Malaysia Festival of The Mind (V)

Malaysia’s festival of mind took place at UTAR, Perak Campus from last Friday until Sunday (10-12 July 2009).

The festival of mind is jointly organised by Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), Kolej Tunku Abdul Rahman (KTAR) and Malaysia Mental Literacy Movement (MMLM).

The Deputy Prime Minister & Minister of Education Malaysia, YAB Tan Sri Dato’ Haji Muhyiddin bin. Mohd. Yassin, launched the Festival on 10 July 2009 at 9.30am. Too bad I’m unable to attend the opening ceremony as I’m having a class during that time.

There are quite a number of talks, demonstrations, exhibitions and competitions organised.

Lots of people too…

Test your brain waves

the machine at that side is used to test the percentage of oxygen in our red blood cells.

Take a peek at our brain cells.

This is a real specimen of Cow brain..

your brain?

This half head is real…

IQ game mini competition.

Shirley won the first prize, she’s amazing.

Except the rubiks cube and the “tower” thing… others are all free…

Cooler Master CM Storm Scout Casing (Open Box)

This casing was arrived last week… but due to my mid term exam, this post is delayed..

Chosen Cooler Master’s casing because of their quality, design and the most important aspect, price.

Included bunch of accessories…

Removed both side panels.

Interior view

It got 3 fans – 2x 120mm + 1x 140mm

Drive bays with custom lock(?)… having some hard time to discover how it works…

Front panel

Top view

Overall, the design is very nice. Fully meshed front panel to increase the air flow.

Stealthy looks and cool.

K-ON! Insert Theme and Original Soundtrack

Fuwa Fuwa Time

Sakurakou K-ON BU (Toyasaki Aki & Hisaka Youko & Satou Satomi & Kotobuki Minako)

Track List:

1. Fuwa Fuwa Time
2. Tsubasa wo Kudasai
3. Fuwa Fuwa Time (Instumental)
4. Tsubasa wo Kudasai (Instrumental)
5. Fuwa Fuwa Time (Instrumental – without guitar)
6. Fuwa Fuwa Time (Instrumental – without keyboard)
7. Fuwa Fuwa Time (Instrumental – without bass)
8. Fuwa Fuwa Time (Instrumental – without drum)

Insert theme of K-ON!, Fuwa Fuwa Time aka. (Light and Fluffy Time). I like this song, especially when they presented this song during their school festival.

K-ON! Original Soundtrack

Hyakkoku Hajime

Track List:

1. Have some tea?
2. Morning dew
3. Isoge ya Isoge!
4. Kawaii Inbou
5. 2 Hiki no Koneko
6. Ii Yumemite ne
7. Cotton candy
8. Virtual love
9. Tanpopo Takkyuubin
10. Ukkari-kun no Tameni
11. Genki!
12. Obaa-chan no Tansu
13. The other side of evening sun
14. Dead soldiers
15. Hold on your love
16. Falling reinforced concrete
17. Small flashing
18. Kendama-kun
19. Karui Joudan
20. Crepe wa Ikaga?
21. Happy languidness
22. Emerald green
23. My hometown where it snows
24. Ginsekai no Asa
25. Tea at the night of Christmas
26. Koneko no Ensou Kai
27. Patrol of stroll
28. Doki Doki Friday night
29. Ringo…Ringo…Ringo Ame
30. 15sai no March
31. Jajauma 3nin Musume
32. Hesitation
33. Pinch Daisuki!
34. Dress ni Crepe wa Niawa nai?
35. Ano Hi no Yume
36. Happy End

Contains most tracks from the TV series. You would recognize the soundtracks if you watched K-ON!

XFX NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 (OpenBox)

Arrived on Tuesday, for SiongHwa’s new PC.

Originally wanted to buy XFX NVIDIA GeForce 9800GTX+, but the seller recommends this because both has same performance. Checked the specs of both cards, and found that they’re basically the same, while GTS 250 is newer. GTS 250 is the replacement for the GeForce 9800GTX+.

