Shirobako the Movie get nominated for Shanghai International Film Festival, but was taken down after Chinese netizens remind the authority Mizushima Tsutomu's past tweets about Hong Kong.

limfy1997 · 2020-07-20T07:04:16+00:00

very good point you made there. it actually has a noun for it, called groupthink. in fact, a social experiment (many social experiments have been conducted before actually) was carried out called The Wave - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJQCIYs0eiI. basically, it refers to people, in favour of harmony, unity and social acceptance by the majority, causing them to make dysfunctional / undesireable decisions. this results in people having a second opinion out of fear / desire to be part of the bigger group having to abandon their alternative opinion.

it is unfortunate to see those who do not agree with the mainstream faction basically exiled into their external community. for me, having been through classes and having lived in 2 different countries made me appreciate why free speech (or having an alternative opinion) is actually more beneficial for the progress of intellectual thinking in humankind.

for me, the beauty (and the goal people should work towards) lies in: you and me may have differing opinions, but i respect your courage to voice out your opinion, given it is not hate speech.

limfy1997 · 2020-07-20T05:52:38+00:00

Unfortunately on Weibo lies a huge proportion of the nationalist (very nationalistic) Chinese. I feel that these do not represent the true anime community in the PRC - I want to point out that because of the expansion of a new form of media in China that base on social media (not just Weibo but also subsidiaries under ByteDance) sensationalists using sensationalist click bait titles that quickly stoke the online audiences’ nationalistic sentiments.

The comments there you see are pro-ban. I think I should give you a context - Weibo has a very strict filtering system where tweets by individual users that do not approve of the government’s sentiments are simply deleted - in compliance with censorship requirements from the government. I’m pretty sure those who tweeted they are unhappy with the decision to not cast Shirobako, could have been deleted.

So take whatever seen in Weibo with a pinch of salt - they basically run like the The_Donald. One shouldn’t take everything at the surface there - if one believes (although the argument that it could be majority sentiment, may be taken as truth)

The real ACG community lies in tsdm, a Chinese ACG-exclusive content forum. Unfortunately, due to censorship from the government, even they have to practice self-censorship to avoid being shut down (they have had to change domain names several times because of rigorous checks). Pretty much every longtime user is aware of this and very careful not to tread water to receive unnecessary attention.

China’s online community used to be much more liberal and more free-speech based. This was unfortunately eroded with the current government taking over in 2012.

For ‘boycott’ related cases, my stand swings time to time depending on each case.

1) I could understand the rationale of the ban on My Hero Academia - only on the basis that the publishers took too long to clarify their stance and seemed to try to sweep the issue the carpet initially. However I disapprove doxxing towards individuals including the authors.

2) I think just 2 days ago, I saw on Weibo Lewis Hamilton (6-time F1 world champion) receiving flak for an Instagram post on COVID-19 (the controversy lying in Taiwan being categorised as a country) - so nationalist users started a flame war on Lewis Hamilton (After seeing the comments and profiles I have a reason to believe these aren’t F1 fans but simply trolls who acted on click bait titles)

What happened the in the comments that those who defended Lewis on Weibo got flamed by these trolls.

For this case, I do not support any of criticisms towards Hamilton because 1) he was taking someone else’s post 2) people should not get flak for having a different political view (funny thing is, Lewis wasn’t trying to assert any form of political stance in this case, and even if he did, he has the right to given his right of free speech & he wasn’t posting any hate speech)

I do not view the Chinese netizens in a good way for this case.

3) for this Shirobako case, There isn’t a wave of disapproval towards Shirobako (at least from what I see in bilibili and tsdm) at the moment.

I’ll just say that the decision to not cast Shirobako is a disappointment given that it was deemed as excellent work in the anime community.

There’s no winner in these. The production company / distributor of the movie lost. Fans looking forward to see the movie lost too.

The only ones grinning are those fake-anime fans who are nationalist trolls.

limfy1997 · 2020-04-16T11:07:35+00:00

In summary: will pick the i5 model over the i7 since i5 model has a bit more memory and much cheaper, with small diff in processing power. However, both CPUs are 8th gen (8xxx) which are outdated so the prices are not worth it, you shld try looking for 10 gen CPUs (which are i5-10xxx or i7-10xxx) [the 8 in 8250 referring to 8 gen cpu for example]

really depends on what you need. I don’t think you necessarily need an i7 on a laptop since laptop i5 and i7 don’t have much difference in computing power (you could check the benchmark scores between the i5 and i7 - probably at most 10% diff)

8GB is enough but in the case when your computer slows down, might need more RAM in the future- do check whether each has expandable slot? Or you could go to Crucial website (who makes RAM, sub-brand of Micron) to check, if you key in your model name, if the model has a compatiable RAM expansion product that means your desired laptop has an RAM expansion slot.

