Columns of the Christophoronomicon

I'm all a-Twitter!

2009-02-16T12:45:00.000+01:00

If you've come here in the last week or so, you've noticed that things have changed a bit in the sidebar. I've added quite a bit of contents there in the last weeks, like the blog roll, but the most important thing here is just under my profile: yes, I'm on Twitter!

For a long time, looking from the sidelines, I felt Twitter was a waste of time. So what made me change my mind? Well, I discovered lately that a lot of people I respect were already on Twitter, and they've been praising the micro-blogging platform. Since there was just no way all those people could be wrong (most of them aren't known for falling for the latest Internet fad), I decided to look into the phenomenon more closely. Doing so, I discovered not only that there seems to be something to this Twitter craze other than hype, but also that it may even be of use for me! Indeed, I know that my Internet presence (basically this blog) suffers from two issues:

I don't update nearly often enough to achieve a sustainable readership. Unfortunately, I'm a slow writer, and I don't often find a subject I feel comfortable writing about. I have quite a few posts lined up, but none is anywhere ready for release. And that brings me to the second point.
My posts are generally too long-winded. I lose myself in the details, can't seem to be able to write a paragraph less than 20 lines long, and my style lacks punch.

Twitter's format seems particularly fit to help me tackle these problems:

It embraces short, frequent updates, and feels more informal than a fully fledged weblog. It encourages updating even when you haven't got much to say, and since I have to confine my updates to 140 characters I don't suffer from the fear of not knowing what to write about.
By strictly enforcing the 140 characters rule, Twitter forces me to concentrate my thoughts and use less words to express them. This can only be good for my writing style.

So I've decided to give Twitter a try, and so far I like it. And to make it official, there's nothing better than blogging about it!

So what can you expect from my tweeting?

Expect it to be more personal than my blog articles are. I blog only about things I find important, but I still try to keep my personal life out of it. Twitter is more of an immediate reaction kind of medium, so expect to see glimpses of my personal life in there, once in a while.
Twitter's motto is What are you doing? I'll personally try and focus more on What are you thinking about? Do expect some tweets to be simply about what I'm doing at the moment though, if I feel it is exemplary and/or interesting.
I'll try and send links to sites, articles, videos, and other things I find around that I find interesting, as often as possible. I've never really been able to do so with the blog because of the time it takes me to write an article. By the time I'm finished, the issue/article/blog post has been debated to death, has become out-of-date, or has simply been forgotten, and whatever I had to say has become meaningless. The Internet is a bit too fast for me at times. However, with Twitter I can quickly send a link with a few words of my own, five minutes after I've discovered the site.
Expect my tweets to be even more random than my posts, although the same themes will probably recur. I have a wide range of interests, and the Twitter format is even better than the blog format to let me talk about it all.
If you follow me, I'll make sure to follow you back. It's the least I can do.

Besides what you can expect of me on Twitter, here's what you cannot expect of me:

Don't expect me to update my status 50 times a day. I'm no Stephen Fry!
Don't expect me to tweet much during the weekends or holidays. I don't have a smartphone, and I only have a company-owned mobile phone. So currently I can only tweet when in front of the computer, and that's mostly at work or in the evening.
I'll try to use the social features of Twitter as well, rather than only soliloquying, but don't expect me to be a champion replier from the get go. I still need to dip my toe in to check how hot the water is.
Don't expect me to suddenly show up on Facebook, Myspace, Hyves, or any other social network. It's nice and all, but a Twitter account, a blog and a website are about all that I can manage (given that my website still hasn't been updated after all this time, this shows you how well I can manage).

So, here I am, all a-Twitter! You can follow my tweets here, or via the RSS feed. And if you're on Twitter yourself, don't hesitate to follow me and/or give me a shout! Happy tweeting!

The State of My Linux Desktop

2009-01-13T16:30:00.000+01:00

First, let me get this out the way: Happy New Year everyone!

Now, on to the meat of this post. A little over a year ago, I was complaining that I wasn't able to move away from my GNOME desktop, despite it being a resource hog on my then 6-year-old computer. Now my computer has grown a year older (but I'm still using it. I'm amazed that even its original hard drive is still working), so I thought it was time to give an update on the situation here at the front.

During last year, things only got worse between me and GNOME. Although I could still use it and be relatively productive, it was obvious from the noise my computer's fan made that it was suffering from the load. Clearly, my computer with its Pentium 4 1.6GHz and 512MB of RAM was starting to tire. I needed to switch to something more lightweight. KDE fell out of the equation pretty quickly (I actually removed it completely in order to free a bit of space in my root partition), and although I tried it again, Xfce still failed to stick (I've decided to wait until version 4.6 appears. Somehow, version 4.4 has all kinds of weird little issues that spoil an otherwise enjoyable experience. I'm not even sure those issues are even strictly Xfce's fault, but I have neither the time nor the will to look into it right now. Maybe some other time...). I looked at all kinds of window managers, but couldn't find anything that really interested me (well, except maybe Enlightenment 17, but I am a bit wary of trying something that is considered pre-alpha by its authors, however stable it may look at first sight).

And then one day, while browsing through packages in Synaptic, I discovered a suspicious little package called lxde. This led me to discover LXDE, the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment. Reading through its website, I realised that it may be the solution to my woes, and at least it looked stable enough. So I installed it and started it up, and was pleasantly surprised by its speed: it took about 3 seconds to fully load, which was a relief compared to slugs like GNOME. Of course, it didn't look good, but its theming options were easy to find, and within a few minutes I had a nice and light little desktop with a look and feel similar to the one I had given GNOME. I kept on using it, tweaking things here and there but mostly browsing, watching movies and doing all kinds of other things, and was happy that my computer was staying silent all this time. Before I knew it, I had set LXDE as my default desktop, and was always logging into it.

Of course, LXDE is far from perfect:

Customisation is very limited: adding items to panels, moving them around, controlling the amounts and names of virtual desktops, choose a background image and a screensaver, and that's basically it.
It lacks advanced volume management: don't expect to see a file manager open by itself when you put in a DVD or plug in a USB key (but they do appear in the sidebar in the file manager when you open it, so it's not really an issue). And it's completely unaware of network drives (so when I bought myself a shiny new 1TB network hard drive to simplify the sharing of files within my home network and finally set up some much needed back-up routines, I had to switch temporarily back to GNOME just to see whether Linux could find the shares, at least until I set them to mount statically via fstab).
It doesn't support much in the way of modern desktop effects. I've read that one can make it work with a compositing manager, but it looks like it's more trouble than is worth. But then it's a desktop designed to work with low end and old computers, so it's understandable that it doesn't bother with typically resource-hungry, fancy effects.
You can't get the desktop icons to open on single-click. I had the same problem with Xfce, and it's still annoying me.
The list of panel applets is rather short. I'm especially missing a uim status applet, and LXDE doesn't seem to support GNOME applets, unlike Xfce. Uim itself still works, but using it blind is not fun.
It doesn't support the Debian Menu System. I still need to send a bug report about this, as this is an oversight of the package maintainer, rather than a problem with LXDE itself.

Still, it has a lot going for it:

It's blazingly fast on my ancient computer. Since it doesn't bother with fancy effects and services, it really uses a minimum of resources. Of course, it means the experience is rather bare-bones, but I'm willing to put up with that as long as the basics I find important are covered.
Despite being based on independent components, it feels nicely integrated.
It stays out of the way of other installed desktops (I'm still annoyed at how Xfce somehow managed to mess up my GNOME desktop. I could recover without much problem, but it still shouldn't have happened).
It uses the GTK+ library, so it plays nicely with other GTK applications, including GNOME programs. It also can use the same themes as GNOME, so I could set it up to have a similar look-and-feel.

Still, as it stands, and for my use, it works well enough that I can see myself using LXDE in the foreseeable future. However, I'm also thinking of building myself a new computer this year, so while it's very possible that LXDE stays my desktop of choice on this computer, I don't think I'll use it on a more modern one. If I've got the power to do it, why shouldn't I enjoy it? I do like me some eye candy, after all!

