I remember that at the beginning of the eighties, my parents bought their first VCR. It was a Philips, and the format it used was called V2000. It was reputed to be better than VHS (for example, it could display the time elapsed on the tape), but ultimatly lost against it. The problem then became to find the tapes, since they were different form the VHS ones. Nonetheless, our VCR lasted at least ten years; I used it to tape Ranma 1/2 in the nineties, until it died one day, and the show became lost for me...
It's roughly the same system in France. We have France 2, France 3, France 5 (educationnal channel), Arte (joint German and French channel), La Chaîne parlementaire, all without commercials... except for the first two channels. The radio offer is amazing: France Inter, France Info, France Culture, France Musique, Le Mouv', the France Bleu network...
Xavier
Re:Already a French translation available..huh?
on
Sen To, X-Men 2
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· Score: 1
I bought the Sen to Chihiro (Spirited Away) DVD on the way back from my last trip to Japan. Oddly enough, the sound menu offers Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0, Japanese DTS, and...French? I can't really understand the reasoning here, but it's there. There are English subtitles, but no dub.
A few reasons for this: the movie has already been released in France this spring (with great success, over one million tickets); Japan and France (and other French-speaking european countries) are in the same DVD region (region 2); and there is, believe it or not, quite a significant anime fan community in France, with many people willing to buy directly from Japan.
Hey now... they don't drive on the wrong side of the road if you use a mirror -- they are "British"
You know, it's funny, because in that respect Japan is already British: they drive on the left. So when you mirror manga artwork, you actually get cars driving on the "right" (in more sense than one for most of the world) side of the road.
All of this shows that the moderator of the above post was as clueless as the original poster.
Useless bit of trivia: did you know that Sweden went from left-side driving to right-side driving in the sixties? They had to stop traffic for three days.
What I find a bit confusing is that what is meant by "higher dimension pi" is not defined anywhere.
The main point of the project seem to dabble with different algorithms to calculate the decimal development of pi. While this is interesting, they are in fact very low level since the current record is in the millions (billions ?) of number. There are whole books dedicated to this sole topic.
Why do so many people have a problem with the name Cringely? I've seen loads of "Cringley" and other variations in this discussion. Is there something in the English language that would make this name particularly prone to mangling?
The Wizard Book: Design and Implementation of Computer Programs (This teaches Scheme as well, but the programming basics are the most important part)
Wouldn't it rather be Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs?
Patterns in Programming, (I don't have my copy handy, and I can never remember the real title, I just know that there are four authors: The Gang of four)
Design Patterns Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides (The Gang of Four). I'm not sure this "Gang of Four" nickname would make the Chinese laugh.
And of course, the idiots who run Slashdot, in an attempt to bring down the corporate machine, attack Disney for stealing plots for their movies, simply because they fail to realize that the plots of the Japenese animation they so often watch are no more original than they were when other people told the same stories a millenia ago.
I seems to me that you're missing the point. It is not that Nadia is original. It is not, Anno Hideaki, its author, readily admits to it. He says himself that his work heavily draws from others' works. He comes from fandom, and he has an intimate knowledge of anime and its fans, as well as some kind of critic distance to it, and it often shows in his works, especially his masterpiece, Evangelion.
Generally speaking, manga and anime, as an industry, is at the same time original and unoriginal: producers, editors and artists rely on hackneyed formulas (see for example the countless giant robots stories), but some of them are able to add our let get through new and refreshing ideas. I think the same can be said about amarican comics.
Anyway, I think the point of this discussion is that Atlantis shows that not only the general lines of the plot, but also details were lifted from Nadia (e.g. chgaracter design, etc.), and that Disney is very reluctant to admit this particular anime influence.
While many Hollywood productions seem to do this with any given novel turned screenplay, Disney films, for some reason, "redefines the standard", (where have we heard that term before?), and what is presented in the Disney film becomes the norm.
This is so true. For example here in France, before anime or Dreamworks or Fox began being released in theatres, there was almost nothing else than Disney movies. Every new movies was qualified by advertising as "the new masterpiece from Disney". How modest! I think it shows that the Disney company considers itself as defining the norm.
Here in France, in some science cursi, there is a mandoatory choice between two languages to teach computer science: good (!?) old Pasca; and the functional wih imperative traits Caml (from which Objective Caml is a derivative, gaining object-oriented features). Java is popular in pure computer science cursi because of its wide use
in the industry.
I think that if you want to teach OO principles to your students, you'd rather want to choose a pure OO language, where everything is an object, like Python or better Eiffel, which stresses reliability and good design. On the other hand C++ is also better than Java because it allows for a wide style of programming styles.
Remove the +2 karma bonus. I don't think the quality of the comments justifies it, and it
would make a cleaner separation between moderated and non-moderated comments. To the extreme, even the +1 karma bonus could be removed
In the archived discussions, only >= +1-rated comments are retained, although there are a lot of 0-rated comments which are of the same interest. To solve this, one could remove the karma bonuses (see above), or implement a "final review before archiving" by volunteer moderators.
