…and other discoveries. [Updated (again)]

Finally reached the scene in book 7 where Kio and Aoi discover that Chaika has three kids.

It begins with Kio, Eris, and Aoi walking through the Catian ship. They’ve just dropped 6-chan off at an assistoroid maintenance depot (long story), and are looking out over a park, when out of nowhere, a cobalt-blue-haired three-year-old catgirl comes zipping out of the park and runs into Kio. She falls down and starts crying, and as they’re calming her down, her teacher catches up. She’s about to lead the girl back to her pre-school group, when little Raama notices that Kio and Aoi don’t have cat ears or tails.

She’s fascinated, and attaches herself to Kio so firmly that they have to accompany her back to the school, where the other children are still in the middle of their nap. In baskets, four or five kittens per. As soon as Raama is back in the basket she snuck out of, she falls asleep, and Kio and the gang are led to another room where the grateful teachers serve them tea. To Kio’s surprise, one of the teachers is the first male Catian he’s seen, who mentions that there are thirty females for every male. Also, Aoi notices something odd in the school, and Eris confirms that they’re scratching posts; until age 4-5, little Catians have claws.

They have a pleasant chat with the teachers, and miss their chance to escape before all of the kids wake up. Naturally, they all respond the same way Raama did, swarming Kio and Aoi, even flipping up Aoi’s skirt to confirm her lack of a tail. They’re rescued when Eris, the teachers, and the assistoroids roll in balls of yarn for them to play with.

After their escape, they hang around the park for a while, and see the kids being led home by assistoroids, with only a few parents able to get away from work to pick them up in person. Kio is surprised by how young the parents look, and asks if all Catians marry so young. Eris explains that usually they settle down and start raising kids around age 40-50, and then realizes she’s never told him that their lifespan is 200-300.

Then Chaika shows up, and (re)introduces Raama as her youngest. Even Eris is surprised.

Other notable moments:

• Eris' girlfriend Seshimi is working at the repair depot, and as they greet each other with a big hug, their tails entwine.
• There are currently ~30,000 Catians on the ship; it's standing-room-only, almost, as additional staff are preparing for the second stage of relations with Earth.
• Eris says the ship normally has 20,000, which conflicts with the 3,000 claimed in book 2.
• I'll have to go back and check, but I don't think the ship was originally 10 kilometers in diameter. It was always a classic flying saucer shape, but I think the author must have forgotten that he originally had it park in the air above Naha...
• The total number on board is around 1.5 million, but the vast majority are in cold sleep (冷凍睡眠状態にして), stored in imaginary space (虚数空間に格納して).
• Kuune mentions the crowding when Eris asks where Kio and Aoi will be staying for this short visit, and ever-so-casually announces that they'll be sharing Eris' room, of course.
• The official excuse for the trip is for Kio to get a genetic checkup to make sure he's back to normal, and for Aoi to give a lecture on Earth weapons and combat. Unofficially, Kuune is also trying to move things along in the romance department.
• So far, the most significant thing that Jens has done this book is take out the trash. This is not a euphemism.
• Little sister Ryunnu still doesn't know that Jens is on Earth, and is out exploring Tokyo. No mention of Nirumea, or any hint of impending doom.
• Kuune isn't the only one pushing things; Eris' parents just shuttled in from 300 light-years out, and are looking forward to interviewing their daughter's bride (嫁御殿) and groom (婿殿), before Eris finds out they're on the ship...
• Dad is tall, blonde, and slender, Mom is a short, voluptuous redhead. He's a computer systems engineer, she's an archaeologist. (I originally had him as a geneticist, due to an error in the transcription. The printed book has denshi, which somehow ended up as idenshi in the unofficial ebook; I just found updated versions of several of the books, which I'll need to download at some point)
• Okay, the big threat this book is the ship overheating due to a small accident in the assistoroid maintenance depot (not involving 6-chan), leading all the catgirls to convert their skinsuits into string-bikini mode. Poor Kio is having enough trouble finding a safe place to look with Eris and Seshimi around, but when he gets a look at Kuune...
• A slightly-jealous Aoi, who isn't really having a problem with the heat yet, uses her emergency suit for the sole purpose of putting it into string-bikini mode.
• Alone among the bridge crew, Melwin insists on keeping her suit in its normal configuration, stoically ignoring the heat.
• When they finally get things back under control, she's found babbling recipes for cold noodles and shaved ice, and how they could be used to cool down the bridge, leading Doctor Dyureru to shout, "Get a stretcher! Mel's broken!".
• (rather loosely)
  Eris: "Mom!! Did you actually read my letter?! I meant isosceles triangle, not equilateral!"
  Mom (re-reading letter): "Oh, dear, have I done it again?"
  Dad: "Well, you cant blame her; there was that time at school..."
  Eris: "Not helping!"

