Jump to content

Akano

Premier Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    778

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

 Content Type 

Blog Entries posted by Akano

  1. Akano

    Sandy

    By Akano,

    So, school for me has been cancelled Monday and Tuesday due to some sort of sandy storm that is also full of winds and snow (and may or may not be caused by Spongebob's rodent friend). The details aren't really clear. So, after removing things from my porch and storing lots of water in my fridge (at least five gallons worth, maybe more), I feel I'm ready to bunker up and watch it from the comfort of my living room.
     
    My roommate is thinking of going into school to do research. I am not terribly keen on the idea. So, Pokémon it is. 8D
     
    Also, that awkward moment when you're about ready to check out Christmas presents for siblings on Bricklink and a scheduled downtime occurs. :\
     

  2. Akano

    Sandy Update 3

    By Akano,

    (12:43 p.m. EDT) So, Sandy is currently doing his/her (its?) stuff outside my apartment. LOTS O' RAIN!
     
    No snow or high force winds yet, though. I think that stuff is being saved for later.
     
    In other GOOD NEWS, EVERYONE, I'm technically still alive.
     
    UPDATE 2 (3:40 p.m. EDT): Winds have been picking up, rain is unrelenting, and my apartment is cold. This calls for hoodie & blanket times! 8D
     
    Wow, it's really raging out there...
     
    UPDATE 3 (10/30/2012 at 2:29 p.m.): Things have calmed down. This morning whilst being sleepily half-awake I heard cleanup trucks outside. At least two trees are down that I can see from my apartment windows. Fun stuff.
     
    Also, the power went off a couple times last night and this morning, but it's currently on (hence my ability to type this ).
     

  4. Akano

    Welcome To The Herd!

    By Akano,

    I am now officially a brony thanks to KK and Tekulo. Lauren Faust can really make a cartoon series that multiple groups can enjoy while still being targeted at girls.
     
    The fact that Timmy Turner's voice is in the series doesn't hurt either.
     
    My favorite is Fluttershy.
     

  5. Akano
    I've been playing Fire Emblem Fates for the last couple weeks on Hard, Classic mode. I'm currently on Chapter 15: Wolfskin of Birthright (got the Conquest cartridge, bought the other two as DLC). My thoughts so far:
    Story: Eh. It should be good; it has all the prerequisites to be good. You make a choice between two warring families (which puts tension on everything and everyone), the history between Nohr and Hoshido seems complex and long-standing, the circumstances of your upbringing are frustrating/unfair, but all in all the story just seems to happen. It has so many things ready to set itself in motion, but instead is very stilted and lacks flow.
    Characters: Hit and miss for me. Some characters are phenomenal (like Kaden, he's fantastic. Also, Jakob is so wonderfully British. I mean, Nohrian.), while others are just sorta meh. Also, Azura's A support with the female Avatar is the least satisfying support ever. They could have made it a lot more interesting/developing. This and the previous category have made me think to myself, "Man, I just want to play Awakening/Blazing Sword," which doesn't reflect well on this game.
    Classes: Interesting/why? There are some new Hoshido classes that I think are cool (Kinshi knight!) and others that I prefer the classic classes to (Diviner << Mage; I really don't like Orochi and her horoscope nonsense. Mages at least learn their magic from study, not dubious astrology pseudoscience...). I think I'll enjoy playing Conquest a bit more for this reason, among others.

    Also, I lost it when Garon says "Do it!" in the Opera House chapter. He looks a bit like Palpatine anyway, but it reminded me of the Game Grumps "Do it!" impressions from their Mario Party playthrough.
     

  6. Akano

    Together, We Ride

    By Akano,

    So, my roommate finally coaxed me into playing the first Fire Emblem (actually the seventh, but the first one released in the US) for GBA, and I'm loving it. After finishing it, I'm definitely looking forward to playing Fire Emblem: Awakening, because I've heard nothing but good things about it.
     
