A few words about Louise Erdrichs MAKOONS

A few words about Louise Erdrichs MAKOONS

Louise Erdrichs Makoons came out a few days ago. On August 13th, I took a look at Amazon, and saw that it was their #1 New Release in their Childrens Native American Books category.

Erdrich is Ojibwe. The characters in her story are, too, which makes Makoons and the other books in the Birchbark House series an #ownvoices book (the #ownvoices hashtag was created by Corinne Dyuvis).

I love the series. I read the first one, Birchbark House, when it came out in 1999.

Birchbark House began in 1866 when we met Omakayas, a baby girl whose "first step was a hop" (page 5 of Birchbark House). Omakayas is an Ojibwe word that means Little Frog. Makoons is the 5th book in the Birckbark House series. In the 4th one, Chickadee, we met Omakayas as an adult with twin sons, Chickadee, and Makoons. Ive got Makoons open and started reading it, but after reading the prologue, Im pausing to remember the other books and characters.  The books and the characters in them live in my head and heart for many reasons.

When my daughter was in third grade, her reading group started out with Caddie Woodlawn but abandoned it because of its problematic depictions of Native people. The book they read instead? Birchbark House. One of their favorite scenes from the book is when Omakayas has gone to visit Old Tallow to get a pair of scissors and has her encounter with a mama bear and her bear cubs. Indeed, they wrote a script and performed that chapter for their class (and of course, parents!). My daughter played the part of Omakayas. The prop she made for their performance is the scissors in their red beaded pouch. Ive got them stored away for safekeeping. They represent my little girl speaking up about problematic depictions.

~~~~~

Chickadee is captured in Chickadee. The story of his capture and his return is what Chickadee is about. Makoons was devastated by that capture. The worry over his brother makes him sick. That sickness is where Makoons opens. In the prologue, Makoons is recovering as he listens to Chickadee sing to him. They spend hours together. Makoons remembers, and tells Chickadee about, a vision he had while sick. Their family will not return to their homeland. Theyre going to be strong and learn to live on the Plains but they will, Makoons tells Chickadee tearfully, be tested. The two boys are going to have to save their family... but wont be able to save them all.

A gripping and heartbreaking moment, for me, as I start reading Makoons. 

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A few would likely Diablo 3 Items say of which having saw

A few would likely Diablo 3 Items say of which having saw

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A few things on Pythons Error Handling syntax and their usages

A few things on Pythons Error Handling syntax and their usages

As a noob in programming, I encountered code error very often. In fact, I am so used to it that I truly expect some error in every snippet of my code. When I dont encounter on, I feel genuinely insecure about it...

However, with the more experience I have now, I meet fewer errors in my scripts, and when I started building web application that requires user input, I need to worry more about mistake made by the user instead of myself.

That was the moment that I realize the power of Pythons error handling - yep, back when I was just learning Python, these stuff meant nothing to me, well, more or less, they are just meaningless.

The biggest problem with programs that take user input is, in most programming languages, when an error occur, the script will stop executing.

This makes a lot of sense in logic, but it is most certainly a very bad experience to the users.

Error handling will help us prevent such embarrassment - to us, as well as the users.

While take input from user, be it using raw_input or a form submitted over HTTP POST, we should not encountered much problem. It means that taking input is quite safe actually.

What is NOT safe is when we try to do something with the user input, which, is always the case - after all, if you are not doing anything about the input data, what is the point of collecting in the first place, right?

This is where things become dangerous - lets say you have a field that accept user to enter their birthday, without checking and converting the data in the front end, there are just countless ways an user may enter its birthday.

Consider these few possible date format: "28th September, 2014" , "28-09-2014", "28/09/2014", "28-9-2014".

While these date formats all make sense, but it would be really hard for us to handle such input, converting them into a format that our database use.

Alright, enough with the back story and logic behind using Error Handling, lets talk about the syntax and how we can actually use them.

There are mainly 4 keywords used in Python to handle errors.

They are "try", "except", "else" and "finally"

Just like any other Python syntax, their meaning and usage are actually quite straightforward.

First, we would need a try block in our code, say we are now going to handle the input data from the birthday field, and we want to try converting it into integer for processing.

However, we do not know if the user would be using a format with only number, therefore, we are not sure if the int( ) conversion function will work.

So, we write something like this:

try:
     data = int(birthday_input_data)

Just like we would normally operate on a safe string.

But yes, we are expecting error, because the user may use a format that contains ASCII characters.

