Only Toonami

I remember coming home from school everyday and waiting until the clock struck 4pm. Everyday at 4pm, the legendary action block Toonami came on Cartoon Network. Toonami was your typical block of Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon, Gundam Wing, etc. When we were kids, that block and the Simpsons were the only important times for TV.

 For many of us nerds, this was our first taste of Anime. True anime, not that Kids WB crap.  We loved Toonami, and as we grew, it grew with us. We grew to love Tom, the show's host (many of us are too young to remember Moltar, the original host). We cried when Tom 1 was destroyed during The Intruder, and we were in awe when Tom 2 showed up in all of his awesome glory.

Tom 2 eventually became the sleeker Tom 3, and shows like DBZ gave away to shows like Outlaw Star and Zodiac Warriors. We endured with Tom through Trapped in Hyperspace, stayed up late to catch the Midnight Run, and rose early to catch the Rising Sun. We stayed with SARA as well, the ship's computer. Her companionship was oftentimes the only thing that kept Tom on track aboard the Absolution. Eventually, Toonami got handed a Saturday night time slot, and we were introduced to Tom 4.

Sadly, during the year 2008, Toonami met its end.

That was the last time we thought we'd see Tom.

We thought wrong. The community didn't stay quiet. The people loved Toonami. They wanted it back. During the ensuing years, many people across the web banded together to created live streams that replicated Toonami. While most have failed, a few have really taken off, such as Toonami Aftermath. Toonami Aftermath is a 24/7 stream that's basically the greatest thing to happen to us since the original Toonami (at the time of this typing, Toonami Aftermath was relocating and was down. It may be back up by now). It has everything from anime, to american action cartoons, to movies, to even the original Toonami comercials featuring Tom. What more could you ask for?

 

 We could ask for a new Toonami. We could ask for is a new Tom 5. Well, that's what the community is also delivering. Enter Neotoonami, a community that is recreating Toonami on a whole new level. It is a group that is making a new ship, a new Tom, and a new line-up of shows. They've posted previews of their work, and honestly, I'm awestruck at it. These guys are doing an amazing job, and I personally can't wait for Neotoonami to kick off.

 

Honestly, what does this all mean? What's it all represent? This is what a community has done. This is what a group of 100% people has created. The Internet is a powerful place. When people want something to happen, they band together and they make stuff happen. When Toonami went off the air, several streams sprang up created by fans who wanted it back. These are PEOPLE, not some corporation or company kicking up this stream. These are people. Just like Anonymous, they have moved the Internet and brought joy to many fans around the world. 

It just makes you wonder... when an Internet community comes together, what else can they do?

Stay Gold,

Kyle
Ganrokh

Going Digital

Our world is slowly becoming more and more digital.

So I was downloading another game off Steam recently (Steam's weekend deals are the high points of my weekends) when I really got to thinking about how we've advanced in terms of digital technology. Anyone remember the old days, when owning a CD player made you popular? The good PS1 games came on 2, 3, 4 discs, and every computer game was on a CD? Now, I'm sitting here listening to music I've downloaded en masse while running full-fledged computer games without a thought of a CD.

Now, computer games (seriously, who buys standard edition computer games at a store anymore) come loaded on DVDs. Musical CDs still sell,  but many people just resort to a service like iTunes. More and more, we have no need for portable storage. Sure, we have flash drives that most of us carry around, but a lot of us are able to store files on our phones, or in a program like Drop Box to access on any other computer.

Sure, you can say, "but m'lord, the size of common flash drives double every year! And the engineers are close to perfecting Purple-Ray!" Purple-Ray, you say? Purple-Ray is the newest invented technology for disc storage. It is the next step above Blu-Ray: boasting a 100gb storage space and the ability to fill that space in 25 minutes. This can be expanded to 400gb, and they say that the speed can rival today's fastest hard drives. But, what's the use?

Enter: The Cloud. Cloud-based computing is relatively new to the public, but many of us use it already. The Cloud is an area of the internet that our devices connect to. We are free to read and write whatever we want to the cloud, so we may access later on the same device or another device. Many people use this now-a-days instead of portable storage. It sounds great, but that' only for personal storage, right?

Wrong. It may be the future of console gaming as well. OnLive is a fairly new console that many gamers have not heard of yet. It consists of a small box (shown in the picture) that connects to the internet. It connects to the OnLive cloud, and with your OnLive account, you can purchase games and stream them directly to your TV. What makes the idea so powerful? All of the processing and everything that a console normally does happens cloud-side - the console itself merely transmits the images of the game. The console itself has no NEED to upgrade. While OnLive doesn't have a very big library right now, it can still make deals with other game companies to get bigger hits available. I believe this service has potential.

What does this all mean? Now, onto my point. Everything we know and love is becoming digital. Everything is becoming a part of the internet, the cloud, everything. More and more of our lives are becoming automated as well. We merely click, and everything we want to happen happens.

Taking a step back, at a glance, the internet looks just like a big mesh of data. If one could harness the internet, they could do powerful things. We saw in the novel Daemon what happens when a computer mastermind writes one program. Anyone could do the same thing. But I digress... what else could lurk on the internet? I have an idea...

That's right. The internet is a huge place. We can't keep the whole place in check by ourselves. Like our own world, what if there's myths and legends about the internet? I honestly wouldn't doubt if there is an actual digital world out there somewhere. With the mass of unused IP grids the government owns, it could exist somewhere. Then again, isn't Digimon just an MMO that the kids in the series got sucked into? Perhaps there are thousands of Digital worlds out there already... Azeroth, Thedas, Middle Earth, Hyboria. What if we ourselves are in a digital world? Damn, our graphics are good, then.

I wouldn't totally rule out the possibility... but if a rift opened between our world and digital Azeroth, I'd gladly grab my Digivice and go digital.

Fare well,

Kyle
Ganrokh