If Raising Heart can understand spoken Japanese, why can't she speak it?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Engineer's Disease at 11:29 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
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1 Same reason Signum's sword speaks German, right? ;p

We don't ever find out how that works exactly. The weapons speak whatever they want, and everyone can understand them anyway.

Maybe "if everyone can understand them when they're talking, they don't need to speak Japanese"? Or maybe they've just got a hell of an accent and it'd be embarrassing? (But Lindy's Japanese is perfect, even though her grasp of Japanese custom is... hit and miss.)

What I want to know is, won't Nanoha, Fate, and Hayate get full marks at school? They're networked together telepathically along with multiple sentient computers. The opportunities for cheating on tests are endless. (We see a little bit with school after A's in the manga. Fate's got crappy grades in kanji but college-level math; Nanoha's pretty high everywhere, going against magical girl type.)

Actually, that's an interesting question now that I think about it. They've essentially got to master the basic curriculum of Mid - enough that it doesn't hold them back from officer positions at a young age - at the same time as keeping up with the Japanese curriculum enough to keep people from wondering, even if they're not exactly worried about getting into college, or high school for that matter. And both of them while on active duty... maybe it's not so bad if they cheat some.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at March 15, 2009 02:25 AM (7TgBH)

2 I was wondering why I was awakened by the piteous mewls of dying catgirls...

Posted by: Wonderduck at March 15, 2009 07:03 AM (tMdKd)

3 Actually, I like that touch.  It's obviously a nod to the Language of Magic trope, which has been around at least since Slayers in anime, and a heck of a lot longer in Hollywood (latin).  I'd say that the language is hardwired into them, as a part of their basic OS and functionality.  There's probably a whole list of reasons for it dating back to the Old Days, but so much has been lost that these days they're not entirely sure how gadgets *do* work.

Does anybody ever have any trouble understanding them, though?  I'm assuming it's less because everybody is multilingual and more because the gadgets also broadcast their messages telepathically...

Posted by: BigD at March 15, 2009 09:36 AM (LjWr8)

4

I think I could live with this explanation: the true communications channel between weapon and owner is indeed telepathy. The weapon voices are the equivalent of blinkenlights, redundant readouts mainly intended for diagnostics.

One reason I say that is because I don't think I believe a 3rd grader in Japan will have learned enough English to permit her to understand the kinds of things that Raising Heart says, even as short as they are.

There does seem to be a different, better, and much broader communications link between them, as evidenced by the fact that Nanoha seems able to learn what attacks Raising Heart can perform in each of its forms, and to use them properly, without being briefed.

(Shaddup, Mr. Duck....)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 15, 2009 09:51 AM (+rSRq)

5 I came to the same conclusion based on the fact that within minutes of being introduced to Raising Heart (measured by how much she uses it, not calendar time) Nanoha is performing spells that Yuuno either didn't know existed or wouldn't even dream of performing due to power requirements, and either way Yuuno certainly wasn't telling her about them. (I'm particularly thinking the area search.)

Otherwise you could rationalize it as some off-screen training, but clearly the only off-screen trainer theoretically available was stunned at Nanoha's proficiency.

Posted by: Jeremy Bowers at March 15, 2009 10:28 AM (7LWnd)

6 The only problem is that it's clear that the "language of magic" is also, at least to some extent, Mid's written language. At the least, the English-with-funny-doogers is used in their military insignia and at least some of their displays. (On the ID cards too, I think...) So either Nanoha and friends had to actually learn it, or RH and friends are also in the instantaneous translation business. Or both - they can lean on the devices when they're handy, but eventually they pick up on it.

Jeremy, we know that RH is busy training Nanoha off-screen, from the manga. Supposedly it's not just telepathy but can go all the way into virtual combat training. At the same time, it's clear that RH can just "do" something without much input from Nanoha, to show her how (or to keep her from getting hit, heh).

I don't buy the "they don't understand how devices work" theory. All the newbies in Strikers get custom devices, and they're brand new, and get a lot of technical work on them, and one of 'em is a Belkan device too. So these things aren't in the "lost technology, black box" category.

