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The current Momusu, though decently vocally talented (with the exception of Sayumi) sound very homogeneous. It's difficult to pick out their solo lines at times, but in chorus it's near impossible. Their sound has become choral like. However, the first and second gen members had very different tonalities that were able to harmonize with each other rather than blend.

The Kids are similar to old Momusu in that its members are quite tonally different and it's possible to determine voices in a chorus. I'm a big fan of harmonizing and there are just some dissonant parts in Edo no Temari that make me feel good. It's not the same level as Memory Seishun no Hikari, but I've enjoyed this song more already than Resonant Blue, which I liked a lot. Another thing I think that has helped this song has been how the line distribution is a bit more balanced, Airi doesn't have all the lines (thank you) and even Erika has a few.

As for the video, I really like it. It's quite well done, the costumes are pretty nice, the neon fits with the feeling of the song, and the closeups aren't too close. The closeups are probably one of my favorite parts of the PV; it's like a nice solo shot where I can see more than just their face. And as always, they're really good dancers, but from what I can see it's probably not an overly difficult dance, but I should probably wait for the dance version to make a final verdict there. (Considering how I was wrong about CC). Tsunku, you need to start treating Momusu like you treat the Kids or otherwise C-ute could become the H!P flagship group!

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The current philosophy for x86 architecture to increase speed has been to throw as much hardware as possible into the core to improve performance for existing programs and more importantly programming style. This has worked out somewhat well as GCC has matured over the years to provide highly optimized code to take advantage of the hardware but places a bottleneck on total throughput as the number of ALU's on a chip are quite small because of all the extra hardware added by out-of-order and speculative exectution, branch prediction, etc. IBM has decided to eschew the additional hardware to implement these features to use that room for more ALU's.

The SPU's on the Cell processor for example does not have any out of order execution, branch prediction or cache. This space for rename registers has been traded for 128 architectural 128-bit vector registers. The cache has been traded for a programmer accessible 256KB local store. And all the other space left over is used to fill the die with enough ALU's to get 25.6 GFLOPS of single precision performance.

So why's this an issue? For a program I coded to work on x86 to apply a filter to a 6min WAV file, it took a little over 10 seconds Although if run with -mno-sse2 it will take about a 1 min 10. A direct port of this code to my PS3 also took a 1 min 10 secs to execute. This shows how well GCC is optimized to run on x86. Unlike on x86, GCC is not quite optimized to automatically vectorize the code into Altivec. It gets even worse when run on the SPU, they have no scalar registers so the code took 7 mins to execute. All scalar operation are done by using a splat (copies one value into all places in a vector register) does the operation, then masks the value. Also since there is no branch prediction with a 21 stage pipeline, all my branches guessed incorrectly would incur a ~23 cycle penalty.

However despite all these shortcomings it is quite simple to achieve high performance but requires the programmer to think differently. If the programmer vectorizes as much code as possible, the program runs quite quickly. I was able to vectorize just the arithmetic and achieved a 30 second run time. The biggest trick to optimization is to avoid branch penalties by unrolling (which I've done somewhat) and using predication (which I haven't). Predication is where you execute both sides of the branch and select the right result. On a scalar processor this is time consuming because this requires 2 operations when you could do just one. However, on the Cell, scalar operations are costly as every instruction is vectorized so a vector operation that does executes both sides of the branch then using a vector select takes up far fewer cycles than branching incorrectly, flushing, then executing.

Currently I'm having quite a few issues with context switching as I tried to thread my filter program, which is an optimization I'll save for another post. Once I find the solution, I'll post my findings.

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I just recently got the GUILTY album from Ayu, and I am pretty impressed despite some initial hesitation. It's quite a departure from her typical trance like music; GUILTY has a predominate rock sound to it. Typically when I find myself disappointed when pop artist try rock because the things I love about rock, such as the guitar solos are avoided as to not distract attention away from the pop diva. I think the greatest example of this is during American Idol's Chris Daughtry's debut single "It's not Over" where midway through the song there seems to be a nice guitar solo, but then is cut short when he starts singing again. This kind of behavior waters down the genre in my opinion. At least Daughtry had remnants of rock, unlike many of Avril Lavigne's music, but that's another rant for another day.

