Category: Anime
October Anime Recommendations
This is a cute slice of life with a side of psychedelics. Do not take it too seriously.
September Anime Recommendations
Monday Links
This is going to be a bit long. There’s a lot here on civil rights being threatened by both sides of the aisle.
Of course, we start with Reason links.
Venezuela’s Maduro is bad for both his own country, and the United States. I have a nasty feeling that country is going to be the latest example of “you can vote your way into socialism, but you have to shoot your way back out.”
A recent poll says the First Amendment gives too many protections. This is an example of a worrying trend where both sides want fewer civil rights so that they can use power against the other.
Speaking of free speech, the Trump mob came for Kyle Rittenhouse when he dared speak against their god-emperor. You want to know why I will never vote for Trump? It’s shit like this.
Justice Gorsuch is promoting his new book that we have too many laws allowing for prosecutors to abuse their power. This is why I’m in favor of removing prosecutorial immunity and replacing it with a malpractice model.
A piece on EU’s aggressive tech regulations made the CrowdStrike fiasco much worse.
Pacific Legal Foundation has a new report out on how to deal with squatters. The report makes the point that “squatters’ rights” bills hurt the people they purport to help – the poor. Which is so often a result of these kinds of laws.
Moving on to a couple of Ground News aggregations.
NVIDIA is the latest company to come into the regulators’ crosshairs.
Florida deputy rushes into a lake to rescue an autistic kindergartner. As much as I slam police abuses, sometimes it’s important to spotlight those who do the heroics.
Moving on to other sources and stories.
From Bloomberg, a federal judge rules Google violated anti-trust law. Considering the AI wave coming, I’m really getting late nineties Microsoft echoes. The most ridiculous claims the prosecutors put out? That because of Google’s dominant position in search, they failed to innovate and hurt consumers. Bitch, that’s what’s called a market opportunity.
From Gizmodo, Logitech had to walk back comments that hinted they were looking at a subscription model for a new mouse. I think we’re seeing the end of making everything a subscription.
From the Only Guns and Money blog, John Richardson has announced he’s seeking to run for the NRA Board of Directors. If you’re a voting member, go take a moment and help someone who would be a voice for reform.
This is from Fox News, so I’m not sure how click-baitey the story is. However, the fact that the Met’s Commissioner says it will seek extradition for folks violating their ridiculous social media laws regarding their recent rioting is enough to make me want to dig more. My immediate reaction is very Molon Labe. My next reaction is that it’s very rich that Britain has refused to extradite murderers because they were facing the “barbaric” death penalty. I think the American government would be in the right to tell the Brits that turnabout is fair play. My final thought is that the states should go tell the feds to pound sand if they try to extradite any of their residents to the Brits over this shit.
Via The Brother, we have this Ars Technica article about a Russian chess player poisoning their rival’s chessboard with mercury.
Finally, we have a couple of articles from The Wrap on Crunchyroll. First, Crunchyroll has surpassed 15 million subscribers. Second, a piece delving on how Crunchyroll is succeeding in the streaming wars. Honestly, I think a big part is how Crunchyroll understands it’s niche and isn’t out to become the next Netflix or Hulu.
Monday Links
This is going to be a tab-clearing edition as the Ward household has been out of state for the past couple of weeks.
Let’s start with our normal Reason links.
A bunch of redditors who hate Christians decided to sic Florida’s DCF folks on a family. A good example of how an online mob can whip itself into a frenzy and cause real world havoc.
More analysis on the lasting impacts of the school shutdowns during COVID.
Michigan Supreme Court tells Detroit their civil asset forfeiture program is wrong. No idea if they will block Detroit from working with the feds to sidestep any restrictions.
Thinkpiece on the FTC and its unconstitutional power grabs. This is another symptom of Congress not doing its damned job and putting in some guardrails on the FTC. But then again, the incentives for Congress is to let the FTC run wild and demagogue.
Over 1 million people have fled Cuba in the last couple of years. Apparently, this is around 10% of the population. But it’s supposed to be such a paradise.