I'm in favor of the "languages issues completely elided except for flavor purposes" argument. It never becomes important to the story, so it's something that's been glossed over in favor of more ass-kicking or moe.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at March 15, 2009 11:15 AM (7TgBH)

7

It isn't an unknown technology, because at the beginning of A's Yuuno is able to run diagnostics on Raising Heart and Bardiche, and figure out what needs to be replaced, and to order replacement parts, which get delivered in two days or less.

That means it's off-the-shelf tech for the Bureau, standard stock.

Not just that. They aren't just repaired, they're substantially upgraded. Both units are pretty much redesigned and rebuilt to higher performance standards. That kind of field upgrade isn't possible if no one understands how the unit works.

And afterwards Amy knew what had been done to them, and how their new modes worked.

True, a lot of that came from Bardiche and Raising Heart themselves, but it remains the case that they were ordering replacement parts which were standard stock. If it had been custom parts that had to be fabricated to order, repair time would have been months or years, not days.

And if it had all been mysterious lost knowledge, how would Amy be able to brief Nanoha and Fate on the new modes?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 15, 2009 11:46 AM (+rSRq)

8 Ironically, it wasn't just an off-the-shelf module - it was a catalog part old enough that nobody really recognized it offhand, and they had to look up the part number. It's equivalent to your Toyota going into the shop and telling the mechanic to install a carburetor.

(Not really, since it was obviously a performance upgrade. But it was something that, doctrinally speaking, the Bureau didn't do anymore. So maybe it was more like a soldier going to stores and requesting a semi-auto rifle to replace their M16? Before using the M14 became popular again...)

That doesn't necessarily equate to the Bureau being expert on device construction, though - RH and Bardiche are capable of self-repair and auto-assembly, so it's not much of a stretch to wonder if they can auto-upgrade too. Of course, then you get to the question of what that "part" represents... it's not like RH in jewel form has a service access panel. So is it more like reconfiguring the internals? Was the "part" actually code? Or did they actually need to get the magic version of the slide and chamber assembly? That raises an interesting question of exactly where the "weapon" part of a device comes from... except it can't just be "stored somewhere and pulled out when needed", because it can be fixed easily so long as the core's intact.

I hate asking questions like this and knowing that, in my head, these are things the writers didn't have an answer for.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at March 15, 2009 02:01 PM (7TgBH)

9

I've assumed that the transformation from jewel to staff was something along the lines of the DBZ "capsule" technology, which was never described but looks to be some sort of dimensional tuck.

On the other hand, that wouldn't explain how Bardiche recreated his bottom half after Signum chopped it off.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 15, 2009 02:34 PM (+rSRq)

10 I don't mean that the technology is lost as in "lostech", so much as that some of the theory behind it has been lost.  Strikers makes it clear that they know how to make more of them, but I believe there was also an offhand reference at one point during that series where somebody mentioned that nobody fully understood how gadgets worked, particularly regarding their quasi-sentience.

Posted by: BigD at March 15, 2009 06:54 PM (LjWr8)

11 Careful. Gadgets aren't devices. (And mind yer spoilers... ;p)

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at March 15, 2009 08:34 PM (7TgBH)

12 In A's, The construction of a new quasi-intelligent device is also talked about. The staff which says "OK, boss" (yes, I'm spoiler-guarding inside a spoiler tag) is mentioned as being near completion earlier in the show, though I suppose it could be "under repair" or "being upgraded," instead of "under construction."

I'm in favor of telepathy with a vocal backup, as well. I haven't seen any of StrikerS, but are people other than the devices' owners ever spoken to directly? The only instance I can recall in either season one or A's is one fight where the combatants compliment each other's weapons, and the weapons answer "thanks," but since both combatants are mages, the telepathy thing could still explain it. When the two staves are in the repair shop, they seem to be communicating with the presumably-not-magic-using technicians through another computer interface--thus the "error code" file that can be sent back to Amy--so I'm not sure if I'd consider that direct conversation or not. My car can do that much.

Posted by: Mikeski at March 15, 2009 09:13 PM (GbSQF)

13

There is at least circumstantial evidence that Bardiche and Raising Heart can communicate directly.

In the original series, when Raising Heart gives Bardiche a recharge, Bardiche accepts the power. I make the assumption that they were handshaking to control the transfer.