Sonic Unleashed: why the hate?

2008-12-18T15:15:00.004+01:00

Image via Wikipedia

Rarely have I seen a game so undeserving of the beating it's been getting, from reviewers and players alike (including from people whose opinion I usually share). So although I know it doesn't mean much, I decided to give my own feedback on Sonic Unleashed, if only to tip the scales ever so slightly back in balance.

Disclaimer: I am not a Sonic fan. I've never owned a Sega console (I've always been a Nintendo guy, even at the time of the Nintendo-Sega wars), although I did play the original Sonic the Hedgehog casually at my cousin's, who did own a Mega Drive (that's how the Sega Genesis was called in Europe), as well as the 8-bit version of the same game on my sister's Game Gear. They were both OK as games go, but that's about all I felt about them. They were OK platformers with a speed gimmick, and that was about it. As a result, I completely missed Sonic's transition to 3D (although I have enough anecdotal evidence to agree with the common opinion that the 3D Sonic games have mostly been terrible), and the very first Sonic game I ever bought was Sonic and the Secret Rings, which I actually enjoyed despite some flaws that spoiled the replayability of the game for me (let's just say that some of the missions were just not fun, and made earning medals a chore I simply decided to skip). So when Sonic Unleashed was announced, I was prudent yet interested, and eventually previews and game footage convinced me it was worth the risk. I actually bought the game for the Wii upon release, and this is the version I will refer to in this post.

So, what do I think about the game, now that I have had a chance to play it? (I actually played most of it, although I haven't seen the ending yet) In short, I like it. I like it very much. I'm having a blast playing it, far more than when I was playing Sonic and the Secret Rings. The game has lots of great parts:

The day stages are just fantastic, far better than what Sonic and the Secret Rings provided. The 2D sections in those stages are particularly fun.
The fighting in the night stages feels very good. I don't care what reviewers and players are saying about what a Sonic game should or shouldn't be about. There is just something exhilarating in using the Wii-remote and Nunchuck to punch your opponents silly and deliver bigger and bigger combos. The other motion-based actions also feel good and immersive.
The difficulty curve is nearly perfect. My main gripe with Secret Rings is that some of the missions were just impossibly difficult, frustrating, and sometimes felt even unfair. It was also far too difficult to get the medals necessary to unlock secrets and new stages. Sonic Unleashed is far better in that respect. Getting all the secrets and unlocking all the stages is far from an easy task, but it is not brutal in its difficulty curve, and there's no point where you feel that the game is playing dirty by providing you with cheap tricks and impossible challenges. I'm still far from getting perfect scores in the stages I've played, but at no time did I ever blame the game itself for this. In each and every case, the only one I could blame was myself and my lack of skill.
The music is gorgeous. The rock songs of Secret Rings just didn't feel appropriate, and going back to an instrumental style was just the right thing to do. The music really fits the various environments and complements the action nicely.
The graphics are lovely. The art style is very good, and the frame rate is smooth and solid, which is very important in the day stages. The camera works very well in the day stages as well.

Of course, the game is hardly perfect, and I have a few gripes with it:

The balance between day and night stages feels skewed. Although the number of stages is approximately equal, and their sizes are similar, the focus of the day stages on speed, and of the night stages on fighting and exploration means that one spends most of their time in the night stages. It makes the experience feel unbalanced, even though the night stages are fun as well. The great amount of replayability of the day stages (which all have multiple tracks and secret shortcuts) does somewhat make up for it, but Sega could have made the balance in player experience better by providing a few more day stages.
The menu-based hub worlds are a pointless waste of time that breaks the flow of the game (more than the so-called slow night stages). Even though reviews of the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game criticise the hub worlds they have as well, I still feel that 3D hub worlds would have benefited the Wii version. Those at least have some added value, unlike the menu-based thing that we got stuck with.
The camera in the night stages sometimes creates awkward moments. I remember a case where I had to quickly walk through a very thin bridge, but was hindered by the camera choosing to look at the scene from a weird angle, and constantly moving, making it very difficult for me to direct Sonic well. I've also had a few times during fighting sequences where the camera position made it very difficult for me to align with the opponents and get my punches to hit them.
Related to the previous point, the fighting in the night stages could have benefited from a form of Z-targeting. Maybe not full-fledged Z-targeting, but at least have Sonic follow its opponent during combos, even if that opponent is knocked on the side rather than in front of him, or have something like Ōkami's combat system, where Amaterasu will hit the nearest opponent if he is within range, even if alignment between them is not perfect. Sonic's Werehog form is supposed to have stretchy arms. Why should they only be able to stretch in front of him? As the combat system of Sonic Unleashed stands, Sonic will more often than not flail his arms in the air with nothing to catch his blows, simply because your weren't perfectly aligned with your opponent, or simply because Sonic completely passed through a group of enemies during a combo and left them all behind.

So Sonic Unleashed is hardly a perfect game, and it doesn't hold up to a chef-d'oeuvre like Super Mario Galaxy (but then, in my opinion the original 16-bit Sonic games don't hold a candle to the various 2D Super Mario games either). But does it mean that it's a bad game that deserves the treatment it's received so far? Of course not! Sonic Unleashed is a very good game, it's fun, has lots of replayability value, and looks extremely good. Its defaults are minor, and if people would stop with their prejudice that Sonic is only supposed to be about speed (those people would do well to replay the original games. All those platforming sequences and underwater sequences, were they about speed?), they would see that the night stages are actually enjoyable platforming/brawling sequences, and in no way spoil the game experience.

So relax, don't take it all so seriously. You have here a good game with various kinds of fun gameplay, a good-looking environment, great music, and good replayability. Enjoy it, rather than nitpicking about what it should or shouldn't be about. As for me, I will just keep playing the game, enjoying myself in the process, while keeping an eye at the horizon, where Sonic looms, a sword in his hand. What? Could Sonic Unleashed have made me a Sonic fan where the original games failed?

How Ōkami stole my heart

2008-11-06T15:00:00.003+01:00

Before anyone freaks out, I am talking about Ōkami the video game, specifically the Wii version.

In previous articles, I've professed my love for Beyond Good & Evil. I am a big fan of Zelda-like action-adventure games, and BG&E was for a long time my favourite of the genre that wasn't a Zelda game itself. However, things change.

Now don't get me wrong. I still think BG&E is an exceptional game. It had a great cinematographic story, interesting characters that it made me care about (and a female main character that wasn't a superficial sex bomb), and an art direction that reminded me of the French science-fiction comic books of my youth. Interesting game mechanics, good voice acting and an unusual setting made it all the better. Of course, it wasn't perfect. It was far too short, and the stealth sections, although they made sense for the story (Jade is a journalist, not a soldier), just didn't do it for me. It could also have benefited from a better difficulty curve (the difficulty in that game was just erratic). But still, even with all the warts, BG&E was the best Zelda-like game I had ever played (that wasn't a Zelda game of course).

That is, until I discovered Ōkami. When I first heard about the game, it had just been released on the Playstation 2, and was being hailed as the best Zelda-like game for the PS2. Intrigued, I checked reviews and screenshots of the game, and fell in love with its style. The graphic style was expressive and really managed to emulate the style of Japanese ink and wash painting, the Celestial Brush gameplay technique (which consists of drawing various shapes on the screen to interact with the environment and perform miracles) really caught my attention, and the storyline (a mix of various Japanese legends, centred mostly around Amaterasu, the Japanese Sun goddess, who is also the protagonist of the game) captured my imagination. Hey, I am a sucker for traditional Japanese legends and style! In any case, Ōkami looked like a perfect match for my taste in games, and I actually said at that time that it was the only reason I ever regretted not buying a PS2.

