logicbutton | Entries tagged with school

So! My final paper topic in the class I'm taking this semester is "Development of Ethos in Translation and Localization." Since all of you are giant geeks, I was wondering whether any of you have a favorite article or blog post you've read on what's important in localizations of media. It can be video games, manga, Harry Potter, whatever. It just has to be about what an audience wants from their translations/localizations in some way ("Here is a well-reasoned argument on why 4Kids is ridiculous," for example). Hell, it doesn't have to be about entertainment media. It can be about boring stuff too, like industry support software. I'm doing all right for sources on those things, though.

Edit: Alethea and Athena Nibley write a regular column! (Scroll to Words of Truth and Wisdom.) I remembered that they had translated Fruits Basket, of course, but I'd forgotten that they also did the Ace Attorney manga. Not that I hold it against them. Excellent; this is research I might actually enjoy.

So you know how apparently I just can't stop thinking about and looking at people's lapels, because it's like my life now or something? Well, I went over to Court Records just now to use it in an online discussion for another class, and while I was there, I thought I'd look through the sprites, just to see where all the peaked lapels were.

Holy shit, just look at this list:

( Spoilers for every game except T&T, randomly )

Arrrrrgh the more I think about this the more I feel like I have to say on the matter, but it's late and I need to make this discussion post and then go to bed. So!

You know how you went to bed last night? Well, I didn't. But I got my presentation done, so that's something! It turns out there is more to say about lapels than I realized even two days ago, so now it's a presentation about just peaked lapels on just men's suits in the sixth and seventh seasons of Law & Order, and it will go at least half a minute over the ten-and-a-half minute time limit unless I really rush through it or cut out Jack McCoy. So this is a problem, because I am pretty sure cutting out Jack McCoy violates some kind of law of nature. But at least it's done, and the outline for it alone is about four fifths of the word count for the paper I'm going to have to turn in, so this may end up being the easiest final paper ever.

Of course, I am also going to have to write a 900-word paper tonight after class. No idea what I'm going to talk about. Luckily the papers for that class sort of write themselves.

I came so close to posting this in the online discussion I'm leading:

About language existing outside the individual, do you suppose this means that when computers finally become sentient and start slowly filling our heads with code with the intention of simultaneously making us intellectually sluggish and leaving messages for other computers to decipher later, that it can only be considered language if and when other computers do in fact come along to mine that code? And that, if those computers never do show up, the code cannot be considered to have been language in the first place?

Because I imagine it does.

But I chickened out and put in a reference to Love Actually instead.

Edit: Also, a guy in my class posted this in the discussion:

Additionally, we are no longer disembodied from the internet, but instead our bodies become commodified through it. By updating social networking sites, applications like loopt for iphones, and tweets, we add metadata to our bodies and the space they fill in our three dimensional world.

While I think it's entirely possible that he was just trying to come up with the most insane idea possible and then snicker at anyone who took it seriously, I have just now kind of decided to let it be a guiding principle for my life anyway.

...Did I mention that I loved this week's readings for this class?

I have so much homework this weekend that I took Friday off to work on it. Watching the Super Bowl is right out, so I guess it's just as well that the Vikings aren't playing.

For my usability class, I'm writing a paper on the 2000 Florida presidential election ballot. I'd heard about it, of course, but never actually taken a look at it. Until now.

Holy crap, you guys. Look at this mess! What were they thinking? It would almost be a more manageable task to list the things about it that they did right. My "favorite" part is the mysterious admonition on the left side of the page. Note that the electoral college is never actually explained, either on the presidential ballot or anywhere else in the booklet. It reminds me of people who allude to things their audience hasn't heard of, but then refuse to explain those things, because then what will they hold over people's heads?

ETA: Done with the paper! Now I'm down to the usability readings and all my Visual Rhetoric homework.

So last night, a block away from where I had been walking from class to my car three hours earlier, a student got shot in the chest for no reason.

From the chapter on human error in one of my textbooks, The Design of Everyday Things (a very interesting book in its own right, even--especially?--with all the dated technological references):

"A colleague reported that he went to his car to drive to work. As he drove away, he realized that he had forgotten his briefcase, so he turned around and went back. He stopped the car, turned off the engine, and unbuckled his wristwatch. Yes, wristwatch, instead of his seatbelt."

"'I was using a copying machine, and I was counting the pages. I found myself counting '1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King.' I have been playing cards recently.'"

"...[Y]ou go off to your bedroom to change your clothes for dinner and find yourself in bed."

"A former student reported that one day he came home from jogging, took off his sweaty shirt, and rolled it up in a ball, intending to throw it in the laundry basket. Instead he threw it in the toilet."

