Me, Japanese and I

February 16, 2014
valeblog
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My memories from my high school days are quite limited, mostly just socializing and parties are what I can recall (and the occasional school event). I must admit I don’t remember anymore why or when exactly I started learning Japanese, but looking at the blog’s archives (currently offline) it must’ve been sometime in 2006.

I recall trying to write blogposts in Japanese, and just falling back to using Google Translate (and Babelfish) when I failed. Thing is, while I learned some words and basic grammar, I couldn’t make that next step forward, after which I could’ve said I know the language.

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コーヒーに関する考察

February 14, 2014
valeblog
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何年か前に、多分今のアパートに引っ越してきた２回生のとき、コーヒー機買った。ドリップでは１００ｇ前後の挽いた豆で４日分のコーヒーができる。

当然のところ、４日おいとくだけあるし、最初のできたてのときは心臓がやばいくらいに強いコーヒーが飲めるに対して、そのあとは対したことないと言える。だから試験期間とかの間、普通に一日で１０杯くらいは飲んだこともある。

ただ最後の一杯、やかんの下に多分カフェイン全部沈殿してるからかはわからないけど、その最後はまた「いいね、これはコーヒーの本当の力」って感が出る。今ちょうどそんな一杯を飲んで、血圧が現在天文学的な高さに上昇中。

That addiction

February 13, 2014
valeblog
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I’m always in severe need for some entertainment. In the years before, that was fansubbing for me: translating was perfectly enough for me. Translating, being a part of the community, then later writing reviews even was great. But even then, I always had problems clearing my backlogs, since I simply couldn’t get myself to work on stuff unless I was doing it on the usual weekly scheduled timeslot.

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陰の伝承歌 / Lay of the Shadow

February 12, 2014
valeblog
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第一部

郷の奥　続く道
虚を数えて　辿る道
つづら折り　見え消ゆる
友の影追い　参りけり
深き森のお社へ
山の端　日陰りて
影は虚にとなりにけり

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Pipa

February 12, 2014
valeblog
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Nem vagyok én egy agresszív ember, és szerintem életemben egyszer nem fordult még elő, hogy valakit bántani akartam volna. Mostanáig.

A háttértörténet: a diplomámhoz kellett még három tárgy, ezeket fel is vettem rendben, le is vizsgáztam. Kettő – úgy érzem – elég lazán meglett, de az egyik elég húzós. Tekintve hogy már eldőlt az egyetem utáni állásom (aminek előfeltétele a diploma), annyira nem lenne buli, ha most meghúznának, úgyhogy az elmúlt pár napban elég durva volt a stressz. A legrosszabb, hogy a vizsgaeredményeket március 5-ig, amikor az évzáró értekezlet van, nem közlik. Hivatalosan, legalábbis.

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ESO (beta) second impressions

February 11, 2014
valeblog
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After the rage-inducing installation of the ESO beta finished, I was more than skeptical as I dove into the world of Tamriel. Luckily the gameplay itself wasn’t as insane as the installation, but it sure took a good time to get used to. So I can say that my first second impressions were mixed, but definitely still better than my experience with WoW was.

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ESO (beta) first impressions

February 7, 2014
valeblog
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Horrible. I didn’t even get to play the game yet, and I can already say that much.

I’ve been staring at the installer’s screen for no less than five hours now – I’m positive that in this time I could torrent Windows 8.1, burn it on a bluray or DVD, completely format my entire hard drive and finish installing Windows. Seriously, if you can’t provide a normal bandwidth for downloads (and this 4 gigabyte thing here at the 70% mark, which is about the third download in the process by the way, is downloading at a mighty 200 kB/s), then just outsource it. Include a limited-functionality torrent client in the installer and make the users download from each other. It’s not such great magic – it’s been done before (sadly, googling “torrent based installer” doesn’t return any relevant results so I can’t provide any actual examples, but I remember such).

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On definitions

February 7, 2014
valeblog
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During my winter break I had the same argument twice, about definitions. People said that definitions can be disproved, and I said that that doesn’t make sense, since definitions have no truth value.

What do you call a definition (haha, define “definition”)? To put it simply, it’s giving something a name. The thing is described, and a name is assigned to that description. So a definition has no truth value, it’s just a naming. It can’t be true or false, it can only be different from other definitions (whether of the same term or the same thing is irrelevant).

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On the soul

February 7, 2014
valeblog
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I don’t think there’s any mainstream religion out there that doesn’t assume the existence of a soul, nor that there is anyone out there who would need the explanation of what is meant by it. Still, I’d say that the soul is nothing but a fancy name for consciousness. And that definitely doesn’t have to be something breathed into us by some higher spiritual existence. Even less does it have to be something unique to humans, however painful that is to certain people to hear. Remember that only a few hundred years ago (and I daresay deep within even today), “civilized people” still refused to consider others humans just because the color of their skin.

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A nuke

February 7, 2014
valeblog
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I had a really interesting dream this morning. I’ll only describe one part of it that I clearly remember.

A button was pressed, and a nuke was launched from a space station at New York City. My point of view stuck with the bomb, so “I” zoomed across the atmosphere, and then above the NYC harbor, the warhead went boom. First I saw a tiny fireball, then the next thing I knew was that the shockwave pushed me not only under the water, but I could see the seabed get torn up around me as the blast evaporated everything. Then my viewpoint started riding the waves across the city, and I could see buildings getting blown apart around me…

It was quite the experience.