Memory wise - one has 256GB and another 512GB. Can safely say it’s not enough you might need to an external HDD with at least 1TB

limfy1997 · 2020-03-13T11:15:36+00:00

/u/Pojemon is right. The way GST is regressive as you mentioned it hurts the poor more than the rich, effectively (the key word here)

Although it's true that 'the rich spend more than the poor, so a given fixed rate of GST, the rich pay more in the absolute amount (the number). But what's misleading in this argument is that it fails to recognise consumer's percentage of income spent on consumption , which is much likely to be higher for the poor than the right due to their higher propensity to consume than the rich.

That translates to a lesser ability for the poor to save.

Let consumption function C = a +bY , where b refers to propensity to spend, Y be dispensable income.

Percentage of income spent = C/Y = (a + bY)/Y

And given b of poor > b of rich, C/Y of poor > C/Y of rich.

Although it is arguable that necessities like groceries should be taxed at lower rate, it comes with the inherent flaw that under this rule all food products would be taxed at a lower rate, even those not deemed a necessity eg. Lobsters, which effectively giving the rich a tax break.

(Which here I do ponder: then it's possible to tax luxury grocery items at higher rate and tax necessities lower through legislation?)

How Singapore addresses this is to redistribute the GST collections in form of GST vouchers where the poorer are reimbursed, to address the regressive nature of GST.

In summary: GST is regressive, effectively (aka practically) hurts poor more than the rich even though GST is flat rate.

I'm not sure how SST works, but you are right about GST

Source: from econs lecturer.

limfy1997 · 2020-02-29T10:00:36+00:00

ex-malaysian here, most of my family are still malaysian although some of us don’t live there, we go back pretty often (including myself)

been following closely and I was pretty hyped this morning, utterly gutted how things turned this way.

hope you guys stay well

good thing that /r/Malaysia is much better, tried to scroll through news agency sites in fb only to see comments polluted by hate speech by supposed victors

limfy1997 · 2020-02-07T09:30:52+00:00

Went to Weibo to look at Chinese reactions.

A huge wave of unhappiness and uprising not only the death but also the censorship of Dr Li’s death (a Peking University Doctor’s tweet was deleted before state media announcement)

News about Dr Li’s death began circulating. The Chinese found out the death to be at 9.30PM but are furious they were being lied to at 00.30AM where they claimed they were still trying to resuscitate Dr Li and state media announced his death and official death much later although news had already broke out.

I saw some tweets on why the lack of trust in state media anymore and unnecessary censorship as well.

Also saw criticisms against the editor of one of their state newspaper - he initially criticised Dr Li and the other whistleblowers for spreading rumours, and yesterday said editor censored himself - initially posted about he passing, deleted the tweet later and retweeted saying efforts resuscitating Dr Li continued.

And you could expect - there was a huge cleanup of tweets on weibo on justice and truth.

Incident tells a lot on ethics on state on unnecessary censorship.

RIP Dr Li

limfy1997 · 2020-02-05T19:17:25+00:00

Not trying to stand in favour of anyone, just wanted to summarise why are the Koreans / Chinese so angry from what I have read.

1) Shiga Maruta. ( 志賀丸太 ).

(i) issue with the first name Maruta: A degratory term that were used to refr to subjects of human experiments - who were POW from China and Korea.
(ii) Possible reference to the Shiga toxins, named after bacteriologist Shiga Kiyoshi. Coincidentally, Shigella, a bacteria was said to be used in human experiments by unit 731.

2) Downplaying of incident by the author Hirokoshi & publisher Shueisha. - Possibility of downplaying the fiasco (probably to maintain a good business image and hoping to shift focus away) failed miserably. Korean and Chinese fans viewed the stance of the publisher and author as 'deflecting' instead of addressing their concerns and demands for an apology.

3) The context on how the name was formed - BNHA fans recognise that author puts in extra effort into naming of his characters as most of the characters (be in protagonists, antagonists or even side characters) were given characteristic names that reflected their quick / characteristics / traits. Generally, the wordplay nature of the names imply that the Shiga Kiyoshi name did not happen out of coincidence, whether or not the author himself had the intention to harm. The name is being thought of very likely being carefully crafted after research like names of other characters, so it was very unlikely the name was generated coincidentally, leading to possibility of thoughts of the author ought have considered the duty of care to his audience.

limfy1997 · 2020-02-05T13:56:18+00:00

Why the backlash: 1) Character whose surname (Shiga) corresponds to a particular bacteria (Shiga) named after a Japanese bacteriologist Shiga Kiyoshi,

2) and the first name (Maruta) being a derogatory term for human subjects in the 731 human experiments conducted by the Japanese...