    The music is great in that awesome nostalgic way, the characters are fun and memorable, the magic wielders are freakin' awesome, and the gameplay is fantastic – in order to keep all your troops alive, obtain everything worth getting in each level, recruiting all new troops, and beating the levels is a fun challenge.
     
    Other things I've done in the past week or so include:
    Finishing MetalBeard's Sea Cow (Awesome!)
    Learning how to derive the formula for the volume of an n-dimensional sphere (really clever trick!)
    Drinking lots of tea.


  7. Akano

    Voting and such

    By Akano,

    You people are all slow; I voted weeks ago (absentee FTW!). Thanks to all who voted, whether it was Democrat, Republican, or Bull Moose. Statisticians really appreciate having a good sample size for such things.
     
    (But seriously, voting is important. Exercise those rights!)
     

  8. Akano

    I Caught Some Shinies!

    By Akano,

    Over the past week I caught a shiny Remoraid (evolved it and gave it to Tekulo), shiny Octillery, and shiny Clauncher (traded from Tekulo's X version).
     
    I have become a consecutive fishing master! I want to get a shiny Corsola next.
     
    Also, I had a very enjoyable Thanksgiving with my family and our friends. Tomorrow I head back to my apartment, and then Monday is school as usual.
     

  12. Akano

    *Slow clap*

    By Akano,

    Well done, Alex Hirsch. Well done.
     
    The latest Gravity Falls episode was excellent. Totally squashed theories about the author of the journal and, while answering some questions, raised even more. Can't wait for the next episode...
     

  15. Akano

    Lemuria

    By Akano,

    When I first played Golden Sun, I had no idea that this was actually a mythical place that some supposed existed in the real world. I also had no idea that lemurs were named with a common etymology.
     

  16. Akano
    As promised, I'm going to kick off my set reviews of LEGO System circa mid-late 1990s with a review of the Time Cruisers Rocket Racer (no, not the LEGO Racers Rocket Racer). Credit to BZP for the review format.
     
    (My apologies if you notice the yellow tint to the shadows; my digital camera decided to be rather yellow when taking these pictures, and using GIMP to re-balance the white left those yellow shadows as an artifact.)
     
    Presentation
    From the design of the box to the instruction manual, these are the first things you see before building the set.
     



     
    We see our protagonist, Timmy, riding in the eponymous racer through a rather dark, stormy backdrop. Pretty awesome. We can tell right off the bat that this isn't a very large set (seeing as the price was only $4.50 when it came out).
     
    Building
    Half the fun is had building the set. How fun is it to build and how easy or challenging is it?
     



     
    Not very challenging at all. The build took only a couple of minutes and was fairly straightforward, seeing as there were only 15 steps. All 55 pieces are included in the above photo, and it's not surprising that they don't take very long to assemble.
     
    Set Design
    Now that the set is complete, we can critique how it looks from every angle. New or interesting pieces can also be examined here.
     



     
    Nothing too sophisticated here. The body is based on a bracket piece that saw use in the Xtreme Team windsurfer/buggy set. The propellers are pretty cool in their functionality (yes, they do spin). A simple buggy/car set with a few modifications.
     
    Playability
    The other half of the fun is in playing with the set. How well does the set function and is it enjoyable to play with?
     

    All aircraft report!


     
    The propellers are the coolest part of this set. They are connected by an axle to a smooth base that sits on the back tires, as seen in the above photo. The tires, made of rubber, grip the smooth base of the propellers on one side, and as the tires spin, the propellers spin. Now, on my set, this works well for the (Timmy's) right-hand propeller, but not the left. I think this may be because the bricks on top are not completely aligned over the hole for the left propeller, and thus the axle grips the pieces. I'm not sure though. It's still a cool bit of functionality that I'm impressed they thought to incorporate on such a small set. You really don't see that much on newer small sets.
     
    Beyond this, though, the set is mainly for you to roll on the table and go "Vroom! Vroom!"
     
    Final Thoughts
    Once it's all said and done, how does the set stack up? Should I get it?
     
