#chinese version is more or less the exact same as the korean version so it didnt quite have the same emotional impact for me

[starseed-awakening]

just binge watched the Chinese version of Age of Youth/Hello My Twenties. I forgot how much I loved that k-drama.

[genshin-impact-updates]

"Midsummer Island Adventure" Version 1.6 Update Details: Part 2

V1.6 Update Details

Dear Travelers,

Below are the details of the Version 1.6 update "Midsummer Island Adventure" Part 2.

X. Adjustments & Optimizations

● System

Increases the load limit of the Serenitea Pot.

Optimizes the dialogue experience with the teapot spirit. After closing the secondary level dialogue option of the teapot spirit, it will return to the previous level dialogue options.

The Traveler will no longer appear in the Expedition Dispatch character selection list.

4-star artifacts can be destroyed in return for Mora.

Some indestructible level-up materials are now destroyable.

Optimizes the Weapon Enhancement Materials placement slots: increased from 6 slots to 20 slots.

Crafting or forging can be performed in Co-Op Mode, and Travelers returning to their own world can obtain the forging rewards performed while in Co-Op Mode. Crafting recipes and forging recipes are unlocked based on the Traveler's own progress.

Optimizes the sorting rules of the crafting/forging list, so that Travelers can craft the same type of material more easily.

Optimizes some controller operations: the slider in crafting, forging, production of dyes, and the Settings interface can now be controlled by holding the respective operation.

After teleporting out of domains, "Challenge Failed" will no longer be displayed.

Optimizes the classification of camera-related settings: the settings for Combat Camera Settings, Camera Y-Axis Resets Automatically, and Default Camera Distance have been moved from Settings > Other to Settings > Controls.

Optimizes the touch feedback of multiple UI buttons.

Optimizes the sticker display and Fast Chat button in the chat box.

Optimizes the aiming experience: in Aiming Mode, the tracking effect of the crosshair is more accurate when adjusting the position of the crosshair in small increments.

Increases the stack limit of some Furnishings of the same type in the Inventory from 999 to 9,999.

The Adventurer Handbook has a function to automatically track and navigate to enemies.

If players have Condensed Resin and less than 20 Original Resin, selecting "Continue Challenge" after challenging the Domain will not bring up the pop-up window.

● Co-Op Mode

Adds status markers when teammates are switching characters in the Party Preparation screen.

When a teammate is not within range of the currently displayed map area, a teammate marker will be displayed at the edge of the map. Travelers can click on that marker to quickly locate their teammates.

>Optimizes the text displayed after players are removed from Co-Op Mode.

● Audio

Adjusts the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean voice-over for certain characters, and fixes some issues with certain voice-over abnormalities and errors.

Optimizes and fixes the sound effects for certain character skills, environments, and items.

● Other

Adjusts the description of the food item "Stormcrest Pie."

Increases the damage caused by major reactions (i.e. Electro-Charged, Superconduct, Overloaded, Swirl, and Shatter), when a character reaches Level 60 or above.

Increases the Base Shield DMG Absorption for shields generated by Crystallize reactions.

Increases the DMG Bonus provided by Elemental Mastery for major reactions. (Refer to the attributes panel in-game for the exact DMG Bonus amount.)

〓Bug Fixes〓

● Quests

Fixes an issue with the Daily Commission "Big Pudgy Problem!" whereby some Electro Slimes may incorrectly appear underground.

Fixes an issue whereby NPCs in some quests would still disappear to hide from the rain.

● Domains

Fixes an issue when challenging the Domains "Lost Treasure of Arcadia" and "Deserted Ruins of Thermadon" whereby characters may skip certain parts of the process under specific circumstances.

● Monsters

Fixes an issue with the Cryo Hypostasis whereby when it is in a state of revival, characters may get stuck when performing Plunging Attacks above it.

Fixes an issue whereby the Fatui - Pyro Agent may incorrectly remain in place during combat.

● Co-Op

Fixes an issue in Co-Op Mode whereby, under certain circumstances, when Travelers enter the Serenitea Pot or return to the open world, they will receive the erroneous message that another Traveler "has left their world" or "has left the Serenitea Pot." (There is no issue with actual game functions.)

Fixes an issue in Co-Op Mode whereby when the Holding Mode of Lisa's Elemental Skill hits opponents, an incorrect quantity of Elemental Particles may be generated.

Fixes an issue in Co-Op Mode whereby players may not be able to collect wood in the open world.

Fixes an issue in Co-Op Mode whereby some special effects remained in the original position after teleportation.

● Characters

Fixes an issue with Tartaglia whereby the maximum duration of Melee Stance is shortened if Tartaglia immediately uses his Elemental Burst after entering Melee Stance.

Fixes an issue whereby Diluc's eagle may incorrectly remain when switching from his Attributes page to his Constellation page.

Fixes an issue with Venti, Chongyun, Razor, Xiao, Fischl, Yanfei, Noelle, Xinyan, Ningguang, Eula, and Diona whereby when they use an Elemental Burst, there is a small chance that the character will be launched if hit by an attack.

Fixes an issue with Razor whereby his Lv. 2 Constellation "Suppression" fails to take effect on Plunging Attacks.

Fixes an issue whereby the icons for Eula's Lv. 1 and 2 Constellations are displayed incorrectly.

Fixes an issue with Xingqiu whereby after his Elemental Skill is cast, if the game reconnects, there may be an error in the duration of the Rain Swords.

Fixes an issue with Xiangling's idle animation whereby there may be an error with her expression.

Fixes an issue whereby when switching characters while protected by a shield, there is a small chance that the character who takes the field will be launched if hit by an attack with a stronger interrupt effect at the moment of switching.

Fixes an issue whereby when characters enter a conversation when their HP is about to go to zero due to Burning, the character will freeze after the conversation ends.

Fixes an issue whereby the duration of meteorites summoned by the Geo Traveler's Elemental Skill and stone walls from the Elemental Burst may be abnormal in certain situations.

Fixes an issue with Yanfei whereby the color of her eyes in the character icon and the character model are inconsistent.

● Weapons

Fixes an issue with the weapon "Lithic Spear" whereby the color of some parts of it in the icon and the weapon model are inconsistent.

● System

Fixes an issue with the Serenitea Pot whereby the door Furnishing may unexpectedly disappear when swapping it.

Fixes an issue with the Serenitea Pot whereby the Furnishing "Fragrant Cedar Vegetable Rack" of the Furnishing Set "Busy Kitchen" cannot be placed indoors.

Fixes an issue with the Serenitea Pot whereby the names and descriptions of some Furnishings are incorrect.

Fixes an issue with the Serenitea Pot whereby four characters are unable to sit around the Furnishings "Wooden Outdoor Tea Table" and "Bamboo Outdoor Tea Table."

Fixes an issue with the Serenitea Pot whereby the door Furnishings, walls, and ceilings may unexpectedly disappear when swapping decorations.

Fixes an issue for players on PlayStation®4 whereby during the World Quest "A Teapot to Call Home: Part II," if the game reconnects during the quest objective "Talk to Tubby," the camera angle will be locked.

Fixes an issue for players on PlayStation®4, whereby there may be an error with the camera angle when Tartaglia uses his Elemental Burst after entering Melee Stance.

Fixes an issue whereby after clicking and holding the scroll wheel to use Elemental Sight, the camera angle may re-center when releasing the scroll wheel.

● Audio

Fixes an issue with Zhongli's Story Quest "Historia Antiqua: Act II - No Mere Stone," whereby there is an error with the English voice-over for the line "My life is nigh on eternal. I will go on with the infinite flow of time. And you, Morax... You too will live for many a day to come." such that it does not match the subtitle.

Fixes an issue whereby the character voice-over line "When Thunder Strikes" is incorrectly triggered repeatedly when there is thunder in the open world.

Fixes an issue in the open world whereby the character voice-over line triggered by an increase in Friendship Level is not interrupted normally or it overlaps with other audio after switching to other interfaces.

Fixes an issue with some weather conditions at Stormterror's Lair in Mondstadt whereby the character voice-over line "When It Rains" is incorrectly triggered.

Fixes an issue whereby the Korean, Japanese, and English voice-over lines in certain quests are incorrect or are missing.

● Other

Fixes an issue whereby when multiple elemental reactions take place simultaneously, some elemental-reaction-related DMG Bonuses may be incorrect (for example, DMG Bonuses triggered by the 4-Piece Set effects of the Crimson Witch of Flames and Thundering Fury artifact sets).

Fixes an issue whereby the Parametric Transformer gadget incorrectly triggers pressure mechanisms.

Fixes an issue whereby casting characters' skills while using the Windsong Lyre gadget may cause errors with the skills' effects.

Fixes an issue with Jean and Eula whereby their gliding animations are displayed incorrectly.

Fixes an issue in the open world whereby Guoba created by Xiangling's Elemental Skill, the bursts of flame created by Pyro Abyss Mages when they are dancing and regenerating their shields, and the wind current within the Eye of the Storm's Hurricane Sphere are sometimes cast in the incorrect position.

Fixes textual errors and display issues in English, Spanish, French, Indonesian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Thai and optimizes the localization of text. (Note: Related in-game functions have not changed. Travelers can view the changes in different languages by going to the Paimon Menu > Settings > Language and changing the Game Language.) Text-related fixes and optimizations in English include:

◆ Corrects the description of the event rules for Overflowing Wealth. Where the original description reads "Blossoms of Revelation" or "Overflowing Revelation," the revised description reads "Blossoms of Wealth" and "Overflowing Wealth" respectively.

[break-slash]

Puzzleship JP & KR Fancomic Recommendation List

UPDATE (19-12-2020): Added two more artists and two more titles on the Japanese lists!

I don’t consider myself as someone very tidy and organized, but I just like making lists of the things I love, somehow. Hence this post. I haven’t been in the fandom for long but I thought I’d share some of my favorites primarily from two sites: pixiv and postype. Most of the postype ones are behind paywall, and I will mark them differently.

Some of my favorites come from the same artists, so I’ll also link their pixiv profile on top of my favorite work of them.

(I actually bookmarked a lot and picking them isn’t an easy task, so I will update this step by step. If you see only a link of an artist, that’s the reason, but I can guarantee you will love their works! Feel free to recommend me yours through reblogs or DM as well!)

Japanese

Artist: CYHGM

She is a Chinese and is more active on Weibo (she posted tons of puzzleship there, but my Mandarin is beyond rusty so I could only cry in despair lmao), but she has two fancomics that I absolutely adore of. Those two mentioned fancomics are:

The Past and The Future. You can check my translation for this one here. It tells about Atem who gets transported to 3000 years later before his coronation, and that’s where he met post-canon!Yugi. Just... everything about this comic is so wonderful. I teared up at the last page, not gonna lie ;_;

The Pharaoh and The Fairy: An Ancient Egypt-slash-fantasy AU featuring the S0/TOEI casts. The fairy Yugi was saved by Atem, and it’s an obligatory for fairies to grant their savior’s wishes. However, Atem doesn’t exactly have something he wants of, and this confuses Yugi on how he should repay him back. Pure undiluted sugar, and fairy!Yugi is just so cute.

Artist: Fushitas

Arguably one of the most popular Puzzleship fanartists in the JP fandom (look at their number of followers on Twitter, man), but maybe it’s also due to the fact they were in AoT fandom too. They’re mostly active on Twitter, and if you also watch Zexal, they draw tons of Yuma-centric pairings too. They have released lots of books, and their prices on the reseller sites are... well, let’s just say, unbelievable. Just to show how famous they are. 

From everlasting to everlasting: Set after DSOD. A mysterious figure appears in front of Atem, claiming to be his queen. Everyone in the after life somehow acknowledges this person, which makes him even more confused because he’s the only one unaware of this. On the living realm, Yugi who is on the way to his home got hit by a truck (isekai much??) and when he woke up, he suddenly plays the role of Atem’s queen. I’ve always adored Fushitas’ drawing, and this is no exception. The story is pretty simple, but is still good! The ending of this comic is everything I’ve always wanted from the canon lol. 

The King’s Guest: Ancient Egypt AU. The councils are starting to get worried because Atem shows no interest in marrying someone, so Shimon opens up a “chance” sort of for civilians to become “someone for the Pharaoh to talk with”. The civilian Yugi takes this chance right off the bat, and stuff happens? This one is just so sweet and the misunderstanding later in the story kinda cracks me up. I really love the way they build the two’s chemistry in here.

Artist: usi 

They only draw two puzzleship fancomics, but both are so good and explores the themes I’ve loved from the pairing.

The Lotus’ Devil: Set post-canon with a flashback. It tells about Yugi’s regret in the past where he wanted to show Atem a small pool supposed to be full of lotus flower only to arrive seeing them not blooming. Fast forward to the post-canon, he found out that there’s actually a monster residing on that pool. I really, really loved the ending scene of this one.

Who’s The Detestable, Fortunate Guy Here: I think this is set sometime in the canon story, although the exact timing is unclear. It’s a short comic of Yugi asking Atem to pretend to be his date and go on a “dating practice”. A very pleasant hurt-and-comfort kind of story, and who doesn’t love a story of them dating anyways? :”D

Artist: Houzuki Anzu

She doesn’t draw much YGO, but she has some Arc-V and 5D’s fanarts too if you watch the series! 

Hourglass: Sets after the Memory World arc. Yugi keeps hearing a strange sound inside his mind, and he finds out there’s a huge hourglass standing there, guarded by the will of Millenium Puzzle. Apparently, the hourglass is linked to Atem’s remaining time in the living realm? Anyways, the ending of this comic might look like a cliffhanger, but I personally think it isn’t. I love the theme this comic picks to explore and the way it is presented.

Present: Same setting with Hourglass, but this one focuses more on Atem sorting out his feelings about the Ceremonial Duel and what he has learned from Yugi in general. It’s a very nice extra detail that the canon slightly lacks of, and I just love... bittersweet stuff in general haha.

Artist: Chiriko

Are you the type who wants puzzleship to be full of happiness and fluff and nothing else? Well, she has a number of comics to fill that need! I actually love all of her works, but if I have to pick, these two are my favorite:

...Don’t Ever Leave Me Again: A short story about Yugi having a nightmare of where he was stuck in the fire accident at Otogi’s store. Well... this isn’t a fluff sort of, but it’s... a happy ending still? /shot

[Untitled]: A dialogue-less comic, but this is the sort of post-canon what-if that I really, really like. Atem stroking Yugi’s face while sleeping is just... so soft man....

Artist: Komori Nea

Their art style was one of those that’s very noticeable and has a certain charm on it. They are pretty active on Twitter, and even draws puzzle comics once in a while that haven’t been uploaded to pixiv (which is why I recommend you to check their twitter gallery too haha)

The Soul Stays Awake: Post!DSOD. Atem comes back from afterlife in hoping that Yugi would be as happy as he is, but months after, Atem’s existence still hasn’t been registered on Yugi’s life just yet. Another post!DSOD take that I like which involves the fear of another farewell and uncertainty, but this is a good hurt-and-comfort. I swear, it’ll hurt you just... for a while. :”)

The Attack’s Aim: Set during the canon series. A short comic mostly portraying Yugi’s hidden strength but also the tenacity of duelist that is not only targeted toward the opponent, but also to Atem, without the person actually noticing it. The last page of this one is so... soft and gentle I had to put it into this list.

Artist: caf

Often draw with S0/TOEI style, characters and characterization in mind. Their coloring in illustrations is so soft, plus artists who specialize in S0/TOEI style can’t be found so easily. Their comic style is not a manga-like one and they write the dialogues with handwriting, but if you can read hiragana and write and understand how kanji works (so you can write it on translation machine), their comics are easy to understand!

magenta: S0/TOEI AU where Yugi and Atem are two separate person. A short comic of Yugi lying under the rain as Atem searches for his whereabouts. I really love the way they portray the rain and the atmosphere surrounding the scene. Or maybe I’m just biased with rains in general, ahahaha.

Yuugi and Mao’s Stay Home: Same AU as above. Our two boys has to face the same shit we do IRL in this comic, which is quarantine. Atem offers to cook something for Yugi since he can’t eat outside. You love seeing Yugi eating stuff? This is a perfect comic for y’all. 

Artist: Kkyut

Artist: Kayu(i)

Others:

Gemini: As Atem comes back to the living world, Yugi faces the dilemma of having being separated by “his other self” physically and mentally. A short comic, but the lines the artist used are so... beautiful. Like, the way they describe Yugi’s loneliness?? Just hits the park so much. 

