pete's day

today’s post is dedicated to a very good friend of mine who is celebrating his birthday tomorrow – but i’m posting today because i don’t usually write on saturdays (not cause it’s shabbat, but because i don’t have access to the net).

i’ll try to describe this dude to those of you who don’t know him (he’s so going to hate me :p – haha, all his dark secrets will now be revealed *diabolic grin*). well, by trade he is a physicist, he’s doing his first year of master studies in solid state physics and he’s interested in particular in carbon nanotubes (he’s a ‘csoves’ like many others). he was gifted with a healthy dose of sense of humor, always a fun guy to have around. very dependable. lousy guide “come with me, i know a shortcut” (that was one hell of a shortcut, the romans must have had a more pleasant time climbing the serpents path to massada under enemy fire). an average cook. a mac guyver kind of guy – he can’t build an airplane out of paperclips and chocolate wrapper, but he can manage a submarine (although just a tiny one) out of a few plastic bottles. likes eating ice-cream in winter when it’s freezing outside and everybody is giving him weird looks (just like me). has read the guide. likes rpgs (role playing games, not rocket propelled grenades). loves idiotic humor magazines like ‘kreten’ (mee too). listens to rock music, but not the heavy stuff i like, though he enjoys some iron maiden and manowar songs. he plays magic (the card game). he has seen shin seiki evangelion (but not la blue girl). he almost finished dungeon crawl (omfg, he got the orb of zod!!). on the sci-fi/fantasy personality test he turned out to be g’kar (from b5). the had a t-shirt with candle jack on it. the (almost) speaks basic klingon. he likes lake of tears…and there would be a lot more to tell about him. he was my roommate for 3 years (i miss those days). i still have to beat him at quake or ut.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PETE !!

rainbow

somebody recently told me that it’s not important how many breaths you take during your lifetime; it’s the moments that leave you breathless that count.

well, i was feeling pretty down yesterday evening, after having missed the chance to buy a cheap fridge and having been soaked by the rain on my way home. it was just one of those days when nothing seems to fall into place. so i ate a cheap microwaved pizza and i was getting ready to go to sleep, when by chance i glimpsed out the window. and there it was: the most perfect rainbow i’ve ever seen! so i got off the bed to open the window and i was struck by the sweet smell of fresh rain (you know, that thing that makes you want to run across a field).

there i was , eating my chocolate dessert, leaning on the window frame, hearing the raindrops beat on the glass, enjoying the cool scent of the rain, listening to ‘shiroi kisetsu’ …and watching the rainbow… call me a romantic if you want, but this was one of those moments that are eternity.

needless to say that after this the entire day seemed somehow better. even if i wasn’t able to buy the fridge; who needs a fridge anyway, i’ll just get a ps2 instead :p

endi's blog

you should check out endi's blog 'britewitelite', it has some awesome pics on it. the link is in my sidebar. to the left --------->

klingons and dft

it is a little known fact that many klingons concern themselves with the study of dft. for those of you who don't know such trivial things: dft stands for 'density functional theory', a quantum mechanical method used in the investigation of many-body systems, which overcomes some of the shortcomings of the traditional hartree-fock method.

i've posted a pic of some klingon friends of mine who are interested in such studies (for those unfortunate souls who do not know me in person, i'm the fat guy in the middle). this really brings back sweet memories, like when claudiu and i were trying to learn some basic klingon phrases during molecular physics class, oh those were the days...

and finally, the tip of the day: never tell a klingon his mom had a smooth forehead, unless you're ready for a fight!

my league

i was cruising through the threads on 4chan (there is a comics and cosplay section now) and i found an interesting challenge launched by an anonymous user: do your own take on the league of extraordinary gentlemen; anything goes! (if you haven’t seen the movie yet, go watch it, sean connery stars in it). needless to say that this idea was much to my liking. my first list only featured heavyweights (the beyonder, galactus, unicron, cthulhu) but a team of immortal beings/gods is no fun at all. so here is my revised list, with caps i’ve listed the role that person fills in the group:

1. makarios (exalted – games of divinity) ARCANE SUPPLIES (you name it!) demon of the second circle, the warden soul of that which calls to the shadows, he is a merchant who will trade rare items for dreams (anybody’s dreams). having him on the team gives you access to all the 5-dot artifacts you ever wanted.