A pilot of Universal Basic Income found it didn’t help people work more. UBI is one of those ideas I like in concept on the premise that its better to let people make their own decisions with their money. Unfortunately, society can’t stand by when people make bad decisions with their money. So, I can’t see how UBI is going to work.
Kamala’s Gen Z appeal is not what it appears to be. You’ll excuse me if I’m unimpressed by the youngins new fads when it comes to politics. Also excuse me if I’m unsurprised that the youngins are planning on voting for the Dems.
The government is exacerbating issues in the wine industry. Color me surprised, particularly when it comes to California.
Now on to some other stories.
From the AP, the FTC is looking into “surveillance pricing”. You’ll excuse me if I don’t trust assertions from the FTC about “possible” issues. Please see previous Reason link above.
From TFB, CZ is looking at opening factories in Ukraine. Hey, I’d like to get a Bren stamped “Made in Ukraine”.
From Active Response Training, an article on pet first aid for cats.
From Venture Beat, Microsoft has come up with a new LLM for spreadsheets. I’m kind of interested in playing with this.
Now on to some anime / weeb news.
Ranma 1/2 is getting remade and will show up on Netflix later this year. I’m very interested in this as Ranma was one of those shows in the nineties that got me into anime as anime.
A Couple of Cuckoos is getting a second season. This was a previous anime recommendation, and I’m glad it’s getting a second season.
Sanrio is causing some havoc by claiming that its iconic character Hello Kitty is not a cat, but a young girl living in London. Well, that’s a bold assertion cotton.
Monday Links
This week is almost exclusively Reason links.
None of the major candidates are pro-freedom.
Sotomayor is right – we should re-evaluate immunity for prosecutors.
ICE apparently ran a fake school and duped a bunch of foreign students to enroll. A court ruled they can sue for breach of contract.
SCOTUS is going to look at FDA’s regulations against vaping. This looks more like another in a line of cases that essentially boil down to “Congress, do your damn job.”
This article states that Moore doesn’t allow for a wealth tax. Maybe not, but I think this is going to be one of those cases that has a lot of impact down the line for government’s rapacious appetite for money. Particularly as interest rates rise and debts get more expensive.
A bunch of states are ignoring the administration’s Title IX rules. Utah just joined them.
Labour rides the anti-incumbent wave and unseats the Tories. I haven’t been following Brit politics as much since The Economist paywalled all of their podcasts.
Oklahoma decides teaching the Bible will fix the kids. Y’know, school choice would allow parents to decide if they wanted their kids to have Christian theology crammed down their throat. Or some other religion’s dogma.
Now on to a couple of other stories.
This one’s a local story. Storied restaurant Wright’s was sold to Caspers Company. Why is this interesting to me? Because up until a couple of years ago, Caspers was one of the largest McDonalds franchisees in the nation. And many moons ago, Derek Ward was one of their shift managers.
VIZ Media buys the RWBY franchise. This is good news, as this is an IP that didn’t deserve to die.
Special Anime Recommendation
I’ll have the regular anime recommendations out later this month, but I kinda wanted to put this out there. Because fifty years ago, this debuted:
I would come to know it as:
My recommendation is Space Battleship Yamato 2199 (sometimes listed as Starblazers 2199). This is a damn good reimagining of the original series.
And now we’re getting another installment.
Monday Links
This week’s going to be heavy with Volokh Conspiracy / Reason links due to the handing down of some major Supreme Court decisions. I might make a roundup of the court post later this week or next after I’ve had some time to digest as well as to listen to more knowledgeable folks. But, let’s go ahead and get started.
First, more on Rahimi’s impact on Bruen.
An article looking at Florida’s response to citrus canker and the people who suffered.
Baltimore is using a cell phone hacking service again.
From the local news station, but widely carried, many nations’ Olympics teams – including the US – are bringing their own AC’s to Paris. Because the Frenchies decreed AC was bad and against their carbon goals.
WSJ (paywall warning) has a story about how delivery drivers got their wages raised by government fiat, and now they have less orders to deliver.
Sora News is reporting that a reboot of Ranma 1/2 is in the works. I’m kinda curious because this was one of the series that got me into anime as anime – and not a Saturday-morning cartoon.