In A's, when they were being repaired, there's the business of them both demanding the cartridge system. That could be a case of "great minds think alike", of course. But I don't think so. They were listening to the conversation in the room, and I think that after everyone left they had a discussion with each other looking for ways of making sure their masters didn't lose again next time. And I think that they collectively came to the conclusion that only the cartridge system would do it.

By the way, in the last episode of A's, Reinforce speaks directly to Bardiche and Raising Heart. And both of them respond.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 15, 2009 09:33 PM (+rSRq)

14 Accepted.  But do they ever talk to another human besides their wielder, or just to each other?

Possibly related: It seems the devices have to be given a verbal command to do something the first time, but not after that. Things like:

(a) Nanoha only having to recite the whole "I am the one...unyielding soul to this heart" spell the very first time she activates RH (though she does it again later for dramatic effect). And we know it's not just off-screen, since Yuuno comments on her not needing the "password" in her second fight.

(b) Neither device using cartridges to start with... RH asked Nanoha to ask her to use one ("please call me, cartridge load")... followed by RH popping them like cheap candy without being commanded during subsequent battles.

On the other hand, neither RH nor Bardiche ever seem to "seal" anything without being asked verbally. But it could just be the Called Attacks trope there.

On the gripping hand, RH calls some of her own attacks and defenses when Nanoha's busy talking (telling people what good friends they'll be after she's done kicking their butts. , so I don't know why she couldn't call her own Sealings, as well.

(Is RH a "she"? I think of her that way due to the voice... seems strange to use "it" for something that sounds female. Similarly, Bardiche & the Volkenritters' weapons are male.)

Does the verbal-command-required thing (even if it's asked for in Mid but answered in Japanese) shed any light on this? Even if it's augmented telepathy, the speech has to have some importance...

Posted by: Mikeski at March 15, 2009 10:06 PM (GbSQF)

15 One possibility is that speaking channels and organizes your thoughts, making telepathy easier. Eh?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 15, 2009 10:53 PM (+rSRq)

16 Avatar:
Sorry, was getting my names mixed up.

Mikeski: (vague spoilers for Strikers)
Yes.  There is a scene where two devices fuss at their owners for moping--in the presence of others.

My assumption is that devices use a low-level telepathic signal that has about the same strength and distance as their internal "speakers" (which probably involve vibrating parts of their surfaces in such a manner as to produce speech... "but that's another show").

Among other things, this would allow a device to serve as a universal communicator, at least for anybody with a mind similar enough to a human's that it can understand the "words" in the telepathic signal.  Makes you wonder how they handle idioms, though.

Posted by: BigD at March 15, 2009 11:03 PM (LjWr8)

17 Darn you guys, I promised myself I wouldn't watch Strikers until I finished the Lucky Star OVA subtitles. (In about an hour...)

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at March 15, 2009 11:12 PM (7TgBH)

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Carnival AKA Mardi Gras AKA Fasching AKA lots of other names from different places around the world is celebrated on Fat Tuesday, which happens just before Ash Wednesday, which is the first day of Lent.

Lent is a period of 40 days leading up to Easter, which is always a Sunday, and is a period of fasting, penitence, and self-denial for devout Christians which corresponds to the 40 days that scripture says Jesus spent in the desert.

Easter is set to be "the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox". And because it is a religious observation, it happens every terran year.

It simply wouldn't make any sense to have Easter once per Aqua year, on a date determined by the astronomy of Aqua. It wouldn't make religious sense, in particular. So if there is any justice, Carnival (which is a fixed interval before Easter) should happen twice per Aqua year.

But it probably doesn't. They celebrate Christmas only once per Aqua year, and that is also a religious observation intimately tied to terran astronomy.

To the Japanese, Christmas is a big deal, but it's entirely a secular event. Few Japanese are Christian. Of course, even for Americans many who celebrate Christmas are not Christian or at least not particularly devout, and many if not most of the modern trappings of the Christmas holiday have roots in European paganism, including Druidism. Even the date of celebration is fundamentally pagan. No one really has any idea what day of the year Jesus was born. The early Christians during the days of Roman persecution set their celebration of Christmas to coincide with a Roman mid-winter celebration so that they wouldn't stand out. (That's why Christmas is within a few days of the solstice.)