The game, unfortunately, failed to catch the attention of most gamers. It was released only a few months before the Playstation 3 was released, and was not advertised in any way. Like Beyond Good & Evil, it was acclaimed by the game press, but was a commercial failure. Still, as the Nintendo Wii was approaching release, voices began to be heard among the game community asking for a sequel of Ōkami built for it, or at least a port. The Celestial Brush gameplay mechanic seemed like a natural fit for the Wii's motion controls (specifically the way the Wii remote can be used as a pointing device), and people felt that a Zelda-like action-adventure game would have a better chance of success on a Nintendo platform. Myself, I was not optimistic (at that time, no sequel of BG&E had yet been announced, and the general feeling was that it didn't matter how many people would petition for it, game companies wouldn't risk making a sequel, or even a port, of a game that hadn't been a commercial success), but I still decided to add my voice to the others. After all, there's no harm in trying! So imagine my joy when Capcom announced that they were porting Ōkami to the Wii!

So when Ōkami was released here in the Netherlands, I bought it nearly immediately. That was back in June, and last weekend I finally saw the end of the game. I have spent nearly 70 hours in the game (I'm a leisurely gamer. I only have time to play in short bursts, and even then I like to take my time in the game itself), and I've enjoyed every last minute of it! Ōkami is not only as good as I had imagined, it's better! Just to give you a taste of why I am so enthusiastic about the game:

Ōkami is long, but never boring. Moreover, it has lots of replay value (despite the time I've taken, I still haven't finished all the side-quests, and I look forward to replay the game).
The art direction is fantastic, and looks even better in motion and wide-screen. The environments are varied and lavish, and interact beautifully with the protagonist's divine powers. And seeing Amaterasu run around in those environments, followed by a trail of blossoming flowers, is just gorgeous.
The Celestial Brush's motion controls work really well and make it really fun to use Amaterasu's divine powers. I'm a big fan of gesture control (ever since the Opera browser introduced mouse gestures, which I'm still using now with the Firefox browser), and as a gameplay mechanic it works really well, and the Wii remote is indeed particularly fit for this kind of interface. The shape recognition can be a bit finicky (especially as you accumulate more Brush techniques with similar gestures), but it's just a minor gripe (and I'm known for having a particularly unsteady hand).
The storyline is just fantastic! Seriously, the writers have managed to take various bits and pieces of Japanese mythology and make them fit into an original, fresh storyline that keeps surprising you. You don't need to know Japanese mythology to appreciate the storyline, but knowing some of it makes you realise the attention for detail the writers had.
The characters are interesting, and well-fleshed out. And the game makes you care a lot for them. Hey, I'll stay vague in order not to give anyone any spoilers, but the game managed to make me care for a piece of paper! That's how good the writing is.
The music and sound effects are gorgeous. Based on traditional Japanese music and instruments, they flow naturally and set up the atmosphere beautifully.
And yes, before someone asks me, yes, Ōkami made me shed a tear. More than once, even.

So, dear Beyond Good & Evil, I know you brought me a lot, but you're no longer my favourite. Ōkami is my new sweetheart, and I feel like we are going to be together for a long time. Now let's petition for a sequel...

Some info about my blog feeds

2008-09-12T16:06:00.000+02:00

Lately I've decided to finally join the 21^th century and start using feeds to read the blogs and news sites I'm addicted to, rather than hop on from site to site hoping something has been updated. Why did I wait for so long? I'm not sure, but I think the main reason was that most newsreader programs, whether desktop or web-based, looked too much like e-mail clients. Reading news or blog articles to me is an experience that is very different from reading e-mails, so I just ignored the whole RSS feed phenomenon altogether.

However, as the number of sites and blogs I went through everyday was growing too much for my manual way of doing things, I realised I needed some automation, and decided to look again at this news feed thing.

After looking very hard, and eliminating some obvious contenders (mainly Thunderbird and Google Reader, which still look too much like e-mail clients. Although in Thunderbird's case, the reason is quite obvious!), and thinking hard about the fact that I'd like my feed list to be synchronised between the various computers I use, I settled for Brief, a Firefox extension which basically transforms Firefox's Live Bookmarks facility into a simple but efficient desktop news reader. And since it uses Live Bookmarks, Foxmarks takes over the job of synchronising my feeds between computers.

So, now that I was set up and enjoying my increased blog reading productivity (I am now following 48 feeds. Switching to a newsreader was past due!), I thought of the people that might want to follow my blog via their newsreaders, and realised it was not optimal for them. For this reason I did some small changes behind the scenes, and added a Subscribe widget under my profile widget on the page.

But if you want to do it manually, here is the feed's URL:

http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

You needn't worry about Atom or RSS: the feed is automatically translated to the optimal format for your newsreader.

A few months ago, someone asked me whether you could subscribe to the RSS feed for a specific tag (or label, if you use the Blogger terminology). At that time, I thought it was not possible, but it actually is, and here is the kind of URL you need to do that:

Atom 1.0 feed: http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/-/tagname
RSS 2.0 feed: http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/-/tagname?alt=rss

Just replace tagname with the tag you want to subscribe to. There's a list of the tags I use on the right column of my blog, and I try to be both consistent and slightly redundant when I use them, so you should be able to use them without missing a relevant post. Note also that those feeds are not automatically translated, so you need to specify it if you want an RSS feed rather than an Atom feed.

So people, I've given you all the needed tools for comfortable newsfeeding. Fire up your newsreaders!

Yes! Beyond Good & Evil Sequel is in the works!

2008-05-16T00:25:00.001+02:00

In a previous post, I mentioned how much I enjoyed (to tears) the game Beyond Good & Evil. It was a marvellous game that unfortunately was a commercial failure. Still, it gathered a faithful fanbase that has been clamouring for a sequel for years (the game is from 2003). I know I've been one of those.

Well, it seems our plea has finally been answered! Gamespot has just published the news that Michel Ancel, the man behind the original game (and more well-known as Rayman creator) is working on a sequel! His team is still in preproduction, and Ubisoft hasn't even given the project the green light, but I don't believe the man would finally come out in the open about the sequel if he didn't believe Ubisoft wouldn't agree to it (unless he thinks releasing the news will create enough buzz that Ubisoft won't dare stop the project, in which case I can only applaud the cunningness).

Now, the project is still in preproduction, hasn't been green-lighted yet, and platforms haven't been announced, but I would still like to say what I would like to see happen for Beyond Good & Evil 2:

Include the Wii among the supported platforms! Ubisoft has been claiming to support the Wii since its release, but still has failed to give us anything better than mini-game collections. The core gamer on the Wii is dying for a good, cinematic, action-adventure title that is not a port. Marketed correctly, the game could be a resounding success (moreover, development on the Wii costs lots less than development on the PS3 or the Xbox 360. That gives Ubisoft a big margin for advertisement). I also don't believe the PS3 or the Xbox 360 install bases would be as much interested in that game.
Add content to the game! The original was superb, but far too short. The sequel needs to be at least twice as long, or people will wait until the game reaches the bargain bin, and Ubisoft will get itself another failure.
Time its release well! The original was critically acclaimed by critics and reviewers, but failed to gain traction among gamers. Why is that? I believe it's mostly because it was released at the same time as proven sequels, as well as Ubisoft's own Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Beyond Good & Evil is still a relatively unknown title. So Ubisoft, don't pit it against heavyweights, and please don't release it at the same time as another game of your AAA franchises. Treat that game as an AAA title itself!

This is the best gaming news I've heard in a long time, and something I've been waiting for for years. Now, let's just hope the game quickly goes into development, and that they don't mess it up! Ubisoft, this has the potential to be big. Don't miss that chance.

Henshin!

2008-03-18T01:05:00.000+01:00

I love manga and anime. I like Japanese culture in general, but it's through anime that I've been first introduced to it, and it stays my main attraction.

