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Trick or Treat by °chanelqueen17 1 month 2 weeks ago

Trick or Treat by °chanelqueen17 1 month 2 weeks ago

^nat
After months of work, chanelqueen17 has created a gorgeous scene of Alice and Oz from Pandora Hearts, using scans that didn't even feature both characters together. Even after spending so much time on matching the details of the characters to their new looks, chanelqueen17 didn't stop there and went all out on the background too! This wallpaper definitely needs to be seen!

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ShoutBox

~Inferi-Corvus 6 minutes ago
BOO!!

*moutonzare 1 hour 23 minutes ago
@~ala21ddin21: Not yet (._.); emoticon

$acidtreat101 1 hour 43 minutes ago
I played Persona 4 and I have Persona 3 ~FES edition, but I haven't played it yet. I liked both but I wish they had the option to include the Japanese voices...they had a all-star seiyuu cast.

$Loftydreamer 1 hour 50 minutes ago
I should restate a few things. It isn't a major overall, but it is nearest to the original release that the States has had access to without importing. So if you like Persona pick it up.

~ala21ddin21 1 hour 51 minutes ago
Wonder if Moutonzare had finished his vector... doki doki

$Loftydreamer 1 hour 52 minutes ago
Persona IS AWESOME. Truly faithful remastering of the original. Worth the buy for that price.

$Doc 1 hour 55 minutes ago
-(n#n)- emoticon

$acidtreat101 1 hour 55 minutes ago
I think you play as a female protaganist...

~Mysticmom2 2 hours 4 minutes ago
Just curious. Amazon has it on sale for 14.98 for the next 2 hours. Wondering if it was worth the buy. Time to go research..lol.

$acidtreat101 2 hours 8 minutes ago
No, I want to buy my PSP is lost.

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iindigo's Comments

Welcome to v5!

2 years 9 months ago

"Something about this new design bugs me... I think it's the lack of borders and inconsistency in text size. At this point, I think I liked the old design better.

Also, in case you didn't know already, the style changer (or at least previews) are broken."
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Genres you generally stay away from

2 years 10 months ago

"I'm not horribly picky about my anime. I'll give almost any anime a chance, but there are three genres I tend to avoid:

• Yaoi/yuri anime (although I'd watch yuri before yaoi... something about yaoi just creeps me out)
• Any anime based on a game (Yu-gi-oh, Pokemon, etc). The very idea seems stupid... I mean, you wouldn't watch a TV show solely about checkers or chess, would you? Why would a card game be any different?
• Anything overly girly/frilly. Sailor Moon borders on this."
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Who hates iPods?

2 years 10 months ago

"
elden
Okay, whoever thinks iPods suck are stupid. The reason ipods are got so popular was because it was the first portable mp3 player capable of holding gigs of data. No one had ever thought of it before apple. Also, the iTunes store is ALOT better than all those zune, napster crap subscriptions. They say you can download unlimited songs for a monthly fee, but if you stop paying, you CANNOT play your songs until you start paying. iTunes is simple. 99 cents a song, or ten bucks for an album and you keep it forever. iPods FTW.


Yeah, and if you are really THAT persistent on burning your songs to multiple CDs (more than the 3 burns legally allowed), you can burn them to CD and rip them back to get rid of the DRM. It's a loophole that Apple is aware of and doesn't seem to mind. I suppose it's Apple's way of appeasing the RIAA music overlords but still allowing the consumers freedom."
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Why do great anime falter in America?

2 years 10 months ago

"The way I see it, America hasn't widely accepted anime for two simple reasons:

#1: In America, all animation is automatically assumed to be intended for audiences between 7 and 12 years old, resulting in very few adults watching anything that falls under "animation".

#2: America has grown accustomed to "brainless" TV; television shows that always explain everything that happens on the spot or follows extremely overdone cliches. Most anime I've watched doesn't fit this category, hence the lack of interest - the American public doesn't want to think while watching the boob tube.


