Consider 4 sets of questions for any idea that comes to mind:

What does this idea require? Would it need more bandwidth? Storage? Maintenance? Are the increased requirements worth it?

Say you thought about having BakaBT do image-hosting. Do you have any idea how much bandwidth an imagehost requires? Ask around, figure out a ballpark estimate. What about storage? Count the number of torrent descriptions on the site, multiply it by an estimate of each torrent description’s size (based on image and screenshot filesizes). Make an effort to find out these things, but leave enough of an error margin; things tend to cost much more than they seem. If the idea is seen to be feasible, you’ll have an easier sell ahead of you.

Ultimately, the admins and mods are the ones who’ll have to do the backend work to maintain it. If they say they can’t do it, it means they can’t do it—or perhaps it means they don’t want to do it, which basically means they can’t do it. Grumble about laziness and incompetence, move on with life. Or start your own imagehost, whatever. The last thing you want to do while trying to get an idea accepted is pick a fight with site staff.

Whose effort will this require? On a daily basis? Monthly? One-off? Why would they be willing to do so?

Here’s an open secret: people do not like doing things if there is nothing in it for them. Here on BakaBT, nobody is paid to do what they do, so you have to find other means to motivate people. Some truly enjoy what they do. Others perceive that their efforts help improve the site, in content, quality and efficacy. Yet others enjoy the sense of community that comes from joining in on ideas.

Maybe you want uploaders to include short biographies of directors/authors on each torrent page; well, why should they? Convince them that people should and do care about this feature. Convince people that they should and would love to care about this feature. Most importantly, convince them that you care about this feature.

That’s not the end of your struggle. Who is going to write these biographies? Why should uploaders be forced to write these biographies? Where should they take these biographies from? Why should moderators enforce this rule, were it implemented? Are you willing to start writing the first biography, and keep trying to pull people into the bio-writing effort?

Is there an existing alternative already? Why shouldn’t I use that instead?

Maybe you want a metadata management system on BBT. How would this be better than what AniDB, a community centred around fansub metadata management, has already come up with? Is it worth duplicating effort that another community has already refined?

If there’s one thing people dislike more than effort without self-interest, it’s duplicated effort without self-interest. If you’re not willing to build on what other communities have done, you will have to try that much harder to convince people of your idea’s soundness.

How can I help make it easier to put the idea in place?

“Whoa, hold it right there. ‘I’? since when did I get pulled into—” and just who were you waiting for to sell your idea for you? Ideas are transient, and the efforts inspired by ideas are even more transient. Keep waiting for someone to take that first step for you, and you will wait until the idea fizzles out.

There is much to be done. Do you know a good VPS that can be used for image-hosting? Try passing that on to an admin. What about those biographies? Start a forum thread discussing writing styles, submitting writeups to willing uploaders for inclusion in their descriptions, and selling your idea to effort-makers. And metadata? Think up a sensible format for the file, post in in the Wiki and ask for help in refining it. Suggest the idea to willing uploaders for inclusion in their torrent offers. Make your own torrent offers (once you’re Power User) and attach these metadata files yourself. It is easier for people to gauge the usefulness of an idea if they have a working example to try out. If they like the idea, they’ll suggest it to other uploaders, and back you up in the forums when you suggest it. And if the uploaders like the idea, your idea is almost as good as sold.

Many of these things do not even need moderator or admin intervention. Only call in an admin if it requires changes to server setup or site code. Only bother moderators if it will require access privileges that they have. An insider tip: the less effort it takes on their part, the more likely the idea will be accepted. If your support system is established, most people are already writing bios and metadata files and including them in torrents, there are wiki guides to writing these bios and for formatting metadata, people have written parsing tools for these metadata files and entire management systems have been built around them, and the community resounds with songs of your brilliance, it probably will not need much convincing to get those ideas included in the rules, for consistency across torrents.

Now, guess what kind of response you’re likely to get if you try to do it the other way and get it enforced as yet another site rule before drumming up support for it.

And one last thing.

Reputation. Complain all you like about people being biased in their perceptions, but if you’re pushing for an idea, a good reputation can only help you. How many would care about a suggestion made by a user who just joined a week ago, hasn’t made Power User, hardly contributes to goings-on about the site, in the torrent offers, uploader discussions, error reports, Wiki articles, and tech support, and suddenly decides his idea can only be for the good of the community?

