Taking a break from Piracy and have something else to talk about.
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Piracy Justifications
By all means talking about a touchy subject is about as fun as running through a minefield as a size of a football field from both ends. Neither side wins or lose.
Technology with all their leaps and bounds…
…Are simply wagering their e-penises.
I wonder, since technology grows with leaps and bounds. I recall that in my early teens, televisions were by their standard definition ratio 4:3. Now TVs are 16:9 ratio, perfect for either stretching 4:3 ratio into horrible proportions or ideal for moviegoers who wants to watch movies at home. From vinyl records to cassette tapes to walkmen to CD players to now MP3 players.
A relevant article by Torrentfreak sparked my interest since some people are behind with technology in which others are okay with it but some left with mixed reactions and anger in their wake.
As a person who witness technology becoming for better/worse I can recall that DVD players introduced to the market was expensive. A decade later, DVD players are available to every home. About the price of a VCR today. Blu Ray happens to be the replacement of the DVD players but can I see why people are hesitant to buy Blu Ray players. Expensive? Still above 50 USD and people still have standard definition TVs. Any upscale/advantages over DVDs? Not so much but it is getting clearer when the dust settles for a couple of years and it shows improvement. It is a reasonable explanation why people still get left behind with technology.
I can see the understanding why people didn’t like the new formats but playing it for your DVD/PS3/Xbox 360 player? Even better. I wanted to play 10 bit mkv videos on my 1080 television but it wouldn’t.
As a person who is not familiar with playback files such as mp3, wmv, aac, flac, avi, swf, mp4, x264 and mkv, I can certainly see why pirate groups and fansubbers prefer using better playback formats.
To those who doesn’t know the difference between files named above, these are the following grouped:
Music or sound files: mp3, wav and flac.
Image files: jpeg, bmp, png.
video files: avi, wmv, flv, mp4, mkv.
Best for sound? flac. Best for Images? png. In exceptions when taking photos in real life, jpeg is good. Best for video files? mkv.
From a fansub perspective in the early years of 2000 with their purpose to piss off licensing companies most fansubbers hard subbed in avi format. Till the late year 2000s fansubbers use mkv format due to shows becoming more high definition and that mkv can do more than what avi does. Examples such as selecting subs on/off (an example of softsubbing) and chapter entries. Most people torrent/DDL mkv format simply because there is a considerable difference when watching and function on mkv and avi. Difference would happen to be quality and the way how the episode is chaptered.
A new issue for fansubbers is the transition from 8 bit to 10 bit. Many people are analpained about fansubbers who still use 8 bit playback instead of 10 bit. While I am all for better picture quality and I upgraded to a better PC, to say that people who watch the 8 bit version is like watching eye cancer. That hurts because not everyone can watch HD anime in 1080p and some people wouldn’t mind dealing with blocky pictures. Cue reasons why an anime made in 1990′s – early 2000 – 2007 isn’t worth converting into HD versions unless the Blu Ray came out. Better to watch 4:3 anime on a standard computer screen than 16:9 and vice versa with having black lines on top and bottom or left and right.
Even 720p vs 1080p has slight difference but for my eyes, it sees no difference unless it happens to be a movie made from Hollywood. Same goes for FLAC vs. AAC sound files. Unless you have really good ears.
Perhaps people can finally stop asking old people why in our olden days our entertainment looks like shit.
A la shounen sh*t
To those who don’t know what is shounen or anything Japanese, Shounen is a genre that fixates on action sequences much like Hollywood’s audiences on action movies. Be it that manly 1 on 1 fights, guns a blazing, cat fights, you know the drill and it carries itself to Japanese animation.
The holy trinity known as the big three (Bleach, Naruto and One Piece) focus on action scenes, sometimes stories but loads and loads of characters. As for the adventures, it seems to never end. Some of shows reached up to 500 episodes and manga grows up to 30 volumes.
Now, I watched Full Metal Alchemist, D-Gray Man and Beelzebub and Blue Exorcist being classified as shounen. Some good, some okay, some are cookie cutters and some are more than meets the eye.
