Sdtrk: ‘The owl service’ by Pram

This instalment has a theme! See if you can spot it.

+ Japanese company Marutake Sangyo Co., Ltd. makes and sells authentic-style samurai armour. Nice! I suppose owning one of these would be a more extreme/obscure version of being some RenFester or some LARPer, but damnit, I would like to be a samurai for Xmas. Or for Arbor Day, either one.

This armour’s nice! Yeah, I’ll have this one

They’re individually handcrafted, and as such, are extremely well-assembled. Which naturally means they’re, err, a bit pricey.

[05.25.35 PM] Zip Gun: Sure, I’ll sign up for some samurai armor; what’s $21000 anyway? I’d just spend it on CDs.

Kinda makes me want to play some more Samurai warriors 2 again, as that’s been my videogame heroin for the past couple of weeks. Imagine that. *goes off to play some more Samurai warriors 2 again*

*much later*
+ Speaking of Samurai warriors 2, Musou Orochi looks promising. Derek tipped me off to this a while ago; he’s thinking it’ll probably be Koei’s last musou-themed game for the PS2, and it looks rather mental. Combining apparently all the playable characters from all the Dynasty warriors and Samurai warriors series (serieses?), Musou Orochi will have over seventy characters, unless of course, they add more. Anything’s possible!
Essentially the theme is that all of the characters from the Dynasty warriors series, which takes place during the Romance of the Three Kingdoms era of ancient China, and all the characters from the Samurai warriors games, which occur during the Sengoku/Warring states period of medieval Japan, are collectively teleported to another dimension by the demon Orochi (I’m wondering if it’s the same Orochi of Japanese myth — I certainly wouldn’t put it past mythology-and-history-driven Koei). Apart from that, I know nothing of the game, apart from the fact that there will undoubtedly be non-stop fighting of an immense magnitude. Which is what one would expect of a game in the Samurai/Dynasty warriors line! No news yet if it’s going to be exported to the States, but since Koei’s released every other game over here, I don’t see why not

+ Speaking of Koei’s Musou series, the first game they’re releasing for the PS3 that almost has me wanting to purchase one of those overpriced consoles. They’ve teamed up with Bandai to create Gundam Musou. That’s right, Mobile suit Gundam scientifically crossbred with Dynasty warriors. It sounds like a fever dream, but it’s entirely true! When I’d first seen mention of this on 4chan‘s /m/echa board, I believed it to be some elaborate hoax involving Photoshop. But apparently it’s due out in Japan this month, and hundreds of mecha fans will soon be demolishing thousands of enemy mobile suits, in grand Dynasty warriors button-mashing style. Most impressive.
Looks like it’s got the Zeta Gundam, the Qubeley, Turn A Gundam and the non-canonical-but-very-ace Musha Gundam, among others. Roger that, and drooling now. Damnit Sony, drop the price on your PS3, so I can justify the purchase!

+ Speaking of robot samurai, the Japanese group tmsuk (quite a name, by the way) has developed Kiyomori, the world’s first mechanised samurai, as their flagship robot. Not as intriguing as a certain cluster of Synthetik women, but still rather ace. Besides, his walking technology could be used as a test bed for Androids and Gynoids; his gait, although slow, is more like an Organik’s, as he is able to stretch and bend his knees. You can check out some footage of him ambling about on YooChoob here.
Lovely design! The glowering red eyes are a nice touch! And as it turns out, they kitted out Kiyomori in armour made by Marutake Sangyo. Which would be an eerie coincidence, if I hadn’t discovered Marutake Sangyo through the Kiyomori site

+ And nothing at all to do with samurai — sorry — high-end DVD distributors Criterion have finally announced that in June, they’ll be releasing one of my top ten favourite films of all time, ‘if….‘, starring the godlike Malcolm McDowell. FUCK YES.

‘The whole world will end very soon…
black brittle bodies, peeling into ash’

That same month, they’ll also be releasing ‘La jetée‘ and ‘WR: Mysteries of the organism‘, which are two films I’ve been wanting to see for years, but zOMG ‘IF….’ SET CREDIT CARD TO PRE-ORDER

Sdtrk: ‘Fluoresences’ by Stereolab

Ironically enough, not two minutes after taking this, I saw a robin crossing the road. It’s a shame my phone’s camera only has 1.3 megapixels, because if it was better than that, I’m sure I could’ve captured a shot of the look of utter bewilderment on his face

See also: Winter’s Back

Sdtrk: ‘Spectre’ by NON

Soviet Russia! Home of old-school Communism, the Lada series of automobiles, and Yakov Smirnoff-style jokes. (‘In Soviet Russia, Russia Soviets you!‘ Etc) Also, Russia is host to a few buildings that definitely slot nicely into the ‘This was the Future’ series. You’ve got the sturdy-in-appearance-only Dom Sovietov, you’ve got the Melnikov House Studio (saving that one for an upcoming instalment), and then there are these lovely Brutalist wet dreams.

