These next couple of days promise to be quite stressful, work-wise, so this could be the end of my run of daily posts. (The 5th consecutive daily log entry!) Nevertheless, I will hopefully make another on Wednesday, although I can't promise I'll have anything to report.

What little time I had free yesterday was spent ploughing through a few chapters of Salad Days (one of my favourite manga series, by Shinobu Inokuma). I'm having to ration myself since Asahiya don't restock very often so what I have is all I'm likely to get for a while. My attention was concentrated on the last three chapters of volume 10, a 3-part story entitled "Diet Love". It's a rather cheesy story - girl asks childhood friend to help her impress new boyfriend, friend falls in love with girl in the process but says nothing, girl runs off with boyfriend, girl discovers boyfriend is evil, girl's friend reappears to rescue her... and they live happily ever after. Yes, it's vomit-inducingly waffy, but I love it. =^^= And Inokuma-Sensei is amazing with a drawing pen. Why can't I draw like that... T_T

Two months of BBI and counting!

I'm still playing/watching Majo-ko Moerin (just finished episode 4 now), so I though't I'd say a little more about it. Firstly, yes, it does become a little more ecchi after episode one. Thankfully, Moerin is still only the subject of numerous panty shots and the recipient of 'suggestive behaviour' from others, but the female Javabots in episode 3 are used as an excuse for random gratuitous nekkidness. >_< Another thing likely to irk some players is the moe-bishoujo nature of the game. For anyone unfamiliar with these aspects of Japanese 'Otaku' culture, the game could be viewed as quite disturbing. However, the game is a comedy and as such is not supposed to be taken seriously.

What IS it about then? In short, it follows the story of Moerin and her younger brother Monkichi on their adventure to the Land of Magic. Along with their lolicon-freak, Otaku sidekick Buucho and bishy super-hacker Shoogo, the pair battle such evils as computer viruses and obsessive collectors. Armed with her Magical Compass, Moerin is able to pull off special mahou moe-moe attacks to destroy her foes (think "Sexy Commando", but with a girl knocking her enemies off guard with a gratuitous panty shot).

No, it's not a great game, but it is humerous (some Japanese ability required) AND it is free, so if you have spare time, bandwidth, and feel you can stomach its unhealthy moeness, you may enjoy it. But for now, it's back to work for me...

In contrast with yesterday, I'm feeling insanely genki today. I think I overdosed on cute earlier this morning. >_>;;

I managed to catch a glimpse of the animated adaptation of Kino no Tabi, based on the novels that, according to Asahiya Shoten, don't exist. (grr...) Given the good things I've heard about the books, I can't see the anime quite matching it for depth, but it's still one I'd like to sit down and watch at some point. The novels would be preferable though, if I can ever find them...

And now for something completely different. [Warning: One or more of the links that follow could lead to pages containing material you may find offensive. Nothing of a horrific nature, but if you're the sort of person who really doesn't like adult doujinshi or bishoujo games, you might want to stop reading now.] ... Anyone still with me? Oh good. Well, during my earlier stint of gallery browsing in order to find cute, I stumbled across Tech Gian's (an adult bishoujo game magazine) web site. After skimming through the page (there are some things there that it's best not to ponder over for too long), I found another link to Tech Gian Online, a pay-per-download site hosted by Famitsu.

This site contains a number of Tech Gian downloads - games, CG collections, etc. The idea is that you pay a small fee (around 400 yen) for each download, which sounds like a reasonable fee for a game. However, one game listed - Majo-ko Moerin - caught my eye. Why? Because it's free, and I can't easily refuse a free game. ^^

The game isn't so much a game as a combination of adventure-simulation game and Flash animation. It was designed with lolicon-loving, bishoujo game freaks in mind so there are Moerin panty shots aplenty. However, if you can live with that, it's actually rather amusing and fun to play. If you have a broadband connection and a little free time (or a modem connection and a lot of free time), click here and download episode 1 (the last in the list - you could start at episode 8 and work backwards, but I take no responsibility for the story not making any sense... not that it makes much sense if you watch it in order >_>;; ). You'll need Macromedia Flash 6 and Windows (it comes packaged in a self-extracting Windows executable) to enjoy it. As a Flash-hating Linux user, this annoyed me somewhat, but I have to say I think it was worth the hassle. ^^

(n.b. I have only watched/played episode 1. It seems reasonably clean so far and there were no age warnings on the site. I don't think it will degenerate into an all-out hentai orgy by the end of the second episode, but the game is described as a "little bit ecchi", so don't say you weren't warned.)

