Wow, how to start…I guess for starters I should note that while the raw for the fifth episode has been released, I have not actually watched it for fear of biasing my “first impression” of this episode.

This episode’s art sucked hard. Things seemed to have improved slightly by the conclusion of the third episode, but this episode was just packed with crappy art all the way through. A few acceptable faces were drawn here and there, but for the most part, it was bad on the eyes.

This episode’s brief fight scene was also kind of…what? I find it rather sad over how utterly incompetent Nanoha was during the training session. Even if her abilities were restricted due to her rank having been docked, I still find it a bit ridiculous as to how she could just allow Caro and Erio to stand by idly charging up for an attack. I mean, it’s not like they were hidden or anything, they were standing right there behind her! How hard is it to direct those little pink balls of light in their direction?

All bets and complaints are off next episode though (I hope), since it looks like it’s going to be packed full with action (although, regrettably, it seems to be concentrated on Erio and Caro). I’m not particularly complaining about the lack of “real” fighting, really. With the episode count in the twenties, the current pacing has been just fine in my opinion. None of the episodes so far has been “filler” episodes like some of the earlier ones that from the first season, so that’s always a plus. Art quality can always be fixed in the DVD releases as many instances have been in the previous two season’s releases, so I’m not too worried that.

The code was pretty straightforward, really. Some stuff had to be hacked up here and there, but it works.

As you can tell by the windows being drawn, the left picture was taken on Windows XP and the one on the right is on Linux.

While only two devices are being linked here, the code actually allows an infinite number of devices to be interconnected. Naturally, there will be problems with data replication and synchronization here if multiple people try to set a value to a cell (be it the same one or a different one), but whatever.

Or has there been others? Regardless of whether other anime series has pulled this feat before, this is still really rather odd. Here, take a look at these two items in question. Yes, of course I know it’s in Japanese, but just scroll down and take a look at those prices.

What’s that? Is that a five digit number? Why yes, it looks like it says ¥60,000. For your information, sixty thousand yen roughly converts to about five hundred US dollars.

Yeah, that’s right, you heard me, I said 500 USD.

From my understanding, the specifications of this DVD set are as follows:

• all five DVDs (I believe it notes that the other DVDs will be shipped as the regular DVDs are released)
• A3 sized (297 x 420 mm, 11.69 x 16.54 in.) risograph (available in Matsuri or Aono versions), signed by Naru Nanao herself with a specific serial number, and no you can’t pick your serial number
• special telephone cards with the DVDs (in risograph form again, I believe it says?)

With five DVDs in this deal, they’re essentially asking for a hundred US dollars a pop. I think Naru Nanao’s art is great too, but I don’t know if an A3 sized and signed risograph is enough to make too many people fork out that kind of money.

How well will this sell? It’s a tough call, really. This is really a big problem I have with the Japanese releases of anime series, the timing is just plain bad. How can anyone be willing to lay down five hundred dollars when the series isn’t even over? Dude, you’re airing episode four tomorrow and you’re taking orders already? What if the ending sucks?

The first DVD ships on June 22nd right when episode 12 airs, which, according to Wikipedia, will be the last episode. This “barely” works out for shows that runs for one season but not for anything else, really. Okay, so you watch the last episode and cry manly tears on the last episode and head over to Amazon.co.jp to lay down your order but oh, of course, you can’t get the first presses / limited editions because all those psychic people that knew about the awesome ending already ordered it preemptively. Come on man, this is just low.

Building on top of Wayne and Chris’s work, everyone’s favourite mathematics puzzle (or not, because I don’t think any of my readers gives a damn about sudoku) can soon be solved on your own embedded device!

More to come tomorrow as I attempt to synchronize it up with my notebook via UW’s wireless services.

Well, the ECON 102 marks have finally gone up, so I finally have all of my grades from this term at my disposal. Of course, these are “unofficial” grades, but I don’t think mine have ever changed after they became “official”. Whatever, if they do I’ll blog again then. I’ve always been pretty open about my grades minus my 2A ones since they were real bad. I find it an “important” process to publicly post my grades so that people are well aware of what to expect when they take the course, in a way.

• ACTSCI 221 - 67 - I didn’t know anything going into this final. This course was basically MSCI 261…but easier…which of course is no help because I was utterly clueless about MSCI 261 (along with most of 2A). I finished the final in about half the time and just upped and left. It gave me a feeling that I was underestimating the questions (naturally), but it really was that easy.
• ANTH 102 - 60 - Wow, this final was hard. Like…really hard. He threw more curveballs on the final than he did on the midterm. I got around the 68 area on the midterm, I think it was (it being worth 40% of the final grade). He asks really specific questions. Watch out if you’re considering this one.
• ECON 102 - 64 - With two midterms worth 20% each scoring 18/26 and 28/36 respectively, I needed ike a 31% or a 32% to pass the course. I guess I pulled through. After my first run of the final, I think I filled in sixty bubbles (out of a hundred). There was no math on the final, so it wasn’t bad at all. The last thirty questions or so was really easy since it was pretty much all memorization, something I am very good at since I can remember spoken words after only hearing them once. Case in point, back when I performed in plays back in grades five and six, I literally knew everyone’s lines because I heard them so often.
• MATH 125 - 61 - I thought I did quite well on the final, but I suppose not. I don’t really have much to say about this course, it was essentially like MATH 115, so I didn’t really pay much attention. I guess I should’ve. ;) I failed one quiz but he drops the lowest one and takes the other five out of the six attempted, so in essence, I passed them all, har har.
• STV 205 - 70 - This course sucked hard. The final was tough though…or maybe not, if I got a seventy on the course. I lost five percent from the get-go per se (because I skipped one lecture/discussion for the Extreme Blue thingamajig they were doing in the DC fish bowl), but I guess that wasn’t enough to not make this lame course my highest grade for this term.

