Rubénerd!

I'm writing this post as I sit here at the Earlwood Library, basking in its crisp air conditioning and drinking litres of chilled water from my fridge down the road. Earlier today, I was typing code and prose at the Euro Coffee Bar and chatting with the owner about the new air curtains he had installed to keep the aircon inside.

According to ADN and the Twitterari, Sydney had its hottest day since records were begun 157 years ago. Having blogged about the temperature reaching 41° earlier in the month, today it got past 47°C (about 117°F). I compared walking outside on that day to being hit in the face by a hair dryer. Today, it was more akin to stepping into a tandoori oven, and without the benefit of getting food afterwards. What an insult.

I'm lucky I didn't have to catch a train. Predictably, CityRail is in chaos (screenshot), with all but two lines reporting delays and skipped stations, including mine.

I'm super lucky to have been able to enjoy air conditioning all day today. Plenty of people weren't so lucky.

Mix equal parts SimCity, mahou shoujou, Strike Witches camera shots, computer systems from Star Trek, really gorgeous colour and art, possibly some Evangelion and Eureka Seven, and you have the makings of this season's science fiction must-watch. Maybe! I'll see.

Vividred Operation is the story of a futuristic alternative timeline (maybe) where Japanese scientists realise there may have been something to this whole SimCity thing. No kidding, the experimental new power system which allows bikes to levitate and power an entire country was taken straight from the microwave power plant in SimCity 2000! The primary difference is one of scale, this plant is so massive it requires an island all to itself, and a population living on the aforementioned island to to support it.

At the beginning, we see the light of dawn over a city, as seen from a rather opportunistic angle. Bakemonogatari did something similar the opening frames of its first episode, and I ended up really enjoying that series, so I decided to give this one the benefit of the doubt.

In fact, while we're on this subject, we'll get it out of the way. The reviews I'd read were right, there is fan service of the derriere. Strike Witches took a historical science fiction setting and put girls into it who don't wear pants. In this series they don pants (or bloomers), but they may as well be vacuum packed. I'm not sure if that would cut off circulation, but in this universe, it doesn't. Fortunately, while a little gratuitous at times, it didn't replace a plot. Though I can already tell what the fan artists and fig manufacturers will be focusing on.

I'm a nerd, so naturally I paused while Akane's grandfather is in his home laboratory. Lots of computer screens eerily reminiscent of the USS Relativity on that Star Trek Voyager episode, right down to the colours and swirls. Nobody else online has seemed to make that connection, perhaps because admitting so would be a violation of the Temporal Prime Directive.

Indeed, much of this series seems to be about secrecy. What would appear to be a harmless source of power that would even be safer than anything radioactive, it attracted the attention of... someone, or something. Watch it to find out who, or what. What I can say, is that they use Star Trek Phasers. Sort of.

And of course, what science fiction show wouldn't be complete without... mahou shoujou? Well okay, I'm not sure if it technically counts, there isn't magic per se, this is all technology. Though as Assimov, the esteemed science fiction author wrote "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". Technology still requires a lengthy transformation scene however, though unlike magic it doesn't require nudity.

The scene with the death of Akane's mum was a little too much to take, but the fan service is far more restrained than I thought it would be, the scenery art is amazing, and they've set the stage for something big. Let's see if it delivers, or falls on its arse.

An interesting (or at least, I thought it was interesting!) report from the Guardian:

The Bundesbank plans to bring back to Germany some of its 1,500 tons of gold stored in the vaults of the Federal Reserve in New York, and the 450 tons stashed with the Bank of France in Paris, reported the German newspaper Handelsblatt.

Economics aside, why was it all there?

Most of Germany’s gold reserves have been stored overseas since the cold war amid fears of a Soviet invasion.

While a fascinating idea, the official press release from the Bundesbank website makes no mention of the cold war or the Soviet Union as a reason.

The image above is of the Deutsche Bundesbank building in Frankfurt, by MBisanz on Wikimedia Commons. A classic Brutalist design. The building in the photo, not the photographer. You're weird. KRQRG636ED2W

I haven't blogged an anime series as it's aired since Bakemonogatari in 2009, but I'm getting back into it again with the delightful Tamako Market.

For those who don't know me, I have a Kyoto Animation Doctrine. This states that if Kyoani releases something, I have to watch it. Not "I should watch it", as in I have to watch it. The plot, the origins of the story, the number of clichés or blobs, these are all irrelevant. Or possibly, the reason. This used to be the Kyoani SHAFT Doctrine, but with limited time I had to get a bit more selective :)

As Clara and I huddled in front of the computer screen to watch Kyoani's latest endeavour, we couldn't tell if we were being trolled or not. Or if we were, whether you can be trolled in a good way. The story makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Firstly, a regal talking bird who's name happens to be a disparaging review of the foodstuffs his hosts produce? A bird who gains so much weight without simply exploding? The fact people so readily accept the fact he talks after the initial shock subsides? The fact he turns into a projector?