When I watched Naruto I stopped at episode 160 because the plot pretty much crashed and got stuck with filler episodes that go nowhere except character development. That is my main concern about watching 60+ episodes. Even if I did rewatch the series again, Shippuden would even leave more questions unanswered. When I was watching Bleach, I have no idea what is going on and it didn’t hook me in.
Problem with shounen series is that they tend to drag the plot long, has 60+ characters that it is impossible to memorize all of them, increased filler to either character development and/or padding the show and teaches about friendship and small lessons typical of every shounen show. Most of the anime happens to follow the original story through manga, light novel or have the director does their own way.
The recent anime Beelzebub was finished and it was okay as a typical shounen show. Decent characters, absurd silliness and fillers that are decent. Blue Exorcist on the other hand was a cookie cutter of shounen shows. Filler episodes, decent characters but awful ending.
How do I end this? Oh yeah cop out ending.
An animu post
Being that I watch anime shows and about every other anime journal happens to be the same generic boring likings to certain fetishes from high thigh stockings to lolis and moe characters I am gonna do something different from those.
Aside from watching cartoons since I was a little kid, anime shows gained interest in me since I started watching Naruto. First, I didn’t consider Pocket Monsters, Mega Man or Dragonball Z anime because I was a stupid kid back then when TV aired lame English voice actors.
I wouldn’t consider Japanese animation top notch because there are times when studios have to cut the budget and go for half ass animations that are more frightening than I imagine. Sometimes the studios fix these errors for their DVDs.
Apart from my own personal tastes for certain anime shows, there has been a substantial amount of issues with anime shows. From fansubs, hardcore otakus/weeaboos and licensing shows, to adaptations, moe and subs vs. dubs.
To start off, Clannad and most of Jun Maeda’s works is about as interesting as watching paint dry and then peeling off. His triforce masterpiece Kanon, Air and Clannad are what his fans praise as great works. They all started as visual novels which is a cross of choose your adventure novels and adventure games. Not much as a game but more as a novel. I’ve played Clannad Visual Novel for a good 7 hours and I wanted my 7 hours of my life back.
And there is word that due to backlash from Megaupload, other file sharing sites ceased file sharing thanks to the Department of Justice and others for breaking Copyright laws. Torrenting anime is your best alternative but regardless, you will be tracked by your IP address. IRC? Maybe.
More on this when I finally get my thoughts together.
~Tharticus
The Occupy Protests
Normally I wouldn’t talk about anything politically related but this will be an exception.
Unlike the Tea Party group that I considered their beliefs a fucking joke that result in Republicans taking over the house and the next 11 months later through hell and back with their debt ceiling almost in default, all they do is stick to their beliefs that will “help” the country recover. Completely sad and a embarrassment to their country.
I want to go off topic because this is where the mess started.
It couldn’t be better with McCain since it’s gonna make it better, worse or just the same because either Obama or McCain will inherit Bush’s mess of a presidential legacy, juggling 2 wars and spend more than they earn.
For years, I have a major disdain for congress and how they handle their polices. When did anyone oppose to George Bush’s polices to invade Iraq? Granted that Saddam was a ruthless dictator but there was no solid evidence of Saddam possessing weapons of mass destruction. Another example would be Obama’s healthcare bill. Then there’s the bailout package and I could go on and on about this.
TL;DR congress is retarded and they will continue to be stupid unless they are not influenced by corporate lobbyists or PACs. Of course they don’t care about my honest opinion nor yours so as long as they keep their checks and keep being reelected till they decide to retire.
Speaking of bailout package, they were terrible to start with. Bailout the banks because they were too big to fail? And I read that they are spending the money on better furniture, bonuses to their employees and self lavishes. Wasn’t the bailout suppose to be an investment? Give money and get money back? But people bitch about taxes and how it is wasted upon prison and various government owned properties.
Somehow the “Occupy Wall Street” movement started where Michael Moore left off in his previous movie “Capitalism A Love Story” with placing yellow tape around Wall Street. The movie came out 2 years ago.
It’s pretty funny that after a small meeting on the internet for “Occupy Wall Street” turn out to “Occupy (insert city name here)” with no focus on what the Occupy protesters want.
People are already blaming on corporate greed. I blame corporate influence on congress, money wasting mongrels and evil diabolical people with an evil mustache.