Please note that #2 is not meant offensively, and that I am an American myself."
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Mac versus PC's

2 years 10 months ago

"
messhermit
[You also say that "lack of software, lack of support, etc are a thing of the past". If that is the case, then why is Microsoft Windows XP being offered now as an optional OS for MAC's? I even remember that Starcraft was not even compatible with MAC's for a while. In every CIV forum they joke about the fact that waiting for a MAC release takes more time than building a wonder. Apple cannot compete with Microsoft in this field. Is that bad? no, it's only a matter of economics. Sonic is now sharing the Gamecube with Mario, something that a couple of years before was unthinkable.


Chances are is that the people who opt for Windows as the primary OS on their Mac don't know where to look for software. This is understandable, seeing how the vast majority of Mac software doesn't have a physical presence in stores; most of it is downloadable and is either shareware or freeware. A great example of the huge library of Mac software can be found at http://macupdate.com/. Even if a few more obscure programs aren't available for Mac, a person can just install Parallels and all is well.

As for Mac marketshare, it has been increasing substantially ever since the release of the Windows-compatible iPod, and has been rising approximately 1% per year since 2005.


messhermit
Using a local example, Miami-Dade College assigns either a MAC or a PC to any professor that is currently working on campus. By far the most used is the PC (in this case, Dell), while MAC's are not find that often (both desktops or the new fancy one that looks like a flat-screen). The reason? MAC can be as user-friendly as you may like, but as the CNS department told me once, "They can't be upgraded as easy as a regular PC[/color]
That CNS department must have some pretty bad techs if they don't even know that Macs can be upgraded just as easily (and sometimes more easily) as your average PC. A classic example of misinformation."
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Mac versus PC's

2 years 10 months ago

"
messhermit

reggie
You want to know which is better, a Mac or a PC. In terms of hardware, I have read that Macs are more superior and more eye pleasing than their PC counterparts. That is one advantage for Mac. For the PC, I can point out that it is more for the builder, since PC parts can be bought everywhere and hardware parts are easy to find and affordable.. Mac upgrades don't come in cheap, both hardware and software, as they say.


I have to agree with that. A PC can be constantly upgraded, something that is not possible in MAC's. Not only because of the price of the hardware and software, but because they are not designed to be upgraded and after a few years it is usually surpassed by new technologies that MAC's can't use. For me at least, they are more like regular laptops.

It's true that MAC is more user-friendly and uses less space than a regular PC, but those are not strong arguments when comparing it with a PC. A properly maintained PC (in both Hardware and Software) can easily outmatch a MAC anytime.


You are incorrect about Macs becoming non-upgradable after a certain amount of time, as well as having limited expandability to begin with. Macs use the same technology the rest of the PC industry uses, and the Mac Pro towers are, in fact, built with expandability in mind. Installing an HD in one is as easy as taking the side panel off of the tower and sliding the HD into one of the 5 built-in HD slots, and the inside of the tower is designed to use no cables as well, allowing it to be extremely clean and easy to work on. [EDIT] Here's a picture of the interior of a Mac Pro: http://images.apple.com/macpro/gallery/images/macpro04_20060807.jpg

iMacs are harder to upgrade due to their all-in-one design and use of smaller components, but can still be upgraded for the most part. Mac notebooks have the same expandability as your average PC laptop.

About the only negative point about using a Mac these days is the fact that the majority of the mass populous misunderstands them or is prejudiced against them. All other previous problems (lack of software, lack of support, etc.) are a thing of the past."
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Where are you from? And how many languages do you speak? :P

2 years 10 months ago

"I live in West Virginia, a state in the U.S. I am very fluent in English, can speak a small amount of Spanish (took Spanish in high school a year ago, but have forgotton most of it), and know a lot of sign language and am taking sign language class (yes, it's actually a language - it's just not spoken).

