Goal!

Right before half-time, and there it goes! Ghana 1 - 1 Nigeria. I’m sure stadium is boiling over now! If I were to step outside right now I’m sure the sound wave coming from stadium would knock me over.

Hey, what happened to January?

Was it just me or did January 2008 pass by at the speed of light?

So what’s wrong with Italians, japanesepod101.com?

Since where I am currently cannot boast a huge Japanese community I have to settle for Internet resources to keep my Japanese alive. I get quite a lot of stuff from youtube as well as various podcasts. Of these, japanesepod101.com is probably the most popular.

At first I thought it was a good podcast. They’ve got casts at different levels. I could listen to some more advanced stuff while at the same time making sure that my language foundations don’t completely rot away. Then came the cracks.

First of all, Peter, or should I say ピーターさん. Why does the guy have to sound like a teenager who has just caught a glimpse of a woman’s nipples? Stop talking about how amazing your methodology is and just get on with it. I’m sure japanesepod101.com has quite a few paying subscribers by now. Surely you could put a few sessions with a shrink for this guy into the annual budget?

Peter used to be my #1 and only annoyance. Enter Fabrizio. Fabrizio is a regular character on the lower-level casts. He is hysterical, the only one who speaks heavily accented Japanese and a weird character in general. He is also supposed to be Italian. All the other “foreign” characters all speak perfect Japanese. Only Fabrizio, the “Italian character” is singled out to have negative traits. Why is that?

Close your eyes. Think of a specific group of people who tend to be exceptionally bad at learning any language apart from their own. Open your eyes again. Did you think of Italians. No, I didn’t think so. Any character from *that* particular country (no need to mention the name as they are very touchy, but think “nuclear super-power”) is made to speak perfect Japanese (sooooo unlike real life). I don’t mind a bit of fun-making with people’s accents, but why does it have to be that only the “Italian” character is made to look like a hysterical idiot? Do the folks at japanesepod101.com have anything in particular against Italians?

I *cough, cough* wouldn’t really want mention what most of the world thinks of the foreign language talents of the average Japanese person. It wouldn’t be fair. I know a lot of Japanese people who are very good a speaking foreign languages. I once met a Japanese lady who had learned to speak Twi fluently in a very short time (put me to shame). Somehow japanesepod101.com creates a mostly orderly world where harmony is broken by one mentally unstable character from Italy who cannot speak Japanese as well as the Amer.. oops, my typing finger almost slipped there.

I’ve decided to spend a little bit of money this year on a few good podcasts this year. I can’t say I’m swimming in money, but there some people out there working hard to put good language-related podcasts out. Like the good people at chinesepod.com. If you want to learn or improve your Chinese go and sign up with them. They deserve it.

I know I won’t spend a penny on japanesepod101.com. I’ll only change my mind if you (a) don’t ridicule anybody or (b) ridicule everybody, including people from that super-power, even if they are sensitive and can’t handle criticism.

Otherwise I’ll scout around for other Japanese language podcasts. Anybody know of any good ones? Please don’t recommend any Anime/Manga-oriented (don’t even think there is a hidden pun there) casts though..

Henry’s new laptop

So today Henry finally got his new Mac PowerBook Pro. Needless to say, we spent an hour or two drooling over some the visual coolness of it.

After a while, a few issues did show up. First of all, iChat is butt-ugly. I can’t stand those call-outs. There’s no way to de-uglify it either. Also any time we tried to recieve video in iChat it crashed.

Then it seems iTunes can’t play Ogg files, at least not by default. What? That just sucks.

Overall Leopard looks neat, but it’s not a stable as you might expect from Apple. Maybe they should ask the Woz to get back into OS development again. All they’d have to give him is pen and paper, and I think Apple could afford that. They could even claim the money back by telling Woz that they sold fewer Macs than they actually did.

Facebook: not getting it

Okay, so I have now been on facebook for a while. I still don’t get the whole point. So many people have told me about how addictive it is. I have more addictions than you have toes, but I’m just not getting addicted to this.

