Month: April 2020

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This is an interesting perspective IMHO. Even more so, as a Pro 11 user: who debates a larger model as an upgrade path in 3-5 years. The physical difference between the 11”, and my 9.7” Samsung isn’t big enough to really mind, but the 12.9” is rather heavier.

I kind of abuse my tablets enough that a larger screen is a plus. But my experiences with 12” tablets has mostly been phrased by too heavy, too expensive, and too big to be a main device. But that’s more to do with 16:10. When I saw the 11” and 12.9” models side by side, I kind of decided the aspect ratio made the two iPads close enough in physical screen size, not to care about the greater size, so much as the greater weight to heft.

For me, coming from a Galaxy Tab S3: I found the 11” Pro a pretty safe bet. Comparable enough in size and weight that it shouldn’t interfere with my couch surfing, or being my bench notebook. In practice the difference is minor, just large enough to make a keyboard case a more practical option than before. While still maintaining that near perfect size that 9.7” tablets achieved.

Having a SoC that should be suitable for about as long as the iOS updates keep coming, or until hardware makes a notable difference, I’m also quite thrilled by the lasting power being closer to my laptop’s life expectancy than my tablets. Well, give or take that my true reason for the hardware change was my Samsung’s screen getting cracked….lol.

Something I also like is Ali’s point about the Pro. Because to be honest, selecting the Pro for me, was more about not rewiring all my things from USB-C to Lightning than about the performance jump from an Air to a Pro. Let’s just say, I’m not interesting in the fruity connector instead of what the rest of the world is doing 😛.

Captain’s Log, Star Date 2020.106

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For the most part, I’ve been fortunate: I’ve lived a relatively peaceful life compared to my turbulent  childhood. I’ve accomplished most of what my younger self viewed as the best case scenario for this stage of my life; whether that holds out for the remaining 10 ~ 60 Years that I should have left to live, one can at least hope the rest of life is pretty decent.

But sometimes I think over my life, and I wonder if I may have missed the most important parts of what I wished my life would be by now.

This is less a fear of missing out, and more like a longing for something missing. I’ve probably
missed out on more them a few thing since I was born, but don’t really care about most of what comes to mind. rather it’s like some wires are in my system, but have insufficient connection at the other end. Or as I like to think of it: some things don’t really have a concrete answer, or one will only be forthcoming in heaven, if at all.

Sigh, there are some things that can’t really be planned, just as they have no concrete answers in the world.

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Check out “Salt” on Netflix
https://www.netflix.com/title/70118402?s=i&trkid=13752289

While a pretty good thriller that pretty much is what it sounds like, and perhaps in need of a little plot armor, I’ve got to admit two things:

  1. I enjoyed it for what it is.
  2. It went in unexpected directions.
And that going off in an unexpected direction is part of why I enjoyed it, lol.
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Check out “Violet Evergarden: Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll” on Netflix
https://www.netflix.com/title/81208936?s=i&trkid=14170286

Rather thrilled to find the #VioletEvergarden movie released, and made its way to Netflix.

While the series is principally Violet’s story, the film is a more heartwarming tale focused on the side story of the two sisters that she meets. Which I think is a rather lovely thing. The side story takes place at a time after Violet has developed as a character, and shows a world that has like her, begun to recover from the war. So it makes more sense for a movie like this than one focused on Violet’s story; the main series rewards us with a character that can create such an aside, and not have to devote extra to her development. Well, providing you actually watched the beautiful series 😉

Violet Evergarden is one of a handful of anime characters that will likely stick with me a long time. A character introduced to us as constantly on fire, and not yet able to realize that her arms were perhaps the smallest thing she lost to the war.

Because of how the main series tells Violet’s story, I can appreciate the depth of the backdrop even more. You’ll notice how rapidly the city has evolved, and how common place postal service has become. It’s quite nicely executed behind the story, IMHO.

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US’s digital divide ‘is going to kill people’ as Covid-19 exposes inequalities.

A touch sensationalist for a headline, but an issue worth considering. A key point worth remembering in this context is also our population, and our geography. The United States has a population in the 300 ~ 330 million range, last I looked. We’ve also got a pretty vast quantity of land. Figures of 20-40 million probably ain’t bad in that context.

Actually, it’s always been kind of amazing how wide spread electricity, phone, and running water has been across the country. In my lifetime: you’ve usually been able to take those three things for granted, or you may end up carving red rum on your walls.

Connectivity has exploded in my life time. I can still remember having to be cautious when selecting dial up phone numbers, back when the phrase long distance has a billing context. Today, well: I’m pretty swell on the networking front. Many places not so much.

One thing that is for sure: we won’t be using less Internet as society marches on into tomorrow. Well, unless the mushrooms start a sprouting….

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In an effort to catch up on some of my reading backlog, I recently found myself revisiting The Fruit of Grisaia, both the visual novel and the anime. Because sometimes time for reading is limited, and the story is pretty damned long.

In doing so, I’m kind of reminded of several things. The anime adaption while extremely well executed is also extremely condensed. Many key scenes are filtered through but as a whole: you only get something on par with 20% of the visual novel’s content. That is to say: the anime is great, but it’s like looking through a pinhole compared to the original media. Episode one’s one line summary of each character’s story is also spot on.

About 90% of the crude humor that makes Yuuji’s school life so enjoyable is cut, and each characters story is condensed heavily for time. For me that’s kind of sad because the joking and clowning around is part of why the novel left me laughing my ass of more often than not.

Considering that each characters story is practically a novel in of itself, the anime fairs pretty well for cutting out so much. You still get key moments like burying his classmate alive, but much of the detail around it is lost, such as the airhead’s true nature. I think Amane’s story is the only one that really escaped massive trim: probably because there’s no way to actually trim her story and keep the jist. By contrast, Sachi’s which is the longest character story in the novel: only got one episode that struggles to tell the jist of her condition. And the series totally misses out on her sadomasochist sense of humor to a fine degree, and Michiru’s constant bombardment of idiocy and subtle kindness. All sorts of things in the name of fitting into a standard season length.

Likewise things are quite twisted to create a point of co-existence out of the novel’s ladder like structure. So we don’t get to see how much Yuuji / Makina truly mirrors his relationship with Asako, as that would be destructive to a shared finish. And a host of other things. I don’t think we even get the hilarious Lamborghini and frozen turkey scene from Yumiko’s route which was just freaking awesome sauce. Instead a new ending is sort of created, and much of the characters’ suffering and healing is drifted off to the cutting room floor. But if you had to cram it down to about a dozen episodes, I’d say the anime is about as good as could be done with the story.

But then I remember what really made me interested in the story wasn’t Gurizaia no Kajitsu itself: but the anime adaptions of the follow on media. Which pretty much starts out by telling Yuuji’s story, and the road from his truly fucked up youth to his master, Asako, saving him for the pits of hell. It wasn’t until after the anime adaptions of the The Labyrinth, and The Eden of Grisaia that the original visual novel really went on my radar.

Which kind of leaves me wondering: and just how heavily condensed was the rest of the trilogy when they adapted them to anime!?