But I don't like all styles of anime. Don't ask me about Naruto, for instance, as I've never watched that one nor have any interest in it. Dragon Ball Z, although I've pretty much seen all its episodes, is also far from my favourite anime. And don't even try to mention Pokemon! No, with only a few exceptions (classics like Captain Harlock, for instance, or Saint Seiya, which I liked a lot and still do), my preference goes to the Magical Girl genre, which is usually (but not always) associated with the shoujo style of anime and manga.

I actually know rather well where my preference comes from. I was lucky enough to be raised in France during the 1980's, in a time when Japanese animation was ubiquitous on French TV. We got lots of great anime, like the already cited Captain Harlock (Albator in the French version), or UFO Robo Grendizer (Goldorak when one speaks en français). These really defined the generation. Ask any French person of my age, and they will all know what I'm talking about. But there was also another anime airing during that time, which unlike the ones I've cited so far didn't involve great heroes fighting against evil villains of cosmic proportions, but a little girl just trying to make people remember their dreams and achieve them, one good deed at a time. It doesn't sound like much, and yet it managed to capture my imagination strongly enough to define my tastes from then on. That's because that little girl was rather peculiar, and to succeed in her mission, this is what she did, in each episode:

The little girl was known as Gigi in France, and she is better known around the world as Magical Princess Minky Momo or Magical Princess Gigi, the daughter of the king and queen of a fairy tale world, sent to Earth to help people regain their dreams. As for the video above, it is indeed a transformation sequence (also called henshin sequence, to use the Japanese word adopted by the English-speaking fandom). It might not look like a very complicated henshin, but it was the first one I ever saw, and I was blown away. It was my first introduction to the Magical Girl genre, and I loved it. Moreover, the whole idea of the transformation sequence was really speaking to me, and from then on, to really interest me most anime I watched needed one.

Unfortunately, the Magical Girl shows that followed didn't capture my interest like this one did. They usually lacked a nice henshin sequence, and in terms of scenario were usually weak. Moreover, those shows suffered from constant airing time changes, jumped from channel to channel as broadcasting companies made arrangements between each other, making it difficult if not impossible to follow a show from beginning to end. Luckily, other kinds of shows took over, which did feature henshin sequences, at least enough for me to be content for a while. Some were anime, like the previously mentioned Saint Seiya (the few scenes where the knights take on their armours count as henshin sequences for me), but most of them were live-action series, like Uchuu Keiji Gavan (X-Or in France) or Super Sentai series like Choudenshi Bioman (which was broadcasted in France a good decade before the USA got that butchered adaptation that became the Power Rangers series). I still enjoy live-action series, especially since advances in special effects have made nicer henshin sequences possible. But I'm straying away from my subject here.

The 1980's went, and the 1990's started, with me growing older, but still enjoying watching anime and live-action series. There wasn't much available in terms of Magical Girl series though. I remember enjoying the Cutey Honey series (Cherry Miel in France), but although the series introduced me to the concept of a transforming heroine fighting evil, it just didn't feel like a Magical Girl series (what with the heroine being an android, and the henshin sequences being very short and simple). And then one day I came upon an unknown series. I had put the TV on early, waiting for the next episode of Saint Seiya, but it started in the middle of an episode of an anime I'd never seen before. It immediately caught my attention, and I quickly knew that it was a Magical Girl series (the talking cat was a dead give-away). However, it was nothing like what I had seen before: the heroine seemed to be an adolescent girl, rather than a 10-year-old child. Also, the setting was different, with something seemingly evil happening (in this case, small children being brainwashed by cute, but deadly, furry animals). And then, suddenly, the girl had to intervene (not exactly willingly, but still), and this happened:

I was shocked: here it was, the henshin sequence I had been dreaming about: long, complex, full of light effects, and accompanied by great music! I had discovered Sailor Moon, and I was in love! Afterwards, other things made me appreciate the series even more: the humour, while sometimes a bit cheesy, was always in good fun; the main character, Usagi, was very well-balanced between the clumsy and selfish brat and the selfless hero, with all her characteristics feeling very natural; the scenario was very inventive; the villains were interesting; and most of all, the series was the first Magical Girl series to introduce companions to the main character, other girls destined to fight evil, all with their personal henshin sequences and attacks! I know it was only applying the well-known sentai principle to Magical Girls, but it was the first time it was done (Sailor Moon is rightly considered to be a true genre-renewer for the Magical Girl genre). Still, all things considered, it was really Sailor Moon's henshin sequence that first attracted me to the series. I also enjoyed the attack sequences, but that needs a separate post.

I was sad when the series ended, but psyched when its sequel started airing. New story, updated henshins and attacks, I was in ecstasy! And it carried on over five series (the last one I only ever saw in original version on my computer, as only the first four aired in France). Today, it's still my favourite anime, and some of its henshin sequences are just fantastic. Especially those of the third series. Watch them:

After Sailor Moon, the anime presence dried up on French TV, so I didn't get to see any of the Magical Girl series that followed it, until I got a computer, Internet, and discovered fansubs. Thanks to them, I've been watching lots of Magical Girl anime of the post-Sailor Moon era. Some are near-clones (like Wedding Peach, although it's different enough that it deserves watching on its own), while others explore radically different ideas (like Prétear, which has one of the best musical score of all anime I've ever watched, or Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha, which isn't even a shoujo anime). In any case, I saw enough anime and henshin sequences to draw up a list of criteria that define what I feel is a successful henshin sequence. Those criteria are very subjective, of course, but let me illustrate them. You may draw your own conclusions after that.

A good henshin sequence must be long, yet fast-paced. I don't care about verisimilitude, and I don't mind filler stock footage henshin sequences as long as they are of good quality. I like to see lots of details, so the henshin sequence needs to take its time, while keeping speed. You can always shorten them in further episodes. The henshin from the Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha is a good example (although its exploding clothes intro can sometimes bother people):

A good henshin must be flashy, and yet keep to a single theme. If you mix and match too many different kinds of effects, or change backgrounds without rhyme nor reason, you end up with a sequence that lacks unity. Mew Mew Strawberry's henshin from Tokyo Mew Mew is an example of this issue (it's not too bad, but it feels a bit too chopped up to my taste):

A specific music may be the most important ingredient to a good henshin, and I cannot emphasise this enough. As much as I liked Wedding Peach, it always bothered me that the henshin sequences in this anime didn't have their own music. A good henshin music sequence must be closely related to the action on screen: ideally, a blindfolded person should be able to imagine the action happening on screen just by listening to the music. One of the reasons why this is important is that if music and animation are not well coupled, the sound effects associated with the action won't fit with the music: they will just clash. Typically, some kind of crescendo music fits pretty well with the idea of a transformation up to a certain form. A good example of great henshin music is the following, coming from the anime Otogi Juushi Akazukin. The henshin itself is not spectacular, and a bit too slow (some of its effects are original, though), but the music really carries it very well:

Finally, ease up on the fan service! I don't mind a bit of nudity (even Minky Momo's henshin had some, but it was playful), but I've seen so many henshins with girls gaining suddenly 4 cup sizes and rebounding breasts that I'm sick of it. What interests me is how intricately the heroine's costume appears on her body, not what her anatomical features are. I won't show any example here: I find them far too tasteless.

So there you have it, my four criteria for an enjoyable henshin sequence: length and rhythm, unity of style, a specific music score, while keeping the fan service to a minimum. Of course, quality of animation, colours, effects and the like are important, but they can't save a henshin sequence that just lacks rhythm, or unity, or does too much fan service.

Naturally, as I wrote earlier, those criteria are deeply subjective. You are quite welcome to disagree. So to end this, I'm going to present you a few henshin sequences that I feel embody the spirit of my criteria really well. They rank naturally among my favourite henshin sequences so far. Tell me what you think about them!

As it happens, all those henshin sequences come from the anime Futari wa Pretty Cure, its sequel Futari wa Pretty Cure Max Heart, and its spin-off Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash Star. You can say what you want about those anime, but the guys who made them nailed the art of the henshin sequence to near perfection. But images speak louder than words, so I'll let you make up your mind by yourself.

