• Work your way up. Before you stand on the shoulders of giants, you’ll need to stand on the shoulders of fleas. From there, you can work your way up to the shoulders of frogs, then on to cats, dogs, ponies, small children and midgets, regular sized people, tall people, and then finally giants. If you try to jump too far ahead when you’re not ready, you won’t make it to shoulder height. The history books don’t make much mention of Isaac Newton’s Latin teacher, but without that teacher, Newton couldn’t have read the ancient works of Aristotle which he then proceeded to discredit so thoroughly.
• Befriend the Giant. He’s much more likely to let you hang around if you and he get along. The only thing a giant loves more than writing some huge tome of revolutionary knowledge, is hearing from somebody who’s read that tome. The way to a giant’s heart is through his publications– and his email account.
• Make yourself bigger. Even if you manage to reach the titan’s shoulders, if you’re not ready to be there, he’ll absently swat you away without even realizing it. It’s not that he’s mean. It’s just that, if his works are lightyears above your head, then you’re like a small bug to him. Some of the really big giants, the ultra mecha’s if you will, they can’t even see you unless you’re at least a normal-sized giant yourself!
• Living giants are better than dead ones. You might need to use the shoulders of dead giants to get the leverage to reach those of live ones. As a general rule of thumb though, if a colossus has been in the ground for too long, any fruit within reach of his ol’ shoulders will already be picked. Get up on the back of a titan in his prime, and there’ll be low-hanging fruits to pick. He’ll consider fruits too small to bother with, even though they’re bigger than your head! Pick those and gobble them up and you’ll grow like crazy.
• Once you’ve made it, let others stand on yours. Congratulations, you’ve made it to the forefront, the rarefied upper atmosphere where only the most Herculean behemoths wander. Don’t forget how you got there. Let others clamber onto your back, and share the bounties of your discoveries generously. Now you’re the old master, and these young’uns are the ones who will ensure that your legacy endures ’til the end of time.

FURTHER READING

Autodidact, Ph.D.
The Katamari Damacy model of Growth
Smarter Than The Teacher
How to Train your Mathematical Maturity

(Largely inspired by this)

FURTHER READING

Romance Movie Cliches
You Might Be A Grammar Nazi If…
Seven Signs we Live in a Dystopia

The Very Serious Person is usually on the older side of life. Whether his solemn gravity ages his body prematurely, or whether that gravity is the result of decades of being beat up by the dirty hippies he resents so much, the world may never know. He is easily offended, which might explain the perpetual scowl on his face. If he weren’t wearing the fancy suit and tie, you’d almost be tempted to say he had some kind of attitude problem, but since he’s wearing the suit and you’re not, the problem must be your own. In fact, maybe that’s why he’s so offended by you, it’s your attitude. It almost makes you wonder why he’s talking at your graduation ceremony in the first place. He obviously doesn’t fit in, who invited him anyway? Oh, right, his Very Serious Friend who happens to be the school president.

I suppose it must be nice to be the Very Serious Person. Her status as such entitles her to special consideration from other VSP’s, who coincidentally happen to hold many important positions in society. When it comes down to it, her word will be given at least equal weight, if not more, to that of an actual scientist in whatever field is under discussion. Whether it’s the origin of species, foreign policy, law, medicine, or economics, a fancy degree is nice but it’s nothing compared to a fancy tie and a Serious Facial Expression. Our civilization has advanced past Sacred Cows, so instead we have Sacred Suits.

At least they “act their age”, even if nobody else their age does.

I feel sympathy for the poor darlings. I want to rescue them from their meetings, their PowerPoint Presentations, their suits. I want to play volleyball with them and eat ice cream with them and bring out the inner child they’re trying so desperately to smother and suffocate on TV and on the golf course. Mr. Business Suit, if you’re reading this, we accept you just the way you are! You’ve done it, you’ve proved it all, you can lighten up a bit now and have some fun! You’ve made enough money, you’ve given enough speeches, you’ve successfully reached your quotas, congratulations! We never meant you to take everything so seriously in the first place– that was just something your high school counselor told you so you’d stop bothering her! You’re grown up now. Nobody cares if you [insert fun, immature behavior here], except your fellow Very Serious People, and you know, they’ve got problems of their own!

FURTHER READING

Seven Signs we Live in a Dystopia
Reality Escapes
You might be a prescriptivist if…

So far it’s been a fun quick little project to give me more practice incorporating 3rd party scripts into my wordpress theme and throw on some database stuff as well (with the votes). And as for the results, I was pleasantly surprised at how funny some of the random names turned out to be

The names are meant to be funny rather than realistic, of course. I’m also on the lookout for more nouns to use. If you have any suggestions, put them in the forum It’s particularly hard to think of “place” names (like “bar”/”lounge”/”kitchen”/”garden” etc.)

