[Most Recent Entries] [Calendar View] [Friends]
Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Реактивный микрокиборг / Wingless Angel's LiveJournal:
| Monday, November 30th, 2009 | |
| 11:55 am | Unexpected things on top of other unexpected things Or, more like, things I don't expect to see either on TV or in a major national newspaper that, uh, then appear either on TV or in a major national newspaper... Thing number 1: CN, for no good reason whatsoever decides to drag out The PJs. The description of which always sounds like something that would be far easier to joke about than to actually get on TV: a prime-time stop motion animated comedy series about life in the projects...created by Eddie Murphy. ...thing number 2 - though this one is I guess a little *less* unexpected: The Times' 2009 Holiday Gift Guide: Graphic Novels plugs Scott Pilgrim ...well, and thing number 3 - and compared to both of those, *completely* unexpected: so, I just found out about this like over the weekend (...which tells you just how much attention I've been paying these last few months to what used to be a fairly major part of my reality), but a few weeks back, Funimation's Adam Sheehan (quite possibly, the single hardest working man in the industry) got himself a profile/interview in the Wall Street Journal. The thing may not have *quite* the cachet of those near-breathless write-ups of ADV that ran in Forbes and Fortune...oh...five years ago now - but, hey, which company is the one that's still around and relevant, and which other one is pretty much just somewhat sad memories...well, and a lot of confusion. |
| Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 | |
| 8:05 pm | Still am *very* surprised this random idea actually worked! Koulikov, M. (2009). Beyond digital repositories: The (sometimes) wild world of open online access to legal materials. AALL Spectrum, 14(3), 24-26. Even if the idea was prompted entirely by me being just way too bored (...and way too done with videogames) sometime in, like, June. Well, and even if what Google launched last week certainly made this particular discussion *a lot more complicated*... |
| 2:26 pm | Another slow day, between some things and some other things... Mneh. One of those days today, the kind where I first wake up at like six-thirty, maybe even do a couple of things around the apartment, then stop and think to myself 'why the hell *am* I up at six-thirty?!?' ...then spend the next two hours getting five-minute bursts of sleep, followed by half-minute bits of being awake again...with the result that by the time 9 a.m. rolls around and I *need* to be out the door, I'm pretty much more tired than I actually was when I first woke up. x_X --- You know, I really have no reason for this, but I'm still kind of amazed every time I look around, and turns out, there's now a *major change* in the city. I mean, new buildings are one thing, but the Manhattan avenues that now work completely differently because of the bike lanes - that's something else entirely. And at this rate, hey, 2015 or whatever is still a while away...but soon enough, there actually *will* be a whole new subway line on the map! I mean, hey, if LA can do it, New York should damn well be able to do it! --- Watching Kimi ni Todoke...seven episodes in now...maybe this makes me a horrible person, but I still can't help but catch myself thinking that come on, nobody can be *as* generally clueless about social situations and almost utterly incapable of interacting with actual other people her age as the main character is! Well, and if she is really that way, her parents deserve at least some of the blame. |
| Monday, November 23rd, 2009 | |
| 4:14 pm | A certain kind of cognitive dissonance You know, at this point, I would not be surprised if I've not just traveled - but taken the Chinatown bus - between New York and DC over a hundred times. ...and yet, I can still have an experience like yesterday evening, when I wake up somewhere between DC and New York, and for a few minutes, have no idea whatsoever where we actually are. First thought is, already Brooklyn Chinatown, but no, the city-scape outside the windows decidedly does not look like Brooklyn. Second thought: well, if it's not Brooklyn, and it's already dark outside, we must be somewhere in Philadelphia. Why would we be in Philadelphia, and not in downtown Philadelphia...well, not my problem. ...eventually, turns out this is in no way Philly, and merely Jersey City - for some reason, the bus pulled off the highway and just went on local streets when coming up to the Holland Tunnel. --- *Before* I got on the bus, the mushroom and brie bisque at RFD = <333 --- Things you seriously don't expect to see on a Friday morning! |
| Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 | |
| 10:55 pm | When the mundane turns into the somewhat-unexpected. A very small sort of validation - but still! My Online Bibliography of Anime and Manga Research thing gets a plug in the listicle Comics studies: Resources for scholarly research, published in the latest issue of the magazine College & Research Libraries News. --- Not particularly surprising - OK, actually, fairly surprising - but my mother now has a LinkedIn profile. Well, hey, better that than Facebook... --- And, the Google Scholar thing. For those (most?) of you who don't know, since today - and as is in their nature, entirely without any prior hype, Google Scholar lets you search patents...and far more importantly, "published" U.S. court cases/judicial opinions. I'm not even going to bother wasting anyone's time with all the caveats and nuances, and why in this context, "published" does not really mean what the word *actually* means, and I'll keep my own opinions about open access to anything to myself (...my own opinions, of course, being only *slightly* influenced by the fact that I pay my rent and cover my book, beer and videogame habits off *providing*/facilitating access to things like these - though, really, requests for something as simple as a "published" court case are fairly infrequent). But I also know that this is only the first step in a fairly extensive plan - and for all it's worth, for a few months earlier this year, I made a very concrete contribution *to* that plan. And that is kind of cool! (Incidentally, he may be quite possibly *the* last person you would expect to be actually against - or anyways, somewhat pessimistic - about Open Access...but: Lawrence Lessig, Against transparency: The perils of openness in government, The New Republic) Now when the hell do we get to see the books *we* (i.e., my job) fed Google! |
| Monday, November 16th, 2009 | |
| 9:36 pm | Back to things... Ah, the Times, a slow news day, and the realization that, oh, hey, guess we haven't written up this particular Brooklyn neighborhood in a while. (...as in, like, a year?) And so, the Times *once again* writes up Ditmas Park (i.e., the neighborhood that I'm technically two blocks outside of, but hey, close enough...) --- I guess, hey, I picked it, I had my reasons - and they made sense at the time -...but sometimes, it really is hard to keep a straight face when the field you are at least notionally in, and anyways, are publishing in and look to keep publishing in is concerned primarily with something as removed from actual first-degree research as a field could possibly be - bibliometrics being nothing more and nothing less than counting things like which databases cover which journals, and whether law librarians writing in law librarian journals primarily cite to articles by *other* law librarians, by law professors in general, or by librarians/LIS scholars... --- Liveblogging Lamarre: Well, not quite, but still. Like *two pages* into The Anime Machine: "What has surprised me about research on Japanese animations and anime is the general lack of interest in animation as such, in animation as moving images. The bulk of anime commentary ignores that its 'object' consists of moving images, as if animations were just another text...Even when anime is treated largely as text, some commentators will call on the novelty and popularity of anime to bypass the tough questions that usually arise around the analysis of texts...Analysis is relegated to re-presenting anime narratives, almost in the manner of book reports or movie reviews." Wow. For an academic book, that is a surprisingly strong statement. ...I guess, too bad most of the people who will keep on doing most of the anime commentary out there will never have either an opportunity - or a reason - to come across it. |
| Sunday, November 15th, 2009 | |
| 9:59 am | Anime: Only a few months ahead of mere reality ...A couple of weeks ago, I finish watching Eden of the East. ...And then, well, what do you know, today, the NYT Magazine writes up the concept and applications of what is apparently being termed 'augmented reality'...and, hey, again, SF, in whatever form, describes and problemmatizes what the world then catches up on and gets all excited about. (Edit, a few minutes later: OK, so I guess this is actually more like the Times once again discovering something people have already been going on about for months, but still, kinda cool, isn't it!) |