To me, facebook is little but “X sent you a present”, “Y sent you a hug”, “Z kicked your ass”. I just don’t get it. Is that supposed to be interesting? Am I too old for this kind of crap? Too boring? Or does facebook demand some level of intelligence that I lack?

I tried joining a few groups. That did seem interesting at first. I was wrong. No matter how interesting the group name may sound, what is actually discussed tends to be mundane at best. It’s mostly greetings and slogans that get exchanged. *sigh*

So could somebody who understands these things better than I do *please* explain what makes facebook great? Surely there must be something. Otherwise their member count wouldn’t be so high. What is it I am expected to get out of “hanging out on facebook”?

Book recommedation: Programming from the ground up

If a book were to begin like this:

“”"
I love programming. I enjoy the challenge to not only make a working program,
but to do so with style. Programming is like poetry. It conveys a message, not only
to the computer, but to those who modify and use your program. With a program,
you build your own world with your own rules. You create your world according
to your conception of both the problem and the solution. Masterful programmers
create worlds with programs that are clear and succinct, much like a poem or
essay.
“”"

wouldn’t you just feel that you would have to read it? Well you can. The book is free, very good and here.

Classics converted

By accident, I stumbled upon this page, which has remakes of quite a few goodies. Needless to say, I started downloading a playing. The remake of Head over Heels brought back so many memories that I even had to spill a tear or two. Playing Jet Set Willy in Linux was… er.. interesting!

This got me searching and I found a few other sites dedicated to converting classic (mostly 8-bit games) to moder architectures. Here are a few that might get you started.

• http://www.tdbsoft.tk/
• http://remakeszone.com/?lng=english
• http://retrospec.sgn.net/

I knew about xrick, a clone of Rick Dangerous, already, and a few others, but I didn’t have a clue that there were so many people into remakes.

Sadly there are some games missing, and some that only exist for Windows. I found both Bruce Lee and Monty on the Run for Windows. Would love to see Linux versions of those games. I also found a Trailblazer clone, but again, no Linux version.

I’ve put together a little wish-list for games I’d love to get a hold of Linux versions for.

1. Kung-Fu Master: ideally with a remix of the original music and all the bugs from the original (I hear there is a Linux version, but where?)
2. Way of the Exploding Fist: sure, IK was better, but the Fist came first!
3. Bruce Lee: that would be a serious trip down memory lane.
4. Monty on the Run: with original music, please!
5. Who Dares Wins: another game I played quite a bit

Then there’s this car game I used to play. Must have been one of the really early C-64 games. All I can remember is that at the beginning of the game your car backs out of a truck that then speeds off. I also remember that there is a place in the game where you switch over to controlling a speed boat. But, I cannot remember the name of the game itself..

Hm.. While we’re at it, how about Linux versions of some of those old Game&Watch games like Oil Panic, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., etc?

All of a sudden I beginning to remember a whole bunch of other games I used to play. I think I better end this right here otherwise I will get into games like Pirates, Zelda, Elite and go on forever..

..Can I sleep now?

The last two weeks have been too hectic. I’ve been programming pretty much around the clock. But finally I was able to hg commit. Now I’m going to take a day or two to rest before I get back to my normal routines. I definitely need to spend some time with my kids. They’ve been complaining of late they hardly ever see me. Maybe I should take them to Accra Zoo. Last time they were there they had stories to tell me for about three weeks.

It’s odd, how can programming be so much fun when you work on your own stuff, and so boring when you are developing for a client? I guess because clients only need boring applications. I never had a customer come up and tell me “yeah, you know, in order to increase our productivity we’d really need an RPG developed. We’d like the world to be loosely based on Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Or, think Bard’s Tale. Think Dungeon Master. Think your very own world with its own rules..” No, instead I get stuck working on “business applications”. Bah, humbug!

Well, now I can hopefully get back to writing my pygame tutorial. Expect something in a few days time (after I’ve slept away those funny things hanging down under my eyes that make me look like I’m 75).

Hello world!

Here I go again.