I don't have any position on whether US should intervene in weapons of mass destruction programs of other countries, but a bit of clarification:
India is not a concern against attacking the US (or Europe) because there is no motivation to (just like there is no motivation for France, Germany, Japan, UK, Brazil or a few others with nukes to attack the West).
Threats need three things: * weapons * delivery system * motivation
Most western democracies have the first two, but lack the third.
The only countries that demonstrably have nuke capabilities (weapon and delivery system) are: US, Russia, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel. Check out the Federation of American Scientists for further info on matters concerning the weapons of mass destruction.
OpenDoc was the first thing that came to my mind, too, when I saw the headline. However, I don't think we can only blame Apple/NeXT for killing OpenDoc. I was under the impression that MS did their usual embrace and extend to the concept. I remember a BYTE magazine article about the pros and cons of OpenDoc and OLE.
Perhaps this article by David K. Every himself may shed some light on the issue.
A "Berliner" is a person from Berlin, while "ein Berliner" is a goop-filled pastry. Kennedy mixed it up.
That's an urban legend, deal with it. If you are in doubht, try this.
Some Germans I met got confused when I mentioned that JFK called himself a jelly donut. So, the phrase was perfectly good German.
Funny thing about Germany is that there are all kinds of foods that bear the name of a city or an area--Frakfurter, Wiener, Tuebinger, etc. All sausages.
One thing missing is the Hamburger. (I live in Hamburg and the city is full of Hamburgers, but they are not all burger joints:)
All kinds of food that bear the name of a German city, but the most famous example is of American origin... I find it curious.
I dun particularly care much for the whole 'sound doesnt travel in a vacuum' blooper. It's not a blooper. It's a fact of entertainment: Audio is more important than video.
There was one scene in a movie that entertained me a lot for getting it (the sound in the vacuum) right.
2001 Space Odyssey had a scene when Bowman narrowly escapes from being killed by HAL in the airlock. He chose to go out in the vacuum without a space suit. First there is no sound at all. Then as Bowman shuts the airlock and as the air fills in, we begin to hear the sound of the air filling the air lock. That was so impressive, and the lack of the sound made the scene very suspending.
I applauded 2001 for not having the sound of explosion in the space, too.
But perhaps there were only a handful of people who got hooked up to the movie because of such details.
The negative pressure for using trains that people always forget to mention is that the JAPANESE ROAD SYSTEM SUCKS:
True, in general.
* Their 'highways' are the size of our East Coast city roads with a speed limit of about 45mph
Some may be. But there is a highway system with a speed limit of about 60mph. The width of the highway is not much narrower than the Jersey Turnpike.
* The cars beep at you if you go faster then 45
Some might, but most don't care.
* Gas is expensive!
Very true.
* The reason why Japanese cars are small is not because their small, but the roads are TINY!
So are Italian cars.
* There are ALWAYS traffic jams.
Not 4am in the morning:)
* The roads don't have guard rails. ..you could easily fall off a cliff. ..
Which part of Japan were you in?
they don't seem to believe in 'emminent domain' and the roads curve wildly around odd little farms in the middle of urban areas. ..
Some land owners were very stubborn.
* The roads are so tiny that all the larger vehicles (aka trucks) have two sets of turning wheels in the front and all the vans are the "mid-engine" type so that they have a smaller wheel base.
I've never seen such a truck, but things may have changed in the past 5 years.
Now considering the positive and negative influences, would you take a train or drive???
Overall, I agree with you. I'd take train. Still, coming from Japan, I have complaint about the train system. They are not cheap as some here seem to think. If you stay in Tokyo and roaming around the city, you most likely spend about $10 a day just for train ticket. Add this to the already expensive food. You'd be spending $30 for just staying alive. This doesn't even include the expense for accommodation. I got free lodging from a friend.
So, it's more like train being less negative for me...
You have a nice Japanese nick, but I wonder what you say is true.
Why do I feel nervous being in Germany sometimes?
Recently, in two days in a row, I encountered violence in Hamburg. The first time was when a guy was kicking another guy in the middle of downtown. No man was stopping him! It must have been going on for at least a couple of minutes. and that's a busy street full of pedestrians. And no guy was trying to hold him back. Why did I have to be the guy to hold him back? I'm quite small in German standard.
