A request from your fellow blogger: Worksafe Anime Wallpaper

There are a ton of people at work with Aegis-related stuff in their cubicles. They’ll probably think that I’m on crack if I tell them that bubbles and foam can take down the USS Arleigh Burke. The one thing I don’t understand from that Geass episode is why they used so many DDGs in such a tight formation. You’d think Britannia would only need about a few in a loose formation with a backup group (especially since the Britannian DDGs look like USN’s DDG-1000 with the technology). Sigh. I guess the USN > the Britannian Navy when it comes to search and detect ASW technology.

Once again, my work consumed most of my time these past few weeks as we scramble to get more testing done. And once again, work has taken time away from anime watching (let alone blogging). I’ve been so out of the loop with the spring season set (Geass R2 and Vampire Knight being the only two shows I’m following consistently). I can’t even remember where I left off from some of the older shows I was watching (with my myanimelist being outdated). With the summer season looming around the corner, hopefully I can get back to watching regularly.

Today, instead of the normal anime thesis post (I don’t have any anime technology designs in my head right now), I’m putting a callout for another “What is a good anime wallpaper?” discussion. In this case, I’m asking: “What is a good methodology for an anime wallpaper for your work computer?” I would like to have some anime wallpaper for my work laptop screen which is somewhat reflective of my anime fandom (I run dual screens with the company logo on my monitor screen). I don’t care for any mainstream anime wallpaper (Naruto, Bleach, Deathnote, etc.). I had put up wallpapers of sola and Clannad before.

Moe Computing Research Center (MCRC) - Tsundere Computer Development

If all of the science and engineering research assistants look as cute as Otome, then everyone would be doing research and we’d have military grade combat mecha by now (or we’d get no work done). Sigh. Such is the unfortunate state of being an engineering and science nerd.

Recently at work, my project has entered another stage of testing. What made this development version interesting was some of the new integration components. Testing of some of these new components requires cooperation with other software programs within the system. This is fine for most systems. But when dealing with the redundancy requirements for a military grade system, both the system and software engineers have to pay special attention to the various states of each computer component in the system. Knowing the possible conditions of the computer component and its connected counterparts makes diagnosing problems in the system easier.

My mind sorta stayed in that mindset in the past few weeks and when I read tjhan’s attempt at tsundere mathematical modeling. After looking at one of the best math graphs I’ve ever seen, one idea popped into my head: I can model the same thing using my short professional career as a systems engineer. Designing the tsundere computer system is what I will discuss today.

Random Thoughts - a crunchy roll, a virtual girlfriend, a virtual oscar, etc…

“I’m back… muhahahahahahaha…”

Hello everyone. I apologize for my rather lengthy disappearance from blogging. I once again blame this mostly on work (right now we’re understaffed on engineers so they basically tossed the entry-level engineer into the deep end and said “swim”). I’m actually quite happy that there was some content on this site while I was away especially since I’m not the only one pressed for time. UPenn is closing on their finals so bro (chigaimasu) is pretty swamped for the next few weeks. As for sis (kame-chan), I’ll explain her situation a bit later.

Instead of the usual multi-page long theses I tend to write here, I’m just going to blurt out the random thoughts in my head today. It’s not because I have nothing to say (there’s about 15+ drafts between all the writers sitting on the dashboard). I just don’t have the time this week to really analyze stuff like I normally do. So here’s the random bits of stuff floating about in my head today.

A quick reflection on life and anime

Being a psuedo-student of Catholic theology back in college (I say psuedo-student because perusing a minor undergraduate concentration doesn’t make you a full student), one of courses I decided to take senior year was a course on “Death and Dying”. The course was taught by the theology department chair and he certainly expected plenty from us in the course. What I liked about the class was the comprehensive nature of the course content. We covered things like the psychology of the death and the study of death in a comparative religion aspect. And while we did end up covering death in a Christian context, it was the comprehensive nature of the course that kept me interested. It was one of the few courses outside my major where I still remember most of the concepts off the top of my head. Unfortunately, it was also during that semester where I learned the most about death outside of class.

On the Sakura Fatalism in Five Centimeters per Second

More reminders of work… data on the computer screen, books all over the desk and the good ol’ morning coffee. The one thing that stands out in this scene: The lucky boy has a window desk! I want a window desk. Stupid cubicle walls.

So I finally got a DVD copy of Five Centimeters per Second. I saw it in my local Best Buy coming home from work and I thought “What the heck, I’ll buy it now.” (I’ve been waiting until RightStuf finally restocks and ships my order which still hasn’t happened yet.) This past Wednesday night, I watched with sis while cleaning up the kitchen (in English dub because I can’t multitask very well while watching subtitles). Anyway, I had seen the first part on fansub and now I’ve finally saw the whole thing.

The speed of falling in love

I’ll start off by saying the same thing everyone else has said about the movie: “ZOMG THIS MOVIE IS SO BLEEPING BEAUTIFUL!” On a more serious note, the visuals are truly stunning. The backgrounds are just so lush with detail and some of the lighting effects are brilliant. There are times when there are no characters drawn on the screen where the scene is so detailed that it may easily be mistaken for a real life location. I’m actually quite happy that I waited until the R1 DVD came out (because watching in 56” rear projection awesomeness is worth the release wait). Five Centimeters certainly lives up the billing as one of anime’s visual masterpieces.

I have one small beef with the movie: In the end, I feel like I could not attach myself too much to Takaki. Yeah, I did feel bad for him and the movie as a whole does a solid job emphasizing moments of personal emotion. However, the movie could have done more to construct a foundation for this released emotion.