    Since the original price was $4.50, it's not a bad set for that price. I got mine for $4.00 with the other Time Cruisers sets, so it wasn't a heavy additional monetary burden for my wallet. If you see this set floating around for a low price, pick it up; you get a Timmy minifigure and a few cool MOC pieces/a cool race buggy.
     
    Pros
    What's to like?

    Timmy minifigure
    Cheap set (BrickLink has one for $1.00)
    Neat functionality despite being small
    Decent variety of pieces

    Cons
    What's not to like?

    Not incredibly exciting, but it is a small set

    I honestly think that this set isn't bad at all for what it is. Back in the day, this would've made any 90's kid happy if he/she found it in their stocking on Christmas day. If you want to get some Time Cruisers sets, add this one to your cart. It's cheap, cute, and fun in its own way.
     
    Thanks for sticking around for my review. Next time we'll head into the realm of the villainous Time Twisters.
     

  17. Akano
    If you're building something and want to tell other people how to build it, it's useful to show the dimensions of said something (how big it is) relative to other things that people are familiar with. However, there are very few things in this world that are exactly the same size as other similar things (e.g. not all apples weigh the same or have the same volume). So, some smart people once upon a time decided to make standards of measurement for various properties of matter (which I think we can all agree was a smart decision). I wanted to talk about one of these today: the meter.
     
    The word meter (or metre for those who live across the pond/in Canada) comes from the word for "measure" in Greek/Latin (e.g. speedometers measure speed, pedometers measure steps, &c.), but the meter I'm talking about is the International System (SI) unit of distance. The original definition of the meter was one ten-millionth of the distance from the Earth's equator to the North Pole at sea level (not through the Earth). The first person to measure the circumference of the Earth was the Greek mathematician/astronomer/geographer Eratosthenes (and he was accurate to within 2% of today's known value) circa 240 B.C., so this value was readily calculable in 1791 when this standard was accepted.
     
    In 1668, an alternative standard for the meter was suggested. The meter was suggested to be the length a pendulum needed to be to have a half-period of one second; in other words, the time it took for the pendulum to sweep its full arc from one side to the other had to be one second. The full period of a pendulum is
     



     
    So, when L = 1 m and T = 2 sec, we get what the acceleration due to gravity, g, should be in meters per second per second (according to this standard of the meter). It turns out that g = pi2 meters per second per second, which is about 9.8696 m/s2. This is very close to the current value, g = 9.80665 m/s2 which are both fairly close to 10. In fact, for quick approximations, physicists will use a g value of ten to get a close guess as to the order of magnitude of some situation.
     
    So, you may be wondering, why is it different nowadays? Well, among a few other changes in the standard meter including using a platinum-iridium alloy bar, we have a new definition of the meter: the speed of light. Since the speed of light in a vacuum is a universal constant (meaning it is the same no matter where you are in the universe, unlike the acceleration due to gravity at a point in space), they decided to make the distance light travels in one second a set number of meters and adjust the meter accordingly. Since the speed of light is 299,792,458 meters per second exactly, this means that we have defined the meter as the distance light travels in 1/299,792,458th of a second.
     
    This is all nice, but it's not a very intuitive number to work with. After all, we humans like multiples of ten (due to having ten fingers and ten toes), so why not make a length measurement of the distance light travels in one billionth (1/1,000,000,000th) of a second (a.k.a. nanosecond)? That seems a bit more intuitive, don't you think? It turns out that a light-nanosecond is about 11.8 inches, or about 1.6% off of the current definition of a foot. In fact, one physicist, David Mermin, suggests redefining the foot to the "phoot," or one light-nanosecond, since it's based off of a universal constant while the current foot is based off the meter by some odd, nonsensical ratio.
     

  18. Akano

    Portal 2

    By Akano,

    Just started playing this with my roommate (Friend: Toa of Friendship). I love it so much. The single-player campaign was awesome, and now we're doing the extra "future" co-op levels.
     
    I love ATLAS' design. I wish he and P-body had opposite eye color.
     
    Also, the free DLC is called Peer Review. This speaks to me as a scientist.
     
    Cave Johnson is the best. I could listen to him talk forever about ignoring human rights in the name of advancing science.
     