Tech Spec

GPU Engine Specs:
Processor Cores 128
Graphics Clock (MHz) 738 MHz
Processor Clock (MHz) 1836 MHz
Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec) 47.2

Memory Specs:
Memory Clock (MHz) 1100 MHz
Standard Memory Config 512MB or 1 GB GDDR3
Memory Interface Width 256-bit
Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 70.4

Feature Support:
NVIDIA SLI®-ready* 2-way/3-Way
GeForce 3D Vision Ready yes
NVIDIA PureVideo® Technology* HD
NVIDIA PhysX™-ready yes *
NVIDIA CUDA™ Technology yes
Microsoft DirectX 10
OpenGL 3.0
Certified for Windows Vista yes

Display Support:
Maximum Digital Resolution 2560×1600
Maximum VGA Resolution 2048×1536
Standard Display Connectors Two Dual Link DVI
Multi Monitor yes
HDCP* yes
HDMI* yes
Audio Input for HDMI SPDIF

Standard Graphics Card Dimensions:
Height 4.376 inches (111 mm)
Length 9 inches (228.6 mm)
Width Dual-slot

Thermal and Power Specs:
Maximum GPU Temperature (in C) 105 C
Maximum Graphics Card Power (W) 150 W
Minimum System Power Requirement (W) 450 W
Supplementary Power Connectors 6-pin

Package included the GTS 250 graphics card, user manual, driver CD, cables, adapters, and a “Do Not Disturb, in Gaming” door tag.

Always love the box art and the graphics card’s design by XFX. By the way, I always choose XFX’s product when it comes to NVIDIA’s graphics card.

still waiting for other parts to arrive…

Anime Review: Myself; Yourself

Myself; Yourself
マイセルフ；ユアセルフ

Plot Summary:

For the sake of parents’ business plans, Hidaka Sana moved to Tokyo. Five years later, he has become a high school student, and returned to his hometown, Sakuranomori. He feels uneasy because the streets of his hometown and his old friend he meets again have changed a lot since five years ago. The most changed thing is his childhood friend, Yatsushiro Nanaka. She used to smile sweetly with innocent eyes, but now she has withdrawn herself and is gloomy.

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance, School

Age Rating: Teenage and above (may contain bloody violence / bad language / nudity)

No. of Episodes: 13 episodes

Story

It is a typical visual novel to anime adaptations which we could found a load in each season. The story starts with rather normal/typical slice of life, school, drama anime. Unlike other romance/comedy anime, this anime is included with a main plot which is kept low profile until the climax of the series.

There are some filler episodes in between the whole series, however, the amount of those fan-service contents are under average level, which is good. Talk about annoying part, I found that there’s a character that who doesn’t really contribute much for the plot, Aoi. Furthermore, her voice is irritating too.

This anime differs with other romance/comedy anime, as it focuses mainly on the friendship, not relationship between opposite sex.

I’ll have it rated: 26.5/40

Animation

Studio: Dogakobo

Year: 2007

Type: Series

The animation quality is slightly above average level, simple yet consistent. The level of detail disappoints the show. I mean, not balanced. Indeed with 720p HD, it should have better animation details, however, no.

The artwork is clean and good to watch. Not much distortions, just a simple animation video. Somehow, the animation is quite smooth, but sometimes it won’t be consistent.

Overall, an anime with high quality and high resolution raw video but yet the animation production being not precise enough. Still a good animated series.

I’ll have it rated: 20.5/30

Audio

Opening Theme(s):

1. “Tears Infection” by KAORI

Ending Theme(s):

1. “Kimi to Yozora to Sakamichi to” by Kanako Itō

Insert Theme(s):

1. n/a

Opening theme for this anime is quite catchy and its my type of song. Animation for the theme is done pretty well too. Meanwhile, for the ending theme, sounds nice too, yet I felt it still lacks some important parts.

As I mentioned just now, Aoi’s voice irritates me so much. I mean it. The overall voice cast for the show have no problems except her voice. Each time she talks, my mind gets distorted. Not to mention during an episode when they went to public pool. When she slide down the slide, the way she scream is exactly the same as how a monkey screams.

I’ll have it rated: 13.5/20

Personal Rating

I do enjoy this anime, but rarely. I don’t really like this anime, mainly because of the plot, which endlessly drags around among their relationship. but some others might like this.