And I would venture to say that the majority of people who celebrate Mardi Gras in New Orleans, or Carnival in Rio or Venice, don't in turn celebrate Easter, and don't practice self-denial during Lent. Carnival is also a largely secular event.

Even so, for something as much fun as Carnival, and as lucrative to a tourist destination like Neo-Venezia, wouldn't you think that whatever government authority has jurisdiction over such things would recognize the benefit of celebrating Carnival twice per Aqua year instead of only once?

And if you say, "It would be strange to celebrate Carnival when it was hot!" then tell that to the people of Rio. They seem to manage it.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Engineer's Disease at 06:28 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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There's a big problem in the logic in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's which made me subliminally uncomfortable on the first watching, and really became evident later. It's about the "masked man" and discussion of it is necessarily a huge spoiler, so it's below the fold.

(By the way, please remember to use spoiler tags in comments when discussing this.)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Engineer's Disease at 11:36 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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In some magic traditions, when a mage summons a familiar (tsukaima) it comes from afar, from this world or another. That's the case in Zero no Tsukaima, and in Macademi Wasshoi.

I'd been assuming it was that way in the Nanoha series, too, but now I'm not so sure. Another possibility is that the magician begins with a normal animal and uses magic on it. There's an ongoing maintenance cost in magical power as well.

If so, then it means that Arf was originally a canine of some kind, dog or wolf. And it means that Lotte and Aria began as cats.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Engineer's Disease at 08:18 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Back in the day, when they first started trying to develop auto-focus cameras, one of the clever things they tried was using ultrasound. They mounted an ultrasound transducer on the camera, and when the user clicked the button, it fired a sound pulse at the direct center of the field of view, and then measured the bounce time to figure out the range.

There's a really huge flaw in this concept, which rendered it completely useless. Can any of you figure out what it is? (It isn't "flat angled target bounces the sound off to the side." That one's a problem, too, but it's not the one I'm thinking of.)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Engineer's Disease at 09:58 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 Taking a picture through a glass window doesn't work to well with that system.

Posted by: at December 22, 2008 10:11 PM (Dmikg)

2 That's the one, whoever you are. Um, Pixy? How did he/she/it do that?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at December 22, 2008 10:18 PM (+rSRq)

3 Wow, that was a really fast answer. *impressed*

Posted by: gaiaswill at December 22, 2008 11:01 PM (gctoU)

4 Ghosts in the blog!  Ghosts in the blog!

Has to be a registered user, I think.  I'll take a look

Posted by: Pixy Misa at December 22, 2008 11:16 PM (PiXy!)

5 I'm a long time lurker who finally registered last week, so I could occasionally join in the fun

Posted by: at December 23, 2008 05:55 AM (Dmikg)

6 They tried again with infrared (and just plain "red"), with the same problem. This continued into the digital era, until they had enough CPU power to analyze the image in real time. SLRs still have dedicated sensors, but the point-and-shoots are getting really good at analyzing pixels. Face-detection works quite well on my pocket Canon.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at December 23, 2008 07:36 AM (2XtN5)

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So anyone who's watched even a little bit of Avatar: the last Airbender will have asked himself, "which of those powers would I choose if I could have one?" For me the answer is obvious, but let's talk about them all first:

Air bending
ammo: There's virtually always air around
Coolest ability: flight
Practical uses? magical rake, magical snow shovel, but not really a lot else.
combat attack: air blasts, pretty much telekinetic blows. Also can create tornadoes, but hard to control and of limited use.
combat defense: air benders can dodge faster than anyone else

Fire bending
ammo: it comes from within.
Coolest ability: firing flame out of your hands is inherently cool. (Or hot.)
Practical uses? Not really any, except starting cooking fires without matches.
combat attack: flamethrower. Fire bending is all about attack
combat defense: no special defenses

Water bending
ammo: ice bergs, glaciers, rivers, and the sea. If you're away from those, you have to rely on spontaneous springs.
Coolest ability: icing up an enemy to freeze him in place
Practical uses? Can be used to catch fish. Also boat propulsion?
combat attack: firehose, ice balls, icing up an enemy.
combat defense: ice shields, moving water shields. Most effective against fire, least effective against earth.

