Momoiro Clover Z vs Kiss

It's actually pretty good. But who (I say who) had the idea for it? That person is extremely warped.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at 06:54 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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There have been multiple attacks in Paris. Two suicide bombers, and one man with a fully automatic rifle attacking a bar, are the early reports. It's possible it isn't over, and there may be other attacks.

Usually when this happens, even before the smoke clears, some high-ranked government official will say, "We don't know what happened but we're absolutely certain it has nothing to do with Terrorism or Islam. Absolutely no Islamic Terrorism here, folks. Don't worry! Be Happy!"

I wonder if that will happen this time. When suicide bombers are involved it's kind of hard to avoid the truth, but even when it's blatantly obvious what's going on those kinds of announcements still happen.

UPDATE: Fog of war and all that, but most reports now say at least 18 dead. The attackers (the ones who were shooting) were using AK-47's, the freedom fighter's weapon of choice.

UPDATE: At least one case of hostages.

UPDATE: Ding Ding Ding we have a winner!

Global security firm Flashpoint Intelligence said Friday that it had not seen any terror-related claims in the immediate aftermath of the string of violence. "We're definitely not seeing any claim from any group, we're not seeing any claim of response from any individuals," and there is very little chatter online, Laith Alkhouri, director of research and analysis for Middle East and North Africa for Flashpoint, said on MSNBC.

UPDATE: Some reports now are 60 dead, but we won't really know for sure until all the combat has ended and there's time to count the corpses.

However, this is the most impressive attack since Mumbai. Reportedly one of them has been captured. How much you want to be the French Police are not worrying about his civil rights or any "emerging international law" regarding forceful questioning? (Those rules only apply to the US, of course.)

I'm sure he's already having a very entertaining time.

UPDATE: It's now reported that the theater wasn't really a "hostage" situation. Rather it was "capturing lots of targets". The attackers murdered a lot of the poeple they captured and if the police hadn't stormed the place they probably would have killed them all. Some reports now are that upwards of a hundred of them were executed.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at 02:01 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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For whatever it's worth, today is the third anniversary of my stroke.

It could have been worse. If the chunk of whatever had zigged instead of zagged, it might have killed me, or rendered me an idiot. (More of an idiot than I already am.)

Instead it left me partially paralyzed on my left side but had no direct effect on my mind. Rehab got most of that back, so, like I said it could have been worse.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 05:46 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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Use it in good health!

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 02:44 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I run Windows Update on my HP tablet first before I let it get anywhere near any of my computers that I care about. That's because I want to make sure that each new batch of patches doesn't brick my real computers.

It may have happened today. I just finished running the update, and the tablet was doing the restart, and now the screen is flashing, alternating between black and the Windows login backdrop.

I'm going to let it run like that for a couple of hours before I try shutting it down and starting it again, but I have a feeling it's toast.

And I won't be updating any of my other computers for a few days.

UPDATE: Well, I gave it one hour, and then tried to reboot it, and when it came back up it did the same thing. It appears to have been something trying to run during the reboot.

I plugged in my USB keyboard and managed to get it into safe mode, and now I'm doing a system restore to a save point from a week ago. Here's hoping...

UPDATE: And it's back! (Whew!)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Computers at 12:00 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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There's a stretch of fifteen or so episodes in the new season where they decided to save money on the EDs by scanning over still pictures. 12 of them are good looking women, so I thought they'd make a good cheesecake post.

Princess Jade

Juvia

Levy. She's the only woman in the guild who doesn't have breasts the size of cantelope.

I'm not sure who this is. It' s not Lisanna because Lisanna's hair is short. It's not Mirajane because she doesn't have the hair tuft. And no one else I can think of has hair that color.
UPDATE: I think it's supposed to be Mirajane, with her hair down.

That's Kagura from Mermaid Heel.

Millianna, also from Mermaid Heel.

Yukino, Sabertooth

Jenny, Blue Pegasus

Lucy, of course.

Erza

Wendy and Charl

Flare (along with Lucy, Wendy, and Erza). By this point in the series she isn't part of any guild. (She was in Raven Tail.)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Cheesecake at 08:15 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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A long time ago someone asked a philosopher a question, and his response was "That question is a meaningless noise." The point being it was a string of words which didn't make any sense.

A lot of science fiction double-talk is meaningless noise. I've run into a few lately. One was "temperatures below absolute zero". Temperature is a measure of the amount of randomized kinetic energy possessed by the atoms in a mass. If it's a gas, that resuts in pressure on the container. At Absolute Zero, there is no energy at all; the atoms stop moving and the pressure is zero. How can there be anything less than that? It would require negative energy which is another meaningless noise.

Another was "anti-graviton". Three of the four forces have now been united, the triumph of modern physics. The Electric Force, the Strong Force, and the Weak Force are all mediated by particles, respectively the photon, the gluon, and the weak vector bosun.