Feeling drained again. Hopefully I'll have perked up by next Wednesday, but until then, don't be surprised if you encounter a less than genki SoZ. Maybe I should buy myself a tazer and zap myself with it periodically to see if it has any energy-boosting effects. ^^;

My brain is worrying me again. I don't know what brought it on, but for some reason I'm contemplating the feasibility of natural language translation using Lambda Calculus. I find the best thing to do in these situations is to just let my brain get on with it and hope the strange ideas eventually work their way out of my system.

As is usually the case, I don't have much to say. So I won't. (Unlike the last time when I bored everyone to tears with that 'dream' thing.) However, I will say a special hello to Kirinji, Lord of Darkness, the 666th visitor to BBI. ^^ Congratulations are also in order to The Fish which celebrates 5 years of web page translating this month.

Wow, what an exhausting week. I had a little time off earlier, but otherwise I've been working pretty solidly.

... Just so you know. I wouldn't want you to start reading this in the hope that it may prove interesting only to end up sorely disappointed.

Some time ago, I was thinking about dreams. Proper "sleep" dreams as opposed to daydreams or the imaginative wanderings of a bored mind. I haven't had a real dream for some time now. I suspect that the demise of my sleep-time fantasies can be traced back to the moment I shunned what most people would call 'normal' sleeping patterns in favour of... erm... the most likely very unhealthy 40+ hour days punctuated by occasional periods of rest that I have now. Anyway, I had recently watched a television programme on advances in the understanding of the human brain. What caught my attention and started me thinking about how this could relate to dreams were the methods used to stimulate areas of the brain using external electrodes and similarly mounted receptors to read responses. The programme discussed conventional uses of new electro-neural interfaces - stimulating damaged areas of a brain in order to encourage growth, teaching stroke victims how to use a functional area of their brain to carry out tasks that would otherwise be carried out by a 'dead area', etc. However, at some point, another use for these electro-neural interfaces occured to me.

In short, shared dreams. Imagine being able to don a headset before you sleep, hook it up to the Internet and enjoy a shared dream experience with friends. Admittedly, this is a rather fanciful vision and the technology required is not quite there yet, but if technological and medical advances continue at their current rate, who knows. Currently, these interfaces are able to influence areas of the brain, but not sense and trigger the impulses in specific neurons without direct physical contact. As such, we would only be able to influence each other's dreams in vague, undefined ways rather than engage in any form of conscious communication. Perhaps that's for the best, given that we are usually unable to control our dreams and their purpose is primarily to fulfil our conscious or subconscious fantasies; if playful 'forward' behaviour developed between you and a close friend, despite you having no intention of doing anything of the sort in the real world, you could find yourself in an awkward situation the following morning. On the other hand, perhaps society will grow to accept such things. Currently, most of us feel our minds are our own. I suspect we would be deeply embarrased if we could read each other's thoughts on occasion. But maybe in the future, shared dreams could become a new, more intimate way of bonding between good friends.

As I mentioned above, the technology to precisely control a mind is way off. Even the idea of influincing the brain may not have the desired effect in many cases, due to different neural mapping between individuals. A pattern of neural activity indicating 'pleasure' in one individual may map to 'fear' in another. It may be possible to overcome this through 'calibration' of each individual's headset thingummy, but I don't want to concentrate too much on the technology that allows the system to work.