If we try to use the int() function on a string with ASCII letters, Python would raise an error like this:
 

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ValueError: invalid literal for int() with base 10: foobar

As we can see in the last line of the error message, the resulting error is called "ValueError" in python, which is the Error Type we aimed to solve with our next block, so we are going to write it like this:

except ValueError:
      #do something with a data input with ASCII string


Alternatively, if we are not sure what else Error could be cause ahead of time, we can prepare a fallback general-purpose exception case like this:

except:  #with no ValueError class
     #report to the user that a fatal error is caused and the script cannot proceed with the input
     #nicely ask them to try again.


Of course, just like an IF block, we can add multiple layers in the try block to try to handle different possible cases before handing it to the fallback exception.

But what we the code worked the first time? With no error?

In this case, we can add an ELSE block after the TRY block. Like so:

else: #no error
     data.insert_to_database()


Lastly, we do also set a default action to an error handling block at the end to safely close files or re-collect resources. This is done by using the "FINALLY" block at the end, which will always get executed whether there are errors or not.

In our example, we might want to do something like this:

finally:
    db_connection.end()
    #or
    document.close()
 
Thats it.

Again, I wrote these stuff not trying to be a guru, but simply because I am that kind of person who always want to know the rationale behind something before I can fully understand a concept.

The benefit of writing error handling code took sometime to dig into my stubborn head, I hope this article could help someone like me, struggling to understand the purpose of some code.

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A Few Things This Week In Gaming Saturday July 11th 2015 Some Gaming News Bits

A Few Things This Week In Gaming Saturday July 11th 2015 Some Gaming News Bits

Ive had a lot happen this week [including going to the Hospital!] and havent been able to finish any of the many posts I am working on at the moment, but I wanted to quickly mention a couple little tidbits of Gaming that have either happened this Week or is going on this very Weekend...

• Trove is out of Beta and was fully Released just two days ago! I was in the Closed Beta after buying a starter/support pack of in-game Credits and was enjoying the Open Beta off and on. Similar to games like Cubeworld, Minecraft or Lego Worlds, its a fun little game with a large, explorable MMO world that has Monsters and Crafting and Building to do everywhere, with RPG elements (levelling up a character, classes to choose from with various abilities, etc). I am working on a First Impressions And Screenshots article for it [that I started in the Beta] and hope to get that done Soon�. Try it out at: http://www.trionworlds.com/trove/2015/07/09/trove-launch-the-adventure-begins/

• Marvel Heroes is having a major giveaway [which is more of a Sweepstakes, in my opinion, since its not a simple here, you have to hunt for it] where playing the game and finding Drops has a chance of winning you $5000 (there are only five prizes available). Check it out at: https://marvelheroes.com/news/news-articles/marvel-heroes-2015-25000-giveaway

• For those that played Battlefield Play4Free, just a reminder that this coming Tuesday is the Last Ever day for BFP4F. Ive given away a couple of Play4Free Funds codes here at The Blog [that EA had given out] and also noticed that EA has lowered the Deal Again price for The Daily Draw way down to 99 Funds - super cheap, if youre sitting on leftover Funds in that game. Get over there and get some new gear while you can at: http://battlefield.play4free.com/

• And of course, some Deals and Sales are going on at various companies/websites this Weekend. I sometimes post when some Sales are going on, but not all the time - and this weekend I can see Steam has some Deals going on and Good Old Games [now GOG.com] has a nice Weekend Deal that includes Series of many games, like Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief and Hitman - ooh, I might pick up Urban Chaos for a buck-ninety-nine... See if you find anything you want here: http://www.gog.com/promo/weekend_promo_square_enix_100715

• Oh, Ive uploaded a couple more videos at The Game Tips And More Blogs Plays.Tv page, including "Part 2" of a Minecraft Playthrough I call "To The End", where I play up to The End area/stage in Minecraft, but not further - I dont want to spoil the ending [as much as it is an ending] for the game, but Ill play and record completely up to that point - creating a New World every version/update [something I started back in Beta, but lost most of the past videos for, unfortunately]. There are also some Battlefield: Hardline clips (a Tutorial and Living The Dream), Hitman Series clips (some Glitches and Speedruns), a couple of Trove vids (with a short Tutorial one) and more. Check it out sometime, at: http://plays.tv/u/GameTipsAndMore

These are just a few things that are going on... but thats it for me, for now - See You In The Games!