The next day, I was riding a subway. The train arrived at the station where I was going to get off. Two girls ran into the car, and a guy ran into the car and tried to drag one of the girls out. She got off the car and ran away. The guy chased her. And he apparently caught her up. When I got to the place where they were, a black guy was talking to the guy preventing doing further harm. Why is that? Why did not all the German men act?
I felt horrified and still am. I can't tell these episodes to my German friends. It's not only the xenophobia that worries me, but the attitude (indifference) of men when evil is in progress.
I sincerely hope I happened to encounter very peculiar incidents.
The development of these 'non-lethal' weapons angers campaigners who claim that they would breach international treaties on biological and chemical weapons.
Is a chemical that tranquilize enemy still a weapon? Or, the bug that does not harm humans still a weapon? Is there a definition of weapon? These things are not only non-lethal, but not harmful in the sense that they don't even cause pain (well, for the case of the bug, it might cause a head-ache). I find this an interesting question. Does anything used by military against enemy become a weapon?
I see your point, but I thought the major reason of phased release is the time it takes to dub or sub-title the movies. Not everyone on earth can understand English. This could add, depending on the size of the market and resource in a particular area, significant time between the finish of the US version and others.
Perhaps another thing to consider is that sometimes they have to edit a movie to comply to whatever regulations they have in a particular company. There are equivalents of MPAA in other countries, too.
One more thing to consider might be, in relation to the above, each country may have their own distributors and depending on whatever the suit in the distributors think, they might want to edit. This could add some time between the releases.
Not that releasing at the same time all over the world is not impossible, but it is true that the preparation for a release in a different country can take extra resources.
On a bit off topic issue, I hate when local distributors change the titles. It's not just a matter of translating English title to German or Japanese (well, I have experiences only in those countries). They sometimes stick (sometimes extremely silly) ENGLISH title to movies that laready had an English title. Recent examples I encountered were: Miss Undercover for Miss Congeniality (couldn't spell, so I figure why they changed the title), and ``Crime is King'' for `3000 miles to Graceland.'' (Is there any law in Germany that prohibits the use of English system? BTW, the quarter pounder of cheese is called Royal TS in Germany. And yes, they sell beer in McDonnald's.) I feel pretty embarrassed when no one knows a popular movie that has an English title:(
Looks like what you found in animes are in fact common trait in Japanese TV shows. Most comments on the parent seems to miss the point, not surprisingly because most people here are not familiar with how the Japanese TV shows are made.
Japanese TV shows, especially dramas or animes, which involves a story typically have a life span of three or six months. This is a bit different from the concept of the ``season'' of American TV shows. However a particular TV show may be popular, it is predetermined that the show ends after 13 episodes (typically for 60 minutes shows) or 26 (typically for 30 minutes shows--most animes fall into this category) episodes.
Given such a restriction, creators of a show concentrate on creating one big continuous story of about nine hours. They don't have to worry about the show being cancelled because they are not going to have another season anyway. Compare this with shows like the X-Files which one of the replies to the parent mentioned. The Japanese creators already know when the mysteries have to be solved, when they have to make the finale, etc., from the beginning. This makes it a lot easier for them because they have a perspective. It would be quite hard for creators when they don't know when they have to reveal the secrets, while they have to keep the interest of viewers.
There is a peculiar genre in Japanese TV shows, which used to be called ``trendy dramas.'' They typically involve a couple of guys and girls. The interest of the viewers is who is going to be together with whom and how. But the viewers already know when they will know the result. The whole season becomes a process with sometimes twists and detour. Creators spend their effort to make the viewers guessing so that they see each episode. With a limitation of the number of episodes comes a simplicity that allows creators spend efforts in story development. Thus one can see them as if they are a long version of movies.
Not every story on Japanese TV follow this format, or not every story is a good story, or sometimes they may fail in execution of storytelling, but this format is pretty much predominant, and I think this is a major difference from the American way of storytelling on TV.
It is quite interesting to see how TV culture developed so differently in Japan. It used to be merely a copy of how things are done in the US. But it seems that the culture developed in a different direction. It is also interesting to see how some ideas are being exported to the American TV culture in recent years (America's Funniest Video, Iron Chef, etc.).
