One thing I never understood is why MySQL insists on creating a table with 'latin1_swedish_ci' as 'collation'. Now, this does more than just collation, it specifies encoding, collation order, and case sensitivity. That's not the issue, but why, oh why, does it insist on making this the default? What is wrong with actually using UTF-8? I mean, MySQL is only used across the world, which means the geographic spread when it comes to character sets would be served by actually having a default that could handle those languages! A missed chance if you ask me.

The movie 'House of Flying Daggers (<span lang="zh">十面埋伏</span>)' contains a song sung by Zhang Ziyi (<span lang="zh">章子怡</span>) called 'The Beauty Song (<span lang="zh">佳人曲</span>)':

北方有佳人，绝世而独立。
一顾倾人城，在顾倾人国。
宁不知倾城与倾国。
佳人难再得。

Which translates to something like the following:

In the north there is a beauty: Surpassing the world, she stands alone.
A glance from her will overthrow a city; A second glance will overthrow the State.
Don't I know she can overthrow the city and the State?
But such a beauty cannot be found again!

This is a poem by the Han Dynasty poet Li Yannian (<span lang="zh">李延年</span>).

Found an interesting correlation between Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors and Babylon 5, both created by J. Michael Straczynksi, on a website dedicated to Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors.

At one point in Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors Gillian reads a marker:

Between the candle and the stars, between the storm cloud and the sun, we
ride the thunder, light against night, from now until forever, we are the
Lightning League!

Satai Delenn in Babylon 5 chants the following incantation when she joined the Grey Council:

Summoned, I come. In Valen's name, I take the place that has been prepared
for me. I am Grey. I stand between the candle and the star. We are Grey. We
stand between the darkness and the light.

In a previous entry I wrote about how the bone radical is written differently in some Chinese cases. Well, thanks to John H. Jenkins of Apple I found out that the People's Republic of China made a switch from the traditional character to the one that has the corner on the left side. This way the stroke count is reduced by one. But for font designers it offers a small problem, since it means that you have to know your target audience quite well.

To sum it up: PRC uses the newer character, most likely Singapore does so too being another simplified Chinese user. Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Macao, and Taiwan use the older character.

In the radical classification system called Kang Xi after the Chinese emperor Kang Xi we find 214 radicals. At position 188 we have the radical nicknamed 'bone' (<span lang="ja">骨</span> - hone). It is part of the group of radicals consisting out of 10 strokes (<span lang="ja">部首</span> - bushu).

The above image shows the character 'bone' in four fonts for the three languages of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. The fonts used are STSong (Chinese), MingLiu (Chinese), MS Mincho (Japanese) and Batang (Korean). As can be seen the Chinese font is the only one that squares off the top image's corner on the left-hand side. The other Chinese font and the Japanese and Korean font do so on the right-hand side.

I raised this issue on the Unicode list since the Unicode character charts have three points where 'bone' is encoded, to note: CJK Radicals Supplement 0x2ee3 (left-hand side), Kangxi Radicals 0x2fbb (right-hand side), and CJK Unified Ideographs 0x9aa8 (left-hand side).

I wonder if the discrepancy is a wrongly written letter during buddhist studies which was taken from China to Japan and subsequently later exported to Korea.

In the article "Jeff Vogel's View From the Bottom #7" Jeff Vogel talks about how he starts to hate computer roleplaying games (RPG). It is funny, but I have recently been thinking about these things as well.

I recently moved house and finally had normal use of my PlayStation 2 and various other equipment again. So I set out to finally finish Final Fantasy IX, X and X-2. Final Fantasy IX wasn't as bad as X was when it came to having to grind your way constantly in order to not suck at the next part where some boss enemy would otherwise kick your butt hard. What's even more perplexing is the fact that Square Enix in some strange state of mind forces you to go through games of reflex (some very bizarre) in order to obtain some item so that you can get the other item/weapon/thinghymajig that will enable to more easily beat the game.