Until The Hourglass Runs Out: Set after the Memory World Arc. As their farewell day goes closer, Yugi decides to give Atem a full control of his body at school so he could spend his time with Jounouchi and the gang more. However, things don’t go as smooth as Yugi had expected. If you like that little teeny weeny pain before the Ceremonial Duel, this comic perfectly suits the taste. 

see you sometime: Post-canon. Mahaad offers Atem a chance to meet Yugi in the living realm one more time, but with several conditions. Firstly, he could only stay for a day at maximum. Secondly, Yugi won’t be able to remember who he spent his time with after Atem hangs out with him. Thirdly, Yugi will not be able to “recognize” this Atem; he will only be registered in Yugi’s mind as a new classmate. A bittersweet comic in whole, but seeing the two having fun like a normal teenager would just makes me grin.

After The Rain: A dialogue-less comic, so everyone would be able to read this right away. A short comic of the two, but still very cute and wholesome!

The Tropics of Horus: Post!DSOD, Atem has to chase Kisara who lingers around Kaiba’s soul and he needs Yugi’s help to bring Kisara back to afterlife, but he has his own ulterior motive. This manga is so dialogue-heavy and might be hard to dissect especially if you don’t understand JP grammar and context, but the time spent trying to understand the meaning behind every words will be worth it. That much I guarantee. Just... everything about this comic, and how Atem’s “ulterior motive” connects to our boys’ adventure in canon series are so well planned. You can also purchase the R18 version in a form of the book here (toranoana)

Christmas Day: S0/TOEI puzzleship hint (dark puzzle???). There’s something in store for Yugi in Christmas, but this one might surprise Yugi a lot. It’s not that the prompt of “Atem gets separated from Yugi temporarily” is uncommon, but it is still a sweet one and makes you smile throughout the pages. 

Korean

All titles mentioned here are not free unless mentioned otherwise. Also I don’t understand Korean except being able to read Yugi and Atem’s name, so my story interpretation might be wrong. If you understand Korean, I’d really love for you input! ;_; 

You can check out on how to buy comics from postype here

Yugi’s 2020 Birthday Anthology: Rain and After End

This is an anthology consisting of four titles, but they share the same (or similar) setting where Atem is reincarnated, but he doesn’t remember his past (or has not yet, depending on how the story portrays it). Some are age-gap (adult!Yugi and high school student!Atem), so you might want to consider that if it’s not your cup of tea.

To Like Someone is to...: Age-gap setting. Mostly tells about how Yugi deals with his feeling as the reincarnated Atem in front of him turns out to have a feeling on him. I like how the story’s conclusion is that Yugi will sort it out slowly while also teasing Atem how he’s “too early” to date Yugi w.

In A Circle: A story about how the two met through an online chess game. Iirc Yugi works in a game company and Atem is sort of a famous e-sports player in this setting. There’s a lot of dialogue in this one and the app sometimes can’t process them very well, but I liked what I can understand from it! not very convincing is it haha i’m sorry i shouldn’t have done this

Familiarity: Age-gap setting, where Yugi becomes Atem’s caretaker. The comic mostly focuses on how Atem notices how kind (or too kind) Yugi is sometimes, but there are times where he feels distant. The plot where Atem gets into a fight with the other kid in his school because the kid mocks Yugi, and how Yugi just... accepts it even when Atem doesn’t want to say his reason of punching the kid is just.... god... I love this kind of age-gap setting like this I guess ;_;

Touchdown: Age-gap setting, but Atem is older in here (university student). The two goes to Atem’s university festival and they think about their own feeling when they got separated. On their way to drop Atem off, he confesses to Yugi, but Yugi is still unsure on his overlapping feeling between the reincarnated Atem and the Atem he knows. Make sure you play Motohiro Hata’s Rain and Aimer’s After Rain during the car scene to make the “rain” mood works even better :”)

Others:

Try For Point: A continuation of Touchdown, where Atem (like, the one from the past) visits Yugi in his dream and helps Yugi in sorting out is his feeling toward his reincarnated self. Atem’s advice is so sweet and there’s one certain line from this comic that I remember very deeply - there’s a part where he says, “If you don’t pull out the card, you won’t know what card it is, right?” to help Yugi clearing out his hesitancy ;w; at this point, I curse myself for not being able to understand Korean

[kimyoonmiauthor]

Cultural Dissemination in Kindergarten Terms for Laymen

I have a version that is a tad more academic with citations, but this version is super simplified.

Note: I stole from myself from quora and edited it.

The categories are:

Exchange

Sharing

Evolution of cultural item (through sharing)

Appreciation

Fetishization

Appropriation

Imperializing

In laymen’s terms it’s like this:

Trading

Giving

Making it your own after consent

Seeing, but not touching

Crush/Stalking

Stealing

Imposing without consent, especially over a long period of time in order to diminish the person. (abuse, basically)

If you don’t recognize the different categories… it’s basically what you learned about playing fair in Kindergarten and the basics of consent.

For some reason people have issues when the consent pool is large. Once it’s outside of an individual, and becomes to be about a culture, people lose their minds and think consent doesn’t apply anymore.

And I know people think this is a political move most of the time—but it has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with basic emotional intelligence and consent, which are etiquette rules worldwide.

Exchange

Laymen’s understanding: Trading

Kindergarten Example: You do remember kindergarten when you were told, you can exchange gifts. They get something and you get something.

Cultural Example: Chinese gave Koreans paper. Koreans gave inspiration to China some designs for pottery. (true, BTW). In economic terms, you trade across borders.

Love Philosophy: You got a great gift for your relatives/friends and got something in return. Sometimes you don’t know when, but you feel warm about it.

Sharing

Laymen’s understanding: Giving

Kindergarten Example:  That means usually you get the majority of the item or you get the item back. You aren’t obligated to share, but you are taught that you can. Just like your body autonomy is yours.

Cultural Example: Item is borrowed by museum—often say, the sarcophagus of Pharaohs from Egypt are borrowed. But they are returned at a later date. Once you take the item, it’s not sharing is it?

Love Philosophy: Hey, your friend wants to listen to the same music that you do, so you give them some of your songs. This shouldn’t be difficult to understand.

Evolution

Laymen’s understanding: Making it your own after consent.

Kindergarten: Teacher goes in front of the class and gives you a say, line drawing, and asks you to draw on top of it to make it your own. She gave you the line drawing with consent.

Cultural example: Chopsticks. They were invented in China, given with consent to other regions. But no two regions of chopsticks are the same, and they might be adapted for different uses, like cooking. Chinese chopsticks are traditionally made of bamboo. Koreans out of metal. And Japanese usually think about lacquer chopsticks. This usually comes about by a long time exchange history by two countries such that it builds trust over time.

Love Philosophy: You are more likely to share with a friend and trust that friend to use your items correctly, right than a stranger. And you’re less likely to mind when they make it their own. “Sure you can use this idea, but you’ll give me credit, right?”

Appreciation

Laymen’s understanding: Seeing, but not touching or trying to own it.

You look, but don’t touch or interact with the item. Mona Lisa—did you go and steal it? But you could still appreciate it.

Kindergarten: You can say, “I like your dress.” But you wouldn’t go out and get the exact same one and wear it the next day without the other person feeling hurt.

Cultural example: You visit a museum in a foreign country and admire say, the Sistine Chapel without trying to chip a piece of it yourself.

Love Philosophy: Your friend has a really nice lamp you like. You like the lamp exactly where it is and have no plans to take it because it brings harmony to the room. Your friend might appreciate how much you love the lamp, but has no plans to give it to you.

Fetishization

Laymen’s understanding: Crush/Stalking. The taking of an item without understanding the cultural roots.

Kindergarten Terms: That creepy kid that kept following you around the classroom, though you weren’t friends with them. They also dress exactly like you, which is a common complaint in girls’ teen magazines.

Cultural Examples: Koreaboo and Sinophiles, etc say that the country they are enamored with is superior without listening to Koreans or Chinese respectively. In fact, those voices don’t matter. They will get upset any time a Korean bit of media portrays Korea badly. (Say Greatest Marriage, which got a lot of hate from Koreaboos for the wrong reasons) and then turn to non-Koreans to have people explain it to them. Because Korean people don’t matter, the products they produce are a commercial item to them.

Love Philosophy: (or lack of it.) At low levels, a crush. At bad levels, Stalking. Stalking is not love.

Appropriation

Laymen’s understanding: Stealing.

Kindergarten: You were told not to hit another person or say mean things to them. Use your words to solve the disagreement. Basic consent, right? And what happens if you keep hitting them without consent? They will cry and you will be chastised. Appropriation is a fancy word for stealing. And it gets worse the more you steal.

Say you stole from a house once. They upped the security. But you stole from the same house again, advertised it, got away with it. How do you think the people of that household are going to feel? Repeat it a few times over generations, and how do you think they are going to feel when you’re walking down the street in front of their house. If your entire family has a history of stealing from them and saying “Gotcha” do you think they will trust the next family member that says, “But I’m not like that. I appreciate you.” as they are using your sacred objects in front of you claiming it’s appreciation?

Cultural Examples: There are plenty in the other answers. But Japanese claiming they invented Kimchi made Koreans especially upset after Japanese occupation and denial of the comfort women.

Love Philosophy: (or lack of it) Sexual assault.

Imperializing

Laymen’s understanding: The Bully, harasser, the abuser. Imposing without consent, especially over a long period of time in order to diminish the person. (abuse, basically)

Kindergarten: The schoolyard bully or the bossy kid that wants you to do everything their way.

Cultural Example: The imposing on particularly India by the British government of gender standards into a strict binary, which caused issues later for civil rights for Indian women. This is also why “But, but they wear European-derived clothes” is not appropriation. It was imperializing and erasure. Yes, some of it was voluntary, but also, people are still shamed for wearing their culture’s clothing. And people still try to steal it. So think of it that way.

Love Philosophy: (or the lack of it) The abuser who constantly gaslights.

Conclusion

What you’re missing is emotional intelligence applies to large groups as it does small. And just because one voice in the crowd of many says it is OK to take the cultural item, does not mean all of them agree, and you should defer to the people who do not agree.

Imagine it this way: If your friend says it’s OK for you to take the refrigerator in their parents’ home, are you going to take it without asking their parents if it is OK first? No, right? You’d ask their parents to double check if it’s OK. So why don’t you think about that when you are working with a larger group and trying to understand which consensual mode you are participating in?

The idea is to punch up, not down. So being aware of your privilege and your history with that culture, even if it was not specifically you is important in order to navigate it without hurting people and getting their justified ire.

[aoiazamis]

im sick and tired of having to see discourse abt kaeluc luckae whatever the hell you want to call it bc as someone who likes both kaeya and diluc and is chinese and adopted i have to see so much of it so here are my two cents on it.

(very long bc its all the thoughts that have been stewing in my brain since i found out there was disk horse)

for context before we begin: i am chinese adopted by a chinese family living outside of china (my grandparents grew up in china). i have combed through diluc and kaeya’s dialogue, voice-over lines, and character stories multiple times and in multiple different languages, independently of the disk horse simply bc they’re both on my team and i like them a lot as a result. ive spent tons of effort trying to make sense of both character’s personalities, their conflicts, and what their motivations are.

ok lets start here. how do i view kaeya and diluc? as adopted siblings. why? less serious answer: because im adopted and there are already at least two adopted characters in the game so why not bring it to three. more serious/genuine answer: i personally think kaeya being adopted is very essential to understanding his character and how he views his relationship with mondstadt. i know everyone gets up in arms over the two-character chinese word “sworn brothers/adopted brothers” but even if they were to omit that line entirely, kaeya’s story is very reliant on him seeing the ragnvindrs as his family and a direct contrast to his birth father. here’s how i see it: kaeya was taken in and raised by crepus after appearing at dawn winery. it’s perfectly reasonable for kaeya to see crepus as his father and diluc as his brother. if i were in kaeya’s position, dropped in a whole new country with nothing but the clothes on my back and i was taken in my a dude and his son, that would surely be like my birth family to me.

now, i have read the chinese version, and from what i can see all the words they use to describe crepus and diluc in relation to kaeya are pretty vague (as far as i can tell). the phrase “sworn brothers,” while it refers to a popular bl trope, does also have the meaning of a literal adopted brother. the word used to refer to crepus could mean “adopted father” or “father in law.” (in japanese and korean, they use the exact same words in both instances, no real change.) if im gonna be honest? i think that’s intentional. the devs/writers specifically leave their relationship vague so it can be interpreted by fans however they like; because after all genshin is a gatcha games and partially relies on fan attachment to characters in order to profit. by inviting fans to choose their kind of relationship -> fans dont feel alienated or “wrong” -> more fans who are willing to whale for them or create fan content that will promote their game. im no marketing major so take this with a grain of salt but ive always felt that this was a plausible explanation for why there’s no definite answer and it all seems so vague.

so, do i give a fuck if a random given person on the internet ships them romantically? no. im not paid enough to. do i give a fuck if someone who ships them romantically follows me? no, as long as they dont come onto my kaeya and diluc content deliberately talking abt them in a romantic sense as i make it clear i dont like it. (essentially, “you’re welcome to stay here but idk how much of my content you’re gonna care for.”) “but tumblr user nowwhywouldyoudothat!” you say, “you just reblogged gen art from an artist who ships kaeluc!” i am also not paid enough to do a background check and every simple lovely general art i see of these two. i wont ever reblog anything thats inherently romantic for the two since i dont like it, and why would i reblog things i dont like? i will simply ignore that artist’s ship art and just enjoy the single gen art that i just reblogged. its simple.

this is already crazy long and i might have haphazardly explained things and ill clarify them if anyone even reads this lol. but basically, my bottom line is i dislike kaeluc as a romantic ship and think its strange and weird and i dont get it. when i create something about the two, i make sure to note that it is not intended to be romantic. i dont care if someone who does ship them interacts with it, so long as they arent going “KYAA I SHIP THEM SO MUCH” in the comments of my fic that examines their relationship as brothers. at the end of the day, its pixels on a screen, its not that deep. i am begging genshin fans to stop telling ppl to kill themselves or send death threats or doxx ppl over ships. you’re allowed to disagree with/dislike ships, problematic or not, but please at least act like normal human beings when doing so.

so yeah. thats it. a whole ass essay abt discourse. ive always wanted to say it but i never had enough word count lol or organization.

[fyexo]

200330 The Intricate Brushstrokes of Suho’s ‘Self-Portrait’

The common stereotype that K-pop stars take no part in the behind-the-scenes production of their music is wholly, hilariously false, and Self-Portrait, the first solo album from Suho of K-pop group EXO, is the latest release to scoff at that misconception. The Korean singer’s dreamy debut is out Monday, and as sweet, sweater-clad Suho put it (via a translator, over Skype): “My hands are all over this album.” And that includes the album’s central artistic theme, the lyrics, the construction of the tracklist, and, of course, the singing. This is a work of art the EXO leader can call his own, from top to bottom.

By Suho’s design, his biggest influence on the album is none other than Vincent van Gogh. The famous painter inspired the concept behind Self-Portrait, particularly “Starry Night”—a track named after Suho’s favorite painting, because sometimes the classics just can’t be beat. Suho even chose March 30 for the mini-album’s release date because it’s van Gogh’s birthday.

It may seem like a surprising pairing, but not to EXO fans with a long memory. According to Suho, in 2017, he traveled to Switzerland for a photoshoot with Allure Korea. There, he discovered the artist who would inspire Self-Portrait. Before this trip, Suho says, he wasn’t particularly interested in visual art—he was, of course, an artist in his own field. But seeing van Gogh’s paintings for the first time in real life, namely the Self-Portrait series, struck a chord with the singer. “I realized you could see almost every individual paint brushstroke and how it was different, reflecting different phases of his life,” Suho said. “That’s when I became a big fan of his work. He became a huge inspiration for this album, and much like van Gogh, although I’m not a painter, I feel like this solo album is marked with all of these paint brushstrokes of my own.”

The singer’s fondness for van Gogh’s portrait series makes sense, considering Suho has spent the past eight years maintaining a subtly shifting and evolving image of his own. Since EXO’s debut in 2012, the subject has remained the same—Suho’s calm, level-headed leadership, show-stopping talent, and Big Dad Energy have not wavered—but the brushstrokes differ from album to album. Until now, Suho has primarily been the model. This time, he’s the painter, too.

The tracks on Self-Portrait are deeply personal to their singer—according to Suho, “For You Now,” is his favorite on the album. “This song is my message to all the people in my life that I regret not telling them how thankful I am,” he said. “It’s my favorite because even though it’s late, I get to show them my gratitude now.”

Lead single “Let’s Love” is named after the EXO group cheer that Suho created early on in their career, an Easter egg for loyal fans—not to mention the rest of EXO. “The members loved it—they found it extremely meaningful,” Suho said. But, covering a smile, he admitted that his EXO groupmates provided him with no advice whatsoever for his solo debut. Luckily, he doesn’t appear to need it.