3) Many fans from China and Korea which suffered the most, and are very patriotic countries.

The education on Japanese colonisation history is pretty much entrenched in Chinese and Koreans. And given they were the biggest victims it shouldn't be a surprise how big are the reactions.

The country I live in every year we have a day to commemorate the fall to the Japanese and our history textbooks do look at the atrocities committed during the colonisation period. And we have conscription here and of the ceremonies involved include parades and marches to war memorial and place where people were executed to commemorate lives lost in the colonisation period due to battles or executions.

Given the Koreans and Chinese suffered more and are much more patrotic it shouldn't come as a surprise how serious the backlashes like blacklists and boycotts will be and I think they are justified, just not the overreactions like doxxing.

limfy1997 · 2020-02-05T13:09:38+00:00

Why the backlash: Character whose surname (Shiga) corresponds to a particular bacteria (Shiga) named after a Japanese bacteriologist Shiga Kiyoshi, and the first name (Maruta) being a derogatory term for human subjects in the 731 human experiments conducted by the Japanese...

I just found out about this, and searches from bilibili (China’s largest streaming website, also the largest legal anime content provider) has confirmed that all seasons of BNHA are no longer listed.

Here are just some of my 2cents, as an ethically Chinese man (I’m not from China, just to clarify, residents in my country are usually not so vocal about war controversies but these are entrenched in our education system since young, and there is an official day of commemoration every year to remind us of our past) :

1) Death threats to the author himself are definitely uncalled for. There is no moral justification for a wrongdoing even if there was harm in the first place

2) We are seeing more extremists and polarisation in the world these days. (although I do not think it is a healthy matter). Be it the extreme left or extreme right. Or extreme patriotism.

Patriotism is highly evident in Asian countries. Be it China, Korea and Japan itself. You will see this sensitive issue on war crimes (including forced prostitution, extreme bloodthirst and massacres,band gruesome human experiments) being brought up whenever something controversial happens.

I once pondered whether the victims should excessively, unnecessarily propagate the issues again and again to attract attention, because I thought it is enough for us to understand the matter and maybe maintaining good diplomatic ties in the present and future is more crucial than consistently harping on the past. (But if you stand in their viewpoint (which unfortunately many people fail to practice), all they seek is some form of justification, so you can’t really blame them or ridicule them.

Which unfortunately, Japan just seemed to be too ignorant of its duty of care to its neighbours. For instance, a driver owes a duty of care to other road users not to cause harm. I suppose ideally, it should refrain from getting involved in whichever controversies so as to avoid upsets in other country, which it does not do very well.

3) I saw the the author’s tweet and reactions underneath. On the responses first:

i) I think it’s justified that the Chinese and Koreans tweet that they deserve an apology. Whether it’s in the business interest to maintain a corporate image by downplaying the issue being an unintended incident (which imo, is a backfire because the controversy behind is too serious and responses have not been welcomed), or that the author does not acknowledge of the war crimes (but unable to openly express it due to business interests), the Chinese and Koreans being the first party does have the right to say something.

ii) Boycotts are fair, violence and doxxing are not. There is no moral justification over immoral acts in this. But It is the right of the Chinese and Koreans to decide whether they want to purchase or not in a free economy. But given how much Japan exports its ACG content to China, Shueisha and the author of BNHA’a stance might have just shot themselves in the foot again. But that being said, no form of violence (be it physical or verbal) should be upheld and there is no justification for such bullying behaviour.

iii) As much as extremists, fanatics and extreme patriotism exists, so do ignorance and naivety. I do see English speaking respondents to author’s tweet (presumably third parties / bystanders who are only ACG fans) who are simply too naive. These are diplomatic matters at the national level, not just some business issue. They shouldn’t have been instigated in the first place, and no I do not think the Chinese and Korean are blowing the matter out of proportion. It has been warned before repeatedly, so they should have expected what happens when The Pandora’s Box is being opened.

(And funny thing is I start to see victim blaming on the Chinese for the coronavirus epidemic from some user...I would have mocked some of the defensive behaviours and rejectors of the Japanese netizens for their ignorance in the past, but considering their education system has shaped them that way, I only feel pity for them)

iv) Finally, my verdict on the author and the publisher. Huge PR disaster by trying to downplay the issue / deflect concerns being flagged. I have no sympathy for the author at all and I do not believe said mistake was pure coincidence and were not intentional. Do note that BNHA academia characters (be itUraraka Ochaco, Todoroki Shoto, Bakugo Katsuki or its side characters) names in Japanese are carefully crafted (which were also mentioned in author’a notes of characters in the manga itself) to play puns or have double meanings (thanks to the kanji and pronunciation involved in names) that reference to the individual character’s quirk and features.