Now, I am not sure what part got confused, but would I be playing an RPG game if I wanted to be tested on my reflexes? If I want to test my reflexes, I'll fire up Half-Life 2, multiplayer Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, or CounterStrike. I never understood these games of reflexes in adventure games like those from Sierra (remember Leisure Suit Larry) and I do not understand them from the point of view of an RPG. No, I do not want to do a bloody Chocobo race! Perhaps I am alone in this mindset, but I do not think so. I do not mind categories to blend, it can make games more interesting, but in these cases it just serves no point whatsoever.

Perhaps this is why Zelda always didn't annoy people. It does not pretend to be one thing and annoy you with something else. You are attacked in real-time by monsters, you fight back in real-time. You have a wimpy three hearts of energy at the start, but as you beat more bosses you gain more hearts. Alternatively you can find more heart pieces that will, once you collect four pieces, give you an additional heart as well. Parts you cannot do or reach is solely due to you not having item X or Y. And you typically do not have to jump to various hoops to get these items. Normally it's either reaching some location and open a chest or beat a monster and gain said item. There's one part in Oracle of Seasons where you have to dance in order to obtain the boomerang. It might take you perhaps three of four times to get it right, but it is obtainable.

Now, try to race the Chocobo in Remiem Temple and try to get three chests. No matter how hard I tried, and granted I might just be bad in this, I managed to get one or two chests only. Reaching for the third always made me loose to the other racer. It gets even more bizarre in the manner that you need one or two 300-400 page strategy books to find out about all secrets. I am all for secrets, but this is getting bizarre beyond comparison (and yes, I have two of the Japanese Final Fantasy X books, and one for X-2, if only for the artwork).

Now, I played World of Warcraft for a few months, but it became so tedious. The moment you encountered someone from the opposite faction who was perhaps two-three levels above your current level you might just get your butt handed to you. I will readily accept that someone of a higher level can beat you more easily, but normally you have at least a fighting chance. Also, to obtain these levels you have to go grinding (the act of sharpening, in the case of MMORPGs the act of building up experience points to gain a higher level) in order to improve. Sure, I can accept the fact that you need experience, it is no different from joining a martial arts group in order to learn a specific art. But there is a big difference here, I think, between the paper based RPGs and the computer ones when it comes to characters and experience. With the paper-based ones you can at least express yourself and choose your path, especially along the axis of alignment (good, evil, chaotic, lawful). With World of Warcraft, no matter which faction you choose, you wind up doing quests that all push your character towards a lawful good or neutral good alignment. You do not have the option yourself to assume a mantel of evil. And that also brings us back to major problem with computer RPGs, you make no lasting impact on the world around you. And ultimately, this was what RPGs set out to do with the paper-based variant. We all loved The Lord of the Rings that we wanted to play our own parts in such grandiose stories and alter the course of history or at least die trying. So, aside from the time spent on the game leveling and gaining items, just what exactly did you accomplish in the world you played in with, say, World of Warcraft?

The song Kung Wala Ka by Hale. Obviously my translation still needs work.

natapos na ang lahát (already/finished/ended everything)
nandito pa rin ako (it's-here yet also/likewise/too I/me)

hetong nakatulala (?)
sa mundó, sa mundó (the world, the world)
hindi mo maisip (you can't see)
hindi mo makikita (you can't see)
mga pang'arap ko (I daydream about you)
para sa'yo, para sa'yo (for you, for you)

oh hindi ko maisip kung wala ka (oh I'm not complete without you)
oh sa buhay ko (oh in my life)

nariyan ka pa ba (are you there yet?)
hindi ka na ma tanaw (I don't see you)
kung mayro'n bang daraanang (if/when have (got) ... ...)
pa s'ulong, pa s'ulong (going onward, going onward)

oh hindi ko maisip kung wala ka (oh I'm not complete without you)
oh sa buhay ko (oh in my life)

sundan mo ang (follow me/you/your ...)
pag himig na lulan (on/if/when ...)
na aking pinagtatanto

sundan mo ang pag himig ko (follow me/you/your .. on/if/when melody/mood my)

oh hindi ko maisip kung wala ka (oh I'm not complete without you)
oh sa buhay ko (oh in my life)

