Charmian's Journal

Update

Mon, 19 May 2014 10:26:11 GMT

Updated notesonleaves a bit.

In other news, it seems LJ is updating its design again. Currently there is an opt-out while the design is in beta, but that will disappear after the beta period ends. In the meantime it feels like everyone has gone more to Tumblr than ever.

Currently reading a travelogue about Buddhist statuary in Japan. However I do not know enough about Buddhism so unless I have seen it I need to look everything up. I need the idiot's guide to Buddhist iconography.

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Random graphs

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 11:19:23 GMT

(note, you might need to be logged into google to see the full graph)

Was bored and looking at Google Trends, randomly.

http://trends.google.com/websites?q=myspace.com&geo=all&date=ytd&sort=0

In the past year, Myspace has lost over 50% of its traffic.

This made me curious to see how LJ was doing.

http://trends.google.com/websites?q=livejournal.com&geo=all&date=ytd&sort=0

Globally, LJ has stayed stable, with around two million daily visitors.

http://trends.google.com/websites?q=livejournal.com&geo=RU&date=ytd&sort=0

In Russia, traffic has risen significantly over the past year, to around over ~1.4 (maybe 1.5) million.

http://trends.google.com/websites?q=livejournal.com&geo=US&date=ytd&sort=0

In about a year, the US daily visitor traffic, however, has gone from ~500K to somewhat under ~400K. This represents around a 20% decline. (Thusly, Russian traffic is about three times the size of US traffic, and the US contributes 20% of LJ's visitors, if Google Trends' stats are correct.)

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some links

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 08:04:17 GMT

Via elena: Microsoft to shut down their Windows Live Spaces blogging site, allows users the option of moving to Wordpress.com.

A User's Guide to Websites, part 1: If it wasn't broken, why fix it?

I was also talking to someone who felt that SUP splitting LJ into Cyrillic (meaning mainly Russian and other languages using the cyrillic script) and non-Cyrillic services (mainly English) as a bad thing for users. However, I don't really agree. It makes sense to split them up, because the Russian-language and English usages of the site are so different, and because certain things which Russian (and other Cyrillic-script using languages) users like, might be disliked by the English language userbase, and we might have had even MORE drama. Also, some of the features for the Russian-speaking userbase are more useful when restricted only to journals which use a common language, such as 'popular posts' and 'top users.' [edited for clarity]

/goes back to reading very long book which they made an anime of. PG 400 w00t. Why do I read so slow in Japanese...

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Grrrr stuck on the translation

Sat, 08 May 2010 21:04:08 GMT

Posting on the off chance that anyone can help:

The context is a conversation between A and B. A is planning some kind of coup, and B is one of his followers.

B: "blah blah blah....もう舞台から降りるなんて、ナシですよ。　あなたを待ってる人がいる。　......裏切らないでください」
Narration: [cut] 裏切ったら殺すともとれるが、Aには裏切ってもいいとも聞こえた。理由は分からない。たとえばBがAを裏切っても、Aは別に彼を殺さないし、それをBも知っている。けれどBは、それが気に食わないようだった。むしろ自分が裏切ったら殺すくらいしてほしいと、いつだって言っている気がした。　だから、いつからAが自分を裏切っても構わないけれど、その時は、裏切らないのと同じくらいの対価が欲しい。　そんな風に聞こえる。どっちにせよ、Bが求めるものは、本当はたった一つでしかない気がした。　裏切るにせよ、信じるにせよ。誰が相手でも。Bの生き方はいつだってそうだ。　確かなのは、相手にとびきり高価な対価を求めるということ。　払いきれないと、すべてを失う。

The underlined part is what I don't get. -_- I included the rest for context.

This whole passage is kind of confusing in general (as you might guess from this passage, B is somewhat nutty, as evidenced by him suddenly trying to strangle A for no apparent reason whatsoever. A is like all 'whatevers' about it, though. I suppose it's hard to find good help these days.