A few arguments in favor of good spelling for Slashdot:
Spelling errors are annoying. It is my opinion, but it is also a fact of life: when reading, one expects correct grammar and spelling (being used to convention, it helps processing speed), so anything out of the usual gets noticed and slows down the reader.
The "if you want good spelling, go to CNN" argument is bogus. I don't want to read CNN, I want to read Slashdot, thanks. And I think Slashdot would be much better without the spelling errors from the editors.
Last, think of the international readers, those who are not native english speakers and might not have a perfect grasp of the language. They are bent to be confused by unusual or erroneous uses of the language because their reading ability is not as robust or foolproof as the one of a native speaker, who can almost automatically detect and correct errors. I know, I'm one of them. So please bear with us.
And now for a small list of frequent grammar and spelling mistakes: then/than, its/it's, their/they're, to/too, seperate/separate, etc.
This has to be one of the best articles from
Jon Katz I've read. It actually got me thinking.
I especially find amazing the idea that steganography can be used by both the corparations enforcing their copyrigth and individuals encrypting away their communications from view. If I were Neal Stephenson, I'd loved
to have this idea (maybe he thought of it, I haven't read _Cryptonomicon_ -- yet).
And now for a wild science-fiction idea: how about a fingerprint for code, which would allow to detect GPLed code from inside binaries?
I'll end with a little criticism: Jon Katz shouldn't have his articles posted one week after writing them, sometimes it shows, and the usual USA and corporation-focused drivel is not very
interesting to me as a European.
My expression must have been unclear, because what you write is precisely what I meant, that the French administration and the Pascal programming language designers agreed on the merits of 17th century philospher and mathematician Blaise Pascal. By the way, he also designed and implemented, as a young man, a mechanical computing device to help with his father's accounting office.
Well, to round off this off-topic discussion about bill notes: here in France, two of the four different bill notes currently in use have (among others) Gustave Eiffel and Pierre and Marie Curie on them, so engineering and science are actually honored. And since Blaise Pascal used to be on the notes, the French administration seems to agree with programming language designers...
> As for the qualifications of God, well...any god without those qualities really wouldn't be much > of a god, and hence not worthy of worship. I prefer to worship a sovereign God, not some > being with human foibles and follies.
Like the guy who once said "You'd better worship real good, cos' I'm jealous and if you'd ever lay your eyes on someone else, well you're out of luck with me. Now do as I tell, and go and slew the guys across the river in My Name. And be careful using that Name, too."?
Fortunately, he grew out of this and became a bit more motherly: "So you've been a naughty boy? Well, show me you're sorry, and don't do it ever again. Now come here and give me a big hug." He also got Himself a real name, and to make good measure and show how much he was dedicated, divided Himself up into three Entities. Then humans being humans, after a while they get back to their former habits and crossed the river and slew the guys there in His New Names.
Yes, I think he qualifies as a One True Human God.
Xavier
PS: I'm not american, is there any chance that I might be sane? Not much if one considers I'm responding to an off-topic post on/.
> ML: is there an actual language named ML, or is this shorthand for machine language?
There is. Or rather it stands for a family of languages, the most proeminent ones being Standard ML (SML) and Objective Caml (O'Caml). ML itself is a shorthand for "Meta Language" and was designed in the 70's as an implementation language for a theorem prover at the university of Edimburgh.
ML languages are functional, strongly typed, have type inference, are mostly interpreted but can be compiled to native code. The syntax is very expressive. They also support imperative programming, and object-oriented programming in O'Caml case.
And to be a little more on-topic, they are very well-suited to study algorithms (and actually used to teach classes), though the functional semantics can be mind-boggling to those used to imperative languages.
Slashdot Mirror
Xavier
The radio offer is amazing: France Inter, France Info, France Culture, France Musique, Le Mouv', the France Bleu network...
Xavier
A few reasons for this: the movie has already been released in France this spring (with great success, over one million tickets); Japan and France (and other French-speaking european countries) are in the same DVD region (region 2); and there is, believe it or not, quite a significant anime fan community in France, with many people willing to buy directly from Japan.
Xavier
All of this shows that the moderator of the above post was as clueless as the original poster.
Useless bit of trivia: did you know that Sweden went from left-side driving to right-side driving in the sixties? They had to stop traffic for three days.
Xavier
The main point of the project seem to dabble with different algorithms to calculate the decimal development of pi. While this is interesting, they are in fact very low level since the current record is in the millions (billions ?) of number. There are whole books dedicated to this sole topic.
Xavier
Xavier
Xavier
Generally speaking, manga and anime, as an industry, is at the same time original and unoriginal: producers, editors and artists rely on hackneyed formulas (see for example the countless giant robots stories), but some of them are able to add our let get through new and refreshing ideas. I think the same can be said about amarican comics.
