I looked at the three websites linked above, and they didn't really seem that bad to me. The author of the blog doesn't say if he can read Japanese or not, and it should not be assumed that he can for the fact that he wrote the blog entry in the first place. I think that probably makes a difference. Just looking at the language itself makes it seem more complicated than it might be.
Something that I've noticed on various Asian sites over the years is that they seem to be mainly text based, displaying a lot of information right when you go to them. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially for the Asahi Shimbun or it's English page. It's a newspaper, it should have a lot of information displayed right in front. So should the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare (linked above). The New York Times has one of the best newspaper websites around, mainly because it uses very few images and displays a lot of information right on it's front page. Other local newspaperwebsites I've visited leave little to be desired. I think if the New York Times website were written in Japanese, one might feel the same way as the blog author.
Was this true only online, or also in the live broadcast?
The Opening Ceremony shown in the US on Friday was not live. In fact, right at the beginning it said "Previously Recorded." On CNN in the afternoon, they even had an article titled "Chinese president declares Olympics officially open," which is an event that takes place in the Opening Ceremony. China is 12 hrs ahead of the US East Coast. It could not have been shown live, as there were fireworks and darkness throughout the ceremony that daylight would have made impossible.
As far as the order goes, they did mention a couple of times during the television broadcast that the order was not what we were used to, and explained the stroke-number-system that the Chinese organizers were using. It was a bit odd watching, but it made sense to me. Glancing at the list on Wikipedia, I seem to remember the countries being ordered that way. So the TV broadcast and the Wikipedia lists match.
They also briefly showed us the countries that we missed while we were away during the commercial break.
I'm not going to watch the online version, so I can't compare to that. The Parade of Nations is very boring, and I can live until the Winter Olympics in 2010 before seeing it again.
One way to compare the accuracy between the TV broadcast and the online version would be to look at the bottom third graphics. Because of the different order system, they had a dimmed out preview of the next three countries, in a slider that moved along. So, if the online version has those graphics, and the images presented match up with the list shown on Wikipedia, then it is the same version... Yes, I know they could have edited those too, but I'd rather not get out my tin foil hat.
I'm not really sure how accurate this is regarding Tehran being completely dead. For some reason, it shows Florida being at 0 also, but that is where I'm writing from.
1. Slashdot will inform us when it's going to be released, if this is where you get all your tech news.
2. You'll also probably get a Windows Update notification.
That doesn't necessarily man anything. Millennium didn't deal with a lot of tech stuff generally, it was basically like X-Files but with about half of the paranormal content, and without Mulder's occasional comedy relief. So, the above poster could have been flipping around one day, noticed that this episode delt with some computer related issues, and decided to watch.
The old western Gunsmoke ran for about 10 years or so, and there are reruns on these days. I've seen maybe two whole episodes. It just so happens that as I flip around the channels, I have come upon one of those episodes on three separate occasions. 10 years (or more), and I've come on the same show three times! Believe me, I remember that one now!
Just because someone was not an avid fan of a show, doesn't mean they can't remember a particular episode they happened to see, that struck their fancy.
I don't quite agree that both formats are dead. I think that the transition from DVD to Blu-Ray/HD-DVD will be similar to the previous transition of VHS to DVD. Movie studios will continue to sell both for a while, and then slowly phase out the DVD. A few years ago, rental shops (Blockbuster etc) stopped carrying VHS altogether. I'm sure the cost of the players and movies themselves will be similar as time goes on. So, consumers will eventually have to make a choice: either fork over the money to buy a new player and new format discs, stay with a movie collection that gets increasingly older, or rely on internet downloads.
True, in 10-15 years there will be another format war, and us poor consumers will be suffering again over the same choices. But I think the winner of this war will be able to reap the benefits for a few years at least.
Assuming your post is accurate... given that Sony lost the first format war (Betamax vs VHS), I'm not surprised that they are using every scheme that they have.
I'm not really for either format at the moment, I just want to continue to be able to watch the DVDs I have in my large collection, on whatever new player I'm eventually forced to buy. Unethical or not, I'll have to resign myself to using the technology of the winning format if I want to continue to watch new DVDs released by major movie studios.
Slashdot Mirror
I totally forgot about this! Great point.
