Pazithi Gallifreya

LJ and Feedback

pazithi — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 13:46:21 GMT

I know many of you guys don't use LJ as much or not as much as they did one, but the service has new owners and it seems that they are trying to make things better and get back the user trust previous owners lost, after the feedback to the new user page wasn't all good...

There is a way to switch back to the old style by the way, if you don't like this one. navaan linked to it here.

The recent release for example finally brought back subjec lines as an option for new comment styles (which is very important for some communities like fic memes and RPGs etc.) after they've been gone for about 2 years I think. (Old styles still have them as default.)

Anyway, LJ has been asking for feedback about how users use their service to learn more about their userbase and so if you have the time drop over to lj_feedback and comment or drop them at least a line about what you do or like here.

Still thinking about my own feedback. ^^;

Kenshin!!!!!!111!!!

pazithi — Thu, 29 May 2014 11:48:26 GMT

Und noch was worauf ich mich total freue... :D

Da freu ich mich drauf:

pazithi — Mon, 28 Apr 2014 17:32:02 GMT

Wer noch? :D

?

pazithi — Fri, 07 Feb 2014 21:26:11 GMT

Can somebody explain to my why the german title for „Captain America: The Winter Soldier“ is „The Return of the First Avenger”? That makes even less sense than the english to english change of the Thor title… How is that even more understandable to the average German?

If it’s the Winter Soldier story line why not just keep the title as is? (My theory is that they desperately want the “Avenger” in the title, because so far the first Captain America wasn’t exactly the best received MCU installment. I’m not sure the title change is the right way to go, though.)

pazithi — Wed, 11 Dec 2013 19:58:05 GMT

Woohoo! Dalek Voice: "THE DOCTOR IS REGENERATING!!" I can't wait to properly meet Twelve! :D

(But why do the Daleks remember the Doctor? Wasn't there...? Well, fuck continuity, I guess...)

Sherlock returns...

pazithi — Wed, 04 Dec 2013 19:14:16 GMT

earlier than expected. The air date for the new 3-episode series was announced a few days ago and it's only weeks away. Ad now the Beep announced that we'll get a Minisode on Christmas Day. :D

pazithi — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 03:29:03 GMT

Ten and Eleven together rock already! Can't wait to see it! And in cinema, too. *g*

And don't miss the Mini-Episode:

pazithi — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 22:45:20 GMT

I get strange Vampire Lestat/Anne Rice vibes from this. I mean Tom Hiddleston comes across like a strange mix of Rock musician Lestat and moping, passive Louis (with added upset Loki hair…) None of that is a bad thing really, but I couldn’t stop thinking it while watching the trailer.

And again with the surprise John Hurt! :)

Take the survey please!

pazithi — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:23:24 GMT

I took the OTW Community Survey!

Rakuten vs. amazon...

pazithi — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 12:46:25 GMT

There is a lot of talk about the Japanese e-Commerce site rakuten.com wanting to become a competition for amazon, because rakuten bought the Kobo now. Well, good luck then. I do think it’s comparing apples with oranges again - like all the people who thought the Kindle Fire was supposed to be competition for the ipad - when in reality it was made to be a competition for the color reader Nook and Kobo... (Every journalist who thinks he has to compare the Fire to the ipad is not doing his research probably in my opinion and it’s sad to see how many journalist have no idea nowadays that research should be part of their job description...)

Rakuten is an e-commerce platform for different sellers - not a centralized shop with additional functionality.

The only thing that would get me to at least be excited about it would be if the Kobo either would manage to become an ereader for comics that works like the Kindle - because I HATE the comixology system -, or if they managed to open the Japanese book market for e-reading world wide. Amazon was working on that and hasn’t come far, because as it happens so often wit Japanese business models, they don’t want to adapt to international needs, because so far they’ve made money on their home turf. I don’t think rakuten is influential enough to make publishers in Japan adapt right away. In fact I fear rakuten with it's understanding of business is in fact an outsider in Japan, much like softbank was.

I do wish them luck though, because maybe if they are successful with something outside of Japan at least a few businesses in the country will start thinking more globally.

