China/Iraq/Iran/etc better.
We are American's. Deal with it. Our political system is not yours, our views may not be yours. If we wanted to be European, thoose of us with European ancesstry would not have left.
Actually, I was on staff. If I remember correctly:
There were 45 cos-players with a SMOON outfit. Only one was male.
I don't know the stats, but it would not surprise me in the least if there were more women there then men!!!!!!!!!!!
Hiroki Hayashi of AIC. Co-creator of Tenchi, creator of El-Hazard and more directing credits.
Tanaka-san of AIC. Sound director for Rurouni Kenshin, Hand Maid May, etc.
Aro-sensei, manga-ka.....
n .g.m.o.r.e.o.r
ADV's announcement that they had taken the rights to Sailor Moon away from DIC was well-recieved.
Below are more details about Maho Yugi, Hayashi's new series.
First of all, for those of you who don't
want to bother to read the rest, here
are the highlights..
1) El Hazard is _done_. To quote Mr. Hayashi
(creator of El-Hazard). "Makoto goes back.....
that's it...they live happily ever after."
2) AIC is planning on a new Tenchi OVA,
(This probibly means that they are in the investor
stage right now) early next year. Hayashi-san
will not be involved with it, but he thought that
the other creator (Mr. Kajishima) might be.
3) Mr. Hayashi is working on a new Anime
entitled "Mahou Yugi" (Magical Play or Magical
Games). This anime loooks really really cool.
Partially this is because the entire Anime is
100% redered, and then CG-shaded. They can
do some pretty impresive shots that were never
possible w/ Cells (or at least, not very fesable.
Hayashi thought that they were about 6-9
months away from finishing it (not
neccessarily releasing it.)
Ok More details:
Mr. Hayashi and Mr. Kazuya Tanaka were invited
to NDK in colorado this year. I had the pleasure
of working with them for about 5 days for the con.
For the record, Both of them are just a blast to have
around. Mr. Hayashi is really laid back, a lot of fun
and very approachable. Mr. Tanaka is also a blast
to have around, and is very energetic ^.^
Hayashi-san directed Sol Bianca, Tenchi, El-Hazard,
Daiundokai, BGC2040 (as well as some of the original)
and more series then I can count. He also created some
of these series (Tenchi and El-Hazard in particular).
Tanaka-san did sound direction on anime's like the
new Sol Bianca, Rurouni Kenshin etc.
Hayashi-san speaks fairly good english.
Maho Yugi has to be seen (in motion) to believe.
Some of the animation stuff they can do is amazing,
and they come up with some shots that you never
think about when you are doing anime. The animation
is incredibly fluid, and while your mind knows that it
is CG, none of the usual problems (anti-aliasing,
"blurryness", etc) show up in the animation.
There was a AIC promo tape that had a high number
of series and remakes that I have never heard of before.
AIC has definitly returned to their original genre (Girls
w/ Guns) and there were two different new series that
just smaked of BGC.
ADV announced that they now had the rights to Sailor
Moon, and Sailor Moon R, not DIC.
Cowboy Bebop 25/26 aired at the con...... aiyaaaaaa.
...................i.c.a.n.t.s.a.y.a.n.y.t.h.i.
...................i.w.o.u.l.d.s.p.o.i.l.y.o.u.
Mari Ijima was there, but I never had enough time to hit
her concerts...
I think that above does it.
Next year is going to be a blast. Find out more Here . Pre-registration forms are up.
Here is a bit more from my write up on the TenchiML (A fan group for the Series Tenchi Muyo
As someone who is both a Computer Scientist and History (and is getting degrees in both, and a honors thesis in History), the bad news is that the prospects at this moment are grim.....
The great news is that the prospects in 10 years will be great, esp with things like the NSA, Echelon, and other nice nasty things out there, they will increasinly play a role in history, and conversly, historians will have to know about CS to tell it as it is.
Unfortunitly, the typical definition of history is 25 years ago. This is just now hitting the Computer age. Give it a bit yet...
Ahh here we go again. I will try to throw in some stuff that mainstream anime fans have never heard off.
If you like Transformers and the Like, Macross Plus is a must. Awesome character dynamics, music, storyline and mecha. Parts of the prequel series to this, macross, was bastardizes mixed with other anime's and released as Robotcech.
Gundam is the other establishment Mecha anime. This series is the start trek of Japan.
For pure philosophical weirdness, Try Neon Genesis, Utena and Lain. The first is a mecha series, the second Shoujo (If any of you have just watched things like Dragon Ball, Tenchi and Ranma and have never seen Shoujo, you are missing half the story), the third is cyber-punk. All of these series will leave you with your head spinning.
For pure wackyness, I suggest Ranma 1/2, Tenchi Muyo, Urusai Yatsura, Dragon Half etc. These are usual Shonene fare.