Another possibility: What if you could select your dreams? It makes sense that if, by connecting two or more people, they are able to influence each other's dreams, a third party (likely a computer) would be able to do the same. The carrier I envisaged for these signals was the Internet. Imagine, years from now, a host of Internet services that allow you to select your dream from a database of popular offerings. All you would have to do is connect to this service when you sleep and enjoy your chosen experience. Assuming a system that only allows for vague neural influence, these could be "pleasure", "exhilaration", "relaxation", etc. - simple programs that stimulate your brain in order to bring about these sensations. They could sense the feedback from your brain and react accordingly in order to serve you better. In the event that more precise neural interfaces become available, the possibilities for these kind of services are almost limitless. Such a development would have more of an impact on our conscious lives than it would in our dreams (communication, control, total immersion, etc.). However, a type of "total immersion" computer environment that could be predefined before sleeping would be ideal for dreaming. Imagine an MMORPG that you could "play" (although it would not be on a conscious level) with your friends while you sleep. Another of the roles of a dream management system such as this could be to prevent embarrasing situations such as those I cited previously by detecting such signals coming from an individual by either filtering them out or attempting to influence that individuals thoughts through feedback.

There are other possible uses (or in some cases misuses) for a shared dream system. An extreme form of 'dream learning' is one example of an idealistic use of the system. Corporate marketing departments would be sure to take an interest in dreams though, and this is where we start to see the possibility of worrying trends developing. Much as the World Wide Web went from being a network for the sharing of ideas to an outlet for commerce, the dream network could suffer the same fate. Imagine if, in those dream experiences you could select from an online provider, part of the dream was given over to a sponsor's advertisement. The subconsious effect TV and magazine advertising has on people is significant, but to be able to influence the subconscious directly would be a particularly scary development. Unlike in your conscious state, you would be prone, unable to avoid the commercial messages targeted at you. Since the Internet is a public network, there is also the possibility of 'hacking' - not quite on a Ghost In The Shell level, but there are enough similarities for it to be a very worrying concept.

All this means that any dream network would probably be subject to a number of legal constraints. The development of the legal situation surrounding any system of this nature would probably be almost as fascinating to follow the development of as the system itself. I'm not just talking about laws that would apply to companies, would-be-hackers, etc. The extent to which laws would apply to regular users would be the most interesting of the legal aspects of a dream network and would have a profound affect on the dream network and society as a whole. Should we be held responsible for "actions" we take while asleep? If our subconscious contemplates something illegal, what then? Bear in mind that use of the internet is subject to a number of laws in many countries. For example, if two paedophiles linked dreams and engaged in "bad thoughts", could it be argued that they were transferring illegal data over a public network? All of these questions also are also applicable to conscious mind-networking if/when the technology becomes available. Our minds may not be the sancturies they once were if our thoughts become subject to legal constraints.

I'm wandering off the original topic so I'll finish here. I wanted to just talk about the technology with regard to dreams, not conscious thought, but with more precise interfaces that permit conscious communication, there is an unavoidable overlap. Anyhow, my apologies to anyone who had the staying power to read all of that. It was rushed and badly written. I shall endeavour to write about something more interesting next time. ^^;;

No real news as usual. I'm still quite busy so no time for site updates at the moment. I did employ cunning work avoidance tactics earlier which resulted in another horror for you to laugh at, but that's about it.

I see Sega and Namco are considering getting together again. This time I hope they can actually make it work. I would hate to see Sega link up with Sammy and end up going the same way as SNK. It just doesn't seem like a fitting end for the company who brought us the blue hedgehog.

Someone should write a book entitled "Case-modding - Walking the Path to Inner Peace in Style".

There was a computer fair held at the Sports Center yesterday, an event that comes around every two months or so and which gives me the opportunity to stock up on CDR media while poking around amongst the other junk for anything that captures my interest. Sadly, while the attendance at the fair seems to have increased (both in terms of customers and dealers), the ratio of dealers selling nice things to those selling junk has been falling. There were no CDs with a recognisable brand name (I am picky) in sight.

There was, however, a table selling various case-modding components - the usual fayre; big, flashy fans, things that glowed, etc. I had decided a long time ago that such things served no purpose in terms of increased functionality and that I would therefore never bother with them. ... But they were cheap. What caught my eye was a UV cold cathode lamp. I find it hard to resist things that are purply in nature. Particularly if they are shiny and glow. £5 later, I was walking away with a chibi UV strip-light.