The exact responsibilities of K-pop group leaders can vary, but one constant tends to be their role as the voice of the group in shows, interviews, and promotions. “I’m used to being the one to speak on behalf of the members,” Suho said. He’s not nervous about being the center of attention, but he does miss the presence of his additional groupmates��namely, to laugh at his jokes. “It is slightly awkward, because usually we would talk to one another, react to each other in promotions. But now that I’m doing it all alone, it does feel a little …” He pauses. “I miss their presence for sure.”

For fans, it is a little unusual to see Suho operating solo. More than anyone in EXO, his personal image is inherently tied to that of the others—his role since debuting in the industry has, more than anything, been to guide and represent the rest of his group, both onstage and off. After all, Suho, a stage name given to Kim Junmyeon before his debut, means “guardian” in Korean. But he has less and less to watch over these days, as EXO is increasingly—if temporarily—fractured by a number of factors, including mandatory military enlistment, alternate group promotions, and personal commitments. That said, EXO remains one of K-pop’s most successful groups, and Suho isn’t shy about his continued faith in the group as a whole. At an EXO concert last year that incorporated temporary tattoos into the members’ styling, Suho chose to display the names of all nine current members on his back—a meaningful gesture, considering he included both Xiumin and D.O., currently serving in the military, and Chinese EXO member Lay, who (somewhat controversially) hasn’t promoted with his group for several years.

But his leadership role in EXO aside, a solo for Suho (a “Su-lo,” as the internet has dubbed it) is long overdue. At most EXO concerts, members perform solos and duets, including Baekhyun’s “UN Village” and Chanyeol and Sehun’s “What A Life.” But until now, Suho has always sung an adapted version of a group song by himself. Now, he finally has six solo songs of his own to choose from—and they’re a far cry from what EXO fans may be used to hearing.

”I think a lot of people will be surprised with the kind of music this is going to be,” Suho said of Self-Portait’s easy-listening indie rock. Considering the last EXO single, “Obsession,” was a sinister, sci-fi club banger, he may onto something.

Self-Portrait features a soothing acoustic tone—particularly on “Let’s Love”—that complements Suho’s soft, pure voice. “This is the genre of music that I’ve always loved, ever since I was young. I’ve always dreamed of producing this kind of music, if I ever got the chance to make a solo album,” he said.

Suho also expressed the hope that international fans and people who may not know EXO will discover and enjoy the album. “I hope they’ll just like my voice, and like the music,” he said. “I hope that international listeners will look up the translated lyrics and ... hear my heart. Because there’s so much of it—so much of me—on this album.”

source: kate halliwell @ the ringer

[okinawanonline]

On Japanese Loanwords in Okinawan

In my article on the different philosophies in learning Okinawan, I’ve touched up on the relatively low amount of Okinawan vocabulary and the language’s need for loanwords. I intend to get into more detail on this here. I was hoping for this article to be more structured, but it ended up being much more of a stream-of-consciousness venting of frustrations. And you know what? It’s a cluster of thoughts I think are worth sharing.

The Okinawan Language Dictionary is the preeminent and most definitive lexicon of the Okinawan language. The OLD lists 14,549 words in the Okinawan language. This is an incredibly low count, especially when you consider the (admittedly ranging) vocabulary count of other languages with English coming in with 350,000 words, the influential Chinese coming in at around 370,000 words, and Okinawan’s own relative Japanese ranging at around 500,000 words.

What this means is that to have even a basic conversation in Okinawan, you will need loanwords. The Okinawan language is without words that, while not so significant during Okinawa’s relative isolation from the rest of the world, are crucial to today’s society. Okinawan lacks words for the days of the week, any number larger than ten (up until one thousand), animals not native to Okinawa, most countries, inventions after, say, the 16th century, and, as far as I can tell, how to tell the exact time (if you look up the Japanese phrase “何時/nanji/What time?” in the Okinawan Language Dictionary, it redirects you to the Okinawan word “いち/ichi” which is the cognate with the much more vaguer Japanese word “いつ/itsu/When”). And so on.

And, obviously, that’s not to say modern Okinawans are unfamiliar with these concepts. Most (and, frankly, likely all) Okinawans speak the Japanese language natively, more so than the Okinawan language. Native Okinawan speakers still speak or at the very least can understand the Japanese language. There are so many concepts that they are used to doing in Japanese that can make conversation in pure Okinawan difficult if not impossible without switching to the Okinawan dialect of Japanese.

So, it’s only natural that when Okinawan doesn’t have a word, you loan the word you’re looking for from Japanese, even if that word is in and of itself loaned from another language like Chinese, English, or Portuguese. But then that raises the question of how do you loan a word from Japanese?

In European languages like English, words are loaned from other languages pretty much how they are. German terms used in the psychology field or French words in many more contexts come to mind. They can even be pronounced with their native German or French pronunciations though they often take on a form closer to the English pronunciation system. Anything is fine thanks to the versatility and wiggle room for interpretation in the alphabet.

East Asian languages tend to be different. When Chinese, Korean, or Japanese loans a word, these words must fit the stricter and often unique pronunciation systems and writing scripts of these languages. Korean uses a phonetic system that the loan word needs to fit into. Chinese breaks down the sounds of the loaned word and prescribes certain characters with similar sounds to it. Japanese has a whole writing script devoted to foreign loan words in the form of katakana but it still follows a phonetic system that the loan word must fit into. Things can get more complicated when the three mentioned languages loan words from each other in which the loaned word is less of a breakdown of the word’s native pronunciation to fit the loaning language’s system and more of a loaning language’s reading of the Chinese characters used to write the loaned word. The Chinese word for China is Zhongguo but the Japanese word for China isn’t ジョンググオ/jonguguo, but 中国/chuugoku as the characters for zhongguo are read that way in Japanese.

So relating that back to Okinawan, when Okinawan loans a word from Japanese, do we: A) Take the Japanese word and alter the phonetics to meet the Okinawan phonetic system OR B) Take the Japanese word as it is, complete with bringing over the Japanese phonetic system for that word.

I wish I had an answer for you. In fact, this very question has been one of the greatest hurdles in me learning Okinawan as the answer appears to be both.

Take the word 琉球 for example. It originated as a Chinese word, liuqiu. When the word was brought to Japanese, 琉球 had to match the Japanese phonetic system so it shifted into ryuukyuu. When the word was then brought from Japan to Okinawa, it had to meet the Okinawan phonetic system and so it was read as ruuchuu in Okinawan.  

But meanwhile, we have the Japanese word 新型コロナウイルス/shingata korona uirusu, the term most often used to refer to the COVID-19 virus. 新型 literally means “new form.” While there is no equivalent for 新型 listed in the OLD, 型 is used in the Okinawan language and it can be read as gata in the same context as Japanese. 新, on the other hand, is a different story as it is never pronounced as shin in the OLD. Instead, 新 is given the reading of mii in the Okinawan language for the same context as when it is pronounced shin in Japanese. Could we loan the word 新型 into Okinawan? If so, would it be read as shingata or would it be read as miigata?

Well, the COVID-19 virus is, as you can imagine, a pretty big deal and is being spoken about in several Okinawan sources including the Hougen News broadcast as well as on blogs in the Okinawan language. The ゆ���たく物語 blog calls it 新コロナウイルス/mii korona uirusu. This is interesting as it does not loan 新型. Rather, it simply uses the prefex version of “new”, 新 with the Okinawan reading. Instead of saying “the new form of coronavirus,” it’s saying “the new coronavirus” He was able to talk around the word that would have been loaned which is an important lesson to learn — You can avoid the loanword oddities if you talk around the word you need to loan.

However, the Hougen News Broadcast simply loans the term from Japanese, Japanese reading and all. Hougen News Broadcast says 新型コロナウイルス/shingata korona uirusu even in the context of the Okinawan language.

Can you hear my head blowing up in confusion?

To use another example from ゆんたく物語, the blog translates the Japanese phrase “同じ価値観/onaji kachikan/Same sense of values” into “同ぬ考え/I nu kangee/Same thinking.” Is having the same sense of values the same thing as having the same way of thinking? It is interesting that, despite Okinawan being so strongly related to Japanese, the amount of abstract thinking and vocabulary required to translate sentences is much higher than you would think.

Of course, unless you take the other approach of loanwords like how Hougen News used 新型コロナウイルス. Modern day Okinawan and Japanese share a special relationship where everyone who speaks Okinawan also speaks Japanese and Japanese is more comprehensive in nearly every scenario. The number of loanwords you can take from Japanese without even changing the pronunciation is impressive but then you get the question of how many loanwords can you use before you’re just talking Japanese with Okinawan grammar?

Meanwhile, we have the textbook 沖縄語の入門. Like I said before, there are no words for the day of the week listed in the OLD. However, 沖縄語の入門 loans the word “土曜日/doyoubi/Saturday” from Japanese and changes the reading of the characters to be duyuubi.

WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY?

沖縄語の入門 is pretty much the most reliable text for modern day Okinawan so I’m not keen on handwaving this away as a mistake. But it makes me wonder what the other days of the week are. Is it Getsuyuubi (or does the tsu change to a chi or a ti or something?), Kayuubi, Suiyuubi, Mukuyuubi, Kinyuubi, and Nichiyuubi or am I missing something?

Although, that being said, 沖縄語の入門 does use the wrong words for “11, 12, 13” and so on. It uses the Okinawan words “tuutiichu, tuutaachi, tuumiichi” and so on when they should be “juuichi, juuni, juusan”, etc. Multiple texts and native speakers corroborate that the counting system from 11 onwards (until 1,000) is identical to Japanese. Is duyuubi another one of these mistakes? Hougen News uses doyoubi from Japanese. I think. It can be really hard to tell the difference sometimes.

Things like this have been what’s been keeping me from updating this blog in a while as I’m having a hard time finding out when its appropriate to use a loanword and when it is not, as well as when the loanword keeps its Japanese pronunciation and when it receives and Okinawanization.

Desperate venting of confusion over.

[dailyexo]

[NEWS] Suho - 200330 The Ringer: “The Intricate Brushstrokes of Suho’s ‘Self-Portrait’”

The leader of K-pop group EXO goes solo with a deeply personal debut album

The common stereotype that K-pop stars take no part in the behind-the-scenes production of their music is wholly, hilariously false, and Self-Portrait, the first solo album from Suho of K-pop group EXO, is the latest release to scoff at that misconception. The Korean singer’s dreamy debut is out Monday, and as sweet, sweater-clad Suho put it (via a translator, over Skype): "My hands are all over this album." And that includes the album’s central artistic theme, the lyrics, the construction of the tracklist, and, of course, the singing. This is a work of art the EXO leader can call his own, from top to bottom.

By Suho’s design, his biggest influence on the album is none other than Vincent van Gogh. The famous painter inspired the concept behind Self-Portrait, particularly "Starry Night"—a track named after Suho’s favorite painting, because sometimes the classics just can’t be beat. Suho even chose March 30 for the mini-album’s release date because it’s van Gogh’s birthday.

It may seem like a surprising pairing, but not to EXO fans with a long memory. According to Suho, in 2017, he traveled to Switzerland for a photoshoot with Allure Korea. There, he discovered the artist who would inspire Self-Portrait. Before this trip, Suho says, he wasn’t particularly interested in visual art—he was, of course, an artist in his own field. But seeing van Gogh’s paintings for the first time in real life, namely the Self-Portrait series, struck a chord with the singer. "I realized you could see almost every individual paint brushstroke and how it was different, reflecting different phases of his life," Suho said. "That’s when I became a big fan of his work. He became a huge inspiration for this album, and much like van Gogh, although I’m not a painter, I feel like this solo album is marked with all of these paint brushstrokes of my own."

The singer’s fondness for van Gogh’s portrait series makes sense, considering Suho has spent the past eight years maintaining a subtly shifting and evolving image of his own. Since EXO’s debut in 2012, the subject has remained the same—Suho’s calm, level-headed leadership, show-stopping talent, and Big Dad Energy have not wavered—but the brushstrokes differ from album to album. Until now, Suho has primarily been the model. This time, he’s the painter, too.

The tracks on Self-Portrait are deeply personal to their singer—according to Suho, "For You Now," is his favorite on the album. "This song is my message to all the people in my life that I regret not telling them how thankful I am," he said. "It’s my favorite because even though it’s late, I get to show them my gratitude now."

Lead single "Let’s Love" is named after the EXO group cheer that Suho created early on in their career, an Easter egg for loyal fans—not to mention the rest of EXO. “The members loved it—they found it extremely meaningful," Suho said. But, covering a smile, he admitted that his EXO groupmates provided him with no advice whatsoever for his solo debut. Luckily, he doesn’t appear to need it.

The exact responsibilities of K-pop group leaders can vary, but one constant tends to be their role as the voice of the group in shows, interviews, and promotions. "I’m used to being the one to speak on behalf of the members," Suho said. He’s not nervous about being the center of attention, but he does miss the presence of his additional groupmates—namely, to laugh at his jokes. “It is slightly awkward, because usually we would talk to one another, react to each other in promotions. But now that I’m doing it all alone, it does feel a little …" He pauses. "I miss their presence for sure."

For fans, it is a little unusual to see Suho operating solo. More than anyone in EXO, his personal image is inherently tied to that of the others—his role since debuting in the industry has, more than anything, been to guide and represent the rest of his group, both onstage and off. After all, Suho, a stage name given to Kim Junmyeon before his debut, means "guardian" in Korean. But he has less and less to watch over these days, as EXO is increasingly—if temporarily—fractured by a number of factors, including mandatory military enlistment, alternate group promotions, and personal commitments. That said, EXO remains one of K-pop’s most successful groups, and Suho isn’t shy about his continued faith in the group as a whole. At an EXO concert last year that incorporated temporary tattoos into the members’ styling, Suho chose to display the names of all nine current members on his back—a meaningful gesture, considering he included both Xiumin and D.O., currently serving in the military, and Chinese EXO member Lay, who (somewhat controversially) hasn’t promoted with his group for several years.

But his leadership role in EXO aside, a solo for Suho (a “Su-lo,” as the internet has dubbed it) is long overdue. At most EXO concerts, members perform solos and duets, including Baekhyun’s “UN Village” and Chanyeol and Sehun's "What A Life." But until now, Suho has always sung an adapted version of a group song by himself. Now, he finally has six solo songs of his own to choose from—and they’re a far cry from what EXO fans may be used to hearing.

"I think a lot of people will be surprised with the kind of music this is going to be," Suho said of Self-Portait’s easy-listening indie rock. Considering the last EXO single, "Obsession," was a sinister, sci-fi club banger, he may onto something.

Self-Portrait features a soothing acoustic tone—particularly on "Let’s Love"—that complements Suho’s soft, pure voice. "This is the genre of music that I’ve always loved, ever since I was young. I’ve always dreamed of producing this kind of music, if I ever got the chance to make a solo album," he said.

Suho also expressed the hope that international fans and people who may not know EXO will discover and enjoy the album. "I hope they’ll just like my voice, and like the music," he said. "I hope that international listeners will look up the translated lyrics and ... hear my heart. Because there’s so much of it—so much of me—on this album."

Credit: The Ringer.

[chanoyu-to-wa]

Nampō Roku, Book 3 (18.9):  Arrangement for a Karamono Chaire and a Temmoku on the (Square) Naka-bon; and a Mine-suri [峰摺り] Arrangement for the Sasa-mimi [サヽ耳] Chaire.

18.9) A second arrangement for a karamono chaire and a temmoku on a (square) naka-bon; and for the meibutsu sasa-mimi [サヽ耳] chaire.

[The writing reads:  (to the left of the upper sketch) naka-bon¹  chaire² ・ hadaka temmoku³ (中盆　茶入・ハタカ天目); (above the lower sketch) sasa-mimi⁴, kane ku-den⁵ (サヽ耳、カネ口傳); to the left of the lower sketch) natsume⁶ ・ kasane-chawan⁷ (ナツメ・カサネ茶碗).]

_________________________

¹Naka-bon [中盆].

    The sketch indicates that this is the square naka-bon, rather than the round one.  In fact, the arrangement is essentially the same as the second one in the previous post (the only difference being that the square tray has been substituted for the round one; and its smaller size necessitates a slight modification in the way the temmoku is placed on the tray).

    This naka-bon measures 1-shaku square.  It was not one of the six trays used by Ashikaga Yoshimasa*, but was added by the machi-shū chajin, though precisely when this may have happened is unclear.  (It is even possible that this tray was first used by chajin on the continent, and so would predate the introduction of wabi-no-chanoyu to Japan in the middle of the fifteenth century; but, in any case, the use of this tray certainly predates the time of Jōō by several to many decades.)