Earth bending
ammo: the ground on which you walk. Don't try to fight at sea, though.
coolest ability: opening and closing doors in solid walls
Practical uses: see below
combat attack: throwing boulders, causing earthquakes beneath your enemy, turning the ground he walks on into quicksand. Also destroying city walls during sieges and taking out any fixed fortifications anywhere.
combat defenses: rock shields, which stop anything.

What strikes me is that for everyday life, earth bending is far and away the most useful of the four. You can dig ditches and canals, create city walls, dig mines, and build buildings; it's the civil engineer's dream power. Anything a bulldozer or a cement mixer can do, an earth bender can do faster, cheaper, and more easily.

In one-on-one combat, "on any given day" any of the four can prevail against any of the others, but overall earth benders have a substantial advantage. Their rock shields are the best defense and can stop anything except maybe a water-bender's firehose attack. High-speed thrown boulders are the most effective attack available to any of the four because they're the hardest to defend against. And as long as they're fighting on land, the earth benders never run out of ammo.

Plus, no walled city can stand against an army of earth benders, because the walls won't stand for long. On the other hand, earth benders are the best defenders you could ask for in a walled city, because even if the enemy does knock a city wall down (e.g. with siege engines or firehose attacks), the earth benders can repair it in minutes.

So though I really like the idea of being able to fly, I have to say that if I were to pick one, it would be earth bending.

Which would I least like? Water bending not only is almost useless in everyday life, it's also far less potent in combat. It works best against fire users, for obvious reasons, but it's nearly useless against earth benders. And in terms of where people live, and where they fight, water benders are the ones most likely to not have any ammo available. Where they're going to shine is in naval combat, for obvious reasons, but navies don't win wars. Armies do. (The Royal Navy didn't defeat Napoleon. The Athenian navy didn't defeat Sparta. There are exceptions in history but not damned many.)

All of them are awesome, and any trained bender is vastly stronger than a non-bender. These comments are about relative advantages of each against the others.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Engineer's Disease at 05:12 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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Inspired by this, I wonder if eventually someone will release a cellular product handset code named Xylophone. Or Sousaphone.

UPDATE: Or Grammaphone.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Engineer's Disease at 06:22 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I'm rewatching Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu. Just had a thought about it, and I'll probably have more. They'll all be spoilers so they go below the fold.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in at 06:32 PM | Comments (19) | Add Comment
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Ep 13 of Aria, the Animation begins with Akari sending a letter to Ai on Earth. "Ai, today is the 31st day of the 24th month."

The Mars year isn't precisely twice an Earth year. Earth years are 365.24 days. So two Earth years are 730.48 days. A Mars year is 686.97 earth days, 43 and a half days less than that.

Worse, a Mars day is longer than an Earth day (by 39 minutes, 35 seconds), so a Mars year is 668.6 Mars days. (Mars has about 35 days for every 36 Earth days.)

If you divided that into 24 months, they'd average 27.8 days each.

If you made the year 22 months, you come in with an average length of 30.4 Mars days.

Wikipedia has a good article about the problems of coming up with a calendar for Mars.

UPDATE: Of course, if they could terraform Mars, and build a moon for it, maybe they were also able to correct its orbit to be exactly twice Earth's orbital period, eh? And adjust the Martian day while they were at it?

You could get all three of those simultaneously using asteroid impacts. Hit the night side of the planet with glancing blows from behind the planet in its solar orbit: you could speed up the spin, add orbital energy and boost the planet into a higher, slower, orbit, and knock debris loose to form a moon. Hmm?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Engineer's Disease at 05:54 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I don't think that Phobos or Deimos look anything like that.

Just did some calculations. At its closest approach, when directly overhead, Phobos has a disc of 0.2 degrees. From earth, Luna is a disk of about 0.5 degrees.

But because Phobos has a smaller orbit, then when it's on the horizon its disk would be about 0.15 degrees, or about one eleventh the area. Visible? Yeah. But it wouldn't look like that image.

And since its orbital period is only 7 hours, it would visibly move.

OK, Steve, put down that slide rule and back away slowly...

UPDATE: Not only would Phobos have only 1/11th of the apparent disc, but illumination by the sun would be 43% as bright on average, which means as a night-sky light illuminating things on the ground, Phobos would only cast 4% of the amount of light that Luna does on "Manhome" when full.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Engineer's Disease at 05:43 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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