Month: January 2025

Dungeon

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dungeon is very common in games, such as 《Dungeon & Fighter》, 《Darkest Dungeon》, 《Shattered Pixel Dungeon》 which contain it in the title. The Dungeon shown in these games is a maze full of dangers and treasures.

dungeon comes from the French word donjon, which means the safest main building of a castle. But later, dungeon was secondarily set as a basement room for detaining prisoners, and the details of the evolution are still unclear. But the real dungeon is actually very ordinary, and the number and function have been exaggerated. This may be related to deterring crime. Common elements such as torture and trapdoors have been added to the dungeon legend.

These secondary settings have also affected today’s castle tours, with some castles referring to storage rooms as dungeons. After all, after hundreds of years, the design drawings and signs have long been lost, and the owners of the castle have changed so many times that it is normal that the function of each room cannot be clearly identified.

Subsequently, Gothic and historical novels used the legendary dungeon, such as lords persecuting civilians here, using it as a symbol of tyranny. But the familiar third setting may come from the origin of everything, 《Dungeons & Dragons》 D&D. D&D uses dungeon to describe various mazes, which has influenced subsequent works.

However, how to translate dungeon is indeed a problem. In Japan, dungeon is directly written as the foreign word 「ダンジョン」, which is the simplest (not to mention the katakana hell). In Chinese, it is usually translated as the secondary setting of 「地牢」, and the third setting of 「地下城」「迷宫」. The disadvantage is that it is not unified.

P.S.: If 《Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?》 was translated into 《Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?》, it would be a bit weird.

Orphan App

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On Android, there are app stores built into phones, such as Google Play. Users can download what they need, pick interesting apps, and let the store automatically update the apps. These stores require developers to be certified before their software can be listed, but some developers, for various reasons, do not list their apps in mainstream app stores, so they distribute them through other channels.

F-Droid is a well-known FOSS app store, and developers and users who care about privacy use it. But some apps still do not meet F-Droid’s requirements, or the developers simply think it is too much trouble, so they are not listed in any app store. Let’s call these apps orphan apps, meaning apps that are isolated from the mainstream ecosystem.

Although these orphan apps can be downloaded from GitHub or the author’s personal website, they lack the automatic update function of app stores. If the app is opened infrequently, such as once a month, an update may pop up every time it is opened, which is indeed a bad experience.

If we can observe new versions released in the GitHub repository, just like subscribing to RSS, and then the script selects the appropriate apk for installation, then the orphan app can be automatically updated. Developer imranr98 probably thought the same way, so he created Obtainium.

The complexity of Obtainium can be foreseen, because it has to identify version numbers (such as 1.2-4 written randomly by developers), and filter various CPU architectures, etc. Mainstream app stores require apps to follow their own rules, while Obtainium can only adapt to the developer’s habits.

Fortunately, Obtainium is currently working well. For example, Mihon, a manga software that is not logged into the app store, can be automatically identified and updated normally after adding the repository link. It alleviates the lag of having to spend time updating when using it. Finally, thanks to the author of Obtainium, and the “Chuan Tuo University Library” channel that shared this tool.

Obtainium can be downloaded from F-Droid (download link), enjoying the automatic update of the store. You can also download the version from GitHub, but it is not certain whether Obtainium can update itself.

Software and Services as Verbs

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On July 8, 1998, Google co-founder Larry Page wrote in a mailing list, “Have fun and keep googling!”, which was the first time Google was explicitly used as a verb. Later, TV series and news reports featured Google as a verb, as a synonym for search, which served as an advertisement for Google.

However, Google Inc. later worried that its trademark would become a generic term, so it restricted its use, meaning that others could use it freely, similar to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejecting the GPT trademark. Therefore, Google tried to restrict related use and requested the public to only use Google as a verb when actually discussing Google, and not as a synonym for search.

PS (Photoshop) is also a common software used as a verb, as a synonym for image editing, but Adobe does not seem to have any opinion on this. Adobe does not restrict PS as a synonym for image editing like Google, which may be due to confidence in its software. After all, Google has challengers such as Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, and Yandex, while PS does not have any decent challengers.

There may not be many other software programs used as verbs. Only Grep and WeChat are known. The former is software used for searching on UNIX systems and may be used in discussion communities of related practitioners, but it has not been promoted to other communities. The latter is often abbreviated as V, such as “V me 50”.

Why Are TV Series Usually Not Released All at Once?

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Works that are not released all at once include serialized novels and comics published in newspapers and periodicals, and games sold in chapters. These works have in common that they are serialized, so they have to present only a portion of them multiple times.

For South Korean TV dramas and Japanese animations, mature film and television industrialization allows works to be broadcast while they are being made (not to say that film and television industrialization in some regions is not mature enough to broadcast while they are being made, because what is holding back broadcast while making is the censorship system). But this is not the reason, but the result. This kind of broadcast while making is not necessary, because most of the dramas funded by Netflix are released all at once.

