Firefox 1.5

It's out, www.getfirefox.com

Okay, now that I've tried it a bit here are some impressions! 1.5 looks pretty much as always on the GUI side but I have noticed that all the prompts and error messages have gotten a very Flock feel to them. Almost all of your favorite extensions work; the exception being SwitchProxy tool which is really annoying. For now an alternative extension is xyzproxy but it has its' limitations and is an eyesore. The movable tab function is still a bit sticky if you ask me. I like the "clear private data" function but again it all reminds me a bit of Flock.

HTML Goodies

I've been spending most of my time here lately and I thought I'd give it a respectable plug. Visit HTML goodies for good good stuff.

Firefox 1.5 Linux Release

"Firefox 1.5 is out, you can download it right here. You can find more info about it in the release notes. Highlights are: Automated update, drag and drop reordering for browser tabs, improvements to popup blocking, better accessibility and better support for Mac OS X

Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters

The "final" version of firefox for a linux platform has been released. This is very good news as the Windows and OS X releases are sure to follow soon. OR ELSE! >.<

Eva Live

Fortune Magazine has posted an article about anime and A.D. Vision. The article interviews ADV CEO John Ledford, looks at the manner in which ADV choses titles to license and hot it promotes them, discusses the anime industry as a whole and the symbiotic relationship between fansubbers and the industry, and many other subjects.

Anime News Network - Fortune Magazine on ADV and Anime

Bad Data Spike

Lately there's been a spike in the amount of bad data floating around the torrents which seems to confirm some fears of the fake flood after md5. I just wanna know who's lame enough to pull this crap! I'm calling U out!

360 Solutions

"A gamer fed up with his new Xbox 360 crashing every 20 minutes has fixed the problem by raising the power supply off the ground with some string. Goldeneyemaster over at the GameSpot forums indicates that the main reason for his Xbox 360 freezing up is the power supply overheating. The solution is to lift the power supply off the floor and allow the air to circulate better around it."

Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters

Where do babies come from? Paradise.

I recently watched Paradise Kiss episode 6 with much glee and excitement (waku waku) but the thing is that in this episode there was a sex scene between George and Yukari/Caroline. This is actually pretty significant since it marks the first instance of realistic sex in mainstream anime that I can remember. Could this be the start of something new? Will we at Laflaga have to start a relationships column? Wait and see more wonderful things from Paradise.

The monster that goes google in the night

Google's ever-expanding agenda has put it on a collision course with nearly every company in the information technology industry: Amazon.com, Comcast, eBay, Yahoo!, even Microsoft.

Wired 13.12: Who's Afraid of Google? Everyone.

Anime__My__Way!

A n i m e M y W a y
A very nice place to sample OP/ED songs from all your favorite anime. I say "yours" cause not all of mine are on here :(

360 == 0 rad

"There have been several postings over at Xbox-scene complaining of crashing Xbox's on new games, with default settings on single player. Crashes on Xbox Live and on startup have been reported too, and Project Gotham Racing 3 crashes before finishing the first lap. Screenshots and video are available showing the crash.

Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters

Fuyu

There's not enough pictures nowadays! Anyway, here are two release candidates for the Azure Sky winter wallpaper scheme!

1. Tsuki Chi

2. Fuyu Faries

...f...f *this

Disc Delay (10:08 AM EST): It's ever changing dates for this title but according to an update from Right Stuf, Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children now has a street date of 03/28/2006. It was originally solicited for a November 2005 release date and then started showing a January release date on several sites.

Welcome to AnimeOnDVD.com!

There's gotta be someone who still cares right?

Tada...

: ) = ~ : ( = ! : ( //property of negation

: ) + ; ) = X ) // addition

^_^ * ^.^ = ^o^ //multiplication

ParaKiss Yokoso!

On November 19th a store focusing exclusively on Paradise Kiss opened in Tokyo's Odaiba district. The store will remain open until March 31st and carries items related to the Paradise Kiss anime and manga, including a clothing line inspired by the manga.

Anime News Network - Paradise-Kiss Store Opens in Tokyo

Programmers Delight

How To Write Unmaintainable CodeEnsure a job for life ;-)

How To Write Unmaintainable Code

This is freakin awesome. Unlearn everything you ever learn't about style and substance!

FNN 11.20.05

bfads: Get ready for black friday deals and shank those losers who actually go to the stores.
Google Maps Risk: It's back and confusing...

Sony Blu-ray Boogles the Mind

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (SPHE) president Benjamin S. Feingold today announced that authoring has been completed on the first Blu-ray Disc (BD) to contain a full-length, high-definition feature film. Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle was compressed and authored in MPEG 2 full high-definition (1920 x 1080) by Sony Pictures’ Digital Authoring Center (DAC) and is now being shipped to BD hardware companies for player testing.

