New Anime Series- Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon

October 9, 2011 by Mark Myers Leave a comment

First Episode Review for: Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon

Summary : Future looking world where no one seems normal (like a world populated only with super heroes), a practical and violent school exam takes place on a giant ship floating though the atmosphere

Animation : Very very good animation, the first versions that have come down off the wire are not doing it justice, this maybe worth a blueray import

Plot Potential: An incredible, packed 24 mins for a first episode, but there is no obvious plot, they obviously realised this and crammed the history and most of the future plot in the end credits, weird, but who am I to grumble.

Characters: Very good costume design, and excellent original settings, there are some stereotypes but well done, completely over the top and often inspired

Music: Good pumping battle music and some soulful singing by the main character

Reminds me of: err, sort of like the hectic parts of Oh my goddess with a bit of Slayers in it and then added to Blue Exorcist

Overall: Just on looks alone I will be watching this, the start up credits were such a mix of character designs that I initially thought is was some sort of vehicle for a marvel vs Capcom style game (so much so I went and looked the series up, but no it is apparently a genuine series), good fun

Disclaimer: These are mini reviews of anime’s that are fresh out in Japan and are not licensed in the UK, buy them once they have been licensed or at the very least buy the merchandise, remember if the anime makers make a loss, THEY WILL STOP MAKING ANIME!!

New Anime Series- Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasali!

October 8, 2011 by Mark Myers Leave a comment

First Episode Review for: Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasali!

Summary : A school resolves class disputes with full blown wars, sort of like a demented school version of “the art of war” but with fan service and power poses,

Animation : Very much standard fair, not bad enough to complain about, but not good enough to notice

Plot Potential: Quite a lot actually, it could become a political drama played out in a school with added dragon ball Z

Characters: Stereotype overload, lots of them, there is even a one eyes German woman with long hair in boots and baggy pants

Music: Standard fair, nice use in the fight scenes though

Reminds me of: Clamp school detectives crossed between Fate/stay night

Overall: Entertaining and a fun 24mins, but im unsure where they are going to go with it, need to give it a couple more episodes before deciding, but very promising

New Anime Series- Towa No Quon

October 2, 2011 by Mark Myers Leave a comment

Im a bit slow on this one as it has been on my machine for a while, and is more a mini movie than a series (45 mins)

First Episode Review for: Towa No Quon

Summary : Mutating humans chased down by government agency and the underground that protects them

Animation : Very pleasant, not ghost in the shell quality but still very passable.

Plot Potential: Very good plot, what i initially thought of as the good guys turned out to be the bad guys within the first 10 mins, a nice world and good mix of mecha and mutant

Characters: Some stereo typing, but otherwise a nice original feel to most of the characters

Music: Nothing special

Reminds me of: Casshern Sins

Overall: This was supposed to be a movie series, but i have not seen any more,am really looking forward to them.

Worst corporate BS statement for a long time

September 27, 2011 by Mark Myers Leave a comment

I recently found this in a Java tech spec, written by a developer who should have known better

“Note No Non-Functional or Quality of Service criterion has been established from the Phase 3 System Requirements in terms of facilitating the quantitative assessment and validation of the XXX Phase 3 Architecture”

Shoot me now!!!

Old Comments

Ben Poole(30/09/2011 07:44:57 GDT)

Marc: love it!

As for those developer notes Mr. Myers, we both know it’s not you who should be lined up and shot

Mark Myers(27/09/2011 14:08:51 GDT)

didn’t MBR do that with an Amazon voucher?

its a grand plan!

Mark Myers(27/09/2011 11:17:19 GDT)

Ohhhhhh good one, that’s an evil line

Mick Moignard(27/09/2011 11:16:02 GDT)

In my mainframe days as a programming project leader, I once got a system spec, all fully signed off, QA approved, the whole corporate works, where, under the heading Management Reports, was the one liner

“There will be Management Reports”.

I refused it. After the inevitable fight, the QA department sided with me (?!??!?!?) and the project got canned.

Marc Champoux(27/09/2011 13:04:55 GDT)

Back when I was coding a few years ago, I often had to come up with User Requirements and Design Specs documents. I’d create them and make sure they were complete (i.e. none of that “there will be a management report” one-liner).

However, I was sure nobody was reading what I wrote so I decided to have a bit of fun and for 2 years in a row, I would always add a line somewhere buried in a paragraph that said “If you read this line, let me know and I will buy you a coffee”. It took 2 years for QA to finally discover that line.

Even after QA discovered it, I kept doing it anyway because I wanted to see if the business owners were reading what I wrote for them… They weren’t because I never got a comment from them about it.

Marc

93rd Security First Tuesday club

September 19, 2011 by Mark Myers Leave a comment

The 93rd First Tuesday club was a bit different from the previous ones. Not only was it set away from our normal haunt (Imperial City on Cornhill) in the grand London Capital Club, we also had a proper technical talk, instead of the usual small sales pitch (a hallmark of the club as it does not support hard sell) . Thisfs was given to us by Carric Dooley, and included such gems as “Fall off the security turnip truck” and “It’s like an encrypted onion”. This is new evolution of the First Tuesday club and as far as I was concerned it was a welcome change, showing how the club is growing. You could see from the eagerness of the questions from other listeners and the fact we all kept very quiet to listen that they enjoyed it as much as I.
I’m hoping for more of the same next time, although judging by the very high level technical staff that McAfee brought with them that’s not going to be a easy act to match. But it does stand out as one of the notable First Tuesday club meets for me. The conversations of the night included:

Polymorphic virus attacks
The difficulties of applying security policies to clever but reluctant users
Identifying data centres by tell-tail external physical signs
Changes George Lucas should make to the Empire Strikes Back re-release 🙂

Old Comments

Andrew Magerman(20/09/2011 09:09:58 GDT)

removing Jar-Jar Binks, surely.

cutting off all the yucky romance scences with Hayden Christiensen.

“I don’t like sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft and smooth.”

</sound of gunshot to my head>

Andrew Magerman(20/09/2011 09:20:29 GDT)

and midi-chlorians!

AAAAAAAAAAAH!

Mark Myers(27/09/2011 10:26:15 GDT)

Geeeeeek