6.5/10

OVERALL POINTS

26.5 + 20.5 + 13.5 + 6.5 = 67points

67points, GOOD anime [12/07/2009]

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Nendoroid Saber Lily

Nendoroid Saber Lily

Scale: non-scale, aprox 100mm in height

Sculpter: Nendoron

Producer: Good Smile Company

Original: Fate/unlimited codes

Release Date: Oct 2009

Retail Price: 3500yen

Information from:

The pure white, royal knight – even more adorable as a Nendoroid.

Good Smile Company released 2 versions of Saber Lily before this, a figma version and 1/7 scale PVC figure version. I missed both because of the availability and budget problem respectively. Now they release the nendoroid version, I’m not gonna miss this one.

Online Banking

Back then I could only heard or read how convenient online banking are. Never had any chance of trying out it, until my father started using e-banking provided by Public Bank few years ago.

After I helped him to activate his e-banking account, in 1 months time, he’s able to use it to pay for various payments and bills, such as electricity bill, water bill and so on, everything by himself… By the way, my UTAR’s every payment including admission fees are paid via online banking too… I’m impressed that my father could use it effectively…

Before, I came to Kampar, I applied a personal banking account at Maybank. So that I could get the money through the account from my parents(thank you). At UTAR, it’s best if you have a Public Bank account. I think it’s because UTAR is having some sort of partnership with Public Bank. Therefore, any payments such as tuition fees can be paid easily via Public Bank. So I applied a Public Bank personal banking account too.

I’ve used my Maybank account to pay my telephone bill, Celcom XPAX reload and etc… It’s so easy to use and convenient… No need cash, no need to go to post office/TM point…

So, do any of you tried out online banking?

Anime Review: Shigofumi

Shigofumi ~Stories of Last Letter~
シゴフミ ~Stories of Last Letter~
Letter from the Departed ~Stories of Last Letter~

Plot Summary:

Fumika and Kanaka are mail carriers- but not the typical kind. For one, Kanaka is a talking staff and for two, Fumika delivers shigofumi: letters from the dead addressed to the living. These letters are a final, true, communication derived from hate, hope, and love. The story unfolds following this pair and their uncommon job as well as Fumika’s unique ’situation’.

Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Psychological, Supernatural

Age Rating: Teenage and above (may contain bloody violence / bad language / nudity)

No. of Episodes: 12episodes

Story

The story of this anime is very unique, about the letters that written by the departed to the living. Although it spans only 12 episode, however, the story is presented with the perfect pace. Unlike some anime would waste most of their episodes with filler/fan-service content, each episode of Shigofumi is filled with multiple plot twists which lead to multiple arc ending and the main plot ending.

First, you might think that the story are all standalone arcs, however, you’ll soon discover that all the story arcs are relatively close to each another, some is interconnected, some not.

The story is great, some are very heart touching, some are heart breaking( I mean reality). However, there’s some minor problems which prevented it to not getting the best points. Such as there are some undeveloped plot at the end of the story. Still the anime is great and is one of my listed best anime.

I’ll have it rated: 35.5/40

Animation

Studio: J.C.STAFF

Year: 2008

Type: Series

The art is above average. It might not be the best but the quality is still far above any other anime. The artwork is great, although some people might thought that the character design is kinda weird, however, every author has different styles.

The colouring, lightning and shading are better than other productions of J.C.STAFF, which usually have bright colouring. Maybe the original author requested or it is meant to have that kind of treatment.

Animation is relatively smooth. Overall, the quality of this anime is very good.

I’ll have it rated: 26/30

Audio

Opening Theme(s):

1. “Kotodama” by ALI PROJECT

Ending Theme(s):

1. “Chain” by Snow*

Insert Theme(s):

1. n/a

The opening is performed by ALI PROJECT, which most people dislike their song. Even so, I think that the song suits the anime very much. It strengthens the overall feeling of the show.

The soundtrack are quite nice, they suit the show and brings out the emotion effectively. But not suitable for casual listening.

I’ll have it rated: 15/20

Personal Rating

If you’re looking for any short anime with meaningful story, this anime is the one.

8.5/10

OVERALL POINTS

35.5 + 26 + 15 + 8.5 = 85points

85points, EXCELLENT anime [03/07/2009]

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