I’ve been listening to the Japancast podcast recently in preparation for my trip to Japan. Japancast, which is run by Hitomi and Paul, is a website where people with varying skills in Japanese can go to and learn for free. There even a social network on their website for people to make friends whom they can practice Japanese with — like pen pals.
I regret not finding out about this earlier. I doubt I’ll remember that much for my trip, which is in a week. But, I’ll try to learn what I can. I’ll have a phrase book with me, so hopefully communication isn’t going to be too difficult.
I’ve come across a few individuals who still think that Javascript – or ECMAScript — isn’t a real programming language. For example, on Facebook, there is a group called I forgot the semi-colon, which is a programming group, and in the group info it says the group isn’t for anyone who thinks Javascript is a programming language. The problem is that a lot of these so-called “programmers” think of the web as just another view for which applications written in something like Java would “dump” their data into. The is a completely wrong way of thinking about the Web, and people who think this way will never become successful developing for the Web.
Javascript is used in many places outside of the browser. It is used to develop many feature-rich applications on the Web, and a large part of the Firefox GUI is written in Javascript. Not to mention all those Dashboard Widgets you Mac users like, yep, all in Javascript.
The thing I love about Javascript is that it is flexible. Unlike languages such as Java or C++, Javascript variables are dynamically typed (like Python). This means I can define a variable and initialize it to a string, then later on assign an integer or an object to the same variable without getting some kind of incompatible type errors. You can use structural programming, functional programming, or object-oriented programming in Javascript. This allows you to choose what best fits the current application you’re developing without being restricted to one particular programming paradigm.
So for anyone who thinks Javascript isn’t a real programming language, please tell me why.
Seven years after I-Pod was first released, I finally caved and got one. It makes the commutes on the subway more enjoyable. I’m actually noticing a lot more people with an I-Pod, or some kind of music player. I also noticed that I stereotype the kind of music I think people listen to based on their appearance. For example, if I see a black person with headphones on, I immediately think that person is listening to hip-hop. A white girl is probably listening to Justin Timberlake or something. It’s pretty messed up. For all I know, they could be listening to anything! This stereo typing comes to me almost unconsciously, and I’m not sure where the source of it is. The media probably plays a big role in it.
I’m reminded of a post I read yesterday on Racialicious, talking about stereotype casting on Reality TV shows. It’s an open discussion on whether producers of Reality TV shows actively enforce stereotypes on their shows.
Everyone in my team at work (Front End developers) just got administrative access to their PC today. It’s ridiculous to thing about working as a programmer and not have the rights to install things, but that’s what we had. This got me thinking about the post on The Programmer’s Bill of Rights over at Coding Horror. I went and had a quick look to see if it mentioned admin access. To my surprise the post said nothing about such thing. Maybe it’s just too stupid to even mention not having admin access? Or was I spoiled during all my co-op terms?
In any case, giving programmer the right to do their work properly is very important, and it should definitely be include in our bill of rights. ;)
There a beer festival happening in August, in Toronto. I think it’s an annual event, and I think it was held near my workplace last summer — or maybe it was another beer festival? Anyway, I’m trying to buy tickets online but the form keeps timing out on me. :(
I guess it might be too early to buy tickets, but I want to make sure that Ams and I get to go for sure. Anyone else going?
I’ll be heading down to Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea for 2.5 weeks in May, with my buddy from university. We’ve been wanting to go on this trip since we graduated last May, so it’s finally going to happen!
I already have the tickets and everything, and it looks like we can save quite a bit of money by staying with people we know in HK and Tokyo. Hopefully I will be able to blog and upload pictures at some point during my trip. If not I can always do it when I get back.
In my earlier post, I brought up an anti-Asian “satire” piece that ran in University of Colorado’s school newspaper. I mentioned that the column did not read like a satire to me, but I didn’t fully extend on that. Truth be told, I’m no literary expert, so it’s hard to explain it in technical terms. However, I found a follow-up comment on another blog that goes into better detail on why Karson’s article is not satire.
satire is a punch in the eye of Power. satire’s anger, its needle, is directed upward - never downward. if it is, then it ceases to be satire and it’s just another way for those in power to bully the powerless or to scream to the public that you’re just another tool of the status quo.
this is satire:
it is a precise literary term (which means you have to have some measure of intellectual weight to pull it off, which Karson doesn’t)
in satire, your target is held up to merciless ridicule that is often very angry, ideally in the hope of shaming your target into reform (what is Karson advocating for reform? asians themselves or the treatment of asians on campus?)
it has a strong vein of irony or sarcasm (parody, burlesque, exaggeration and double entendre are all devices frequently used in satirical speech and writing - again, pointing to intellectual rigor in the person who calls herself a satirist, and while Karson’s piece is certainly full of sarcasm the racial justice angle is completely submerged, thus undercutting any satirical purpose.)
who is the target of Karson’s ire or sarcasm?
certainly not the white power structure that marginalizes a community of color on campus, making them a racial Other.
certainly not asian stereotype - in fact, his piece replicates them and justifies them.
asian students are the target of his clumsy sarcasm and ’satire’ and to what end? there is none, except to vent some feelings of inadequacy. Karson, as part of the white majority, is bullying a racial minority on campus and joking about reeducation camps so that they can be more ‘white.’ how is this column supposed to criticize the marginalization of asians on campus, or the treatment of asians on campus, or anything about racial justice??
it doesn’t do any of those things so it just becomes, perhaps inadvertently, a racist fantasy of forced assimilation.
I don’t find anything wrong with the study itself, but the response from people who see the results are a bit moronic sometimes. Just look at the headline for the Kotaku link I have above: Stuff We Already Know About Female Gamers: Now In A Study! Why do people keep saying that women gamers are more casual compared to their male counterparts? Guess what, there are a lot of casual male gamers too! It’s like saying hardcore female gamers are an anomaly, while casual male gamers aren’t that strange at all.
There is a lot more behind the statistics than just numbers. The results of this study definitely should not be interpreted as female gamers mostly play casual games because they are female.
Even if it was meant to be a satire, it was written in poor taste, the should never have been published. What is the point of the article? It doesn’t really read as a satire to me. There was no wit in the article. Usually satires expose logical follies in the exact argument it supposedly tries to defend. The impression Karson’s article gave me is that it’s just an outlet for the author to spew racist comments under the veil of making a satirical commentary. But hey, maybe that’s just me, you can make up your own mind after reading the article.
My name is Jack Hsu. I'm engaged to Ams. I graduated from the School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo. I enjoy playing video games. I'm a web developer at The Globe and Mail. You can reach me through email at jack.hsu[at]gmail[dot]com.
