Category Archives: review

Dell 2005FPW

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I got my Dell 2005FPW today, a 20″ widescreen flat panel display. This is not a huge step up from my old 18″ Compaq TFT8030 display in height, but it is much wider (having a resolution of 1680×1050). It has a normal VGA input, DVI (which I am using) as well as composite (used too) and S-Video, and last but not least a 4-port USB 2.0 hub.
By default, the display is very bright; I had to halve the brightness to not be blinded by my desktop. The image looks very good (no dead pixels) and is nearly viewpoint-independent (except for blacks which become some sort of dark red-ish brown at extreme (i.e. nigh-on sideways) angles). The response time is also very good (supposedly 16ms) and I can see no ghosting whatsoever.
The composite input is a lot sharper than what the Compaq display offered, but consequently is also a lot noisier, particularly in busy areas. The deinterlacing of the Compaq also seemed a bit better (but that may be due to its excessive softness as well). In a completely darkened room and with a black screen, you can see a bit of backlight bleeding on the Dell (i.e. the black is not completely uniform). This also happened with the Compaq (which had a smaller area to light) and neither is it apparent in normal use (i.e. screen not entirely black) or under brighter lighting conditions. This is on a revision A01, made in the UK in January 2005. There is quite a busy thread on the HardOCP forum where they are being returned left and right, but maybe their problems are more excessive.
All in all a very good purchase, in particular when Dell has one of their rebates on displays (which is the only reason I became interested in it).

BECK (Mongolian Chop Squad) Manga

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After watching and (in spite of the mediocre animation quality) enjoying the Beck anime — it is one of the few I watch as soon as I get them, I tried the manga by Harold Sakuishi. Now I can say that the anime is a very faithful adaption of the manga and that the manga is bloody awesome! It has replaced Yotsubato! as my favourite manga.
In the beginning, it feels a bit “angsty”, but it never loses its humour so that it becomes overwhelming. And when the band finally comes together and plays, the “performance” artwork is excellent and conveys the energy very well. The characters also change, grow and behave believably in their own context. And it had me laughing out loud plenty of times (e.g. Chiba’s “What dream?”).
Highly recommended!

Appleseed Movie (2004)

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The worst thing about it is the music. The story is a bit convoluted (as is Masumune Shirow’s original manga), but the artwork in this film is superb. The modelling and the texture work is awesome, in particular with respect to the technical designs (e.g. Spider Cannon) and the warn-torn city. The smoke, fire and water effects are also a sight to behold. I was more impressed with the CG in this than “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within” or even live-action movies like Matrix Revolutions.
This is on a level with “Ghost in the Shell: Innocence” from a visual point of view, although I prefer the traditional character animation to the complete CG look of Appleseed, nonetheless it makes animation (via motion capture) a lot more believable. Definitely one to see on the big screen if you have the chance.

“Decipher” by Stel Pavlou

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It’s an old book that I read about a year back, and I was tracking it down again just now (to check whether a German translation is out that I could recommend to a friend) and realised I had never written anything about it.
It’s a very-near-future SF romp that in an age-old fashion ties archological finds with extraterrestrial influences. It is (or seems which in most cases is good enough) well researched and its sense of “style” reminded me strongly of Neal Stephenson’s “Snow Crash”. I hope there’ll be more books from Stel Pavlou…

Half-Life 2

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Just finished Half-Life 2 (after about 18-20 hours spent over the last 5 days) on it. This — seeing my currently available spare time — is quite an achievement and shows the very high quality of the game. It is relatively hardware-friendly (i.e. it was fun to play on my machine — in contrast to the CPU-hog Doom 3).
I got the game over steam (via an ATI-coupon that I upgraded to “Silver” for $10) and had absolutely no problem activating it whatsoever; one advantage is that I can install the game on my laptop and on my home machine at the same time.
The graphics are amazing, although a good deal is independent of technical merit and is simply very good art direction; nevertheless there are some very neat effects in there such as distortion or good use of environmental cube-maps. One of the other highlights is definitely the animation system, in particular the facial animation and lip-syncing.
The story leaves plenty of things for you to infer on your own, but that has always been Half-Life’s approach.
Highly recommended.
(Plenty of other games left to play — this one jumped the queue so to speak ;))

Firefly

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I finished watching the “Firefly” box-set, and it is so good it is hard to describe. I bought it (UK import) on recommendations and don’t regret a bit. It is too unfortunate that the show was cancelled (butchered) by Fox after 14 episodes. I think, I’d much prefer this to continue than the new “Battlestar Galactica” (which is not bad at all). Incidentally, the CGI is done by the same studio. 😉
It an odd mixture of Western and Science Fiction, but somehow the distinct characters make it all work. It is also amazingly funny, but can be very serious and sad as well.
Anyway, there’s looking forward to the “Serenity” feature film and hopefully, they can continue from there.

(New) Battlestar Galactica

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The first TV-episode of the new Battlestar Galactica has been aired and it manages to keep everything that was good in the pilot. It continues directly from the mini-series and manages to have a very oppressive feeling with the an FTL-chase happening every 33 minutes for the past 5 days, wearing down the human crew immensely. I will definitely keep watching!