Written by dizzywoodexplorersjournal on October 12, 2008 – 2:04 pm -

Found some interesting links. Actual Eames Cards...

I read a bit of the wikipedia page on Charles and Ray Eames the design team behind these cards.
The nostalgic feel of these kinda makes me wish I had found it earlier in my design process.

Though, I feel Elephants are a good choice after finding this next link.
A gathering of Eames elephants.

This is not, however, the noughties; this hero lacks limbs like noodles (he's much more of a proto-Mellowlink) and has a perfectly normal voice. Welcome to Fang of the Sun Dougram, which someone recently started subtitling. Our benefactor is obviously infected with divine and brilliant madness (it's seventy-five episodes long!), but as a fan of Flag, Gasaraki and VOTOMS I am just as obviously required to watch it. Even if that entails learning how to use .ass files.

Here's our Ragtag Band of Rebels^TM. The first episode enters the story midway (or in medias res, if you must), as they prepare to blow up a military supply train. (The word on /m/ is that one inspiration for the story and aesthetic was The Battle of Algiers.) Their greatest weapon is (of course) a prototype mecha, the Dougram.

As you can see, we're already in the post-Gundam territory of understated war machines. The Dougram and its fellow mecha are unwieldy beasts (in the second episode one is stopped by four soldiers with an anti-tank rifle), which helps to deflect accusations of ridiculous power imbalance but does lead to other familiar questions: if it's so vulnerable, why use it in the first place? I suspect the Rule of Cool is still in full effect. (And long may it remain so!)

The second episode goes back to the beginning of the business - yes, yes, ab ovo, I know - properly introducing the hero, Crinn, and sketching in some details of his political and familial surroundings. Earth has colonised some other planets and the colonials are definitely second-class citizens: immigrants to Earth are attacked by white-hooded gangs. (It would seem that in every age, in every place, the badges of bigots remain the same.)

Perhaps it's worth emphasising that this really is a big step back in time, as in the second episode Crinn still gets on with his father, and indeed his father isn't even a ruler yet. This suggests the staff were reasonably sure they'd have a decent number of episodes to work with, though Dougram doesn't - yet - have the just-as-planned air exuded by the four arcs of VOTOMS. Whatever the truth there, the temporal dislocation is already bearing fruit: I want to know how the affectionate, if slightly wild, son of the second episode became the doughty, Dougram-piloting desert rat of the first.

Dougram's story is deliberately paced, its political setting complex, its chronological organisation intriguing and its battles surprisingly intricate, if still filled with hapless enemy grunts. It also has considerable historical interest as the spiritual predecessor to VOTOMS and part of the 'real robot boom' - I prefer to think of it as an inexplicable interval of good taste - which is supposed to have filled the early eighties. And - unless Gundam 00 really pulls its finger out - Dougram's also the probably best mecha show I'm watching this season.

I shall write about the horrors of Saturday night sometime this week, as it was a surreal and depressing experience that I never want to repeat. But today, due to my brain-drained state, I sat about watching Clint Eastwood battle allcomers (including Klaus Kinski!) in For A Few Dollars More, an outstandingly entertaining western. Guns, drugs, moustaches - it's got it all. I cannot promote Sergio Leone enough.

Along with all this fevered media absorption, I've uploaded eight bars of something that I've been playing around with on the computer. It's not a song, it's only eight bars, and it's just something that I'll hopefully be able to incorporate into more things sometime. But if you still want to listen to it, you can. It has wormed its pitiful catchiness into my brain, and there it remains. More stuff as it's done. See you soon.

I wish I had discovered this note-taking system earlier, because it would've saved me SO MUCH time spent in front of the iMacs in my chemistry computer lab. Called the Cornell Method of note-taking, it emphasizes the section of your note pages to allow for note-taking, summary points, and cues in order to absorb and retain information. Lifehacker, my favorite site in the world, is where I discovered the technique and they have a great summary of how to use it: Geek to Live: Take study-worthy lecture notes.

My summary of the summary: You divide the paper into three sections. The largest section is where you write your notes, as detailed as you want. After the notes you write down review questions or statements in the side margin sections - these you can use when you want to quiz yourself. The last section located on the bottom of the page is used for you to write summary or main points of the page to jog your memory. It's a beautiful system of note-taking; I've been studying the chemistry section for about 3 weeks and despite working on benzene systems I still remember the section of thermodynamics. That is a feat, because I suck at chemistry. Ha!