The original series' henshin sequence (somewhat longish but great all over):

Pretty Cure's henshin in the sequel (shorter and even more dynamic than the first one):

Shiny Luminous's henshin (featuring maybe the best crescendo in henshin music I've heard so far):

The spin-off's henshin (my favourite henshin music among those five sequences):

Pretty Cure's upgraded henshin in the spin-off (its music is not as good as the previous one, but it makes up for it by adding more movements, slight differences between the two heroines' henshin, and upgraded light effects):

So there you have it: an over-long post, full of Wikipedia links and Youtube videos, over a subject you probably couldn't care less about. Hey, I'm a geek: it's practically my duty to obsess over such a topic. But I do hope you enjoyed it. And I'd be really interested in reading what your favourite henshin sequences are. I'm always ready to discover new ones!

From the sickbed...

2008-02-23T22:45:00.002+01:00

OK, I'm actually out of the sickbed now, so it isn't exactly an accurate title. But the sickbed is where I've been this whole last week.

But first things first: the pantomime was a great success! The two evenings were sold out (the matinee was only about half-full, but we were up against unexpected spring-like weather, so the parents just kept their children outside rather than put them in a closed room), the audience loved it, and I've received enough compliments to boost my ego for a year. Given how some people tried to sabotage my work, this is a nice vindication (no, I won't add any more details. They know who they are, they know I know what they did, and the success of the play is for me revenge enough).

However, between the play, lots of work, and a difficult situation at home (a death in the family, just after New Year), I've ended up completely drained, and a perfect victim for the current flu epidemic. So naturally I got it, and ended up bedridden for a week, with enough fever to cook an egg on my forehead (and I'm hardly exaggerating).

Now I'm recovering. The fever seems to bid its last farewell, and I hope to be fit enough to go back to work next week. However, the doctor warned me that it could be three more weeks before I'm completely cured. How nice!

The morale of the story: really, really don't overdo it. Your body can only do so much, and you don't want it to be pissed at you.

Well, the cloud does have a silver lining: with all this happening, I've finally reached my ideal weight of 85 kg! Now the trick is not to start to yo-yo...

King Arthur

2008-02-07T14:10:00.000+01:00

This is a short post to explain the lack of updates, despite what I had promised in my previous post. As you can see, I've been directing a theatre play, which is to go on stage next week, so I just don't have time to finish the post I've been drafting. Between work and this play, I hardly even have had any time to sleep!

But it's all worth it! This panto is funny as hell, and I got to work with very nice amateur actors. And let's not forget the great poster design, created by my better half! All in all, this has been a great experience, and I'm sure the spectators will love it. I'll make sure to write about it when it's finished.

My First Comment!

2008-01-17T01:50:00.000+01:00

I got my first comment a few days ago, yay!

OK, I know it's spam, but beggars can't be choosers. I'd probably get more attention if I posted more often, but to do that I need to focus on short, topical posts, and when something interests me I tend to want to tell a lot about it (I tend to go into tangents too (but you've already noticed that I think (not to mention too many parentheses))). I could also try and make an effort to shorten my sentences and revise my style. It's quite obvious English isn't my mother tongue. I know, I can be a pain to read. I'm learning though.

In any case, I've been busy with a big post these last weeks. Nothing very important, just a subject I like very much, nicely illustrated thanks to the multimedia possibilities of the Web. Look forward to it! (although I won't hazard a publication date, I don't think you should wait longer than a week or so)

Xfce vs. GNOME (or: why can't I make the switch?!)

2007-12-09T19:00:00.000+01:00

I usually don't have a problem switching applications when I'm not satisfied any more with the experience I've been having, even when I've been using the original app for years. I do tend to get emotionally attached to software (hey, I'm a geek), but not to the point that divorce is never an option. And I usually don't mind much switching to a solution I feel is slightly inferior, if the features I actually need are there.

To illustrate this, let me just tell you this: 5 years ago, I was reading my mail with Eudora and browsing the web with Opera, all this on Windows Millenium (OK, that part was not my choice, but at the time I was just not ready yet to switch to Linux, although it was already my goal). Today, on the very same computer (switching hardware is not that easy to do when one doesn't have money, but I did upgrade the thing a little with the years), I read my e-mail via Thunderbird and am writing this post in Firefox (well, Icedove and Iceweasel actually, but that's just Debian rebranding), all this on a Debian GNU/Linux desktop. I first switched from Eudora to Thunderbird (about the time when Thunderbird 1.5 was released), not because I felt Thunderbird was better (I still think it tried too hard to look like Outlook. I liked Eudora's MDI better), but because the latest Eudora upgrade had broken quite a few things, and I was fed up with some of the choices Qualcomm had made (HTML e-mail with no option to switch back to plain text?!). My switch from Opera to Firefox was much more recent, and I still feel uneasy about it. Sure, the portable version I used on my company laptop was getting really annoying with its constant freezes, and the Linux version just didn't play well with the rest of the desktop (firefox's GNOME integration is great!). And some Firefox extensions like FireFTP and Foxmarks are just too good to pass. And Blogger's interface does work on Firefox at least (although I'm not quite sure Opera is too blame here). But despite all that, I'm still following on Opera, to see if future versions could solve the problems that made me switch in the first place, as I feel that most of its features (its tabbed browsing, its mouse gestures, its speed dial, to name only the most obvious) are better implemented than in Firefox.

All this should make it clear that I am ready to put up with some inconvenience if I feel that my core needs are met. So why is it that I can't switch away from GNOME? I don't have any grudge again the desktop environment (otherwise I wouldn't be using it), but on my 6-year-old computer it gets slightly slower at each update. Moreover, it lacks some features that I really miss (like virtual desktop switching by mousing over the edge of the screen, or the application menu on right-click anywhere on the desktop). And finally, its trash implementation is a joke, and does not work properly with Windows partitions. The Xfce desktop corrects all the issues I have with GNOME, while adding a bunch of nice features (its simple transparency effects are great at de-cluttering my screen estate, and its bulk rename tool is great for people like me who are still not that comfortable with the command line). It's also lightweight enough that I do feel it is more responsive than GNOME (although I start Xfce with some GNOME services as I still use quite a few GNOME apps). It does have a few issues (like the impossibility to use single click to open desktop icons, or the fact that it sometimes leaves zombie processes around), but I already handled the main showstoppers (like the inability to use the reboot or shutdown buttons).

So why do I find myself switching back to GNOME after trying Xfce for a few hours? Are the features I am missing not that important to me after all? Have I become so used to the GNOME experience that I can't bear to do the switch any longer? Am I lying to myself when I say that I enjoy Xfce, or on the contrary when I switch back to GNOME? Is my GNOME experience still good enough that I can't bring myself to go through the switch? It's not even that I have to give up the applications I'm already using: they all work great on Xfce. At this point, I don't think the problem is a technical one (although the zombie processes do seem to slow down my computer. It might be worth a bug report), but I still cannot understand my own behaviour.

Where do I go from here then? Well, back to GNOME for now, while I'm trying to figure out what's wrong. I'll still try Xfce from time to time, to see whether I can get past this resistance, but at this time I've given up on doing a full switch. I wonder if that's what people mean when they talk about not being able to adapt to new interfaces, in all those discussions on Windows to Linux migration. Maybe that's the kind of resistance that has brought us all those VI-vs.-Emacs flamewars, due to people used to one and not being able to feel comfortable when trying the other, and then blaming it on that other text editor. If it is, then I really need to solve that issue: I need to stay flexible. If I'm starting to ossify myself at my age, how will I be when I grow up?

Does Wehkamp know something we don't? (updated)

2007-11-25T22:00:00.000+01:00

This is very weird. Wehkamp, the Dutch mail-order and Internet shop, still maintains that the Wii game NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams will be released on the 1st of December here in the Netherlands, while the rest of the world and its neighbour know that the game won't be released in Europe before January next year.