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a few notes on sugarsync timr and GMail for BlackBerry

a few notes on sugarsync timr and GMail for BlackBerry

Addendum to the previous post:

1. Still testing SugarSync. Certainly doesnt sync as quickly as Id like to the BlackBerry platform but this may be  due to challenges on the handheld end and no fault of SugarSync. In any case, for time tracking, Ive gone back to the expensive but excellent Timr instead of trying to manage a spreadsheet synced between desktop and handheld.

2. Wiped my BlackBerry of all contacts and e-mail and reset e-mail using my Google Apps account into the BlackBerry native e-mail client. Working much better--before it was so slow as to be unusable--but still testing this.

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A few things that made my 2015 interesting

A few things that made my 2015 interesting

The beautiful view from the Mayan Palace, Mexico

2015 was a wonderful and probably the best-so-far year for me. This year had traces of a few previous years, remarkably 2013.

Abiding to my tradition of writing an annual summarizing post, I am listing below a few things that made my 2015 interesting. The list is in a random order, and the order does not represent anything.

1. Data Quality (QD) module. 

ok, I never thought I will start this list with a course I did at the university. But there are multiple reasons.

2. A leisurely sun set walk in Puerto Pe�asco, Mexico. 

3. Graduating. Twice!

This year, I graduated from my masters double degree, from IST Lisboa and KTH Stockholm, and attended two graduation ceremonies (in Portugal and Sweden) to receive the degree award.

4. My comeback to FOSS.

It was always in my new year resolutions in the recent years. This year I got active with OpenDaylight community, leading the Messaging4Transport Project, and also created an OpenDaylight user group in Lisboa.

5. The HOT Summer! More beaches, across continents - in Portugal, Spain, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Sweden, Italy, and Croatia. Portim�o beach in Portugal was unexpectedly pleasant.

6. Floating in the water with fish, in the clean water beach of an uninhabited island of Maldives.

7. Chocolate wine! Who dislikes them?

8. OpenDaylight Summit in Santa Clara. I never thought I will have this much of information from a single conference. This was my second time to SJC, and first time to encounter a delayed flight and changing the flights to avoid missing the connecting flight.

9. God Ganesh Temple and getting soaked in the rainy night in Colombo.

10. Cooking for my parents in Sri Lanka.

I have cooked for friends many times before. But first time for my mom and dad. That was truly remarkable. I missed this during my 2013 visit (and I was not capable of cooking before 2013. :) )

11. A long walk in a burning day in Belgrade. Till that point, I was under the impression that nothing can burn me.

12. Ljubljana. I was impressed by the river side wifi and game meat. :)

13. A number of travels, higher than the last three years combined!

14. Backpacking to Andorra. Never thought I would be able to go light weight. An achievement of the year for sure. 

15. A helicopter ride in a pleasant winter day.

16. More presentations! First time I presented my work in another university as a guest speaker.

My presentation at ASU, in Tempe for IC2E 2015 was remarkable. Loved that conference, and active involvement and enthusiasm from the participants during many of the presentations.

17. A late summer vacation in Sri Lanka. Not really a vacation. I was getting married. ^_^

Also experienced being a tourist in Colombo. Never felt like a tourist in my own country before.

18. My first short-term scientific mission (STSM) at the University of Rijeka, Croatia. Sounds fancy, isnt it? :)

This also includes working with my computer with the noise of frogs, while sitting outside the University of Rijeka in the stair case, in the mid night! They just close the faculty by 10 pm, and I did not have internet connection in my big and beautiful apartment (that was supposed to be a professors apartment. The topmost floor of the students dormitory. Loved it).

All the COST actions of the same program are listed here, including mine.

19. Long flights. This year I had many long flights.

I enjoy watching movies in the long flights, because they have English subtitles for foreign language movies. Sometimes I just fall asleep in the flight while attempting to watch a movie. :D

This year, for the first time, I got my luggage delayed (by a day, and it was in PHX). Another first - this year, when I reached SJC after completing a trip, I was informed that there is a flight delay that might lead me missing my connecting flight in LAX. Hence, I was given a free shuttle ride to SFO and sent to LIS in an alternative route. :)

20. Stockholm, once again! It was loads of loads of loads of memories! I actually went to Stockholm twice this year. But somehow missed Kista during both trips.

21. Kayaking once more from Fejan! Never did I guess in 2013 that I would visit this place for another EMDC Summer Event.

