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Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

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

#291

Post by wyclif »

sillyquiet wrote: post #15

e.g., Philosopher's stone -> sorcerer's stone. Science-fiction and fantasy UK book covers were better too, which is another example of the same weird parochialism of the U.S. publishing industry as it was. My probably unpopular opinion is that it's a reflection of a more general, largely un-self-aware New York City parochialism, which was where most of the big publishing firms were based, at least until the last deca…

Cover and book jacket art was better for all books, because what happened is that (especially in the US) instead of letting art directors have creative freedom, they started focus grouping it relentlessly. This, unsurprisingly, creates bland art.

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

#292

Post by wice »

jakub_g wrote: post #235
Melatonic wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a joke among audio engineers that they need to have a button specifically for this - I forget the exact name used ( I have heard several) but essentially it is a button that does nothing. The Exec or higher up asks for a very small tweak and the engineer obliges (by pressing the button) and then plays it back again. Nothing has changed but the Exec feels satisfied.

There's a HN classic for that: "Just remove the duck" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9137736

This reminds me of stories about directors intentionally putting ridiculously over-the-top violent or sexual scenes in their already quite violent or sexual movies for the rating board to focus on, and getting a PG-13 rating (instead of an R or NC-17) by removing it.

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

#293

Post by peoplefromibiza »

adolph wrote: post #230
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure there's any reason to make that assumption. analog clocks are modeled around the idea that the time is circular because that's the natural cycle of day and night (same concept of the meridian, plus dark hours, when there is no shadow). I imagine that any alien civilization that lives on a planet that rotates around its star and has a light/dark cycle would measure time in a similar fashion.

> analog clocks are modeled around the idea that the time is circular because that's the natural cycle of day and night This is not supported by evidence. For one, it would make a 24 hour dial make more sense than a 12 hour one. For two, many early non-discrete clocks took the form of parallax observation or liquid flows and were not inherently circular. https://muslimheritage.com/the-clocks-of-al-muradi/ https://en.…

hourglasses and other similar devices are for keeping discrete times, not continuous times like in

"it cooks in half of that"

but they are circular inherently, when the top half falls to the bottom, we flip them and the cycle restarts.

analog clocks started as 24 hours historically [1]. the division of days in 24 equal segments was well know since ancient history, we still use base 60 to measure time because that's what babylonians used when they invented time keeping and started counting days in a year (360 of them, in base 60)

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/24-hour_clock#History

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

#294

Post by leoedin »

Retric wrote: post #144
leoedin wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think much like reading is abstracted to a point where the "shape" of the words conveys the meaning (and you can muddle up the inner letters without much loss of information), when you use digital clocks enough the subconscious meaning of the shape of the numbers is what you see. I don't have to do a manual conversion to understand from the 16:54 on my phone screen that I have 5 minutes until 5pm - I just "know" th…

Except you just gave up a lot of precision doing that conversion. 16:54 might be 5 minutes and 0.1 seconds or 5 minutes and 59.9 seconds. If you can get that same feel for 16:54:36 then sure, but I personally don’t.

How many analogue clocks do you have which you trust to be that accurate? One huge advantage of a digital clock (on a phone, anyway) is that it's NTP synced with an atomic clock - so it's highly accurate and will remain that way.

I know that when I'm running for a train, I rely on my phone more than my analogue wristwatch - because the analogue clock is rarely perfectly accurate, and that matters.

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

#295

Post by rkangel »

_trackno5 wrote: post #8
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…

Funny how we got downgraded into "smart watches" that barely hold a charge for a day and are good at everything other than telling the bloody time. Having an always on display is an actual feature nowadays lol

> Funny how we got downgraded into "smart watches"

We didn't get downgraded. The "dumb watch" product category is still alive and kicking. Whether it's the more moderate priced quartz segment, or the less moderately priced mechanical segment it's not even slightly dying. What we've gained is choice.

And I say this as someone who would never buy a smartwatch because it would need charging. I have a perfectly decent Citizen analog watch that has worked perfectly every day since I bought it five years ago (not even needing a battery change because it's solar powered). I occasionally consider splashing out on a mechanical watch, but even a 3 year servicing interval would be tedious.