    The sketch above shows how the two naka-bon compare with each other in this arrangement.  Note that the chaire remains in the same place, while the chawan is moved left or right (the difference is approximately 5-bu), according to the tray that is being used:

- on the round naka-bon (which measures 1-shaku 2-sun 3-bu in diameter), the temmoku is associated with the second kane (from the left), and extends to (but does not cross) the third kane;

- on the square naka-bon (which, as mentioned above, is 1-shaku square), the temmoku is associated with the third kane, while its rim extends as far as the second kane (though, as above, it must not cross this kane).

²Chaire [茶入].

    As in the several past arrangements, this was supposed to be a karamono chaire*, albeit one that does not merit mine-suri [峰摺り] placement.  The chaire rests on its kane, but the exact center is very slightly left or right of the center of the kane. ___________ *As has been mentioned before, by the 1580′s old Seto chaire were also being displayed in this manner.

³Hadaka temmoku [ハタカ天目].

     Hadaka [裸] means “naked.”  In other words, the temmoku is displayed on the square naka-bon without its shifuku -- this is appropriate because the square naka-bon was not one of the six meibutsu trays that were used by Ashikaga Yoshimasa, so its use suggests that something less formal be done.

    The chakin, chasen, and chashaku are arranged in the temmoku, making a kae-chawan unnecessary (this is another nod to the wabi nature of the arrangement, since now the chasen must be cleaned in the temmoku at the end of the temae).

⁴Sasa-mimi [サヽ耳].

    While the word sasa-mimi [笹耳] is usually used in a generic sense in Japan today -- as a way to refer to any container with small ears (regardless of its shape) -- in the Nampō Roku, the sasa-mimi is a very specific object*, of the sort shown in the photo (below).

    This kind of container -- most early examples of which seem to have come from the western regions of China (and so may reflect Persian influence†) -- was originally made as a container for perfumed hair-oil.  The design helped to keep the oil from glugging out as it was decanted, which, in turn, seems to have helped to prevent waste‡.

    The name sasa-mimi (“bamboo-grass ears”) refers to the two little handles (a thread tied through them and crossed over the lid helped to prevent spills, as well as the loss of the aromatics).  While Chinese (or, perhaps, Persian) examples generally have the handles made as above, old Korean celadon examples have the handles flattened (and often formed in an elongated spade shape), which explains why they were called sasa-mimi [笹耳] -- sasa [笹] being the name for the bamboo-grass**, and these ears closely resemble the leaves of this plant.

    It is difficult to remove the matcha from a sasa-mimi chaire of the type shown in the photo, on account of the constriction at the waist, coupled with the narrow mouths that are typical of these containers, and their height†† -- which may be why, though often pieces of high quality, they were apparently not favored for the service of koicha‡‡. ___________ *In fact, it probably referred to a single, specific chaire that has been lost since Jōō’s day, and its identity (and that of its esteemed owner) forgotten.  The way it is displayed implies that it was both a meibutsu chaire (probably 2-sun 2-bu in diameter, since that was both the ideal size, in terms of kane-wari, and a size commonly found in these sasa-mimi), and a meibutsu that had been treasured by an unidentified meijin [名人] (a “world-renowned” tea master) of the past -- perhaps (given the total lack of any particulars) a figure of great influence in fifteenth century Korea, who never made the journey to Japan (the chaire having been brought to Japan by one of his disciples).

†While the old examples preserved in Japan are mostly brown-glazed, as seen in the above example, this likely reflected the local preference.  Ivory-white (which resembles alabaster), and other colors (green and cobalt-blue being most common -- the glazes are of the low-fired sort found on early products from across Asia), seem to have been more common as containers for perfumed oil.  Most of these jars, as mentioned above, seem to be 2-sun 2-bu in diameter, which suggests that this was a standard size (a number of the ko-tsubo chaire are also 2-sun 2-bu in diameter; and chaire of this size were esteemed to be of the highest grade -- which is why Rikyū employed the dimension for his chū-natsume [中棗]).

    That said, similar -- albeit generally much smaller -- containers were made in Korea during the Koryeo dynasty, of celadon ware, perhaps for use as water droppers (for brush writing).  These little vessels are generally shaped like bottle-gourds, and have distinctly bamboo-leaf-shaped handles.  Though much too small to be used as tea containers, it is possible that the name was ultimately derived from pieces such as these.

‡Like the medicinal liquors that were purchased in the little jars that were later used as ko-tsubo [小壺] chaire, these were popular souvenirs from certain famous tourist destinations.  The liquors were flavored with medicinal herbs that were supposed to enhance (masculine) virility; while the hair pomades were intended to elicit a similar response (in the man) when affected by his partner (apparently on the idea that if the man’s stamina is enhanced, so, too, will be the woman’s pleasure).

**Arundinaria pygmaea (the species most commonly found in garden plantings), among others (sasa [笹] being a generic term for all of the grass-like bamboos).

††Since the name describes the little ears, many Japanese versions have much more generous mouths, and lack the narrow waist -- making it difficult to understand why the original chaire was so hard to use.

    The photo in the body of this footnote shows the type of container to which this entry specifically refers.  With a diameter of 2-sun 2-bu, the piece shown stood a little over 5-sun high, yet with a mouth just 7-bu 5-rin (2.3 cm) across.

‡‡More will be said about this below, in my notes under the second arrangement.

⁵Kane ku-den [カネ口傳].

    Actually, the ku-den does not refer to the kane (since this aspect of the arrangement is obvious from the sketch -- the three lines indicating that the chaire should be placed as a mine-suri [峰摺り] associated with the central kane):  it must be kept in mind that most (if not all) of these notes were added to the illustrations during the Edo period, and may reflect the ignorance of the people who were trying to make sense of the sketches.

    In fact, the ku-den refers not to the kane, but to the “thing” on which the sasa-mimi is resting.  It resembles what generally passes for a piece of cloth (perhaps a chakin or fukusa) in these sketches.  But actually it is the sasa-mimi’s shifuku*.  And the ku-den itself describes how the shifuku is to be oriented when it is placed down on the ten-ita:

◎ the mouth of the shifuku (the side on which the himo is attached) should face toward the guests†, with the uchi-dome [打ち止め] (the “tail-like” part that results from the two ends of the himo being braided together) pointing towards the far end of the utensil mat (so that it does not get in the host’s way).

    The shifuku is taken to be the counterpart of the chaire-bon (or the shiki-kami [敷紙] placed under a shin-nakatsugi‡) by the commentators. ___________ *Why no attempt was made to draw it more literally -- the representation in the Enkaku-ji manuscript is even more abstractedly non-committal than what is seen here -- is something I cannot even try to answer.  Perhaps Tachibana Jitsuzan decided that he wanted to keep its identity a secret.  (Maybe he was successful in his attempt at obfuscation -- since certain modern schools occasionally display a special tea container on a miniature fukusa, a ko-bukusa [小袱紗 or 古帛紗]:  this practice seems to derive from a misinterpretation of sketches found in the Nampō Roku such as this, since these arrangements appeared in the wake of their iemoto’s dabbling with the Nampō Roku.)

†This is the same way that the shifuku was supposed to be presented to them, according to Rikyū’s writings.  Turning it around so that the part of the shifuku that touches the floor faces toward them was a machi-shū practice that was introduced into general use by Sōtan.

‡Which may be why the sasa-mimi was interpreted to be a koicha-ire.  This, of course, suggests that the commentators did not understand why the shin-nakatsugi was placed on the shiki-kami, since the reason behind the arrangement was very different from what we see here.

⁶Natsume [ナツメ].

     According to the sketch, the natsume is tied in a shifuku, which (absolutely) means that it contains tea that will be served as koicha*.

    In other words, two different varieties of tea are going to be served during this gathering.  Whether two kinds of koicha, or koicha and usucha, is revealed by the way the containers are depicted†:  koicha was kept in containers that were usually tied in shifuku (or in little furoshiki), which pressed the lid tightly against the mouth of the vessel, so that the volatile compounds that contribute to the tea’s taste would not be lost through evaporation; usucha, however, did not need to be protected in this way (since it was either ground from inferior leaves, or was koicha-quality tea that was being used for the second time -- meaning that the volatile elements had already been lost). ___________ *The lid and body of Jōō’s original natsume were made separately.  For this reason, a shifuku was necessary (to press the lid tightly against the body) when koicha was put into them, to prevent the volatile components that impact upon the taste of the tea from escaping.

    Shukō’s shin-nakatsugi, however, was made using the much more complicated kiri-ai-guchi [切り合い口] technique (the body and lid are lacquered together, and then cut apart after the lacquer has dried) -- which means that the lid matches the body tightly enough that a shifuku was not necessary to protect the tea.  While natsume are sometimes made this way today, too, this is a modern innovation; and Jōō’s usage -- the details of which were preserved in his sketch -- reflects the conditions of that day.

    It must always be remembered that, while the shifuku was originally intended to “protect the cha;” this teaching was distorted in the Edo period to mean it was there to “protect the chaire.”

†Unfortunately, it appears that since the Edo period, this point has slipped past the commentators unnoticed -- since they unanimously hold that the sasa-mimi contains the tea for koicha, while the natsume either contains a second variety of koicha-quality tea, or else holds tea that will be served as usucha.

⁷Kasane-chawan [カサネ茶碗].

    Kasane-chawan means a pair of chawan, displayed on the tana with one stacked inside the other.  In the early days, at least, one was a large chawan (a bowl around 5-sun in diameter), and the other a small chawan (a bowl measuring around 4-sun in diameter).  While the chakin and chasen are arranged in the smaller bowl, Rikyū made a point of emphasizing, in his writings, that it was the larger of the two that should be used to serve the shōkyaku*.

    At the time when this document was written, the omo-chawan [主茶碗] (the main chawan -- i.e., the larger bowl) was something like the Shukō-chawan, or an ido-chawan, while the kae-chawan (the smaller chawan, in which the chakin and chasen were arranged) was often a brown-glazed (temmoku-gusuri [天目薬]) bowl from the Seto kilns -- as shown below†.  (Note that the separation between the kasane-chawan and the large natsume, when properly aligned with their kane, is 1-sun 5-bu.)

    According to Rikyū, the two bowls should be separated by placing a dry chakin‡ between them.

    Kasane-chawan were generally used (according to Rikyū’s Araki Settsu-no-kami-ate no densho [荒木攝津守の傳書]) to facilitate the service of usucha to a number of people**. ___________ *If nothing else, this statement means that this practice originated with wabi-no-chanoyu, since it was only in this context that the large chawan (which was originally used only to clean the chasen with cold water at the end of the temae) was used not only to serve tea, but to serve tea to the most important guest.

    Rikyū‘s emphasis was probably due to the fact that people seemed to think that the larger bowl -- because the smaller one is placed inside it -- is inferior to the smaller chawan.  In fact, the larger bowl is the “better” of the two, as its use to serve koicha to the shōkyaku implies.

†Apart from the temmoku, continental examples of the small chawan are not common -- probably because, in the early days, the small chawan was usually a temmoku.

    In Korea, the two types of bowls were made as tableware, with the large bowl being used for soup, and the small one for rice.  Rikyū brought back some of the earliest examples of these non-temmoku small bowls when he returned from his sojourn on the continent.

    Despite being placed in the small chawan, the chakin is folded for the larger chawan (that is, it is folded in half first, rather than into thirds as is done when preparing it for a small chawan).  Notice that the chasen is placed with the tines resting on the chakin (rather than pointing upward, as suggested by the sketch), while the chashaku faces upward.  These things are oriented the way they are described in Rikyū’s writings.

‡Perhaps folded (or cut) in half (so it does not stick out on the sides unattractively).  The dry chakin is put into the futokoro of the host’s kimono during the temae, and it is used to separate the chawan again at the end of the service of tea.  Its purpose is to prevent the foot of the upper chawan from scratching or soiling the face of the lower bowl.

**Shibayama Fugen, however, interprets this as being a temae where two kinds of koicha will be served (ignoring the fact that the sasa-mimi is not tied in its shifuku).  He argues that, since this is a wabi setting, one of the bowls will be used when serving the first kind of koicha, and the second bowl will be used for the second koicha, as per teachings that are described later in the Nampō Roku.

    The problem with this kind of thinking is that, while it is true that Rikyū said, when serving two kinds of koicha in the wabi setting, it is best to use two (inexpensive) chawan (rather than attempt to clean and reuse a single, precious bowl -- for Rikyū, in the wabi setting, the taste of the koicha was the only thing that mattered), he also noted that the chasen and chakin must be replaced, too.  Actually, he wrote that the second bowl (complete with a new chakin and chasen) should be brought out from the katte (or, in this case, taken out from the ji-fukuro) while the guests eat their kashi and go out to wash their hands and mouths, before preparing the second kind of koicha.  This kind of care (over using a new chasen) was apparently not necessary when the second kind of tea served would be usucha, at least in Jōō’s opinion.

    This is why I felt i was important to devote several years to the translation of the various other collections of documents (the Chanoyu Hyaku Shu [茶湯百首], the Chanoyu San-byakka Jō [茶湯三百箇條], and Rikyū's various densho [利休傳書]), before moving on to the Nampō Roku -- because without the needed background in the chanoyu of the period when Jōō and Rikyū were active, it is unavoidable that one will interpret the Nampō Roku according to an anachronistic set of ideas and standards.

    Therefore, considering this arrangement according to all of the historical possibilities:

- if the host will serve each person an individual bowl of koicha as well as one or two bowls of usucha (as Jōō was doing at the time when this document was written), the host will alternate between both of the bowls throughout the goza;

- Rikyū, following his preferred method, would have served the shōkyaku a bowl of koicha using the larger chawan, and then (if there were a total of three guests) a second bowl of koicha, prepared in the smaller chawan, for the second and third guests to share; followed by alternately using the bowls when serving usucha to all the guests (this would allow the shōkyaku drink his second bowl of usucha from the small chawan);

- or, if the host plans to serve koicha as sui-cha (the way things are usually done today), then the large chawan would be used to serve the communal bowl of koicha, after which the host would alternate between the two chawan while serving usucha.

    In each scenario, the use of two bowls makes the service significantly more efficient than it would be if the host were limited to the use of a single chawan.

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I. The first arrangement.

    This arrangement is a wabi variation of the previous one, for the naka maru-bon [中丸盆]*.

    As before, the karamono-chaire is placed on top of its kane, albeit not as a mine-suri.  And the temmoku -- which is displayed without its shifuku, and with the chakin and chasen arranged in it (and the chashaku resting across its rim) -- is associated with the kane to the left of the chaire (but the host should take care that the rim of the bowl does not cross the kane to the left of that).  This modification is necessary because the square naka-bon is smaller than the maru-naka-bon.

    With respect to the kane-wari, the tana is han [半], since it supports three units (the hishaku and futaoki are counted as one unit, and the collection of things placed on the naka-bon are also counted as a single unit).  Taken together with the chabana in the toko (han [半]) and the kama in the ro (collectively, han [半] as well), this gives a total count of han for the za, which is proper for the second half of a chakai held during the daytime. ___________ *See the post entitled Nampō Roku, Book 3 (18.8):   Two Arrangements for a Karamono-chaire and a Dai-temmoku on the Fukuro-dana, arrangement 2.  The URL for that post is:

https://chanoyu-to-wa.tumblr.com/post/187403480787/namp%C5%8D-roku-book-3-188-two-arrangements-for

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II. The second arrangement.

    In this arrangement, the meibutsu sasa-mimi [笹耳] is arranged on the ten-ita of the fukuro-dana as a mine-suri [峰摺り]*; while a pair of chawan (stacked one inside the other) are arranged on the kō-dana, together with a (large) natsume (that has been tied in its shifuku†).

    In the Nampō Roku itself, nothing is said regarding how this temae might be performed -- even though an idea of how things should be done is necessary in order to fully understand the sketch‡.  While Shibayama Fugen argued that two kinds of koicha will be served, Tanaka Senshō (whose comments appear to represent a consensus of the esteemed chajin affiliated with the Enkaku-ji at that time), states that the sasa-mimi will be used to serve koicha, and the natsume (despite its clearly being tied in a shifuku) will be used for usucha.  I, however, find it necessary to differ with both of these interpretations -- and not only here, but also in those instances where the sasa-mimi was used on the daisu that are included in Book Five (since they are parallel cases to this one).

    As I explained above, the sasa-mimi has a very narrow mouth.  It also has a constricted waist, which flares out into a rounded bulge between the waist and the mouth.  These containers were originally made to hold perfumed hair oil (and the design helps prevent the oil from pouring out in “glugs”), but while this system apparently worked well when the vessel contained an oily pomade, things are rather different when it is used to hold a dry, easily compacted, powder.  It is, in fact, extremely difficult to remove the tea, in any quantity, either smoothly or efficiently:  the matcha must be coaxed out gently (while it is traditionally said that three scoops of matcha should be used for one portion of koicha, in this case the host would have to “pump” out perhaps 15 or more tiny scoops -- always using the side of the chashaku to pull the tea out of the mouth since the mouth is too narrow to allow the host to scoop the tea -- in order to transfer the same volume of matcha**).