Re:Shows that feature Macs
on
Good Guys Use Macs
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Seinfeld always featured a Mac in Jerry's apartment throughout the series, I think.
It was nice to see generations of Macs in the last episode--from SE (SE/30?) to LC or duo to 20th Anniversary Mac to iMac (?)
Does anyone have a concrete list of Macs in Seinfeld?
So, the Celine Dion (I can't even spell her name) disc is not technically a CD, and the iMac optical drive is not technically a CD-ROM drive. For, neither of them adhere to the standard.
When one is inserted to the other, there is a problem...hmmm.
Still, weren't NeXT sold as ``work statins''? Didn't work stations from SUN et. al cost about the same in those days?
This brings me the question why NeXT could not compete against ather UNIX work stations brands.
Re:Mistranslation (Re:gibberish)
on
Sony PCG-U1
·
· Score: 1
The Sony page does not say anything about ``my first vaio.'' The treademark is ``My Little Vaio.'' The page talks about the U1 being the smallest and the lightest laptop that runs Windows XP, though.
The Japanese phrase ``ichiban chiisai Vaio'' literally translates to ``the smallest Vaio,'' as opposed to the suggestion that it is idiomatic by the poster of the grandparent post.
I concede that the iBook 12" looks sharper than the TiBook in Mac OS X, but I dislike how Mac OS X looks *anyway*, and use Mac OS, where the TiBook looks just as good.
Indeed, I'm on an iBook and can't use Mac OS 9 because of the pixel size. Anti-aliasing in the OS X makes the text quite comfortable to look at. For that matter, I cannot use any application that does not use anti-aliasing. (That's why I hardly launch Xdarwin in the OS X.)
OK, I am a Japanese, so those things don't sound strange.
I can't comment on that PMac 7100 part episode, but I remember the mouse deal.
There were three or four kinds of mice, apparently for those square ADB mouse, respectively manufactured in Taiwan, Singapore, and Ireland, oh and perhaps Mexico. IIRC Irish mice had the best reputation while Taiwanese the worst and considered rare. The major difference between the Taiwanese (or Singaporish(sp?)) and the rest was that the ball inside the mouse. They apparently didn't have the metal inside the rubber, therefore, one could not glide the mouse using its mass as momentum. And there was a difference between the button touch. Simply put, some mice were easier to use and felt classy.
I remember similar obsession with keyboards. We, the Japanese loved the original Mac Keyboard. After Apple Keyboard II came around, people were complaining how horrible they feels, the wrong position for the control key, etc. Finding the original Apple Keyboard was like treasure hunting. Naturally people who had the keyboard almost never abondoned. Even after purchasing new machines, they kept using the keyboard. Remember that you had to buy a keyboard when you bought a Mac? The mouse came with the machine but not the keyboard!
One time, when I was at PENN, I poured OJ or coffee on my Saratoga keyboard and visited computer store in the bookstore wondering if they could fix. (After washing thoroughly, some keys were still stuck.) The guy there said that they can't and offered me to pick up one of old keyboards lying around. I found the original Apple Keyboard and jumped on it, hiding my excitement for getting the much favored keyboard for free. I remember those keyboards were sold for like 30,000 yen at some point in Akihabara.
Also, on one morning in Philadelphia, I saw a dumpster full of old Macs, IIs, IIfxs, Radius monitors, etc. I really felt like picking up as many things as possible, but I was about to move and decided not to. In the afternoon of the same day, the dumpster was gone. I still regret that I didn't pick up the IIfxes a bit.
Oh, but my SE30 should still be in my parents house. I am dreaming of firing up one day when I get back to Japan!
So, the episodes you mentioned sound not special at all to me.
We, the Japanese, do have strong affection with ``things.'' This vintage mac things are one of the revelations(?) of the culture.
The japanese have a word that could be translated as ``obsession'' but without a negative connatation, and a bit milder sense. G-Shocks, Air Max, Vintage Levi's--those markets were created by the Japanese.
Well, THAT is offensive. And I am a Japanese and my father was in 2km radius from the blast in Nagasaki.
I never liked BillG, rather disliked him as far as I remember, but this episode (again, if it turns out to be true) would confirm my impression that BillG is evil.