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peevishness

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 19:28:30 GMT

I'm getting seriously peeved at the people who write in to me asking 'when will you be uploading the translation?' FFS, does it really matter WHEN? They ought to be asking 'will you be translating at all?' (seriously, I don't understand why the 'when' is so important. I can understand 'if' better.) -_-

I don't really mind much when it's people I do know, but when it's complete strangers, meh.

I may write a more diplomatic version of this later for the blog.

(Once again, it strikes me that translating is different from writing fanfiction/any type of fiction. There is less of a pressing intrinsic reason to do it, more external ones. I translate, I think, extrinsicly mostly because I want to read some English language discussion, but from that perspective it's somewhat less than rewarding (for this series), possibly because this is one of those times where I am reading/watching it for a different reason from 75% of the fandom. I guess on the whole feedback debate, while I am in no way offended or annoyed by the one-liner 'thanks' responses, they're not really what I'm 'doing it for,' and it's not like I'm going to receive concrit either.)

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anime/manga newsletter comm on DW

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 20:39:44 GMT

http://animanga-news.dreamwidth.org/ <---Now-active anime/manga newsletter comm. Subscribe and submit!

Sadly, these days my participation in anime/manga fandom is mostly confined to translating in a moribund fandom, but anyway. (Gone off WJ manga since these days, honestly, it's interminable (why was it that five years ago they managed to end popular series in under forty volumes?), and the other stuff that has interested me has no English-language fandom)

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google checkout et al

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 07:39:59 GMT

Urgh, looks like Google Checkout no longer wants to do business w/ Dreamwidth because DW allows adult content on the site. I'm confused why Paypal then does business with Livejournal, considering that LJ allows adult content on their site as well.

What is the deal with these services? Do they define 'adult content' as 'any site which does not specifically prohibit adult content'? (But then, why LJ?) Anyway, hopefully DW will soon find a credit card processor which allows for adult content.

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various things, #890786

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 19:58:26 GMT

1. Seriously, LIMERICKS? Isn't there something more useful LJ staffers could be doing? WTF?

2. Posted elsewhere my thoughts on SW3 CG scenes (tl;dr version: LOL, and man, they really changed around some of the non-historical relationships), Aoi Hana (tl;dr version: too lacking in structure?, or maybe I just hate slice of life. Bailed after two vols), and Saiunkoku spoilers (tl;dr version: stuff happens, but a lot of stuff fails to happen yet. As usual recent Saiunkoku reads a lot better if you like the higher officials).

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doujinshi et al

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:34:03 GMT

Must say, my immediate reaction was "well, manga by women for a female audience is going to have fewer doujin and such, because 1) most doujin is about pairings and shipping, and b) most manga by women for a female audience has pairings in it (and pairings that the audience is interested in). Thusly, since it's already in the canon, there is less of a need to create fanworks."

( however, to complicate matters )

In other news, am rereading slowly the Ravages of Time. BTW, I heard that someone refused to read it because there was a lack of bishounen, which totally confuses me. (I mean, not that all the characters are pretty, but it's not like there is a lack, either?) But then, I read Jojo, so maybe my aesthetic values have been permanently warped.

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Google Wave

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:10:52 GMT

So, 100,000 invites for Google Wave have been sent out. Anyone have one? What do they think?

As for what Google Wave is, it's explained here. Basically it helps people collaborate and communicate in real time. It sounds really powerful, and it can be embedded.

Plus, developers can create applications/robots which can be used inside of Google Wave (see here for some examples).

I wonder how this will affect blogging? Right now, there is something that will let you embed a Wave into a Wordpress post. (Wordpress seems to have stepped into the world of vaguely twitterlike real-time blogging already.) So, it seems the blog post is merging with the comments, in a cross between a chat-room and a wiki? Interesting. Could this to some extent replace IRC chatrooms, as it allows rich media embedding and private conversations as well?

Some, though, are more skeptical. The way that "it's like email and IM got together and had a baby" doesn't impress him; he finds large Waves to be un-usefully noisy.