2. mr morden & co. (babylon 5) HIGH-TECH SUPPLIES (guns, ships, nukes..) mr morden is an arrogant human with no powers at all, but his employers, the shadows, have an entire fleet of starships and are powerful telepaths. just keep an eye on him, he probably has an agenda of his own. and remember, mr morden is never alone!

3. cable (marvel) WEAPONS EXPERT and TACTICAL ADVISOR he hails from the 40^th century and has spent his life fighting apocalypse, he excels in guerrilla warfare and is good with both conventional and futuristic weapons. did i mention that he is also a mutant?

4. the limper (the black company) SORCEROR and ARTIFICIER while there are many other magicians far more powerful than the limper (no, not harry potter) this guy just has attitude. and he CAN’T BE KILLED. trust me on this, he just keeps coming back (even after his head is cut off and his body is burned to ashes!!). and he can bring toadkiller dog if you want a canine friend on the team.

5. lupin the 3^rd (lupin iii) THIEF (theft, infiltration, sabotage) this guy is the grand-daddy of them all. masterthief garett and solid snake just pale in comparison. and he also has two trusty friends (jigen and goemon)

6. reverend mother gaius helen mohiam (dune -1984 movie) INTERROGATOR should the team ever take prisoners that need to be questioned/tortured she is the person to call. and she is also a bene gesserit well versed in the weirding way.

7. osaka (azumanga) LEADER very resourceful and creative, able to think outside the box, just the kind of leader the team needs. and as a bonus she has an unearthly aptitude for word puzzles.

there are three things that set apart my team from the classic bunch of superheroes:

first, none of them can fly, though the limper could build carpet-thingies for everybody, or they could hitch a ride on a shadow ship or use some artifact provided by makarios.

second, there is no large-breasted foxy lady on the team (as the reverend mother is ugly as hell and osaka is still in chio-chan’s group), but if you really can’t do without, you can ask lupin to call fujiko :P

third, there is no hulk-like muscle man on the team, because it doesn’t need one, they resolve their problems through creative thinking, not brute force, that’s why osaka is the leader!

a cat, a cell phone and an extra-dimensional tower

what do these three have in common? they each play an important role in one of makoto shinkai’s anime: ‘she and her cat’, ‘voices of a distant star’ and ‘beyond the clouds, the promised place’, respectively (i have just viewed ‘voices of a distant star’ yesterday; the other two i’ve seen earlier).

‘she and her cat’ is a 5-minute animated short which, though all you see are short glimpses of a cat’s life, manages to tell an engaging story. the last two are somewhat longer (voices is around 40 minutes and beyond the clouds spans a little longer than an hour) and are both romance stories placed in a science-fiction setting (the former is a bit more emotional). in all three anime the visuals are astonishing and the plot is not at all typical, with some rather interesting twists and turns at some points. the first two of them were produced entirely by makoto shinkai himself (!!); everything, from concept to storyboard to animation, even the voices (his fiance voices the female character and his younger brother is the cat), truly astonishing!

whether you like the philosophical issues posed by eva or lain, or the beautifully portrayed characters of miyazaki (“a pig that doesn’t fly is just a pig” – porco rosso :P ) or the gritty dystopian futures of akira and gits or just the gory action of ninja scroll and blood the last vampire; whatever reason are you into anime for, makoto shinkai is a must see. i rarely use caps, but here goes: MAKOTO SHINKAI IS A MUST SEE !