Hang around the site and forum more often. Help out new uploaders with descriptions and information, or provide screenshots for upload comparisons. Offer qualified help to people seeking it in the help boards. Report torrent errors, or perhaps mis-categorised torrents, wherever you spot them. Edit Wiki articles that are outdated or need touching up, or a complete rewrite; add newly licensed anime to the blacklist when you spot them. Participate in community activities; the mahjong tournament maybe, or holiday banner submissions, or Mystery Blogger posts.

The effect this produces is twofold; the regulars know you as a regular, one who knows his way around the site, who is familiar enough with the oft-enforced rules, and who knows who’s who in the various parts of the site; they also see you as one who contributes, who understands the effort of contribution, and who will not seek that same effort from others without good cause.

Be careful not to overdo this though; you might find yourself being recruited as staff … 

Amazingly though I do do some work, today alone I’ve had the following and thought I’d share….

Mod Question:

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

Adoption Request:

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

I have nothing much more of value to say right at this time, so I’ll just let this bite-sized chunk settle.

Love, Chiya.

Here. Have some pictures after the jump.

Right then, let’s commerce.

1) There is an official BakaBT meeting happening soon.
24th of September. York, Yorkshire, England.
Contact information and such is on the forums. Please do come as it will be brilliant.

2) My pet snake is awesome. As is the Escaflowne soundtrack, go download it now.

3) We have new staff members, some of which are now bishes. Feel free to abuse and ask really stupid questions to them. They LIVE for it.

4) I will be taking a camera to the meeting. I will upload them shortly afterwards, after having recovered from the hangover I fully expect to get.

5) When I return to the UK, there will be more posts, more often. <_< I’ve been slacking…..

6) A typo was made on purpose to see who’d notice.

Bakemonogatari aside, the Studio Shaft has published few other very good series. This time I’m going to review Dance in the Vampire Bund and Puella Magi Madoka Magica (Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica).

Both of these animes are heavily recommended by me. If you like romances I’d suggest watching both e.f. series, but I watched both around the time they aired, so I don’t remember much about them (except for being entirely fascinated by the story inside the story of  “a tale of memories”).
I will probably watch another few series from them as soon as I have the time for it. Candidates are: Arakawa, Zetsubo Sensei, Mahoromatic, Maria Holic, Natsu no Arashi, Popotan, REC, Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru, This ugly yet beatiful world and Tsukiyomi. I will review them once I’ve watched them, well, if they deserve it.

Having said that, the few series that I have watched were all of astounding quality. First I will review the Dance on the next page.

]]> http://blog.bakabt.me/2011/08/27/a-few-shaft-animes-reviews/feed/ 0 http://blog.bakabt.me/2011/06/09/zettai-karen-children-review/ http://blog.bakabt.me/2011/06/09/zettai-karen-children-review/#comments Thu, 09 Jun 2011 18:38:28 +0000 Hellfire http://blog.bakabt.com/?p=1855 Continue reading →]]> This time I’m giving you my opinion on Zettai Karen Children. I’ll first review the Anime and continue with the manga (which continues the story). Due to the good sales of the OVA and the manga, a second season is expected to air sometime 2011/12, I’m looking forward to it.

While this show might appear to be childish at first sight, it does have a pretty deep story and the characters would rather fit an older audience, rather than children. While the apparent childishness was a factor that kept me from watching it for 2 months, I finally decided to get it over with (and thus move the anime into the watched folder) adn I was positively surprised.

The series centers around the conflict between Espers and normal humans. The amount of Espers being born is on a continues rise, but strong Espers are still rare. There are two major factions:

• Base of Backing ESP Laboratory (BABEL): This is were the four protagonists are. This organization has to counter any ESP criminality by using Japans only Level 7 Espers, convienetly 3 children of the same age. Kaoru probably the strongest and most important one has a personality more befitting a perverted old man, rather then a 10-year old girl . She occasionly uses her psychokinetic powers to that end. Shiho is  a sadistic mind-reader with a black sense of humor, while Aoi is a teleporter and an honor student. These childrena re supervised by Minamoto, who is supposedly a genius and a researcher at BABEL.
• P.A.N.D.R.A. (I can’t seem to find out what it means): This is the major antagonist organization, consisting of Esper criminals. Their leader is always attempting to get the children (Groupname for Kaoru, Shiho and Aoi) to join them, and is always thought of a s a lolicon stalker becaus of that.

While there are other criminal organizations, not much is revealed about them in neither the anime nor the manga up until now (not finished yet). The general Idea is about changing a horrid future using the powers of the children (hope that’s not to much of a spoiler).

First of all the characters are brilliantly made, and they fit into the story perfectly. Although they are to some extent weird (an understatement), they do make the entire manga into a comedy. Also the development can be witnessed in the story itself. But that is not only for the protagonists, but also for some minor characters and the antagonists. There are many relations in between both fractions, making it more interesting.