There is some of the watered down feeling present in a GUILTY; although the solos aren't cut short, they aren't exactly Dream Theater or DragonForce epic solos either. But, I think what made the album work is the same thing that makes the rest of her albums work (other than the gigantic marketing engine that Avex is), her voice. The dryness of her voice that worked so well for trance music translates strangely well to "rock" music such as in "Decision". The songs are laced here and there with the typical Ayu electronic sounds. Also in typical Ayu fashion, there are a few ballads that give nice breaks in pace. Another nice touch is the use of string instruments in a few songs such as "Marionette." I've uploaded a few songs from the album into the jukebox, it's worth checking out.

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Honestly, I wanted to write more about this, but I could seriously copy and paste my Perfume review and that's what this song is like but with one voice instead of three. Her older stuff is completely different, and not to my liking.

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I've been playing Kioku no Meiro on repeat ever since I downloaded it. It has everything that made me musically like Hello! Project in the first place. It's catchy, it has a nice electronic beat and melody. Listening to this song is like listening to all that is good about Perfume without all the electronic voices and the best vocal talent H!P is capable of producing.

I'm really enjoying this song, I know I should stop playing the song because I might get sick of it too quickly, but it's just really fun to listen to.

On another High King related note, I decided to include the video of Cindarella Complex:

For a video as hyped up as this was, it was a bit of a disappointment. And the other insult to injury is that there is a lot of Reina in it... and she doesn't look as good as she has in other videos. The biggest downer of them all is that, you could tell that they easily spent the most amount of money on this PV compared to all the other PV's released this year, but it's just a gigantic letdown.

I personally thought the dancing was ok, but it wasn't as technical as they kept hyping it up to be or what these girls are capable of. (Come on Tsunku, you have Saki and Maimi, these girls know how to dance, they were your backup dancers for years!)

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I think the initial radio rip was so poor that my audiophile side of me wouldn't accept it. However, the rip is better this time around so the song is slowly growing on me. I've only been able to identify the voices of the Momusu members and Maimi. As much as I like Saki, I don't listen to Berryz enough to know her singing voice, so I can't distinguish between her and the egg.

I didn't like it much at first because I'm not a huge fan of the composition, the rhythm of the beat is not one that I take a liking to. The song also sounds a bit too hip-hop for my liking, and I'm not a fan of hip-hop music at all.

There's something about the harmonizing that I do like. And if there's one thing that H!P knows how to do, it's making catchy songs. (Not as well as Perfume does though, I just can't stop listening to them...) My opinion of this song is opposite from my opinion of typical H!P songs; typically I like the chorus but I like the verse much more in this song because the "Na na na" of the chorus is a bit lame and too hip-hop. But the switching of solo lines between the members for the verse kinda keeps things interesting and well I'm really starting to crush on Maimi's ...voice. (Well, with one of the best thighs in H!P, it's hard to not like her for her other... assets, man that was corny. In case you don't know she's the second on the right.) Overall, I'd rate the song somewhere around a 6.25/10 but it does make me kinda interested in seeing the musical.

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The Senior VP of our division hosted a meeting and provided catering and even more importantly, provided free beer! Nothing like raising morale like a little alcohol at the end of the day. I suppose that's the perks of working for a division that actually makes profit for the company.

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So I was getting pretty tired today at work, and I had passed this vending machine a few times on my way to the restroom so I decided I'd get myself some "liquid motivation" and when I approached this machine I noticed something special... it had a credit card reader. At first I thought, "How convenient!" because I barely ever carry cash. (I did happen to have cash at the moment though.) But then it hit me, I'm gonna be wasting ~$1.30/day. In the past, the lack of cash stopped me from getting drinks, which is good for my wallet, but even more importantly, good for my health. Now, nothing is stopping me other than my conscience, and well I'm admittedly pretty weak-willed when it comes to these kinds of things. It's little things like these that make Americans so damn obese as a nation. Oh well, at least I won't fall asleep on the job anymore (hopefully, *knock on wood*).

Yes, I know you get free drinks at work, Doug; I don't, so get over it. At least the coffee is free, I should probably drink that instead.

