Steins;Gate

Steins;Gate is damn good scifi. It is thought provoking, has a great story, and has several interesting characters. And, to top it off, it uses my favourite scifi plot hook: time travel!

Unlike most time travel stories, Steins;Gate deals with the consequences (and moral dilemmas) of messing with time, even if it seems like the change is small. There is very little action and the plot is almost entirely dialogue driven.

I honestly disliked the main character, Okabe Rintarou, at the beginning of the series. The initial impression is one of a loud, maladjusted, and slightly obnoxious geek. However, as the story progressed and his true personality was revealed, I found myself liking the character more and more. It is great to see a geek in the role of the hero. We don't see that often enough in scifi, unfortunately.

But then again, the whole story exudes geekiness. A group of hackers (in the "maker" sense) led by Okabe stumble upon a method of non-physical time travel while working in their "lab", an apartment above a TV shop in Akihabara. As basic plot ideas go, it cannot get more geeky than that, can it?

Physical time travel does exist in the story, but is invented outside the scope of the series. This part of story draws heavily on the John Titor Internet meme from the early 2000s, just to complete the geek-out factor.

Watch this series. You won't regret it.

Hey Buddy, Got Any Spare Luck?

Thanks to the illegal activities of a certain scumbag landlord, I'm dealing with the biggest crises of my life. More details when I get things calmed down a bit. If you have any luck to spare, I could use some right now.

Flask

I decided to use the Flask microframework for the web interface on the Linux embedded system project I am working on. The UI is very simple (it ran in a PIC microcontroller before) so Flask looks like the right choice for this project. There's no database required (not yet anyway...) but the web UI does access the digital I/O. There are no special timing requirements so the I/O can be done directly from the POST handler, unless something unforeseen comes up.

This Is Popular?

Huh? Google is calling my blog "popular" and is suddenly pushing AdSense like it never has before. They must be using a definition of popular that I have not seen before.

Considering this is a personal blog that has just one post per day, has only seven followers, and has zero RSS subscribers, I don't see it would even register on the AdSense radar.

Maybe Google is getting desperate for new customers. Is it early signs of market saturation?

Beginning Of The End

First cheque from a new customer always feels good, but I'm not jumping for joy just yet. I have a long way to go before I can breath a little easier and too many things can go wrong in between. Some car repairs are already looming. Paraphrasing Churchill, this is not the end, but is perhaps the beginning of the end. Knock on wood. *taps forehead*

Royal Canadian Again

After 43 years, the Air Command and Maritime Command of the Canadian Armed Forces, will once again be the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal Canadian Navy. The Royal designation was dropped in 1968 when the military was structured into a unified service. Coverage is here and here.

The part of me that respects the heritage, applauds having the Royal names restored. I will have a family member in the Royal Canadian Air Force. How cool is that?

The cynic in me thinks this is a Harper ploy to get votes from veterans who have petitioned for the old names to be restored for many years. The fact that I think a politician might be so calculating, makes me kind of sad.

It's A Feature, Jim

If you use the Chromium browser, you may have noticed an "Other Bookmarks" folder on the right side of the bookmarks toolbar. Have you ever tried to delete it? Guess what? You can't.

Neither can you move it, rename it, hide it, or otherwise make it vanish from your sight. If you think this is stupid, don't worry, you are not alone. It has been reported (here and here) but Google considers it a "feature" and refuses to change the behaviour. Lovely.