Anime Top List No.1

I have spent some time looking at Anime recently and there are a lot of bad ones so I thought I might offer a few that are really good (as in more than just machines blowing each other up or superteens with giant eyes and 5 yeear old personalities).
Of course this list has a general sci-fi flavour to it but that's just my preference. 

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***** Mobile Suit Gundam - The 08th MS Team (Series) : This is excellent. It has gundam battles, sure, but it also has a well written story and some really good scenes. Unlike any of the other Gundam videos I have seen. I wish there were more like this.

***** Un-Go (Series) Actually not scifi, more spook-fi or something like that but it didn't matter: it is so well made that it kept me watching until the last episode, and after I was still hoping that more would turn up. Make sure you watch episode 0 (zero) first.
*** Galaxy Express 999 : An older movie,  a boy's adventure during which he attains wisdom.

** Space Battleship Yamato : okay, this one is just plain weird in places, you wonder if it will make sense but in the end it does.  Why Yamato?  I guess it is something very Japanese . . . . it does look great flying thourough space though.  My only question is what the extra bridge underneath the ship was for. (You need to see the movie to get the reference I guess)
 
**** No. 6 (Series) Post- apocalypse story set in and around an artfifcially perfect city called No.6.
Due to copyright restrictions I could not see the last four minutes of the final episode but that's okay I guess - if you really want the whole thing, buy it.

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All of these were what I could find for free on YouTube. I have no intention of supporting piracy or copyright violations  - I am just saying these are great.  More when I find them.

Mobile Suit Gundam - The 08th Team

Overstepping Artifacts

Here is a video that is really surreal: it is all 3D fractals made in a program called Mandelbulb.
I always thought this sort of shape (solid fractals) would be ideal to make using a 3D printer (well, actually you could not really make them any other way!)  . . but of course it is completely useless and I am not exactly sure if you can call it "art" since it is all done by computer, the only artist input is choosing the formula for the program to express.  . . . . but hey, who cares, it looks awesome.

Overstepping Artifacts (Sorry, Blogger won't let me embed a vimeo. huh?)

Moral Hazard

This post by Cory Doctrow is so good I just could not avid posting a link to it: it points to a common fallacy, one often used by the bullying types to justify getting rid of anyone who does not agree with their views. Thanks Cory !

Cory Doctorow: Cold Equations and Moral Hazard

Ten Dimensions

I have heard of many dimensions before, but it was never clearly explained to me HOW we might have extra dimensions nor how they would interact . . until this video which shows simply how it could all work.

Honest University Commercial

Yup, the Internet is full of garbage but occasionally there is a bit of gold. Enjoy.

PERSECUTION OF THE ULTRA-RICH?

I really cannot quite believe this article: it is just too bombastically amazing.
While the machinery of megabank automated theft continues, this rich guy is complaining about paying taxes - you know, those things that pay for roads, security, defense, basic welfare (well, maybe). Funnily enough, he seems to be making the case FOR persecution of the ultra-rich by his stupid statements.

I think there are definite problems with American society and western society in general  - but I see most of those problems as the result of too many greedy immoral people getting extrememly rich by what can only be described as criminal activities such as Ponzi schemes or making extermely addicitive food simulants that turn addicts into balloons.

But hey, people are supposed to just stop eating it, right? Just like they can all go out and get jobs tomorrow and stop collecting welfare right?
The trouble is, it really is not that that easy and never was. 
   Even in you are not a human blimp or crazy or a drug addled loony it is still a lot of work and a long term gamble just to get a job, let alone one worth keeping -  because the jobs are disappearing at a stready rate, being replaced by machines and cheap foreign labour. 


Much of this criminal profiteering works because the corporate machinery has made use of the weaknesses and character traits of  the human customers and current human societies. 
So successful are they that now 99 percent of America is being drained by these vampiric monsters - and it does not look like anyone, even the US President himself, can do anythng to stop the vampires.

Read it here and be amazed.

Faraday The Blob

Here is the link to one weird and very funny comic.
This is Faraday:

Try these three, my favourites:
Your New Favourite Bland
Voodoo Economics
 . . and what is probably the ultimate Faraday comic:
A Right Beating for the Wrong Guy

Something to brighten a stinkin' hot day.