:: My Urban Eyes ::
All that I see, and then some.
:: Tuesday, February 27, 2007 ::
In Style
Not Oscar style, but word style, woo! -_^
I've been reading The Economist's website today--a lot of awesome stuff on there. They've even published part of their style guide, which informs staff writers that "In countries with a presidential system you may run for office. In those with a parliamentary one, stand" and the correct spellings of names such as Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, Jean-Pierre Chevènement, and Vladimir Zhirinovsky. My favorite section, though, has to do with "Americanisms".
You see, The Economist is a British magazine, so they stick with British spellings such as colour and flavour. In addition they caution against using American vocabularly and grammar. My favorite points:
- People rest from their labours at weekends, not on them and during the week their children are at school, not in it.
- A parking lot is a car park. Use senior rather than ranking, rumpus rather than ruckus,and rumbustious rather than rambunctious.
- In particular, do not fight shy—-as Americans often do-—of the perfect tense, especially where no date or time is given. Thus Mr Bush has woken up to the danger is preferable to Mr Bush woke up to the danger.
- And if you must use American expressions, use them correctly (a rain-check does not imply checking on the shower activity).
It's interesting on so many levels--first of all, the idea that the British are so throughly rejecting changes in the English language simply because they're "American" in origin. I also have to giggle because British English just sounds weird to the American ear sometimes ("he's been taken to hospital" ...the hospital?). But it's also interesting how many deep differences there are. I always knew that a lorry was a truck and a cheque was a check, but I had no idea that "ex-servicemen are not necessarily veterans". (Why not? Dishonor-, er, honourable discharge?)
Want to see how your English fares? Take this quiz based on their style guide to see.
(Note: you may have to watch an ad in order to access the site. It's totally worth it.)
Labels: Media
:: Kazen @ Always Doing 8:49 PM [+] ::
:: ... 1 comments
Comments:
Thanks for letting me know what a lorry was. I listen to Virgin radio from London everyday at work. They are always saying that the road is closed due to an over turned lorry. Now I know what it is. It is different and takes getting used to with their words and sayings. I think I have most of them down but somethings still trip me up. I just love the accent for some reason. I could listen to it all day. Love YA!!!!!!! Aimee
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# posted by 
: 6:27 AM
: 6:27 AM:: Monday, November 20, 2006 ::
A New Yorker Thanksgiving
Cartoonist Chris Ware did four New Yorker covers for their Thanksgiving issue, and they rock. I'm having a hard time deciding which one I want to arrive in my mailbox! I especially love that characters show up on more than one cover, and that seeing all four provides a more complete story. To see what I mean check them all out (in high res, yea!) here.update: [11.22.06] I got the cover pictured here, go fig, hehe. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Labels: Media
:: Kazen @ Always Doing 7:02 PM [+] ::
:: ... 2 comments
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:: Friday, November 17, 2006 ::
Konnichiwa, pasokon desu.
I'm a big fan of the "I'm a PC/I'm a Mac" ads... and they've finally come to Japan! The cultural differences are funny--the PC dude is a "salary man", and the Mac dude uses slightly less formal Japanese. The acting isn't as good as in the American version, though. :/ Here's my favorite vid, followed by a translation by yours truly:
Mac: Hi there, I'm a Mac.
PC: Hello, I'm a PC.
Mac: Ah, an iPod. What'cha listening to?
PC: Some Eurobeat.
Mac: Eurobeat?
PC: Isn't iPod great? iTunes is easy to use, and podcasts are fun, too.
Mac: Well, a Mac is just as simple for stuff like photos and movies, since it uses iLife.
PC: iLife, eh? Well, I have some pretty cool software, too.
Mac: Ahh, like what?
PC: A calculator.
Mac: ...anything else?
PC: A clock!
edit [6.18pm]: Here's the original ad in English. ^_^
:: Kazen @ Always Doing 5:54 PM [+] ::
:: ... 0 comments
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:: Thursday, November 09, 2006 ::
Blogger Beta
It's neat because I finally get tags, like a real blogger. But my archives seem to have disappeared off of the sidebar. Not cool. Working on a fix for it at the moment, we'll see how it goes.
Update: [2.40pm] Fixed! Yea knowing a tiny bit of html!
Labels: Media
:: Kazen @ Always Doing 2:04 PM [+] ::
:: ... 0 comments
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:: Thursday, October 26, 2006 ::
My Media Diet
While I was in Japan I became out of touch with U.S. news and the English language. I read the New York Times and listened to NPR as much as I could, but the slip was slow, steady, and inevitable. Now that my life has settled down and my free time has become predictable I've been able to catch up as far as tv, radio, and print go. Here's what's commanding my attention:
Television
- The Daily Show: The satire has become predictable, but the election coverage is still good. Two new faces stand out: John Oliver as the token Brit and John Hodgman as the Resident Expert.
- The Colbert Report: Still has a refreshing, scathing bite to the writing. I find myself skipping over the Better Know a District segments, but The Word is consistantly well done. I'm also looking forward to the book, which supposedly will be written largely by Colbert.
- Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip: Aaron Sorkin, best known for creating The West Wing, continues to work his wordy magic here. I love the cast (especially the West Wing holdovers), though Amanda Peet's performance is lacking.
Radio and Podcasts
.:NPR:.
- Morning Edition and All Things Considered [RSS]: perhaps the best national news out there.
- KQED's The California Report [RSS]: My (vain?) effort to become familar with California news and politics.
- WNYC's On the Media [RSS]: A weekly hour long look at issues facing the media, from the obvious (bloggers getting jailed, the ethics of anonymous sources) to the not so obvious (pop song references in legal decisions, the outing of Lonelygirl15).