So you MCAT studiers, take notes the Cornell Way. Go!

More links: Cornell Method - Custom PDF

Selección de páginas interesantes que traten de Virtua Fighter, en todas sus entregas y sabores.

Obviamente intentaré mantenerlo actualizado a medida que vaya descubriendo nuevas minas de oro de información.

• VFDC: La biblia de Virtua Fighter en inglés. Listas de movimientos, frames, guías para principiantes, y un foro lleno de información útil sobre todo lo que sea relacionado con VF.
• Goh Notes: Blog de Leonard McCoy. Repleto de artículos interesantes, tanto de opiniones del autor, como de información de frames y de clases de pesos, p. ej, de todos los personajes de VF, enfatizando obviamente en una lista de movimientos y combinaciones con notas personales de cada uno obviamente de Goh Hinogami. Los gráficos son TOP TIER.
• VF3 Miscellany: Un sitio ya abandonado, pero lleno de datos que quizás no conozcas sobre Virtua Fighter 3. Atento con el Korean Step!
• Virtua Dojo: Blog con hartos matches grabados de VF5R, así como de VF5. Tiene el soundtrack de VF5 online para disfrutar!
• Virtua Fighter Today: Otro blog, esta vez sueco, con información tan interesante como ilegible... Seguramente lo que más te puede interesar es el ranking mensual de popularidad de diferentes juegos en los salones arcade de Japón, que se publica 1 vez al mes.
• Virtua Fighter 5 SuperGuide: Blog tutorial para de MyCheats (de 1up.com), enfocado en jugadores novatos e intermedios en Virtua Fighter, acompañado de los famosos videos tutoriales de Srider. Lectura indispensable!
• Guía de Virtua Fighter 5 por IGN: Tutorial general de VF5. Se mencionan rápidamente todos los personajes, sus pros y contras e incluso algunos ataques útiles, pero atento! Algunas notaciones no están correctas - mejor confirma en VFDC!

Sitio muy muy en construcción!!!

Here's a humbling thought. If you are a christian. Your God, The Most High God, The creator of The Heavens and of the Earth and all their hosts. The Everlasting God, lives dwells in you. Your body is a Temple of God! The Spirit of God and ineed the fullness of God lives in you if you indeed know Christ, the Truth is in you. As many as are led by The Spirit of God they are sons of God. The Father sent His only Begotten, into the world to become a man and die for our sins and on the third day rise from the dead defeating death and glorifying God. The Word became flesh and He who was and is in The Son. The Holy Spirit of The Father, yes the Spirit of Christ lives in you!! The Father and the Son also live in you because God is One. 

That is incredibly humbling, because we do not deserve this privilege. We do not deserve God's kindness, nor do we deserve His mercy or Grace. He gives it because it is His will. The Everlasting God lives in you if indeed you have are Christ's. That said, we should be in awe of God and treat this service that He has called us to with fear and trembling. 

Ephesians 3:14-21

For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15from whom his whole family^[a] in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 20Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. 

Isaiah 66:1-2

This is what the LORD says:
       "Heaven is my throne,
       and the earth is my footstool.
       Where is the house you will build for me?
       Where will my resting place be? 2 Has not my hand made all these things,
       and so they came into being?"
       declares the LORD.
       "This is the one I esteem:
       he who is humble and contrite in spirit,
       and trembles at my word.

Remember we are a Royal Priesthood, a chosen race. Spiritual men, a new creation awaiting Glorification and also serving God with humility and contrite hearts. Praising God always with hands lifted up! The Most High God lives in us, He is the Life who lives in us, our new life! And we serve Him, praising The One who sits on His Throne and His Anointed One. Always praying and worshiping God in Spirit and in Truth.

1 Peter 2:1-12

1Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 2Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

The Living Stone and a Chosen People

 4As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him— 5you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6For in Scripture it says:
   ”See, I lay a stone in Zion,
      a chosen and precious cornerstone,
   and the one who trusts in him
      will never be put to shame.”^[a] 7Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,
   ”The stone the builders rejected
      has become the capstone,^[b]“^[c] 8and,
   ”A stone that causes men to stumble
      and a rock that makes them fall.”^[d] They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for.

 9But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

 11Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. 12Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

Grace and Peace