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ontd's brand of fandom

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:23:44 GMT

So to cut it all short, ONTD had a drunken, blueberry-infused hookup with Eli Roth in the nightclub restroom which is Myspace (or maybe Twitter?), and now F_w is reading the facebook status where ONTD is bragging about it, and going 'omg ONTD is such a slut!!!'?. Admittedly, not all people on f_w have that reaction, but I'm kind of boggling here. Honestly, the sorts of fandoms that f_w draws its members from are full of things that would be considered much, much worse than what went down in ONTD by mainstream society.

Sometimes, on a meta level I find celeb gossip fandom kind of interesting, ( Read more... )

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Mangahelpers going Crunchyroll?

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 09:42:27 GMT

It seems the scanlation world has been rocked, as popular scanlation distribution site/forum Mangahelpers seems to have been secretly planning to go legit. A draft of a business plan and an email to a company have been leaked ad posted. Mangahelpers responded, and answered some questions on the matter.

I kind of wonder whether if any company would bite at the idea of collaborating with Mangahelpers. Mangahelpers's real strength is not that they have raws or that they have downloads; it's more that it's frequented by scanlators and translators, and it provides a hangout for them to form groups, recruit, and collaborate. There's a big bank of available translations, also.

How successful was Crunchyroll, anyway?

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Thoughts about future domain plans...

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:39:04 GMT

Been thinking what to do with my domain. Maybe I could move the fandom stuff (mostly Saiunkoku) off to wp.com, and then axe the /log subdomain. Then I could start up a new blog for book reviews (reposting the old ones I put on my LJ). I also was thinking of trying out google adsense. Most of what I write about has little commercial value, if any, but perhaps there is some interest in writing about language learning? Or kanji.

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more random thoughts, again w/ the Shiba Ryoutarou

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:34:44 GMT

SubD had an interesting tangential comment in the last entry. Unfortunately, I'm totally unqualified to respond to it in any way, because I didn't even know that apparently indie concerts are cheaper than rap/pop/metal concerts. According to jokersama, though, this is mostly a reflection of the relative lack of popularity that indie acts have. Pop and rock cost a lot because they play arenas which use Ticketmaster. Such indie acts, even if they can sell out popular venues, can't fill up huge arenas, therefore, they don't play there, don't use Ticketmaster, and prices are low, so it seems to be less of a reflection of the nature of indie than a reflection on its relative popularity. (Unless a band gets to that level and deliberately rejects playing large venues)

Anyway, was talking to Sabina about this, and what seems to have happened, according to her, is that in recent years, indie bands which were formerly obscure are hitting the top ten, not because they've become more popular, but because everything else has gotten less. Indie fans often love to buy things like vinyl, therefore they're overrepresented among that portion of the music-buying public who actually puts down cash to buy albums. Therefore, they've become more influential.

(So the audience has been reduced to the hardcore fans, with everyone else streaming or buying less or downloading?)

In other news, reading Harimanan Monogatari, which is SUPPOSED to be about Kuroda Kanbei (the dude who was Hideyoshi's strategist after Takenaka Hanbei dies, and now a new character in SW3), but I'm like forty pages in, and Kanbei hasn't even been born.　This was serialized in a newspaper, so I'm kind of er dude are you trying to pad this story, which is why it's four books long? ( talking to myself here, as you either can't read this book or have no interest in doing so )

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amateur disclosure; destroyers of the hugpile

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:33:21 GMT

1. Vaguely inspired by this post, I was thinking that journalists are required to disclose conflicts of interests. For the world of professional reviewing, I'm not sure how that works, but probably an editor would avoid assigning someone's best friend (or worst enemy) to review their book? (However, it might be hard, in some literary circles, to find a completely unrelated reviewer)

Yet, it seems increasingly, as review sections shrink in publications, that people are relying on amateur, online sources for their reviews. Simultaneously, authors are like anyone else, going online and meeting and befriending readers, as well as other writers (perhaps to an even greater extent which they did in the past?) Is there a problem, either practical or ethical, with the amateur reviewers not disclosing any dealings or relationships they might have with the author or entity publishing the author? Are amateurs bound by any codes? If you endorse a friend's work in your blog, will you need to add a disclosure statement?