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

#296

Post by kjeetgill »

sillyquiet wrote: post #15

e.g., Philosopher's stone -> sorcerer's stone. Science-fiction and fantasy UK book covers were better too, which is another example of the same weird parochialism of the U.S. publishing industry as it was. My probably unpopular opinion is that it's a reflection of a more general, largely un-self-aware New York City parochialism, which was where most of the big publishing firms were based, at least until the last deca…

This whole thread seems to be in agreement, but I don't personally know anyone who didn't think the UK covers we're absolutely terrible.

Especially the first book. My impression when I first saw it was. It looks like it was done by a talented middle schooler for a community center assignment. Something to pin on a wall with a blue ribbon.

Granted I was in elementary at the time

I think you all in this thread (and I) are under appreciating how much of that opinion is just pure nostalgia.

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

#297

Post by vrc »

twofornone wrote: post #61
vrc wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there’s something about British narration of nature docs that makes them more relaxing and engaging for American audiences. Especially those who grew up in an era of Discovery Channel and PBS where the narration was usually British, or South African, or Australian, or in the Commonwealth-tinged flavor of English of that location. Perhaps it’s nostalgia.

I agree and I think part of it is nostalgia for a time when educational channels actually broadcast informative content, not semi-scripted, over edited, over dramatized reality tv. Did anyone else notice the slow boil of channels like History, Discovery, Animal Planet? Just irresponsible to coast on their reputation and start showing nothing but junk TV 24/7 to people who thought they were learning. I think it starte…

I used to watch Discovery’s “Wild Discovery” animal series every night. Then they spun out Animal Planet, which was cool. Then they started putting filler programming on AP. Now it’s all gone Honey Boo Boo TLC with scripted reality shows that are animal-adjacent. Have to catch reruns of Blue Planet and Planet Earth on BBCAmerica if I want to unwind with a nature doc in the evening

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

#298

Post by M2Ys4U »

megablast wrote: post #271

Marks and Spencer’s is such a dumb name for a supermarket though. The Uk is full of dumb nonsensical names. Curries is an electric store. Oh yes, perfect sense.

> Marks and Spencer’s is such a dumb name for a supermarket though.

It's named after its founders (Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer).

Doesn't the US have a supermarket called Trader Joe's, also named after its founder?

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

#299

Post by fijiaarone »

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…

You make a good argument about people growing up with digital clocks not understanding a clock face.

Maybe if you fill in the area covered you could more easily see it’s relation to pie charts.

A clock face is actually 3 pie charts on top of each other, indicating the ratio between hours, minutes, and seconds left in a sequence.

It might not be intuitive that it only covers half of the hours in a day (12) but then covers all minutes in an hour (60) and seconds in a minute (also 60).

By looking at the long hand (minutes) you can see the fraction of an hour that has elapsed if you color in the area between the “12” at the top, and for example, the “6” at the bottom. That would be half an hour. Or if the hand was in the “3” it would be a quarter hour, and you and see at a glance that a good majority of the hour is still remaining.

Seconds work the same way, with the skinny hand. For minutes and seconds you can just ignore the big numbers (or multiply then by 5 because 12 * 5 is 60).

But because the hours only cover half a day the ratio covers only half of that day, but you can still use the clock to decipher how much time has elapsed (or is left) between midday and midnight.

Having grown up with digital clocks, and only sweated through the difficult lessons of learning to read a clock face and not used them practically, even at school, you may not have realized this ratio (staring at the clock waiting for class to finish does not obviously indicate this property because classes are not evenly divided into hours)

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

#300

Post by fijiaarone »

joemi wrote: post #180
pessimizer wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plenty of people, myself included, get more instant meaning from a digital readout. More from outside knowledge than from the digital readout itself. There's no way to tell from a digital readout there are 60 minutes in an hour or seconds in a minute, or that there's a 12-hour period that means something (and no hints to guess.) There's no evidence that the time represented on a digital readout changes at a constan…

> If you found an alien digital clock written in alien language, it would take you forever to figure out anything about it; it would take a while to figure out anything useful even if you knew it was a clock. If you found an alien analog clock, it would be immediately obvious what it was and what it was doing, and you could use it to help you understand the alien digital clock. I disagree with this. This seems to ass…

I think the author was making the assumption that people understand fractions or at least ratios.
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