Physicists would really really like to make gravity fit into the same model, with a hypothesized "graviton" being the mediating particle. But in the only theory of gravity we have, General Relativity, gravity isn't actually a force. It's a side effect of non-Euclidian distortion of space time caused by the presence of mass.

In other words, there is no such thing as a graviton. Anyway, the mediating particles for the three forces don't have anti-particles, so even if there is such a thing as a graviton, why would it have one?

I myself made up one a long time ago: polarized sound. See, thing is, sound is a longitudinal wave, and you can't polarize longitudinal waves. (Light, by contrast, is a transverse wave and those polarize nicely.)

It ain't a term, but ice power (e.g. Gray in Fairy Tail) has always bothered me. Cold isn't a thing, it's the absence of a thing. To warm something up (Natsu) you add energy to it. All well and good. Making heat is not only completely acceptable, it's impossible to avoid at least some of that happening. (See the Second Law of Thermodynamics.) But freezing something means draining energy out of it. Where is that energy going?

The usual handwave is, "Well, it isn't our universe so our physical laws don't apply." Yeah, right. Or if not that, then "Shut up and look at the boobs, you nerd."

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Engineer's Disease at 11:41 AM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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1 The boobs will wait, so we can nerd out in the meantime.

If you've got magic that facilitates the transfer of energy, then adding heat (generating fire) isn't fundamentally different from removing it (generating ice, though of course there's more to ice than just the cold). You're taking energy from one place (wherever the magic comes from?) and moving it to another place. It doesn't even necessarily have to violate the conservation of energy, though it's not like most magic in the show holds to that principle anyway.

It may even be easier to move the energy in that direction. Grey can make a LOT of ice and has very fine control over it; Natsu has plenty of oomph but still can generate fire only in limited ways.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at November 08, 2015 12:29 PM (v29Tn)

2 Yeah, with most of the universe at a few degrees K above absolute zero, freezing things ought to be easier than heating them, if you can just create a link capable of transferring heat. Producing heat would require directing that link to someplace hot, which is much less of the mass of the universe, and a tiny, tiny fraction of the volume.
"and the weak vector bosun."
It's a naval force.

Posted by: Brett Bellmore at November 08, 2015 12:49 PM (l55xw)

3 Clearly the energy goes into the destruction of their clothes.

Posted by: Wonderduck at November 08, 2015 05:32 PM (a12rG)

4 The ice magic sucks the energy into the same pool that fire magic draws from, of course.  Humans might be net heat creators, but we're only good for 75 watts or so.

Now I'm imagining a story where the "good guys" and their deities have a secret, vested interest in letting the "bad guys" exist, because they need the users of death & destruction magic to keep the mana in balance, so they can keep using healing & creation magic.  (I would be unsurprised to find out that someone has written a world like that already.)

Posted by: Mikeski at November 08, 2015 11:01 PM (hAtXl)

5 Yep, it's been done.  Although it's termed Chaos, it's pretty evil in that world. 

Posted by: ubu at November 09, 2015 11:14 AM (SlLGE)

6 The problem I've always had with Gray's magic is how he does damage to people by momentarily freezing people, and then breaking the ice he's encased them in. I mean, I can see how a giant ice hammer hitting you in the head might hurt, but why would I take damage from being frozen for a second or so?

Posted by: Jordi Vermeulen at November 09, 2015 12:42 PM (9BWts)

7 So if they grab magic from this certain place and dump remainders like heat or cold there, it must have a lot of angry citizens.

It's like Leprechauns watching the pots of gold disappear and getting heat, cold, wind and rain in place. "We have weather already, thank you. Stop taking our magic!"

Posted by: topmaker at November 09, 2015 04:03 PM (6stZH)

8 I suppose that depends on how deep he freezes you; A few seconds encased in ice at 0C, but with your own tissue's temperature only brought down by contact with it, probably wouldn't be too bad. A few seconds in contact with ice at -80C? Try whole body frostbite.
For that matter, suppose the cooling effect doesn't stop at your skin? Instant hypothermia, you could be almost completely incapacitated, and even die without prompt care. Just a few degrees would be enough to render you unconscious.
Likewise, raising an opponent's body temperature a mere 5 degrees C would almost instantly incapacitate them, and very quickly lead to brain damage unless reversed.
Really, when you're playing around with magical heating and cooling, and not littering the area with corpses, you're looking at something just as selective as the MCSA. Something that's heating and cooling inanimate objects, but very carefully NOT heating or cooling living flesh.

Posted by: Brett Bellmore at November 09, 2015 04:09 PM (l55xw)

9 Thinking about it, in a world where magic is part of the physics, maybe most living organisms have homeostatic control over internal magical effects, which is fairly difficult to overcome? That would also explain the MCSA; Direct magical attacks mostly don't effect living tissue!