2. ( write-up of a conversation which might make no sense, depending on how well I write it up )

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a post o' the day

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 08:54:29 GMT

Finished Gyakuten Kenji: Solid, but not world-altering (er, in the sense that it doesn't really develop the whole situation of the prev. appearing characters; more like it's a good detective novel, rather than the sort of novel where the point is to rearrange the characterization)

Finished also a Japanese novel that vaguely reminded me of Shunsaku Endo's stuff in that it's about the miserable lives of the common people in premeiji Japan (I can't tell whether it's Sengoku or Edo period, and that should tell you something), about a wretched village of fisherfolk who depend on luring ships to disaster for their very survival. The back cover describes it as "Gothic," yet it's nearly naturalism, but more lyrical than the image of what naturalism commonly is.

What to read next: Mishima's the Temple of Dawn (book 3 of the Sea of Fertility) or K.J. Parker's Devices and Desires? Or, another Graham Greene? (vote if you feel like it)

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Behind like a behindy thing

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 09:51:32 GMT

I have soooo not read anything related with fandom or even regular internets stuff in awhile (including Tumblr). I don't know if I will EVER get up to date on my LJ flist. XD Admittedly, I'm not really actively in fandom now, so it's not like it makes much of a difference anymore.

On the other hand, I have been playing Phoenix Wright 3, Apollo Justice, and Gyakuten Kenji (the one w/ Mitsurugi as protagonist). Shall write in more detail later, but my capsule reviews.

PW3: Should not, obviously, be played without playing the first two games. I do see the criticism that there was waaaay too much supernaturalism in the last case, but it didn't bother me as much, because by that time I just wanted to see how the story ended.

AJ: Ehhhh. As a mystery/gameplay experience, pretty good, but as a PW game, strange for many "worldbuilding" reasons, and in the last case, far too many things came out of left field.

GK: Am on the last case now, and really enjoying it. (Playing this in Japanese) This is actually not really a game that I'd want to play (as a story) without having played at least the first two Phoenix Wright games (the last is not as necessary). Actually, I wonder what someone who didn't play even the first game would make of it, as the events regarding the last game are only alluded to (although fairly detailed things are alluded to), so if you hadn't played the first PW game, you wouldn't know about just how twisted the relationship between Mitsurugi and his mentor ended up being. (Also, maybe it's just me, but I find some of the things Mei says to Mitsurugi on the subject of the Karuma legacy etc rather weird, but one might not if they only played this game; tho in general one might say the relationship between Mitsurugi and Mei is like a twisted parody of the relationship between Phoenix and Maya (disciple, and deceased mentor's younger relative), it's rather different in some ways, like the rivalry thing). Anyway, more when I'm done.

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Haven't been around

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 06:33:02 GMT

Been doing stuff and going places, but am basically fine, if rather tired. Will be scarce for awhile.

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LOL nostalgia

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 03:52:53 GMT

http://manticore.dreamwidth.org/12213.html?style=mine

Ah, teh nostalgia.

I have to disagree with the idea that 'fannish activity' centers around LJ. LJ is a center, but one of many, depending on the fandom and the type of activity. Yeah, nowadays an info site is useless because of the 'everything is translated' thing.

Anyway, the thing that is interesting me now is, will LJ remain a center? Or will it be 'replaced' by something else? If so, what? What will be the new centers?

In other news, finished reading Kwaidan, by Lafcadio Hearn, and am now starting another Angela Carter collection. Am also playing Warriors Orochi 2.

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random rambling

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 19:25:22 GMT

You know what I wish I could do with LJ/DW now? Nowadays I'm like "bleh, I want to turn off email notifications and just check my inbox for new stuff." Unfortunately, it's not really possible now, and I have no idea whether it will be possible in the future on LJ, which is where I'd really like to do it.

