初音ミク ー Alice (Hatsune Miku 'Alice' перевод на русский)

Recently I've been listening to this... too often I guess.

遠い、遠い笑えない話
tooi, tooi waraenai hanashi
давняя, давняя несмешная история

いつか、僕が居なくなったなら
itsuka, boku ga inakunatta nara
если однажды я исчезну

深い、深い森に落ちた
fukai, fukai mori ni ochita
упав в глубокий, глубокий лес

君は一人で行くんだぜ
kimi ha hitori de yuku n da ze
ты идешь один

繋いだ手には柔らかな体温
tsunaida te ni ha yawarakana taion
в протянутой руке нежное тепло тела
握った指がゆるり、ほどけたら
nigitta yubi ga yururi, hodoketara
сжатые пальцы если неспешно отпущу

 枯れた音色の鐘が鳴る
kareta neiro no kane ga naru
зазвенит эхо ослабевающего тембра

君は一人で行くんだぜ
kimi ha hitori de yuku n da ze
ты идешь один

そのまま二人歩んで一人
sono mama futari ayunde hitori
так оно и есть, двое идут одни
嘘付く声も　もう絶え絶えに
usotsuku koe mo mou taedae ni
лгущий голос тоже уже невнятен

うつむき二人影が一つ
utsumuki futari kage ga hitotsu
лежащая на замле тень двоих одна
僕も独りで行くんだぜ
boku mo hitori de yuku n da ze
я тоже иду в одиночестве

君は淡い恋に落ちた
kimi ha awai koi ni ochita
ты влюбился мимолетно

高い、高い崖に咲く花
takai, takai gake ni saku hana

на высоком, высоком обрыве цветет цветок

「届かないなぁ」
"todokanai naa"
"не достать"
分かってるくせに
wakatteru kuse ni
понимаешь и несмотря на это

今度は一人で行くんだぜ
kondo ha hitori de yuku n da ze
в этот раз идешь один

遠い、遠い笑えない話
tooi, tooi waraenai hanashi
давняя, давняя несмешная история

いつか、僕が居なくなったなら
itsuka, boku ga inakunatta nara
если однажды я исчезну

深い、深い森に落ちた
fukai, fukai mori ni ochita
упав в глубокий, глубокий лес

君は一人で行くんだぜ
kimi ga hitori de yuku n da ze
ты идешь один

following previous post - browser usage stats from w3schools.com

The question is - what's with opera in my statistics?
Three months ago it was 3rd, not 1st...

on html and css

Sometimes when I read something like this:

.arrow-left {

width: 0;

height: 0;

border-top: 10px solid transparent;

border-bottom: 10px solid transparent;

border-right:10px solid blue;

}

I think that some people got nothing better to do.

Ok, this example is primitive, but I saw a demo of multicolor icons done via css 3 transformations and pseudo elements.

The question is... what for? To show off? We came to era of advanced graphics just to get back to drawing in primitive shapes?

Ofc I understand that they implemented all those transformation possibilities not just for people who dislike pictures in their designs, but also to make some tasks simpler, but ... BUT.

I prefer to take it as in: 'if they don't show off the features nobody would use them and they would occasionally die'.

Ofc html 5 and css 3 were implemented for people to use them. But I hate to think how long it would take at least countries like USA to switch to full support of them. By that time I guess html 7 would be out ^^. And here... in a country where majority of office workers with win XP still use IE6 >.<

I can't afford using any of it. That's why I didn't learn many 'new tricks and ticks' yet. What's the point in knowing how you COULD do it when you know you WON'T?

Though I patiently wait for IE6 to vanish. Slowly learning new things...

----

I just checked. Statistically (my sites only though) 50% of users who browse the net using IE use IE6.

Strangely enough since the last time I checked (about 3 months ago) Opera is now the most common browser (though it beats firefox by 2-3%, which is nothing really). Next is Firefox. Then IE.

Now the chart looks like this:

Opera 30(-33)%

11+ 85%

10.? 15%

Firefox 30%

5.0 35%

4.? 20%

3.? 45%

IE 20%

6.0 50%

8.0 35%

7.0 10%

9.0 5%

Chrome 15%

Others  …

Meaning at least 10% of our auditory uses IE6. Some would say 'it's not much'.  

Tough it depends. Ask anyone - having extra 10% visitors and potential buyers is better than having 0% extra visitors and potential buyers.

Usual scenario: your contractor himself uses brand new or almost brand new notebook, while his workers use XP and IE6 to work. And since they will have to work with site and know nothing new, want nothing new, etc. you should optimize for IE6. And they heard it all can work in IE 6 as well. You just have to work on it, but that is what you are here to do, right? To work?

Each time it happens I struggle not to send them to hell. But hey - I'm still not in the position to choose too much. At least not for reasons like this...

Ok, that was spin-off. I admit it. But this time I'd be building a site that works in IE 7 or even 8 and Firefox 3.5+ which is a change. Time to be glad? Though I'm not... not too much.