One media company believes that weekly updates of TV series can exert more influence than complete releases. For example, Netflix’s “The Crown” and “Bridgerton” can only stay on the charts for a few weeks. While Disney+’s weekly updated “The Mandalorian” and “WandaVision” can bring long-term attention.

Similar situations can also be seen in service-oriented games. For example, in various card-drawing mobile games, the plot of the first-day version is always incomplete, and multiple subsequent versions need to be updated to see the complete story. This is probably also the dilemma of complete buyout games. The development cost is high, but the popularity is difficult to sustain. Therefore, Ubisoft, Activision, Warner Bros., and Sony have all chosen to make service-oriented games to increase profits, but have not yet found a suitable business model.

So, will the proportion of these incomplete “early access” works in the market continue to increase in the future? After all, for works companies, investing in such works requires relatively less investment than complete works. It can stop losses at any time and has continuous topicality. It’s just that the probability of viewers facing suddenly cut-off works may increase.

Comics Containing Social Issues

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《Comics Party》 and 《Zhiyin Manke》 are comic publications. The former mainly features short, humorous comics, such as 《阿衰 on line》. The latter has many long serializations, such as 《Stealing September Day》. In terms of plot depth, such as discussing social issues, long stories seem to be more suitable. However, there is a cartoonist who often records many social issues in short, humorous comics.

The well-known work 《Pea Laugh Biography》 on 《Comics Party》 is basically a purely funny short comic. But there is nothing profound besides that, so the current evaluation is negative and the popularity is low. 「阿衰」 also has similar scatological plots to 《Pea Laugh Biography》, but social issues often appear naturally in the comics, which may be why the reputation is better.

For example, 阿衰  has a comic about Sneaking to Tutoring Classes, 阿衰 secretly moved the manhole cover and then entered the sewer, because the Education Bureau has been cracking down on tutoring recently, so the teacher is tutoring here. There is also a story about canteen hygiene. 阿衰 ate pork in the canteen, and then reported to the canteen that the hair on the pork skin was not cleaned. The canteen staff said there was no evidence, so 阿衰 showed his metal dentures covered with pig hair.

Cat Xiaole, the author of 阿衰, also has another work called 《Comics K Qiaqia》, which is a comic co-created with Shan Wei. The content is to debate an issue and discuss the issue from different angles in the form of comics. Later, the comic was handed over to Dan Hu, Yu Xiaodao and Christmas Fox, and renamed 《Comics Meng Qiaqia》, but the debate often contains social issues.

For example, in Issue 176 「If Mythological Stories Were True」, Christmas Fox said that he could live forever, while Yu Xiaodao envisioned a retirement age of 200. In Issue 233 「Buy a Scooter to Play With!」, Yu Xiaodao said that he could easily push it home after shopping in the supermarket, while Christmas Fox envisioned being refused entry by security guards and being stolen if left outside. In Issue 281 「Is it Good to Use an Electric Hand Warmer?」, Yu Xiaodao said that electric hand warmers have various good uses, while Christmas Fox envisioned electric hand warmers leaking electricity and exploding.

Cat Xiaole then canceled his Sina Weibo, Zhihu and other accounts, citing depression. The update of 《阿衰 on line》 has also become slow, and it was not even updated in 《Comics Party》 in 2024. However, on the last day of 2024, Cat Xiaole brought <Traveling Through Childhood to See You〉 on Xiaohongshu.

The realism of this comic should have reached the point where it cannot be published in 《Comics Party》. 阿衰 comes to the real world and experiences takeaway riders asking customers for good reviews, and Da Lianmei is also doing live streaming to sell goods; being fired by HR for 「the general environment and company situation」; not being able to find a job after the age of 35, so pretending to work in a cafe, etc. … But in the end, he returned to the comic world and wished all readers 「Be carefree and invulnerable!」

Private Agreements in Open Protocols

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There are many open, or partially open, protocols and software, such as USB and Android. Any manufacturer can use the relevant technology, and in some cases, authorization is required. For example, if a USB device is to be sold on Amazon, it requires USB-IF certification. However, in places where regulation is not strict, this certification is not required.

In theory, Android can be used without authorization, but authorization is required to use Google services, so Huawei can still use the AOSP (Android Open Source Project) code base and use it on HarmonyOS.

But I’m digressing a bit. The topic I want to discuss here is that it is very common to build private protocols on top of open protocols. Although they are all called Android, different manufacturers have added a large number of private APIs, resulting in many functions that cannot be used on other Android devices. For example, there are many private protocols for mutual transfer functions.

Now USB and Android are full of private protocols everywhere. Mobile phone manufacturers basically have private fast charging protocols, which means that different power adapters are not necessarily compatible. Software also needs to be tested on various Android real devices from different manufacturers, because each manufacturer may have different processing in the adaptation of APIs.

Is it better to have open protocols that are somewhat the same but also somewhat different? Or is it better for each manufacturer to make completely different and incompatible products? This is an interesting question. Although this third-party charging cable may not be able to use the highest power fast charging function, at least the basic charging function can still be used. Then, as long as the similarities and differences are pointed out in the function naming and developer manual, it should be fine. (For example, don’t make the weird name of USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 again)