This is an anime for anyone who wants a break from the “usual” anime fare.

Azumanga Daioh is, in general, about a small group of high-school girls, telling the stories of their daily lives throughout high school. While that might sound a bit boring at first (and, arguably, it is) the beauty of this series is in its execution.

If this series was about “normal” girls, it would be pretty boring – thankfully, the characters in this series are anything but “normal.”

From Chio-chan the child genius to Osaka the… ummm… Osakan “idiot,” the cast of Azumanga Daioh is as colorful as the series itself.  Each character has their own unique quirks, and the combination of them all is likely to leave you in stitches from laughing so hard.

Some of the humor comes from over-the-top exaggeration, while other bits come from subtle non-sequiturs that may have you doing double-takes. From wacky dream sequences to a teacher who is a little too honest about why he became a high-school teacher, Azumanga Daioh is a series that is full of fun little stories that almost anyone can enjoy.

Because of the nature of the story (high school) the series is naturally limited – once the characters graduate high school, the story is basically over. So it’s not one of those super-long winded series that just goes on and on and on without any sort of end in sight. Another advantage of this shorter run (just 24 episodes) is that you can get the entire series in just 1 DVD box set (reasonably priced) and can even pick up the entire 4-volume manga set in one single large omnibus volume (although I recommend the individual books, since the omnibus version, by its very nature, shrinks the page art a little bit).

Overall, I highly recommend this series – as well as the manga on which it is based.

I’ve posted before about the idea of treating our legal system (legal code) like a computer system (computer code):

Our legal code is almost entirely like an entire operating system written in undocumented Perl.

1. There are no hints as to what any part of it is supposed to do and it is written in a language that to most people looks like line noise.
2. Every significant patch is applied by adding an additional Perl module that overrides an existing method in an existing module, replacing all of the code in that method with a complete new copy of the method that is almost identical to the old one but adds or removes a backslash in a single regular expression.
3. The entire core logic was written in a crunch session by a bunch of geeks locked in a room together and forced to design it by committee.
4. The application was a rewrite of another application that never really worked well in the first place.
5. Every function name is chosen explicitly to provoke an emotional response in the developer, e.g. thisFunctionSucks() or callMeNow().

Although that was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, there was a certain grain of truth to it.

It seems that I’m not the only one to think this – and indeed, someone has taken the idea even further by applying systems design principles to the new health care reform legislation that the US Congress is working on at the moment.

Bruce F. Webster writes:

On the occasions where I have reviewed the actual text of major legislation, I have been struck by the parallels between legislation and software, particularly in terms of the pitfalls and issues with architecture, design, implementation, testing, and deployment. Some of the tradeoffs are even the same, such as trading off the risk of “analysis paralysis” (never moving beyond the research and analysis phase) and the risks of unintended consequences from rushing ill-formed software into production. Yet another similarity is that both software and legislation tend to leverage off of, interact with, call upon, extend, and/or replace existing software and legislation.  Finally, the more complex a given system or piece of legislation is, the less likely that it will achieve the original intent.

He then goes on to talk about some “design flaws” in HR 3200 – otherwise known as the “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009.” (Brings to mind point #5 from the “Legal System as a Perl OS” quote from above, doesn’t it?)

Bruce then goes on make a point which is basically the same as point #2 in the “Legal System as a Perl OS” quote above:

Much of HR 3200 makes piecemeal modifications to existing legislation, often with little explanation as to intent and consequences.

Or to put it another way, entire sections of HR 3200 do nothing other than override some existing legislation in some incredibly small way, which will (presumably?) have huge (and in all likelihood, unintended and unforeseen) effects – much like how adding or removing a single backslash from a regular expression can have huge (and often unintended and unforeseen) effects on its pattern-matching behavior.

Bruce’s entire article (it’s the first of a 3-part series – as I write this, only parts 1 and 2 are done) is well worth reading – and in fact I highly recommend it, even for non-programmers.

Of course, if you ask me, I really think all legislators should be required to take a programming course or two – because, as I’ve said before (in my “A Programmer’s Perspective on Politics” article), laws are effectively the “operating system” of our society… and right now, the people writing our society’s “operating system” don’t seem to be particularly good programmers!!

I’ve been living with my new Acer Aspire One D150 netbook for a while now, and now that I’ve actually used it for a bit, I have some observations to make.

First, let me say that using this netbook with Ubuntu Netbook Remix is awesome. The UI is like something out of science fiction, and even from a cold boot it starts up way faster than Windows does. However, there have been a few glitches.

First was the built-in microphone – it just didn’t work for some reason. Fortunately, the support community for Ubuntu is freakin’ huge, so I was able to track down an answer fairly easily – I just needed to upgrade to the latest ASLA drivers for the sound card.