By the time I'd reached home, I'd gone over in my head at least a dozen times the moment when all common sense deserted me and I handed over the money. Was the lamp emitting some strange mind-altering waves that had affected my brain? Or did I just let my weakness for cool, shiny, glowy, purply things get the better of me? Twenty minutes later, I had it mounted in Kotoko and all doubt that I had made a foolish purchasing decision flew from my mind.

It was so... PURPLE! (Well, violet actually.) I spent most of the evening just sitting there, gazing at its appealing purple glow. The motherboard's power and standby LEDs created a warm orange glow from the bottom of the case that blended with the purple cascade from above. Occasionally, activity LEDs mounted on the bottom of the Maxtors and the network card flickered, throwing flashes of green into the mix. While I have been known to worry people by sitting and looking at pretty tech for unhealthy lengths of time before, I don't think I've ever given the same level of attention I devoted to this mesmerising display. It was so pretty, and relaxing at the same time. While I can't see it as the solution for world peace, perhaps aesthetic case-modding does have a practical use. Maybe as a way of reducing stress in the workplace. Having said that, the amount of time given over to staring at the attractive light displays could possibly have a knock on effect on productivity.

If I actually had any regard for how others perceive me, I might actually be worried at how "sad" this makes me appear. Luckily, I am not afflicted by such concerns. Having said that, I don't think I'll be doing any more case-modding (not for aesthetic reasons anyway) for some time. For now, I am happy just to sit back and bathe in the purple glow... ^^

A slow day today. After wrestling with lexical analysers earlier this morning, I gave up, screamed and ran off to Leeds to buy trousers. I then spent the rest of the afternoon doing absolutely nothing, which made a rather pleasant change from the hectic week that's just gone.

Oh, and there's a new doodle in the gallery if you're bored.

First of all, if anyone sees someone with the username KaiOne on the Aniverse IRC network, feel free to pass on my gratitude to him/her in the form of hot, flaming death. Don't ask why because you probably don't want to know. The brain-purge is still underway and will likely continue for several months.

I'm afraid there's still not too much happening in SoZworld at the moment. Not noteworthy things anyway. I'm still bogged down in work, so the site is more-or-less at a standstill. I've done a little more work on the Osaka anime shopping guide, but don't expect to see it anytime soon. The only updates you'll probably see over the next month will be these front page logs and the occasional gallery image when I get bored enough to draw something.

I noticed yesterday that Studio Mebius are releasing the Snow Original Soundtrack in a couple of weeks. (I've been forgetting to check the site recently. T_T) It's a smart-looking 2-disc set with a range of BGM and vocal tracks (good news for I've fans) that will probably complement the Image Album in the Comiket pack quite nicely. I also see that they're currently hiring. Anyone in the Osaka area with good Photoshop skills feel like becoming a professional character/background CG artist? ^^ Strange, I hadn't noticed it before, but they're located only about a mile away from where I used to work...

I'm also looking forward to getting my hands on the new Sakura Taisen Kayou Show CD as soon as fate (or Asahiya Shoten) permits. I know they overhyped it a lot this year, but most people seem to agree that it was a good show and I really do like the live Hanagumi performances.

Lastly, some plugging. Although I'm not a great fan of most of Itokatsu Sensei's work (which usually has a 'dark' feel to it and is mainly adult in nature - hence the reason I haven't linked to his homepage here), he does have a nice 'cute' style that he uses occasionally and which I find hard to resist. In addition to a number of cute paper-based manga (Momoshino in Magi-Cu springs to mind), GA Graphics host Nyan Nyan Police and Chelsea, two of Itokatsu's online manga series. If you're stuck for things to do, have a read. It's cute and it's free. What more could you ask for? ^^

After a little hiccup at Easily yesterday and early this morning, Bokeboke Island is back up. Still no word on exactly what happened, but it would appear that all Easily-hosted sites (except the main Easily website) went offline for a while.

Thanks to those who were present for a fun LAC weekend. It was nice to take a break for a few days. Unfortunately, I must return now to more mundane, work-like things. Alternatively, I could bury myself in Magi-Cu Premium for the rest of the evening...