| 9:02 am | Countdown start! So, yeah, like all of you who care already know - well, and for the benefit of any of you who don't - FFXIII will be released in the U.S. on March 9. Guess it's time to start up that PS3/FFXIII fund... --- I don't know about you, but I still am somewhat disconcerted every time I come across a news article (or, as is in this case, a movie review) online that, instead of actually bothering to pick a definition for a particular term, just points you to Wikipedia for *all* the definitions. In my mind, the point and pleasure (and purpose?) of being a writer is exactly that - being able to pick a definition, and then making your readers agree that the definition you picked is the *right*/proper one. (And there's still that whole underlying thing about how when you look at it one way, Wikipedia is basically THE fansite for the world's knowledge...except, of course, once the fansite starts getting legitimized by actual outside people linking to it, its contents become not the fansite, but the knowledge itself...) ...I'll shut up and go to sleep now. --- Except, two more things: First thing. Lee, H.-K. (2009). Between fan culture and copyright: Manga scanlation. Media, Culture & Society, 31, 1011-1022. ...and Second Thing. Oh, yeah, Vegas. Pictures and an attempt at a write-up (most likely, just in 'random disjointed thoughts/impressions' form) now in progress. But *right now*, you get: I seriously have not sounded more Russian in like fifteen years. Sleep now! |
| Sunday, November 8th, 2009 | |
| 4:23 pm | Still a gamer! Ah, FFXIII, you and your oh-so-subtle goal of getting American teenagers and college students to learn a new word/term. The word/term in question being 'gestalt'. ...incidentally, just looking at the newest screenshots, is it just me, or the battle system actually really not all that different from what we had in Xenogears and in the |
| Saturday, November 7th, 2009 | |
| 7:42 pm | Things just realized. In English, the term is 'bibliometrics' In Russian, it's библиометрия. --- (Also 'comparative bibliometrics' *is* totally a valid way to call what I do in my paper, at least in so far as I'm not the *first* person who used it. Even if I am - at least according to Google - the second...) |
| 12:32 pm | Totally a combination you never expect to see! Austin Grossman (Lev Grossman's brother) writes up a YA steampunk novel...in the NYTimes Book Review. Children's Books: Whale Riders (...and of course, in the process, provides what may very well end up being taken as *the* standard/go-to definition of the steampunk aesthetic - with anyone else who's actually tried to define it already in a more complicated or comprehensive way being...pretty much ignored.) |
| Thursday, November 5th, 2009 | |
| 12:39 pm | Better than boredom? I mean, don't get me wrong, I can be doing *so much worse* with what I do for a living...but there is one thing about what I do for a living that I could *so* do without. Basically, because this is such a small outfit, yeah I have my job title and whatever, and my boss has specifically said that he doesn't want me ever doing more than maybe twenty or thirty pages of copying, but still, when I'm here, I can be working on a complex research request one minute, putting in a package for delivery the next...oh, and also pulling receptionist/front desk duties. Plus, since no matter what, so many of our requests come in by phone, if I'm the only person *on* the front desk (as has been the case on Monday and yesterday, and as is the case today), I can't even walk off to, uh, look for stuff, without getting one of the girls to come out from the back. But, I guess, hey, providing personalized service, so that when a client calls us, they get a reference librarian on the phone, and not a secretary or whatever, is what this place is about and how we make our money (...and how I make mine), so I'll deal. --- On the other hand, a generally insignificant - but still kind of pleasant feeling. So, I'm finishing up a paper, but there is one point where I make a fairly general assertion (that has been sort of made - or alluded to - or just accepted - by like...pretty much everyone who has written on this particular topic) and know that *just* making the assertion, without a good reference, is not going to fly. And it's one of those things where what I need to find is not just confirmation of a date or whatever, but a fairly strong statement in support of the idea I'm talking about. Well, for something like this, where what I'm looking for is most likely going to be built around a particular phrase, this is *exactly* what Google Scholar is all about. Two minutes, and I have precisely the kind of article I'm hoping to come across! |