A few examples:

• Amazing Tokyo Squid Garden
• Happy Yokohama Tofu Outlet
• Kintaro’s Exotic Sashimi Tsunami
• Furious Karaoke Eel Palace
• And lots more… Check it out

FURTHER READING

A Goldmine of Engrish
Ninja Koans
Japanese Programming Language Syntax

The Overly Clever Zen-master

The ninja Nobushige visited the Zen Master Haukin and asked: “Is there a Heaven and Hell?”

“Who are you?” asked the old master.

“I am a ninja” replied Nobushige.

“You, a ninja!” exclaimed Haukin. “What kind of ruler would have you as his ninja? Your face looks more like that of a beggar!”

Nobushige was furious and he began to draw his katana.

Haukin said: “So you have a katana! It looks much too dull to cut off my head!”

Nobushige whipped the blade out and thrust it toward Haukin.

Haukin remarked: “Here open the gates of H–” He was interrupted as Nobushige cut his head right off.

Never Ask A Ninja For Enlightenment

One day, Ichirou approached the village ninja. “How can I attain enlightenment?” asked Ichirou. The ninja whipped out a shuriken and flicked it right into Ichirou’s heart. Right away, Ichirou was enlightened.

How To Live Forever

A ninja-in-training asked his master: “Is it possible to live forever?” “Yes” replied his master. “How can I live forever?” asked the student. “First, you must never utter a false statement,” began the master. “I can do that,” the student assured. “Second, every day you must say: `tomorrow I’ll cut off someone’s head’. Follow these two rules and you will never die!”

The Gōjian Knot

One day, the great ninja shogun Arekusanda arrived at Gōjiamu, where he found a certain cart tied to a post. This was no ordinary cart or post: prophesies said that whoever could untie the knot would become shogun of all Asia. Arekusanda struggled with the knot but he could find no way to untie it. Finally he whipped out his katana and slashed the knot, cutting it right in half, as well as the post, the cart, and several witnesses standing nearby.

A Wise Saying

If you meet the Buddha, kill him. If you meet someone else… kill him too.

Wise Emperor Soromon

One day, Soromon the Ninja-Emperor was holding court when two disputing women were brought for his judgment. There was a baby with them, and the two women each claimed to be the baby’s true mother. Soromon pondered the situation for a moment. He whipped out his katana and cut the baby and both the women clean in half.

No Coming and No Going

Just before Ninakawa passed away, Ninja-Master Ikkyu visited him. “Shall I guide you on?” Ikkyu asked.

Ninakawa replied: “What on earth are you talking about? I’m perfectly healthy and AAAA GURRRRRGLE” Ikkyu had whipped out a length of piano-wire and strangled his host.

Forest Ninjutsu

If a ninja and a tree are in a forest, and the ninja slashes through the tree with his katana and disappears in a puff of smoke before it can hit the ground, does it make a sound?

FURTHER READING

Ten Buddhist Koans
Three Ways to Be More Present
Ten Metaphors For Death

Conditionals

The “if…then” variations found in almost every high level programming language would be ordered differently. There are various ways to express Japanese conditionals (just as there are in English), but unlike English, they don’t put the conditional marker before the hypothesis, they put it after the hypothesis: instead of “if it rains I’ll go out”, it’s more like “it rains COND I’ll go out”. Interestingly, this is actually closer to the notation used in (Western-invented) mathematical logic: “rains->go out”.

The read test of a conditional syntax comes when the hypothesis gets complicated and the conclusion becomes multi-line. Here’s what an example might look like (syntax is modified from C):

(weather == WxRAIN || weather == WxDRIZZLE) ->
{
  (have_object(“rain gear”))->
  {
    grab(“rain gear”);
    wear(“rain gear”);
  }
  open_object(“door”);
  walk_through(“door”);
}
else
{
  stay_in(“house”);
}

Verb-Object Order

English is SVO (“subject-verb-object”), meaning the verb usually comes before the object, as in “cats eat fish”. Japanese is SOV (“subject-object-verb”), meaning the verb comes last, as in “cats fish eat” (like Yoda-talk). No doubt, this would influence the order of commands. Modifying the above example:

(weather == WxRAIN || weather == WxDRIZZLE) ->
{
  ((“rain gear”)have_object)->
  {
    (“rain gear”)grab;
    (“rain gear”)wear;
  }
  (“door”)open_object;
  (“door”)walk_through;
}
else
{
  (“house”)stay_in;
}

