Tag: english

The maniac fansubber

April 15, 2011
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Imagine that you love translating anime. Now imagine that you hate to compete with instant semi-official releases. Imagine that because of that, all but one of the anime you are left with to translate are on the same night.

This is my current situation.

As of now, i am translating C and Aria for gg, Denpa Onna for Commie and Hen Zemi for WhyNot? (not counting hungarian stuff and Digimon), and except for Hen Zemi these are all thursday night.

Also, next week the remaining two episodes of Madoka will air then too. Now i hope no one expects me to translate five episodes of anime in one night. It’s tough to do even if i have a whole day for it, and especially with Denpa Onna’s insane script (nonsense sentences and loads of references) it’s tough to do three one night.

I’ll have to figure out how to schedule them on normal weeks (next week is exceptional)… Guess it’ll go something like: start C while it airs, switch to Aria when it starts, finish Aria before Denpa Onna starts, do as much of Denpa Onna as possible then finish C. Madoka messes it all up next week.

Starbucks Tribute blend

April 4, 2011
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I got this pack of coffee way back in March, but among all the moving and related troubles, i didn’t really have a chance to write about it. I have to note that the clever assistant at the shop ground it not to the size for espresso machines but for coffee press, which is very rough and gives off a very different feel.

Starbucks Tribute blend is sweet. It might not be apparent at first, but a while after drinking a cup of it, i started wondering what might be this sweet taste in my mouth. The coffee. It fits very well with yoghurt.

It also has a bitterish taste that reminds me of a familiar office, where the ladies are sipping drip coffee at their desks, a fan is turning slowly on the shelf and every now and then a paper slides out of the printer.

As a multi-region blend, having a complex and interesting taste is just natural. A fitting tribute for those 40 years.

Hash auth

March 23, 2011
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Until now i was planning the blog authorization (which would by the way be used only for the admin area, as no user registration will be left) to be something like the user (that is, myself, considering probably no one else would use the admin area) logs in, i give the user a cookie, everyone’s happy. Usual, isn’t it?

The thing is the content of the cookie. I was thinking that just hashing the login creditentials (that is, what’s stored in the database, eg the email address and the hash of the password) would suffice for authentication, but today a plurk about wireshark made me realize it wouldn’t. So the new method is to hash the ip address of the user in the cookie as well. This way, unless the attacker can somehow get behind the same ip as the original login, even if they had the contents of the cookie, they couldn’t impersonate the logged in user.

Or could they?

O CR

March 22, 2011
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Apparently CrunchyRoll isn’t the best at protecting their secrets either. A list of anime is out there, showing what will CR carry in the spring season. It’s shit news on the one hand for the maniac fansubber like me, because they took three series i was planning to do (Sket Dance, Ao no Exorcist, Deadman Wonderland), and i’d really have loved to do AoEx and Deadman, but well, there’s no helping it now. Good news on the other hand for the maniac fansubber like me, since if Horrible or any other CR rip group releases just an hour or so after airing, that makes non-english translation a very quick job. At least for me.

Now if everything goes right, i will be translating six series, 被弾のアリア (Hidan no Aria) for [gg], Steins;Gate for [Commie] and 変ゼミ (Hen Zemi) for [WhyNot?] are the ones japanese to english, and 花咲くいろは (Hana-saku Iroha), [C] and 電波女と青春男 (Denpa onna to seishun otoko) for Will of Fire. All still subject to change depending on official simulcast announcements from CR and Funimation.

The Great Tokyo Earthquake

March 22, 2011
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The two of us were standing on the wasteland.

‘We should start running’ one of us said, i don’t know which one, but considering that buildings came flying at us, that is the least of my concern. Running, we looked back over our shoulders.

‘Hey, isn’t that the Tokyo Tower?’

‘Yeah, i guess it is.’

We ran even faster, then it crashed down behind me, the very top of the tower just scratching my elbow. Yeah, the earthquake was so bad that the Tokyo Tower flew out of town, right in our direction.