Anyway, I think the point of this discussion is that Atlantis shows that not only the general lines of the plot, but also details were lifted from Nadia (e.g. chgaracter design, etc.), and that Disney is very reluctant to admit this particular anime influence.
Xavier
Xavier
Here in France, in some science cursi, there is a mandoatory choice between two languages to teach computer science: good (!?) old Pasca; and the functional wih imperative traits Caml (from which Objective Caml is a derivative, gaining object-oriented features). Java is popular in pure computer science cursi because of its wide use in the industry.
I think that if you want to teach OO principles to your students, you'd rather want to choose a pure OO language, where everything is an object, like Python or better Eiffel, which stresses reliability and good design. On the other hand C++ is also better than Java because it allows for a wide style of programming styles.
Xavier
Here are a few suggestions about moderation:
Remove the +2 karma bonus. I don't think the quality of the comments justifies it, and it would make a cleaner separation between moderated and non-moderated comments. To the extreme, even the +1 karma bonus could be removed
In the archived discussions, only >= +1-rated comments are retained, although there are a lot of 0-rated comments which are of the same interest. To solve this, one could remove the karma bonuses (see above), or implement a "final review before archiving" by volunteer moderators.
Xavier
A few arguments in favor of good spelling for Slashdot:
Spelling errors are annoying. It is my opinion, but it is also a fact of life: when reading, one expects correct grammar and spelling (being used to convention, it helps processing speed), so anything out of the usual gets noticed and slows down the reader.
The "if you want good spelling, go to CNN" argument is bogus. I don't want to read CNN, I want to read Slashdot, thanks. And I think Slashdot would be much better without the spelling errors from the editors.
Last, think of the international readers, those who are not native english speakers and might not have a perfect grasp of the language. They are bent to be confused by unusual or erroneous uses of the language because their reading ability is not as robust or foolproof as the one of a native speaker, who can almost automatically detect and correct errors. I know, I'm one of them. So please bear with us.
And now for a small list of frequent grammar and spelling mistakes: then/than, its/it's, their/they're, to/too, seperate/separate, etc.
Xavier
This has to be one of the best articles from Jon Katz I've read. It actually got me thinking.
I especially find amazing the idea that steganography can be used by both the corparations enforcing their copyrigth and individuals encrypting away their communications from view. If I were Neal Stephenson, I'd loved to have this idea (maybe he thought of it, I haven't read _Cryptonomicon_ -- yet).
And now for a wild science-fiction idea: how about a fingerprint for code, which would allow to detect GPLed code from inside binaries?
I'll end with a little criticism: Jon Katz shouldn't have his articles posted one week after writing them, sometimes it shows, and the usual USA and corporation-focused drivel is not very interesting to me as a European.
Xavier
How about the .edu domain name for every school in the world ?
Xavier
My expression must have been unclear, because what you write is precisely what I meant, that the French administration and the Pascal programming language designers agreed on the merits of 17th century philospher and mathematician Blaise Pascal. By the way, he also designed and implemented, as a young man, a mechanical computing device to help with his father's accounting office.
Well, to round off this off-topic discussion about bill notes: here in France, two of the four different bill notes currently in use have (among others) Gustave Eiffel and Pierre and Marie Curie on them, so engineering and science are actually honored. And since Blaise Pascal used to be on the notes, the French administration seems to agree with programming language designers...
> As for the qualifications of God, well...any god without those qualities really wouldn't be much
/.
> of a god, and hence not worthy of worship. I prefer to worship a sovereign God, not some
> being with human foibles and follies.
Like the guy who once said "You'd better worship real good, cos' I'm jealous and if you'd ever lay your eyes on someone else, well you're out of luck with me. Now do as I tell, and go and slew the guys across the river in My Name. And be careful using that Name, too."?
Fortunately, he grew out of this and became a bit more motherly: "So you've been a naughty boy? Well, show me you're sorry, and don't do it ever again. Now come here and give me a big hug." He also got Himself a real name, and to make good measure and show how much he was dedicated, divided Himself up into three Entities. Then humans being humans, after a while they get back to their former habits and crossed the river and slew the guys there in His New Names.
Yes, I think he qualifies as a One True Human God.
Xavier
PS: I'm not american, is there any chance that I might be sane? Not much if one considers I'm responding to an off-topic post on
> ML: is there an actual language named ML, or is this shorthand for machine language?
There is. Or rather it stands for a family of languages, the most proeminent ones being Standard ML (SML) and Objective Caml (O'Caml). ML itself is a shorthand for "Meta Language" and was designed in the 70's as an implementation language for a theorem prover at the university of Edimburgh.
ML languages are functional, strongly typed, have type inference, are mostly interpreted but can be compiled to native code. The syntax is very expressive. They also support imperative programming, and object-oriented programming in O'Caml case.
And to be a little more on-topic, they are very well-suited to study algorithms (and actually used to teach classes), though the functional semantics can be mind-boggling to those used to imperative languages.
Xavier