I would normally brush this off as a simple mistake. However, as maybe the biggest mail-order company of the Netherlands, you'd think Wehkamp would take those things seriously. Moreover, it's the only game that shows this strange release date behaviour. I've followed the release dates of quite a few games on the Wehkamp website, and they've all kept in sync with delay announcements.

So, what's going on here? Is this really just a weird error from Wehkamp? Or is SEGA organising some surprise early release? I frankly cannot believe either, but I guess we'll know within a week.

In any case, if SEGA does indeed pull up some weird trick out of its hat, I'll have the satisfaction of receiving the game early. After all, I've pre-ordered it an eternity ago (before Super Paper Mario was even released!).

Update: so it seems Wehkamp was just stalling to change the release date after all. It's now set to the 31st of January, more in line with other announcements. However, I find this rather unprofessional: not everyone is reading the specialised press, and changing the release date at the last moment when everyone else in the industry (and thus retailers as well, you'd expect) has known about it for one month shows lack of respect for the consumer. It seems to be a common trend everywhere nowadays and I don't quite like it (to say the least!). I need to keep an eye on it...

Super Mario GALAXY!!!

2007-11-17T03:41:00.001+01:00

'Nuff said.

Cluelessness

2007-11-09T13:50:00.000+01:00

A few days ago, Giles Bowkett published a great post. I encourage everyone to read it. He usually gets things pretty right, but in this case he's hit bull's eye.

His article talks specifically about Silicon Valley software engineers and their absurd reaction to the Hollywood Writer's Guild's strike, but in my experience it's a more common and widespread phenomenon than this: engineers in general are often clueless about whatever happens that is not in their area of expertise. And the worst part is that they are often unaware of their cluelessness, and believe that everything works just as in their own knowledge area. And don't try to correct them: they know what they are doing, and anybody who disagrees just doesn't know what they are talking about. Academics often suffer from the same kind of tunnel vision.

I've observed this behaviour for years as an insider. Heck, I've been guilty of it myself! I believe it stems from at least four causes:

Engineers deal with exact sciences: engineering is based on physical and chemical principles. Likewise, software engineering is based on maths. In both cases, we are talking about exact sciences, which describe their subject (in the case of physics, the real world) using laws of universal value. The laws of physics don't have exception. They may be valid for only a subset of phenomena, but that only means that there is a better, more general law out there, even if it's unknown at the moment or irrelevant for the work at hand. This is not wrong, as long as one remembers that the laws are only tools to describe phenomena, not universal truths with which reality has to comply. The step is unfortunately easy to make, unconsciously, and creates people with a dogmatic attitude: if it doesn't fit with my view of the world, it's nonsense (or worse: if it doesn't fit my view of the world, it doesn't exist).
Engineers are terribly insular: it is natural for human beings to feel most comfortable among their own. That's the reason for the existence of clubs, associations, political parties, etc. We like to be surrounded by people who have the same opinions, experience, interests... as ours. Engineers, however, tend to take this to extremes. It's not abnormal for an engineer's social circle to consist entirely of fellow engineers. When those friends are not engineers, there's a big chance that they will be academics, which in social terms is not that different. Worse even, I've seen entire families consisting only of engineers, often working in the same area (it seems particularly true in the Oil & Gas business, but that might just be my experience). Why this is is a complex question (that I might tackle in another article), but the net result is that the social world of an engineer usually consists of people who think the same way they do. That doesn't help awareness.
Engineers feel they are not recognised: we have to be fair here: our world (or at least the developed, Western world) is mostly an engineered world. Many people never go to a theatre or a museum, but they couldn't live without their mobile phone, their computer, Internet, a TV set, a good car, holidays by plane, cheap food and housing... all things provided to them thanks to the work of countless engineers in many different areas. Scientists may get angry at me here, but while they are the ones who discover the principles behind the instruments of our modern life, it's the engineers who actually create the everyday applications of those principles. And it's something the layman is usually unaware of, as academics (or engineers working in universities, which for me is just another sort of academics) get the spotlight far more often. In any case, engineers feel (whether consciously or not) that they are a main driving force of our modern society, but are not recognised as such by the layman. That puts them in a defensive mode, and a tendency to glorify their way as the best way (nobody understands how important I am. Well, I'll show them!). It's not a very good way to approach and understand others.
Engineers are not very social: this might actually be the root cause of the previous two reasons I presented. This is a difficult topic to discuss, and causing lots of flamewars in various engineering communities (especially in software engineering). That's because the issue is tainted by the stereotyped images of the geek and the nerd, which are not things people like to be compared to. But one does not need to wear bow-ties and too short trousers to be a bit nerdy, or to have bad hygiene habits to be a bit geeky. The issue here is communication skills and nothing else. Communication skills are not a talent you're born with (well, not only). They are mostly something you learn as you grow, and not only as a child. Puberty and the beginning of adulthood are extremely important as well, the moment when people start getting specialised education for what they will become later, and often live along with people with the same education (in campuses and similar student housings). And while the communication skills engineers learn at that time are great to discuss with their peers, they are not that good when it comes to social chit-chat, or discussions with laymen (like it or not, social chit-chat requires snappy replies and quick apropos, and the ability to talk about nothing in particular. Engineers are more at home with long preparations and analysis, and a conversation must have a well defined subject both parties agree on). To talk in engineering terms, there is an impedance issue, between the way engineers and non-engineers handle communication.

Disclaimer: I do realise that I've been painting engineers with a very wide brush. Reality is far more complicated, and there's lots of engineers with lively social lives and broad social circles consisting of non-engineers. But my own experience tells me that there's at least a plurality of engineers who fit the portrait I've been sketching, at least in part, and those engineers do have difficulties understanding the world outside of engineering, and tend to approach everything with the same method, even when it doesn't apply. They are clueless.

In any case, what I'm trying to get at is that there are as many bigots and close-minded people among engineers as among any other (professional or other) group, unlike what many engineers seem to think.

What about me then? How can I be so self-righteous about my fellow engineers? Am I so much better than them? Well... no. I can also be quite dogmatic (who said we can see that right here?), and I also lack social skills. But what I am not is insular. On the contrary, I can't say that I fit very well among engineers. I don't know whether it is because I come from a family where I'm basically the first one to ever have reached a university-degree level (my sister is the second one, but she studies Law, not Engineering), or because I am sometimes too geeky even for engineers (not many engineers in my area of work are actually interested in software itself, much less in its social implications and things like Free Software. And I haven't even mentioned my interest in linguistics yet...).

But my main advantage is that I am aware (sometimes painfully) of my limitations. I know when I am clueless. How is that possible? Quite simply really: I have someone waiting for me at home who couldn't care less about engineering, while still being the most intelligent person I've ever met. My partner keeps me firmly grounded in the world, and doesn't hesitate to point out when I become too dogmatic. And I am forced to work on my social skills on a regular basis as well. I don't always enjoy it, but in any case it ensures that I can never become a one-tracked engineering mind. My partner also encourages me to entertain more social interests, like sports and arts, to the point that I am currently directing a theatre play.

In a way, it's the age-long advice: get out, get some fresh air, do something different. If you do the same thing all the time, and only meet people who do the same thing, you'll only let your world shrink down to the size of a pebble. There's a bigger world out there, and it's not just utter nonsense. So don't ignore outside advice offhand, because you don't know what you're missing. Here's a clue: the world isn't what you think it's like; go and find that out by yourself.

Pass me the hankerchiefs, I'm watching the game's end scene

2007-11-01T16:15:00.000+01:00

I've been very productive last weekend. Mainly, I've finished Super Paper Mario. OK, it was 2 o'clock in the morning when I stopped playing, but I just couldn't leave the game so close to the end.

One thing I've noticed though was how emotional I was becoming as I was getting close to the end. I didn't shed any tear, but my eyes were definitely wet. The game's story was very good, very involving, and very well told, and though the ending was not completely unexpected, it still managed to get me: I was caring.

SPOILER WARNING: the following contains spoilers from a few games.