I’m not sure anymore if the stadium that was supposed to be the Saitama Super Arena was thrown there by the earthquake too or it was there to begin with, but we took shelter there. There was like a dozen or so people in there, japanese as well, some from the table tennis club at Gaidai. Everyone was speaking the same language, i guess hungarian, but i wouldn’t bet a larger sum on that.

Hell of a dream i had again.

Just not today

March 21, 2011
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I wanted to get plenty done today: get back the price of the cancelled Iron Maiden show, complete my visa renewal process, do something about the social insurance whatever thing, because they’re sending me letters that i didn’t pay one i did pay, and if possible get the contract (way to go QB) for my apartment, after all i’m supposed to move this weekend.

It all started out nice, i went to the kombini where i bought the ticket, got back the cash smooth and swift. Then i headed for the city hall for the insurance thing.

But.

The only thing i forgot was that today is the day of the vernal equinox. And that is a national holiday, so no city hall, no immigration office, and i didn’t even bother to check whether the office people are in the university.

Shopping

March 20, 2011
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Just now i went shopping to the nearby supermarket and i had to face the fact that the supply of dairy products has been affected by the northern catastrophe as well. For those who don’t know, Japan’s dairy production is centered in Hokkaido and other norther regions, so the surprising thing is how the supply was not affected until now.

Luckily it doesn’t concern milk (i’d miss my cornflake breakfasts) but there was no plain yogurt of the popular Bulgaria or any other brand either, just the cheapest one that apparently no one dared to buy (it’s like a third the price of a Bulgaria yogurt).

Also there seem to be problems with beef products as well, because the shelves of many kinds of ham and the like have been empty too.

To be honest i hope it’s more like they’re sending all the food north instead of letting it rot in the supermarkets here, and not supply problems.

Unhappy

March 19, 2011
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Yesterday i bought a big pack of the Starbucks Tribute blend. For those who don’t know (which is probably a quite small number of people considering i’m posting coffee reviews every now and then), i go to Starbucks to buy my coffee all the time, and have tasted most of their blends. Of course by coffee i mean beans and not the drinks they sell at those insane prices.

I always ask them to grind the beans at mode 3 (for espresso) on the grinder, but this time the guy ground it at 13 (for coffee press), which means i get a lot less of the aroma. Shit. Should i go complain?

Why i am not worried about Japan

March 18, 2011
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Does anyone remember what happened when in 2001 hijacked planes crashed into the WTC and other targets on 11th September? I happen to remember it, even though it was almost ten years ago. Not much though, just the news on the tv, how my parents reacted and how i first heard the news on the bus to a soccer training.

What i didn’t remember (though i guessed it was like that), was that the american markets crashed, and the USD fell a lot.

Now compare to what happens now in Japan: three prefectures have been more or less devastated, and was it not for the strict construction and evacuation laws i bet the death toll wouldn’t be as “low” as it is now. There is also a nuclear crisis with a power plant in critical conditions. And yet, the japanese yen is soaring sky high and the stock exchange fell less than the american markets after 9/11.

Japan will stand up from this, and i think the economy will be woken from its slumber once again, at least for a few years.

Starbucks Guatemala Antigua

March 18, 2011
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It’s been a while since i bought a big pack of the Guatemala Antigua beans, but i never really had a chance to write about it. Even now i’m kinda in trouble what to write…

It’s a nice coffee, with medium body and usual complexity. Its aroma has hints that remind me of chocochip cookies covered in honey, honey from some kind of very strong scented flower.

When i drink it in my everyday routine, i usually don’t pay attention to its taste. The bitterness of the espresso brew is more characteristic, that is. But once i take the time and taste it for the sake of tasting it reveals interesting layers. Some tastes that remind me of the hungarian Easter Monday traditions, and some that remind me of the taste of that blade of grass in the polish Zubrowka vodka.

There is also a surprisingly cold aftertaste as well, a bit sour, but it matches in with the overall summery feeling of the coffee: imagine it as drinking a handful of cold water from a mountain spring after walking across a flowery field.

Something like that. Guatemala did it again.