2005-11-28
Posted in Web Wandering & Opinion
at 11:48
Putfile – Shadow of the Collosus Subliminal Messages
My brother just linked me to this video clip. I’m willing to offer a negotiable reward of services and/or electronic goods (files, not things you plug into the wall) in exchange for either the name or a copy of the music that is used in it. If you provide the actual music, the file must have accurate source data (Title and artist or album as appropriate) either as a separate text file, or in the metadata (ID3 tag or equivalent).
If you’d prefer to keep your response secret, you may use the contact form on my main site.
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Posted in Geek Stuff, Otaku Stuff, Web Wandering & Opinion
at 10:34
Comic Alert!
I haven’t been able to make as much free time as I’d like, but I did manage to find what is proving to be a real time saver. With all of the webcomics I read, checking for updates can be very time-consuming. Especially since many of them don’t provide RSS feeds.
Comic Alert! is a website I found while googling for an RSS feed on a particularly confusing site. Essentially, you sign in (you don’t even need to give an e-mail address) and build a webcomic favorites list.
It will then check the comics for updates and notify you through your choice of three methods:
- Your own custom “all my favorite comics” RSS feed
- A daily e-mail digest (Obviously, requires you to give an e-mail address)
- Your own “These comics have been updated” page complete with thumbnails.
The service is completely free (even from ads, at the moment) and according to the FAQ, they never want to go beyond in-site ads when it comes to getting paid. My favorite part is how it leverages the social aspect of having all those favorites lists on a single site in order to suggest new webcomics. Of course, I already knew about all of the comics It’s recommended to me, I just haven’t had time to try them.
The other potential gains which haven’t really come into their own yet are the “Related Sites”, “Similar Comics”, and “User Reviews” functions. I spent about an hour this morning submitting Wikipedia articles to be added as related links. I just can’t wait for their planned my.comicalert.com feature. Then I’ll be able to let their software automate the task of maintaining a publicly-visible favorites list.
Anyway, subject change: When I came to post this article, I was informed that there was a Wordpress 1.2 vulnerability and my blog had been disabled. As such, I finally got upgraded to 1.5. As you may notice, there is no Captcha anymore. I left it that way on purpose in an attempt to goad myself into giving the blog a major overhaul. It’s needed one for a while.
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2005-11-12
Posted in Fanfiction
at 6:24
Title: Hidden in Darkness
URL: Furinkan.net VFFA
Author: Space Pirate Hamster
Source: Sailor Moon
Rating: 5.5/6
Type: Continuation with a possible hint of AU
Length: 6 Chapters + Omake (Complete)
After doing the bit of reading that resulted in the previous post, I was left with the annoying fact that this was probably the only fic on the Sailor Moon page at Furinkan.net that I had not read. The tab remained open in my browser for weeks as an annoying reminder that I refused to remove, but never had the time to make use of until now.
Hidden in Darkness is one of those fics that turns things on it’s head by doing nothing more than revealing (creating) some hidden fact about the canonical story. (One of my favorite kinds) Essentially, it raises the question, “What if the destruction of Metallia left a race of half-youma refugees who desired only to survive?”.
As with Space Pirate Hamster’s big-name works like newRanma and The Virus, I consider this fanfic to be very well written. The setting and plot are believable, and it’s a true mark of a good author when you can get your audience to enjoy new characters in a fanfic, as opposed to disliking them or not caring. In fact, the combination of skill and subject matter reminds me of Stefan Gagne’s original work, Sailor Nothing. (which really deserves it’s own review)
Anyway, if/when you do read this, I highly recommend reading the “Author’s Notes and Omake” file. It’s rather reminiscent of Arthur C. Clarke’s “Lost Worlds of 2001″ in that you might have difficulty telling whether you enjoy the main feature or the discards more.
What really surprises me is that the only other decent fic I can think of which tries the “non-evil youma” idea is a Ranma 1/2 – Sailor Moon crossover which I have yet to review. (Youma 1/2)
My apologies for the fragmentary nature of this review and it’s tendency to go off on tangents, but I’d rather post an over-concentrated review while half-asleep, than risk getting bogged down with work and forgetting about it entirely. Of course, I could say the same thing about the disorganized nature of this blog too.
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