| Sunday, November 1st, 2009 | |
| 11:05 am | |
| Saturday, October 31st, 2009 | |
| 12:04 pm | That guy, and that thing ...also, that fragment from that book - a couple of lines that sum up the whole. "He'd started that little speech speaking normally and he ended it shouting. In a way fighting like this was just like using magic. You said the words, and they altered the universe. By merely speaking you could create damage and pain, cause tears to fall, drive people away, make yourself feel better, make your life worse." --- Oh, yeah, so, that thing, the one that still won't be put to bed: "Hi Mikhail, Attached please find the edited, cite-checked version of your article, Indexing and Full-Text Coverage of Law Review Articles in Nonlegal Databases: An Initial Study...Please look over the article, and feel free to make any minor editing changes...I have included a few queries for missing citations or things I was not sure of. If you can return the article to me by Friday, Nov. 13, that will give me time to send it to the copy editor and get a final version ready to be sent to the publisher on Dec. 1. The issue is on schedule, and I expect it to be published in February." --- And finally, hey, so, if the bloke calls himself a PhD candidate, he can't be spending *all* his time (...and all his writing skills) on mass-market stuff. Gotta do something for that CV too. Well, hey: something! Galbraith, P. (2009). Moe: Exploring virtual potential in post-millennial Japan. Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies, 2009 volume, article 5. |
| Friday, October 30th, 2009 | |
| 8:00 pm | Feelin' like Quentin Coldwater Eleven years ago, I was all crazy excited about what city I would be living in the same time next year. Around this time in '03, I was feeling pretty much done with undergrad, and looking to whatever would be after. At this point three years ago, *what* I would be doing in two months was still in the balance. and a year ago, I was still in B-town, just about done, but still not quite done. ...and of course, now, because I always think to the future, so there was GW, and then IU. Then an actual job as a law librarian. But I'll just say it, three or so years from now, I think I'll be doing something *very close* to this gig. (...which, actually, yeah, sounds vastly less kick-ass than Librarian (Reference), U.S. Special Operations Command...but also pays a lot more!) |
| 12:05 pm | Things that end in unexpected places. Such as on the F train. Weird as it is, it really has been almost embarrassingly too long since I've blazed through...pretty much any fiction book. I mean, there are always so many *potentially* interesting things out there - and hey, if nothing else, I can always just walk into the SFF aisle at the Borders down the street from my office, and grab *any* random hardcover - they can't all be *that* bad, can they? Though, for all that's worth, OK, so now actually done with The Magicians. 400 pages, but a fairly breezy 400 pages. Even if the actual "plot", for all that's worth, doesn't kick in until the last hundred or so. And at that, feels pretty much tacked on - Grossman can do relationship angst and post-college ennui easy enough, but once he has earnestly write up an actual stereotypical fantasy novel Quest, he's obviously bored with it by about two pages in. I mean, the little touches are still really well-done. How would the two obviously quest-prepared Aragorn types *actually* handle having to play Stereotypical Fantasy Land tour guide to a bunch of obviously unprepared Manhattan kids in their early 20's? Well, and the idea that yeah, of all of them, one of the obviously unprepared Manhattan kids really will think that fuck it, if she's going into Stereotypical Fantasy Land, packing a handgun may screw up the atmosphere, but it will not be the worst idea. For all it's worth, the climactic battle scene is really well-done. Though again, in my mind, the whole thing really would look so much better as an anime. Inherently self-destructive demons bursting out of people's backs just *call* for being animated. A Yuki Kajiura soundtrack would help, too. ...on the other hand, what follows *after* the climactic battle scene is...well...not actually bad, just...*not good.* I mean, yeah, dude, I can get your point, but do you *really* have to make the whole thing end up such a downer? (On the *other* other, though, Grossman still gets quite a lot of credit in my book for just saying straight-out the idea that is actually at the heart of this whole thing. Actual, "mere" words are at least as much a way of changing the world as any magic ever could be.) --- ...in completely unrelated news, oh, I actually *totally* can't remember if I noticed - and/or wrote - about this already, but, new Coupland book, Generation A, due out in a couple of weeks... |
| Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 | |
| 3:20 pm | Reminders of... At work today, quite possibly *the* single most unexpected thing to come across in our internal library catalog: 'Note: volume lost in WTC.' Apparently, well, there were firms in those buildings that were our members, and had books out... |
| Sunday, October 25th, 2009 | |
| 10:16 pm | That show, with the girl... Watching Kimi no Todoke (three episodes in now), I can't help but thing that there really aren't that many anime series out there where it's the girl who is the total clutz. The first episode of Gunbuster 2 doesn't count. Obviously shonen comedy things like Yamamoto Yohko don't count either. ...except, from a guy's point of view, even when she is being all clutzy and stuff, it's still kind of cute. Whereas when it's a guy being pretty much incompetent at life (see, oh, pick pretty much any harem series from like the last fifteen years), all you want to do is punch him in the face for giving guys in general a bad name. |
| 11:25 am | The ten years ago and the present? All these years of being an anime fan/otaku...and then, I can *still* come across...just a single image...that basically is like, 'this is what anime is ALL about!' This is what anime is ALL about! --- The Times *tries* to write up an entirely serious exhibition of socialist realist art. I almost feel kind of bad for whoever got stuck with the assignment. And think back to the simple realization that, yeah, socialist realism is easy enough to laugh about and dismiss right out...but there are dozens of PhD's in Slavic and East European Studies departments all over North America who actually *do* know how to take it seriously, how to critique socialist realist works in comparison to *other* socialist realist works...and, hey, if that's what ends up paying their mortgage, there is nothing wrong with that! --- Volume 1, Issue 2 of Minding the Gap: The Newsletter of the Gen X/Gen Y Caucus of the American Association of Law Libraries now out. Scroll down to the last page. Yup. I'm sorry, if we're all at a bar, *somebody* needs to raise a glass! --- One thing I'm actually pleasantly surprised by in all the reviews of Astro Boy that are out now - pretty much every single one I've seen so far has actually avoided calling Tezuka the 'inventor of anime/manga' or Astro Boy the 'first anime ever made.' Are the reviewers actually bothering to get their facts right?!? |
| Friday, October 23rd, 2009 | |
| 5:24 pm | A beef curry kind of day There really is something kinda off-putting - especially for someone who all too well remembers Napster and then Hotwire - about being able to pull a fansub down at something like 800 kb per second. ...and while I'm on that topic, wow, when did that happen? From not really bothering with any of the anime that were airing this past spring or last fall...to now tracking Darker Than Black 2, Kimi ni Todoke and Kobato, well, and going through Eden of the East (...we have what, four more episodes left?) --- Things I didn't know before that I know now: Not only is there a set of full-body Happy Tree Friends Halloween costumes out there...but the set even includes Flippy! Well, too late for this year, but, dude, I would *so* do that! --- Actually, on a marginally related note, it's really kind of flattering that when somebody comes across a paper on the Israeli military's understanding and use of critical theory, the first person they think of who would would be interested in the thing (...reminds them of the thing?) is me... On the other hand, hey, when the paper in question turns out to mention both critical theory *and* netwar...well, I guess that pretty much is right up my street, as least as far as things I've mentioned being up my street go. --- And finally, well, that was fast. What, a week ago, the announcement was made that the Special Library Association will be opening an all-members vote on a potential name change to the Association of Strategic Knowledge Professionals - to be abbreviated/acronymed as ASKPro. ...well, as of the last two days or so, the vote is still happening, but now, the acronym is out, it's just going to be 'no, we are still the Special Library Association', or 'yes, we are now the Association of Strategic Knowledge Professionals, possibly abbreviated as something else, but *not* ASKPro.' |
