opinion

Jumping Ship or Why I am Ditching the Surface Pro After Five Years

February 1, 2019 by chikorita157

After 5 years of using the Surface Pro, I’m going back to the iPad.

Back in 2010, I bought the first iPad when it first released. While it can’t really replace a laptop computer, it was good for web browsing, writing short documents, reading eBooks and PDFs, and gaming. Also, these new tablets last longer since they used ARM processors opposed to Intel or AMD processors found in laptops. Furthermore, they were optimized for touch compared to desktop operating systems. This gives a better experience compared to trying to touch traditional user interface elements found on Windows or Mac OS X.
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Thoughts on Sommers’s video on Sexism in Gaming

September 17, 2014 by chikorita157

You can see the video here

Just yesterday, Christina Hoff Sommers have pretty much disprove the points made by a certain video series and opponents of video games that has been thrown around for several weeks now. While I knew that most of the core gaming audience who plays more than 20 hours a week in a ratio of boys to girls is 7 to 1. Of course, male gamers tend to play games that are competitive in nature such as violent or action pack video games while females tend to play other games such as simulation, puzzle games and social games. That is to say, everyone is free to play any type of games regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. I admit that I don’t play games that most male gamers play like violent first person shooting games. I tend to enjoy Japanese games (mostly role playing games), racing/driving, simulation, music types of games.

I think the important point she makes out of this video is that the moral panic of video game causing sexism is not true for many reasons. There is a study that clearly proves that video games scare was about nothing since video games does not cause violent behavior. In other words, the same should be true for this moral panic as gamers tend to be more diverse and accepting of people with different backgrounds. Even so, does this mean that there is sexism in video games. I already shared my thoughts on that issue on my main blog, but some tropes like Damsels in Distress is just lazy story writing and I do agree that creators should strive to make a more interesting and engaging story.

Lastly, while I will not take a side on the debate since I would rather not get involved, it’s not all right to bully/harass people or censor people just because you don’t agree with them. Sure, you should call out abusive behavior, but I believe that everyone should have the right to voice their opinion as long its done rational and civil manner (meaning no berating people or a group of people). Phil Mason (thunderf00t) makes a good point about that in his video responding to his account being blocked on Twitter.

Thoughts about the AKB48 Scandal

February 2, 2013 by chikorita157

For a long time, I have been a strong critic of the Asian Idol industry not because of the manufactured music, but also how they treated the girls. In an editorial I wrote and revised back in June, I have been highly critical on the AKB0048 anime as it was used to promote the group. In that post, I mentioned the girls’ tratement because they are forced to promote a purity image.

Well, I think this incident involving a 20 year old member named Minami Minegishi getting caught dating someone and then shaving her head while beg her fans for mercy. Although I don’t know much about idol culture, I think this no-date policy is going too far. It’s not just a problem with AKB48, but also the South Korean counterpart as the agency takes full control of their personal lives just to make more money off a small group who is obsessed over it. They need to change as I don’t think it’s healthy for the women to hold back their love life just to satisfy this marketing gimmick. Besides, people only have one life to live. Because of that, I would like to see some members in this group to challenge it in the courts, although I doubt it will ever happen.

2nd Aniblog Tourney Afterthoughts

July 9, 2012 by chikorita157

About a month later, the tournament finally comes to a close with Metanorn beating Whiners. Yeah, there is a lot of butt hurt there since the latter is complaining about how the tournament isn’t fair while the voters on both sides clearly took advantage of the loophole. I won’t focus on the final results since I want to share my thoughts about the event as a whole.

The main problem that the organizers still haven’t address despite banning the use of proxies and TOR is the multiple voting loopholes that everyone is screaming about. As mentioned in my editorial that criticized how the tournament is being run, it’s nearly impossible to prevent multiple voting. People who have access to multiple connections at work or home, smartphones or own virtual private servers can simply circumvent these protections and vote again. I feel that this will always happen with a popularity contest like this because some people just want to win badly. While the idea of registration might clamp down on this, people can just make multiple accounts from various IPs and still break through the protections.

Second off, the Aniblog Tourney has become more about popularity and design rather than on content. Considering the fierce competition with potshot posts and having friends and co-workers vote, it kind of defeats the purpose of promoting new blogs and getting feedback. The best thing for the blogosphere to do is to adopt the ABA format or leave the voting and reviewing to a group of people. This way, smaller and medium anime blogs can get showcased without going through this unneeded drama.

As it stands, if the Aniblog Tourney were to continue using the current format, I will just refuse to participate. From what I have experienced in the last two instances, it’s not worth the trouble for two or three days of increased hits, which doesn’t necessarily translate to increased readership. However, if they change it to become less of a competitive popularity test and more on celebrating good anime blogs, I will accept that.