Next comes the music. While the first opening theme somehow reminded me of animes I’ve seen when I was around seven, it is pretty nice. The endings and the other opening befit the anime, although they are not to my liking. The music that accompanies the scenes is very well made and always fits the scenes. Actually, while reading the manga I simply put the OST on random playback and it actually fit most of the time.

The animation was mediocre, but if that is important for you, you won’t get to see some really good shows. It at least depicted everything accurately and understandable. The setting on the other hand is original, and well thought through. It contains natural human reactions and prejudices as well as stereotypes towards unknown things.

The story in itself is great, both in the anime and the manga, although the anime is a little filled with fan(kaoru)-service, which is to expect from an ecchi tagged anime. The anime does not cover the supplement pages of the manga which sometimes contain very interesting information about minor characters, but it would’ve been difficult to include that without causing confusion, so I suggest to read the manga from the beginning after finishing watching the anime. The ending point for the anime was well chosen, as it not only ends an arc, but also a chapter of the characters’ lives.

This show is very good for you if you don’t want to be chained in front of your screen for hours. The light make-up of everything makes it more of a casual series, that you watch a couple of episodes at a time. I still found it to be a surprisingly good show (my expectations of comedies and ecchi animes are extremely low) and I’d reccomend it to anyone who likes ecchi series. The anime is suited for those that prefer serious dramas as well, but they’ll need to get around those typical ecchi jokes somehow.

P.S.: I’ll recommend the 720p chihiro subbed version over the category C one, because there were some inconsistencies in the resolutions of some episodes (some were stretched, which looked awful). I don’t know if this has been corrected since I downloaded this last year.

Link for recommendation: http://www.bakabt.com/159387-zettai-karen-children-absolutely-lovely-children-chihiro-720p-x264-aac.html

I’ll start with index. First of all the Rail gun of Mikoto. A rail gun is actually a simple weapon if you look at it from physical terms. It’s just a little hard to construct, in a usable manner. A rail gun fires a projectile by first accelerating it through alternating magnetic fields. A magnetic fields induces a counteracting electrical force in the projectile, so that if you change the magnetic field, the projectile is accelerated. You might have heard about that end of world scenario in 2008 in the LHC of the CERN complex. That Large Hadron Collider is a Circular rail gun, accelerating particles. The theoretical maximum speed is the speed of light. In theory a rail gun would be a great weapon, but it’s hard to build such a small one, and it is even harder to find a reliable power source.

Next is the Schrödinger experiments. At Schrödingers times, he was thought to be crazy because of them, but today they are the basics of quantum mechanics. Take a air-tight metal box, but a cat, a gas-grenade and some radioactive particles with a 50% chance of decay in one hour. You can’t look inside the box. After one hour, you have to ask yourself one question: Is the cat still alive, or is it dead. You won’t know without looking. In theory, the cat is now in Super-position. Super-position is when a quants (an electron if you want) properties cannot be discerned. For the cat, that means, you don’t know the state the cat is in. To figure out what state the cat is in, you need an observer. The problem that quantum mechanics face is that the act of observation actually modifies the state of the thing that is observed. Another problem is, that an act of observation even a collision with a quant (a light (not as in weight, but the thing that makes you see things) particle) This principle is used in Noein and Zegapain. In Noein (Spoiler warning), the Protagonist is killed one time, but due to the fact that quantum existences are not able to observe him, he could be saved. It means if something happens to you, it has to be proven by an observation. Well, that weird stuff is why I stopped wanting to study Physics after school.

Another quantum mechanical theory is the multi-verse theory, also applied in Noein. Imagine a yes or no decision. if you decide for yes, humanity will survive, if you say no, an alien race will take over earth. Now let’s say you said yes, then your dimension would be safe. At the same time, another identical dimension is created, but there, you will have decided to say no. That leads to an infinite amount of dimensions. This is applied in Bokurano as well, but there, they also added a solution to a problem we would face. (I suggest that you watch it). This theory is also represented in one of the cosmology factions among physicists. There it is a more realistic scenario: Instead of just one Big bang, there were countless others, but since there is nothingness between our universe and the other one, we can’t observe them.

Now I’ll get to Uchuu no Stellvia. There a Super Nova causes terrible damage to the earth. It is true that a Super Nova could cause damage, but not to that extent. First of all, a Van Allen belt would catch the brunt of the electromagnetic impact, and the balck hole at the center of the galaxy would attract the material wave. Since our earth is at the outermost part of the galaxy, it would be relatively safe. I don’t remember anything about what might be the cause for the dimensional rift following that.

