Learn Japanese with iKnow

Fellow Comrade Danny Choo has once again provided another tool for those of you who wish to learn Japanese so that one day you may fulfill your dream of going to Japan.
This article written by Danny has all the details. Basically you can use iKnow to up your Japanese proficiency. As one who is studying Japanese on my spare time I find any new tools given to me very useful. So far I can read Hiragana, listen and understand others, formulate spoken sentences, and read very very very basic stuff. I need to work on my Kanji, Katakana, and writing. I am sorta confident that I could get around Tokyo with what basic knowledge I have but I don’t want to risk it so I want to become more fluent before I go to Japan.

Small update so far, been wanting to write about the Australian Open and some more animes.

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OC ReMix and their Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD ReMix OST

Overlocked Remix

OC ReMix has given us a great gift this boring morning. Before I start the post, if you haven’t been to OC ReMix go now!! It is an amazing site. Overclocked ReMix, also known as OC ReMix and OCR, is a website created by David W. Lloyd (also known as djpreztel) to preserve and tribute video game music with remixes of the original song/s using new technology and hardware/software. The remixed arrangements of the original, or master, songs are all done by fans and OC ReMix lives up to it’s intentions offering a wide variety of arrangements by its large user base. The songs come from a large list of games which OC ReMix currently has remixes of 553 games and 1,642 remixes right now! Yowzah.

Aside from just offering video game remix downloads OC ReMix also offers a large database video game information, composer information, games, game systems, and much more. The site distributes the music through direct downloads for individual songs and BitTorrent for albums and packages which one can also buy to support OC ReMix. You can also visit their forums to interact with the community and rate remixed songs and remixers.

One song that I have been listening to recently is an Ico ReMix called Save Me (OCR Edit) by SGX, a remix of the soundtracks “continue” and “heal” from the game.

Now on to their great achievement today.

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Youtube taking over.. maybe..

So, youtube recently started allowing HD videos, which I enjoy immensely. Not just the fmt=18, but now fmt=22, compare in full screen and you’ll see what I mean.  At first, I heard questions around the interwebs, and from a few friends, that this may put downloading anime, television shows,  and maybe TV, out of business. I’m going to have to put a firm ‘no’ towards that. 

 

Looking good there Shinkai.

 

 

Sure, it’s great. But it’s still not like having an episode or movie on your hard-drive or DVD. It’s much slower, has a restricted time-limit (at least I assume it does), and isn’t going to have the selection of downloads. 

I hear mumbles here and there from people who still cannot run HD videos on their computer. And that is with a video that is on their hard drive. A flash-based program is just going to lag even more for them. 

But, that aside, the lack of selection is the biggest problem. Why watch sparse, 25 minute videos, when you can watch entire movies, in one shot on a DVD? You may find a few anime here and there, and a TV show that some company wanted to promo on youtube. But you won’t find your favorite shows from normal television plastered all over youtube. It’s just not going to happen that way.., yet.  

I do believe youtube is taking a step in the right direction. But it’s only a step, not a leap, and I don’t think it will change how I view any of my media. The greatest things for this are short trailers, and things like OPs to anime. These types of videos are fantastic to have in HD without having to download them. I welcome this change; even if it is just here to completely and utterly DESTROY all their competition.

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Play Auditorium A Musical Journey On Your Browser

-Pictures at the end-

By all accounts I should be freaking sleeping right now, but by golly I can’t! You see I was reading VG Cats hoping for an update (I kid I kid) and lo behold I stumble upon the news section where Scott posts really funny stuff. Once again he has given me a gem which I immediately shared with all my friends. Well I haven’t forgotten about the faithful reads, the bloody few of ya haha.

Anyways what I’m rambling on about right now is Play Auditorium. Play Auditorium is as the website describes it:

“Auditorium is about the process of discovery and play. There are no right or wrong answers; there are many ways to solve every puzzle. To get started, fill up the first audio level. We hope you enjoy the demo of Auditorium.”

Basically if you took a Web Browser, REZ, Every Extra Extended, maybe Geometry Wars, and most musical games you know (excluding DDR and In The Groove) and mashed them together in a blender the end result would be Play Auditorium. In Play Auditorium the main force is “The Flow”,an array of audio and visual particles, and you must get them to travel inside these vertical boxes called “Volume Containers” with the aide of these “Controls” which range from simple directions to rabits and snails. You are given a box much like Geometry Wars and you must control “The Flow” to reach their destinations by moving around “The Controls’. Sounds like a bad overview but it’s really hard to explain the wonderfulness of Play Auditorium. One must play it to truely understand. It gets trickier as you progress through the levels adding many more “Controls” and obstacles. But the end result is very very very gratifying as you are rewarded with a luscious ambient soundtrack that makes you want to just sit there and listen but then the next level kicks in and you must fight onwards.

So far I have only gotten through 2.5 levels before my weariness kicked in. But, I will continue tomorrow!! While you are at the main website you can donate (minimum of $5), sign up as a beta tester, and much more. What have you got to lose? Well, nothing really. What have you got to gain? A fucking lot my friends!

Thank you Dain Saint and William Stallwood for creating this experience.

The Controls: Up, Right, Rabit, and Repel

The Flow flowing into an Audio Container

The Flow being crazy!

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