Author Archives: [maven]

Automated Downloading

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On Patrick‘s insistent encouragement, I’ve finished my “downloading system”. I use it to easily and quickly queue files on a remote machine for downloading (or starting (Bit-)torrent downloads). It consists of two scripts, one written in PHP and running on a web-server which presents a very basic (login protected) interface: A text-area where links to files or torrents are pasted, and a “send” button. The script then creates a cryptographically signed email-message which is sent via the web-server to a POP3 account.
The 2nd scripts runs my actual server at home and is written in Ruby (and it should work on Windows as well as Unix). This polls the POP3 box for mails, verifies their signature to check that it’s authentic, and then processes the URLs contained in the message: “.torrent” files are downloaded and passed to Azureus (which can in theory work from just the URLs, but then Azureus requires a manual intervention by pressing OK in the “Open URL” window), everything else is downloaded with wget.

P.N.03 — Redux

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After a bit more than two years, I’ve finally got the Papillion Suit. 😀 About three months ago, I accidentally stumbled upon the “Official Brady Games Strategy Guide” for P.N.03 and decided to order it as it was fairly cheap. So all this time I’ve been steadily doing the Trial Missions on Normal (where the strategy guide of course doesn’t help at all as the missions are randomly generated, but now that I spent the money on the guide, I better finish the game properly).
The last few trial missions (i.e. 9-3 to 9-5 and 10-3 to 10-5) are actually quite hard to get a professional ranking on as no-one knows exactly how the ranks are handed out for the trials (it’s not just “No Damage Cleared Rooms” as I’ve obtained “Professional” on 10-4 with only 02 of them).
Anyway, I beat Alraune (the final boss) using only a single continue (compared to ~30 when I first finished the game on normal back all those years).
Although P.N. 03 has found a spiritual successor in the “Mercenaries” mode of Resident Evil 4 (including remixes of the soundtrack), it is not quite the same and I would definitely like to see a proper sequel with the same combo-system and the same feminine graphical style.

Paradise Kiss Anime

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The now is a Paradise Kiss anime (from Ai Yazawa’s manga) and judging from the first episode, it looks good. It sometimes mixes real backgrounds, characters have facial expressions, and it’s got voice actors I haven’t already heard a hundred times. Which altogether make it feel fresh, so that alone is a reason to watch it (other than the good humour — they’ve managed to translate the manga well without losing its a bit more adult focus). The animation is not always great, but rather focused; i.e. the parts that actually matter are animeted very well.
Recommended.
Oh, and George is still my hero… 😉

Pandora (and other music)

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I’ve accidentally stumbled onto Pandora, a twisted combination of a subscription-paid custom-playlist radio station and music discovery service. You enter an artist or song name and it starts playing “similar” music; you can have several of these stations to which you can add more and more interests. The first 10 hours are free, and after that it’s either $12/quarter or $36/year, which IMO is rather fair. You can pause and skip tracks (skipping is limited to a certain number of songs per hour). On the technical side, it just needs flash player 7 and streams in 128kpbs.
Onto a few recommendations. For a few songs I’ve bothered adding iTunes Music Store links simply for convenience:

Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (again!)

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I’ve been reading the more recent chapters of the Yokohama Shopping Log manga by Ashinano Hitoshi this evening. It made me cry (again!). Thus, I have to implore you — whoever you may be — to read it and be moved. Because it’s just that good. It isn’t for everyone, but you ought to have at least tried.
There is an excellent Wikipedia article that can give you an idea of the series. If you’re still interested in reading, start your journey here and then move here for the more recent chapters.

Crash (2004)

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Crash is a great, “serious” film, but not without humour, exhibiting many tightly interwoven stories revolving around racial stereotypes and miscommunication. It feels a bit reminiscient of Magnolia in its way of story-telling, but in a good way.
Touching and very recommended.