It’s worth noting, however, that Acer themselves doesn’t exactly help with troubleshooting problems with these netbooks. The actual model number for my netbook is D150-1577. If you can figure out what that all means, then you’re cleverer than I am. I figure the “D” stands for the fact that this is a disk-drive based model (as opposed to a solid-state drive), but the rest of it is a bit of a mystery to me. The “D150″ bit seems to be the general model, with the 1577 saying something about what specific revision of that model it is. But I’m guessing here – it might be something else; who knows?

The problem is that these different model numbers (and there are a lot of them) actually do mean that the computer underneath is different – different sound card, different wireless chipset, and so forth. So when there’s a problem, it might be with certain models – or it might be a similar problem on different models, but what works for one person with one particular model might not work for you, with a slightly different model. Whether this is true of other brands of netbooks I don’t know, but it’s certainly true of the Acer Aspire One netbooks.

That aside, this really is a sweet little machine. The  keyboard is easy for me to type on (I’m actually writing this article on my netbook, and my typing speed is not appreciably affected by the slightly smaller keys) and the touchpad, although small, is easy enough to use. The touchpad button is one button with two “ends” that you click on, so it’s not quite as easy to click as two distinct buttons would be, but it’s not hard to use, either. Most laptop buttons are rubbish anyway, in my opinion – your mileage, of course, may vary.

The truly AWESOME look of Ubuntu Netbook Remix

The advertised battery life of around 5 hours is right on the money – I’ve gotten very consistently that sort of life from it, with the wireless turned on all the time. And it is so lightweight – just under 3 pounds with the 6-cell battery – that you hardly even notice it’s on your lap.

Of course, all the glowing things I’ve had to say about this netbook stem from the fact that I’ve been using it under Ubuntu, not Windows. In fact, I’ve hardly ever switched over to the Windows installation I left on it, except to play a game of Alpha Centauri with my wife this past weekend.

Ubuntu really is a great replacement for Windows – it was incredibly easy to install (and it even kept the original Windows installation on hand for me, in case I need it for anything). In fact, installing Ubuntu was even easier than installing Windows (and I’ve installed Windows more than a few times over the years). It boots up fast, everything works (with the one exception of the microphone) and it’s just great to use. And having a huge repository of really excellent (and free!) software readily at hand is a great bonus, too!

All-in-all, you really can’t go wrong with the combination of the Acer Aspire One and Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Of course, if you’re in the market for a netbook, I strongly urge you to try out the keyboard on several different models if you can – given that most netbooks have pretty much identical specs (CPU, RAM, hard drive space) these days, the comfort of the keyboard and the touchpad will probably be the biggest deciding factors for most people (well, that and price of course!). Fortunately, Ubuntu Netbook Remix runs just fine on almost all of the major tier-one netbooks, so you can take your pick, and then combine whichever one you choose with what is quite possibly the sweetest OS for netbooks out there today.

You really won’t be disappointed!

I recently had reason to take a trip back to Massachusetts, and to make the trip I rented a car (as I often do). For this trip, I ended up with a 2009 Pontiac Vibe – which, at least mechanically, is the same as a Toyota Matrix.

I had actually considered buying a Matrix some time ago – in fact, when I was looking for a car it was a toss-up between the Matrix and the Mitsubishi Outlander. (Obviously, the Outlander won for me.) However, I’d always been interested in this little car, so when the rental agent brought it around, I was pretty excited.

The four hour drive back to Massachusetts, combined with a weekend spent driving all around the state (both highway and city driving) gave me plenty of time to get to know the little Vibe – and I have to say, I was very impressed!

First things first – the car I rented was, I believe, the 2.4L model – although to be honest I can’t confirm this. But this little car was so darned… fast that I have a hard time believing I was driving the 1.8L model. Several times while driving it I squealed the front tires (it was, alas, only a front-wheel drive model) inadvertently – something I was quite surprised by, since I’m used to driving an AWD vehicle, and it’s virtually impossible to squeal the tires when you have AWD.

And this little car was fast. Seriously fast. It just wanted to go… which was a little troublesome at times, as the car would happily go well above the speed limit just about anywhere – yet the ride was so smooth and quiet that you didn’t notice the speed until you looked down at the speedometer.

Speaking of which, the instrument cluster on this car is probably one of its biggest downsides – it’s quite dark, hidden as it is behind a big hood in the dash. It’s difficult to see during the day if (like me) you drive with your lights on, as the dash relies heavily on backlighting to be visible, and when you turn on the lights, the backlighting gets dimmer. (There is an adjustment for this of course, but then you must adjust it for both day visibility, and again at night for night visibility.)