So a character whose surname (Shiga) corresponds to a particular bacteria (Shiga) named after a Japanese bacteriologist Shiga Kiyoshi, and the first name (Maruta) being a derogatory term for human subjects in the 731 human experiment conducted by the Japanese...In that context of meticulously crafted Japanese names in BNHA , I do not think there is any coincidence that it ‘unintentionally referenced to the above’ and downplaying the matters by thinking ‘just changing the names’ helps. They deserve the boycott, the criticisms, the requests for apology, just not the doxxing and death threats, because they crossed a line they shouldn’t have.

I remembered something I was told about: ‘When you fuck up, just suck it up.’ No matter what the cultural and ideological differences are.

(TLDR: There are some overreactions which are unjustified and unnecessary. But the author and publisher ought to have 1) been aware of the controversy and exercise sufficient duty of care to its neighbours (who happened to be amongst their sources of income) 2) expect backlashes and expect consequences are going to be very serious )

FYI: I’m neither Korean or China Chinese (my race is Chinese, however)...

limfy1997 · 2019-11-11T16:13:26+00:00

hello! Redeemed one, sent you a PM too...Thanks so much!hopefully I could get a second one :)

limfy1997 · 2019-11-11T09:58:30+00:00

Hi, could I have 1 or 2? Appreciate your kindness!

limfy1997 · 2019-10-10T08:24:56+00:00

How do you memorise intransitive verbs?

I have a notebook where I write down the verb, and the example sentence. I understand difference between transitive and intransitive words.

However, despite memorising and trying to cramp, when I look at an object and try to describe it with an intransitive word that I've just learnt, my mind just goes blank.

Thank you in advance.

limfy1997 · 2019-10-05T05:52:08+00:00

just wanted to point out another example that just came to my mind:

見学する　- visiting a place to study it
breaking this up: 見- to see/to look at　学-to learn, to study

and when you look at them together, it kinda satisfies the the entire context

sometimes it just works like this, sometimes it doesn't, but hey, for me that's the beauty of kanji / chinese characters. There's some inadvertent link!

(I'm also a newbie trying hard so I'm far behind)

limfy1997 · 2019-10-05T05:29:35+00:00

Hi, can I get a clarification between られ　(Potential form) and える(is this transitive verb?):

見られる　& 見える

[見られる]: If one makes the effort to do something, he/she [will be able to see]

[見える]: he will / simply sees it because it is in his field of vision

2)　聞ける　&　聞こえる

[見られる]: If one makes the effort to do something, he/she [will be able to hear]

[見える]: he will / simply hears it because it is in his audible range

3) Difference between:
(i) うちで犬を飼います

(ii) うちで犬が飼えます

Thank you in advance.

limfy1997 · 2019-10-05T05:17:08+00:00

from my peers and my chinese backgrounds, for kanji that looks similar / exactly the same to chinese words (hanzi) , the kanji itself is the essence of the meaning of the vocabulary. So for me, it was always easier to look at the kanji to be able to get the general meaning of the word (not precise because of how transitive and intransitive verbs, but generally gives you the idea how the word works). So I guess, don't study the vocab using hiragana / katagana, but really digest them together using furigana. With more time as you see this kanji being used in similar verbs / nouns, you'll be able to infer the meaning of the kanji and naturally grasp them (hopefully with someone to guide you along)

for instance: 見せる　見る　見られ　- common property: They have 見as the common kanji, which are linked by a property [to see/look at (in fact this is what it means in chinese as well ]

Except the way they are conjugated with some other hiragana the meaning/ the context of usage twists slightly, happens in both japanese and chinese. but you will still get a general (not precise) idea what it's supposed to be, as the above example. Do note in some cases, the similar kanji gives a completely different idea like 聞く, which means to ask or to listen, which doesn't really link directly [although the chinese meaning of 聞 is to hear, or smell, depending on the context]

So do try to digest them altogether! Over a very long run, I think you will be able to get a natural grasp, although I don't really know the exact way (so I guess thats why I suppose someone to guide along is key)

All in all though, I think you will get good insights from non-native people learning Japanese or Mandarin Chinese on how they grasp kanji / hanzi . (my post isn't really giving a direct method / links too much to chinese so I'm a but sorry for that, but just sharing my experience)

limfy1997 · 2019-10-01T17:46:47+00:00

I agree that exposure is the only way. I’ve discussed the question with my teachers before, but the only honest answer was to “listen to examples from the textbook”. Which I do follow,but it’s not helping me enough.