i’m eagerly awaiting his 2006 project ;)

philips and big brother

a friend of mine sent me a rather interesting link today. it describes a marvelous new invention patented by philips: a chip that, when incorporated in the tv would force viewers to watch the adds during a program (by denying the commands of the remote to switch channels or turn off the tv - or in a vcr it would disable the fast forward function during the commercial breaks of recorded movies) http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/ dn9011-invention-the-tvadvert-enforcer.html outrageous and disturbing at the same time. the first thing that popped into my mind was a scene from the movie '1984' (if you haven't read the book yet -by george orwell- go read it fast and then watch the movie, both are outstanding). the scene when o'brien, wanting to talk 'business' with winston turns off his screen, much to winston's surprise (and shock), only to tell him afterwards that party members have the privilege to turn off their screens for an hour each day! is this the future philips has envisioned for us?! and while you're at it, you should also read ray bradbury's 'fahrenheit 451' (you might also want to watch the movie, but it's not that good). perhaps the charming dystopian futures depicted in these books aren't even that far away. (did you know that in certain states christian extremists have started burning harry potter books for their alleged promotion of witchcraft !?)

tiberius sempronius gracchus

this is the guy i was named after (or was it the emperor tiberius !?). anyway, this guy was a tribune who wanted to introduce some reforms and certain people didn't agree with him, so he was killed - very tragic (the same fate awaited his brother gaius)

battlestar galactica *SPOILERS*

i watched the first two seasons of battlestar galactica this weekend (thanks to a klingon friend of mine who was kind enough to mail me the dvds, yep, good old conventional mail) and i have mixed feelings about it. i liked it better than andromeda (where every episode is like this: crew member/civilian gets into trouble, kevin sorbo saves him/her through an act of selfless sacrifice - lesson on trust and friendship included) or than the new sg1 (the first two seasons were great, then they ran out of ideas and the show got too shallow for my tastes) and than sg atlantis. but, it has several flaws, which are too disturbing to overlook. first of all, most of the characters are stereotypical and lack that certain something that make you care for them. a lot of situations are resolved in a very unrealistic, or at least unlikely, fashion. never mind everybody overlooking a revolutionary cancer cure after a terminally ill patient is cured (oh joy, the president is alive, who cares about the others suffering from cancer). the military part is also portrayed in a very unreal manner (one example is fighter pilots being able to fly any ship, even a half organic half machine alien ship, while also being experts in land warfare - i highly doubt that an f-14 pilot could fly a boeing 747 just because it works on the same principle). another part i 'liked' was when a technician decides to build a spacecraft and someone comes up with the idea to use carbon fiber instead of metal for the airframe, and voila: the first stealth craft is born (but after it is destroyed nobody thinks about coating one of the existing fighters with stealth materials). there were also some episodes i enjoyed, like "downloaded", when, after having seen the genius doctor being tormented for more than 15 episodes by visions of no 6, almost to the point of nervous breakdown, you finally see number 6 also having visions of a very calm and detached dr baltar (smoking his expensive cigarettes). bottom line, if you can watch the series without having to pay a dime for it, and you really don't have anything else to do for the weekend, then go for it. otherwise just look for alternate forms of entertainment.

pic of the day

i've deposited this today, before noon. the lines that make up the numbers are 8-10 microns wide. the contour of the numbers is in fact a gold wire (several tens of nanometers thick) obtained through the photoreduction of HAuCl4 using a femtosecond pulsed laser (it's a bit more complicated in fact). the picture was taken with a bw ccd camera through a microscope objective (100x, oil immersed). if i make it to the scanning electron microscope next week, i'll post another picture.

random thoughts

i am extreamly busy today, so i'll just write something random to fill this space. perhaps a quote...aha. "God's in his heaven, All's right in the world!" - robert browning (1812-1889)

Yumi: “It feels different when, ah, somebody else is touching me!”

well, today i was going to write about klingons and density functional theory (guess it will have to wait till monday), but yesterday a friend of mine asked me about my status message on yahoo msg – which is now the title of this post. i never thought people actually read the status message; it’s been the same for three weeks and nobody noticed.