    Furthermore, as has been said many times, the original purpose of the shifuku was to protect the tea (not the tea-container) -- by pressing the lid tightly against the mouth:  without a shifuku, the aromatics will escape, ruining its taste††.  Yet here, rather than being tied in its shifuku, the sasa-mimi is displayed resting on top of it.  This, in turn, leads me to conclude that the tea it contains was not intended to be used for koicha (the shifuku, as it is, keeps the foot of the chaire from directly contacting the tana, preventing damage to the tana, while simultaneously showing a degree of reverence for the sasa-mimi).

    What I would like to propose, then -- and this is contrary to what everybody else who has commented on this sketch has written -- is that the sasa-mimi is displayed in its honored position, and on top of its shifuku, almost apologetically‡‡ -- because it is going to be used to serve usucha.  Meanwhile, the securely tied natsume will be used to serve the koicha.

    Likewise, though it is generally taught (today) that the small natsume should be used for koicha, and a large one for usucha, these ideas are based on the practice of serving koicha as sui-cha [吸い茶]*** in the small room (where the number of guests is no more than two or three persons), under the assumption that the entire contents of the natsume will be dumped into the chawan; and so ignores the way that Jōō actually served koicha.  For a gathering with five or six guests (as the records of Jōō's chakai suggests was a fairly common number -- even in his 2-mat daime small room), each of whom would receive his own bowl of koicha (meaning that a little more than one portion of tea would be needed for each, since a certain amount of koicha will cling to the sides of the bowl, and so must be subtracted from what is offered as the guest’s portion), a large natsume would be necessary to hold the quantity of tea necessary.  (While Sōtan's style of koicha service involved emptying the contents of the tea container into the chawan, prior to his time an excess of tea was preferred -- this excess tea is what Rikyū used to serve usucha -- because the idea of using it all up when serving koicha seemed niggardly or penurious, and so impolite, to earlier generations of chajin).

    Thus, my interpretation of this drawing is that an ō-natsume [大棗] (which is tied in its shifuku) will be used to serve koicha (while the sasa-mimi remains as it is on the ten-ita); and after that is finished, the sasa-mimi will be taken down and used to serve usucha.

    Now, turning to the kane-wari, we see that the sasa-mimi has been placed on the central kane, on the ten-ita (so the ten-ita is han [半]); the naka-dana has been left empty (and so counted as chō [調]); the kasane-chawan and natsume (contact different kane) have been arranged together on the kō-dana (making the kō-dana chō [調] as well); and, finally, the mizusashi is by itself on the ji-ita (so the ji-ita is han [半]).  Han + chō + chō + han is chō.  Since the room is han (only the kama in the ro), it follows that the toko must be chō if we want to have a han total (as is proper for the goza of a gathering held during the daytime).

    Because two different blends of tea are going to be served during the goza, a fuchi-daka [縁高] (or jiki-rō [食籠]) will be placed in the tokonoma, so that the guests can have a kashi to clean their palates before drinking the second kind of tea (even though it will be prepared as usucha)†††.  Consequently, since the toko will also contain the chabana, the toko will be chō, resulting in the desired han count for the za. ___________ *The mine-suri arrangement was used only for utensils of the highest quality that, in addition, had been treasured by one of the great chajin of the past (this last part appears to have been part of the agreed-upon definition).

    The sasa-mimi, in general, were an inferior type of chaire (as mentioned above, they were originally made as containers for hair-oil) -- equated with the large taikai (that had formerly been used on the o-chanoyu-dana) in Book Five of the Nampō Roku, because of their cumbersome size, and the fact that it was difficult to get tea out of them efficiently.

    The small mouth means that the tea has to be pulled out with the side of the chashaku (just as is done when removing tea from a ko-tsubo -- or a ko-natsume when it is being used for koicha); yet, in addition to being very deep, the constriction at the waist of the container means that only a small amount of tea can be pulled out each time the chashaku is inserted (the tea has to be pulled up from the bottom over the waist so that it pools above the waist, and it is from there that it can then be pulled out of the mouth and into the chawan).  As a result, it is difficult to use when serving koicha.  But since only one scoop of matcha was used for usucha in Jōō’s and Rikyū’s day, the sasa-mimi could be used easily enough for this kind of tea.

    The question, then, is why a container of this sort -- even one of exceptional quality -- is displayed as a mine-suri?  Obviously, the sasa-mimi in question (we must remember that all of these temae were devised by Jōō with specific utensils in mind) must have been the treasured utensil of some famous chajin of the past.  Because it seems that the original sasa-mimi, as well as the identity of its famous owner, were lost between the time of Jōō and the eighth decade of the seventeenth century, no evidence can be provided to make intellectual sense of this arrangement.  (In Book Five of the Nampō Roku, the sasa-mimi seems to be interchangeable with a large taikai chaire known as Shi-un [紫雲] -- that, at that time, belonged to the famous Sakai chajin Jū Sōho [重宗甫; dates of birth and death unknown], who was one of Hideyoshi’s eight tea masters, though it must have belonged to someone even more famous at some point in the past.  That said, like the sasa-mimi, the antecedents of the Shiun taikai are unknown, and neither of them seem to have survived into the Edo period.)

†A natsume tied in its shifuku was used for koicha.  A natsume (or other tea container -- with the single exception being the shin-nakatsugi) without a shifuku was used for usucha.  This detail provides us with an important piece of information about how this arrangement was actually used to serve tea.

    While the modern schools teach that a small natsume is used for koicha, and a large one for usucha, this is meaningless in the historical context of this densho.  In Jōō’s and Rikyū’s day, chajin used whichever container suited their needs; and a ko-natsume seems to have been used most commonly when sending gift tea to someone (using it for koicha at ones own chakai, especially in Jōō’s day, would have struck the guests as decidedly niggardly).

    The tea gifted to someone was usually “left over tea,” but this does not (usually) mean tea remaining in the chaire after the host has finished serving koicha to a group of guests.  Rather, the host ground as much tea as he thought he would need in the early morning of the day of the chakai, and he then proceeded to fill his chaire with the freshly ground tea.  “Left over tea,” in this context, means the excess matcha that would not fit into the chaire.  Rather than let it go to waste, if there was enough left for someone to do something with it (such as make a couple of portions of koicha), it might be sent off as a gift.  Since most chajin were extremely careful with their tea (otherwise the contents of their cha-tsubo might not last until the end of the next year’s furo season), there was usually not very much tea left, and so a ko-natsume usually sufficed.  The idea -- whether when filling ones chaire for a chakai, or a ko-natsume (or other container) that was being used for “gift tea,” was to fill it fully (since too much air meant that the volatile components of the tea could evaporate into the air before the tea was served).

‡The reader must remember that the original of this document was never intended for public consumption.  Densho such as this were either written for one specific person (and the author took into consideration that person’s level of training, experience, and understanding), or copied from such a document into the author’s personal archive (a practice common among men of letters). The present document seems to have been written during Jōō’s middle period (years before Rikyū’s return from the continent precipitated the apperance of the small room); yet it also appears that Jōō only decided to present it to Rikyū when he was on his deathbed (according to Rikyū’s own notes that flesh out the story of how he came into possession of the Daikoku-an no uta [大黒庵の歌] -- the poem was folded up and placed within this densho -- which was interpreted to mean that Jōō was passing on his legacy to Rikyū, together with giving him the right to use the name of Jōō’s personal tearoom as his own).

    In light of the fact that this densho was obviously not written specifically for Rikyū (Jōō was unexpectedly taken sick, thus he would have had no time to write this kind of thing -- he appears to have taken the document out of his archive and, after secreting the Daikoku-an no uta within it, handed it to Rikyū, as a sort of token of rememberance), we must assume that Jōō considered Rikyū (at the end of 1555) to have been sufficiently skilled that he would be able to understand its contents without any need for further explanation.

    It is obvious, from the various missteps in the commentaries, that the same cannot be said about the members of the group who gathered in the Enkaku-ji.

**We must remember that the machi-shū method of rotating the chaire while pouring the tea out into the chawan (even if it were possible to do so in this case), was despised by Jōō or Rikyū, and their followers were forbidden to do so.

    Not that it would even be possible, given matcha's tendency to compact into katamari (the narrow waist means that the tea powder would have to pour over two “mouths” rather than just one -- and it is this property that makes pulling the tea out of the sasa-mimi using the side of the chashaku so difficult).

††This is very noticeable with matcha that has been freshly ground with a hand-mill -- though much less so (if at all) in the case of canned matcha that was ground in a motor-powered mill, such as are used today (the stones of mechanically powered mills get so hot from rubbing together at a high speed that they cannot be touched with the naked hand, which, coupled with the fact that the ground tea powder remains fully exposed to the air for up to 8 hours before it is collected at the end of the shift, results in the loss of most of the subtle aspects of its taste long before the matcha is ever sealed in the can).  For this reason, it is difficult for modern tea people (indeed, tea people since the Edo period -- since that is when pre-ground matcha first appeared on the market) to understand the ancient’s almost excessive concern with “protecting” the tea from the air.

‡‡The way the sasa-mimi is arranged on the fukuro-dana derives directly from the way it was displayed on the daisu:  the donsu shifuku was originally placed underneath so that the foot of the chaire would not scratch the lacquered daisu.  Jōō‘s arranging the sasa-mimi in this same way on the fukuro-dana was probably more about following the earlier precedent, than out of a desire to protect the tana (the unpainted version of the fukuro-dana, like all other such things, was used only once).

***This refers to the case where a single bowl of koicha is shared by all of the guests.

    In his writings, Rikyū says that (contrary to the relatively modern idea that sui-cha was invented by Shukō) the practice of sui-cha was started by the Uji tea farmers, their idea being so that the buyers (who would bid on the tea afterward, on behalf of their respective firms) could all taste the exact same bowl of tea.

    In Jōō's day, every guest was served an individual bowl of koicha, as well as one or two bowls of usucha (usually prepared using a different variety of matcha).  And while the machi-shū were adopting the practice of sui-cha more and more over the course of Rikyū's lifetime, Rikyū, to the end of his life, still preferred to serve an individual portion of koicha to the shōkyaku, while possibly doubling up on the service of koicha to the other guests to save time (thus, the second and third guests shared the second bowl of koicha, and the fourth and fifth guests the third bowl -- if there were so many people at the chakai).  This was especially true when the other guests were considered  to be accompanying the shōkyaku (rather than invited to participate on equal terms with the shōkyaku).  To imagine otherwise is completely anachronistic.

†††This eating of kashi, followed by a quick trip to the chōzu-bachi to wash the hands and mouth, was done whether the second kind of tea was going to be koicha or usucha.

    The modern practice of eating two higashi immediately before drinking ones usucha is a relatively modern perversion, apparently inspired by the fact that many people participating in chanoyu do not actually like the taste of the tea, and the sweets helped to mitigate the bitterness (which is often more pronounced in the case of the lower-quality tea served as usucha).

    In Jōō‘s and Rikyū’s day, however, a second kind of tea necessitated a second kashi (to clean the taste of the first tea out of ones mouth), followed by rinsing the mouth at the chōzu-bachi (to rid the mouth of the taste of the kashi), so that the second kind of tea could be fully appreciated, regardless of how it was served.  Serving the tea as koicha or usucha reflected its quality, to be sure; but the decision was based on which method of preparation would enhance its flavor to best effect.  Thus usucha was not (necessarily) considered to be inherently inferior to koicha; but, rather, this was the method of preparation that would make this tea taste better (koicha-quality tea does not really taste very good when prepared as usucha).  A clean palate was preferred, no matter how the tea would be prepared, since this would allow the guest to best appreciate the tea he was being served.

    Alas, many of the conventions in the modern “tea ceremony” are the result of a majority of its participants not really liking matcha.  This is why the kaiseki, or the dōgu, have come to taken precedence over the koicha -- which most seem to consider something that “has to be endured” in order to enjoy the delights of the food and the pleasure of inspecting the fine utensils.  How strange that, for Rikyū, the koicha was the whole reason for the wabi-chakai.

[xseedgames]

2017 End-of-the-Year Q&A Extravaganza Blog! #1

It’s time for our first 2017 End-of-the-Year Q&A Extravaganza! We’ve got a bunch of these we’ll be posting over the holiday break, so please look forward to them. Now, let’s roll right in!

We have answers from: 

Ken Berry, Executive Vice President / Team Leader John Wheeler, Assistant Localization Manager Nick Colucci, Localization Editor Liz Rita, QA Tester Brittany Avery, Localization Producer Thomas Lipschultz, Localization Producer

Question: Has selling your games on PC worked out for you so far? I know supporting the PC platform is a relatively recent choice for XSEED. - @Nate_Nyo

Ken: Being on PC has been great for us as it allows us to reach anyone anywhere in the world regardless of region or console. We were probably one of the earlier adopters in terms of bringing content from Japan to PC as we first published Ys: The Oath in Felghana on Steam almost 6 years ago in early 2012.

Brittany: I love working on PC. The work involved is greater than working on console, but I feel like it's a bigger learning experience, too. For console, the developers normally handle the graphics after we translate them, and they do all the programming and such. For PC, everything falls on us. I wasn't that experienced with Photoshop in the beginning, but I think I've gotten a lot better with it over the years. We can also receive updates instantly, and since I talk with our PC programmer through Skype, it's easier to suss out our exact needs and think of ideas to improve the game or bring it to modern standards.

Question: What non-XSEED games do you praise the localization for? - @KlausRealta

Brittany: Final Fantasy XII. I love everything about Final Fantasy XII's writing. I'm also a big fan of the personality in the Ace Attorney localizations. I'm still playing Yakuza 0, but you can feel the passion of the localization team in the writing. There are some projects where you can tell the editing was phoned in, and then there are games where it's obvious it was a labor of love. All of these games have a color I aspire to.

Tom: Probably going to be a popular answer, and not an especially surprising one, but I've got to give props to Lost Odyssey. It's hard to deny the timeless quality and absolutely masterful English writing that went into basically every line of that game's massive script, with the many short stories being of particular note. That game really does represent an inspirational high bar that I think most everyone else in the industry will forever strive to reach in their own works.

For a more unexpected answer, I've also got to give mad props to Sega for their work on Monster World IV. As a Sega Genesis game released digitally in English for the very first time less than a decade ago, I guess I was kind of expecting a fairly basic "throwaway" translation -- but instead, the game boasts a full-on professional grade localization that's easily up to all modern standards, brimming with charm and personality. It's really nice to see a legitimate retro game being given that kind of care and attention in the modern era, and it makes it very easy for me to recommend (as does the fact that the game is actually quite fun, and is sure to be enjoyed by anyone who's played through all the Shantae titles and really wants to try something else along similar lines).

John: I played Okami on PS3 earlier this year (before the remake was announced), and I was awed by how skillfully the team handled text that is chock full of localization challenges like quirky nicknames, references to Japanese fairy tales, and regional dialects. I was especially amused to see a reference to "kibi dango," the dumplings Momotaro uses to bribe his companions in that famous story. We dealt with the same cultural reference with STORY OF SEASONS: Trio of Towns.

Nick: My go-to response is always Vagrant Story, because it’s the game I credit with getting me really interested in a career in localization. Before that point, I had enjoyed games for their story and characters, but hadn’t realized just how much the specific word choices and tone contributed to a reader’s perception of a story as a whole. The gents behind VS’s localization would go on to be industry luminaries, with Rich Amtower now calling shots in Nintendo’s Treehouse department and Alex Smith being synonymous with the highly regarded prose of Yasumi Matsuno’s games – including the cool and underappreciated Crimson Shroud for 3DS, and Final Fantasy XII, which as anyone who’s played it can tell you is a stellar localization. Having spent a lot of time with FFXII’s “The Zodiac Age” remaster this year, the care and attention to detail put into the localization still blows me away. The unique speech style of the Bhujerbans (with...Sri Lankan inflections, if memory serves correctly) sticks with me, because I knew that I myself would never have been able to pull off something like that so deftly. I guess you could say Vagrant Story started a lineage of games that’s always given me something to aspire to as an editor.

Final Fantasy XIV, which I’ve been playing this year, also has a very good localization, especially considering the reams of text that go into an MMO of its size and scope. Michael-Christopher Koji Fox and his team have done a bang-up job giving life and personality to the land of Eorzea, and I’ve enjoyed seeing how the localization has changed in subtle ways as time has gone on. The initial “A Realm Reborn” localization sort of cranks the “regional flavor” up to 11 with heavy dialects and vernacular, but in subsequent expansions, they kind of eased up on that and have found a good mix between grounded localization and the kind of flourishes that work well in high-fantasy settings.