Of course that would mean that people would need to stop doing the thing where they in lieu of writing your a PM leave a comment and delete it, because if you turned off email notifications and just routed everything to the Inbox, when someone deletes a comment, all it shows up as is "deleted comment."

In other news, am incredibly amused that DW6: Empires allows you (as in their other Three Kingdoms franchise) to marry the characters, even if it is, from the vids I see on Nico, rather kind of like Neoroma meets DW at times XD.

Also, wow, there is a real dearth of info on SW3.

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Bores: Threat or Menace?

Mon, 25 May 2009 00:14:50 GMT

http://blackbeardblog.tumblr.com/post/111468330/online-communities-fight-the-real-enemy

This entry posits that bores are the real menace to online communities, not trolls. The problem is, though, who is a bore is subjective: who decides what is an interesting idea?

Then, does it then become a problem of 'read the FAQ, gdmnit' or 'not liking the atmosphere, but not having anything to complain about because they're all legit posts'? Maybe the solution is to turn everything into a social network, and then bores may be safely sequestered and form their own subgroups of boringness.

Maybe another solution is to become so provocative that everyone is forced to say something interesting.

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rambling today

Sun, 17 May 2009 11:20:05 GMT

Am allllmost done with the translation of the artbook Saiunkoku story. (As usual, will be posted at the blog).

Some notes on random fictive tropes:

I loved the part in Book of the New Sun where there was the storytelling contest, and Severian puzzled over which stories were the best and by which criteria they should be judged and what each story really meant, and what the motivation of each teller was in telling it.

The reset ending in part 6 of a certain manga: it somehow interests me to essentially end as an AU and negate everything to create a "better world"?

Can the "and it was all a dream and they woke up" ending work well? For some reason I want to see someone pull it off.

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FanSupported music models?

Mon, 11 May 2009 21:52:55 GMT

petronia has made a survey about the concept of "Fansupported" in the music biz, and she needs 100 people to take it. It's a very short survey.

I'm not a big music buyer, nor do I really follow any bands. If I like music, I'll... listen to it, but in my entire life, I've never gone to a concert or bought musician merchandise. So I answered the survey in extremely hypothetical terms.

Nevertheless, the concept behind it is intriguing: we all know the music industry is troubled as a result of the collapse of their economic model in the face of technology. But, bands need start up capital to make recordings. So, how can they get it? One model which has developed is the concept of fans giving money to the band towards the recording of their album. The fans give a certain sum, and are proportionately rewarded with something. Sometimes, this may be legal d/ls or copies of the CD, or other things like merchandise, autographs, discounts, etc, or it may be revenue sharing.

( how I answered the survey. Don't read because it may prejudice you or whatever, so go take the survey first )

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Communities vs. Fora

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 23:30:12 GMT

So now DW has a population of over 1000. The average age seems quite a bit higher than on LJ.

ONTD on LJ has over 90,000 members. Man... Now that's a huge comm.

Speaking of comms, I was thinking that LJ comms are basically group blogs, but a group blog is not always what a community needs. It all depends what the topic of a community is. For things that are time dependent, or where the object of the discussion is to comment on the OP's post, group blogs work fairly well. Examples of this are gossip, and to some extent groups dedicated to sharing creative works (although there are downsides to the blogging format, and often such groups would also be well served by a non-time dependent CMS/gallery format), links sharing sites like mefi, news discussion groups, anything where there is quick obsolescence.

However... for a group designed for discussion, is that really the best format? If we're discussing a book series, where there is not frequent new information, isn't a forum in some was a better format? That way topics are bumped up to the top of the list depending on how many people reply to them, and older topics can retain their prominence on the forum if people find them relevant enough to keep posting to them. I think this format also helps newbies find older important discussions more easily. There might also be an end to annoying "hi, introducing myself" tendencies if there was a dedicated forum post for them pinned to the top.

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First Post!

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 07:23:43 GMT

Have gotten an account! Hurray!

I haven't quite figured out what I want to be using this for. Friends-locked entries will probably be infrequent, though.

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