Ambiguity and Context

Japanese is famous for omitting things which are clear by context. The conversation fragment: “I came. I saw. I conquered.” would become: “I came. Saw. Conquered.” You can “kind of usually sometimes sort of” assume that if the subject is omitted, it’s understood to be the last subject which was specified. The same goes for objects, to a lesser extent. Here’s the above program fragment modified for ambiguity and context:

(weather == WxRAIN || == WxDRIZZLE) ->
{
  ((“rain gear”)have_object)->
  {
    grab;
    wear;
  }
  (“door”)open_object;
  walk_through;
}
else
{
  (“house”)stay_in;
}

Disjunctions (“Or”)

It’s a little weird the way the Japanese do disjunctions. Instead of “A or B”, they might say “A ka B ka”. The “ka” here is the question-indicating particle, so it might be built into the programming language as “A? B?” If we modify our bastardization of C accordingly, we get (only the first line is changed):

(weather == WxRAIN? == WxDRIZZLE?) ->
{
  ((“rain gear”)have_object)->
  {
    grab;
    wear;
  }
  (“door”)open_object;
  walk_through;
}
else
{
  (“house”)stay_in;
}

And please, don’t even make me think what treatment XOR would get!

Politeness Levels

Another thing the Nihonjin are famous for is the high amount of attention they pay in their language to politeness, deference, and etiquette. (Actually, it’s kind of misleading to pretend that Japanese is unique like this. We do the same in English– you don’t talk the same to your boss as you do to your girlfriend! It’s just we don’t “see” it in English because we’re native speakers, and we don’t “see” it very clearly in other European languages because they way they do it is so similar to English. The real reason Japanese seems so politeness-obsessed is just because it’s politeness-obsessed in a different way than English.)

Let’s pretend that the code we’re writing is going to be read by the president of the company!

(weather == WxRAIN? == WxDRIZZLE?) ->
{
  ((“honorable rain gear”)have_object)->
  {
    grab please;
    wear please;
  }
  (“honorable door”)open_object please;
  walk_through please;
}
else
{
  (“honorable house”)stay_in please;
}

And last but not least!

Don’t forget, Japanese code would be written from the top to bottom, from right to left!

} {e}       {(
   l         w
 ( s w(}  {( e
 ” e a”    ( a
 h   lh wg ” t
 o   ko er h h
 n   _n aa o e
 o   to rb n r
 r   hr    o  
 a   ra pp r =
 b   ob ll a =
 l   ul ee b  
 e   ge aa l W
     h  ss e x
 h    d ee   R
 o   po ;; r A
 u   lo    a I
 s   er    i N
 e   a”    n ?
 ”   s)       
 )   eo    g =
 s   ;p    e =
 t    e    a  
 a    n    r W
 y    _    ” x
 _    o    ) D
 i    b    h R
 n    j    a I
      e    v Z
 p    c    e Z
 l    t    _ L
 e         o E
 a    p    b ?
 s    l    j )
 e    e    e  
 ;    a    c -
      s    t >
      e    )  
      ;    -  
           >  

FURTHER READING

Eleven Surprising Things about Japanese
Japanese Conditionals
The Adverb Model of Japanese
Teach Yourself Esperanto
Engrish

Get Out of the City

If you want to starve, you’d better get as far away from civilization as possible. Cities are chock full of free food. Stores and restaurants literally throw away as much food as they sell, it’s so plentiful. It’s not even enough just to go live in the woods, you need to totally unlink yourself from the grid. Once you begin experiencing success in your quest to starve, you’re likely to lose enthusiasm, and if you have, say, a cell phone, you’ll be very tempted to use it to obtain food. If you have any link at all to the outside world, pesky government-employed rescue workers will probably come mess up all your carefully laid plans.

Don’t Tell Anyone Where You’re Going

The quest for starvation must be carried out with ninja-like stealth. Society will brand you with derogatory labels such as “Missing Person.” Your own family will betray you, and you’ll have people combing the woods, deserts and ocean, trying to put a stop to your fast. The only way to escape all these enemies trying to shove food down your throat, is to disappear without a trace.

Go Back In Time to the Ice Age

Starving would be considerably easier if it weren’t for all these humanitarian institutions, all this advanced agricultural technology, all these cities and all this temperate climate. And starving isn’t gonna get any easier, either: pesky scientists work tirelessly to improve food technology more and more. You’d better get working on starving soon, before we have robots running around everywhere giving people food. Your best bet is to build a time machine and travel back to the ice age. Just make sure nobody knows your exact spacetime coordinates, or some well-intentioned Kyle Reese might come terminate your mission

Blow Up the Sun

As long as sunlight shines upon the surface of the world, life and vegetation will stubbornly grow and blossom. Just as your quest for starvation nears completion, your willpower will break down completely and you run the risk you might give in and eat something. The only way to be really sure is to blow up the sun. Act fast, before all these pesky scientists find some way to turn lifeless rocks into food!