I looked at the three websites linked above, and they didn't really seem that bad to me. The author of the blog doesn't say if he can read Japanese or not, and it should not be assumed that he can for the fact that he wrote the blog entry in the first place. I think that probably makes a difference. Just looking at the language itself makes it seem more complicated than it might be.
Something that I've noticed on various Asian sites over the years is that they seem to be mainly text based, displaying a lot of information right when you go to them. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially for the Asahi Shimbun or it's English page. It's a newspaper, it should have a lot of information displayed right in front. So should the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare (linked above). The New York Times has one of the best newspaper websites around, mainly because it uses very few images and displays a lot of information right on it's front page. Other local newspaper websites I've visited leave little to be desired. I think if the New York Times website were written in Japanese, one might feel the same way as the blog author.
The Opening Ceremony shown in the US on Friday was not live. In fact, right at the beginning it said "Previously Recorded." On CNN in the afternoon, they even had an article titled "Chinese president declares Olympics officially open," which is an event that takes place in the Opening Ceremony. China is 12 hrs ahead of the US East Coast. It could not have been shown live, as there were fireworks and darkness throughout the ceremony that daylight would have made impossible.
As far as the order goes, they did mention a couple of times during the television broadcast that the order was not what we were used to, and explained the stroke-number-system that the Chinese organizers were using. It was a bit odd watching, but it made sense to me. Glancing at the list on Wikipedia, I seem to remember the countries being ordered that way. So the TV broadcast and the Wikipedia lists match.
They also briefly showed us the countries that we missed while we were away during the commercial break.
I'm not going to watch the online version, so I can't compare to that. The Parade of Nations is very boring, and I can live until the Winter Olympics in 2010 before seeing it again.
One way to compare the accuracy between the TV broadcast and the online version would be to look at the bottom third graphics. Because of the different order system, they had a dimmed out preview of the next three countries, in a slider that moved along. So, if the online version has those graphics, and the images presented match up with the list shown on Wikipedia, then it is the same version... Yes, I know they could have edited those too, but I'd rather not get out my tin foil hat.
I peruse the English website version of the Asahi Shimbun regularly. They have an editorial on this very subject. http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200803080056.html
I'm not really sure how accurate this is regarding Tehran being completely dead. For some reason, it shows Florida being at 0 also, but that is where I'm writing from.
No.
1. Slashdot will inform us when it's going to be released, if this is where you get all your tech news.
2. You'll also probably get a Windows Update notification.
That doesn't necessarily man anything. Millennium didn't deal with a lot of tech stuff generally, it was basically like X-Files but with about half of the paranormal content, and without Mulder's occasional comedy relief. So, the above poster could have been flipping around one day, noticed that this episode delt with some computer related issues, and decided to watch.
The old western Gunsmoke ran for about 10 years or so, and there are reruns on these days. I've seen maybe two whole episodes. It just so happens that as I flip around the channels, I have come upon one of those episodes on three separate occasions. 10 years (or more), and I've come on the same show three times! Believe me, I remember that one now!
Just because someone was not an avid fan of a show, doesn't mean they can't remember a particular episode they happened to see, that struck their fancy.
I don't quite agree that both formats are dead. I think that the transition from DVD to Blu-Ray/HD-DVD will be similar to the previous transition of VHS to DVD. Movie studios will continue to sell both for a while, and then slowly phase out the DVD. A few years ago, rental shops (Blockbuster etc) stopped carrying VHS altogether. I'm sure the cost of the players and movies themselves will be similar as time goes on. So, consumers will eventually have to make a choice: either fork over the money to buy a new player and new format discs, stay with a movie collection that gets increasingly older, or rely on internet downloads.
True, in 10-15 years there will be another format war, and us poor consumers will be suffering again over the same choices. But I think the winner of this war will be able to reap the benefits for a few years at least.
Assuming your post is accurate... given that Sony lost the first format war (Betamax vs VHS), I'm not surprised that they are using every scheme that they have. I'm not really for either format at the moment, I just want to continue to be able to watch the DVDs I have in my large collection, on whatever new player I'm eventually forced to buy. Unethical or not, I'll have to resign myself to using the technology of the winning format if I want to continue to watch new DVDs released by major movie studios.