I was caring for the characters, even Count Bleck. And seeing him and Tippi sacrificing themselves to save all the worlds was heart-breaking. Although they were finally together again, and the bucolic ending shows that they did find the place where they could live happily ever after, I was still sad that they couldn't share their renewed happiness with their new-found friends. And I was sad that my adventures with them were finished.

Few games manage to elicit this reaction from me, and each one of them ranks among my favourite games (yes, I do agree that there's a connection here). One of them is Beyond Good & Evil. I remember how I could not leave the room in the alien Moon base where Jade's uncle Pey'j was lying dead, how controlling Jade was difficult as my tears made it difficult to see things on the screen, and how my tears changed into tears of joy when Pey'j miraculously resurrected. That game was a wonderful experience of cinematographic proportions. Too bad it was so short (it won't surprise you that I am one of the many people who signed all those petitions calling for a sequel).

Another one is Chrono Trigger, on the SNES. Although I have actually never finished the game (more a lack of time than a lack of interest, to be sure. It's one of the only RPG I like. Most only manage to make me yawn), it already managed to make me cry twice (once when Robo gets beaten down by all the other robots, the other time when Crono blocks Lavos's attack and is disintegrated in order to save the other characters). I really hope it'll appear on the Wii Virtual Console, so I can play it again and hopefully finish it this time.

And of course there's the whole Legend of Zelda series, where each instalment manages without fail to transform me into a sobbing puddle of tears (except the very first Legend of Zelda for the NES, but that one didn't really have a story. I mean, it does, but the gameplay itself does not really reflect that). A Link to the Past is probably the very first game I ever played that brought tears to my eyes (proving, like Chrono Trigger, that 16-bit graphics are more than enough to depict engrossing stories. Take that graphic whores). Ocarina of Time is naturally the pinnacle, and I remember playing the last part at least three times in a row because I just didn't want it to end. Just thinking about it again is enough to move me. Majora's Mask made me care for the non-player characters like never before. The Wind Waker's big parting at the end brought a tear to my eye, as did Midna's farewell at the end of Twilight Princess (did you really have to destroy the Twilight Mirror, Midna?).

END SPOILERS: from there on the article is spoiler-free.

On the other hand, there's plenty of good games that I enjoyed playing and yet didn't elicit those emotions from me. For instance, I thoroughly enjoyed the Prince of Persia trilogy, but I didn't become attached to its characters like I am attached to the characters of Super Paper Mario. And it influences a lot the replay value for me: I have completed each of the Prince of Persia games only once, and have no wish to do it again. But I have replayed Beyond Good & Evil at least five times, despite getting 100% completion (including the Pearls) on the first try.

I guess that as much as I value a fun experience (which is why I love Wii Sports, when I normally don't care about sports games), an engrossing story with likeable characters is what really does it for me. Maybe that's why I like Nintendo games so much: they are good at combining both a fun experience and a story and characters I care for.

I wonder whether I'm not in a minority though. The majority of games released these days seem to be FPS clones with cliché stories, sports games, race games or the latest MMORPG. Those sell millions, while gems like Beyond Good & Evil end up in the bargain bin where they don't belong.

Is it so weird to wish for a game to make you care?

Copyright Notice

2007-10-19T16:25:00.000+02:00

Even if you're one of the three people who have found my blog already (I do need to advertise it a bit more), you probably haven't seen the copyright notice at the bottom of the page. I mean, who reads copyright notices anyway?

Well, if you've clicked on the Groklaw link in my "Nice Links" list, you will realise that issues of copyright are actually important in today's world, especially on Internet, and that's why I've decided to put on a clear copyright license here, even though there's not much in terms of contents yet. And because I find strict copyright too restrictive, I've chosen to release my articles under a Creative Commons license.

However, after reading a few articles from the Technology Law Culture blog (specifically this one and that one), I realised that different people might have a different interpretation of the license I chose for my blog. In order to reduce ambiguity, I decided to add an explanation of my intentions here. If you wish to use some of the work I have published on this blog, and are unsure of what you are allowed to do with it, please refer to this article. If you are still unsure, just send me a message and ask for explicit permission. I don't bite anyway!

So let's just look at the copyright notice line by line, and I will explain what I exactly mean with each line:

The very first line: Columns of the Christophoronomicon © Copyright 2007 Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets, is the actual copyright notice. Note that under the Berne Convention, it is unnecessary. Copyright is automatic and needn't be indicated. However, there's no harm in being precise, and it's practical to have my name on every page so people know who to attribute my articles to.
The second line: Comments are owned by the individual posters qualifies the first line, so that it doesn't look as if I'm claiming copyright on other people's words on this blog. It also means the following license does not apply to comments: as I don't own them, I have no right to decide how they might be distributed.
The third line is the meat of the notice, with a Creative Commons image (which links to the simplified text of the copyright license I chose) followed by the text: Unless otherwise specified, articles are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-commercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Netherlands License. The link goes to a page with a simple description of what the different aspects of the license mean. It's in Dutch, but you can change the language to English. Here is a run-down of what I meant when choosing this license:
- Unless otherwise specified: this little qualifier just means that the license here applies to all articles on this blog and their contents (images, videos, etc.), unless I write otherwise in an article. So don't go assuming that absolutely all my articles are published under the same license. This is only true if I don't put a specific notice in an article (which may happen for instance if I show an image I don't own but I got permission to reproduce).
- Creative Commons: by putting my articles under a Creative Commons license, I allow anyone to copy, distribute, display and perform what I write, as long as they agree to a few conditions.
- Attribution: the first condition is that I receive credit for my work. In practice, that means that if you use my work, you need to refer to me by name, and add a URL to the article you used on my blog (put it in the references if you're writing a book, make the link clickable if you're on the Web).
- Non-commercial: this is a more complex condition, as different people have different ideas of what commercial use means. My personal interpretation of it (which is the one I expect people to follow, as it is my work we are talking about) is: if you are a non-commercial entity (i.e. a private person or a a non-profit organisation) and you are not using my work with a money-making goal in mind (e.g. in a book you intend to sell with a profit, or in an advertisement campaign to sell something), the license gives you enough permission already to copy and distribute my work. Note that I don't consider using my articles on an ad-supported site to be commercial use of my work, as long as it's a personal site or the site of a non-profit organisation. In any other case (e.g. if you are a commercial entity, like a company, or an individual acting on behalf of a company, or if you want to make money using my work), the license does not automatically authorise you to copy or redistribute my work. That does not mean that I explicitly forbid it. It just means that you have to ask me for an explicit permission. You can do that via the comments, or per e-mail via my profile.
- No Derivative Works: this condition means that you may not alter my articles without my explicit permission. You are allowed to quote them, or copy and redistribute them in full, but you may not make changes (except what is needed to reproduce them on a different medium, like a book for instance), unless you ask me first and I give you permission.
- Netherlands: this means that my work falls under the Dutch Copyright Law regime. It has a few consequences you might want to be aware of. First, Dutch Copyright Law, like European Copyright Law in general, doesn't have a concept of fair use. Instead, it has a few additional laws that allow things like quoting (for a purpose of commentary or analysis) and back-up copies. But it's usually more restricted than the American concept of fair use. Of course, this doesn't have much influence here, as the license I chose grants you more rights than what fair use normally does anyway. Second, Dutch Copyright Law has a concept of author's moral rights. This means that if you use my work to slander me, or reproduce it in a manner that distorts its purpose or mutilates it, I may revoke the license I gave you to copy and distribute my work, even if you otherwise obeyed the conditions of this license. Of course, we are all civilised people here, so I don't think this will ever come into play.
The final line is just a link back to this article, so that people can always refer to my own words when looking at copying and reproducing my work.

OK, I understand this all looks very heavy-handed, and a bit useless given what this blog has been containing so far. But I'm pretty sure it'll become handy in the future. As we say in French: Mieux vaut prévenir que guérir (I'll leave the translation to you as an exercise. Who said legal documents couldn't be educational?).