For a shameless person like me who watches anime for the art as well as the production studio, the colours, sky and market itself were rather vibrant, more than I was expecting. Clara is an actual artist and seemed impressed by these too, so I knew it wasn't just me being impressed by something simply because I have no hope replicating anything close to it.

The characters. Well, lets just say they look like K-On, talk like K-On, have the K-On eyes and hand gestures. It may as well be K-On, in a market, with a talking bird. I'll admit, I was excited to see the K-On character design being adopted for... guys. I unashamedly loved K-On, so I'm perfectly okay with this, almost nostalgic. There were a few elements of Hyouka too, especially of Tamako during the ED.

Haters gonna hate. I don't care. I'm going to watch the heck out of this series. The only catch, watching all this food being prepared made Clara and I eat more pizza than we realised, which gave us tummy aches afterwards. This is a concern.

Also, for what it's worth, the florist is already giving me ideas for a cosplay. I couldn't hope to match our club's Lexi, but I could try. Also, Tamako drinks coffee which is far too awesome for words. Sudohbucks, anyone?

The dark clouds in front, clear sky and bright light from behind. It felt surreal, like I was walking on a movie set. Little things.

The school's armed guard didn't stop the perpetrator. Rather than precipitating a gun fight in a crowded classroom, a courageous teacher talked him down, and he surrendered.

I've constantly heard the argument on Twitter and iRL that the answer to gun violence is more guns. If a violent person is aware a target is armed, it will act as a deterrent. Of course, this assumes disturbed people with guns are thinking rationally.

Fortunately, many conservatarians also stress the need for improved mental health. How people in a country with a utopian "limited government" and no insurance can get treatment is a deafeningly unanswered question. Ron Paul would probably be able to provide a meek answer, but it would take him a long time.

Accessible mental health care and education coupled with crisis training for people in allegedly high risk occupations would solve far more than simply arming everyone. It will take more work though.

I've been a Perl Monk in training for years, but I only just realised this.

Say you want to print an original string, and a modified version with a case-insensitive substitution. This below will output "shimapan shima-melonpan", just because I can.

my $first = "shimapan"
my $second = $first;
$second =~ s/pan/-melonpan/i;
print("$first $second\n");

You can use "r" instead to non-destructively substitute, with the same result.

my $first = "shimapan"
my $second = $first =~ s/pan/melonpan/ir;
print("$first $second\n");

I generally avoid Perl Golf-isms for the same reasosn Dagolden does, but in this case I find it does remove a little redundancy, and is just as readable.

Thanks to @damncabbage for getting me to finally post this!

Also me, exactly one year ago:

Isn't it interesting that the same people who blast Apple for their uphill battle screening software for the App Store are often the ones who rush to Google's defence for not catching all fraudulent advertising? It's not double standards though, because they don't call it that, and because It's Not Apple So It's Okay™.

So much changes in a tech year, and so much doesn't.

From the Wikipedia London Underground 1996 Stock page:

The GTO thyristor used on 1996 stock achieves this by "chopping" the supply voltage in order to drive a sinusoidal current in the motor windings (pulse width modulation), creating the characteristic audible whine associated with the stock and with the Class 465 Networker trains that share its traction drive system. The sound changes as the pulse length changes. The noise is produced by the switching frequency current ripple and the resulting torque pulsation experienced by the rotor of the induction machine.

I'd tell you I'm an amateur train buff otherwise feeling out of his league, but my gyroscopic induction coils fail to provide the adequate capacitance ratio for me to assert I have no engineering training outside core pulsation computing apparatuses of which my home provides power through parallel transwarp modulators.

This experience has allowed me to empathise with some non-IT people who have to talk with me sometimes. When we're surrounded by computers all day, it can be hard to keep things high level and abstract when talking with people who's lives don't also revolve around IT. Or maybe that's just me.

Me, exactly one year ago:

For me, an ultrabook would fill the niche between my souped up desktop at home, and my smartphone. As a "power user" and developer with very specialised software requirements, I need the lightest possible machine with decent battery life, a full sized keyboard and the ability to run desktop applications. My back can't take carrying a 15 inch MacBook Pro any more. iPads and Kindle Fires can't fill that roll, nor are they intended to.

I was commenting about Intel Ultrabooks, but I'm now a proud owner of a MacBook Air, so it's all good. To use some of Apple's language, it's wondrous how all my above requirements were satisfied with it.

It also occurred to me that I used "roll" in place of "role", again. Ever since I was a little kid, I've used the words "dishwasher" and "washing machine", "elbow" and "shoulder", and "roll" and "role" interchangeably, even though I know better. Old habits dye hard.