 And, while I haven’t played it in a number of years, I remember Dragon Quest VIII having a really great localization, too, with ol’ Yangus still living large in my memories. Tales of the Abyss was fantastic as well, and both DQVIII and Abyss delivered some really brilliant dub work that showed me how much richer one could make characterization when the writing and the acting really harmonized. I still consider Tales of the Abyss my general favorite game dub to date. The casting is perfect, with not a bad role among them. I also want to give mad props to Ni no Kuni’s Mr. Drippy, just as a perfect storm of great localization decisions. Tidy, mun!

Question: How hard is it to turn in game signs and words to English for Japanese? Is it as simple as going in and editing text? Or as hard as creating a whole new texture for the model? - @KesanovaSSB4

Tom: We refer to this as "graphic text" -- meaning, literally, text contained within graphic images. How it's handled differs from project to project, but the short answer is, yeah, it involves creating a whole new texture for the model. Sometimes, this is handled by the developer: they'll just send us a list of all the graphic text images that exist in-game and what each image says, we'll send that list back to them with translations, and they'll use those translations to create new graphic images on our behalf. For other games, however (particularly PC titles we're more or less spearheading), we'll have to do the graphic edits ourselves. When the original PSDs or what-not exist for the sign images, this is generally pretty easy -- but as you might expect, those aren't always available to us, meaning we'll sometimes have to go to a bit more trouble to get this done.

John: The best practice is to review graphic text very early in the localization process because it takes effort to fix and can throw a wrench in schedules if issues are discovered too late. On occasion, it is too difficult to change ubiquitous textures, especially those that might also appear in animation. This was the case with "NewTube" in SENRAN KAGURA Peach Beach Splash, which the localization team wanted to change to "NyuuTube" to make the wordplay clearer to series fans.

Question: With the Steam marketplace becoming increasingly saturated and being seen as a greater risk to publish on in recent times, what does XSEED plan on doing in order to remain prominent and relevant in the PC gaming space? - @myumute

Ken: It is indeed getting harder and harder to stand out as hundreds of new titles are releasing on Steam each month. We are working our way towards simultaneous release across all platforms to help leverage some of the coverage from the console version to get more attention to the PC release, so hopefully that's something we can accomplish soon. For PC-exclusive releases it continues to be a challenge, but at least they have a long tail and even if it's not an immediate success at launch we know it can continue to produce sales for years to come.

Question: What was your favorite film that you saw in 2017, and why? - @Crippeh

John: I'm way behind on movies this year (haven't seen Disaster Artist, Phantom Thread, or Get Out, for example), but recently I've enjoyed both Star Wars and Lady Bird. I expect I'll watch my favorite film from 2017 sometime in 2018.

Ken: Wind River. Mainly because of Jeremy Renner's performance and how many quotable lines he had.

Liz: Get Out for horror mindblowing amazingness, Spider-Man Homecoming for genuinely fun comic book movie, and The Shape of Water for Guillermo del Toro. Guillermo del Toro should always be a category.

That’s it! Stay turned for blog #2 later this week. Here’s a preview of the kinds of questions we’ll be answering:

Question: Have you ever considered selling the music CDs for your licenses stateside? - @LimitTimeGamer Question: If possible, would you please consider researching and localizing classic Korean-made PC xRPGs? - @DragEnRegalia Question: Do you have any interest in pursuing the localization of any of the large, beautiful Chinese RPGs that have been hitting Steam? Or are you focused exclusively on Japanese titles? - @TheDanaAddams Question: What inspired you all to do this kind of work in the first place? Also, what’s the story behind the company name XSEED? How did you all come up with it? - @TBlock_02 Question: What was everyone's favorite game(s) to work on this year? - @ArtistofLegacy Question: What's everyone's favorite song from the Falcom games you've released so far? - @Crippeh

[hashtagartistlife]

you’ve been reading bleach side b wrong this whole time

So, it occurred to me yesterday that I’d never read the bleach side a and side b chapters in Korean. Today I decided to rectify this, and went trawling for the chapters. And discovered something really fucking interesting. 

Most of the two chapters are pretty much exactly the same, whether in english or korean, with one significant exception. We all know how Rukia’s side b poem goes, right? 

‘It’s rotating

If they say destiny are gears

We are the reason for turning it

Believing it doesn’t connect, we go forth

Beyond the power of the matching gears’

That penultimate line. ‘Believing it doesn’t connect, we go forth’. Wanna know what the Korean translation says?

Believing it to be flawless, we go forth

Flawless. As in, A Flawless End/The End of Flawlessness. As in, the 685 chapter title. 

This is not a coincidence, because like I said about the 685 chapter title when it was released, they translated the ‘’’flawless’’’ part as mookyul-- a rather quaint, archaic, uncommon word that isn’t used very regularly. The chances of it popping up twice like this in a series, when a much more common word would have sufficed? Not high. 

But, Sera, if the above is true, then at least one of the translations (korean or english) has got to be straight up wrong! which one is it? Right. So, I’m leaning towards the korean translation being correct here. One, this is from the OFFICIAL kr translation, and as far as I know the english version of the poems are from a fan scanlation. Two, Korean people can read kanji as well. You know that the Japanese kanji system is basically just Chinese characters + a Japanese way of pronouncing and reading them, right? Korea does a similar thing. We don’t use Chinese characters in our writing, since our alphabet is phonetic and not....meanings-based, but given a kanji/chinese character, we also have a system of inferring the meaning/pronouncing said character. So a lot of the times, translating Japanese into Korean (especially the kanji segments) is basically just us looking at the kanji and reading them with a Korean pronounciation. 

mookyul, 무결 in korean, is one of those words for which a direct translation is possible. I haven’t seen the original japanese text for bleach side b, but I’ll eat my hat if they haven’t used  無 缺. There’s much less scope for the Korean translation to be the wrong one-- we’dve literally just looked at the characters and, without changing a single thing, pronounced them in Korean. 

So. 

So. 

Look, there’s an analysis in here, I know it, I know there is, there is not a tiny shred of chance that kubo titled 685 ‘a flawless end’ by accident, fucker was thinking of this exact poem as he decided on the title. he wanted to callback bleach sides a and b with chapter 685, it wasn’t just an ironic ha-ha as I thought this entire year, there was a reason he titled 685 with something that calls back to bleach sides a and b

but atm the thoughts are not going well in my brain tbh, even getting this out somewhat coherently was a struggle. so the analysis will have to wait a lil. if u guys have thoughts though id love to hear it because fucker. kubo that fucker what was his game

[chatoyantluster]

Skin Care Shopping Review

Show cased here are sites that I have ordered from. To see reviews for each individual product, please refer to that post.

Yesstyle.com -  https://www.yesstyle.com

Review; In terms of Korean beauty, this is number one on my list. As long as you watch out for the sales, no other site can beat them out in price. Of course, when not on sale, their prices can be pretty ridiculous. Buying items within the 24hr shipping period guarantees delivery in three to five days. I have noticed some items, will state in stock in 21 days, but three days later, it will say 24hrs, so it’s always best to keep an eye out! Their products are amazing, legit (not scam/dupes like Amazon), secured packaging (nothing is breaking!), prompt and friendly customer service (I had a reply within 24hrs!). Overall I am happy with this shopping service and I highly recommend them.

Taken from Google about their shipping, as I find this to be true, also from my personal experience. “In my experience, items that are marked as “24” hours took 3 days to arrive. Items marked with 7-14 days took 23 days to arrive. When placing an order, it is important to know that no matter what the shipping time says on each item, YesStyle will not ship your order until all items arrive in their warehouse.” You also cannot remove an item after you ordered. And expect a long wait if the item is truly “21″ days for stock. If you are lucky, sometimes that status can change during an order. I know a 7-14 item status changed to 24hrs in two days and I was able to get all my items quickly.

I also would not trust the reviews, as this site rewards with points to do reviews, and most are always five star, regardless if the product is good or not.

Speaking of rewards, filling out reviews and making product purchases, provides points, and rewards levels of VIP status. This will in turn give you additional % off at the end of your order as well as gift cards and coupons.

Shipping;

Look at this glorious packaging! Nothing breaking in there. Very well packed and everything was snugly and safe inside. Only took a little over a week for everything to be ordered and delivered.

Products;

Secret Nature - From Jeju Mist, COSRX Advanced Snail 96 Mucin Power, I'm from - Ginseng Serum, Dear, Klairs - Midnight Blue Calming Cream, Beauty Artisan Face Cleansing Brush, THE PLANT BASE Time Stop Collagen Ampoule, Eggshell Houseware Fabric Hairband Cat Ears - Pink - One Size, Dear Klairs Rich Moist Foaming Cleanser, I'm from Mugwort Essence.

Free Gift; TONYMOLY Pureness 100 Mask Sheet (Random) 1pc. I got the Hyaluronic sheet.

Soko Glam - https://sokoglam.com/

Review; Great product selection. They also do have some exclusives. A bit pricey. Ordering and shipping took a week. Do watch out though, as some products have remained in the “out of stock” option for weeks. So you have to opt to buy things from the original manufacturer or wait. I often like to wait, so I can bundle orders for free shipping.

Shipping; Decent packaging, too a week to order and deliver. Nothing was damaged.

Products;

D'ALBA PIEDMONT Peptide No-Sebum Balancing Toner, KLAIRS Rich Moist Facial Soap, NEOGEN Day-Light Protection Sun Screen SPF 50/PA+++, COSRX Triple C Lightning Liquid, KLAIRS Toner Mate 2 in 1 Cotton Pad.

Free sample; Benton fermentation eye cream.

Glow Recipe - https://www.glowrecipe.com

Review; Very good products and selections. They also have exclusives that are worth checking out, like Whamisa. Their customer service is exceptional - as I made a mistake in my order - they do not remove items after you order, so the whole thing will be canceled. I got a reply within 24hr hours, they did however, mess up by canceling my order entirely, and refunding my money. I specifically asked for a credit/gift card after the cancellation so I could immediately reorder, but because they did this, I did not have the funds, and it takes my bank almost a week to see credits. So what do they do? Gave me a nice credit towards my purchase! Loving them already.

Shipping; Took two weeks for everything to be ordered and delivered, but this was because they had to cancel and re-do my order. I am sure if that was not a part of it, the whole process would of only taken a week.

Products;

Organic Flowers Deep Rich Essence Toner, Organic Flowers Cleansing Oil, Organic Flowers Cleansing Oil, Asiatica Calming Ampoule.

Free sample; Avocado melt sleeping mask.

The Ordinary - https://theordinary.com / DECIEM - https://deciem.com

Review; Definitely one of the more interesting sites of the bundle. The Ordinary products have to be, not only the cheapest, but provide excellent service and products. I only just started using their line, and I am already impressed. They take out all the frills of packaging and advertisement, so they can deliver products that rival competition. You can buy a $6 hydrator while their competitor, for the exact same ingredient, will charge you $60. A+ in my book.

The Ordinary is part of the main site/line, DECIEM. I am highly interested in there other products - mainly NIOD - but I am opting to do more research, to see which ones are best for me before I purchase.

Shipping; Took a little over a week for product to get ordered and delivered. Decent packaging. Nothing was damaged. Had a cute receipt. :3

Products;

The Ordinary Marine Hyaluronics, The Ordinary 100% Plant-Derived Squalane, The Ordinary 100% Organic Cold-Pressed Rose Hip Seed Oil, The Ordinary Alpha Arbutin 2%, The Ordinary Niacinamide 10% + Zinc 1%.

Era Organics - https://www.eraorganics.com

Review; All natural site. I have only purchased the moisturizer, but the ingredients are very alluring, and they don’t have any yucky fillers. I can’t wait to try there other products, as I am eyeing them. But so far I am happy with my current purchase! 

Shipping; They had pretty fast shipping, ordering and delivery, took less then a week. Though the packaging is very sub-par, it came in a flimsy bag, no box. The top did come with a little ding. I am sure it was due to workers man handling the package during transport. It did not spoil the product and it was still tightly sealed, so it was purely cosmetic.

Products;  Oasis Extra Hydrating Moisturizer for Dry Skin

Derm store - https://www.dermstore.com

Shipping; Very overboard in packaging for one small item lol. Took only a week for items to be ordered and delivered.

Products; COSRXAcne Pimple Master Patch (24 count) (bought 2)

Free sample; Jane Iredale, Triple Luxe, long lasting naturally moist lipstick. Three sample colors.

Costco;

Review;

Products;

Sites to avoid;

Amazon. They are a good go to for every day household items, but DO NOT buy beauty products on this site. Skin care, makeup, body washes, etc. A lot of items are dupes of the originals (even if the item is a dupe from a name brand, that dupe is duped by low cost Chinese companies), or just plain scam - not even containing similar ingredients, because they often are swapped for a harsh, cheaper version. Good signs that indicate this are; different label, products look opened/damaged/used, the product causing adverse reactions, and missing ingredient list. A Google search will yield you the same information about the Amazon product scam. Do yourself a save, and just purchase from reputable sites and or directly from the manufacturer!

[cryptoquicknews-blog]

New Post has been published here https://is.gd/OH5IE0

State of Lightning: What’s the Path for Network Adoption in 2019?

This post was originally published here

This is a visualization of the lightning network taken at 22:29 (UTC) on Friday.

Created by blockchain analytics startup 1ML, the snapshot represents all of the nodes running lightning software and creating public payment channels atop the bitcoin blockchain.

Looks complex, right? And believe it or not, this network is getting progressively larger each day according to 1ML.

In the past 30 days alone, the number of lightning payment channels has increased by roughly 36 percent, bringing to total to roughly 22,000 channels. Active lightning nodes have similarly shot up – over 16 percent in recent days – and presently sit at around 5,690 distributed nodes.

Launched in beta last March, the layer-2 payments technology is actively maintained and developed by over six different development teams spread out across the globe.

These include Eclair by Acinq, Lightning Network Daemon (LND) by Lightning Labs, c-lightning by Blockstream, ptarmigan by Nayuta, Rust-Lightning by Matt Corallo and Lit by MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative (DCI).

And even outside of these six, Pierre-Marie Padiou, co-founder and CEO of Acinq, predicts there are half a dozen more out “in the wild.”

Highlighting that the codebase to build lightning clients is open-source and available to anyone “without asking permission,” Padiou added that a list of 30 some-odd improvements to the network were agreed upon by developers during a summit in Adelaide, Australia November of last year.

“Now, after the summit, the work will continue to formalize the decisions taken during the summit, and implement them in the clients so that they can be deployed,” explained Christian Decker – core tech engineer at Blockstream – in a former interview with CoinDesk. 

Since November, one feature has already been released by CTO of Lightning Labs Olaoluwa Osuntokun enabling “the ability to send a payment to a destination without first needing to have an invoice,” as detailed on GitHub.

Explaining that each client team “has their own favorite features,” Decker added that more changes to the network would be released in “incremental” steps emerging piecemeal over coming weeks and months.

As such, lightning developers are optimistic about the continued success of the lightning network, expecting growth trends seen in 2018 to continue to rise in 2019.

Speaking to CoinDesk, Padiou highlighted:

“We have been seeing tremendous activity during the past few months and are confident that this trend is going to amplify in 2019.”

Looking ahead

According to blockchain analytics site P2SH.info, the amount of bitcoin sent through lightning channels since last June has skyrocketed from less than 25 BTC to 578 BTC.

State of the lightning network on bitcoin mainnet. Source: www.p2sh.info 

Speaking to greater adoption figures in 2019, Decker told CoinDesk that the key behind developing “a very active and engaged community … building and improving lightning” would come down to its continued potential to “change how we do payments in the future.”

Indeed, the main use case of the lightning network as described on the official webpage is “lighting-fast blockchain payments without worrying about block confirmation times.”

Transactions using the lightning networks takes seconds to complete, compared to the 9 or so minutes – on average, at least, with fluctuations based on block variance and miner luck – for transactions directly on the bitcoin blockchain, according to data from bitinfocharts.com.

And while payments for goods and services using a debit or credit card is done with relative ease in most developed economies, restrictions to such traditional banking services is a common struggle for marginalized populations within (and outside) first world countries.

According to a world map of the public lightning channels spread out across the globe, most of the servers running on the lightning network are concentrated in North America and Europe.

World map of the lightning network. Source: https://explorer.acinq.co

Speaking to this user demographic, Padiou explained to CoinDesk that while bitcoin’s development community has “historically been stronger in North America and Europe,” the nodes being depicted on the map did not show the number of mobile users for lightning, who may be “a bit more evenly distributed.”

He added:

“I believe that the language barrier is often underestimated, and initiatives like [Reading Bitcoin] which provide translations to Chinese, Japanese and Korean [people] are very useful.”