Slashdot Mirror
The only countries that demonstrably have nuke capabilities (weapon and delivery system) are: US, Russia, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel. Check out the Federation of American Scientists for further info on matters concerning the weapons of mass destruction.
And the grandparent post appears here, too.
Maybe all the three posts from the same AC?
OpenDoc was the first thing that came to my mind, too, when I saw the headline. However, I don't think we can only blame Apple/NeXT for killing OpenDoc. I was under the impression that MS did their usual embrace and extend to the concept. I remember a BYTE magazine article about the pros and cons of OpenDoc and OLE.
Perhaps this article by David K. Every himself may shed some light on the issue.
You mean like this?
But you have to able to read Japanese.
That's an urban legend, deal with it. If you are in doubht, try this.
Some Germans I met got confused when I mentioned that JFK called himself a jelly donut. So, the phrase was perfectly good German.
Funny thing about Germany is that there are all kinds of foods that bear the name of a city or an area--Frakfurter, Wiener, Tuebinger, etc. All sausages.
One thing missing is the Hamburger. (I live in Hamburg and the city is full of Hamburgers, but they are not all burger joints
All kinds of food that bear the name of a German city, but the most famous example is of American origin... I find it curious.
There was one scene in a movie that entertained me a lot for getting it (the sound in the vacuum) right.
2001 Space Odyssey had a scene when Bowman narrowly escapes from being killed by HAL in the airlock. He chose to go out in the vacuum without a space suit. First there is no sound at all. Then as Bowman shuts the airlock and as the air fills in, we begin to hear the sound of the air filling the air lock. That was so impressive, and the lack of the sound made the scene very suspending.
I applauded 2001 for not having the sound of explosion in the space, too.
But perhaps there were only a handful of people who got hooked up to the movie because of such details.
Heh, you didn't get the joke.
The parent post you replied is a complete joke. the name is a combination of two sumo wrestlers. And BTW, Akebono was from Hawaii.
Which country are you talking about?
:)
.you could easily fall off a cliff. . .
.
The negative pressure for using trains that people always forget to mention is that the JAPANESE ROAD SYSTEM SUCKS:
True, in general.
* Their 'highways' are the size of our East Coast city roads with a speed limit of about 45mph
Some may be. But there is a highway system with a speed limit of about 60mph. The width of the highway is not much narrower than the Jersey Turnpike.
* The cars beep at you if you go faster then 45
Some might, but most don't care.
* Gas is expensive!
Very true.
* The reason why Japanese cars are small is not because their small, but the roads are TINY!
So are Italian cars.
* There are ALWAYS traffic jams.
Not 4am in the morning
* The roads don't have guard rails. .
Which part of Japan were you in?
they don't seem to believe in 'emminent domain' and the roads curve wildly around odd little farms in the middle of urban areas. .
Some land owners were very stubborn.
* The roads are so tiny that all the larger vehicles (aka trucks) have two sets of turning wheels in the front and all the vans are the "mid-engine" type so that they have a smaller wheel base.
I've never seen such a truck, but things may have changed in the past 5 years.
Now considering the positive and negative influences, would you take a train or drive???
Overall, I agree with you. I'd take train. Still, coming from Japan, I have complaint about the train system. They are not cheap as some here seem to think. If you stay in Tokyo and roaming around the city, you most likely spend about $10 a day just for train ticket. Add this to the already expensive food. You'd be spending $30 for just staying alive. This doesn't even include the expense for accommodation. I got free lodging from a friend.
So, it's more like train being less negative for me...
You have a nice Japanese nick, but I wonder what you say is true.
Why do I feel nervous being in Germany sometimes?
Recently, in two days in a row, I encountered violence in Hamburg. The first time was when a guy was kicking another guy in the middle of downtown. No man was stopping him! It must have been going on for at least a couple of minutes. and that's a busy street full of pedestrians. And no guy was trying to hold him back. Why did I have to be the guy to hold him back? I'm quite small in German standard.
The next day, I was riding a subway. The train arrived at the station where I was going to get off. Two girls ran into the car, and a guy ran into the car and tried to drag one of the girls out. She got off the car and ran away. The guy chased her. And he apparently caught her up. When I got to the place where they were, a black guy was talking to the guy preventing doing further harm. Why is that? Why did not all the German men act?