On the other hand, I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.
~Tharticus
Bought stuff, get screwed in the long run
With Macroeconomics in full drive, supply and demand is also in full effect.
I bought stuff from online retailers and 9 months later, about 70% of my online purchases have decreased in price.
I won’t say anything to what I purchased but this also applies to everything.
Items that are easily disposable like food and clothing I have no problem but the main problem would be non perishable items. And items are bound to decrease in price as time goes by for example, video games. Unless it happens to be a limited make set, then prices will go up.
Thank goodness for Amazon and eBay. But at times, you win some, you lose some.
~Tharticus
The Abridged Series
If there is one thing I have to thank LittleKuriboh for his contribution to the internet, it has to be his abridged series. His voice acting, his way of condensing shows, editing to lip syncing and his jokes is what makes his abridged series great.
But when unleashing a certain creation to the internet, there also tends to have more copycats much like the people who made Let’s Play.
Just. Stop. Making. Abridged. Series.
Stop making more abridged series unless you can voice act, edit or put lame corny jokes. Or even better, look at the show and determine if it is good enough for a abridged series. YuGiOh is the prime example due to its really serious tone of playing card games and corny jokes up the wahzoo.
I won’t name examples but certain abridged series are really, really painful to watch to, especially good animu shows when most abridged series tend to focus on “so bad it’s good” shows.
To troll more users who watch animu, a friend of mine said that animu is lazily animated because it is only mouth flapping, not even showing teeth. This is a reason why it is so easy to edit lip syncing and English dubbing.
To end this in a lighter note, this best explains it.
First one guy makes a bridge. And everybody uses it, they’re like, “Ooh, look, a bridge. That’s new.” So, like, these other two guys make another bridge. And it’s kinda like the first one, but people use it anyway because the first guy is like “Oh, their bridge is pretty cool too, check it out.” And then these three other guys are like, “Oh, we’re going to make the best bridge ever, we’re going to combine our talents and be like, ‘Oh, look at our bridge, it’s totally amazing, ooh.’” and it’s like, it turns out really good, and it’s the best out of all the other bridges… Everybody crosses it. Because it’s a bridge. Yeah. And before you know it everybody and their mother is making a bridge! So there’s a bridge. Everywhere… The first guy is like, “I’m going to go to conventions to promote my bridge!” It’s like, it’s just a bridge. It’s not a big deal. Get over it.
Or when I hope that somebody plans to MST3K on any bad abridged series. Much like how the creators of Let’s Play decided to openly mock anyone who decided to do a Let’s Play and fails at it.
~Tharticus
Super Mario Wii and Mario Party
If you are playing these games by yourself, you’re missing out the fun. Sadly, they do contrast on what everyone wants. To be winners.
Despite having being owned by 14 year old kids who frag me constantly, I enjoyed Halo a bit but it compares nothing like Super Mario Wii or Mario Party because those games are designed to potentially screw one another if 4 human players play.
Beware of explicit words.
Summary of Mario Party games: The ACTUAL game of LIFE.
Also, check out Freelance Astronauts Let’s Play of Super Mario Wii.
Animation these days
I like cartoons when I was a kid. They still gain my full attention because cartoon animations has changed over the years.
The last good cartoon was Batman The animated series or other Disney cartoons. Unfortunately those days are over till animators give a shit about their own projects and stop cutting corners.
Sadly, that is how the animation studios are now since most animation is on machines and only 25% drawings are implemented.
This also draws up with the anime being that it is Japanese animation that bring more people into watching.
As you know, more anime has been released by several anime studios that some people know and love and most kiddish cartoons are replaced by CGI nowadays.
With more animation studios cutting corners to pay their employees with more work and less pay, it’s no wonder why production values are done with minimal effort.
I really hate these pretentious assholes on the net saying that “Oh hey, animation isn’t what it is like in the golden years”. Animation continues to change overtime and animation isn’t what it is used to be. Albeit that old animated cartoons has it’s charm, it still comparing apples and oranges to today’s cartoons.
Maybe I’ll talk about the stupidity of animated adaptations and how it is not for the fans.
~Tharticus