I've been dabbling around in Japanese lately thanks to my obsession in anime, and will definitely take Japanese as a course in college, if it is available. If I can't take a course in it, I'll take a self-taught route."
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WoW, Who plays it?

2 years 10 months ago

"I've been playing WoW for over a year now. Unlike most people, though, I haven't hyper-leveled 3+ characters to 60, but rather taken my sweet time in leveling the two high levels I have and enjoying the ride.

I have a 61 Male Human Mage, a 59 Female Human Priest, a 25 Male Dwarf Hunter, and a few other lower-leveled characters on the US server Bleeding Hollow."
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Open Source

2 years 10 months ago

"
ExileZX

Yeah, I agree with you. The open source maybe serve the features like the commercial one, but the UI is worser than the commercial one. ^^ I've ever tried the GIMP, and I can't understand it at all. ^^ But when I used PAINT.NET, it's better than photoshop, I think. ^^


Well, I've tried Paint.NET on my Linux machine using WINE, and while its very nice and well-designed, there are many things that it does not do or that Photoshop does better. But then again, I've been working with Photoshop for 7 years now - I'm more of an advanced user, so there are a lot of features and tools in Photoshop that I'd use that somebody newer to graphics wouldn't even know the purpose of. Paint.NET would be better suited for a less experienced person or someone who wants to perform more simple tasks (adding text to an image, cropping an image, changing an image's color hue, etc.)"
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How did you find this site? *AP*

2 years 10 months ago

"I ran into AP a month or two back when I was desperately searching for some decent 1680x1050 widescreen anime desktop pictures. Since then I've submitted a wallpaper of my own and posted quite a bit.

I honestly don't know how I didn't run into this place sooner... I had searched for anime desktops before, but AP never showed up in the results. It seems that including the term "1680x1050" is what triggered Google to show AP as a search result."
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Do Real Men Wear Pink?

2 years 10 months ago

"I'm a guy, and I personally don't like wearing pink. It doesn't fit me. Beyond that, I feel no need to "push the boundaries" of social acceptance, and I really don't give a damn about what people think of my "manliness". If someone thinks I'm less of a man by wearing pink, good for them - I don't care what they think; I know what I am and I'll be the one to define who I am."
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Open Source

2 years 10 months ago

"
Cats

iindigo
Conclusion: Open source software might be free and do amazing things that no commercial program could even try to touch, but that won't matter if its GUI stinks. Open source software will not take off in the general public until its developers learn to seek out UI designers instead of having the programmers design the UI.


Mmm... it's not as lovely as you think.
Quite frankly the idea of making something and someone else making the bits that link it to the user, sound very unrewarding (as in worse then not getting rewarded)

Honestly people don't think of the code they think of the button, as far as they're concern the tuth fairy makes it happen. You know it doesn't matter if your just making a small piece, you somewhat want to make the complete small lil' piece.

Well, most likely nobody has a problem if they get paid...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your best bet is to have a more of the cross breed between artists and coders. But most of them go for the web...


Well, as a UI and graphics designer that knows a little Objective-C on the side, I can tell you that it's not as hard as you think. I've worked on interfaces with programmers in the past, and as long as the programmers are willing to work as a team (which shouldn't be a problem in the first place) it's not hard at all. As long as the designers and programmers are on the same page, things work out fine.

As for credit, that's not a problem either. In fact, most people I know give credit to the programmers more often than the UI designers, since most people don't even think about the UI if it works well.

P.S. I'm currently working on the interface of the Mac OS X version of the open source video player MPlayer, so I really do know a thing or two about the open source world."
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who is the more beautiful girl?

2 years 10 months ago

"Well, in my opinion, no matter how physically attractive an anime girl (or real girl, for that matter) may be, I don't find them beautiful or even "hot" if she doesn't have a nice personality/attitude to go with her looks, as what I consider attractive is a blend of personality and physical appearance. Due to that, and the limited amount of anime I've watched, I'd have to say the most attractive anime girls would probably be:

• Belldandy from Ah! My Goddess
• Teenage Skuld from Ah! My Goddess
• Tessa from Full Metal Panic!
• Mikuru Asahina from the Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi.

