Archive for the 'News' Category
Death Note in Virginia?
Not as intelligent as Light Yagami is a student of Franklin Military Academy in Virginia, USA. First with the death note incident in Belgiuim, now this? These fans obviously aren’t creating a very positive image for the wider Anime/Otaku community.
The student in question is a senior at Franklin Military Academy and was sent to the principal after a teacher spotted the student reading a list of his classmates’ names from his “Death Note.” He was suspended from school after the incident. Obviously, he should have hide it better and unless all his classmates are crimnials, the guy totally missed the point of the story - Light tried to kill ‘bad guys’, not classmates.
Here’s a video on the incident:
Now in all seriousness, Death Note is a great anime/manga with a very original and interesting storyline. But people need to think before treating ‘Death Note’ any more serious than what it is, a well-written and drawn story.
Source:
NBC12 via Japanator
Indian man and stray dog marriage
In the Southern state of Tamil Nadu, a 35 year old farm labourer by the name of P. Selvakumar has married a 4 year old stray dog. They married at the village temple where the dog was bathed and dressed in an orange sari (Picture above).
So what would drive a sane farmer to marry man’s best friend? No, it’s not for love. It’s something even more baffling, more bewitching if you will. The man married the female stray dog to atone for a sin 20 years ago.
He was reported to have suffered a series of physical ailments after stoning the dogs to death and hanging their bodies from a tree.
“After that my legs and hands got paralysed and I lost hearing in one ear,” said Mr Selvakumar after the ceremony with his new “bride”, whose name is Selvi.
It seems Selvi got cold feet and ran off at the reception attended by 200 guests. However, she was caught and returned to his husband who fed her milk and a bun. It is also understood that the groom is still free to find a human wife, not sure what Selvi will think of that.
Mr. Selvakumar’s action to marry a dog has caused a stir as people question why he couldn’t just adopt a dog into his family or just donate to the SPCA. Who knows, maybe they just do it differently in India?
Source:
Neatorama
Telegraph
British in Singapore bullies trishaw uncle
News of three British tourist in Singapore that bullied an old trishaw rider is circulating the internet rapidly, and with it, is a trail of outraged netizens leaving comments that range from being plain racist to words of support for the poor victim of this ordeal. If you want to sleep tonight, you might not want to read any further.
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Japanese military to develop Gundam
The Japanese Ministry of Defense is exhibiting at their symposium something called “Toward the realization of Gundam” which is categorized under “Land equipment”. The Department of Ground Systems Development further called it the “Towards The Realization Of Gundam (Advanced Personal Equipment Systems)” on their PDF program. Is Japan really thinking on building mechas?
Many have already voiced how the plan would be unfeasible due to power required for these mechas and how expensive the R&D will cost. But, Hey! It’s Japan we’re talking about, they’re the 2nd largest economy in the world and if their scientist are as creative as their anime artists, they’ll find a way.
Mechas being employed in the military has always been a subject of talk in the Otaku community, but will fantasy finally become reality? Will we be seeing a giant, human piloted Asimo running around in Japan in the near future? Who knows…
UPDATE:
All is not what it seems, “Toward the realization of Gundam” isn’t really Gundam after all.
Source:
DannyChoo
ItaiNews
World’s fastest elevators are in Asia
Six out of the ten world’s fastest elevators are in Asia! Is this a sign of Asia’s rise? Well, Forbes think it is! They even named it the ‘Elevator Index’ and explains:
It isn’t a perfect measure, but where the economies zoom, tall buildings go up. And keeping those buildings economically feasible means outfitting them with fast elevators. Getting work done efficiently doesn’t happen when employees are shuttled up and down 60 or so stories at a snail’s pace. What company wants its workers on an hour-long cigarette break? - Forbes
Although the top floors of these skyscrapers will probably be used more for tourism than as offices, Forbes do have a point, who wants to be stuck in a stuffy small room with strangers for so long?
Riding these fast elevators is a thrill by itself, with features such as modern pressure control system to reduce stomach churning and ear popping, double-decker elevators that can carry up to 46 people, streamlined carts to minimise whistling noise and vibration. All these fancy gagdets make these elevator rides sound more like a trip to outer space, don’t you think? Just take a look at the video below on the fastest elevator in the world (TaiPei 101), they have a screen showing your speed, height, which floor your on, time taken and a pretty red dot displaying where you are in the building! An ‘out-of-this-world experience, i say!
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.asia Internet domains to be launched
Asia has finally got itself its own regional internet domain, although the creativity of the name can be questioned: ‘.asia’. The DotAsia Organisation finally received official approval for the .asia domain on October 2006 since they began work on .asia in 2000.
Don’t put on your party hats just yet, because the first few .asia domains won’t go live on the internet until March next year, so you will just have to wait a bit longer. The most interesting part about the DotAsia organisation’s registry system is that it uses an auction, unlike most other net domains. So the individual that bids the highest will earn the right to have the domain name. Indeed it’s an odd system, maybe it’s to rake more profit for DotAsia or it could be just a effective system of deciding who receives the right to own those domain names, only time will tell.
Who gets access to these sites? .Asia reaches from Australia to the Middle East, so bad luck to Europe, Africa and America. But they probably will increase its reach once .asia becomes popular, so don’t give up hope!
For those that aim to buy themselves a .asia domain: Don’t worry, the domain names will be in english alphabets, so there isn’t a need to learn new languages yet.
Eventually though domains will be offered in character sets used in Asian nations but the DotAsia Organisation has given no hint about when this will begin.
Icann (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) will be trialing ways to use local Asian languages in the domain addresses such as Korean, Chinese (traditional and simplified), Japanese, Russion, Hindi and Arabic. This will definitely give an advantage to Baidu, the Chinese Google equivalent, unless Google already have something up their sleeves which they probably do.
Source:
BBC News