‘State Department for traffic’ building, Tbilis, Georgia

Unfortunately, much like when I’d linked to Ostmoderne, info in English for these buildings is bloody hard to come by. Do I look like I can read Cyrillic? Do I??

The States could definitely use more buildings after that fashion. Hell, every country could use more buildings after that fashion. But I would say that.
Do svidanya, especially to William Bennett, whose blog I originally found this site on, and Happy Ides of March!

Sdtrk: ‘La fille à la moto’ by Dani

A lot of times I doubt the validity of these online tests, but I think they pegged this’un:

the Wit

You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you’re probably an intellectual, but don’t take that to mean pretentious. You realize ‘dumb’ can be witty — after all isn’t that the Simpsons’ philosophy? — but rudeness for its own sake, ‘gross-out’ humor and most other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat. I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer. Your sense of humor takes the most thought to appreciate, but it’s also the best, in my opinion. You probably loved the Office. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check it out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart – Woody Allen – Ricky Gervais

It’s true; I do love the comic stylings of Ricky Gervais. But what thinking individual doesn’t?
I have to say though; I’ve no idea why I’d scored higher than 99% on darkness, spontaneity, and vulgarity. Wouldn’t higher than 99% of vulgarity make me the bastard lovechild of John Belushi, Adam Sandler and Andrew Dice Clay? Hideous, hideous.
Apart from that, I’d completely agree. Plus, I really like the cube graphic. It lends the test a certain gravitas.

I also have to add; I actually took this test almost a year ago, and couldn’t really post it to my old blog, as the code for the layout was a hassle to alter, that graphic was too damned big, and the text in the graphic was too fine for me to reduce the pic size to any degree of readability. Now that I’ve switched to WP, it’s not as huge and obnoxious. You can place the blame squarely on Quizilla. It’s code like that that makes Myspace pages look like fucking trainwrecks.
Well, obviously, that’s not the only thing that makes Myspace pages look like shite, but you know what I mean

Sdtrk: ‘Whitetail woods’ by Oakeater

*mops brow* Looks like we’re back up for now. In case you’ve not noticed, ‘Shouting etc etc’ has been up and down for the past day and a half. My ISP hosts are supposedly right now making their fell sacrifices to whatever dark and eldritch gods in order to suss everything once and for all. Hey — I don’t ask questions when it comes to that sort of thing, I just let ’em do what they have to do.

Access may be sporadic, but in the interim until the next dazzling post, go… err.. go look at Outpost Gallifrey or something. It’s twelve minutes past my bedtime, and I got nothin’

Sdtrk: ‘Alice in Boogie Wonderland’ by Noise/Girl

Recently, I’ve discovered something about myself: unlike 90% of cellphone owners, I don’t really like being on my phone when out in public. Errm, correction: I don’t like being on my cellphone when out in public around people.

Every single one of us has come across some self-important gobshite on their cell, loudly speaking about nothing at all, at great length. It’s almost as bad as being at someplace such as the optometrists, or an auto repair place, where a television is constantly blaring crap that you can’t really get away from. There’s a solution for that, if you’re so inclined, but unfortunately, you can’t do the same thing to Loud Cellphone Fuckwit. And believe me, I’ve tried! But unfortunately, it seems you can’t bring a hammer with you everywhere you go, which is really a shame.

My thing is, I get self-conscious — well, moreso than usual — when engaged in telephonic conversation, and it’s due to two reasons: one, like pretty much everyone else, I really can’t perceive how loud I sound to the surrounding area, so even if I’m not intentionally being loud, in my mind, I’m bellowing like Brian Blessed; two, whether I’m genuinely being loud or speaking at a normal volume, there’s always gonna be someone eavesdropping nearby — it’s unavoidable. People don’t need to be listening to my feckin’ business. Although there have been a few times when Penda and I were enjoying our semi-monthly dinner, and being perfectly aware of our conversation being within another diner’s earshot, we’d deliberately say things to take the piss — usually centred round babies, and the proper way to prepare one for dinner. But that’s talking shite deliberately, as opposed to an actual conversation.