Mutsumi Otohime from Love Hina and Orihime from Bleach might make it into the list if they weren't quite as dopey :P"
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Who hates iPods?

2 years 10 months ago

"
Vidofnir
iPods are overrated fashion accessoires, that's the only reason people buy them. I personally couldn't hate the little wannabe music players more. I can understand why some people buy them however, to follow the crowd. It has some merits over other players, but all in all the iPod and all it's variants are far inferior to other players.


Did you even read the rest of the thread? Several people have stated their reason for owning an iPod to be for their simplicity and focus on music playing, not as a fashion statement. That's why I'm still using my 20GB iPod w/B&W screen and click wheel: not because it's flashy or has more features than a B-rated movie theater, but because it functions as a music player extremely well and it lets me fly through my large library quite easily.

Heck, I don't even use the stock headphones anymore, but rather a pair of black earbuds. The iPod stays in my pocket where it can't be seen, too... So yeah, for me, my iPod is much more than a fashion statement."
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Open Source

2 years 10 months ago

"Open source really is a great idea, and its community has produced some great software (Mozilla/Firefox, VLC, MPlayer, Inkscape, the list goes on and on) but the #1 thing that's holding it back, in my opinion, is this:

The interfaces/UIs of most open source software are designed by programmers, not UI designers (such as myself) or users.

Due to this, a lot of open source programs suffer from having a very challenging and/or difficult function-oriented interface with very steep learning curves. Naturally, humans tend to avoid steep learning curves, therefore sadly avoiding open source software. A prime example of this would be the GIMP - Photoshop is hard enough for a new user to learn, but the GIMP is several times worse (primary menus in a contextual menu? what the hell were they thinking?).

The few open source programs that have a decent interface have become extremely successful. The most obvious example of this would be Firefox and Thunderbird, but others such as VLC are becoming pretty popular as well.

Conclusion: Open source software might be free and do amazing things that no commercial program could even try to touch, but that won't matter if its GUI stinks. Open source software will not take off in the general public until its developers learn to seek out UI designers instead of having the programmers design the UI."
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Anime Pet Peeves

2 years 10 months ago

"My anime peeves consist of:

• "Dumbed down" or "saturday-morning-ized" dubs. I abhor these. They do not, however, account for all English dubs, contrary to popular opinion. Yeah, there ARE good dubs around, even if subber fanboys say otherwise. Just watch the English version of Ghost in the Shell or Cowboy Bebop, they're excellent examples of perfect dubs.
• Unneeded/misfitting ecchi - AKA ecchi situations where they don't belong or feel "forced".
• "Powerup Scenes" that take 800 episodes to complete (also known as DBZ syndrome)
• Badly executed cliche storylines"
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About the new Anime

2 years 10 months ago

"
End1182
mmmm it realy haves the feel of Voics of a Distant Star and Beyond the Clouds, wonder if its form the same guy ?


It is. Voices of a Distant Star and 5cm Per Second are both directed by Makoto Shinkai, who specializes in producing anime with a very small/minimal crew. In fact, Voices of a Distant Star was created with nothing more than Shinkai's directing, the work of a couple voice talents, and a Mac for animation and still managed to be as high-quality as an anime produced by a major studio. Pretty damn impressive if you ask me."
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Linux Users on AP?

2 years 10 months ago

"I use Mac OS X as my primary on my Mac and Ubuntu Edgy 6.10 on my secondary PC box. No Windows here!"
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Clothes

2 years 10 months ago

"While I don't obsess about it, I generally like to wear stuff that looks good together. I won't spend hours on it; I'll usually just grab a pair of bluejeans and a simple t-shirt of some sort and I'm ready to go. Truthfully, I haven't found a t-shirt/bluejeans combo that doesn't match to this day, though, so that might have something to do with it.