Crest of the Stars introduces Anti-Matter fuel. Anti-matter is not what most people believe it is. It is not matter that can destroy everything.Actually there are different types of anti-matter: Anti-Electrons (positrons), Anti-Protons, Anti-neutrons, Anti-Hydrogen, Anti-Helium… (insert every element you can think of). Science was only able to create anti-matter up to Anti-helium. If an Anti-electron fuses with an electron, both are destroyed, setting free the energy that both of them contained. Having said that, the highest possible efficiency is 100%, meaning that it is not a regenerative energy. Actually with our current technology the efficiency is at  about 0.0001%, and we can’t stabilize them. Here a layout from NASA:

Next is laser weaponry. Believe it or not, lasers are already part of our everyday life. Well, at least, in Berlin there are around 500 arthroscopies a day, which are using lasers to either cut or weld gristle inside joints. It is used in plastic surgery to permanently get rid of hair, or to correct the eyes lenses. Having said that, laser weapons are highly inefficient. First of all, a laser is highly concentrated light. With our current technology, you need a 15 cm barrel to have an almost loss-less beam of 20 cm. At 50 cm, you can only use it as a flashlight, it won’t harm anyone. That is because of air resistance, refraction due to temperature and pressure differences and the inability to focus the beam properly. In space we would get rid of the air resistance and temperature and pressure differences, but there, you need to consider magnetic fields of planets and other metallic bodies. Here is an example of 2007, as you can see, laser-weaponry is already being applied, but it has it’s limits:

Next gravitational fields, as seen in Planetes. Through orbiting in a gravitational field of a planet, objects can gain a very high speed. For a satellite to gain enough speed to leave our solar system, gravitational fields are necessary.  it is not realistic that they are picking up trash flying around with 8 m/s, as it normally would tear of your hand, due to inertia, unless your relative speed is close to that of the object you want to catch. That said it is a huge fuel waste to accelerate and then decelerate again, just to gather trash. Gravitational fields have some interesting things about them. For example, the heavier the object that is generating, the field, the more it slows down time, and it refracts light. Extremely strong fields can also dissolve matter. That is seen in black holes, but it actually would be interesting getting sucked in by a black hole. The closer you get to being dissolved, the more time slows down. In theory it would never end, as in the end an earth-second would take about 1000 years. Here is an example of how gravitational fields are represented in cosmology. Instead of a grid, imagine a linen sheet being there. If you hang every corner, so that the sheet will be stretched, and put lot’s of small plastic balls on there. Spread them out evenly, and then put a heavy iron ball in the middle. All the plastic balls will roll towards the iron one. of course, the heavier the ball in the middle, the more it will cause a deformation of the sheet. Accumulated it will look like this.:

Another thing Planetes applies are fusion engines. A fusion engine uses the mass defect. If you fue two hydrogen atoms, each with a weight of 1 unit, you would think that the H2 weighs 2 units, but in truth it ways a little less. Not that one could actually determine it easily. That little bit of mass that is lost turns into energy. Actually that is one of the most efficient energy transformation processes in our universe. While it is called nuclear fusion, it does not emit any radioactivity. The problem we are facing is that we cannot stabilize the fusion reactor. It just cools down after some time (I read an article about the longest fusion process being a week long up until now). it is the same process that our sun utilizes to provide us with light, which heats up the earth, is the cause for wind and which we utilize nowadays for solar energy. It is not infinite, but we can use about 40 elements for fusion. Here is a schematic overview of what our sun does on the surface, which is fusing Hydrogen to Helium:

Another thing is the AIM dispersion field known from Index. It is more of a psychological phenomenon, that each person has a personal space (we refer to it as privacy), that does not have to be real space, but can range from intellectual freedom, to the freedom to move around. If someone infringes on that space, humans supposedly react angered (it is a theory). If some personal spaces come into contact, and share some aspects, new things are born from them: friendship, love, hate, companionship, children (yes, the theory includes that), and many more things. As it is a psychological (I would even say sociological) theory, it does not really have any physical impact, but if there are things like extraordinary powers, then they are related to that field, as it is the imagination and self of a person.

I think that wraps the animes up that I mentioned at the beginning. In general, animes try to apply physical laws, the success varies,but it’s good for getting a basic overview of things. Actually, after reading through some U.S. patents, I believe that some series could get a patent on their ideas concerning physics. Now that you also know Schrödingers experiment, you might now why you should not name your cat Schrödinger (Referring to To aru majutsu no Index).