From Decker’s point of view, the map of public lightning channels “matches pretty closely with the map of Internet users, or the map of deployed bitcoin nodes” which is “to be expected since those are the regions that are most likely to know about bitcoin, have some bitcoins, and [are] testing the software.”

Nevertheless, Decker affirmed that developers are dedicated in 2019 “to extend the reach of bitcoin and lightning globally.”

“I’m not aware of any specific plans to foster adoption in certain regions specifically [but] we’d definitely welcome any user from those regions, and do our best to support them,” said Decker.

Since March of last year, the lightning network has seen the number of new payment channels grow from roughly 1,500 channels to over 20,000.

Growth of lighting network channels over time. Source: https://bitcoinvisuals.com

New developments

For now, there aren’t specific numeric targets on the agenda for lightning developers to reach by the end of 2019, though as mentioned there is a long list of features aimed at expanding network capacity expected for roll-out in months to come.

Standing for “Basis of Lightning Technology,” BOLT 1.0 is a common, open-source repository of code that contains all the necessary technical requirements or specifications for users to participate in the lightning network.

Not to be confused with BOLT – a lightning-inspired zcash implementation of the network released August last year by Dr. Ayo Akinyele  – BOLT 1.1 is the envisioned upgrade to BOLT 1.0 that will encompass the new development work going into lightning.

Speaking to CoinDesk in a former interview, Osuntokun acknowledged that the exact roadmap for BOLT 1.1 was “difficult to put estimates on … as it largely comes down to the prioritization of the various development team for each implementation.”

“[Clients] will implement features in parallel, according to their own prioritization and to the extent that suits them best … some implementations may choose to omit some of the features,” added Decker.

The five features that Osuntokun highlighted with CoinDesk as possessing the “biggest impact to the end-user” includes:

1. Splicing: Currently, each payment channel possesses a fixed capacity only able to send the amount of bitcoin initially staked at the outset of channel creation. However, in the event that a user would like to increase or decrease channel capacity, they require opening an entirely new channel with the same participants. Requiring the same amount of fees and confirmation wait time as a regular bitcoin transaction, splicing ensures users are able to avoid the initial pain of creating a new channel by making adjustments to the capacity of existing ones.

2. AMP: Standing for “Atomic Multipath Payments,” AMP according to Osuntokun presents “a massive boost in usability” for the lightning network. Instead of payments being routed along a singular path on the network, AMP allows users to send through fragments of payments through multiple public channels in the network. Additionally, as pointed out by c-lightning developer Rusty Russell, AMP can also be leveraged by users as a “bill splitting” feature when making lightning payments to a single party from multiple different sources.


3. Wumbo Channels: Named after an episode in an American children’s cartoon show called Spongebob Squarepants where starfish character Patrick uses the term “wumbo” to denote increases in size, wumbo channels refer to an increase on the maximum number of bitcoin that can be sent within a lightning payment channel. Put in place by lightning developers for safety reasons, the maximum capacity of a channel at time of writing is 0.16 BTC or roughly $570.

4. Static Address for/to remote outputs: Aimed at improving “disaster-recovery scenarios” on the lightning network, Padiou explains that static addresses ensure easy fund recovery for users. “This feature – the static information address – means that with only the seed to your lightning wallet you would be able to recover the main balance in your channel,” said Padiou. The seed being a mnemonic recovery phrase attached to all lightning (and bitcoin) wallets, users currently require both this information and channel-specific information to recover lost funds.

5. 2p-ECDSA: Perhaps the coolest upgrade in the eyes of Osuntokun, 2p-ECDSA would camouflage the transactions carried out on the bitcoin blockchain to create lightning payment channels. At present, transactions opening and closing a payment channel are easily differentiable from transactions on-chain. This improvement once implemented would add an extra level of anonymity for users by making lightning channel activity more difficult to distinguish from traditional bitcoin payments activity.

Speaking to all the anticipated changes to the BOLT repository, Padiou highlighted:

“We didn’t have to change very important, very low-level design decisions … It’s very good news because we could have made big mistakes and could have had to start over but it’s not the case. Going to 1.1 is just building upon the already working first version.”

Through the lens of the development agenda set for 2019, the priority, then, in Padiou’s mind, is “reliability in all its aspects” to encourage continued adoption of the tech.

“A payment network needs to ‘just work.’ It only has value if it allows you to send and receive money when you need it,” Padiou contended, adding:

“The more reliable it gets, the more companies with large user base will be ready to support it.”

Lightning storm image via Shutterstock

#crypto #cryptocurrency #btc #xrp #litecoin #altcoin #money #currency #finance #news #alts #hodl #coindesk #cointelegraph #dollar #bitcoin View the website

New Post has been published here https://is.gd/OH5IE0

[m-willis]

If Clean Sheet Co. designed caps for the World Baseball Classic

I like to find the places where established systems and traditions smash into one another. For instance: what happens if you mix the visual cultures of soccer and baseball? I made the Soccer out of Context project to figure it out. How about if you combine a consistent, minimal design aesthetic with the World Cup? I created the 32 Nations series of designs to see. It was while working on 32 Nations that I realized I didn’t just have to imagine the places where these mashups were “real.” I could bring them to life.

That’s when I started Clean Sheet Co.

We began with t-shirts, then moved on to scarves and hats. (There’s even more on tap.) Along the way, I learned a few things. One of the biggest: the best way to demonstrate that something can be improved is to make something new. Another: national identity is something everybody cares about, but nobody owns. (Those specific lessons led us to create the People’s Crest, an open-source crest design for American soccer fans that’s free to download, use and remix.)

This is where it gets fun. With design series like Soccer out of Context, I’ve established a platform for interesting projects in this space. With Clean Sheet Co., I’ve got an apparel company ready to bring those projects to life. And my favorite things to design around are national identity, sports, interesting crossovers, and existing concepts that could be improved.

Well hey there, World Baseball Classic.

;

The WBC checks all the boxes. Sports + national symbolism + a unique cultural crossover (baseball in a soccer-style international tournament). Oh, and there’s some definite potential for improvement.

Sounds like a design project to me.

So I started with the question: What if Clean Sheet Co. designed caps for all 16 participants in the 2017 World Baseball Classic? We’ve been circling around the idea of making baseball caps (snapbacks, naturally) for a while now. This is a great opportunity to test those waters. The 16 designs you’ll see here are still concepts, but we want to know if we should bring any of them to life.

All of our design projects have guidelines, and this one is no exception. Here are the guidelines that informed this exercise:

No language characters. Sure, letters on baseball caps have a long and prominent tradition. Sure, they can look good. Sure, they can even be creative. All that said, we’re not using language elements in our designs. The idea is that the designs themselves should communicate the national identity without “spelling it out”, so to speak.

Also, guideline #1 solves a thorny problem - namely, what language system to use for what team? Currently, WBC designs use mostly english language characters. Teams like the Netherlands and Italy can use their own native spellings (Nederlands and Italia, respectively). But none of the Asian countries even use their own character sets. I understand why (marketing, audience expectation, tradition), but I don’t quite approve. For caps, we can do better. (And anyhow, initials on international ballcaps have always looked kind of cheesey to me - while initals work really well for cities and club teams, national identity somehow seems too potent to be represented up by a letter or two on a ballcap).

All caps have to be items Clean Sheet Co. could theoretically produce and sell. If you want one, let us know here.

We reserve the right to approach these guidelines creatively.

All set? Let’s get to it.

Pool A: Israel, South Korea, the Netherlands, Chinese Taipei

Israel

Israel is one of several WBC participants with a fantastic visual pedigree. Two strong colors (royal blue, white) and a universally-recognized symbol (the Star of David). The team’s current WBC cap is really good, with some extra adornment (the “I” initial and squigly lines). The classic Star of David mark can also stand on its own. The Clean Sheet Co. version of the cap introduces a white front panel, but otherwise, it’s easy to leave perfection alone.

South Korea

Like their group-mates Israel, this iteration of the South Korean team wears royal blue and white. And while Korea has always worn blue in these competitions (a departure from their soccer compatriots), they don't always wear the same exact shade. Korea sometimes wears a lighter shade of blue - bordering on Carolina blue. It plays well, and we haven’t forgotten it. The South Korea ballcap features light blue accents - the brim, eyelets and button (or squatchee, if you prefer). The logo features the red-blue yin-yang from the country’s beautiful flag. Strong and unique.

The Netherlands

Say what you will about the Netherlands - but they get international branding right. The country’s teams are generally attired in eye-catching orange. Amsterdam owns the “XXX” idea. The Dutch understand the value of a strong brand. One item they don’t always elevate on the national stage is the fantastic rampant lion, very prominent in national heraldry. The lion is beautiful, traditional, and cool. It’s the perfect ballcap emblem. Orange and black complete the package.

Chinese Taipei

Chinese Taipei, the politically diplomatic way to reference the state also called Taiwan or the Republic of China, has a suspect WBC identity. To its credit, it has elements with both eastern and western appeal - but to me it doesn’t add up to a coherent design. I know there are fans of this logo, but I'm not one of them. If Taiwan didn’t already have a strong visual brand, it would be simply be a case of mediocrity filling a vacuum. But take a look at the sun symbol on the flag Chinese Taipei uses in international competition. It’s gorgeous. And it works perfectly on a ballcap. Done.

OK: Which custom cap from #WBC2017 group 1 should we produce for sale? https://t.co/iLtoPVhzee

— Clean Sheet Co. (@CleanSheetCo)

March 15, 2017

Pool B: Australia, China, Cuba, Japan

Australia

Australia’s baseball identity is, on balance, pretty decent. But it’s got some issues. The most pressing: from the squad’s colors to the letter ‘A’, the current visual package looks way too much like how a video game who couldn’t secure MLB rights might depict the Oakland A’s. This is fixable. The Australian national identity is tied up with that of the kangaroo. This version of the ’roo is inspired by the one used by the Australian air force. Depicted in classic Aussie green and gold, there’s no way this cap is confused for any other team – or nation.

China

Out of China's population of 1.4 billion people, apparently a couple dozen can play baseball. Along with soccer, I’m hoping baseball becomes a national obsession in China. How great would that be for the inernational growth of the game? The current cap isn’t doing much - an olde english “C” has little pedigree or connection to the country. I debated using a dragon mark here - but getting that exactly right would have required some extra-special dedication. In its stead, this cap (inspired by the five stars on the national flag) is both strong and incontrovertibly Chinese.

Cuba

Cuba will always have one of the most compelling stories in this tournament. The baseball-obsessed country’s own national league continues to exist in a separate universe from the rest of the world, shrouding world-class players in mystery. As Cuba opens up to the world, that might change, and one day, I hope to see an MLB team in Havana. (Los Cubanos de la Habana, with a cigar-inspired logo, if I might put in an early pitch). I don’t know who designed the WBC Cuba caps, but they seem rote. A serif ‘C’ doesn’t begin to evoke this country’s story. We opted for a solitary white star on a triangular front-panel field of red, backed by blue – approximating the famous Cuban flag. It's a start.

Japan

Despite what WBC caps might say, Japan isn’t “J”. If they were an english letter, they’d be “N” - the english-language consonant that begins the word ("Nihon") that attepmts to represent how Japanese verbally express the name of their own country. Or they’d use the japanese glyph for Japan, 日本. But there’s a better, less confusing way: just use the flag. There’s no more recognizably simple symbol in the world than the Japanese flag. Use it! The red sun pairs here with navy blue, which Japan has traditionally worn as a sporting accent color. It’s unmistakably Japanese, and beautiful.

OK: Which custom cap from #WBC2017 group 2 should we produce for sale?https://t.co/Fu7bMduzzh

— Clean Sheet Co. (@CleanSheetCo)

March 15, 2017

Pool C: Canada, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, USA

Canada

This one’s simple. The maple leaf in silvery white on a red background, black brim lending a little edge to the look. Canada already did the heavy lifting here - the iconic leaf is a design masterpiece. All we have to do is get out of its way.

Colombia

I love that more South American countries are joining the WBC party. Visually, Colombia is challenging not because it lacks for great visuals to pull from, but because of its graphic similarity to neighbors and fellow yellow-red-blue enthusiasts Ecuador and Venezuela. We’ll get to tournament-participant Venezuela in a minute, but for now, we’re leaning on deep yellow to set Colombia apart. A stylized version of the condor, a dominating feature of the Colombian coat of arms, gives the cap some competitive personality.

The Dominican Republic

This one is a favorite. The Dominican Republic has a fantastic flag, with alternating quarter-panels of red and blue, divided by a white cross and a seal. The cap re-creates that – we only see one view here, but the panels alternate in quarters around the entire cap in the harlequin style. No further symbol or decoration is needed here - the look is strong and completely distinctive.

USA

There are a lot of ways to go here (especially when the symbol you’re looking to improve on is this) - but only one we at Clean Sheet Co. could fathom. The People’s Crest is our choice to represent American athletic endeavor, and it happens to look great on a ballcap. We went with a navy front panel and a white body to really help the colors pop.

Note: by popular demand, we're making this one! The USA Cap, in all navy, is available for pre-order at Clean Sheet Co. right now! You can get it here.

OK: Which custom cap from #WBC2017 group 3 should we produce for sale? https://t.co/5Hb0xege4d

— Clean Sheet Co. (@CleanSheetCo)

March 15, 2017

Pool D: Italy, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Venezuela

Italy

This was a tricky one. Italy doesn’t actually have a wealth of national symbols to pull from. When we designed an Italy World Cup t-shirt, the Stella d’Italia (Star of Italy) was a welcome discovery – but that wasn’t really the right symbol here. In looking at the country's national crests and symbols, there is one recurring element – the olive branch. It never quite stands on its own, content to be a decorative touch in most applications. Well, we’re changing that. An olive sprig stands in appropriate green against a field of Italian azzure blue. A small touch: the green-white-red of the national flag gets a nod at the bottom of the branch. (And yes, the branch kind of looks like a cursive “I” - this is a happy coincidence.)

Mexico

The current Mexican WBC cap is great, probably the best of the field. It’s hard to improve on it. We went for simplicity - a basic pattern, derived from Aztec textile traditions, creates a distinctive shape. OK, it’s an “X” - but this is a creative violation of our “no characters” rule. I’d argue that “La Equis” has symbolic meaning for Mexico in a way no other letter does to it’s particular country – it’s a point of national pride. It’s also a universally-recognized symbol as much as it is a letter of any particular language. Add in the indigineous pattern (if you squint, you can even see an Aztec temple in the negative space beneath the legs of the “X”) and it’s a no-brainer.

Puerto Rico

We looked for a while at options for Puerto Rico before finding the island’s crest, topped with a royal crown (to symbolize the island’s Spanish heritage). Simplified, in silver on a field of red, the idea took on surprising strengh, so we went with it. A stripe of blue beneath the crown gives a splash of the island’s other national color.

Venezuela

You don’t see looks like this on the field too often. Perhaps that’s for the best, but that didn’t stop us. The Venezuelan national flag is the inspiration for the striped front panel, and the galloping silver horse is taken directly from the country’s coat of arms. Even if this one never takes the field, we really enjoyed imagining the look.

OK: Which custom cap from #WBC2017 group 4 should we produce for sale? https://t.co/onlQAa7muV

— Clean Sheet Co. (@CleanSheetCo)

March 15, 2017

And that’s the field. Like any of these caps? Hit up Clean Sheet Co. in the usual spots and let us know. If there’s enough interest, we may bring a few of these to life.

(And thanks for ingulging me. I love projects like this. If you like this kind of stuff, we talk about it every day on the Clean Sheet Co. Inner Circle Slack group. Join! )

[maritzaerwin]

How Medical Translators Can Thrive During Times Of A Global Pandemic?

Medical interpreters and certified translators in the medical field are in a very unique and challenging position. In this day and age of the coronavirus pandemic, medical translation is more essential than ever as they’re rushing to translate and disseminate the latest coronavirus findings to researchers all over the world.

What started out in China quickly got out of hand and turned into a full global crisis in the form of a pandemic according to the World Health Organization (WHO). That being said, medical translation and interpretation services require a keen understanding of how medical jargon can be perceived differently across borders.

Between these factors and other considerations that are constantly at play in the world of medical translation services, the work ethic of a medical interpreter or even medical documentation translator must be impeccable and beyond reproach.

The medical translator must be able to quickly and accurately provide a quality translation as even minor mistakes made in the medical document translation services for a hospital or a patient can quite literally be deadly.

Thus, there is a lot to be learned from the work ethics required to become a medical translator or interpreter.

Who Is A Professional Medical Translator and What Is Their Job?

There are many different types of translators, and some will inevitably be used as medical translators even if it is not their primary job or function.

However, as with any specialized skill or trade, there are specific requirements in place before anyone can become a certified or professional medical translator. This can occasionally be overlooked during global outbreaks like the current COVID-19 pandemic.