Annihilate Your Remains with Antimatter

If anything at all is left of you after you starve, the annoying Cycle of Life will somehow incorporate it into the circle. While this doesn’t exactly stop you from starving, it kind of goes against the bigger “Starvation Movement” of which you are now a member. You don’t want some leeching bacteria to come feast on your bones, that would be a goal for the Non-Starving team! It’s not even enough to blow up the sun or seal yourself in a glacier, eventually after many eons some exotic microscopic organism will get at you.

FURTHER READING

The Work Ethic
The Overpopulation Myth
The Case for Basic Income
How To Destroy Planet Earth (oops, I never wrote that one, I just can’t think of any realistic way to do it! )

Sage advice for any occasion.

Awww, you’re hurting his feelings =P

Oh dear! My reputation will be ruined!

She sounds serious… Not sure who she’s talking about, but whoever it is, he should probably lay low for awhile

As far as these go, this isn’t really all that badly butchered, I just thought it was funny that such a casual question is uttered by this guy while he apparently stares into some kind of vortex of gloom and despair.

I’m sure this would make perfect sense if the U.S. would just switch to the metric system…

Hmmm… too much info? =P

This guy has some self-esteem issues. I’m sure you would too if a vortex of despair followed you everywhere you went.

This isn’t actually from the anime, it’s a propaganda poster for the Japanese Womens’ Liberation movement

Yeah.. what she said.

Ugh, I hate it when I get told to a girl’s shop.

Life is hard when you speak like a badly translated stereotype.

Well, you know what they say… “Fake it ’til you make it”…

I wonder whether that’s like “Hide and Seek” or…

It sounds to me like this guy has a pretty legitimate reason to be ticked off!

But what if they’re just faking weakness and they clobber you when your defenses are down…

Oh come on, this guy’s supposed to be in high school, when is he gonna act his age =P

A pretty scathing indictment, though the last part sounds almost more like a haiku or a koan or something.

I dunno what you’re trying to find, but cheer up, I’m absolutely sure you’ll find it by the end of Season 1

Nobody walks out of the slit. It’s like a black hole, not even light can escape.

Well, that’s a wrap! Hope you liked the Japanglish! This should be the last installment unless someone who owns some other terrible subtitles wants to volunteer to send me screen captures. I’ll let this guy sum things up once again:

FURTHER READING

A Goldmine of Engrish, Part 1
Romance Movie Cliches
My Anime Tale
Pictures From Japan

But what if Brad Pitt wasn’t acting in Fight Club? What if Tyler is really Mr. Pitt’s multiple personality, emerging while the actor thinks himself asleep, just like in the movie? Maybe in his waking life, Brad watches his own films, admiring his own acting without realizing it’s him.

If that’s the case, then what’s this radical activist trying to tell us? What’s the motive behind the roles he plays? Let’s take a look…

The Mysterious Case of Benjamin Button. In this eye-opening film, Pitt– or should I say, Durden– plays a figure who was born an old man, and got younger through the years rather than aging like normal people. In this role, our freedom-fighter friend teaches us quite a few things. Born and raised in one, Mr. Button forces us to confront the retirement home, that societal spectre which we like to pretend doesn’t exist. Shining a personal light into the lives of our elders, Button violently disrupts that pattern which says, “don’t think about old age”. Also, Benjamin engages in a couple elicit affairs with married women, a move to rattle what the status quo declares love and sex should be like.

Ocean’s Eleven. Do we need any more explicit evidence of our shady friend’s plots and schemes? In this Las Vegas thriller, “Rusty Ryan” (as the doppleganger is cast) is one of eleven elite cat burglars. Though he isn’t the lead role here, he does his part to inculcate us into the world of organized crime, a revolutionary world which terrifies our corporate masters. The Eleven are modern-day Robins Hood, robbing the rich to feed the criminals.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Here, we see an unlikely couple, each pretending to be “normal”, with “normal jobs”. The truth is, both are super-assassins working for competing agencies. Durden skilfully rips the outer mask off the very meaning of “normal”, and viewers walk away recognizing that none of us is truly “average”, that we’re all harboring dark and awesome secrets. After viewing this film, you can never look at your stereotypical next-door neighbors the same way. Maybe that respectable businessman in the suit is really a spy from North Korea, plotting to blow up Mt. Rushmore. That housewife ahead of you in line at the grocery store? No less than the matriarch of the world’s last true clan of ninjas. Nothing is as it seems!