I felt horrified and still am. I can't tell these episodes to my German friends. It's not only the xenophobia that worries me, but the attitude (indifference) of men when evil is in progress.
I sincerely hope I happened to encounter very peculiar incidents.
But is Keanu Reeves not supposed to say, ``Whoa''?
Is a chemical that tranquilize enemy still a weapon? Or, the bug that does not harm humans still a weapon? Is there a definition of weapon? These things are not only non-lethal, but not harmful in the sense that they don't even cause pain (well, for the case of the bug, it might cause a head-ache). I find this an interesting question. Does anything used by military against enemy become a weapon?
I see your point, but I thought the major reason of phased release is the time it takes to dub or sub-title the movies. Not everyone on earth can understand English. This could add, depending on the size of the market and resource in a particular area, significant time between the finish of the US version and others.
:(
Perhaps another thing to consider is that sometimes they have to edit a movie to comply to whatever regulations they have in a particular company. There are equivalents of MPAA in other countries, too.
One more thing to consider might be, in relation to the above, each country may have their own distributors and depending on whatever the suit in the distributors think, they might want to edit. This could add some time between the releases.
Not that releasing at the same time all over the world is not impossible, but it is true that the preparation for a release in a different country can take extra resources.
On a bit off topic issue, I hate when local distributors change the titles. It's not just a matter of translating English title to German or Japanese (well, I have experiences only in those countries). They sometimes stick (sometimes extremely silly) ENGLISH title to movies that laready had an English title. Recent examples I encountered were: Miss Undercover for Miss Congeniality (couldn't spell, so I figure why they changed the title), and ``Crime is King'' for `3000 miles to Graceland.'' (Is there any law in Germany that prohibits the use of English system? BTW, the quarter pounder of cheese is called Royal TS in Germany. And yes, they sell beer in McDonnald's.) I feel pretty embarrassed when no one knows a popular movie that has an English title
Looks like what you found in animes are in fact common trait in Japanese TV shows. Most comments on the parent seems to miss the point, not surprisingly because most people here are not familiar with how the Japanese TV shows are made.
Japanese TV shows, especially dramas or animes, which involves a story typically have a life span of three or six months. This is a bit different from the concept of the ``season'' of American TV shows. However a particular TV show may be popular, it is predetermined that the show ends after 13 episodes (typically for 60 minutes shows) or 26 (typically for 30 minutes shows--most animes fall into this category) episodes.
Given such a restriction, creators of a show concentrate on creating one big continuous story of about nine hours. They don't have to worry about the show being cancelled because they are not going to have another season anyway. Compare this with shows like the X-Files which one of the replies to the parent mentioned. The Japanese creators already know when the mysteries have to be solved, when they have to make the finale, etc., from the beginning. This makes it a lot easier for them because they have a perspective. It would be quite hard for creators when they don't know when they have to reveal the secrets, while they have to keep the interest of viewers.
There is a peculiar genre in Japanese TV shows, which used to be called ``trendy dramas.'' They typically involve a couple of guys and girls. The interest of the viewers is who is going to be together with whom and how. But the viewers already know when they will know the result. The whole season becomes a process with sometimes twists and detour. Creators spend their effort to make the viewers guessing so that they see each episode. With a limitation of the number of episodes comes a simplicity that allows creators spend efforts in story development. Thus one can see them as if they are a long version of movies.
Not every story on Japanese TV follow this format, or not every story is a good story, or sometimes they may fail in execution of storytelling, but this format is pretty much predominant, and I think this is a major difference from the American way of storytelling on TV.
It is quite interesting to see how TV culture developed so differently in Japan. It used to be merely a copy of how things are done in the US. But it seems that the culture developed in a different direction. It is also interesting to see how some ideas are being exported to the American TV culture in recent years (America's Funniest Video, Iron Chef, etc.).
Seinfeld always featured a Mac in Jerry's apartment throughout the series, I think.
It was nice to see generations of Macs in the last episode--from SE (SE/30?) to LC or duo to 20th Anniversary Mac to iMac (?)
Does anyone have a concrete list of Macs in Seinfeld?
Why is this post currently moderated as -1? I understand the child thread deserves -1, but this seems to be a legitimate question.
Don't floppies work?
I doubt it. Italians seem to be doing a slightly better job.