"'My office phone rang. I picked up the receiver and bellowed 'Come in' at it.'"

*iz not ded*

*...although that's no guarantee for the near future*

Two final presentations this week AND a number of other Very Important Things To Do. How is now a good time for me to get sick? This makes negative sense. At least the truck I feel like I've been run over by no longer seems to have been a very cold truck, like maybe an ice cream truck or something. The needles poking out of its tires, however, are still painfully apparent.

As you might notice, I've changed my journal's color scheme back to the one I used last Christmas so that I could have Santa Hat Hawkeye as my default icon again. Hopefully this layout makes your eyes bleed less than my normal one.

Current Mood: sick

Hey, knowledgeable flist--

My final project for my Japanese class is on New Year's songs and bell ringing, and I was wondering if anyone had any relevant links handy that Google might not be able to find, or had any advice on what I definitely shouldn't forget to mention. In return...well, whatever you want. I'm easy.

Finally looking at classes for next semester. There are two I have to take, two I want to take, and two that Dr. Lewin thought I should audit, and all six of them are at different times. HOW?

Now my only problem is that I might have six classes next semester.

THE TIMESTAMP SAYS IT'S STILL HALLOWEEN. I CAN STILL REFER TO OCTOBER 31st AS TODAY. RLY.

That being said...

You ever notice how holidays are great time capsules? It's kind of cool how much easier it is to remember ordinary things because of the day they happened.

Fifteen years ago today, it started blizzarding in the late morning in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, and didn't stop until it was time to go trick-or-treating. My four-year-old brother flushed the nose to my clown costume down the toilet, so all the pictures of me sitting in a snowdrift dressed as a clown show my nose painted yellow instead.

Ten years and one week ago today, our 11-year-old cat Earl died of complications from feline diabetes.

Nine years ago today, I went trick-or-treating for the last time with a big group of friends in Minneapolis. I don't remember what I was, though.

Four years ago today, I spent the evening in the library taking a calculus test. I could hear people outside having fun. It sucked.

One year ago today, I left Halloween dinner early with a huge headache and went home to lie down in the dark. Since I was the only one home all evening, the apartment stayed dark and that pretty much negated any chance of having to break out the bag of Snickers bars I'd bought in case of trick-or-treaters. I was forced--FORCED--to eat them all by myself. (Not all at once though.)

Tonight, I dressed as a Target team member and worked in Toys, which I thought wouldn't be so bad because, you know, I figured there wouldn't be as many kids coming in tonight. They'd be otherwise occupied, and all. But it sucked, and I spent pretty much all night covering for other people, and for God's sake what the hell was the girl in Electronics DOING that was keeping her on her breaks so long, and the whole evening I kept trying to get a chance to take a bathroom break because I'd just HAD to go to Caribou before work and try a Campfire Mocha (which is an excellent drink, by the way; I highly recommend it) but NOOOOO, so I was grumpy. It was kind of novel seeing every one of the team leads in one spot, though--they all came at closing time to set up all the Christmas stuff in Seasonal. So tomorrow it'll be all Christmasy-like and stuff.

ETA: According to the comm archive, yesterday and today have been the highest-traffic days in

death_eyes's history. I wonder why that could be. Why can't two dozen people draw fanart for my birthday?

Current Mood: okay

ATTENTION EVERYBODY. I have recently been informed by none other than my own personal eyes that Target now carries Ritter-Sport. For $1.79. Which is good.

!!!

Also! Remember my hot Argentinian music theory professor, JC, who has the awesome accent and incidentally happens to be really hot? Well, he's going to a theory conference of some kind this week, which means that his nine o'clock class I'm always having to get up for? Canceled! Which is highly convenient, considering that this is the week I also have to get plenty of sleep and do some serious studying for the subject GRE. I win! Although I will miss having the actual class, for it is taught by JC the hot professor, who also happens to be my favorite type of teacher, the irrationally enthusiastic kind:

Arbitrary Member Of The Class: Wait, I'm totally confused about this.
JC: That's good! That's great that you're confused! What part of it are you having trouble understanding?
Same Arbitrary Person: Uh, all of it.
JC: Perfect! That means you're learning! That's terrific! :D [then proceeds to explain the concept in greater depth, to his credit]

In tangentially-related news, I am concerned about the subject GRE! And I totally just stayed at work until 12:30 a.m. on a Monday, which sucks! But I am in a freakishly good mood, possibly having something to do with the three-hour nap I took upon coming home after JC's class, and also possibly having something to do with hearing one of my managers refer to our esteemed guests in a cheerful (if somewhat bewildered) voice as "savages," in the aftermath of what they wrought on the Halloween costumes tonight. I ♥ my managers.

