Gnorb.NET

While I’ve tried — in vain — I haven’t been able to get one of these out (to my own disdain). Again, the glut of ideas currently swishing around my brain is like water around a drain: round and round it goes, and not in vain if I take this opportunity to sha… daing.

Alright, so that didn’t work out as planned. If it had been planned. I really should start reading more modern poetry. (Although by now you may already be aware of how I feel about poetry.)

Anyway, so here it is: another episode of Le Linkage, and this one’s about all the wonderful stuff making its way into my RSS reader as of late. Some of it is thought provoking, some just fun to read, but most, I’m sure you’ll side with me, won’t make your eyeballs bleed. (There now, that’s better, though not by much.)

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Before you start reading, know that this article came from the now-defunct Gnorb’s UltraKitchy CyberXtreme iBlog. (”Because one cliche is not enough.”) The site was dedicated to Japanese influences in today’s culture, especially J-pop music, movies, and video games. This is the last feature I’ll be reposting from there. Enjoy.

I spend a good amount of time — a really, obscenely good amount of time — listening to the Jpop stations in Shoutcast and other services. (JPopSuki TV being my biggest source of J-pop music videos.) Artists like Morning Musume, Sakamoto Maaya, and Utada Hikaru have become to me what 50 Cent, Trisha Yearwood, and Dave Matthews are to most everyone else around here. (Not that Morning Musume, a collection of teen-aged Japanese girls singing happy pop songs, sounds anything like 50 Cent, a 30-something muscle-bound black guy rapping about inner-city problems, but that’s beside the point.) Eventually, this got me wondering if there are any Japanese pop(ish) artists planning to tour the US any time soon.

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Before you start reading, you should know that this article is one I wrote about a year ago for a site that’s no longer around, Gnorb’s UltraKitchy CyberXtreme iBlog. (Tagline: “Because one cliche is not enough.”) The site was dedicated to Japanese influences in today’s culture, especially J-pop music, movies, and video games. I’ve re-posted it here because the site is fully dead, not having been updated in almost a year. Oh well. Anyway as you read this, be forewarned that sometime around the halfway point this article takes a complete nosedive. Enjoy.

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I just thought this was incredibly cool: a guy decided to do a draw up showing what Futurama may have looked like as an anime. Click the image for the full size one.

Aside from the complete lack of tentacles, short skirted uniforms showing off white panties, mecha [Edit: D’oh! Forgot, Bender and Tinny Tim.], and the absurdly large breasts, this is still a pretty darn cool drawing. Make Leela into an android and you got yourself a series.

Now, for those of you who haven’t heard, thanks to fan demand, Futurama’s returning in 2008. Frankly, it’d be absolutely hilarious to see an entire episode drawn in this style.

By the way, the artist who did this also did a Simpsons one, and has been hired by a comic book company to make a manga-style Simpsons. Very nice.

For the first time in what seems like forever, this morning I was finally able to go through and read all my RSS feeds. It seems like today was one of those days when weird news just seemed to come out of nowhere, which means it’s time for another episode of Le Linkage! This one I’ll call the “Just Plain Weird” edition because a good number of the articles here are just plain weird. There are some, however, that make for spectacular reading, and one that will make every anime-lover reading this blog wet his/her pants in joy.

ScienceBlog.com — Drunks Don’t See the Monkey: “It’s pretty difficult to overlook the proverbial 800-pound gorilla, or even an average-size person dressed in a gorilla suit. But a new study indicates that people who were given a simple visual task while mildly intoxicated were twice as likely to have missed seeing the person in a gorilla suit than were people who were not under the influence of alcohol.” Lesson: never try to spot a man in a gorilla suit while tipsy. Because if you can’t spot the gorilla, what good are you?

Engadget — Korea to test 1,000 remote-controlled domestic robots: “The Ministry of Information and Communication … will begin placing 1,000 wheeled, cell-phone controlled automatons — dubbed URCs, or ubiquitous robotic companions — into households and kindergartens this fall as a trial run for new robot technologies. The URCs will do the usual handling of domestic tasks as we might expect (and some … like cleaning rooms and reading books to children), as well the usual hanging out, taking care of pets, [and more] … The only thing at all disconcerting about any of this is the fact that unlike normal household droids, these URCs will be operated wirelessly from a central computing center ala I, Robot.” Having just watched that movie agan, the thought of a remote controled robot companion isn’t one I’m at all too comfortable with.

Akihabara News — The Wonderbra powered USB keyboard: Ok, uhm… hmm. How do I… err… geez, oh man… heh… I mean… Hmm. So, like, anyways, I uhmm… hmm… How do I put this? Uhm… What?

USB powered keyboard bra with USB powered camera tail that can be switched out with other USB powered items, such a lights and memory sticks. You have to see this for yourself [Angelkitty.jp]. I guess what I’m wondering is where exactly that thing is supposed to be plugged.

KurzweilAI — Frozen Brains Awaiting Resurrection Day in Storage: (From St. Petersburg, Russia) “Kriorus, the world’s first cryonics company outside the United States, located in Alabushevo village in Russia, has two brains in cryonics storage so far. The price: $9,000.” Just what we need, Russian discount cryonics. “You want better brain? Lie down. We do operation, take out brain now. Give you new brain next week. We freeze brain now so if you want back later, you have. ”

My Heart’s in Accra — Book review: “Globalization and its Enemies”: “This is the basic question development economists try to answer. It’s a question with profound practical implications - if we could suggest strategies that consistently helped nations grow wealth, we could address a huge range of problems in education, public health and state stability. It’s also a question that both development economists and political commentators are surprisingly bad at answering.” A very thorough book review and critique by Ethan Zuckerman. Good reading for anyone involved in economics or business.

The New Yorker — How can someone live with only half a brain?: This week’s New Yorker features a particularly interesting article about the hemispherectomy operation. In this procedure, an entire side of the brain is removed as a treatment because of cancer or chronic seizures. The incredible thing is that if the hemispherectomy is done when a patient is very young, the remaining hemisphere does double duty and the child often develops normally. (This one also came by way of My Heart’s in Accra.)

Index of 1,000 Full Length Anime On YouTube: (via Digg) “There are no ads or garbage clips to weed through, just 1000 anime episodes and movies. This index includes The Animatrix, Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, Samurai Champloo, Serial Experiments Lain, Ultimate Avengers, and more.” Not weird and not news, but I’ll be damned if I don’t put this link up.