Post Script: Actually I’m surprised that the Blog-spell-check doesn’t like the word anime. Also, if you are interested in other technologies or physical backgrounds, just tell me, I might make a second post if there are at least 5 questions. I won’t guarentee that I’ll be able to answer everything, but I will try.

No Music, No Dream: that’s what kept him going…

What happens when you serve Metalocalypse with BECK? You get DMC,
with a goal of reaching the world’s top of death meal.

I hear they serve 'em at Mcdonalds

This comedy flick is set in modern day Japan. The story starts off with our stylish protagonist, Negishi leaving the comfort of his home to pursue his dream: to be part of a Swedish pop band. This was his dream since high school. Armed with his motto: No Music, No Dream. He arrives in the city, looking all gay and happy that he can now make his dream come true.

yeah, gay and happy

Or so he wishes.
It turns out that he actually ended up in an underground heavy metal band called Detroit Metal City. With Negishi on the lead guitar and vocals as “Johannes Krauser II” and his new friends and bandmates: Terumichi “Camus” Nishida on bass and backing vocals and Masayuki Wada as Alexander Jagi “-sama” on drums. They play heavy metal music that’s very alien to the non-fans who hear it.

want your bad romance!

But it gets worse, their president, who’s name is President of Death Records, treats the band as something to make her climax.

I gotta admit she's kinda hot

The band, despite being underground, has a very dedicated fanbase who’ll probably eat a band member’s shit if asked to.

With this, we follow Negishi’s misadventures as Krauser and as himself. He meets interesting people along the way, he gets into a rap battle, commits suicide on stage, gets his room redesigned, teaches a dude how a demon king takes care of his possessions, and faces a final boss in an epic showdown of amazinging skills.

he also plays guitar with his teeth

This movie is directed by Toshio Li, who was also cast as Takeshi “Spellman” Sawai in the OAV. Yes, that crazy ass director in the anime is a real life director.

Moving on, this movie also features some familiar faces for the japanese live action viewers. For one, Matsuyama Kenichi plays the role of the fabulous wannabe Souchiro Negishi.
This is the same guy who gave life to L in the live action Death Note movie.
Another would be Akiyama Ryuuji (Nishida) who was Tanaka Makio in Cromartie High: The Movie.
President of Death Records, whom people who watched the OAV’s first probably love so much is Matsuyuki Natsuko who starred in Hula Girls as Kirayama Madoka.

Now that we’ve covered the basics on DMC. time for the quality of the movie itself.

Special Effects: great, it’s very realistic actually

come on, this is pretty tough to capture in real life.

Costume Design: I can say it’s pretty good. the band’s costume was pretty loyal to the anime. The “stylish” people were pretty stylish here too. and they really paid attention to the actors and actresses faces.

That tongue's gotta be CG.

Soundtrack: Since the band plays heavy metal, this may turn off those who can’t stomach anything harder Creed.

It’s pretty good to me, they claim the band plays death metal but some people say that they’re actually groove metal. but since i listen to everything from trance to rock to symphonic metal to grindcore I don’t really care.
Aside from metal, there are also parts where Negishi and others sing Swedish pop.
and they sound like diabetes for lack of better word.

Take his word for it.

Acting: I’ve heard complaints of bad acting on this, clearly some people have never heard of the word Parody.
In any case, the acting’s quite narmy and exaggerated. which is good considering that’s how the characters acted in the anime.

I'd tap both (the piano and the book)

Final Thoughts: There are a few things i’m disappointed on here. first, there was no raping of tokyo tower. I would have loved to hear the throbbing sound of metal being humped.
Second, the 10 times rape was not pulled of properly.
Third, there was no film making “arc”.
Fourth, a spoilerific scene with little real action that lasted for a few minutes (10?).

I liked the anime very much, so i can say i have a bit of bias. Your mileage will really vary on this movie, but I recommend this regardless. If you want a good laugh all throughout watching something then this one is perfect for you. This is actually the first live action adaptation of an anime / manga I’ve watched. and I must say I was not disappointed, except for the parts I am disappointed on of course.

For the people who watched the anime first, you’ll notice that key scenes from it are also here with a few changes. The overall plot also changed a bit, all I can say is it’s a must watch. The differences vary from subtle to blatant so your mileage will really vary on this.

overall:  rating 8/10

lm/ d(—_—)b

I couldn’t give it a 9 because of the few disappointments (and the subs).

torrent link is here. Might wanna tell me your thoughts about the movie in the comments, too.

and shoutout to CRxTRDUDE for no real reason.