Edo Wonderland - Shinsengumi

pazithi — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:29:08 GMT

The Edo Wonderland has a Shinsengumi Experience now. Look at the picture of kids dressed up as Shinsengumi members! Isn’t that cute?

sigh

pazithi — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:59:56 GMT

I'm not getting anywhere with the work I'm supposed to do and I feel tired and burned out.

This is what I want to do now:

The fiasco continues

pazithi — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:08:09 GMT

Originally posted by electricdruid at The fiasco continues

ACTA in a Nutshell –

What is ACTA? ACTA is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. A new intellectual property enforcement treaty being negotiated by the United States, the European Community, Switzerland, and Japan, with Australia, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Mexico, Jordan, Morocco, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and Canada recently announcing that they will join in as well.

Why should you care about ACTA? Initial reports indicate that the treaty will have a very broad scope and will involve new tools targeting “Internet distribution and information technology.”

What is the goal of ACTA? Reportedly the goal is to create new legal standards of intellectual property enforcement, as well as increased international cooperation, an example of which would be an increase in information sharing between signatory countries’ law enforcement agencies.

Essential ACTA Resources -

Read more about ACTA here: ACTA Fact Sheet
Read the authentic version of the ACTA text as of 15 April 2011, as finalized by participating countries here: ACTA Finalized Text
Follow the history of the treaty’s formation here: ACTA history
Read letters from U.S. Senator Ron Wyden wherein he challenges the constitutionality of ACTA: Letter 1 | Letter 2 | Read the Administration’s Response to Wyden’s First Letter here: Response
Watch a short informative video on ACTA: ACTA Video
Watch a lulzy video on ACTA: Lulzy Video

Say NO to ACTA. It is essential to spread awareness and get the word out on ACTA.

Via Tumblr

Random things

pazithi — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:12:12 GMT

1) Important: By now everyone should have heard of the SOPA bill - a bill the American congress will vote on at the end of the month. Although it is an US bill it could severely impact on the world wide web.
On January 18th, 2012 sites are organizing a strike and big sites like wikipedia, facebook and twitter will join to show the world what is at stake. Which means: Interested or not, you could be affected.

2) Haha, this made me laugh so hard.

3) I tend to like Derek Jacobi, although he does come across funny in some of his roles. But this - this looks soooooo awful that it’s actually hilarious: Derek Jacobi’s 25 Best Moments from ‘Charles Dickens’s England’

4) And maybe the Buffy movie won’t be made after all, but nothing can be put past Hollywood. Quote from a related article I found amusing:

According to one unnamed source close to the project, Anderson’s take had “some great ideas and she had reinvented some of the lore and it was pretty cool, but in the end there just wasn’t enough on the page.” (Though to be fair, it was better than what Warner Bros. initially had on the page, which was “NAME RECOGNITION + REMAKE + SEXY GIRLS - WHEDON - WHINERS x 3-D? = FUCK YOU.”) Anyway, there’s some speculation that the studio may continue looking for a new writer to take a run at it, but even more speculation that the idea “may have lost some steam”

Just because it's Christmas!

pazithi — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 22:27:15 GMT

And I love Christmas in a very personal and secular way! :)

Hope all of you who celebrate had a nice Christmas Eve (or depending on tradition Christmas Day)!

I know it's so old now, but I don't care. I still love Ten:

Kenshin teaser Trailer

pazithi — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 19:47:29 GMT

I'm so looking forward to this! It looks so amazing!

Yuletide

pazithi — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 19:22:56 GMT

Just here to point out that people with an Ao3 account can now nominate rare fandoms for this years yuletide.

You may not be sure if you can spare the time to join in the fun of actually signing up for the exchange, but it’s always better to have nominated the small fandoms you always wanted to see fic for, before it’s to late to decide.
This post xplains about yuletide involvement:

eReaders, Ao3 and the free domain thing :P

pazithi — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 10:39:29 GMT

My mother has given me an early Christmas present: An eReader. The amazon Kindle to be precise.
I’ve been watching the development of eReaders with some scepticism for a long while now and there was always something or other that bothered or annoyed me with all of the possible choices that kept me from buying one.