22. An unhealthy lunch at Trst, Italy. All while keeping an eye at the hungry, persistent, and bullying seagulls.

23. Planning for the events in 2016 starting from early December!

Already have 3 confirmed events in my list in Berlin, Portland, and San Francisco.In addition, have a planned trip to Shenzhen, and planning another long term journey to Atlanta. Many of these events are outcomes of the collaboration with Emory BMI. It was a pleasant surprise that we got many papers as outcomes, which I am in fact going to present in 2016. We have 4 accepted papers; 3 to be presented - MediCurator, Data Cafe, and SPREAD, and MEDIator already presented.

24. Barcelona once more. This was my first EMJD-DC Spring Event. Nice to meet all the colleagues for the first. We are so distributed - In Portugal, Spain, Belgium, and Sweden.

25. Renting an own apartment. No more apartment sharing, at least as long as we are in Portugal. More privacy.. ^_^

26. Random walking in many new cities alone. Often with a map. Often without; asking strangers for information. It felt like a virtual reality game, finding random places with no knowledge of the local language.  May be an increased level of confidence? Well, to be fair, many of the youngsters I met in these cities speak better English than me.

27. Some successes (xSDN, ?u?u, Cassowary, MEDIator, Data Cafe, MediCurator, SPREAD, ..) and some failures (SDCO, S�DN, RAVANA, SMART, FIRM, ..), and... some mixtures (SENDIM, ..). I am talking about my projects, if you are confused.

28. Spring flowers in Frankfurt, Germany.

29. International border crossings by land, and long bus rides. 

This includes US <-> Mexico, Croatia <-> Slovenia, and Croatia <-> Serbia. Never really did this before this year (not counting Sweden <-> Denmark (2013) and Spain <-> Andorra (2015) as real borders due to the Schengen open visa policy).

30. Multiple plots and locations. Spent most of the time in Portugal, with one month each in Croatia and Sri Lanka, in the mid-year.

Other short-term locations include US (twice), Mexico, Germany, Sweden (twice), Spain, Andorra, Italy, Slovenia, Serbia, and Maldives. This made 2015 a year full of travels for me.

Thanks for reading my list till the end. If you are really interested, you may also read the blog posts on the previous years (2015 - 2012) as well.

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A Few Fundamental Truths About Game Reviews So Stop Being So Mad

A Few Fundamental Truths About Game Reviews So Stop Being So Mad

Always remember: If it makes lots of money, it is perfect and immune to criticism.

To catch you up: Theres a game called Grand Theft Auto V. Maybe youve heard of it. Like all games in the series, you commit horrible, violent crimes. Arguably, in V, those crimes tend to be a bit more on the gruesome, appalling scale than in earlier games.

Reviews are coming out. Greg Tito of the Escapist gave the game the shocking, war-crime level rating of 3.5 stars out of 5, saying "only buy Grand Theft Auto V if youre prepared to play as characters with no justifiable motivation for doing awful things to people."

Predictably, their forums exploded into haterage, as a huge portion of gamers are nothing but giant, ambulatory, exposed nerves mainly good for the spraying of spite. 

So Greg Tito had to back up the largely obvious, expected, self-evident points he made earlier with a long follow-up article. Its worthy reading.

Man, I loves me some good internet drama. Its like fudge. I can eat it all day. Keeps me from working. But ...

oh god why am i trying so tired so tired

A Few Sanity Comments

1. Evaluating the worth of a work of art with a number, a clump of stars, or the positioning of ones thumb is completely arbitrary and useless. We know that, right? Ignore it. You cant judge a work of art with a number. Its not like theres some Art Scale you can put art on and weigh it and say, "This weighs 7.32 Arts, so its good."

2. The point of a critic is to criticize. Anyone in our developing art form who actually tries to stand up and make real points is worth applauding, even if we dont agree.

3. If you, as a critic, dont ever make a bunch of people angry at you, youre wasting your time. If youre never challenging anyone, why are you bothering? 

4. Also, ProTip: When a carefully reasoned comment makes someone angry, that means youre on the right track. When you are being calm and thoughtful and people still rage at you, it means you hit a nerve that probably needed hitting.

5. As the art form matures, you have to expect that really egregious crap is going to get called out more and more. Sure, youre allowed to make a game thats morally repellent. But realize, as gamers grow up, have kids, and start to lose family members, they�re learning just how funny death isnt. The voices saying, "Why are the biggest, most glorious, most expensive worlds in the game industry being used for such a horrific end?" are only going to get louder.

