Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992) • Hacker News Board

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#251

Post by rlpb » Thu, May 12, 2022, 9:21 PM UTC

Ajedi32 wrote: post #80

pikminguy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you're right that analog watches are better tools that's not what Adams was saying. "We all know, really, that [analog clock face] is a lot more instantly meaningful to us than 15:39" which is just wrong. Plenty of people, myself included, get more instant meaning from a digital readout.

I don't think there's anything more inherently meaningful about a digital vs analog readout, or vice-versa. They're both highly abstract representations of time, it really just depends on what you're used to. That said, every single event on my calendar, and every single communication about time I have with other people is expressed as a written (or spoken) number, not as a position on a clock face. That makes digita…

Communications with others are expressed as a written or spoken number. But then calculations with that number (eg. "how long do I have?") have to be done with arithmetic. It's fairly rare that I wear a watch, but when I do, such as at a conference or similar, I prefer an analogue face. In this kind of case I prefer to visualise the time on the clock face. Then I can "see" the time remaining without doing arithmetic.

> If the latter, why does skipping that extra conversion step by using a digital watch feel worse from your perspective?

I'm quite capable of doing it either way, but my preference is to do the single required conversion to "analogue" so that repeated comparisons are visual and do not require repeated arithmetic. I also find it easier to remember a time visually, whereas single-digit errors in remembering a digital time can result in a greater error.

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#252

Post by Lio » Thu, May 12, 2022, 9:23 PM UTC

pikminguy wrote: post #176

js2 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny you should use 15:39 as your example. I find the translation I have to do from 15:39 to 3:39 pm to have much more friction than reading a digital or analog clock in the first place, both of which I can do with equal ease. The problem of course is that I'm not used to 24-hour times, so I don't equate 15 with any particular time of day. Similar to how I have to translate C to F to make sense of C temperatures. No…

I didn't pick 15:39 that's the quote from Douglas Adams. He pretty clearly went with a hard to read digital time to emphasize the point that he (and according to him everyone else) can more readily get useful information from an analog readout. My own watch is a digital 12 hour display and that is more useful to me.

At the time of writing 24 hour digital clocks were very common in UK train stations. All rail services in the UK are always in 24 hour form.

So there’s a good chance he just picked 15:39 as a familiar train time.

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#253

Post by underwater » Thu, May 12, 2022, 9:24 PM UTC

beaconstudios wrote: post #199

spoils19 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The American version is more accurate and arguably better - I like to think the title was changed for our heightened intelligence and not the opposite.

The philosopher's stone was a specific historical idea, the catalyst that would allow alchemists to create the elixir of life.

The myth of the Philosopher's Stone is not widely known outside the UK. Without correct context the title is dead boring and doesn't sound like it has anything to do with magic.

Imagine picking up a book called "John Smith and the Architect's Compass" and having someone tell you the title makes sense because there is a legend about an ancient cult who guards a a device that can locate the holy grail.

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#254

Post by underwires » Thu, May 12, 2022, 9:27 PM UTC

revertmean wrote: post #155

bombcar wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps "philosopher's stone" wouldn't have triggered such a loud backlash - which was needed to spur sales even further. I doubt many people even know (or care) about the slight differences. As to covers, even Tolkien was complaining about Americanization decades ago: http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Letter_277

For anyone wondering what that bizarre cover might look like: https://www.mytolkienbooks.com/tolkien-books/middle-earth/th... I can't find the lion...

Here's a variation with the lion, they removed it after his complaints

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IZy3SQYu8bQ/T3ByGLMH9BI/AAAAAAAAE...

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#255

Post by junar » Thu, May 12, 2022, 9:30 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #217

A lot of "Americanization" sucks. But I want to point out some counter-examples. 1. Digimon Season 1 English Dub is far superior to the Japanese original. Many people choose Cowboy Bebop as the "Better in English" anime, but... Digimon S1 is night-and-day. Stronger script with better jokes/puns, cooler attack names (English "Pepper Breath" vs the Japanese "Baby Flame"), everything is straight up better in English. 2.…

> 3. Final Fantasy VII

エアリス (earisu) is not how Japanese speakers would pronounce "Earth". That would be アース (aasu), which sounds quite different. And you may be aware, but "Aeris" is not the preferred rendering today, which is "Aerith".

Don't have an opinion on your examples in general, just wanted to correct a misconception.

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#256

Post by WalterBright » Thu, May 12, 2022, 9:30 PM UTC

jawns wrote: post #7

His argument about digital watches did not age well. My kids have known how to understand a digital clock since they were toddlers, but even now, in elementary school, they require entire lesson units in school on telling time from a clock face. Beyond that, he argues that pie charts tell us more about the relationship between things than tables of numbers, and a clock face is "the world's most perfect pie chart." Bu…

I wear an analog watch for the simple reason that I can tell the time at a glance, and don't need glasses to get it.

With a digital watch, I have to wear glasses and deliberately focus on it.

There's good reasons why cars and airplanes still have analog displays, and people present data with graphs rather than columns of numbers.

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#257

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 12, 2022, 9:37 PM UTC

jollybean wrote: post #233

retrac wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't just change the title from Philosopher's Stone. It was lightly edited throughout to nix Briticisms. You'd think they were translating it from the Ancient Greek edition and wanted to smooth over the culture gap. (A real translation, by the way!) All the more amusingly (or insultingly?) the Canadian release was the UK edition. Canadian English is much, much closer to American than British in its spoken form…

Canadian English is closer to American English, but Canadians (at least up until recently) 'get' Britishisms, or at least, the tone if not all of the specific vocabulary, to a great extent. Edit: excluding Quebec where cultural references are completely different.

[deleted]

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#258

Post by nradov » Thu, May 12, 2022, 9:41 PM UTC

skykooler wrote: post #250

ravi-delia wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could have had Pebble, never forget what they took from you

I still use my Pebble Time; I can't understand why you'd buy a watch with a battery that lasts less than a week. (I've had people tell me that you just put an apple watch on the charger overnight. Then why does it have a sleep tracker app that requires the watch to be on your wrist?)

Garmin has several smart watch models with sleep tracking and batteries that last for over a week.

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#259

Post by beaconstudios » Thu, May 12, 2022, 9:44 PM UTC

underwater wrote: post #253

beaconstudios wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The philosopher's stone was a specific historical idea, the catalyst that would allow alchemists to create the elixir of life.

The myth of the Philosopher's Stone is not widely known outside the UK. Without correct context the title is dead boring and doesn't sound like it has anything to do with magic. Imagine picking up a book called "John Smith and the Architect's Compass" and having someone tell you the title makes sense because there is a legend about an ancient cult who guards a a device that can locate the holy grail.

the myth is explained in the book. the only difference between 'philosopher's stone' and 'sorcerer's stone' is that the former provides a connection to a real myth.

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#260

Post by solveit » Thu, May 12, 2022, 9:45 PM UTC

Adraghast wrote: post #103

coldtea wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but even now, in elementary school, they require entire lesson units in school on telling time from a clock face. I'd say that's a failure to teach them analog time as toddlers, not digital time being inherently superior.

Digital time is inherently superior. Analog time requires the extra cognitive step of translating to the numbers being represented. Digital time skips that process and shows you the numbers directly.

Neither numerals nor configurations of clock hands are numbers and both require a translation step. For what it's worth, time isn't a number either and you translate from a number to a time.