And while we're on the subject, I absolutely detest those stupid super-baggy-showing-your-boxers rapper/hiphop pants that seem to be so popular these days. I really don't feel like showing the world my underwear, and pulling my pants up every two steps looks pretty moronic if you ask me :-/"
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Vista Vs. XP

2 years 10 months ago

"The thing that kills me about a lot of the layout changes is why? There's really no good reason at all for a number of changes and rearrangements made to the interface and layout of the OS other than "just because". Does Microsoft really think people need to relearn to use various parts Windows every time they release a new version?"
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What do you think about the iPhone?

2 years 10 months ago

"
DeepDragoon

iindigo

nullstring
the possibilities really aren't that crazy compared to an actual smart phone... cause this thing can't run third party software and thats what makes smart phones so great.


I'm pretty sure they'll open the iPhone up to 3rd party software once they untie it from Cingular. According to Apple, the reason they aren't opening it up now is because, "...a single badly written application could potentially take down the entire Cingular network."

Hmm thats the first time I've heard that reason given, for not allowing other developers to develop applications for the iPhone. I'm not an expert in mobile phone technologies but that excuse seems a little strange, especially as there are phones on the market which anyone can develop programs for. Does this mean that the cellular network is incredibly fragile.

Maybe it is true, but I'd expect the real reason to be that Apple wants to keep the iPhone like the iPod, locked down (I know you can install Linux on an iPod) with the ability to buy software only from Apple.

Or maybe it's because the network operators are worried that someone will bring out a VOIP program for it, this might also affect the outcome of the Cisco case.

Anyway I hope that the iPhone gets opened up to developers.


I think that the reason they said that a single badly written app could bring down the entire network is not so much because the network is fragile, but moreso because Cingular has bent a few rules and allowed the iPhone to perform a few choice functions that other phones are not allowed (multiple people in a single audioconference via phone perhaps?) and because of this extra access the iPhone has, it could be dangerous if a 3rd-party developer gained access to these functions.

Of course, I may be completely off. That's just my reasoning on the matter."
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Deja Vu

2 years 10 months ago

"I've had it happen to me in the past, but not very many times... at least in my waking hours, that is. I've actually experienced Deja Vu more in my dreams than I have when I was awake. In these dreams, I had such a strong feeling that I had been at my dream's location, but I had never once seen it before. It leaves you with a very strange feeling that's actually a little creepy."
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What do you think about the iPhone?

2 years 10 months ago

"
nullstring
the possibilities really aren't that crazy compared to an actual smart phone... cause this thing can't run third party software and thats what makes smart phones so great.


I'm pretty sure they'll open the iPhone up to 3rd party software once they untie it from Cingular. According to Apple, the reason they aren't opening it up now is because, "...a single badly written application could potentially take down the entire Cingular network.""
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What do you think about the iPhone?

2 years 10 months ago

"
GoldenApe
That's what we're talking about right?
Well, I'm very sorry Apple, I won't believe in the hypes you create. I don't like the iPod (actually the price/quality of that thing is not that good) and I don't believe in the iPhone. I have a cheap mobile phone allready, it works fine in calling and sending messages, so why would I bother buying such product?


Ever think that other people might need more than just a cheapo phone? A lot of people would welcome this type of thing because it eliminates their need to lug around both a PDA and a phone. It also features a 2MP camera, Bluetooth, and a built-in video iPod, and since it doesn't use solid buttons, it can be adapted to whatever purpose its needed for. And if that's not enough, you can invite other people into your two-way phone conversation to make it an audioconference. The possibilities are pretty crazy when compared to your average cheapo cellphone.

I like it, personally. I won't be buying one until 2nd or 3rd generation, however, because by then most of the bugs will be worked out of it and it will have more features."
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