6. This just makes me appreciate Saints Row IV so much more. Practically all of the comical violence in it is directed against evil, invading aliens or computer simulations. Makes it go down easier for us olds. And, yes, I am plausibly pointing out Saints Row as the sane, mature option, which is how we know that the world has gone mad.

7. A lot of the comments claim everything Greg Tito says is invalid forever because he gave Dragon Age II 5 stars out of 5. One, if youre wrong once, it doesnt mean you cant be right 500 times after that. And, two, read Sanity Comment #1 again. 

8. That Grand Theft Auto V depicts what it does and yet is as popular as it is is very interesting. I think it says something about us as people. And Im not about to get all liberal and sensitive and say that its something inherently bad. I think the game addresses less the desire to do wrong and more a deeper, fundamental frustration. Not sure. Just a hunch. Bears more thought.

9. Finally. If we are going to assign numerical values to represent the value of a work of art in a storytelling medium (which we shouldnt, because its dumb and useless), it is necessary to take the quality of the story into account. I mean, right?

Yeah, Ill probably play GTA V one of these days. For as long as I can stand it, anyway. It sounds like a stunning technical accomplishment, the sort of thing a game designer has to play to keep ones skills current. I just dream of a day when the most technically spectacular games can be played with my kids in the room.

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A Few Scattered Thoughts

A Few Scattered Thoughts

-First and foremost, the ever-generous Phil Solomon is doubling your viewing pleasure with two extended videos involving Brakhage speaking on both Scenes From Under Childhood and 23rd Psalm Branch.  As made clear with these last posts I obviously value the insights of others who have spent a great deal of time with the work, but when it comes down to it the greatest understanding comes from the man himself.

(The Wonder Ring)

(The Dead)

(Two: Creeley/McClure)

(23rd Psalm Branch)

(Scenes From Under Childhood Pt. One)

---

-Speaking of which, I hope said posts can serve a twofold purpose.  First and foremost as encouragement to seek out the films themselves. As explicated upon both here and elsewhere, the standard and the blu-ray releases are absolutely invaluable viewing opportunities.  Second, I hope they can perhaps spark interest towards the many writings Brakhage produced.  Brakhages writing is full of wit and wonder, and while at times it can present many of the challenges to be found in his films, the potential rewards are just as substantial.

---

(The Machine of Eden)

(Star Garden)

(Desert)

(The Process)

(Burial Path)

---

-While there have been some fascinating studies by very knowledgeable and erudite individuals (Fred Camper, P. Adams Sitney, Marie Nesthus, Bruce Elder to just name a few) the truth remains that the surface has barely been scratched, when it comes to his output there are endless possibilities yet to be explored/examined.

---

(Duplicity III)

(Domain of the Moment)

(Murder Psalm)

(Arabic 12)

(Visions in Meditation #1)

---

-I think one of the greatest benefits of this new release is the ability to play the films at different speeds without worrying about jamming the projector or damaging a print.  Watching these works at 1/2 or 1/4 speed offers a totally new viewing experience and a whole new appreciation for the subtle rhythms pulsing through every frame. 

---

 (Visions in Meditation #2: Mesa Verde)

(Visions in Meditation #3: Platos Cave)

(Visions in Meditation #4: D.H. Lawrence)

(Unconscious London Strata)

(Boulder Blues and Pearls and...)

---

-The blu-ray would no doubt be a bit unrealistic, but if possible please encourage your local city/county/university library to order the standard release of volume two for their collection.  Most established libraries have both a system for handling requests and a collection of DVDs that are available to rent by patrons.  For those a little tight on money or seeking out a first encounter with the work, this is the perfect avenue.  It may end up sitting on the shelf untouched for many months, but eventually someone will stumble across it and rediscover their eyes.

---

   

(The Mammals of Victoria)

(From: First Hymn to the Night-Novalis)

(I Take These Truths)

(The Cat of the Worms Green Realm)

(Yggdrasill: Whose Roots Are Stars in the Human Mind)

---

-It seems that one of the most common issues raised by those appreciative of the release (one discussed here a few months back) is the inclusion of only single parts of series, leaving the viewer craving more.  While it would certainly be nice to have the full works close at hand, I think that this can be a good thing in the sense that it can act as a sort of catalyst towards further exploration on film.  Try harassing your local film societies and university film departments or gather together some like-minded individuals and try to pool money for a rental (its been anything but a success story for me, but something has to eventually give).  Both the CFMDC and Canyon Cinema have lovely new websites to aid in the endeavor.