старо, но меня улыбнуло

SWO - Sword Art Online by Kawahara Reki

Yesterday I had trouble sleeping and read volumes 1-4 of Sword Art Online (ソードアート・オンライン) novel series by Kawahara Reki ( 川原礫). 

Original story of SWO Aincrad was written in distant 2002 and - I checked - it is also the year when famous .HACK: SIGN anime series aired.

You can easily spot similarities in SWO and .HACK. But if .HACK features a single person trapped in a virtual MMORPG without option to log out, SWO tells us a story of a world with around 10,000 people of the same fate.

While .HACK focuses on phenomena of virtual world, virtual life and tries to speculate what life (in real and virtual world) is, SWO focuses on subjective drama of main characters. 

 Main characters which are, of course, high school students. .HACK went further than that. Ok, ok, I'd try to refrain from comparing to .HACK too much, but analogy is too obvious to miss.

So, we have a main character by the nickname Kirito, a lonely swordsman in a game where to get back to real world and real life characters in-game must beat 100 levels of dungeons and bosses. 

He meets a girl by the name Asuna from a mighty guild and they become engaged in a relationship while trying to escape the game.

That's pretty much it. The whole story simplified (or maybe not really simplified).

Let me tell you that in .HACK we had a big group of main characters, though the main plot evolved around a character unable to log out from a game world - a world where something like that shouldn't happen. That is a difference, I agree. In .HACK being unable to return to a real world is considered a peculiarity and something impossible too, while in SWO the fact is forced upon all players. That is a clay from which one could build a good story - but sadly Kawahara focuses on affairs of teenage love more than on anything else. 

Yes, yes, I know. It is a light novel, it is supposed to be plain. And entertaining. As author wrote in annotation: 'I'm sorry it goes on like this [romance stuff], but 40% of my readers like it too much'. xD

Back to the book.

Original volume - SWO volume 1 Aincrad tells a story of main characters trying to escape the game.

Volume 2 Aincrad alternative story is alternative story and prequel to volume 1 which tells small stories about what happened to main characters before volume 1.

Volumes 3 and 4 Fairy Dance continues when main character(s) escaped SWO and came to real world only to continue action in another MMORPG where this time magic is introduced.

I haven't touched volumes 5 and 6 yet and have no urge to. I didn't like many aspects of volumes 2-4 and I personally believe that one is fine reading only the original thing since it is the best of all 7 volumes that are out now.

If you're looking for easy reading and you played MMORPGs SWO can be your choice.

Though I personally believe that fan service is killing creativity in Japan. Oh yeah it is.

-------------------------
English translation of volumes 1-6 can be found here.

I also know where one can find Russian translation of volume 1.

proverbs (God)

God give me strength to deal with what I can handle, give me courage to surrender to what I can't change and give me wisdom to see the difference between them.

God:  The most popular scapegoat for our sins.  

Mark Twain

I know God will not give me anything I can't handle.  I just wish that He didn't trust me so much.

Mother Teresa

A Song of Ice and Fire #2

I have finished reading 4th book of A Song of Ice and Fire.
Impressions?

Too long. It is my main impression.
Many things that happen are just fillers, like 'this character would be useful in the next book, so he has to do something in this one. Many characters feel like fillers too.
Many things happen erradically.
Many choices characters make are at least illogical.

Also characters' images change from book to book, and change too drastically. People change, oh yeah.
But after Cersei is portrayed as ambitious and vile b#tch in first book you do not expect her to switch to stupid and shortsighted b#tch in fourth... And so on.


After you've read second book you begin to notice that story goes like this: 'slow slow slow slow slow slow ka-boom slow slow slow slow slow slow slow slow slow slow slow slow ka-boom slow slow slow'. So you have to read tons of pages of fillers to reach something meaningful. And when you reach that meaningful, everything goes upside down.

Characters that move the story change in each book, but imho in fourth author had the worst combination. Cersei, Brienne, Samwell, Arya, Jaime, Sansa. Choose one that's the most interesting, heh? Or rather choose one that's the least irritating. My choice would be... Jaime. Arya's story could be interesting, if she wasn't just a filler for future use.

So overall A Song of Ice and Fire gets 6/10.
I thought it'd be better. And now having read these 7000 pages I get to think that maybe movie adaptation wasn't bad at all. It was shorter :)

what would *you* say?..

think for a moment...
if you were to go to an open-air concert and suddenly had to give up the idea
and then
on the day concert is held it started to rain heavily, spoiling all the fun of it?
I heard a person say 'it's a bit joyful that I won't be able to go there and in the end no one will enjoy it'.
well if it were me I'd say 'it's ok that I'm not able to go - the fun is spoiled by the weather'.

And what would you think or say?

People are so different in their core.

The other Chelsea - A story from Donetsk

I recommend that you watch this video.
It is... about Ukraine.
A bit short-sighted, yes, but yet interesting.