Source: http://aniblogtourney.wordpress.com/2012/07/09/post-mortem/

Akira on Older Girls

June 1, 2012 by chikorita157

In a post written by Akira about his interesting take on older girls, I kind of feel the same way. Although I prefer girls around my age, older ones tend to be more mature or sweet personalities. Also in some cases, people may look up to them as their role model. Azusa from The Idolmaster (pictured above) is probably a good example as she has a sweet personality and really good looks. Also, she’s voiced by Chiaki Takanashi, whom had other older sister type characters. For this reason, many of her fellow idols, especially Chihaya looks up to her. Takane also gets the same treatment, although she is a few years younger than Azusa.

Another good example is Sanae Furukawa in Clannad. Although she is a mom in her 30s or 40s, most view her as Nagisa’s older sister. She has a mature personality and knows how to cook anything except bread.

I think the main reason most anime focus on younger girls because the moe factor. Still, we shouldn’t overlook their uniqueness.

Update (June 2, 2012, 9:22 PM EDT): Apparently received a not so received response regarding my tastes for older anime girls is meh… Well don’t look at me, I only watched about 80 titles to date… but there are probably others I possibly overlooked. But then again, there isn’t a wrong or right answer.

Update #2 (9:29 PM EDT): Damn, how did I forget about Kotori… maybe because she doesn’t get a full on screen appearance in the game like the other characters. Even so, it’s sad we don’t know much about her, except being the secretary. I would like to see a bit more of her.

Update #3 (9:33 PM, 10:34PM): Come to think of it, Ohana’s grandmother, Sui from Hanasaku Iroha would probably fit the description better. Yeah she is 68 years old, but definitely mature and authoritative (you can probably see this with the slapping and strictness). Ritsuko also works as well since she is 19, pretty strict and likes being a producer more than an idol.

But excuse my accused trollage… it’s unintentional.

Thoughts on Comments: Of course what Akira did is somewhat similar to what Author from “Ani-nouto” as he does not allow comments on blogs. Since most people use social networks or Tumblr, these mediums can give a more interactive experience as the comments come directly from the person. However, keeping interactions to these mediums could alienate a few who don’t want to use these, but still want to comment (most namely people who want to remain anonymous or don’t want to make an account). It’s a double-edged sword, which is why I keep comments on… But hey, do what works best.

Operation Black March and Reasons I will not participate

February 22, 2012 by chikorita157

Early this month, there is a new movement by the hacktivist organization called Anonymous that calls for everyone to boycott all forms of media in response to acts such as SOPA/PIPA/ACTA being supported by media companies. It seems ambitious, but I feel it’s not going to work and its counter intuitive. For boycotts to be effective, everyone have to do it in order to become effective. For recent examples, people moving away from Godaddy in response of SOPA and Bank Transfer Day over ridiculous bank fees on debit cards.

However, boycotting all forms of media for one month and delaying it to April will just defeat the whole purpose similarly to the supposed gas boycotts of last year. Believe me, it won’t hurt the big media companies since they have other ways of making money. They will only boast about the profit increases in April when the boycotts end. Instead, it will hurt independent creators and small businesses who most likely won’t support these legislation. Second of all, media is all over the place and is hard to ignore. Unless you stay inside an empty room all day without internet and television, chances of you getting bombarded with media is rather high.

If you want to fight against this legislation, you should be doing the following instead

Selectively Boycott companies that still support SOPA/PIPA and write a letter to them as Maddox suggested on his site. Instead of hurting companies that don’t support this legislation, just punish those who still support it and tell them that you won’t buy any of their products until they change their mind.
Contact and meet your Congressman/woman in person. If they still support this legislation, arrange a meeting or call them so you can voice your opposition against these acts.If you in the EU, contact your country’s officials.
If the above fails, just vote them out of office in the next election.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m against these acts like everyone else because it undermines freedom of speech and employs censorship. However, I feel that this isn’t the effective way to get your voice heard.

Jpop or KPop and why? What are your favorite singers?

September 12, 2011 by chikorita157

Answer

It’s obvious that I listen to a lot of Japanese pop music besides some of the good/older american pop and other genres since I have been listening it since 2004. While I haven’t listened to any Korean pop, I tend to not like where they are heading since their songs have become too manufactured with the overuse of Autotune over pure talent. Considering that K-pop is dominated by idol groups more so than J-pop, it definitely generated a lot of harsh criticism. Then again, J-pop is not guilty of it, but it’s not as predominant as idol groups like the AKB48 don’t dominate the Oricon charts and you actually see individual singers. Also, they have a pretty active indie scene.(See THOUGHTS ON THE EAST ASIAN “IDOL CULTURE” PART 1 from Anime Instrumentality and you probably know what I’m talking about)

There is one good thing about JPop over K-pop… at least their music styles are more diverse than having thousands of redundant bubblegum pop that you probably get tired of.

As for my favorite singers, I like Kalafina, Lia, Maaya Sakamoto, and Nana Mizuki to name a few… There’s more, but I don’t want to overwhelm this answer with a big list of artists since its subject to change)

Ask me anything