Sony Completes First Full-Length Blu-ray Disc - Aviran’s Place

Couldn't they choose a better movie that Charlie's Angels? No offense to Lucy Liu but WTF is sony thinking nowadays?!

Higher Education

I was just thinking wouldn't it be great if there was an experimental college devoted to the higher intellectual pursuit of anime!? I can just see a list of offered classes now,
1. Gundam for Engineers (EGN 101): Minovsky particle physics, lagrange point destruction, beam technology, and GUNDAM OS programming. Prereq. Coordinator Typing 40.
2. Gundam for non-Engineers (LGN 1): Humanities and political science in the dynamic world of naturals and coordinators. Focus on the social implications of the "Destiny Plan". Introduction into the many faces of Char Aznable.
3. Theology of Neon Genesis Evangelion (EVA 1): The conflict between man, angels, and God after 2nd Impact. Analysis of the sephirothic tree of life and critical analysis of Eve vs. Lillith.
4. Psychology of Neon Genesis Evangelion and Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou (EVA 2): Freudian psychological theory and psychoanalytic practice among adolescent subjects. Focus on the psychological "self" and relationships with the "other".
5. Tenchi Muyo and Feminist Theory (FEM 110): Discuss the roles and problems facing modern women, cats, and aliens.
6. Alchemy 101: Fundamentals of the alchemy array, law of equivalent trade, ethics, and career paths in State institutions.
AND MUCH MUCH MORE, ENROLL TODAY!!!

Look at what I can do!

I've had one of these "what would happen" urges inside of me for a while in that "what would happen if I booted Linux directly from the bootloader after putting windows on hybernate?". Well I wonder no more, since I finally got off my ass and tried it. It turns out that linux will load perfectly fine with Windows sitting on some image on your HD and when it comes time to restart, Windows will kick back in totally fine! Blew my mind! This is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

IPv6

IPv6 is not a pipedream. Founder of the IPv6 Forum Latif Ladid took time out from the IPv6 summit in Canberra to talk to Computerworld about why the new Internet Protocol is a pie to be consumed here and now

Computerworld | IPv6 Forum chief: the new Internet is ready for consumption

The implications of IPv6, from someone who may or may not know what s/he is taking about. Find out for yourself by reading...

CLAMP Linux

NTT Data recently held a press conference announcing Tomoyo Linux, known as Sakura Linux during its development stages. Related to the project they have created a Syaoran file system and Cerberus certification system.

Anime News Network - Anime News

Hash

Patrick Stach has announced the availability of his source code for finding MD5 collisions and MD4 collisions (Coral cache links provided to prevent slashdotting). MD4 collisions can be found in a few seconds (but nobody uses that any more), while MD5 collisions (still being used!) take 45 minutes on a 1.6 GHz P4.

Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters

Yeah, it's kinda old news; but MD5 is still used extensively in the realm of bittorrent! The fear is that fakes will flood torrents and render them useless (I wonder who's a big enough jerk to do that... One name comes to mind). Fear not, however, a lot of clients including Azureus and BitComet use SHA-1 hash functions.

Google Base

Google Base is a place where you can add all types of information that we'll host and make searchable online.

Google Base

Finally, the "free" search engine available to anyone with crap they want to share. Hoorayyy!

Type Managers

Type Manager - November 16th 2005I would like to introduce you to the future of desktop applications, the Type Manager.

Type Manager

Ah yes, the type manager; how I know thee. Seriously I have sold out to iTunes after my music became too much to manage but I still retain control over my own music hierarchy at least. In all seriousness, most type managers suck, i.e Picasa and amorok. The type manager is in and of itself a glorified evolution of the Unix pipe which takes all the separate apps that worked on one type of file and chunked them together with a GUI. It'll be interesting to see innovation in this branch of software; but I won't give up control of my "perfect" file system!

FNN 11.15.05

1. Best of '05: A look at this years best innovations in several categories as compiled by Popular Science.
2. Hachimitsu to Clover Walls: Great H & C wallpapers from Ningen's walls.
3. Death to I2: No more I2hubs sharing.