…they’re strangling e-book competitors:

The store was removed because Apple rejected any updates which included it, period. They also rejected any updates which stated that Apple required its removal, or indeed any mention of ‘compliance with App Store guidelines’. It was further rejected for the cardinal sin of allowing users to create a Kobo account within the app. Then it was rejected for providing a link to let users create an account outside the app. Then it was rejected for simply mentioning that it was possible to sign up, with no direction on where or how one could do that. Then it was rejected for making any mention of the Kobo website. Then for any mention of ‘our website’ at all, in any language. We additionally cannot make any assertions that Kobo provides content for sale, however obliquely.

(from this review of the crippled app)

Running through my head today, for entirely non-political reasons:

He said the Captain lied when the Captain cried,
"There's none of us here can save her.
Let her go down, swim for your lives.
Swim for your children, swim for your wives,
but let her go down."

No, really, not related to current political kerfluffles at all. Over the weekend I pulled up Steeleye Span’s Portfolio to share their version of New York Girls, with Peter Sellers on ukelele and whimsy, and then remembered some other songs I was fond of.

The mimetic word “puruun”, used to describe the sound of bouncing breasts, should never be written as the English word “prune”. Changes the tone of this DVD title completely.

(and for those who are wary of youthful-looking Japanese models, the back cover claims she was 20 when this was shot two years ago. It also claims a 40-inch, J-cup bustline and height just under 5 feet, so her future plans include back surgery)

The new Mac OS X release includes an optional Japanese voice capable of reading any text in phonetically accurate Japanese. Lovers of the emotionless anime girl will enjoy Kyoko’s flat affect, but they may be a bit puzzled by her odd reading choices. In a quick sample, I found that 一人 is always “ichinin”, and 行って is always “okonatte” (which made the “how to get to the gas station” example I fed it quite entertaining).

Still, it’s a decent voice, and Apple once documented how to embed pauses, pitch, speed, and phonetic hints in a string to be read by their speech synthesizer. Unfortunately, the only info I can find at the moment goes waaaay back. You could get the old Macintalk to sing, but the voices were pretty crude, and every phoneme had to be encoded by hand to get it to create plausible Japanese. Perhaps they’ll release some documentation on the modern system.

[Update: I just noticed that the artist faithfully reproduced some details described in the book. For instance, take a good look at the ship identified in the picture as #3. It’s a faithful replica of a well-known US aircraft carrier, scaled down for assistoroids.]

In the contest to win over humanity, the cheerful, good-hearted, gorgeous alien catgirls have a significant advantage over the secretive, militaristic, manipulative Dogs, whose presence on Earth is still known only to a few well-placed military organizations and government agents.

I’m referring, of course, to assistoroids. Before I started reading the books, I found a picture of the Space Elevator Escort Squadron, but at a casual glance, it didn’t seem to be a real part of the books. No, it’s real.

Book seven opens with the aftermath of the arrival of the Christmas Tree, with every available navy streaming to its location with the goal of controlling access to Earth’s newest and most valuable resource. The Catians had originally planned to station a squadron of their own crew at the bottom to protect its neutrality, but Kio persuaded them to let the assistoroids handle the job in their own unique way. They were dubious at first, but after a month of watching the sailors of half a dozen countries melt under the sheer cuteness of the tiny cat-robot navy patrolling the sea in its whimsical vessels, they were glad that they listened. The initial tension of the multi-nation standoff is rapidly changing into a tourist attraction, and nobody wants to be the first one to open fire on an assistoroid.

Also, Manami is almost ready to throw her hat into the ring.

And it turns out that First Officer Melwin is as young as she appears. She’s just that good.

(photo by Jenya Marmeladova)

Think of the kittens!

Especially when viewing suggestive photos like this. If you’re concerned about work-safety, click this one instead; it has another cat.

(honestly, I think every picture on the Internet has now been featured in at least one themed Tumblr photoblog)

Yes, they sell them. I think this would be the perfect tool for L. Neil Smith’s “niccer” movement.