In conclusion-- Happy L's Birthday! He's 27 today, which is an important milestone age for an anime character. Depending on which school of thought you subscribe to, he is now either a Candidate for Confirmed Bachelorhood or just Over The Hill.

Current Mood: unnervingly cheery

So, okay, so, even if the professor hasn't yet entered the room, on what level is it appropriate to ask the Japanese class at large whether there is anyone who "actually LIKES yaoi" and then, if anyone is caught sufficiently off-guard to answer yes, to demand an explanation, including whether they like the idea of "watching two real men having buttsex"? Again, in front of the whole class. I mean, I'm no yaoi aficionado, but I kind of wanted to ask the person who said yes whether she had read Kizuna, just to get a more positive spin on the conversation.

Of course, it's probably not worth getting too pissed off over. I think the girl who asked has some kind of maturity problem. It's not exactly the first time I've wanted her to shut the hell up.

Current Mood: not amused

I'd say this was a GIP, but I actually have stuff to talk about too. After my math modeling class last week in which we all presented our own graph theory models and were required to involve monkeys in our presentations in some way*, I was reminded of

myrtlelarson's and my noble crusade to see monkeys roaming wedding receptions and looking so cute with their little bar mops. So I thought I'd be a little more proactive in spreading the love on LJ. By the way, support monkeys catering weddings.

I decided while making the icon that this was a good weekend to make all those other icons I mentioned wanting to have awhile back, so I was looking around for stock photos of flutes, preferably ones with easily-croppable watermarks, and among the pages and pages of photos of champagne flutes I found a flute fingering chart. So I forgot about the icons entirely and went to look at fingering charts, because for the first time in years, I need one. Apparently there's this local musician who composes for harp and occasionally violin and flute. My teacher saw one of her compositions being performed on TV and foolishly assumed that the piece for solo violin and interpretive dancer was satire, and only found out that it wasn't while he was calling up all his musician friends to let them in on the joke. Anyway, she or somebody associated with her sent him one of her newer pieces to have one of his students perform, which he was happy to ignore until somebody contacted him to follow up on it.

So he decided to give it to me. Now, he's not actually the music snob that those last couple sentences have sort of made him out to be. He's normally very willing to try new pieces, it's just that he was unable to take this one seriously, seeing as the title is Puddlicious*. Well, Puddlicious turns out to have a fourth-octave F. Also the other fourth-octave notes leading up to F. The only reason I know anything above C is the fourth movement of the flute arrangement of Fantasia para un gentilhombre, which kicks copious ass OMG. So here's the fingering chart I eventually found--you'll notice that some of those notes really can't be written legibly without the 8va. Think of the highest note you can possibly imagine a flute playing, and go up an octave. I am really not looking forward to this piece; I mean, there's the ludicrously high notes, and I don't even think I get interpretive dancers for it.

Anyway, I eventually remembered the icon and went back to looking for photos. My google-fu managed to yield a bit of nostalgia--my history day project in 9th grade was the evolution of the flute, and I remembered that a lot of the pictures I used for it came from the same website. Apparently it was like the only place to find pictures of flutes at the time. How things change. The project sucked, much like my grasp of history in general, but whatever. The reason the site stuck out in my mind was that it had this amazing picture of a green glass flute, and as soon as I remembered it I decided that it had to be the one I used for the icon. And I found it. I would totally give both my arms to own an instrument like this, if it wouldn't completely negate the point. I mean, I wish I could even hope to begin to think I could possibly try to convey just how awesome it would never not be. By the way, check this out. Dude, that's a lot of flutes. They look like twigs or something.

I feel like I should say something about FMA 49 here. Wow, I can't believe it's almost over. Every time ( I watch this one thing happen, I have this spoilery thought. Why am I cutting this, again? ) The hell, Ed. Also, I didn't notice this when I was watching the first time through because it was all at once, but the Big-Ass Thing From the Beginning of 50 that made my jaw drop open and stay that way is actually rather clearly implied in 49. So when the Big-Ass Thing is revealed, it's really less of a spoiler and more of a way to confirm that even the most oblivious of us who couldn't have figured it out even when given a week between episodes to ponder it would be in the know. Oh well. Still a lovely episode. Suitably eerie. I did notice that Ed/Rose seemed to be explicitly shot down here--was it always like that? I'd check my subs, but I've loaned my DVDs out to someone being indoctrinated (so at least it's for a good cause). I wonder how far she's gotten and if she likes it, by the by.

Oh, and finally...

( Q and A )

*I am not making this up.