There are two choices that could be fun this weekend; The Machine is about two engineers working to create an autonomous AI to help mankind (and specifically one scientist’s daughter). That lasts until the Ministry of Defense steps in, takes the AI operated robot over, and teaches it to kill. As you know, this is not the thing to do if you hope to survive the rise of our evil robot overlords. The other film worth noting is Brick Mansions, about a cop and an ex-con trying to keep Detroit from being destroyed by the criminal gangs running wild behind the containment walls erected to keep them imprisoned. If this Luc Besson film plot line sounds familiar, it is because he is remaking his own 2004 movie Banlieue 13 (District B13), but not in French and not in Paris this time. For those thinking this is not genre, this is the future we do not want to live in, somewhere between Escape From New York and Mad Max. The original movie introduced the world to parkour, something most folks had never even heard of at that time.
Not much in movies this time except for re-releases. In TV we have Doctor Who: The Web of Fear, a Patrick Troughton era tale that has not been seen as a complete story since it first aired. They managed to find most of the episodes recently, and have used an original audio recording and some animation to fill in the last missing bit, episode 3. This is the story where we first meet Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, later known as the Brigadier, and it sets up the Doctor’s ongoing relationship with UNIT. In western animation we have the Spectacular Spider-Man seasons 1 and 2 in a single box set.
In anime, also, most things are re-releases, but there are a few genre sets coming out. In Nekomonogatari (Black) the protagonist has survived a vampire attack with the help of his beautiful friend. He then learns she was able to help him because of the power given her by being possessed by the Curse Cat, and he must try to free her if he can. In Little Busters! – Collection 2 they are receiving cryptic messages delivered by cats and seeking a friend’s lost shadow. And then things started getting really strange.
They call themselves the Wagakki Band, which means Traditional Japanese Instrument Band, and while the name is not imaginative, the music they create certainly is. It is a mix of traditional, pop, rock, and a bit of metal, played on a combination of traditional and modern instruments. The musicians are masters of their instruments, and Yuko Suzuhana does an amazing job on the vocals. The first track is called Roku Chounen to Ichiya Monogatari, The second is a live version of their song Ephemera Days, and the 3rd is Senbonzakura. Since I still only have a vocabulary of around 100 words of Nihongo yet (meaning I understand the language as well as a smarter than average dog), I am depending on Google Translate for those titles. The final track is the band version of Tsuki Kage Mai Ka (The Shadow of the Moon, perhaps?) which they posted online back in November of 2012. Bottom line, I am very impressed with this group, and would love to see them come to North America on a tour, preferably as the warm up band for The Yoshida Brothers their first time. Even though they have been around for years, their first full album is being released on April 23rd, at least in Japan. With luck it will be available here through iTunes.
If you are an Ubuntu fan, rejoice! Ubuntu has just unleashed the full range of their various builds in version 14.04, which is a Long Term Support release. Of course this includes Ubuntu Studio, their Live Disc multimedia powerhouse designed to allow media creation. The tool sets are grouped by workflow in Audio, Graphics, Video, Photography, and Publishing, and each set has a variety of programs useful to the task that you might not expect. As an example, the Video set includes the usual import, edit, A/V effects, and produce/burn software, but it also includes a full range of 3D modeling and animation programs so you can work in both live action and animation mediums. Plus, while I like to run it from the Live Disc, you can install it to hard drive if you prefer. Pretty much all the other Ubuntu variations also released new builds in the last day or so, including Xubuntu, a lightweight desktop optimized for older computers, Kubuntu, which runs the KDE desktop, and Edubuntu, a build designed to allow a teacher with limited technical knowledge to be able to set up a computer lab or build a web site learning environment in an hour or less. It takes a similar approach to administering, making it easy to maintain without becoming a Linux geek in the process.
It has been a bit since I featured the Tokyo Dance Trooper, Danny Choo, in this blog, so I figure it is time to do it again. He still has the moves, the attitude, and the armor! He still gets my vote as the best choice for this project. And then, just because you don’t feel like a guy dancing down the street in full Storm Trooper armor isn’t Nerd Enough for you, see what he does when he gets his hands on a series of dolls, and starts building their robotic control interfaces into them. Be sure to check out smartdoll.jp to get all the details. Unless you really want ALL the details about how Danny used 3D printing to create a Rapid Prototyping Environment which allowed him to create the dolls based on his anime/manga in the first place, which gave him the baseline physical model he started building his robots on. If you feel the need for that level of detail, you will find it here.
I can’t imagine anyone who doesn’t appreciate Ghost In The Shell when they meet this unique cyberpunk universe, so instead of ranting about how excellent the series is this time I thought I should just share a few of the recent shorts from GITS: Arise. The first one from The Borderless Project is called Foreseeing 2027, the second is Memory, and the third is Color. There are a few more in this set, all encouraged by Katsuyuki Motohiro, the main director of Psycho-Pass, which owes its existence to the influence of this show.