I thought there was a time in BOTT or Superbike racing when HDs ruled. Or are they still good? Perhaps Ducati did some good job, too.
So, the Celine Dion (I can't even spell her name) disc is not technically a CD, and the iMac optical drive is not technically a CD-ROM drive. For, neither of them adhere to the standard.
When one is inserted to the other, there is a problem...hmmm.
Minor correction: It's the other way around. Matsushita (spelled in full) is the groups who uses the brand Panasonic in certain cases.
It used to be that Quantum (the HDD manufacturer) belonged to the group. I don't know what happened to Quantum since.
I agree.
Still, weren't NeXT sold as ``work statins''? Didn't work stations from SUN et. al cost about the same in those days?
This brings me the question why NeXT could not compete against ather UNIX work stations brands.
The Sony page does not say anything about ``my first vaio.'' The treademark is ``My Little Vaio.'' The page talks about the U1 being the smallest and the lightest laptop that runs Windows XP, though.
The Japanese phrase ``ichiban chiisai Vaio'' literally translates to ``the smallest Vaio,'' as opposed to the suggestion that it is idiomatic by the poster of the grandparent post.
I wonder if the moderator modded this down as troll did so for the main part: "eWorld, eMate, eMac..." or the PS part.
That's pretty nice insightful troll, and if the moderator modded this as troll knowing what those three mean, that's a good moderation, too.
Indeed, I'm on an iBook and can't use Mac OS 9 because of the pixel size. Anti-aliasing in the OS X makes the text quite comfortable to look at. For that matter, I cannot use any application that does not use anti-aliasing. (That's why I hardly launch Xdarwin in the OS X.)
OK, I am a Japanese, so those things don't sound strange.
I can't comment on that PMac 7100 part episode, but I remember the mouse deal.
There were three or four kinds of mice, apparently for those square ADB mouse, respectively manufactured in Taiwan, Singapore, and Ireland, oh and perhaps Mexico. IIRC Irish mice had the best reputation while Taiwanese the worst and considered rare. The major difference between the Taiwanese (or Singaporish(sp?)) and the rest was that the ball inside the mouse. They apparently didn't have the metal inside the rubber, therefore, one could not glide the mouse using its mass as momentum. And there was a difference between the button touch. Simply put, some mice were easier to use and felt classy.
I remember similar obsession with keyboards. We, the Japanese loved the original Mac Keyboard. After Apple Keyboard II came around, people were complaining how horrible they feels, the wrong position for the control key, etc. Finding the original Apple Keyboard was like treasure hunting. Naturally people who had the keyboard almost never abondoned. Even after purchasing new machines, they kept using the keyboard. Remember that you had to buy a keyboard when you bought a Mac? The mouse came with the machine but not the keyboard!
One time, when I was at PENN, I poured OJ or coffee on my Saratoga keyboard and visited computer store in the bookstore wondering if they could fix. (After washing thoroughly, some keys were still stuck.) The guy there said that they can't and offered me to pick up one of old keyboards lying around. I found the original Apple Keyboard and jumped on it, hiding my excitement for getting the much favored keyboard for free. I remember those keyboards were sold for like 30,000 yen at some point in Akihabara.
Also, on one morning in Philadelphia, I saw a dumpster full of old Macs, IIs, IIfxs, Radius monitors, etc. I really felt like picking up as many things as possible, but I was about to move and decided not to. In the afternoon of the same day, the dumpster was gone. I still regret that I didn't pick up the IIfxes a bit.
Oh, but my SE30 should still be in my parents house. I am dreaming of firing up one day when I get back to Japan!
So, the episodes you mentioned sound not special at all to me.
We, the Japanese, do have strong affection with ``things.'' This vintage mac things are one of the revelations(?) of the culture.
The japanese have a word that could be translated as ``obsession'' but without a negative connatation, and a bit milder sense. G-Shocks, Air Max, Vintage Levi's--those markets were created by the Japanese.
> Gate's preferred code name was Hiroshima.
Are you sure this is true? Any source to support?
Well, THAT is offensive. And I am a Japanese and my father was in 2km radius from the blast in Nagasaki.
I never liked BillG, rather disliked him as far as I remember, but this episode (again, if it turns out to be true) would confirm my impression that BillG is evil.