There are still some things bothering me: Privacy and control are probably my biggest concerns with eReaders in general. With the Kindle there is the additional annoyance over the fact that it doesn’t support the ePub file format and that it’s pretty much bound to the amazon store. I hate to be limited and one of the biggest problems I have with most of the new technologies is that they offer me things I didn’t need before and on top of it try to take away my freedom of choice by limiting me to stores. (It’s the same with the apple store and anything like it, really...)
I’m also a big fan of projects like Project Gutemberg and therefore hate that the Kindle doesn’t read their ePub files. (Other eReaders do, of course, but I have yet to find one, that offers all that I want in a way that I would be comfortable with, so I am grateful my mum gave me a present she thought I’d like. And I am a little in love with it, although it’s not perfect.

On that note: Promote Project Gutenberg!

Go To Project Gutenberg

Most of the books I have on my Kindle at the moment are actually free domain books anyway so I haven’t payed any big amounts to any store just yet.

Reading on the Kindle is pretty comfortable, too, and for an avid reader like me this little thing will come in handy when I travel. No more carrying around loads and loads of books. (Like many busy people I tried audio books, but mostly they are not for me. I prefer audio drama to audio books and mostly I’m annoyed by the way texts are read to me, because I would read them differently. I don’t like a reader interpreting a text for me. It’s like something is intruding on the text before I read it...)

And it doesn’t weigh so much, which I feel is really helping with the pain in my wrist. (I barley could hold Order of the Phoenix up for longish periods of time...) The eInk really looks like Ink on paper and doesn’t strain my eyes so much and the battery life is astonishing.

Even better: Thanks to the Ao3 I can dowload fanfiction as .mobi files and read them on my Kindle - or as ePub for other eReaders. http://archiveofourown.org/archive_faqs/27 It’s much more comfortable than reading fanfiction on the Notebook or computer. So an extra special praise for the Ao3 for making it possible to download fanfiction for eReaders! It has definitely made it easier and more comfortable for me to read and carry around fanfiction in these busy month that keep me away from my notebook for long, long hours!

I still think there is room for more customer friendly developments, but all in all, I think I’m in love.
I don’t think paper books will die out any time soon: they still have their own appeal. But eReaders do have some interesting advantages.

If someone want’s to help to make the A03 even better: Go for it!

Go for it! It’s not long before the OTW will need more servers for the Ao3, so take your time and think what you can do to help.

A03 and fanart

pazithi — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 11:04:02 GMT

It seems Ao3 is getting ready to host fanart.
Hope this turns out well and the archive will stay easily searchable. I for my part will be there to read more than to look at fanart - although I love fanart, too.

Next stop will be vidding, I guess.

It’s hard to believe how far the Archive has come in only a few years. We are still talking beta here!

Of Geek Girls and Slave Leias and the problem of "teh sexy cosplay"

pazithi — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 12:27:25 GMT

We’ve been talking about this recently, so I just have to link you to this very eloquent post about self-objectification and geek girls and sexy cosplay.

It’s easy: Sexy people can be geeks. Girls can be geeks. No problem at all to be sexy on a convention. I don’t think wanting to feel sexy is a problem per se - it’s society and our Hollywood (and now anime) induced definitions of what it means to be sexy. I think it really should be challenged and not endorsed.

We’ve seen a certain trend of girls dressing up sexy, going to conventions scantly clad, posing nearly naked to get hit counts on their DA accounts. Sexy outfits get more attention and sometimes you don’t even have to go to the trouble of hours of planning, sewing and working on a complicated cosplay that will get you some attention if you’re lucky.

Getting attention can be addicting, too, I guess. But please girls just think about this: Are you doing it because you are living and breathing your sexuality and femininity - or are you really using your looks to get attention? If it’s the later: Are you really comfortable with it? It’s up to you really. Have fun whichever way you are comfortable. But be aware that self-objectification is problematic. Be aware that you’ll be read like an object by many - even if you don’t feel like it or don’t want to be one - and then stand up for yourself and don’t behave like one at least. Be sexy AND show agency, girls!

Thinky thoughts about Bunraku and Hunger Games

pazithi — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 12:43:49 GMT

I’ve just watched the Bunraku trailer - and aside from the movie having a pretty distinct look and style, the trailer makes it seem like a lot of clisheés with not particularly original comic booky dialouges.

