The on-going cycle-path saga has really geared up. From last week's state, the entire run across the M11 from roundabout to roundabout has been taken up, except the unblemished surface on the bridge; and now the edging and bedding is being replaced. At the current rate, in a couple of weeks, it might at last be all done!
Simply the best anime title of 2006 (because the closest competitors, Akagi and Mushishi are technically 2005 titles that ran through the winter half 05-06.
And a woefully under-appreciated title it was.
The original fan-sub group that picked it up usually handles shoujo-ai titles; and the “key-turn” ritual (middle left) for starting up the Simoun (the flying machines, see top left) made it look like just another excuse for very pretty backgrounds and girls getting friendly together. But it turned out more complicated than that, and was left to languish in favour of more accessible highschool-romance titles, until picked up by the most dedicated and special-purpose group of fansubbers whose product I have followed.
Simoun-Fans, an essentially ad hoc grouping, put together the most polished translations and sub-titling (including credits for the seiyuu against the characters during the OP, rather than the usual self-congratulation; that was left for a brief screen at the very start, before the TV footage). Of course, the polish came at a price — episode 26 wasn't subbed until a year after the first episode aired.
OK, the story, and why you should watch this title…
On a world that is not ours — two suns in the sky, for one thing — a transcendent civilisation rose and vanished. In its wake, the remaining people could unearth the helical motors, the snail-shell parts of both the Simoun and other powered devices (trains, boats, the old “tramp steamer” Messis top right, …). But only the Holy Land of Simulacrum has harnessed them, and the casual flight it offers. Other lands have more steam-punk technology, and seek the secret of the simoun. So war breaks out…
In that world, all children are born as girls, and in Simulacrum choose to be man or woman at coming of age in their late teens. All the parts — even the men, are voiced by women; and, of course, young men are hard to tell from young women — the adulthood change is not instantaneous, as shown in the character of Wapourif, the chief mechanic to the simoun.
While lesser flying craft can be piloted by anyone, the simoun needs to be driven by two girls; and these pilots are drawn from the ranks of the priestesses of Tempus-Spatium. While two priestesses at the helm they can produce magical effects by drawing glyphs in the air (called Ri-Maajon; middle right is the Silver Ri-Maajon), as part of religious ceremonial aerobatics. And as priestesses, they are allowed to defer a while the choice to become adult.
So, a group of priestesses become, overnight, the necessary front line of the Simulacran fighting forces. Few can handle the mismatch between their vocation and their new orders — and when the new overwhelming forces of Argentum actually bring down a choir of simoun, many depart into adulthood. Only the latecomer, Aaeru (lower left), even refers to what they do in military terms, rather than liturgical ones.
So, it's a war-story; but it's character driven drama, of love, sacrifice, choices, and growing up (or not, as the case may be).
After 25 episodes of brilliance, I was anticipating the finale with some trepidation — too many series drop the ball at the end. This, however concluded with an understated and open ending which was as satisfying as could be, knowing that this story had at last come to its ending.
You have to do
and not
in order to make jythonc generate the function calls you want in the intermediate Java code.
And as I'm in a “Jython calls Java calls Jython” state, doing some transcoding/refactoring, I have still not managed to get Jython at the front to call nicely into the Jython at the back.
causes
method myPackage.Backplane.performSetup of myPackage.Backplane instance 1 Traceback (innermost last): ... AttributeError: abstract method "performSetup" not implemented
despite it being there quite plain as day:-
and despite Java code calling it quite happily.
*sigh*
Suddenly -- fansubs.
OK, so the only raws to hand are poor quality, but this was out within about 24 hours of the show airing.
This episode was hyperkinetic -- and had enough Engrish in it to make it roughly comprehensible even with minimal Nihongo -- I wonder if they can all keep it up like this. I didn't think it was really possible, but the casual magic use level has escalated from A's high points -- I'm getting serious 'Doc' Smith flashbacks here.
I would hope that after this all-action grab-your-attention episode, next time gives us a bit of exposition.
A bright sunny day -- good for pottering about in the garden and trying to beat back the worst of the weeds. Suddenly, it was hot enough to get hot and sweaty working out in the direct sun.
Meanwhile, in other news …
…first episode aired this afternoon local time, and this evening I was a sad enough bunny to hunt down the first LQ raws to watch. Beamspam being a universal language, and Raging Heart still giving occasional commentary, I could figure out most of what was going on. Probably a couple of weeks for subs, though.
A long while ago I blogged about the state of the cyclepath where it crosses the M11.
Today, to my surprise, I found that the whole section of path, and more had been ripped out to the hard-core base.
Maybe, after coming on for 4 years, the problem is going to be fixed, sorta soon, like.
I've spent probably about a day figuring out what's going on here, Google being no help whatsoever, so figure I might as well publish.
Scenario -- Jython 2.2b1, installed in standalone mode i.e. all of /Lib inside the jar, and cachedir being skipped.