---

   

("..." Reel Five)

(Persian #1)

(Persian #2)

(Persian #3)

(Chinese Series)

---

-Thats all for now on this incredible release, I hope to examine some of these works further here in the near future (understandably most of the reviews only glossed over the films themselves, they are so varied and complex that any sort of summary appears woefully insufficient) but Ill leave you with a final bit of poetry...

   

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A Few Tips For Common Import Game Hurdles for non Japanese speakers and Japanese Learners

A Few Tips For Common Import Game Hurdles for non Japanese speakers and Japanese Learners

Have you ever wanted a game so bad that you decided that you were okay with sitting through a language you didnt fully understand? Chances are you have if youre reading this article. Its a perfectly acceptable train of thought - localisation takes time for a majority of Japanese games, which can leave fans waiting for months or even years for some releases to hit their side of the world. Its frustrating, which is why importing can be an attractive option to some players, especially fans of genres such JRPGs and Japanese games.

Thanks to the language barrier, import games can be a daunting experience for some. After going through the trouble to find out if your foreign game of choice will work on your console or not, you also need to be able to worry about playing and understanding the game. Speaking from a JRPG and Japanese game perspective, if Japanese isnt your first language or you havent been studying it for a long time, this is obviously difficult. Some people become motivated to learn entire languages for this purpose, while others just want to play the damn game. While there isnt a simple solution to getting past the language barrier in imported games (other than just waiting for the localisation or taking hours and hours to learn a new language), there are helpful apps to at least pull the text from the game and get a digital translation or other methods to help general understanding. While these methods arent perfect, I use some of these to try learn new Japanese words and to make things a little easier during the tougher parts of playing import games and am sharing them in the hopes of helping others on their import game journey.

Note: I own an iPhone, so the apps mentioned here are mostly for iPhone. However, these apps may be available for Android. I may update this article to reflect this soon, but for now, please be aware when reading!

Story/Text Problems

Problem: I want to use Google Translate or something, but I cant type in Japanese + typing Japanese Ive only just seen for the first time is time consuming and pretty difficult.

Solution: A photo translation app, like Translate Photo.

For a long time, my biggest problem with playing import games was even if I wanted to use a translation site, typing in the Japanese was way too time consuming, which is not good if you only have a limited amount of game time every week. I remembered someone mentioning using a photo translation app to translate signs while traveling and I figured there should be an app like this for Japanese. Luckily in our lovely modern age of cool apps, there was.

I tried a free trial version for an app called Translate Photo (the paid version has a red icon and the trial has a blue icon) and quickly ended up buying the full version. Translate Photo allows you to take a photo of anything or use a photo saved on your phone and as long as the photo is clear, it can usually accurately pull the text from the image into a copy and paste-able form. Using this app, you can take a photo of the screen (or send a screenshot to your phone, but that takes longer) and select the text you want to translate, crop and edit the image (which can be helpful if the text is a different colour or smaller) and let the app do the rest. This version of the text allows you to either look up the words in the dictionary, use the in app translator (which seems to work like Google Translate) or copy it into another translator to get something thats at least close to the meaning.

Problem: Translated text is kinda weird. Is there anyway I can get a more natural translation?

Solution: A Japanese dictionary that can give definitions for a bunch of typed text or copied text, such as Imiwa.

If you cant find a fan translation, but the digital translation isnt perfect (which is likely), you can try working out the meaning from the context of the words, using a Japanese dictionary. I highly recommend the free Imiwa app for iPhone - it can detect words from a bunch of text, meaning you can just read the definitions and go from there. An added bonus for Japanese learners is you can favourite the words you dont know so you can add them to your vocabulary. Its so great, I dont understand why its free.

Using Imiwa and looking up the words is my preferred method when playing games, even if it involves a little more brain work. Other than wanting to learn Japanese, I find once I scroll through the words, I can make sense of the text in a way it makes sense to me rather than becoming confused by a digital translation. However, while less natural sounding, a digital translation is the easier of the two methods as it tries to also translate grammar.

Note: Apparently JSho is a good alternative for Andriod users!

Playing the Game

Problem: Working out the story is good and all, but working out the mechanics of the game is hard without instructions.

Solution: Try a walkthrough.

Especially if your game is one that is a few years old, theres a surprising number of walkthroughs available for Japanese games. A simple Google search of the game you want to buy/already own will show this. This is especially good if youre considering buying an import game - you can gauge how easy the game will be to play just by using walkthroughs and Youtube Lets Play videos.