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In the past, I've always had some really cheap and generic office chair, but this summer my "office" (if you will) is decked out with a super pimp Herman Miller chair. It has so many damn controls I don't even know what to do with it. For example, I like to lean back in my chair. At home my chair can lean back and forth, but it can only lock in place in the fully upright position, which is fine, but this chair I can control how much I want it to go back and forth and I can lock it in place at like almost any angle.

As you can tell I'm quite a bit bored at work right now mostly cause I still don't have all my IT related stuff set up with yet, and my mentor already left for the day. I guess I better get back to reading the reference manual...

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First of all, I love Firefox. It's much easier to use and offers greater extensibility than IE. The Firefox 3 beta 5 uses less memory and renders much quicker than most competing browsers. However, although I may not benefit directly from the release of IE 8 (because I'm a Linux user), as a Firefox user, I still stand a lot to gain by Redmond's release. I do quite a bit of web development. Dealing with the headache of trying to make pages render correctly in older versions of IE and standards compliant browsers is enough to make oneself consider a change in profession.

Honestly, I don't know enough of the idiosyncrasies between how the browsers render CSS, but I do know enough about their Javascript differences. And while it's possible to do almost everything in old IE that you want to do in a standards compliant browser, it affectively means your code doubles because you end up writing another copy of your code that uses ActiveX specific functions. Also some versions of IE don't garbage collect correctly when a variable goes out of scope, so you have to write extra code to handle those cases as well.

Microsoft's new push for standards compliance as well as trying to set the next standard is admirable. Since this is Microsoft we're talking about, the IE8 beta still shows some minor non-standard behavior (at least from the screenshots I've seen) however with a standards compliant web page, it will render similarly enough to other browsers that it won't make me rewrite all my code. (this happened to me recently when I forgot to check this page in IE; most standards compliant browsers support SHORTTAG despite SHORTTAG not being in the XHTML standards)

So this brings me back to my title. As a developer, if I don't have to rewrite all my code so that it'll work on IE, then it gives me more time to make things look and work better for all browsers. As much as I love Firefox, a good majority of the world still uses IE (albeit, there's still a huge percentage of IE6 users which is a bit discomforting) and developers spend most of their time getting pages to work for IE rather than the other browsers. With IE becoming standards compliant, developers will start to code their pages to be standards compliant, which will benefit me as a Firefox user.

As a side note, I managed to get my page to pass the W3C validator so my page is now standards compliant!

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Another band I found on International Wota. After hearing SAKURA, they're major label debut single, I couldn't stop playing the song over and over. Kiyoe's voice is so soft and soothing during the verses, but during the chorus the true power of her voice comes out and just sends shivers down my spine. I've uploaded a few tracks into my jukebox. I highly recommend it.

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Apparently Gaki-san has no feeling of pain in her cheeks, and the host is just having a ball pinching her cheeks. It's so cute that she's just laughing and smiling through it all.

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Update: I've changed the playlist for the jukebox, and I've made some changes to the CSS to simplify the layout, what do you think?

Please comment below features you would like added!

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Their sound is just so refreshing, it's a nice fusion of electronic and pop but with more electronic. It's quite nice to listen to because their sound isn't as repetitive as other electronic types. The beats switch from house to trance to pop. Unlike a lot of other Jpop groups, there is quite a bit of English (read not Engrish) in the songs so that's a nice touch as well.

If you like Japanese music, this is a must. Even if you just like Western electronic music, it's worth getting because it's a welcome departure. I'd recommend starting out with the GAME album. But some older singles that are good as well are Electro World and Computer City.

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A 1 is a 1, a 0 is a 0, it doesn't matter how clean or ripple free that bit comes out, the bit value is determined by a threshold anyways. Even if you are placing some sort of modulation on the cable where the analog component may matter, you could always apply channel equalization to it. This is a moot point as no audio/video interconnect protocol uses any modulation to begin with, all data is transmitted serially via Biphase Mark Code or TMDS. The only benefit these "optimized" cables may provide is slightly longer cable runs due to less ISI, but the difference is negligible unless you live in some electromagnetic wasteland.

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It has always been in my character to like the underdog, so that manifests itself in my tendency to choose the less "pushed" idols of the group. I'm a bit unconventional in that instead of becoming acquainted to the current generation, I looked backwards and worked from there.

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I've finally decided to put some effort into this website. This blog will cover Hello! Project, technology, and other random thoughts that come into my head. Look forward to more content soon!

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