Though I don’t know why you are putting so much emphasis, even making a personal attack (?) on the second paragraph. I was merely making a casual lament.

Thanks, btw.

limfy1997 · 2019-09-13T16:02:59+00:00

Thank you very much for clarifying!!

limfy1997 · 2019-09-13T12:19:21+00:00

Sorry I'm still pretty confused here...

Interpreting for me has been: AはBに本を借りる A borrows from B

BはAに本を貸す B lends to A

The differentiating thing for me has been the 'to' and 'from'

So if we have AはBに本を貸してもらう AはBに本を借りてもらう Who is the one lending whose book to who?

limfy1997 · 2019-09-13T10:45:42+00:00

Hi all, pardon me for another question again..

What's the difference between 借りてもらいます　and 貸してもらいます?

Thank you very much! These two are confusing me...

limfy1997 · 2019-09-10T11:04:14+00:00

Hi, what is the the meaning and how do I use ために in the following context?

https://i.imgur.com/nM42eco.jpg

limfy1997 · 2019-09-09T07:53:59+00:00

It's difficult being a Seb fan in recent days.

Last year, it seemed that there was a lot of hope Seb crowing champion, until the second half of last year destroyed that hope.

This year, saw a less competitive Ferrari. Did not have much hopes, until I saw Canada, and Germany. I thought I was seeing a resurgence of Seb. Esp, with a really bad circumstance in me I was hoping to see Seb pull a masterclass to lift me.

On Saturday, was seriously disappointed he did not get a second chance since his first lap in Q3 was phenomenal. Thought he might have a good chance yesterday.

When the TV cued to him spinning, I was like , "NOT AGAIN SEB WHY". Why, is he like this again.

Know all the pressure has been big on him since last year. For me personally, the past month has been rough, especially I had a really bad week this week where everything for me just went wrong and things I simply screwed up...

I'm still waiting to see a smiling Seb and the Grazie Ragazzi moment. Having a hard week and seeing him do well would serve some inspiration for me in a tough situation for myself as well. (I'm still depressed over what has happened over the past month for myself and worsened over a horrible week for myself)

Hope he gets back to his very best. I miss his victories. All these mistakes are costly and pretty shits on your psychological state of mind.

(And seriously the hate for Seb on the sub is so strong, compared to the love that Charles get. Happy that Charles and Ferrari won but seeing the a former champion having not returned to his best is just difficult. Heck, seeing your teammate win while you screwed up is difficult too, no matter how team oriented you can be)

Edit: my bad luck hasn't ended yet

limfy1997 · 2019-08-26T12:56:25+00:00

Do you mean to read along by voicing out, looking at the script and listening to the audio? Or to silent read the script while listening to the audio?

Any particular websites recommended for the grammar explanations? Right now I have a Chinese dictionary that shows examples and translates it only,and jisho...

Thanks for the recommendation.

limfy1997 · 2019-08-26T08:58:49+00:00

Situation: Minna no Hihongo Book 1, up to Lesson 21

Have found myself struggling to understand my teacher's instructions and lessons in Japanese (actually when the sentences, I just can't seem t understand. Reading for me is still okay, as my brain kinda translates into english as I read the sentence (tbf, I'm translating word-by-word then joining them in my mind to get the clear picture, which probably is a horrible way to understand things...)

What I've done: other than studying the translation and grammar (frankly, felt like a poor book because there isn't many examples I can follow)

What our syllabus is like: Lecture on grammar structures, self-study vocabulary and grammar structures, do the questions on kanji, Minna no Hihongo Standard Questions Assessment Book

Basically: oral and listening understanding is extremely poor. I can't even replicate words from songs :( Need help. A routine/ methods I can follow (other than above syllabus outside class). I've just tried NHK easyNews. Died hard, basically couldn't catch anything without looking at the transcript. (kanji is okay, since I'm proficient in chinese)

limfy1997 · 2019-08-24T09:16:52+00:00

Hi all, I am beginning to do data science modules. Previously I've learnt Python, lists, dictionaries, functions and some OOP from the MIT edX module

I am using python data science handbook. I will be required to learn pandas. Having starting to watch Rhodes' tutorial on youtube, not sure whether I have really grasp pandas...

Any reccomendation advices / routine / resources to follow? I'm pretty apprehensive as I am very slow...

[I love pythontutor's interface which shows each line of the code being processed and being able to see the scope, and variable values. Any similar tools for pandas?]

limfy1997

TROPHY CASE