Horizon Eye Technique: to see without looking

The human eye can see in a 200° horizontal and 100° vertical Radius, but that is with looking at things out of the corner of your eye. To see without looking you need to rely on your peripheral vision. Focus where you are looking on the horizon in front of you, at whatever is in the furthest distance. But don’t look at clouds, they are too high and nondescript. Your peripheral vision still needs to be able to perceive your feet, so you can watch where you are walking.
Don’t take my word for it, have a go. Stand with your back to a wall and stretch your arms out to your sides, point your fingers away from the wall and wiggle them. Even if you look directly in front, away from the wall you should be able to detect the movement of your fingers in your peripheral vision.
Have a go when next you are driving, don’t watch the car directly ahead of you, look at the furthest point on the road. Then you can easily react to a train-crossing three intersections away from you as well as detect the cars near you using their break lights. Although I do find it hard to see the speedo I can notice cars behind me in the rear view mirrors.

Look at nothing, see everything.

Compared to this computer games are rather limited, maybe giving you a 30°x20° view of what’s happening. Thus I am interested in this new VR headset, 110° FOV is about half of what you are capable of when using this technique. This part (@2:52) compares what the VR headset can see as opposed to the human eye.

P.S. Peripheral vision is in Black& White.

Ao no Exorcist: A review

Also known as the Blue Exorcist

I really liked the female lead in this Moriyama seems like a normal decent person. She isn’t a helpless crybaby like Sakura from Naruto, neither is she a sex symbol like Yoko is in TTGL. Although Moriyama is competent at what she does and is rather strong willed she is still defiantly a girl, unlike Shakugan no Shana whose only feminine qualities are boobs and that she cries when she is sad. (Normally anime blokes don’t cry, they just have a blue aura, AKA Bleach)

Of the protagonist Rin, I will say this, he reminds me of Azuma Kazuma  that makes me happy and is sufficient description for him I think.

Levi put me onto this anime and said that despite being about exorcism and quoting multiple religious texts and having Satan as one of the main characters, he was able to watch it and rather enjoyed it.

I found it to be a nice interpretation of exorcism and a very Japanese take on demons and the underworld. So rather than Satan being the Deceiver/Destroyer he is just the űber powerful king of the spirit world, most spirits being practical jokers and curiously seeking chaos.

One of the messages of the story is about anti-racism, and accepting people for who they are, not their appearance. If you stand on your own two feet and be yourself and accept others at face value then people may get to know you, and once they do they will realize what a nice person you are. This is also seen in Rin’s interactions with Eyebrows girl.


Spoilers:

The plot centers around twin boys that were immaculately conceived by Satan, their mother was of priestly decent, she and Satan became friends.

The boys earthly father was a Paladin and one of the elite of the church, apparently the strongest exorcist ever. When he was sent to kill his girlfriend and the spawn of Satan he found he couldn’t kill the children and raised them as his own. So the boys are raised as humans and have a human body but the soul and magic powers of a demon.

There is the normal anime bit of growing as a person, overcoming adversity, being ostracized and making good friends.

Then at the end of the first series the protagonist is sacrificed on a cross for the salvation of all mankind, his blood given as a pure offering where none other would suffice.

Again here Moriyama shows up and is actually helpful, not just a love interest/bystander, and along with Kirigakure the women stood at the foot of the cross.



That got me thinking then. If the boys here are physically human and have a demonic soul and people/things can be possessed by another soul; then maybe that is something of what Jesus was? A physical human with the soul of God, given the breath of life by the Spirit (pun intended). As it says in Heb 4:12, its not easy to separate those things. Following on from that then would I be a lump of meat that was possessed by an angle (I’ve passed on lots of messages) and given the breath of life by the Holy Spirit?

Darker Than Black - Gemini of the Meteor: Eps 7-12

Well, I enjoyed the firs series, I liked it being a mystery. the middle one was OK. This one was good. set itself up for a sequel but I doubt there will be one. has lost the charm of the first series.

Darker Than Black - Gemini of the Meteor: Eps 1-6

Watched the first half of the last series yesterday. now the 4 episodes in the middle make more sence, they were necicary for the plot, pity they wernt actually interesting, Same goes for episode 3&4 here. But the first and last 2 episodes that we watched were pretty good.
after the 6th episode we now know that this series is about the two Japanese founding gods, the bloke is life and the girl is death. At this rate I wouldn't be surprised if we get a dodgy confuting anticlimax of an ending.

Darker than Black

Darker Than Black - The Black Contractor - Gaiden: 4 episodes

Not entirely sure what that was about, fills in a bit of back story on the organization though.

Darker than Black

Finished this series for the second time. First I had watched it by myself, now with my brothers. Nicole also helped us watch the first half of the series.

The series ended rather tidily, we have a good idea what the dolls are and why the main character is the main character. The rest of the world now knows about contractors (although I don't know how or why). for most people it is business as usual, fair enough considering how secretive everything was. I think I can watch this yet again and so it is added to my recommendable list.

Samurai Champloo, Episodes 12 - 15

A big recap episode means that we are getting int the meat of the tale. Found out a bit of Mugen's back story. Then Ep15 is the one where Mugen finds his wife, this is one of the best parts of the anime. Also it is becoming clear that the tale is set in the last days of the samurai, when cowboys roamed the wild west but just before the isolationist policy.

Samurai Champloo, Episodes 5 - 11

Two European episodes, both using the stranger in a strange land plot device. The only esoteric episode, every other episode could have been found in a bibliography. But then who has proved that there is no such thing as chi. There was a private eye episode. Also one where everybody accidentally gets high on Marijuana. One had a very sad ending too.

There certainly are a lot of mature themes throughout the series. So now we've seen the personalities of the main characters in several situations and have started to find out what their back story is.

Recommendable anime

Yakitate Ja-pan - its about food
Samurai Champloo - Typical fudal Japan, lots of stereotypes
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann - Epic
Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu - Teddy bears with guns
Trigun - Always be the best you can be
Naruto - I don't really know, I watch it out of habit now. Only one on this list that I have not seen all the way through.
Darker than Black - Mystery
Black lagoon - the office lacky who becomes a mercenary

Yakitate Ja-pan

I intend to add in when I first watched these things, but not yet.

One anime that I will recommend. it is about cooking bread.

Samurai Champloo

Started watching this series for a second time. Eps 1-3, Mugen reminds me of my Bro. I really like the way he handles the moral dilemma in ep3. Reminds me of the start of Baldurs Gate II.
Defiantly the best approach when dealing with the supreme evil overlord who is holding a hostage is to assume he is infact the supreme evil overloard who is intending to obliterate life as we know it and when he says he will spare somebodies life he is lying.
Enter Mugen.

Yes I can edit post production posts.
soon to follow the rest of the series...
Rather than edit posts I'm now planning on using more Labels.

Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex Solid State Socioty

Wow that has a long title. Watched it yesterday because I couldn't sleep and had a few hours to kill before going out. I remember seeing some of the episodes on SBS and remarking that it looks like a good series. This one is a movie and deals with government conspiracy, accidental AI and human hive-minds. Not to spoil the plot.