My average comes out to be a 64.40%. That is all for now, good bye.

Generally, before you look or ask for help, you will whine and complain about it verbally to anyone that is near you or to yourself. I did a bit of that before proceeding to examine the source code itself directly to try and discover the cause for my problem. I did not from the get go because eRCP does not bundle source plug-ins with their SDK downloads. Thus, I actually had to check this code out from CVS.

And behold, look what I’ve found!

public void setAlpha(int alpha) {
        // do nothing, not supported for win or ppc
}

No wonder my GC doesn’t support transparency, code like this just might do it. It would’ve been nice if there was something in the javadocs, though, since SWT is advertised as being a “cross-platform widget toolkit”.

Next to shampoo-and-conditioner 2-in-1, the JDT classpath container is arguably the best invention of the last 100 years.
-Wassim Melhem, PDE Lead

Fact or fiction? Let’s hope bug 182537 gets resolved soon as someone popped into #eclipse today inquiring about bug 109137 today. Given Wassim’s comment, would it be possible for this to make it into 3.3 before the end of June? If the JDT team wants to beat companies like Pert Plus (my personal shampoo of choice) and Head & Shoulders and show that they are the number one invention of the last century, they better get on it.

Well, they certainly cut backed on the tension and seriousness in this episode. They threw in a couple of cute little moments and lots of good laughs in this one instead. Like StrikerS, it seems it’s hit the budget wall as I noticed some dips in the art quality here and there although it was nowhere near as great of a drop as StrikerS.

In this episode, it is revealed to us that Aono has been sick since she was little (or maybe that was revealed in a previous episode and I just missed it). At any rate, this begs the question of whether my first theory about “what” she is from my review of the second episode holds or not. If it still holds, I guess she must be a new one that was picked off of the streets or something. Could she be weak because she’s still young? In the manga, we learn that Matsuri is actually 350 years old, so that might be it. There are enough possibilities about what her true nature is to make my head spin. I just hope it’s not going to be any of the ones I’m going to come up with as the series progresses because then the shock value would not be as great.

I’ve kind of watched this episode twice (well, when doing reviews I give it one run and then another run to take the screenshots, although not in its entirety literally since I sometimes skip a bit) and it still bothers me as to how easy it was for Mana to accept and allow Matsuri to live at Yorito’s place. Maybe she will come to regret this decision in the future if Koyori somehow gets involved and subsequently dies or is injured badly? Oh, this could get very good. ;)

Not much to say, really, since the title of this blog entry says it all and I’m sure you guys aren’t blind to that image that’s on the right hand side. If you’re reading this from an rss feed, you can follow the link here instead. I’m not going to keep a backlog and will just rotate the file directly as I go, if you want something just tell me since I keep all my walls. All walls will be in PNG format to preserve the quality, make your own JPGs if you got a problem with that.

Well, there wasn’t much of a fight really, but I liked what little of it there was. It was naturally not as awesome as the final battle in 『トロイメント』 (although surprise, surprise, NOMAD is responsible for the animation of sola and 『ローゼンメイデン』), but it sufficed. I have to say that I found it a bit odd that Matsuri had enough strength to jump on out of the church but she was somehow utterly incapable of even leaving the premises, merely sitting at a corner panting for her life. That was…well…badly played. It’s certainly different from the events of the manga. Given the differences that was present between 『ローゼンメイデン』’s manga and its anime adaptation, I guess I shouldn’t be expecting sola’s adaptation to follow the events of the manga?

Nothing has been revealed yet about our mysterious Rei clone, Aono, but it seems pretty obvious that she appears to know something about Matsuri and/or her pursuers. I think once her ailment has been revealed, a lot will be answered. I can see two possibilities here. Either she is a) a being like Matsuri, a yakabito, or b) is in her current state because of Matsuri or someone like her. If she’s the former, that means we might get our classic “I am not actually your sister and I secretly harbour feelings for you” stereotype, which would be a disappointment, to say the least, unless they execute it properly (there are always exceptions and I think I’ve been quoting this clause a lot).

Unfortunately, with no real previews, I really have nothing to go by as to what to expect from the next episode. As aforementioned on my review of the first episode, it’s possible that nothing exciting is going to happen until the very end, but let’s hope that it doesn’t have to come to that.