My Wordpress problems have caused me to look into alternative blogging solutions. Now I could always write my own, but that would be rather inefficient if other people have already done so. I've been looking into Sub Text and Das Blog. (What's with the nautical theme?) I'm much more comfortable writing in .Net (No more Lame PHP editing!) so adjusting the code will be much easier plus I could actually use my main hosting account, which shouldn't have the server issues that this side blog suffers from. These are two .Net blogging frameworks that seem like they'd be nifty to try. Now the only thing preventing me from a trouble free blogging experience is my laziness.

I've finally joined the in crowd and upgraded my home PC to Vista. I acquired a free copy of Vista Ultimate from via my work provided MSDN subscription and so I could not discern any reason to not try it out. So far my experience has been pretty positive, since upgrading was easier than I fear it would be. Even though the install claimed it would be fresh it still kept all of my old files, placing them into a Window.old folder and even left the folders I'd place in the root alone. I had spent all of my evening on Friday backing up files for naught as they were still around when vista booted itself into existence.

The Good

• I really am enjoying the Aero Interface; it certainly an improvement of the drab practicality of XP. I really like the added transparency to the widow headings and borders, it's beyond cool. I used to have a graphics card on my previous Desktop that would make windows transparent when you dragged them around, but it couldn't do window parts. The new round start button is easier on the eyes and takes up less room on the taskbar. Vista's Gadgets, a bunch of small apps that hang out on the right side of the screen, is a nifty idea although so far I only display the weather gadget and occasionally the CPU gauge. Still, I can the see the potential of getting some gadgets (such as a server weather warning that pops up if theirs a tornado near-by), but I have feeling it'll probably end up being useless like most of the IE Add-ons.
• The upgrading experience was simple a few simple options and it good to go. Sadly I went apartment hunting while it was installing so I have no idea how long it actually took to install, but I must have been less than three hours.
• Now I can finally use 64 bit programs since my previous incarnation of windows was only 32 bit even though I have a 64 bit Athalon processor.

The bad

• My Lame Lexmark printer doesn't work with vista although it was barely working beforehand, so I'm not particularly sad to see it fly into the dumpster.
• The Sound will skip or crackle occasionally. I've tried different players and so far Windows Media player is working tolerably well, although even it is subject to skipping. I'm also not particularly found of it's playlist options... It seem other players tend to be worse with the crackling with Winamp being almost unlistenable. I'm not sure if it's my poorly written audio driver or something intrinsic in Vista, perhaps it'll be fixed in a future update.
• I need to add another 1GB of Ram in order to properly run more than one program, but that was something I probably should have done beforehand.

Since I didn't make it to Kendo this week, I'll attempt to pretend I wasn't completely slacking off by posting this video.

We've finished quite a few series that had been long running at the Akron Anime Meetup and have started a few replacements. All in all it was a fun time as all the regulars were there. In addition we ordered Chicken and snacked on tasty treats such as spice cake, pretzels, Banana nut muffins and Green rice things.

Fruits basket

Yay we're finally done with the Big eyed anime of doom. This series is Shojo so not too much should be expected from it, however it did have it moments of comedy. The plot involved an orphan girl falling upon disreputable companies who suffer from a terrible curse. It seems these companions, known as the Soma family, are forced to take the form of an animal from the Chinese Zodiac when they are hugged by a member of the opposite sex. She soon develops a harem of these strange animal men in particular a rat and cat. Does this harem fall under the realm of zooaphilia, particularly since the nature of the curse almost demands bestiality in order for the Somas to procreate.... :( (This is normally why I fear Shojo due to it's disturbing plots.) Eventually our Heroine Toru reforms the animals and they seem to live happily ever and forge down into new depths. This anime is filled with cross dressing and people of indeterminate gender. Flee Flee!

Full Metal Panic

One of the best Mecha series I've scene and a decent antidote to the Fruity baskets. It has interesting alternate world. I gather the Full Metal Panic world involves a surviving but Weak Soviet Union and a anarchic and strife ridden china. It seems that new revolutionary technologies such as mechas (or Arm Slaves in the anime) and super submarines are being developed by special people known the "whispered". In to this anarchy a small mercenary band know as Mithral attempts to spread justice and make the world a better place. One way is by protected the "wispered" and preventing them from being exploited by evil folk. A young soldier named Sousuke is sent on a mission to protect one, Kaname Chidori and so follows lots of entertainment.

The one problem with this series is that Kaname is really cruel to our hero Souseke and will not miss a moment to beat on the poor guy. Otherwise there are nice action sequences with mechas and a hijacked jumbo jet. I also felt the final battle with the main villain to be very odd since there was a lack of Lamba Drivers and the nude Kaname wandering around was beyond explanation. (or at least reasonable explanation, I realize that it could be posited that her nude form symbolized the submarine... )

Twelve Kingdoms

We watched the first three or so episodes of twelve kingdoms and it certainly has caught my interest. The animation is pretty cool though it looks a little odd, perhaps because I'm more used to the newer animation styles, but it's still quite cool. Our red haired Heroine is extremely reluctant and whiny which is annoying but it does serve as a counter point to her crazy companion who just want kill everything. I predict that the crazy one becomes some kind of villain just because she seems to have some real issues. I look forward to seeing more as I've heard this series is quite good.

Beck

Finally we've started on the this anime about a group of students attempting to form the ultimate band. It's quite entertaining and even has decent music as opposed to the normal scary J-Pop found in some anime. Hopefully I'll find the will to wright a more complete review of this series at a later time after I've seen more of it.

I recently finished Hayek's Road to Serfdom. This book was complied from essays and thoughts that Hayek had encountered during the Second World War As such it can be a bit dry since he spends time refuting some popular thinkers of his day, who now have been forgotten in our day and age. Generally though Hayek wrote in response to the dangerous Ideas emanating from Germany that he felt had embedded themselves into Western thought and by extension English and American thought.

I fear I have little constructive thoughts to add to a book that is so well known, however, since when has that ever stopper a blogger? I think the most interesting facet of the book involves Hayek talking of the "Great theory horrible implementation" argument in regard to Socialism/Communism. He takes the Sacred Planner who will order everything equitable in the socialist society and shows how this takes the freedom to from the common man. Sure the common man no longer has to deal with the perceived randomness of the Market forces or the perfidies of corporate interest, but instead must deal with capricious bureaucrats who decide from on high how he or she will live.

In general you could say it is the non-fiction version of George Orwell's 1984 in that it was a reaction to the totalitarian tendencies in post world war II socialism. Whereas Orwell created and imaginary dystopia, Hayek wrote a much more conventional critique, write down to having footnotes and citations. Like Orwell, this Hayek is troubled by the similar results of the self proclaimed antitheses of Fascism and Communism, but Hayek reminds us that both these horrid systems germinated from western Utopian strains of Western civilization. Some people claim that the political spectrum is not a line but instead a circle, but with Fascism and Communism right next to each other. I suppose this is a nice to keep the traditional right left dichotomy, but it seems unduly complicated. I much prefer the Multi-Axis Model as it seems offer a more accurate view of modern ideologies than a model based up where people sat in the French Legislative Assembly of 1791.

The Good

A nice overview of the failings of a fully planned society and how it destroy individual choice and freedom. Likewise it raises the point the totalitarian tendencies found in fascism were quite popular in the Democratic West in the time around the second world war.

The Bad

the book can be quite dry, especially the last quarter when Hayek goes into detail regarding socialist thinkers, that were popular during his time, but have thankfully been consigned to the dust bin of history.