by now some of you might have guessed that today’s topic is h-games. they are also called “bishoujo games”, graphic novels and many other names. these games are very popular in japan, but are much less known in the west. if you have not seen such a game yet, imagine reading a novel on your pc’s display while 2d bitmaps scroll in the background illustrating the story you read (most such stories, though not all of them feature sexual content to some degree or another). in addition, in most of the games you’ll be able to make decisions at certain points which will affect the outcome of the story.

as with other forms of media, you will find a lot of trash and very few diamonds among it. the worst titles of the genre are very linear, have a shallow story (if they have any at all) and present nothing except for the sexual content itself – you should try your best to avoid these. on the other hand you’ll also find games with an intriguing plot and multiple ending possibilities, where the focus is not on the sexual scenes. (although, since the text is translated from japanese by small companies or by fans, usually the narrative is too simplistic). “kana imouto” (kana little sister), “critical point”, “devi-dead” are just some of the titles i think are worth trying.

i find that these games will much sooner leave you with a lasting impression than the dozens of american action games (which by the way are of an ever-decreasing quality in terms of gameplay). sure, spending an afternoon with your friends playing halo is fun, but it’s by no means a memorable experience. contrary to this, after having played “kana little sister”, you will sometimes remember her when it snows or when you see a grass-of-parnassus and you will surely think of her pale face every time somebody mentions chronic kidney insufficiency.

there is a lot more to be said on the subject, but i have neither the time nor the inclination to put my thoughts to paper (i didn’t even mention the hard-core genre). and just to round it up nicely i’ll end the post the same way i’ve started it: with a quote from “kana imouto”, kana todo’s last entry in her journal.

Kana: “Today, I have seen the ocean. I’m not afraid anymore.”

two things i like about the french

there are two things i greatly enjoy here in france. first, the french have an entire subculture around cartoons and comic books (here they are called “bandes designees” or bd for short). here if you walk into any respectable book store you will find a section dedicated to these comics. and they are not for children alone; an adult can take his time browsing through the comics or buy any of them without getting weird looks from passers by.

unfortunately, in romania, most of the adults will dismiss comics or cartoons/anime as strictly for children and you’ll only get questions of “just how old are you?” if you confess to any of them your passion for such things. i greatly dislike these individuals, not because they despise comics/cartoons/anime, but because they just refuse to sit down and watch an anime (or read a comic) before they judge them – the word “shallow” now pops into my mind. unfortunately there are two such persons who i’m very close to. to the first one i am related by blood (no further comment here) and the second one is my bro’s gf (girlfriend, not guardian force). i can only hope that maybe one day they’ll have the patience (and the broad-mindedness) to watch “grave of the fireflies” or “lain” or “perfect blue” or “ghost in the shell” and maybe realize that an anime can indeed convey a serious message (even an ideological or philosophical one)…

oh, and the second thing i like about the french is the “moutarde forte de dijon”.

drinking laban's milk

for those of you who are not familiar with the story, laban is a large hairy-chested shepherd from canaan. he is mentioned several times in the bible, most notably because of his hairy chest [gen 23: 3-12] and his revolutionary sheep cross-breeding techniques [deut: 42: 137-141]. after having married both his daughters and having given all his genetically enhanced super-sheep to his son-in-law, laban decided to try his fortune in the milk industry. though his first attempts to market his dairy products were meager nobody could foresee the breathtaking success his milk would enjoy by the end of that same fiscal year. today, after having defeated his arch-rival, the ‘lapte de cocos’ brand, laban now owns more then 80% of the market shares. his success is mostly due to the rumor that the laban milk is the key ingredient for the formula that would turn anyone who drinks it into chuck norris. (some experts even argue that regular ingestion of laban milk can increase one’s eva synch ratio).

i’ve tasted this one last week, but i still didn’t turn into chuck norris. so i think i’ll just go back to drinking regular milk.

gratitude

i would like to dedicate the first entry of my blog to some friends of mine who, while partying and having fun took some time to remember their exiled companion and went through the trouble of sending him a message.

i am genuinely touched and this means a lot to me.

thank you! *bows*

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GABI !!!