  20. Akano

    Special Relativity

    By Akano,

    A particle moving through space at the speed of light (i.e. a "massless" particle) does not experience time, and particles that are at rest travel through time at the speed of light.
     
    So the next time you feel lazy loafing on your couch or computer chair, just remember that you are traveling at light speed, no matter how fast or slowly you move.
     
    This entry brought to you by SCIENCE!
     

  21. Akano
    I hate deadlines.
     
    There's a conference that my adviser wants my lab group to go to in June. Understandable. What's not understandable is that the deadline for abstracts to present at said conference is tomorrow (it was originally Friday, but got bumped back over the weekend). This means, of course, that I have to have enough data to write an amazingly short paragraph about what I'd be presenting at the conference by tomorrow. At 5 p.m.
     
    Now, I'm not one for stress. As my brothers and roommate can easily tell you, I take it rather easy and do not like to be rushed. This past week has been the exact opposite for me.
     
    So, I'm slightly burned out, but I have some data that will hopefully be enough to make an abstract with. Huzzah...
     
    On a more pleasant note, yesterday's Spike episode was good. I love Gummy. And Tank.
     

  22. Akano

    O HAI GUISE!

    By Akano,

    So, as you all may have noticed, I have disappeared off the face of the Internet for a time.
     
    But now I'm back at my college (classes don't start until next week, so I'm mainly doing research), which means I'm back on the Interwebs!
     
    Christmas was very nice; I got Tabasco sauce from my mom, Virtue's Last Reward (beat it in a week...and didn't realize that there was nothing more to the game after the end was over. XD) and the LEGOLAND exclusive set Forbidden Island from KopakaKurahk (both awesome), and Ramses' Return from Tekulo. I also got a smiley-face mug from my aunt.
     
    I also got to go to the LEGO store the other day and got Series 9 minifigures! I also got a few more Series 8 figs, so I may have to take pictures of those and review them at some point.
     
    Now you can expect a bit more activity from me since I'm back in the swing of things and somewhat out of "break mode."
     

  24. Akano

    Blog Statistics

    By Akano,

    I have absolutely no life to the point that I just spent the better part of my afternoon going back through my blog posts and recording the view count, reply count, and word count of all 185 entries I've made prior to this one. These are the results of my labor:
     
    All time averages:
    Views: 57.4 ± 45.8
    Replies: 2.2 ± 2.6 (LOL)
    Word Count: 176 ± 242 (BIGGER LOL)
     
    Post-server upgrade averages:
    Views: 79.9 ± 42.6
    Replies: 2.58 ± 3.01 (LOL again)
    Word Count: 198 ± 292 (BIGGER LOL again)
     
    Largest stats:
    Views: 266 (courtesy of "Ask Akano" blog entry; Fort Legoredo review got 265, a close second)
    Replies: 24 (again, "Ask Akano")
    Word Count: 1711 (Vampyre Castle review)
     
    Here are the graphs for each stat.
     
    What I learned from this experience:
    Before the server upgrade, I made a lot of posts about how I'm a terrible blogger.
    Among my most viewed posts were my set reviews.
    My old text color is more painful to view since the background is now completely white.
    Most of my blog posts have fewer than 50 words.
    Most of my blog posts get zero replies.
    Post-server upgrade, most of my entries get between 60-90 views. Pre-upgrade, they got between 10-20 views.
    This is my 186th post.
    I hope this was informative. I know I learned quite a bit from the experience.
     

  25. Akano
    So, a week ago was my birfday. Usually I make an entry, but last week I came down with a head cold that left me a little out of it. Thanks to everyone who replied to the birthday topic that Tekulo posted in the wrong forum; it was very kind.

    Now I'm feeling much better (though my throat is still a little phlegm-y). I'm also SUPER stoked for the release of Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment, which cannot come out soon enough on non-Switch consoles. One of the developers called it the Majora's Mask to Shovel Knight's Ocarina of Time. *hype intensifies*
     

×
×
  • Create New...