Se7en. This gruesome roller coaster of sin has one purpose and one purpose only: to desensitize us to the deeds which organized religion most strongly demonizes. While no one would ever emulate the creepy and insane antagonist, this movie is a vaccine: it disgusts us but it leaves us a little more hardened, a little more jaded, conditioned, perhaps, as soldiers. Good citizens don’t watch this sort of movie, responsible citizens shun this kind of entertainment. The stereotypical, smiling black-and-white 50′s spokesman with his suburban, nuclear family would never ever view this flick. Thus, Brad Pitt plunges a dagger into the hearts of these very establishments.

If Brad Pitt really is the genius Tyler Durden, you can rest assured he has his fingers in more pies than just Hollywood. Who knows how many men and women he has under his thumb, warriors in his private crusade for true human liberty? Maybe even I, your humble writer, am a member of the real life fight club, publishing this dangerous article to further the agenda of the underground uprising

FURTHER READING

Invitation to Hedonism
Getting the girl in a movie
How to Contribute to Society
Three Ways to Be More Present

* Tell her you love her and can’t live without her. If this doesn’t work right away, it’s because she’s not sufficiently convinced, so spend the rest of the movie repeating it ad nauseum.

* If her fiance is a wealthy gentleman, immediately discard all your worldly possessions and become a penniless pauper. Chicks engaged to aristocrats dig paupers.

* If she’s making out with someone (possibly even her boyfriend or fiance), go defend her honor. He’s obviously forcing her, and she’ll love you for stopping them.

* Save the world together. (Optionally replace “world” with “galaxy”, “universe”, or “Christmas”)

* Go way out of your way to help her and assist her. If you’re not flexing your influence to give her massive undeserved favors, you’re not doing enough.

* Rescue her from an evil villain. If she hasn’t been kidnapped yet, no sweat, it’s inevitable.

* Call out her name really loud somewhere in the wilderness.

* If she happens to be a spy working for one country, become a spy working for that country’s #1 enemy, or at the very least for a competing spy agency.

* If she’s a nurse (especially during World War II), do whatever it takes to become a casualty in her hospital.

* If you’re both in high school, buy beer for the party. Unfortunately this tactic is of limited value. In Hollywood, it’s easier for a teenager to get a time machine than a beer.

* Whatever it takes, whatever extremes you must go to, make her parents hate your guts. Once they want you dead, the girl is guaranteed.

* Be Colin Firth.

* If you’re having trouble convincing her that you really do love her and can’t live without her, try announcing it dramatically in front of all her friends, co-workers and family.

* If everything else fails, break off all contact with her but continue to obsess about her for twenty years. Eventually she’ll wander back into your life and as soon as she sees you again, she’ll fall deeply in love.

* Variation on the previous one: break off contact and continue to quietly obsess over her until she gets crippled/maimed/disfigured/blinded in a horrible accident. As your competition abandons her, you can swoop in for the easy seduction.

* Befriend her children. Don’t worry, she won’t suspect you’re a pedophile, instead she’ll see what a great father figure you are and soon you’ll be hearing wedding bells.

* The paradox of success: when you finally achieve huge success, she’ll come running into your arms. But when her husband or fiance achieves huge success, it’ll estrange them and she’ll come running to you.

* After losing contact with her, scour the world to find her. Sail the seven seas hunting her down. You’ll eventually find her in Paris, just in time to rescue her from her previous lover who’s gone crazy. The two of you will live happily ever after.

* Make sure her first impression of you is as terrible as possible. When she learns how mistaken she was, she’ll jump lovingly into your arms.

* Stalk her. No, really, full-out stalk her, it’s not creepy at all when it’s in a movie.

* Relate a tear-filled story to total strangers about how you lost her. Include plenty of detailed flashbacks. Around the end of the story, she’ll come running back into your arms.

* Be her invisible benefactor. Eventually she’ll figure out it’s you, and nothing opens a girl’s legs faster than being the recipient of charity.

* Die dramatically in front of her. She’ll realize she loved you all along, and as she kisses you, the power of love will bring you back to life.

* At a party or dance, stare creepily across the room at her for five minutes. You’ll know you’re doing it right when the rest of the room blurs out of focus.

* If none of this advice is working yet, it’s because you aren’t enough of a nice guy. Try taking yoga classes or something.

* Did I mention you should definitely tell her you love her and can’t live without her?