Perl, ACL2 and Japanese GBA games

Finally I can actually write something on my blog!

Well, it's not like I haven't had anything to write. What I haven't had is TIME.

That said, I've got some work done on my end of minor project. Now it can process the output produced by the list inversion example. It's a very simple one, but hey, it's a first step.

Still, Perl IS a Swiss Army Chainsaw. And I thought regular expressions were already powerful enough. The problem is that the language lets you get away with too much. Good thing I turned on strict mode with all the warnings. Phew.

On the Japanese side, I've been playing FF Tactics Advance on my GBA for a while. It's nice that I can play some REAL games now without resorting to a dictionary every 5 minutes. Now it's only every 15 LOL.

I played Pokémon Sapphire for a bit, but it's not so good for my Japanese: EVERYTHING is in Hiragana! How am I supposed to practice my kanji with that? Square games are nice, though. It was to be expected, anyway.

It's funny that sometimes they use weird kanji compounds just to save some screen real estate. (Whoops, can't remember an example. Blah. )

Right now, I think I have just about enough reading and comprehension materials to last me for a while: a newspaper, several flyers, a tourist safety manual, manga, games, anime...

I think I'll shop soon for a better dictionary. The Kodansha and the Collins are good, but they ARE entry-level dictionaries. And no matter what they say, real dictionaries are still the best.

Intermediate-level textbooks would be nice too, but I don't think I have enough time for that.

Though it is true that looking up words by kanji and the like is best done in electronic dictionaries. Wonder if anyone made one for the GBA? Now that'd be a nice project for the summer, yup.

Anyhoo, enough for today. Ja!