The interior of the car is actually quite nice – there’s plenty of storage for the little things you need around you when taking a trip. The stereo is, I assume, different in the Pontiac Vibe vs. the Toyota Matrix – I believe the Vibe gets the “standard” GM radio/CD player. Which isn’t to say that it’s bad – in fact it’s quite nice, with a line-in port for your iPod or other portable music device, and the CD player even understands CD-text (so it can show track names, if you’ve burned a CD with the CD-text option turned on).

For the four hour drive to and from Massachusetts, the Vibe’s seats were very comfortable – I daresay they are even more comfortable than my own Outlander’s seats. The rear seats are… well, they’re rear seats in a small car, enough said.

One other downside of the Vibe/Matrix is the rear C-pillars – they are VERY thick, and block rear visibility quite a bit. This is not uncommon in small hatchbacks like this, but it is still rather annoying if you’re used to better rear visibility.

All-in-all, the Vibe is a very capable car, very peppy (though high-revving) in its performance, and an all-around well engineered little car that I quite liked. If anything, it’s a little too peppy – I’d get the AWD version if I had the choice, to put that power through to the ground a little bit better. (The 2.4L engine makes 258 HP, which is a lot of horsepower for such a lightweight car.) Of all the cars I’ve tested in my “Behind the Wheel” series, I think the Vibe is my favorite thus far.

A quick Google search of Sub vs Dub (as in “Original Japanese Audio with English Subtitles” vs. “Re-dubbed audio with English voice actors”) will turn up a lot of debate, with people passionately arguing one way or the other.

I’m sort of in-between in terms of my preference. A lot of the shows that first got me hooked on anime were (of the necessity that they were aired on English TV) of course dubbed in English, so I am sort of partial to that. But on the other hand, most of that stuff was dubbed fairly well – with really good voice actors and an overall quality job.

In other cases, I prefer subtitles with the original Japanese audio – and this is especially true when there are songs involved. Trying to translate Japanese to English and match mouth-movements and other timing factors is hard enough; when you throw singing (and, usually, rhyming) into the mix, it’s just a recipe for disaster.

To cite some examples:

• The Pixar/Disney releases of Hayao Miyazaki’s films (Princess Mononoke, Laputa [Castle in the Sky], Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and My Neighbor Totoro to name a few) have all had excellent voice acting and a quality translation (for various reasons, none the least of which was that the folks at Pixar really love Miyazaki’s films and wanted to do them justice).
• The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is also really well done in English, although I wish they’d not dubbed the song from Episode 11 (at least, I think it’s Episode 11). It was painful to hear in English – the Japanese-language version was much more pleasant. (Thank goodness they keep the title & ending credits songs in the original Japanese by default!)
• Azumanga Daioh is one that is so well done in English that I prefer the English dub to the original (the lip-synch is done so well that I rarely, if ever, notice any discrepancies – which is quite an achievement!)
• The series Cowboy Bebop is another excellent English dub. I’ve watched it with English audio and the original Japanese – the voices in the English version are (in my mind) such a good match to their characters that I prefer the English version more.
• The series Samurai Champloo is one where I’m “undecided” – I enjoy it both with the English language version AND the original Japanese audio. Still, the English dub is another example of an excellent job.

This list, of course, could go on and on – I’m sure most readers have their own personal examples, as well. Worth noting, of course, is that many of these examples I’ve cited are relatively “recent” – which, in a way, explains why their English-language dubs are often so well done. A lot of older anime (from the 1980’s, for example) is not done nearly as well – and for those, subtitles with the original Japanese audio would be preferrable.

Of course, I do also like to keep subtitles on, even when watching in English – because the subtitles have no time limitations (and don’t have to match mouth movements), they often are a more “direct” translation. This can sometimes reveal discrepancies between “the translation” and what is actually said by the English voice actors – and can sometimes reveal interesting in-jokes that were removed because English viewers might not “get” them. So I enjoy these sorts of subtitles – I have no problem reading them and listening to English at the same time (even if the English isn’t saying what the subtitles read as). But maybe I’m just weird in that respect.

So, there are times when I prefer one or the other. Fortunately, the advent of DVD has made all my dreams come true, with the ability to quickly and easily change between audio and subtitles… most of the time – some DVDs don’t have these options, which really annoys me. (My DVD of Kiki’s Delivery Service, for example, doesn’t have the original Japanese audio – or subtitles!)

Still, in this day and age, there’s really no excuse for a DVD release of an anime movie or series (or any foreign-language film, for that matter) not to have both language audio tracks, as well as subtitles (both “English for the hearing impaired” and “direct English translation”). Really, there’s no excuse not to give the consumer the choice. And that’s my 2 cents on the Sub vs Dub debate!