You know you had too much...

... Code Geass when you mistakenly called your former Japanese-course classmate "Nina-san" instead of "Nani-san".

... work stress when you start screaming upon sudden realization that you ruined an expensive culture media with unfiltered nutrient supplements, resulting in everyone in the lab running to your direction in great shock. R-san, I'm so sorry for sending you running to me in shock, but I'll never forget the look on your face. ほんとうにすみませんでした!

... thoughts in your head when you can't recall what you did last weekend, or what you ate for dinner yesterday.


なんか、ちょっとやばいことになりそうです。

～みはる～

Enchanted vs Geass

Disney's fairy-tale princess given a reality check:

The trailer had seemed really funny, so I thought it might be a good watch. Although entertainingly comedic, I find the story terribly uninspiring with its weak plot and not very convincing actors.

If you don't know already, Enchanted tells about a cartoon fairy-tale princess, Giselle, living in the land of "Once upon a time" who dreams every single minute in her life about marrying her Prince Charming. Like all Disney's naive princesses, she has her heart sets on 'true love's first kiss' and was all hyper when Prince Charming swept her off her feet and proposed to her. However, in typical Disney style, the evil Queen stood in her way of a 'happy ever after' by sending Giselle to NYC for a taste of reality. And so goes the adventure of our fairy-tale princess in discovering the shocks of real life: where love doesn't lasts and 'happy ever after's are non-existent.

While I know the writers were playing around with Giselle's naive and pure nature to generate humor and comedy, I find it overly annoying and pretty much stupid. And Prince Edward is such a blockhead. The idea of the story seemed appealing, but the production was below my expectation. Furthermore, the chemistry between the characters were weak, so I wouldn't reckon the acting too much. And the ending was... boring. They did give some sort of a 'happy ever after'... but it was nothing extraordinary. I did not find the movie very funny, in fact I think Ratatouille was funnier.

I supposed this is what I get for watching Code Geass before Enchanted.

I've been totally spoiled by Sunrise's amazing animation and storytelling in Code Geass - Lelouch of the Rebellion. The plot is mindblowing, because every episode gives unexpected twists and incredible action. I have to say, it's been a long time I enjoyed such action-packed mecha anime since Mai-Hime. With CLAMP in-charged of the character designs, Code Geass can only be visually fabulous. And it's no wonder why this series had garnered so many awards, including Best TV animation series in the Tokyo Anime Awards and Animation Kobe Awards, as well as the Best Seiyuu award Fukuyama Jun won for his excellent voice acting as Lelouch Lamperouge. Code Geass is what I call entertainment. Enchanted is pretty much for kids who still believes in 'happy ever after's.

So, don't bother with Enchanted. Go get yourself Geass-ed.

Images from Random Curiosity and Code Geass.

～みはる～

Folding@home

Anyone doing life science would acknowledge the power of proteomics. And anyone doing computational biology would comprehend the massive computation needs to model or understand even a fraction of the proteins in the human body (and we're talking only ONE species here - Homo sapiens). Last I understand, IBM created some next-generation supercomputer called BlueGene touted to boast world's greatest computation speed and power for protein research. Imagine the cost (material and intellectual) of construction and utility of this sophisticated robot.

But who would guess, leeching CPU power can actually get you farther.

As one researching on genetics, I'm not very well-versed in protein research, nevertheless, I'm amused and pretty much impressed by this project by Stanford University: Folding@home

I guess this is where the ancient proverb "United we stand, Divided we fall" carries good meaning. If everyone in the world were to contribute a little CPU power each, the resident researches would have a collective sum of computational power more than sufficient to fuel their modeling work (and leaving BlueGene trailing in their wake!). Quite a nifty strategy, if you ask me. And it's for good cause! I wonder if there's a similar project for genetics research.

If you have extra CPU power to spare and would like to contribute to the research community, visit them here for the client and start protein-folding at home!

～みはる～