Lonely in Gorgeous

Music Video of Tommy february6 - Lonely in Gorgeous (MP4, 27MB, for PSP/Quicktime) Memento

Mandriva 2006

Mandriva linux 2006 distro has been released in iso form and is available for public download. This is my flavor of choice in the linux world for its blend of functionality and pretty.
http://frontal2.mandriva.com/en/downloads/mirrors

Micromanagement of Sony DRMs

Microsoft to remove Sony CD code Sony's controversial anti-piracy CD software has been labelled as spyware by Microsoft

BBC NEWS | Technology | Microsoft to remove Sony CD code

X or X

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

iPod Killers

iPod Killers for Christmas 2005 Part IBy Richard Menta 10/5/05: When Sony execs crowed a few weeks ago that their latest MP3 players were THE iPod Killers one thing was obvious. They were oblivious to the fact that the term "iPod Killer" had already gone from clever market-speak to running joke

iPod Killers for Christmas 2005 Part I

Supporting the Anime Industry

The golden rule in life as well as in anime is to give as you receive. Please support your anime industry or else it'll come back to bite you in the ASS with bad karma. AAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHH!

ADV Films
Geneon Animation
Bandai Entertainment
Manga Entertainment

Star Wars ^ 6 ^.^!

Are you one of those people who haven't seen all the Star Wars films yet? Well shame on you. Are you one of those people who haven't seen all six films simultaneously? Me neither, but someone has.

Fanfic Picks

To tell you the truth I dunno why people read fanfictions; but sometimes I fall prey to their charming but grammatically incorrect appeals. Here are two sites that have a lot of choices of which maybe 1% could be good reading. I joke of course, it's actually 0.5%...
http://www.fanfiction.net/cat/201/
http://www.shoujoai.com/fanfics/ (for the girls).

As a little caveat, here's a Yale compiled list of 100 essential anime words which anyone who takes their anime seriously already knows and regards as material for toddlers.

Rumor FFAC Delayed

Advent Children Delayed, Possible Theatrical Release (2005-11-10 13:22:22)GATV reports that Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children has been pushed back to January 10, 2006 in order to facilitate a possible limited theatrical release.

Anime News Network - Anime News

FNN 11.10.05

1. French Blog Ban: The French government has shut down one outspoken blog in lieu of the recent riots. Many people fear raising their voice against this new crackdown, if this seems all too familiar then think French Revolution. Off with their heads!

2. Rubiks Records: The world champions of Rubix cubing have been weighed, measured, and still wanting of a social life? :(

3. Tommy February 6: Highlight of the singer for Paradise Kiss's opening theme "Lonely in Gorgeous" the single of which comes out 11/30. Please note, this publisher is Sony so expect DRMs.

FNN 11.09.05

1. Manga Strips: Manga in the funnies? Well it's happening in some American newspapers.
2. Linux Gaming: A newer version of Cedega which makes your windows games such as Halo and WOW work on Linux and openGL is available.
3. Japanese Heated Bra: To help with high levels of fuel consumption a company has unveiled a microwavable heated bra and panty set O.o!

Google Landmines

Google Landmines is a game from Kevin Pereira in which you type word strings into google search and then hit "I'm Feeling Lucky" and hope the site that pops up doesn't offend anyone. It's actually pretty fun to play when you're drunk. Here's the permalink on AttackoftheBlog.

iWalls Anime

[] iWalls
Cool website of someone's effort to bring union between Apple and anime. Check it out and I promise that's it's much much safer than weird interwebs.

Apple's Pet Rock

Could Apple have possibly gone into the ROKR project with a hidden agenda to sabotage the final product’s success? Why not? It may serve to sway public opinion of mp3 cell phones. If the Apple iTunes cell phone flops, how great could mp3 cell phones really be? Might potential mp3 cell phone buyers take a step back and choose to stick with carrying their iPod in tandem with their cell phones? It might be worth another few million iPod units sold before someone comes along with the killer mp3 phone. Maybe. Maybe?

The Apple Blog » Did Apple Sabotage the ROKR?

Just put those poor pet rocks to sleep people!

Recall...

I've noticed that there have been many many good animes coming out recently and it's hard to keep up with them. So here's a recap of BOAS recommendations, in short!
To Heart 2, Canvas 2, Rozen Maiden Traumend, Lamune, Solty Rei, Mushishi, Jigoku Shoujo, Blood+, Paradise Kiss, ARIA the Animation, and Karin!

Lamune

You know sometimes you stumble upon stuff on the internet that at the time you really don't know what it is; but it's pretty so you kept it. Well this kinda happens to me all the time and today one of the mysteries has been uncovered. The new harem anime entitled Lamune (pronounced like Ramune) has finally solved that one for me. Give Lamune a look, I'm sure you'll find it pretty as well!

The Red Comet

Fanboy in spaceEnomoto is a self-described fanboy of the popular Japanese anime series “Gundam” — a futuristic cartoon where humans wage battle wearing giant robot suits. In previous interviews, Enomoto has said that with Russian approval, he would like to dress up as Char Aznable, a popular Darth Vader-like character on the show.