Now this sort of code works with Jython launched from the jar in the standard install:
but with Jython.jar from the standalone the code gives
C:\jython2.2b1-standalone>java -jar jython.jar Jython 2.2b1 on java1.6.0 (JIT: null) Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> import java.awt Traceback (innermost last): File "", line 1, in ? ImportError: no module named awt >>> ^Z
Hunting down the error message, it is raised in org.python.core.imp, ultimately from JavaImportHelper.tryAddPackage() failing. Meanwhile, from the other direction, doing
import sys dir(sys)
gave me that sys has a packageManager attribute. And that has a makeJavaPackage method. This lives in org.python.core.PackageManager
So, that seemed worth giving a try. Like
And that, at last, worked.
Now, you might think it would be elegant to do something like
to allow for the cases where it would work anyway; but this doesn't work -- the branch is taken, but the conditional packaging doesn't seem to stick. However, it doesn't seem to matter if you always explicitly add the package as part of the initialisation, even when not strictly needed. So stick with the simple case. It's more Pythonic that way, after all.
Yesterday was pretty horrid -- dull, and in the afternoon, cold drizzle, unpleasant to cycle home from town in. It was an afternoon to retreat back to bed, with cat and laptop for warmth.
I slept in solidly this morning, even after settling down around 10pm last night, pretty much sleeping the clock round (even without figuring summer time into the equation).
Having covered the pond with bubblewrap last Sunday (ahead of sleet and frost), the warm and sunny weather meant it could be exposed again. As expected, the frogspawn was gone -- having been there since more than 3 weeks ago -- and I spotted a couple of tiny tadpoles.
Leaf buds are starting to burst now, so maybe real spring is here again.
Late to the party, I know, but this year I finally got around to trying out Python, just for the heck of it. After all, working in a heavily Microsoft shop, the in thing in the day-job is .Net -- or C#, as it is usually known.
Which is where IronPython has come in very useful as a wedge issue. So far I've used it a lot in various build scripting applications -- it has been very useful for things like automating version number updates based on the check-in levels used to build. I now wonder why I've spent so long in the past grubbing around with extended .BAT and .CMD files to achieve what a few lines of Python will do.
There are joys in just being able to write version3 = '.'join(version.split('.')[0:3]) to turn a.b.c.d into a.b.c, as well as being able to just include by reference, rather than cut and paste, from other scripts -- like the whole getting the version information into the a.b.c.d string in the first place.
For the moment it's my current software infatuation, something I will use wherever the opportunity arises. Rather like I felt about Java ten years ago; though that language has now fallen from my favour.
[Now playing - Planet Rock]
This is one of the titles from about a year ago that I have been slowly savouring.
A sort of X-files in what might be Meiji Japan (mid 19th century), or might be some future that has returned to that state. Ginko is one of the wandering Mushi-shi — literally "bug masters" — who dispenses folk remedies for the afflictions caused by not quite living things that lurk under the surface of the waking world, or in odd corners — be they swamps travelling to the sea, back-to-front rainbows, or snails that crawl into inner ears where they can eat silence.
In mood, it is a “chill-out” sort of title. People talk; seasons pass; families grow, as Ginko wanders the land. There is no overarching plot, each episode is self contained — and may interleave with others. The episodes themselves are evocatively titled for the conundrum that will be encountered — things like One Night Bridge, The Dew Consuming Swarm, The Mountain-bearing Robe.
Very highly recommended, and a rare case of the anime bettering the manga it was drawn from —, colour, sound and movement are all sensitively used. I shall be interested to see how the live-action movie, which draws on the more human-interest episodes, like Ginko's origin story, will turn out.
Three years, 18,592 miles (5835 this year). And the first MOT and an oil-change on Monday.
Given the extra amount of driving I was doing last spring, when Karen was staying with friends, and I was going over for dinner about every other day; and then going on holiday a couple of times, I'm surprised it was less. All the cycling over the summer sure mounted up!
A week of fine, mild, sunny weather has meant that I cycled to work every day this week -- I don't think I'll manage to do any earlier in the season than that (compare last year :) ).
On Wednesday, when we went out to the pub at lunchtime, it was warm enough in the sun to sit outside at one of the picnic tables to eat.
And now we're promised a plunge back to sleet and snow next week. :(
The frogspawn I first noticed last Saturday has accumulated further over the week. The forsythia is now bursting its buds. And today was warm and sunny enough for wearing a T-shirt while hoeing the cow-parsley and mowing the lawn.
There is a lot of moss in the lawn this year -- not having done any treatment last year has brought it all back.
I don't as a rule go for mecha or space anime, but this title from Q4 '06 started with the advantage of being a short stand-alone series. And while it was not earth-shatteringly epic, it was a fun little ride, with some nods to realism, in the highly relativistic spaceflight and the time dilation effects.
It certainly grabbed my attention when at the end of the first episode, not only does everyone we've been introduced to (but the heroine) die; but her beloved brother has been revealed as the traitor who has killed them — and has managed to destroy the irreplaceable mimic-unit which allows her to pilot the top-grade mecha class (the STRAIN of the title).
That gives her 12 episodes to start again from zero, find and defeat her brother, and save the human race — while gaining (and losing) more colleagues by the way, being bullied by many of her colleagues and fending off the advances of others…
Today was my first day cycling to work, in beautiful clear sunshine in the morning — though the cloud had come up by the time I headed home.
From now, it's down to the weather and other committments.
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