Συγχαρητήρια στον εαυτό μου!

2007-09-29T02:35:00.000+02:00

This is a day for celebrations! I just finished my Modern Greek online course! After 105 lessons (yes, 105!), I can read and write Modern Greek (within reasonable limits. I still need to have a dictionary or a translator handy, but that's only because my vocabulary is still limited), and I do understand a bit when people speak Greek (although they all speak soooo quickly! Μιλάτε πολύ πιο σιγά, σας παρακαλώ!). Speaking the language is still difficult, but if I can take my time I do manage correct and understandable sentences.

It has been a fun ride, and the online course was really good. The audio material is of good quality (if slightly old-fashioned: the files are recordings of a radio course from the 1970s!) and the forums are full of people ready to help you at every turn. I'm very much surprised at the level I managed to reach with a completely free web-based language course (to give you an idea of how quickly it went, I started with lesson 1 on the 13th of April. That's just over six months ago). I wish more languages had similar websites.

Now comes the difficult part: how not to forget what I learned these past few months. First, I do plan to go back to Greece. I really loved my stay in Crete last May (the level of Greek I had managed to master already did help making for an even more pleasant experience: Greek people are quite friendly already, but make an effort to speak their language and they become the warmest people I ever met), and there's plenty of places in Greece that I'd like to visit. But that won't be before next year. Luckily, I happen to have a Greek colleague at work. I'll just need to talk to her more often in her own language. I just hope she won't take it too bad if I happen to butcher it sometimes...

Now on to my next challenge: learning Japanese!

Oh, and if the title of this post is all Greek to you, it simply means: "Congratulations to myself!" What did you expect?

Musings of a Polyglot

2007-09-03T23:59:00.000+02:00

Today, I've once again spent half an hour just helping foreign colleagues understand Dutch documents. As a language geek, I don't mind at all, on the contrary. It's not even that weird that they ask me, a French guy, what some Dutch word means, given that besides our Dutch colleague who is currently on holidays and our Dutch boss who is always away on meetings, I'm the only one in the neighbourhood with near-fluency in the Dutch language.

No, the weird thing is how difficult it is for me sometimes to answer their translation requests. It's not that I don't understand the words they're asking me to translate. It's not even that I lack the vocabulary in other languages to translate them. It's just that except for very simple everyday words, I just can't seem to be able to do literal translations at all!

It's a really weird feeling. For all intents and purposes, I am trilingual: I speak three different languages with approximately the same level of command (I wish I could say I am fluent in those three languages, but that would be a lie. Worse, since I hardly ever use my mother tongue, I am actually losing command of it! I speak it with an accent for instance). At home I speak Dutch nearly exclusively. At work I use Dutch or English depending on the situation and the people I'm talking to. Then there is my mother tongue, French, which I only speak when talking to French colleagues, or on the phone to my relatives. I'm used to mix and (mis)match languages. I can code-switch easily, or jump from language to language without a heartbeat. This goes so far that I sometimes use the wrong language without even realising it!

Being a polyglot does strange things to the mind. I understand perfectly the concept of gezelligheid. But translating it to English would require at least a paragraph, and to French I'd probably need a dissertation! In the same way, I know exactly what French people mean with a connerie. But explaining that concept to a Dutch or an English person is next to impossible (equivalents exist, but they fail to capture the images that the French word evoke. And note that if you plan to look for the meaning of that word, it belongs to a rather foul register of language. You have been warned). I may not be fan of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, but I have to admit that different languages bring about quite different views of the world.

People sometimes ask me which language I think in, or which language I dream in. These are trick questions, in that I don't have a clear answer myself. Usually I answer: "whatever language I've been speaking at the time". But reality is subtler: often my thoughts are language-less, mere concepts that agglutinate together in my mind and translate into language at the last moment, and normally in the language I am speaking at the time (short-circuits do happen sometimes, usually with hilarious results, at my expense naturally...). This means that I often have difficulties finding the right words to express myself. I have this concept in my mind which is extremely clear to me, and cannot find a good word or expression in any language to express it. Nearly everyone has times when they cannot find their words. Now imagine how it must be not to be able to find your words in three different languages!

Actually that might explain why I have so much difficulty doing literal translations. Going from word to concept in my mind is an easy thing, and it goes directly without translation, whatever language it is. However, the other way round is more difficult, especially when I still have that original word in my head restricting me to a particular facet of the concept it represents. Words in different languages never represent exactly the same thing, unless they refer to a specific concrete or abstract item. I'm extremely envious of all those simultaneous translators out there. I wish I had the same abilities (although I must say it's relatively easier to translate full sentences than single words. I'm relatively good at non-literal translation. But I cannot do it as fast as all those interpreters).

What's the point of this post? Oh, I have the exact concept in my head, but I just cannot find the right word to represent it :-) . In any case, I'm curious how other bilingual or multilingual people experience it. Do you have difficulties translating from one language to the other, or is it second nature? Do you think in a particular language, or are your thoughts more visual, or even without real form at all?

Oh No! Not Another One!

2007-08-30T14:04:00.000+02:00

Welcome everyone!

This is my first (non-filler) post to my blog, so please excuse the awkwardness. I'm like a small bird learning to fly (and hoping not to ram his head into the ground).

When I first thought of starting my own weblog, I kept having the same thoughts: why should I start a blog now? In a world where everyone and their grandmother is already blogging, why should I expect anyone to be interested in whatever I wanted to talk about?

These worries haven't left my mind I must say. However, the reasons why a blog might actually be something worth starting became clearer with time, and eventually overruled my original thoughts. So I signed up, chose a title, a URL, a template... and found myself in the dreaded situation of the First Post.

I quickly made a small filler post, just to give myself some thinking time. But writer's block was already creeping in. What should my first article look like? Should I start with a presentation of myself? But readers would get just as much information by clicking on my profile, and I would probably look like an egocentric know-it-all (I'm not saying I'm not an egocentric know-it-all, I'm just saying I'd rather have you discover that later on). Should I just start directly with an article on some meaningful matter? But that feels so impersonal. One just can't start a meeting without a bit of informal chit-chat first.

And then it hit me: I should introduce the blog itself, and explain why I decided to start one in the first place. It'd serve as a nice formal introduction, and would help me jump over that first-post block. And who knows, you might even find this interesting.

So here they are, in full glory and in no particular order, the reasons why I started a blog:

I already have a website. However, it's in dire need of a revamp, both of the contents and the presentation (which is why I don't link to it. It's just too shameful. To give you an idea, think pre-2000 presentation, backgrounds making the text unreadable, the worst presentational HTML you could ever find on Internet, and more than half the site in perpetual "under construction" state). I've been meaning to redesign it from scratch, now that I've learned things like XHTML and CSS, as well as good web practices, but I never managed to actually start the work. I hope to use this blog as a platform to bootstrap this redesign work. That's also why I chose Blogger to host it. Having the code of the templates available for tinkering is a great way to actually practice webdesign, without having to start from scratch (so expect the site to change shape quite often in the next months).
A side-effect of my website's status-quo is that I haven't updated it since 2005. It's just too painful. But things have changed a lot in my life, and the information available on the site is now extremely outdated. Moreover, I know quite a few people who are interested in what I had been writing, and I've been neglecting them for far too long. This blog will give new breath to my online life.
I actually was once a journalist... OK, that's exaggerated, I've just been editor-in-chief and article writer of the university newspaper. But it felt like journalism, people seemed to appreciate my work (even when they disagreed with my editorials), and more importantly: I liked doing it. And I've been missing an outlet to write my thoughts and comments. Forums and comment areas on other blogs can only get you so far. I just needed my own place.

So now that things are set, let's get started! I hope you'll enjoy the ride!

First Post

2007-08-28T13:04:00.000+02:00

This is a filler for now. I have just created this blog and haven't had time to make a meaningful post. Please come back later.

Thanks for your understanding.