Japanese entrepreneur to take space ride - Space.com - MSNBC.com

CHAR IS NOT DARTH VADER, NOOOOOOOOOO!!!! P.S. I wanna be Athrun Zala, I wanna :3

Yami no Yoru ni

Yesterday night I experienced my first blackout in what must have been 6-8 years and I'm still not sure if the power is up yet. It's really interesting to note the human behaviors that occur during an unusual situation such as a blackout. As a tech junkie the first thing I did was check that my laptop battery was fully functional and that the power adapter hadn't short circuited. Only after that did I think to find a light source. After a while without much light it's surprising how the glow of LCD and LEDs can be comforting and that even the smallest glow from an iPod can make the night flow a little better. I ended up draining some of my laptop battery to test the data integrity of a DVD I decided to play in the darkness which turned out fine. What a night.

Last Ditch Effort

Microsoft hails 'strategic shift'Bill Gates presenting Windows and Office LiveSoftware giant Microsoft has announced a major push into online software services, in what is seen as a move to counter rivals like Google and Yahoo.

BBC NEWS | Business | Microsoft hails 'strategic shift'

Looks like Microsoft is playing one of Sony's cards and jumping on the Online bandwagon; we all remember Sony's mp3 "innovations"? This move from Microsoft, however, isn't quite too late as Microsoft can still certainly buy their way into the software hosting service. The trick is the implementation and smooth switch between installed software to hosted software. Done right and coupled with Microsoft's Palm OS, this could present another strong online competitor.

Blood Red

Rejoice oh ye pitiful soul without light, I offer you the rose among the thorns in the form of two late blossoming fall anime. First is Rozen Maiden Traument the sequel to Rozen Maiden. From the looks of the first episode everything good is back from the original especially the great Victorian music. Next is Karin, a vampire themed anime that delivers a wonderful color palette among other things. Also, make sure not to forget about Jigoku Shoujo and Mushishi which are among the scarier of all the fall horror anime. Man those Japanese children give me the freaks.

FNN 11.04.05

TGIF, I'm beat from a week of hardship, strife, and anguish (OH THE HUMANITY)! Anyway, today I'd like to show off 2 new photos on Flaga Flickr:
1. Water Lily: Photoshop of a bishoujo with a lotus flower in the background, the flower was shot in Beijing, China.
2. Starbucks: And speaking of Beijing, China did you know there was a Starbucks in the Forbidden city? No, joke and no photoshop!
That's all folks for the pretty, and on to todays headlines:
3. MIT $100 Laptop: Revealed a model of the mini-miracle for underprivilged children of third world countries.
4. RIAA 2 Years LaTeR: Don't you hate the alternating CAPS? Well not as much as some people dislike the RIAA. Read how America's coping with their anger issue two years down the line.
5. Firefox Fanfare: Mozilla high in market share of web browsers shown by BBC analysts, but still far behind Microsoft IE.
6. Sony Screw-Up: Sony's hidden rootkit installation on music CDs is seriously screwing up the company reputation especially with males 18-30, i.e. the BIGGEST marketing demographic. Can we ever trust Sony again? Let's just say the PS3 had better be gooood...

Growth

To tickle the statistician in us all, one remembers my post on July 12 2005 entitled 1000. We'll it's been just shy of 4 months since that time and the modest spreadsheet has grown to 1200+. In an analysis that is based on a 30 day month, the result is d/d(t) = +1.666... addition per day. May the future of growth fulfill my "exponential" expectations. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

FNN 11.03.2005

Yo-ssu!
1. Princess Power: The succession of the next generation of Japanese Empresses is being called into question as debates still continue.
2. Google Print: The first of the Google book scan projects are online and, well not very interesting...
3. Doki Doki School Hours: Geneon to release Sensei no Ojikan: Doki Doki School Hours starting November 8th, waku waku desu!
4. Franz Ferdinand: Great singer who's single "Do You Want To" is the ending theme for Paradise Kiss.

Paranoid on the Interwebs?

I'm finished with what I call Lord Balmung of the Azure Sky's Super Awesome Guide to Anonymity and Network Security! I'm so modest. It should really help with those pesky little things that bug you about the internet; that or drive you absolutely insane!

Permalink:
http://www.geocities.com/laflaga/BOAS_SAG_TAANS.pdf

Chotto Yasumu

Hey guys, after all the halloween fun I've been having (sarcastic tone of voice) I'm taking a little break from the blog to write a feature length article on internet network security and anonymity. But I'll leave you with an unrelated tip, Open Office Writer has the ability to export documents in PDF format with a simple click. Handy, no?