If you want something really different,try shoujo, and you think anime is just about sex and violence, there is a entire branch of anime that has not really been released over here. Find a hard core anime fan and ask him about these. Fushigi Yuugi (although this is really a shonen series in disguise) is a classic, although the end leaves one wanting. Marmalade boy is the classic Shoujo series (so much your head hurts), Kodomo no Omacha is a coming of age story which oscillates between pure speed induced insanity and sudden moments of insane angst. If you watch this, watch all four of the first episodes. Ayashi no Ceres is new and excellent. I just watched the first episode of that. It is done by the creator of Fushigi Yuugi, and the animation is much better.
Love Hina and Excel Saga are two of the best commedies that I have seen lately. Excel Saga is absoultly insane. Weird and wacky for 23 episodes, and then one mega-episode of angst. ^.^ Love Hina is brand new, soap opery, but hey... I just like it.
If you like Tenchi, try Photon and Dual. Same guy created them, slapstick and funny.
err. I think that is it.
I have to disagree with some of what is written here. I run a anime club at a university, and also am on staff with one of the Major Cons . This article, if written two years ago, probibly would be correct.
But the fact is that Anime is mainstreaming. It is liked just for it's plot (A lot of Anime fans also happen to like Robert Jordan, for example), character dynamics etc. That transceneded demographic groups.
When I first joined the anime club, it was around 8 guys and 1 girl. At the last meeting of last year we had 53 people, 24 of them female. There were probibly 10 students from the school of engr, the rest either from the school of arts and parties, granduated, or from local high schools.
Anime deals nicely with engrs, simply because engrs can keep track of complicated storylines (not to say that other don't... but the media sure thinks that their attension span is 15 seconds).
Simply put, people enjoy good storlines, with things that make you think, things that make you wonder (anyone here seen the Escaflowne movie yet?) and things that make you laugh (Dragon Half anyone?)
Look at Mozilla XPCOM for this. They are not that far away. Replace the usual RPC mechanism with SOAP, and you have something a bit bloated (not nearly as bad as CORBA tho) but completly open, and understandable.
I would love to do something like this.
It really does not matter what you use. If you use something like RDF or SOAP to handle the low level, you can use something very light wieght (XPCOM or perl namespace munging) to deal with the actuall calls.
CORBA is slow, overweight and has no policy. These are problems with it. DXPCOM would be my first choice, but it does not exist yet.
If I were to actually code this, I would probibly use XPCOM. I have enjoyed using it for the most part.
I agree 100% with what you wrote. This is something that concerns me a great deal in general. If Microsoft has their way with .NET there will be no room for Linux. So what are the biggest elements with .NET?
t s/default_printer");
The ability to mix and match objects.
Fairly transparent object invocatation, and the ability to access your information anywhere.
What if we had some kind of system that stored everything in a browsable tree. Ie, any object could serialize itself to the tree, and anyone (provided they had access permisions) could access, store, read and run parts of the tree. Even more so, what if everyone could access their tree locally.
For example, In c++
umGeneric = new obj_from_tree("oft://objects.blah.com/World/objec
assert(obj_from_tree->isA("printer"));
printer->print(string);
Parts of the tree could be simple dictonaries (in java, or hash's in perl) that have configuration files etc.
Sorry, but wouldn't this be cool?
Anyone interested?
Here is my point. It isn't just CORBA. Corba is a neat way to force applications to talk in a non-pointer determinate fashion. It's about the policy (that is what bonobo partially delevers).
There has to be a way that a system can serialize data, provide access control to serialized objects, and store thoose objects. This is what Linux is missing in a big way.
Componets are cool, but if we are going to add componets, lets add a constant model or policy, and flexability in. Let's also make it so that there is a common configuration interface, a block or object interface, and some heirchal or non-heirchal way of looking at it.
You are missing the point. CORBA does not implement policy, only a mechanism. This is policy on top of any object model you choose. That is why it is powerful.
The point is that there needs to be some sort of policy that is loose enough so that anyone can use and understand it, but rigid enough to enforce a metaphore that works and in understandable by non-computer-cluefull people.
The article is really good, but I think that he falls into the same trap as everyone else. What do I mean by that? He is creating another system to do componet level reuse when they should instead be focusing on a unifying policy. There are no less then four different object models at this point (Mozilla's XPCOM, Gnome's Bonobo, KDE's whatever their new name of the day is, and gnustep's ib).
/proc filesystem called /options. If you want to change something, cat a new value into it. If you want to find out what something is set to, read the file. Include interpreters to map sendmail options into the tree (something like /options/senmail/rulesets/6) and someway to store that either by a translator or in XML.
/World/Home. Options could be mapped into /World/Preferences/User or /World/Preferences/System). Persistantly write objects into somekind of back store by their Corba id or XPCOM id in /World/Objects/serialize/global or /World/Objects/serialize/local.
/usr/local/perl5
n t");
Instead they should be looking at a unified policy. The reason that Linux will never rule the desktop the way things are is because Microsoft is simple. You want to change a setting for the system? Goto the control panels. Change a setting for a application goto options->preferences.