- This American Life [RSS]: "Stories based around a theme", though that description does it little justice. Some of the most interesting, captivating radio in existance.
.:Other:.
- Stanford Campus Events and Lectures [RSS]: Speeches by leaders in their field. I especially love the Knight Fellow journalism talks.
- The New Yorker: What can I say? Awesome and essential.
Needless to say, I reccomend all of these. ^_^ Is there something I should add to my list? Leave a comment and let me know!
Labels: Media
:: Kazen @ Always Doing 10:08 PM [+] ::
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:: Thursday, May 11, 2006 ::
I Scooped the Times
The New York Times! Don't believe me? Lookie here. Then lookie here. Different angle, but the same story. Boo-yah. Hehe. ^_^
Labels: Media
:: Kazen @ Always Doing 4:15 PM [+] ::
:: ... 0 comments
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:: Wednesday, May 10, 2006 ::
Article Roundup
'Cause I'm finding a lot of neato things today. ^_^
- This article from the New York Times says that high gas prices aren't the end of the world, and I have to agree. During the 90's we enjoyed unusually low prices in gas, now it's corrected (with inflation, of course) to "normal" levels. Also, higher gas prices encourage people to buy cars that get more miles to the gallon, drive less, and use public transit. I have no plan to buy a car for at least five years and take public transit instead; it would be nice if more people could pledge the same.
- Bush's job approval rating hit a new all time low of 31% according to this poll. If you think that's low, 26% approve of the way he is dealing with immigration, and a measly 13% approve of his handing of gas prices.
- NPR has posted its Election 2006 website, and oh what a trove of information it is. Click on each state for info on all of the upcoming races, primary dates, and more.
Labels: Media
:: Kazen @ Always Doing 8:24 PM [+] ::
:: ... 0 comments
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:: Friday, May 05, 2006 ::
Copyright Quandary
Copyright exists to protect the intellectual property of creators, but nowadays it's meaning has been diluted down to dollars and cents (excepting Creative Commons, of course).Want some proof? The RIAA is an easy target, but here's another one: CSPAN. Yes, you heard me right, the non-profit bringer of Congressional roll calls and White House press conferences. Recently CSPAN had the video of Stephen Colbert at the White House Press Dinner pulled from You Tube, citing copyright (take a look at this Boing Boing post for the play-by-play). No problem yet--they own the copyright to the video, so taking it off is their right. In fact, seeing as how they want to protect their intellecutal property, I bet while they were at it they asked for all of their videos to be taken off, such as dinners from years past. But no.
So why only this one video? It's probably because they're selling a DVD of the performance for a (discounted) price of $24.95. Dinners from years past aren't available, so they can stay.
If it's all about money, then why are they also streaming a (low quality) version of the dinner? CSPAN gets its money from the cable providers that carry it. I'm willing to bet that the more viewership they can account for--be it over cable or fiber optic lines--the higher premiums they can charge. Why let hundreds of thousands of viewings go to waste when you can force people to watch it from your own site, making money in the process?
Now, being a non-profit, I'm sure that CSPAN will do something good with any extra revenue it recieves--maybe buy a new camera or hire a new reporter. But it all still comes down to dollars and cents, not the true purpose of copyright--protecting creators.
Update (5/6/06): The video has now made it to Google video, in a weird twist of fate.
:: Kazen @ Always Doing 5:11 PM [+] ::
:: ... 3 comments
Comments:
Thanks for the awesome link, Mike! Come to think of it, that probably explains why on the Daily Show, if I remember correctly, the CSPAN logo is usually blurred out. Very interesting...
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:: Friday, April 07, 2006 ::
How is This for Nerd Rock?
"I'll meet you at the point of diminishing returns." -Harvey Danger
(They went indie, by the way, and you can pick up their new album, Little by Little, for free at their website.)
Labels: Media
:: Kazen @ Always Doing 9:31 PM [+] ::
:: ... 0 comments
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:: Tuesday, December 27, 2005 ::
Realization
I'm listening to David Sedaris' "Santaland Diaries" (a must listen, by the way [click on the RA icon, starts at 4:20 in]) and it hits me--why it hasn't felt like Christmas. It's not a lack of merrymaking, or of Christmas trees or Christmas music (Bill O'Reilly should come here--Christmas isn't religious in Japan, so the word is everywhere). Nor was it a lack of presents (thanks for the cookies, Mom and Mark's Mom ^_^), or even snow (a quarter of an inch of snow is still snow, I guess). It was none of these things.
It was missing the Charlie Brown Christmas Special.
More specifically, it was missing the jazzy, piano laden "O Tannenbaum". You know the one, it usually plays when the kids are outside, maybe walking back with the spindly Christmas tree, wondering if they chose wisely. It's just not Christmas until I hear it--while shopping at the mall, on the radio station that changes to an all-carol format the day after Halloween, or when Charlie Brown realizes what the holiday is all about.
So, for me, Christmas was December 27th this year. Merry Christmas to me.
:: Kazen @ Always Doing 8:05 PM [+] ::
:: ... 2 comments
Comments:
I know the feeling, it really wasn't a Christmas-y Christmas over hear either for the same reason, I just couldn't watch the movies.
Let me know when you get your Xmas card from j&me! ok? I want to know if I typed the whole big address right.
-eliz
Let me know when you get your Xmas card from j&me! ok? I want to know if I typed the whole big address right.
-eliz
# posted by : 7:43 AM
: 7:43 AM
Elizabeth, damn you're quick! I'm still sitting here at my comp! Hehehe.
I can't even check my mail until January 5th ~sob!~... so I'll let you know that it came through safely then.
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I can't even check my mail until January 5th ~sob!~... so I'll let you know that it came through safely then.