If I’m out and about, it’s not unusual at all for me to be on my phone — I should probably mention at this point that I always use my headset, so I have use of both hands, plus I don’t get facial schmutz on my screen that way — but usually I’ll end the call before I get out of my car. I suppose I’m simply not a typical cellphone user, as I like to keep my private conversations exactly that — private

Sdtrk: ‘Why you never became a dancer’ by whitehouse

So I’d mentioned that I’d found a couple of additional scraps of info about the Chinese Gynoid known as Dion, right? I quite literally happened to luck into them, as the thought of navigating sites in Chinese fills me with an unescapable dread. The company that built her — with the fantastically-lysergic name of Beijing Yuanda Super Robot Technology Co., Ltd. — has some facts about her on their home page. In English, yet! Well, as good as they can get it.

Lovely choice of top

Characteristics of the simulated intelligent robot developed by Beijing Yuanda Super Robot Technology Co., Ltd. are as follows:

His (her) figure and body height are same as that of actual person;

He (she) has the facial features and hair just like that of actual person;

He (she) can have all kinds of rich expressions on face, such as happiness, anger, sadness, pleasure, sorrow, naughtiness, shyness and displeasure, etc.;

His (her) degree of lip-rounding is the same as actual person’s when speaking, he (she) can use different tone, manner of speaking and languages to talk with people;

He (she) has the artificial skin, dermatoglyph and elasticity just like that of actual person;

He (she) is the same as us, has body temperature, pulse, breath and heartbeat.

His (her) main parts of body like head, neck, waist, arm, hand and leg, etc. can hold various postures and any actions just like that of actual person.
the rest of the article is here

The ‘his (her)’ bits indicate that they’re referring to their Androids as well. The one Android bloke I saw footage of was rather funny. He’s dressed in a military uniform, and he doesn’t so much speak, as tersely shout. That’s his schtick, I suppose — the cranky, shouting Android from mainland China. Cranky as Geminoid looks, at least he doesn’t shout. Indoor voice, sir; indoor voice.

And The Korea Times comes through again, with an update on everyone’s favourite (completely) Synthetik pop star, KiTECH’s EveR-2 Muse.

Android to Get Plastic Surgery
By Kim Tae-gyu, Staff Reporter | The Korea Times, 02-12-2007

Korean “female” android, dubbed the EveR-2 Muse, undergoes a plastic surgery for more attractive looks, according to its creator Baeg Moon-hong at the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology on Monday.

As the country’s second female android (technically gynoid), the EveR-2 Muse gained prominence late last year with its ability to sing a song.

In response to opinions that it looks homely in comparison to its predecessor EveR-1, however, EveR-2 has not appeared in public events for the past couple of months.

“Originally, I thought that EveR-2 is prettier than EveR-1 because the former looks like a real, flesh and blood human being while the latter looks like a doll,” Baeg said.

“But the public seems to disagree with me and has favored EveR-1. So we decided to conduct the facelift of EveR-2 while making its hands smaller,” said Baeg, who also crafted EveR-1.

Baeg said his team may change the facial skeleton of EveR-2 and the skin will be replaced with a better one. Then he predicts EveR-2 will be a “beauty.”

“Unlike humanoids geared mainly toward developing a variety of functionalities, androids need to look good since they meet people face-to-face,” Baeg said.

“Through the ongoing surgeries, EveR-2 will give a better impression. Good appearances will help its various expressions and good shapes stand out,” the 48-year-old said.
the rest of the article is here

Now see, this is the thing I don’t fully understand. During my image searchings for EveR-2 Muse, I’ve seen three different versions of what she’s supposed to look like.

Three faces of Eve(R-2 Muse)

The far left was, I suppose, some prototype sculpt; the middle was the one that made her ill-fated singing debut; and the last was the version that was featured recently. It might well be a case of the second and third are the same, just with different hairstyles; I always thought the middle one was the least attractive, but if she’s the same as the third pic, it just goes to show you how stage lights can make anyone look horrible. In any case, a facelift wouldn’t go amiss. But I like the last one!…

And since it’s once again that time again, Shi-chan’s got some more videos up at her Dailymotion.com site; as always, the link is at the top of this blog. Happy 23rd!

Finally, surprise upswing regarding voting on spending quality time with a modern-day Gynoid, thanks to blurbs on both tiny nibbles and Shake Well Before Use. Seems like Actroid DER2 was chosen Most Likely To Be The Populace’s Favourite Sexy Gynoid Overlord. Now how do I go about showing the results to Hiroshi Ishiguro?
Coincidentally enough, one of the new videoclips uploaded is her nattering on about whatever. Enjoy it responsibly, and thanks to all that voted!

Technorati tags: Android, Gynoid, Synthetik, Actroid, Hiroshi Ishiguro, EveR-2 Muse, KITECH