However, the ramifications should never be underestimated and the reason that these people are considered to be professionals in their field is very relevant and important, most especially when fighting off a global crisis like the current morass.

A professional or certified medical translator will have much more than just a passing knowledge of all of the relevant medical terms within their specialized field of study.

Even medical transcription requires an in-depth knowledge of specific medical terms and jargon. While there are available methods for putting medical jargon into terms that the layman can understand, this is not the case with doctors or other medical professionals.

Unlike the medical transcriber, the certified medical translation expert must be capable of knowing and understanding all of the correct medical terms in at least two different languages.

Professional Medical Translators and Time Management Skills

Statista reports that there are many foreign-language speakers in the US other than English that number in the millions. There are 40 million Spanish speakers, over 3 million Chinese speakers, and over 1 million Filipino, Vietnamese, Arabic, French, and Korean speakers.

Many of them prefer to speak their native language other than English at home. Some can be attributed to simply by choice but some indicate a lack of proficiency in English. This is also known in terms of LEP or Low English Proficiency for the sake of governmental documentation, with individuals with a deficient LEP offering suffering in terms of available services due to language restrictions. When taking these populations into account, it’s clear that medical translators are the key for them to have access to proper medical treatment.

In times of global crisis, these people are on the front lines and must quickly, completely and accurately provide the medical document translations, often in numerous different languages. A Spanish to English translation must then be accurate enough to use the English or the Spanish version to translate into any other language, without losing any of the meaning or otherwise changing the documents in hand. Each translation in each language must be exactly the same as all of the others, not just close.

The medical translation company must be capable of providing as many translations as necessary in order to get all of the relevant information out to academics, scientists and medical professionals around the world are as quickly and accurately as necessary in order to be successful.

The World Health Organization must translate each document it creates into all six of its official languages, including Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. Each one of these copies will then be used as the basis for further medical document translations that must be completed accurately and as quickly as possible so that the global dissemination of the information can begin immediately.

The Certified Medical Translator and Attention to Detail During Times of Crisis

Given the exact and literal nature of the medical terminology, it would seem as if there are times and occasions when machine translation would serve equally as well as human translation services, but this is rarely the case. The attention to detail that is required cannot be matched by any machine.

In the best cases, this problem may be resolved with post-edited machine translation services, but even then, there may be the context that is lost or a literal translation sits in place of a figurative translation more in context with the conversation. This may be due to the use of analogies or other linguistic variations by the doctor, or for any other number of reasons. At the end of the day, and given the current limitations of technology and machine translations, much of this work must ultimately be completed by humans.

It was once said that “to err is human”, there are times and occasions when mistakes are not an option. It is fairly safe to say that medical document translation services often include matters of life and death and their duties are not to be taken lightly.

Whether translating information relevant to the treatment of an illness or disease or translating the latest scientific research about the coronavirus, there simply is no room for errors or anything else to be “lost in translation”.

During this global crisis and many others similar to it, even in our recent past, the need for quick and accurate translation and global distribution of information is imperative to bring the global pandemic to a successful end.

https://ift.tt/39Mruko

Such are the pressures put on medical professionals in the healthcare field, that many studies have been conducted, not only about their mental health and achieving a balance between work and life. Medical professionals as a group all experience similar experiences, given the serious nature of their work. There are numerous records of the constant pressure of life and death situations resulting in medical professionals suffering from the post-traumatic stress disorder.

Statista even reports in a 2019 survey that overburdening bureaucratic tasks are the main cause of burning out among physicians in the US.

Conversely, the study of the pressures and stress levels of medical translation professionals and certified interpreters in their position as utilitarian workers is a relatively recent field of interest.

It is imperative that medical translation professionals learn to create that perfect balance between their jobs and their lives. Being able to leave the pressures of the job behind when one leaves work is a necessary skill for even the most dedicated of professionals to avoid burning out and fading away.

This, however, is exactly why it is so important that these individuals learn to create a meaningful separation from their work at the end of the workday. Meanwhile, it is equally necessary that while at work, their attention to detail must not allow for any issue, no matter how seemingly irrelevant, will be missed, left out or even altered in the slightest.

Constant Challenges – Improving the Skills of Medical Translation Professionals

While there is no direct threat from machine translation at this time, at least not for the majority of medical document translation services, there may come a day in the not-too-distant future when it will become a major threat to the industry. Medical translators and interpreters, like any specialized field of translation, do have a vast number of competitors and both the individuals and the translation agencies must constantly work to improve every aspect of their performance.

There are frequent awards and other perks for top employees, but this is not always the best motivation for constantly improving the skill sets of the individual. What better motivation can one have though, than the continuation of employment?

Keeping the job is very important if one is going to make a career as a professional translator or interpreter, but there are additional benefits as well. Improving personal skill sets also allows for a boost in career potential, as well as the ability to ensure that the job earnings continue to rise throughout the course of a career.

Ironically perhaps, the more specialized the skills of the certified medical translator or interpreter are, the more they can earn within that specific area. However, it also means less work within that field as the more specialized the skills, the more targeted and thus, the smaller the end market.

However, this is also a great way for the skilled medical translator to ensure their value to the translation agency or any other potential employer. This same effect can be seen in virtually any field, notably in the different areas of medical practice.

A General Practitioner will have a much larger potential customer base than a neurosurgeon. While the neurosurgeon may be better paid in some regards, the general practitioner will be able to earn money more constantly. The same holds true with professionals in the fields of interpretation and translation no matter the field of focus.

Should I Become a Medical Translator During the Current Global Outbreak?

Perhaps someone grew up in a bilingual household or maybe they just learned a second language to boost their career opportunities.

For someone who is intimately familiar with at least two different languages, medical translation and interpretation can be a profitable, long-term career choice. The person learning to become a medical translator or interpreter should have more than just a passing interest in medicine as well. A few medical dictionaries and some heavy reading may be required to become more closely familiar with the terminology however, as there really is no room for error in the field of medical translation.

There are also similar translation specialists in other fields, however, and these can be considered as well, depending on the individual skills and strengths of the interpreter.

Specialized translators and interpreters may focus on other areas such as legal translation services, engineering or even research and development. For some people, their work as a professional translator or interpreter may be secondary to a larger, more encompassing job position within the same field. Some of these fields offer many of the same opportunities without the exacerbating levels of stress often associated with more specialized fields like medical or legal translation where lives may literally depend on the accuracy and efficacy of the document translation services.

In this day and age of social distancing, self-isolation and even mandatory quarantines, more people are looking to move to work online as much for their personal health and avoiding global outbreaks as they are looking for convenience.

For the people looking for other types of work, there is an equal number of viable opportunities to work from the comfort of home and to earn a living working online. Video translation services are just one area where jobs are growing as more and more businesses move online.

Transcription service jobs where the work is comprised of listening to conversations and transcribers get paid by the word, have been in demand since at least the nineteen seventies, with even more transcription job opportunities now available in the digital age online.

There are a great many fields to choose from for those with a sufficient level of understanding for two or more languages. Regardless of what field is ultimately selected, or what career choice anyone makes, there are still many lessons to be learned by everyone from the overall work ethic of the professional medical translator.

What We All Should Learn From Professional Medical Translators and Their Work Ethic

During this current global coronavirus pandemic, more people than ever are looking for and finding work online. Some of these people have never had to manage their own time quite so fully at work before. This can actually be a daunting task for some people, especially when working from home surrounded by so many familiar distractions.

Always focus on getting the job done as quickly and accurately as the professional medical translator and certified medical interpreter and there should be no cause for concern.

Always pay attention to the details of the job at hand. It does not matter how accustomed one may be to playing with their dog or even their kids at home, these or other distractions must not be allowed to distract from the work to be completed.

Whether working as a freelance language specialist or as a telecommuting full-time employee, as more jobs get sent home, there will be more distractions, but only those who can still get the job done on time will be employed long enough to establish a working career online.

Some people will find it difficult to adjust to working at home, working online or otherwise not having a definitive breaking point between work and life. If there is a spare room, set up a separate home office in the spare room and do not enter it at all during off times.

In worst-case scenarios, a single, emptied closet can be made to house enough equipment to call it an office, again allowing it to be closed off during times not spent working. What is imperative is that we all learn how to separate our lives at work from our off time, and worry about work while we are working, and more personal concerns when we are not.

Most importantly of all perhaps, everybody needs to remember that there will always be obstacles and challenges getting in the way. Sometimes it is better to go around and sometimes it is better just to crash through, but always remember that no obstacles standing in our way are permanent, save for those obstacles that we have made to trap ourselves. There is always a better road ahead, but it is up to the individual to determine which path they will take in life.

The post How Medical Translators Can Thrive During Times Of A Global Pandemic? appeared first on CareerMetis.com.

How Medical Translators Can Thrive During Times Of A Global Pandemic? published first on https://skillsireweb.tumblr.com/

[click2watch]

State of Lightning: What’s the Path for Network Adoption in 2019?

This is a visualization of the lightning network taken at 22:29 (UTC) on Friday.

Created by blockchain analytics startup 1ML, the snapshot represents all of the nodes running lightning software and creating public payment channels atop the bitcoin blockchain.

Looks complex, right? And believe it or not, this network is getting progressively larger each day according to 1ML.

In the past 30 days alone, the number of lightning payment channels has increased by roughly 36 percent, bringing to total to roughly 22,000 channels. Active lightning nodes have similarly shot up – over 16 percent in recent days – and presently sit at around 5,690 distributed nodes.

Launched in beta last March, the layer-2 payments technology is actively maintained and developed by over six different development teams spread out across the globe.

These include Eclair by Acinq, Lightning Network Daemon (LND) by Lightning Labs, c-lightning by Blockstream, ptarmigan by Nayuta, Rust-Lightning by Matt Corallo and Lit by MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative (DCI).

And even outside of these six, Pierre-Marie Padiou, co-founder and CEO of Acinq, predicts there are half a dozen more out “in the wild.”

Highlighting that the codebase to build lightning clients is open-source and available to anyone “without asking permission,” Padiou added that a list of 30 some-odd improvements to the network were agreed upon by developers during a summit in Adelaide, Australia November of last year.

“Now, after the summit, the work will continue to formalize the decisions taken during the summit, and implement them in the clients so that they can be deployed,” explained Christian Decker – core tech engineer at Blockstream – in a former interview with CoinDesk. 

Since November, one feature has already been released by CTO of Lightning Labs Olaoluwa Osuntokun enabling “the ability to send a payment to a destination without first needing to have an invoice,” as detailed on GitHub.

Explaining that each client team “has their own favorite features,” Decker added that more changes to the network would be released in “incremental” steps emerging piecemeal over coming weeks and months.

As such, lightning developers are optimistic about the continued success of the lightning network, expecting growth trends seen in 2018 to continue to rise in 2019.

Speaking to CoinDesk, Padiou highlighted:

“We have been seeing tremendous activity during the past few months and are confident that this trend is going to amplify in 2019.”

Looking ahead

According to blockchain analytics site P2SH.info, the amount of bitcoin sent through lightning channels since last June has skyrocketed from less than 25 BTC to 578 BTC.

State of the lightning network on bitcoin mainnet. Source: www.p2sh.info 

Speaking to greater adoption figures in 2019, Decker told CoinDesk that the key behind developing “a very active and engaged community … building and improving lightning” would come down to its continued potential to “change how we do payments in the future.”

Indeed, the main use case of the lightning network as described on the official webpage is “lighting-fast blockchain payments without worrying about block confirmation times.”

Transactions using the lightning networks takes seconds to complete, compared to the 9 or so minutes – on average, at least, with fluctuations based on block variance and miner luck – for transactions directly on the bitcoin blockchain, according to data from bitinfocharts.com.

And while payments for goods and services using a debit or credit card is done with relative ease in most developed economies, restrictions to such traditional banking services is a common struggle for marginalized populations within (and outside) first world countries.

According to a world map of the public lightning channels spread out across the globe, most of the servers running on the lightning network are concentrated in North America and Europe.

World map of the lightning network. Source: https://explorer.acinq.co

Speaking to this user demographic, Padiou explained to CoinDesk that while bitcoin’s development community has “historically been stronger in North America and Europe,” the nodes being depicted on the map did not show the number of mobile users for lightning, who may be “a bit more evenly distributed.”

He added:

“I believe that the language barrier is often underestimated, and initiatives like [Reading Bitcoin] which provide translations to Chinese, Japanese and Korean [people] are very useful.”

From Decker’s point of view, the map of public lightning channels “matches pretty closely with the map of Internet users, or the map of deployed bitcoin nodes” which is “to be expected since those are the regions that are most likely to know about bitcoin, have some bitcoins, and [are] testing the software.”

Nevertheless, Decker affirmed that developers are dedicated in 2019 “to extend the reach of bitcoin and lightning globally.”

“I’m not aware of any specific plans to foster adoption in certain regions specifically [but] we’d definitely welcome any user from those regions, and do our best to support them,” said Decker.

Since March of last year, the lightning network has seen the number of new payment channels grow from roughly 1,500 channels to over 20,000.

Growth of lighting network channels over time. Source: https://bitcoinvisuals.com

New developments

For now, there aren’t specific numeric targets on the agenda for lightning developers to reach by the end of 2019, though as mentioned there is a long list of features aimed at expanding network capacity expected for roll-out in months to come.

Standing for “Basis of Lightning Technology,” BOLT 1.0 is a common, open-source repository of code that contains all the necessary technical requirements or specifications for users to participate in the lightning network.

Not to be confused with BOLT – a lightning-inspired zcash implementation of the network released August last year by Dr. Ayo Akinyele  – BOLT 1.1 is the envisioned upgrade to BOLT 1.0 that will encompass the new development work going into lightning.

Speaking to CoinDesk in a former interview, Osuntokun acknowledged that the exact roadmap for BOLT 1.1 was “difficult to put estimates on … as it largely comes down to the prioritization of the various development team for each implementation.”

“[Clients] will implement features in parallel, according to their own prioritization and to the extent that suits them best … some implementations may choose to omit some of the features,” added Decker.

The five features that Osuntokun highlighted with CoinDesk as possessing the “biggest impact to the end-user” includes:

1. Splicing: Currently, each payment channel possesses a fixed capacity only able to send the amount of bitcoin initially staked at the outset of channel creation. However, in the event that a user would like to increase or decrease channel capacity, they require opening an entirely new channel with the same participants. Requiring the same amount of fees and confirmation wait time as a regular bitcoin transaction, splicing ensures users are able to avoid the initial pain of creating a new channel by making adjustments to the capacity of existing ones.

2. AMP: Standing for “Atomic Multipath Payments,” AMP according to Osuntokun presents “a massive boost in usability” for the lightning network. Instead of payments being routed along a singular path on the network, AMP allows users to send through fragments of payments through multiple public channels in the network. Additionally, as pointed out by c-lightning developer Rusty Russell, AMP can also be leveraged by users as a “bill splitting” feature when making lightning payments to a single party from multiple different sources.


3. Wumbo Channels: Named after an episode in an American children’s cartoon show called Spongebob Squarepants where starfish character Patrick uses the term “wumbo” to denote increases in size, wumbo channels refer to an increase on the maximum number of bitcoin that can be sent within a lightning payment channel. Put in place by lightning developers for safety reasons, the maximum capacity of a channel at time of writing is 0.16 BTC or roughly $570.

4. Static Address for/to remote outputs: Aimed at improving “disaster-recovery scenarios” on the lightning network, Padiou explains that static addresses ensure easy fund recovery for users. “This feature – the static information address – means that with only the seed to your lightning wallet you would be able to recover the main balance in your channel,” said Padiou. The seed being a mnemonic recovery phrase attached to all lightning (and bitcoin) wallets, users currently require both this information and channel-specific information to recover lost funds.

5. 2p-ECDSA: Perhaps the coolest upgrade in the eyes of Osuntokun, 2p-ECDSA would camouflage the transactions carried out on the bitcoin blockchain to create lightning payment channels. At present, transactions opening and closing a payment channel are easily differentiable from transactions on-chain. This improvement once implemented would add an extra level of anonymity for users by making lightning channel activity more difficult to distinguish from traditional bitcoin payments activity.

Speaking to all the anticipated changes to the BOLT repository, Padiou highlighted:

“We didn’t have to change very important, very low-level design decisions … It’s very good news because we could have made big mistakes and could have had to start over but it’s not the case. Going to 1.1 is just building upon the already working first version.”

Through the lens of the development agenda set for 2019, the priority, then, in Padiou’s mind, is “reliability in all its aspects” to encourage continued adoption of the tech.

“A payment network needs to ‘just work.’ It only has value if it allows you to send and receive money when you need it,” Padiou contended, adding:

“The more reliable it gets, the more companies with large user base will be ready to support it.”

Lightning storm image via Shutterstock

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