I tried to find Him on the Christian cross, but He was not there; I went to
the Temple of the Hindus and to the old pagodas, but I could not find a
trace of Him anywhere.
I searched on the mountains and in the valleys but neither in the heights
nor in the depths was I able to find Him. I went to the Caaba in Mecca, but
He was not there either.
I questioned the scholars and philosophers but He was beyond their
understanding.
I then looked into my heart and it was there where He dwelled that I saw
Him; He was nowhere else to be found.

Often misattributed to Mawlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jalal_ad-Din_Muhammad_Rumi>.

This song is the theme of Kingdom Hearts 2 - Japanese version. The song is written and sung by Utada Hikaru (<span lang="ja">宇多田ヒカル</span>).

The I need more affection than you know phrase is a sample in reverse.

I need more affection than you know
思い出せば遙か遙か (omoidaseba haruka haruka)
未来はどこまでも輝いてた (mirai wa --I need more affection than you know--
dokomademo kagayaiteta)
きれいな青空の下で (kirei na aozora no shita de)
僕らは少しだけ怯えていた (bokura wa --I need more affection than you know--
sukoshi dake obieteita)

かしい色に窓が染まる (natsukashii iro ni mado ga somaru)

前を向いてればまた会えますか (mae wo muitereba mata ae masu ka)
未来はどこへでも続いてるんだ (mirai wa --I need more affection than you
know-- doko he demo tsuduiterunda)
大きな看板の下で (ooki na kanban no shita de)
時代の移ろいを見ていたいな (jidai no --I need more affection than you know--
utsuroi wo mite itai na)

二度と会えぬ人に場所に (nido to aenu hito ni basho ni)
窓を開ける (mado wo akeru)

思い出せば遙か遙か (omoidaseba haruka haruka)
未来はどこまでも輝いてた (mirai wa --I need more affection than you know--
dokomademo kagayaiteta)
きれいな青空の下で (kirei na aozora no shita de)
僕らはいつまでも眠っていた(bokura wa --I need more affection than you know--
itsumademo nemutte ita)

ずっと前に好きだった人 (zutto mae ni suki datta hito)
冬に子供が生まれるそうだ (fuyu ni kodomo ga umareru sou da)
昔からの決まり事を (mukashi kara no kimari koto wo)
たまに疑いたくなるよ (tama ni utagai taku naru yo)
ずっと忘れられなかったの (zutto wasurerare nakatta no)
年賀状は写真付かな (nengajou wa shashin tsuka na)
わたしたちに出来なかったことを (watashi-tachi ni dekina katta koto wo)
とても懐かしく思うよ (totemo natsukashiku omou yo)
I need more affection than you know

Currently I am playtesting a lot of MMORPGs and today I tried out Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC). It just didn't work for me. The entire moving feels sluggish, the interface feels clumsy and the non-player character (NPC) interaction reminds me of dealing with old-style MUDs. The setting seems promising though, especially the inter-realm warfare, but to me the pleasure was quickly drained due to the highly annoying user interface (UI).

There's no easy way by default to get to the option screen. I mean, people nowadays almost expect the escape key to be bound to the game menu or options menu. Nearly every game has this. The entire UI handling is slow that it feels like trying to maneuver through syrup or something. Not to mention that the talking with NPCs is grating, you get a window with some text, some word is underlined, you click on it, you get more text and it goes a few times like this, and you wind up with some quest.

The graphics do not look too bad or dated, but didn't really inspire much. And the weird thing is that I already experienced some strange glitches where one moment I saw a bunch of enemies standing around and next they just disappeared only to rematerialize a few seconds later.

Perhaps the game gets better later but it just couldn't keep me enticed. The slugginess is compared to World of Warcraft, Ryzom, and EverQuest II.