Wish I could be more excited...
For those of you who will watch this because of Gackt as “an ardent young Japanese warrior”, I think he looked a lot younger and more ardent in Fūrin Kazan. (Does he even have lines in this movie? Or did I miss it in the trailer?)

This trailer has also made me remember why I think Woody Harrelson - although I like him a lot - wasn’t a good casting choice for Hunger Games in my opinion. He’s been casted as Haymitch Abernathy, who will be the mentor of the protagonists during the deathly games. The thing is I can see him pull of the unfriendly drunkard part that is a big part of the character. Haymitch is also the only boy from District 13 to ever win - read: survive - the Hunger Games - but the thing is: he doesn’t look that part. The character should be someone who doesn’t look like he could have ever pulled of winning the Hunger Games. Lithe, scrawny - like someone who grew up hungry, with little food and even lesser chance at learning to fight. Haymitch was an unlikely winner who used his cunning.
I always imagined an ageing man, painfully thin and not particularly big.

Maybe that’s just me...

Aside from casting Lenny Kravitz as one of my favourite characters and maybe Donald Sutherland as the “bad guy” (could be interesting) I’m pretty underwhelmed with most of the the casting announcements. Although Rue and Prim really look their parts! It’s always problematic to cast book characters, I know.

Planning...

pazithi — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 09:41:44 GMT

I’m again playing with the thought of buying a dress form. Not one of these posh ones that you can change to different sizes, but just one of these regular ones. I have yet to find one that I could use to really fit something to my own size. My hips seem to be too wide and my breasts too small for that strange norm... Anyway. I don’t want to use it for fitting. I manage that without a dress form - maybe not perfectly, but well enough for my purposes.

But I have one or to projects in mind that will include armor. Chestplates to be exact. And it would just be more comfortable to make this with a spare body.

I’m thinking about it. Maybe I’ll write it on my list for Christmas.

SDCC wrap up and TRS fun

pazithi — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 13:23:35 GMT

The guys of the Totally Rad Show have some comments on SDCC and they nail a lot of what I thought watching the trailers, especially Spider-Man. So I’m going to be lazy and not type up anything but give you the video instead. ;P

The guys have a few games they play in the show. One is “Secret Identiy” where two agree on a person/popular culture character and the other (without knowing the character) has to try and do an in-character conversation with them while figuring out who he is supposed to be. Normally that’s fun, but on SDCC they let the people on the panel decide which characters to choose and it turned out to be hilarious! Alex looks pretty in Pink! Because it turns out he’s really Princess Peach...

Walking through Japan

pazithi — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 07:39:53 GMT

Hey guys. I may have talked to some of my friends about this project, but I thought that some of you might be interested in the actual blog.

Japan was hit heart by the massive earthquake in March. The struggles continue to this day. Clean-up isn’t anywhere near done and Japan has a long way to go to recover from the blow. It’s not helping that the tourism industry was hit very hard, too. Some parts of Japan rely heavily on the income that tourism brings and that is why it’s important to highlight that not all of Japan was hit or is uninhabitable after the Tsunami/Fukushima-disaster.

It’s great that some people go out of their way to show Japan is still a beautiful and safe country. So if you’re interested spread the word about this blog of someone who will start trekking Japan (yes by foot!!) from Hokkaido to Kyushu. He has been working as volunteer in the disaster areas for a few days. (We’re glad that NTA is organizing pakages for volunteers all over the world.) Now from the beginning of August he will start his trek in Hokkaido and tell about his experiences and share pictures of the west coast of Japan. So check it out. The main blog is in German. So for those of you able to read German check out the main site, it seems to be a little more detailed and comprehensive.

15 years Ruroni Kenshin

pazithi — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 23:59:21 GMT

While sifting through the Jumps of this year I noticed a brief announcement for a new Kenshin Anime series. I love the idea. Has it really been 15 years since the last one? I’m old... I can’t find any dates for this, but I think it could happen in 2012.

I wasn’t particularly thrilled to hear of the live action project. Satou Takeru was cast as Kenshin. I only know a few of his Kamen Rider episodes and I’m not sure if he’ll look the part, but the girl they cast for Kaoru could work and the director did a good job on “Ryoma-den” - so maybe this will be great.

And more Kenshin actually makes me sort of nostalgic and happy. This was one of the manga that really got me into it and I love it dearly to this day.