I am not saying that these are the options to use, but instead imagine the following. Envision something like the
Better yet, do it in RDF and let any arbitrary program write to the RDF tree like a filesystem. For example, a translator could map the filesystem into something like
Use translators to set options for apache etc. Use mozilla or IExploder to set your configuration. You can probibly serialize objects into the RDF tree and bingo, you have poor-man's DCOM and object sharing. Wouldn't it be cool if you could write something like this in perl
#!
use UnifiedModel::RDF
my $print = new RDFNode("/world/www.ahost.com/objects/default_pri
$print->isA("Printer") || die 'Could not Open\n';
$print->print($text);
Why should we do this? By having a loose policy implemented via RDF or something, we have a single simple policy for storing information and a powerfull way to share componets.
I am seriously considering coding something like this. Anyone else interested?
Really. He had a stand in there? Wow. I must have missed it. He was too busy complaining about the cockroaches, the police and everything else around him. If he was a protestor, he seemed to miss the fundamental point which is to raise awareness of issues.
In this case, given the way he treated everyone around him, I am not suprised that they snagged him. There is no excuse for treating other human beings without respect. Just because someone disagrees with your outlook on life does not mean that you instantly fall into cursing etc...
I feel real sorry for these guys. Protests are one things, whining is another.
Guys like this twit gives real causes that need help a bad rep. I will admit being conservitive and republican, but I have been cheering on the anti-WTO just as much as the next guy (who would have figured that both conservitives and radicals have issues with large multi-national power structures?).
On the other hand, it's all about the press for these guys. (It is always about the press to some degree, that's why you protest). But rather then press for some greater purpose, this is just a attempt for lime-light time. How do I know? Where in this article (which is being read by thousands of affluent americans) does the author even mention what he protesting. You don't protest to protest (you riot to riot), you protest to raise the social cost and awareness of issues.
On the other hand, this guy now has his 10 seconds of fame, gets to call policy various names (gee.. anyone else walk away feeling sorry for the police in this story). If I were them I would have simply hand cuffed him, read his rights and dealt with it later.
To badly quote Bush, So much talent to no great purpose.
>I I fully support you in telling us your opinion about GWB. Slashdot is read internationally, and I can tell you, GWB is seen as real freak from Europe.
That's just fine. The first American's were never part of Europse, and the USA brach of that particular insane asylum started leaving several hundred years ago. I have no issues with either canidate when Britan is doing it's thing w/ e-mail and france makes encryption illegal.
Personally, I happen to like that the fact that we have a government who's entire philosopy can be expressed in a simple document + a few admendments that does not get reviesed every ten years or constitute more pages then the remaining trees in South America.
If we are going to have a thread about politics, lets go ahead and have a article. However, to attach a political opinion on something unreleated (The protesters happened to be in Phil to demonstrate about their views, but the RNC do not control the politice, left the police and the protestors alone, and ran hospitality suites for the protestors) is a bit low and underhanded, and is "guilt by assocation". You might as well blame the fact that during the last democratic convetion the mayor sent all the poor packing out of the city.
I do think that people on Slashdot need to be more involved in the poltical proccess. There are good and serious debates both socially, the role of internation orginzations, the enviornment etc, as well as nationally (the role of China in the world, America's treaty obligations to taiwan), economically, finance reform, stock market etc.
Bush made a major political shift the other day, from conservitive to progressive. Read the pundit's editorials about it. It was interesting. Al gore needs to do something desperate to catch up on the 20pt lead Bush has.
All of these are important issues (and if there is a legit thread, I will be right in the middle of the frey) and should not be overlooked. But to post the political manner in the way it was posted was ir-responsible.
I was actually refereing to the character design and the lack of hair that resembles modern art. Blame that on sailor moon. Tenchi, of course, takes that to the ultimate extreme.
There are plenty of series that fit into what you are trying to see. While some anime quality has gone downhill (observe the sheer number of wacky ideas in Urusai Yatsura vs. Ranma 1/2) much of it is still awesome. Here are some I particullarly like.
1) Ghibili's work... I can hear the see, as well as the more traditional "Nauscaa, Mononoke, Laputa etc". These are great stories with fairly good animation. The character designs are not real extravagent, but in the post-sailor moon days that's probibly a good thing. They all tell a story (most of which I disagree with) but are excelent. This tends to be the man vs. nature themese that were so prevelant early on in the century.
2) Cowboy Bebop
Is a effort to tell stories about the greys. There arn't any hero's per se, but the story is a bit more day in the life. The artwork is excellent.
3) Gundam Wing.
(Don't scoff). Wing takes a long hard look at pacifism and war. It examines everything from the commonly held belief that war is needed to "refresh" civilization (Jefferson and Hitler both though this) to the idea that violence is never sanctioned.
4) Lain
Umm... good... evil? Not in this series. Not that there arn't absolutes, but rather that the story is about the melding of life with electronics. How people act, see the world, and commuincate are all very affected.
5) Rurouni Kenshin (Samurai X)
See the OVA's. From what you have written This may be the closest. It follows the Meiji Restoration (civil war) and also goes over themes like what I have mentioned above.