Gameplay and Story: Alternatively, Wing It

Once I accepted the fact I wouldnt understand everything, Japanese games became instantly more fun. If youre trying to learn Japanese or youre a JRPG story junkie (Im both), it can be tempting to pick apart every line, every word and every grammar point. However, this just isnt realistic if you actually want to play a game, not study I game. I found this gave me way too much stop and start to actually enjoy the game and it took quite a long time just to get through initial cutscenes.

Nowadays, I try to only look up the sentences that really stump me or that seem important to understanding the plot. You can pick up a lot from context and cutscenes and thankfully the great button mashing method can help one learn the mechanics of a game. I think its good to use a combination of all of these methods, but remembering that unless youre a native Japanese speaker or a master of the language, understanding everything probably isnt realistic. Its a game you probably picked because it looked fun, so just have fun!

____________________________________________________

None of these tips are perfect or a one size fits all method and this certainly isnt a comprehensive list as Im only just finding my feet in the unlocalised game world myself. I hope this helps you guys get through your imported games, let me know what youre playing or recommend playing in the comments below!

You can buy import games online at sites such as Play-Asia.com.

Thanks for stopping by and make sure to follow @JRPGJungle on Twitter for updates on content and random, shorter musings on JRPG news and games!

Note: This article does contain an affiliate links to Play-Asia to help support this site. You can read our Affiliate Link Policy here.
Note 2: Even though this article mentions some specific apps, this article is not at all sponsored or officially associated with the apps mentioned. I just use them regularly :)

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A few interesting links Wolfram Language CLT visualized Google graveyard

A few interesting links Wolfram Language CLT visualized Google graveyard

Wolfram language looks pretty impressive. Definitely need to give it a try

Central Limit Theorem visualized, Another awesome D3 visualization

Data Elite : This is the YCombinator for Big Data startups

Metacademy - machine learning focused search engine

Nate Silver Interview : pretty insightful interview from Nate Silver

Deep Belief Networks in the browser. This is actually pretty cool. It would be nice if there was an API around this

explainshelll helps you understand all those shell scripts you come across

Google Graveyard of products : many-a-google products have graced us in the past decade. Hoping Google Glass and Google Driverless Cars dont end up in the graveyard. Hmm.. looks like someone already created a spot for Google Glass

Sergey Brins old grad school resume from almost 2 decades ago.. Bet you he didnt know hed become one of the richest people in the world today

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A few things that made my 2016 interesting

A few things that made my 2016 interesting

2016 was a different year compared to the previous. It had a large share of sad moments. This post discusses only the happy moments and the memories that make my 2016 interesting. The order is random and does not indicate the order of significance or importance.

1. A year-end vacation after a long time.
Winter in 3 countries - Switzerland, Austria, and Liechtenstein!

2. New Years eve in Zurich. 
Eating all the street food and high calories! It was also my first time outside Lisboa for the new years eve, since 2012.

3. Playing with snow in Malbun, Liechtenstein. 
It is after more than 3 years!

4. Summer in the Bahamas.
That was a long weekend in Nassau. Blue beaches - private and public ones. Reminding Maldives 2015.

5. An extended internship in Emory University.
It was a productive one. Walks in Atlanta were remarkable too.

6. ICWS 2016 in San Francisco. 
My best conference experience so far!

7. Berlin, presenting 3 papers at IC2E 2016. 
Berlin has become my most favourite city that I havent lived in yet! My first (and only, so far) doctoral symposium too.

8. CoopIS 2016 in Rhodes
A beautiful Greek island. It was still sunny and pleasant in the autumn.

9. A long walk all over the historic village of Kostrzyn/K�strin in Poland.
Crossing the border of German and Poland!

10. Relaxing weekend in Viseu
A romantic town in Portugal, set in the Christmas mood.

11. The multicultural New York City!

Daily and nightly walks and restaurant crawls.

12. Winning a new laptop.
Feeling lucky! 

13. AMIA-CRI 2016 San Francisco
A podium abstract presentation and a poster presentation. My first poster, and also first time in a medical conference.

14. EMJD-DC Spring Event in Costa da Caparica.
Visiting from Atlanta! A long travel.

15. Finishing touches of Atlanta.
First time selling stuff, and donating things in bulk.

16. Foggy Vaduz castle.

 Liechtenstein is a cute little country!

17. A walk in the wildness, Feldkirch, Austria.

An early morning train ride and walk.

