efaardvark

Not really. The whole isekai + fantasy thing is way overdone at this point. At least for me. (YMMV) I'm more into science fiction. I'll probably check out some of those but "bookworm" is the only one that jumps out at me as something worth taking special note of.

Even I'm looking forward to this one.

It's been warm again for long enough that the lizards are back. Heeeerrrrre's Lenny! Doing pushups! (Sorry for the quality. The light was ok but to get the shot without risking scaring them off I was using extreme zoom through a glass window.)

Previewing Release That Witch. Loses points for being an isekai fantasy, but might have potential. I'll come back to it later.

"Escape" - Holmes

Let Polar Opposites run while doing housework this morning. Light and kinda fun romcom. (HS of course.)

I wish. Work has always been busy and after all the layoffs it got even more busy for the ones who are left. I'm at my vacation time accrual limit because I haven't had much chance to take time off this year! (I did manage to take a week in between xmas and NY.) I'll have to take some time off soon tho 'cause if I bank any more I'll just lose it. If Artemis goes up on time then maybe I'll take a couple days after the splashdown. Not much though because there's a new software release to install ASAP after we get out of configuration freeze, and once we have that deployed we have to start using it for HLS testing with BO and spacex. Getting too old for this shit. Anyway, yeah, I'd love to do the con thing but probably won't due to no time. Not a big fan of long distance travel either, especially these days, but I'm in the Los Angeles suburbs so I do have access to some good-sized cons that happen around here. I've been wanting to try Anime Riverside. Bit of a drive for me but I hear it is fairly large and I've never been to that one. And of course there's the regular Anime Expo (AX) coming up at the LA Convention Center in a couple months. Tends to be packed and a bit expensive but always something interesting there. I guess that's to be expected of "the largest anime convention in N. America".

Welcome! I'm not sure what my first anime was. Like Ohayotaku I'm an old-timer who has been watching anime for a loooong time. For a long time my avatar here was Taurus from Space Angel. That show aired in the early 60s and while it wasn't Japanese it's probably my earliest recollection of an animated TV show along those lines. My earliest recollection of an actual Japan-produced animated show was probably either "Gigantor" (Tetsujin-28) or the Americanized version of "Speed Racer" (マッハGoGoGo) in the 60s. Not sure about dates that far back. I also recall "Star Blazers" (Space Battleship Yamato / 宇宙戦艦ヤマト ) and "Tranzor Z" (Mazinger Z / マジンガーZ) in the mid-80s. There's a few others that I'd recognize but can't recall the names of from back then.

Welcome!

Got a "challenge coin" - sometimes called a "unit" or "memorial" coin - and yet another pin for collection. These were for my part in the ECC activation back in January of last year when the "Eaton" fire burned all those houses in Altadena and Pasadena and forced the evacuation and shutdown of JPL, including the realtime tracking and data processing for all the NASA spacecraft and rovers flying at the time. Had to move all that to an emergency data processing facility out at Goldstone, then move things back once the winds and fire allowed the Lab to reopen.

Apologies in advance.

Still hot. So hot that the local news is reporting lizards are going inside houses for the air conditioning.

Threshold - Ground Control

I've been in a similar situation. The proprietary aspect makes the mainstream options like the kindle and ipad kind of a non-starter for me for all types of e-material. I read books and subscribe to a few magazines and periodicals that are delivered in PDF format too - some of which I need to read for work - so I need something that can handle multiple formats well. FWIW the option that I went with was one of the devices from Boox (the note pro) that offer access to (for instance) google's play store but still allow you to load your own material from whatever source. It has a large (magazine-sized) e-ink display, supports several formats, and is great for reading, taking notes, and for marking up things like those PDF periodicals. My only complaints with the boox are that it is older so the CPU is slow when it comes to drawing and note-taking and the display is monochrome. I do far prefer the e-ink displays in the kindle and my boox over the transistor-based active-matrix (LED/OLED/TFT) displays. They don't do video but they're much more readable in sunlight and greatly improve a device's battery life. For me personally I also get headaches when reading a lot of textual material on an active-matrix display like an ipad or a desktop. So much so that I actually cut back on my reading volume. Something in the subliminal flicker caused by the refresh or some sort of eye strain caused by that sort of display I guess. But the paper-like e-ink displays don't seem to give me the same problem. I can read stuff on those displays all day and my reading volume has increased again now that I don't have to worry about it. (Subject to time constraints too, but that's another story.) Finding non-proprietary material is still sometimes a challenge. A lot of these devices are expensive too, as you mention. I've been considering upgrading to the Note Air 5 C, which is basically the same as what I have but has an upgraded CPU and a 10-inch Kaleido (color) display. But it's over $500! The only reason I'm considering it is that I've had the old unit for several years now and I can sort of justify spending $500 every 4 or 5 years on a device like this that I know I'll actually use a lot.

Launch day

Hot. Very hot. Seems like we skipped spring entirely and went straight to summer.

East Bound and Down - Jerry Reed

Happy Ghast is happy...

Overlord was a good one. A bit longer than I usually go for but it never felt slow or repetitive.

hmmm... note blocks opening the Ancient City portal?

Been looking into the story so far wrt GDC 2026. The only notable so far is RAZER's Ava's becoming an actual AI. Cortana, is that you? "Avatar selection and animations still under development and not final. Make your AVA truly yours. Personalize how AVA looks while keeping the memories, personality, and bond you’ve built." I can see applications of this pointed at the anime crowd too. I'm sure there will be "skins" that change the visuals and personality of the avatar to popular waifus for the anime fans.