Monthly Archive for November, 2008

Black Cat, Monster House and WIO

Published on November 26, 2008 in anime and manga, movies, programming and ramblings. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Tuesdays are part of our weekly WIO meetings, so me, Ma’am Gigi and Wayne met at my school. We started creating the class diagrams; it sure was tough – brainstorming all the way. After our WIO meeting, I went to Rogelio’s house to hang out for a while. I was caught in the rain while on the way, so I arrived at his house a bit wet, good thing I have a jacket on.

Rogelio and me watched a movie called Monster House which is a 3D animated movie. I was first amazed by the detail in their backgrounds and objects which almost looks real. I liked the way on how they play with the situation by focusing on an object to illustrate an event to occur.

Throughout the movie, I had an idea on what’s going to happen next or at least some answers on the questions on my head, which in the end were correct – the movie was predictable. Maybe because its a movie targeted for kids, but was enjoyable nonetheless.

Train Heartnet

Train Heartnet

After the movie, I watched Black Cat – an anime series. I was able to watch 5 episodes straight. The anime was quite interesting, with the story revolving about sweepers (captures criminals without killing them) and erasers (kills their target without hesitation) and how they mingle up with each other with similar targets but with different missions.

I like the main character Train Heartnet in the earlier episodes where he still is serious and somewhat coldhearted. He is an eraser working for Chronos, but when he met Saya (a sweeper) he decided to quit Chronos and suddenly had a change of heart. Though I still haven’t seen the other episodes, their opening song shows that Train will have a change of clothing also, which really suck. But, I still have the interest on watching the whole anime bit by bit.

Currently I’m making the Sequence Diagrams of WIO. There are many more types of UML diagrams that I need to make, which means more of brainstorming and staying up late for me. These UML diagrams are supposed to be submitted on December 1 as a part of the design phase of our system. We also have to present our work in front of the whole class. Here is a sample of the sequence diagram I created, which shows the process of logging into WIO. Now, I’ll be going back on working with these UML diagrams.

WIO Meeting

Published on November 24, 2008 in programming and ramblings. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Throughout this year, we already had a lot of WIO (Acronym of my thesis) meetings, but this is the first time I’ll be posting something about our discussions. We held the meeting at Ma’am Gigi’s house today. Wayne configured Ma’am Gigi’s computer and installed lacking programs needed in developing WIO, after that he showed us the code for WIO login, using Ramaze with the controller, model and views fully used. I was completely blown away, even having an idea about the project’s theories and concepts, still a lot of new information was been forced into my brain. I learned more concepts, theories, practices, conventions about Object Oriented Programming (OOP) and frameworks. Even with those difficulties, I was actually enjoying the surge of information.

Datamapper Logo

The login code shown to us by Wayne was almost complete, it only lacked the database part and how to use the specs of Ramaze. On the database, Wayne decided to use DataMapper for WIO in order for us to not worry about SQL codes anymore. DataMapper will be the one to handle writing SQL codes, so developers may focus more on the program and increase productivity.

After the codes have been clearly explained to us, our meeting was over and will continue on Tuesday. Wayne decided to come over to my house to install the programs and applications needed by WIO, since I wasn’t able to install them in the proper way. He had troubles in installing the applications, but still he was able to make WIO run in my machine. We still have one more application to be installed though, Do-MySQL. He needed to go home early to be able to catch a ride home, so we’ll continue the installation sooner.

He also taught me on how to create the sequence diagrams for WIO. Since the diagrams needed for the project are due next week. I’ll be busy on creating the sequence diagrams starting tomorrow, since there are so many of them.

Serial Experiments Lain

Published on November 23, 2008 in anime and manga and ramblings. 2 Comments Tags: .
Serial Experiments Lain

Serial Experiments Lain

Today, I’ve been in an Anime Marathon. I watched Serial Experiments Lain from episode one to thirteen. I started out late in the afternoon and finished watching the series at 11pm.

Serial Experiments Lain is one of the old anime series’ out there, but I only had the chance to watch the series now. While watching the series, I encountered many problems, such as grasping what’s going on the story, since nothing has been explained clearly. The series is weird and mysterious, it hooked me into watching the whole series with all the curiosity on what will be happening next (and on what is actually happening), hoping that all the questions in my head be answered. After finishing on watching the anime, a lot of questions have been answered, but still a whole bunch remains.

The series had a focus in technology and computers (Navi) which tickled my interest. They portrayed the power of computers and the Internet, “Wired” as they call it. The anime showed that the real world and the wired can have their barrier broken. Where people can live and continue on existing even after getting rid of their (human) bodies. All this was made possible by a program, which destroyed the barrier which is Lain (main character), who has God-like powers through the Wired.

Since computers are a big part of my life, I came to love the series for its focus in computers. I couldn’t help to be awed in Lain’s control and power over the Navi and Wired. She even turned her room into a laboratory; I wish to do that, someday.

What I loved about Lain is its artwork. The backgrounds, environment and perspectives are amazing! I love how the lighting and shadows work so well with their backgrounds, with a different feel and unique color combinations (sample: image at the right). Deep shadowy and silhouette type of objects such as houses, walls and electrical posts which fits in greatly with the proper colors used for the sky, plants and road. The backgrounds’ used in the series portrays entirely what the story is about. The anime’s line art is quite poor though, with not much attention to details. But overall, the anime’s artwork is amazing. This anime series is on my top list in best anime artworks.

I still need to rewatch the anime to understand the story better since the plot is really deep. There were too many twists and turns in the story to grasp all at once. Overall, it’s a great show and people just need to be open-minded in watching this series. Serial Experiments Lain is very entertaining in a different way.