18. Snowy white trees of Uetliberg, Switzerland.

Cold, but pleasant.

19. Return to Lisboa
An intermediate era waiting for my move to Belgium early next year.

20. Cooking innovations
Thanks to the YDFM (Your Dekalb Farmers Market), which offered variety of food products and vegetables at a cheap price, from all over the world.

21. Birthday in the sky.
Not sure where exactly that was. Possibly in the skies of Russia. Since I was flying eastwards, the 00:00 must have shrunk somewhere in the timezone changes.

22. Chinese new year in Shenzhen, China.

Second time to Shenzhen and also my second visit to Splendid China. Good memories.

23. Canon EOS M2.
Taking it everywhere I travel. :)

24. Naming the projects and papers.
It is fun, always.

25. Being a mentor again in GSoC, after 3 years.

26. Applying for visas, after a long time!
To the US and Belgium. Not that I am a fan of visa applications.

27. Olaias metro station.
This is one of the most beautiful metro stations of Europe. This becomes our daily stop the last 3 months.

28. Feeling the heat of being a "senior PhD student".
I am in the middle of the third year. Means, 5 semesters gone. Only 3 remaining. Not a new student anymore.

29. Attending a number of conferences to present my papers.
Last year, I missed many due to clashes in schedules and visa issues. This year was better in that aspect.

30. Looking at the future
Awaiting an "intermediate year of 2017" with more migrations of PhD mobility, and a "final year of 2018", to graduate!

Thanks for reading my list till the end. If you are really interested, you may also read the blog posts on the previous years (2016 - 2012) as well. Happy new year everyone. Hope 2017 will be more positive and bring us more happy news than 2016. I am also reaching the 30s in 2017. This makes 2016 my last complete year in 20s. Feeling old. :D

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a few useful show IP command

a few useful show IP command

sh ip route


R1#sh ip route
Codes: C - connected, S - static, R - RIP, M - mobile, B - BGP
       D - EIGRP, EX - EIGRP external, O - OSPF, IA - OSPF inter area 
       N1 - OSPF NSSA external type 1, N2 - OSPF NSSA external type 2
       E1 - OSPF external type 1, E2 - OSPF external type 2
       i - IS-IS, su - IS-IS summary, L1 - IS-IS level-1, L2 - IS-IS level-2
       ia - IS-IS inter area, * - candidate default, U - per-user static route
       o - ODR, P - periodic downloaded static route


Gateway of last resort is not set


     172.16.0.0/30 is subnetted, 2 subnets
C       172.16.1.0 is directly connected, Serial0/1
C       172.16.2.0 is directly connected, Serial0/0
     10.0.0.0/24 is subnetted, 1 subnets
D       10.1.1.0 [90/2195456] via 172.16.1.2, 00:02:01, Serial0/1
C    192.168.1.0/24 is directly connected, Loopback1

• type of network ; static, connected
• or how the router learn it ; EIGRP, OSPF.from which interface it learned

lets be more specific

show ip route [address]

R1#sh ip rou 10.1.1.1

Routing entry for 10.1.1.0/24

  Known via "eigrp 1", distance 90, metric 2195456, type internal

  Redistributing via eigrp 1

  Last update from 172.16.1.2 on Serial0/1, 00:07:16 ago

  Routing Descriptor Blocks:

  * 172.16.1.2, from 172.16.1.2, 00:07:16 ago, via Serial0/1

      Route metric is 2195456, traffic share count is 1

      Total delay is 21000 microseconds, minimum bandwidth is 1544 Kbit

      Reliability 255/255, minimum MTU 1500 bytes

      Loading 1/255, Hops 1

• how its learned . ex; EIGRP, static or connected..
• how long since the route learned, this can be useful when you want to check how long link down, up time.. etc,
• the bandwidth information are reflected by the value configured on the interface .. what ever value you put, its gonna show the same in here

show ip route connected

show ip route static

• issue this two cmd if you want to filter or be more specific on the type of route

show ip route summary

R1#sh ip rou sum

IP routing table name is Default-IP-Routing-Table(0)

IP routing table maximum-paths is 16

Route Source    Networks    Subnets     Overhead    Memory (bytes)

connected       1           2           216         408

static               0           0           0           0

eigrp 1            0           1           72          136

internal            2                                   2312

Total               3           3           288         2856

Removing Queue Size 0

• this will summarize all you information base on Net, Subnet, Overhead(other memory used) and Memory

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