Posted by: Brett Bellmore at November 09, 2015 05:50 PM (l55xw)

10 Hmm. I always thought the simplest way to freeze something with magic would be to induce a sudden, massive increase in localized entropy, which by the laws of thermodynamics would result in an equally abrupt lowering of the localized temperature to maintain equilibrium.
The way I worked out involved opening a portal to the bottom of the deepest trench in the ocean, and letting some of the hyperpressurized water spray through it into the terrestrial environment. The sudden pressure release would make gases trapped in the water vaporize, and the abrupt absorption of heat energy to enable the gases' expansion would chill the area to near or below the freezing point of water, most likely freezing the water itself into ice, and probably anything else nearby.
Anyone with more scientific knowledge than me care to speculate if such an act, were it possible, would in fact cause the spray of ice that I envision? I'm certainly not a physicist, and have no idea if there is some gap in my understanding that would result in a different effect, like a disappointing stream of very cold but not actually freezing water.

Posted by: Tatterdemalian at November 09, 2015 10:56 PM (4njWT)

11 I think your thermal effects are going to be swamped massively (and literally) by the pressure difference your portal is dealing with.  (All the following numbers are from The Internet, and therefore absolutely true.)  

A typical fire hose is rated for 200-500 psi.  You can use it for crowd control, pushing people around.

A typical water jet cutter is rated for 30,000-90,000 psi.  You can use it to cut things out of steel plates.

The bottom of the Marianas Trench is about 16,000 psi...

You won't be so much "coating people in ice" as "making instant Soylent Green."

The last thing you'll get is a "disappointing stream"...

Posted by: Mikeski at November 09, 2015 11:29 PM (hAtXl)

12 As expected, Randall has dealt with this situation.  A few times.

"[...] the pressure would easily be enough to fold it up and suck it through. Cooool."

Posted by: Mikeski at November 09, 2015 11:43 PM (hAtXl)

13 Dead catgirls everywhere... the horror, the horror...

Posted by: Wonderduck at November 10, 2015 06:35 PM (a12rG)

14 How do you suppose he disposes of all the dead catgirls?  It is really beavers who keep clogging up the creek behind his apartment complex?

Posted by: Siergen at November 11, 2015 01:09 PM (De/yN)

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Episode 1 introduced Hakone-chan, the kami of hot water in the Hakone region of Japan. She has been dormant for a-real-long-time and revives when Touya accidentally drops a steamed bun into the water around her shrine. And we also met Haruna-nee, the girl Touya is sweet on. (As far as her, he seems to be in the friend zone.) Which was about as much as you could reasonably pack into three minutes.

So what's been going on? It's up to ep 4, and it's turning into a travellogue for the Hakone spa area.

Haruna's family runs a fancy resort hotel which features hot spring baths. She decides that Hakone, Haruna herself, and Haruna's kid sister Aki should take a bath together.

Aki doesn't believe Hakone is really the hot spring spirit, so Hakone barfs out a bunch of special water.

And Haruna is amazed that it's glowing, and that it makes her skin feel so smooth.

That, by the way, is about the most fan-service shot in the first four episodes. It isn't much.

Haruna decides to let Hakone stay at her hotel, and that's episode 2.

Episode 3: Haruna is supposed to attend a meeting of the Neighborhood Association, which is being held in an outdoor kiosk, the next stop on our tour. Hakone decides to accompany her.

Hakone gets bored and almost falls asleep, so Haruna points out Hakoneko, the town mascot.

Hakone thinks it's a bakemono, so she attacks it.

And then she demonstrates her power by turning a fountain into a geyser, incidentally soaking Touya.

And in episode 4, she's been chosen to be a greeter at Hakoneyumoto train station, and not much important happens except that we get to see the place.

Can I have a collective snore?

To the extent that there is any kind of story here, it's "Hot Spring Spirit from Mars". She's been unconscious for a long time, and that gives us (them, the director) an excuse for touring the town. What it reminds me of is the Monty Python sketch about Icelandic sagas which gets hijacked into a tour of some town in England.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 08:49 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I am being spammed, for the first time since I required logins. This particular vermin has gotten himself an account here. And I can't figure out how to ban him.

I've already cleaned up here three times and I'm sure there will be more.

So until Pixy waves the magic wand and destroys his account, I'll be engaging in combat here. The reason I'm posting this is that it's entirely possible I'll fuck up when deleting the spams and will bag a legitimate comment from one of you.

If so, please forgive me. It won't be because I hate you and want you to go away. It'll be because I'm stupid and careless.

UPDATE: Crisis over.

UPDATE: Apparently not; the war continues. I wonder if the vermin has an unexpired cookie, even if his account has been cancelled, and thus still looks like he's logged in?

UPDATE: No further attacks. I think that was just the corpse twitching.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Site Stuff at 07:14 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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In San Jose, there is the Yuri Japanese Restaurant.

This needs investigating. Do we know anyone in San Jose?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in linky at 03:56 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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