8 ms·

Why are the sim city screenshots in Russian? Kinda odd.

by tra3 4y ago

spyremeown 4y ago
Because 156 million people in the world speak Russian. Why would that be odd?
- beanjuice 4y ago
  The original author of the post is theoretically an architect student from the Philliphines, according to some articles. I agree, however, who knows... just screenshots.
- DonHopkins 4y ago
  It's odd because the original version was written in English. Then somebody (Alconost) translated to Russian, without giving credit to the original source, but putting in a bunch of advertisements for their own site, then somebody poorly translated it back to English. How many people in the world speak Russian is irrelevant and has nothing to do with the fact that it's odd that whoever translated it to Russian didn't bother crediting the original, and just credited themselves a lot. Then because of that omission, somebody wasted their time making such a terrible redundant translation back to English, with bizarre phrases like "Transferred to Alconost" and "The article is translated in Alconost", which make one question the skills of the translator so bent on claiming credit for themselves without giving proper credit to others. https://archive.ph/GokfI https://archive.ph/GokfI The original author of the city was indeed an architecture student from the Philippines, Vincent Oscala. At least Alconost left Vincent's name in when he misappropriated somebody else's article to advertise his low quality translation and advertising services. The odd and terrible Russian translation also omits important links, including this interview with Vincent: Viceland Games: The Totalitarian Buddhist Who Beat SimCity https://archive.ph/eA7CX https://archive.ph/eA7CX Mammoth: http://m.ammoth.us/blog/2010/10/magnasanti/ http://m.ammoth.us/blog/2010/10/magnasanti/
egormakarov 4y ago
to better convey the gloomy dystopian nature of this city to the western reader
- smcl 4y ago
  There are plenty of gloomy and dystopian cities that are not Russian, let's not get weird about this
  - DonHopkins 4y ago
    - egormakarov 4y ago
      no, that wasnt the point. I'm not even sure if your typical _western reader_ could distinguish russian from ukrainian looking at the screenshot
      - DonHopkins 4y ago
        What's weird about those screen shots is that they must have been photoshopped, because all the graphics except for the text are identical to the English version, yet I highly doubt the lazy translator actually had access to the save files at the exact point in time when the screenshots were made to load them into the Russian version of the game. So it's much more likely that the screenshots were meticulously edited to remove the English text and replace it with Russian. English original: https://archive.ph/GokfI/5fff3abf855b5851484418965bf747d1d8a31a47.jpg https://archive.ph/GokfI/5fff3abf855b5851484418965bf747d1d8a... Russian fake: https://habrastorage.org/getpro/habr/post_images/249/838/546/2498385462c888f8b343108aa86c35e5.png https://habrastorage.org/getpro/habr/post_images/249/838/546... English original: https://archive.ph/GokfI/33461173f8f068f29ae392ddde9833c1000a4e2d.jpg https://archive.ph/GokfI/33461173f8f068f29ae392ddde9833c1000... Russian fake: https://habrastorage.org/getpro/habr/post_images/c73/e8f/088/c73e8f08891a280973bc10519e5ba57c.png https://habrastorage.org/getpro/habr/post_images/c73/e8f/088... If you zoom in you can see that the Russian fakes have some but not all of the jpeg artifacts from the English originals smoothed out (look around the letters, then around the lines on the graph), and the large numbers are missing commas, so they are definitely fakes based on the original jpegs of English screen snapshots. I don't even know if there was a Russian version of SimCity 2000. There's certainly a Russian version of The Sims 4, but Russia is so existentially terrified of a computer game turning their delicate children gay that they banned it. https://www.cbr.com/sims-4-wedding-stories-russia-banned-proganda-law/ https://www.cbr.com/sims-4-wedding-stories-russia-banned-pro... Edit: I explained above why I am sure they are fakes. Look at the jpeg artifacts closely, which give it away, especially around the letters and lines: some are missing (around all the letters and in some background areas), others are perfectly identical (around the lines of the graph). That proves the Russian versions are fakes beyond a shadow of a doubt, based on the original jpegs of English screen snapshots. Open each of the above four links in consecutive tabs, zoom in on each several steps, and flip back and forth between them to compare them yourself. Some but not all of the background was smoothed (gaussian blur, median filter, unsharp mask, etc), which removed the jpeg artifacts, and the old text was background-cloned away and the new text composed on top of the smooth background, without any jpeg artifacts. They definitely did not make new screen snapshots of the Russian version of the game on the original save files at the exact same time (how would they have even obtained that save file at that exact time?), because then none of the jpeg artifacts would match. It's as terrible a fake screen snapshot forgery as it's a terrible round trip translation from English to Russian back to English. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compression_artifact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compression_artifact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringing_artifacts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringing_artifacts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaussian_blur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaussian_blur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsharp_masking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsharp_masking

Why are the sim city screenshots in Russian? Kinda odd.

by tra3 4y ago

Why are the sim city screenshots in Russian? Kinda odd.

spyremeown 4y ago

Because 156 million people in the world speak Russian. Why would that be odd?

beanjuice 4y ago
The original author of the post is theoretically an architect student from the Philliphines, according to some articles. I agree, however, who knows... just screenshots.
DonHopkins 4y ago
It's odd because the original version was written in English. Then somebody (Alconost) translated to Russian, without giving credit to the original source, but putting in a bunch of advertisements for their own site, then somebody poorly translated it back to English. How many people in the world speak Russian is irrelevant and has nothing to do with the fact that it's odd that whoever translated it to Russian didn't bother crediting the original, and just credited themselves a lot. Then because of that omission, somebody wasted their time making such a terrible redundant translation back to English, with bizarre phrases like "Transferred to Alconost" and "The article is translated in Alconost", which make one question the skills of the translator so bent on claiming credit for themselves without giving proper credit to others. https://archive.ph/GokfI https://archive.ph/GokfI The original author of the city was indeed an architecture student from the Philippines, Vincent Oscala. At least Alconost left Vincent's name in when he misappropriated somebody else's article to advertise his low quality translation and advertising services. The odd and terrible Russian translation also omits important links, including this interview with Vincent: Viceland Games: The Totalitarian Buddhist Who Beat SimCity https://archive.ph/eA7CX https://archive.ph/eA7CX Mammoth: http://m.ammoth.us/blog/2010/10/magnasanti/ http://m.ammoth.us/blog/2010/10/magnasanti/

egormakarov 4y ago

to better convey the gloomy dystopian nature of this city to the western reader

smcl 4y ago
There are plenty of gloomy and dystopian cities that are not Russian, let's not get weird about this
- DonHopkins 4y ago
  - egormakarov 4y ago
    no, that wasnt the point. I'm not even sure if your typical _western reader_ could distinguish russian from ukrainian looking at the screenshot
    - DonHopkins 4y ago
      What's weird about those screen shots is that they must have been photoshopped, because all the graphics except for the text are identical to the English version, yet I highly doubt the lazy translator actually had access to the save files at the exact point in time when the screenshots were made to load them into the Russian version of the game. So it's much more likely that the screenshots were meticulously edited to remove the English text and replace it with Russian. English original: https://archive.ph/GokfI/5fff3abf855b5851484418965bf747d1d8a31a47.jpg https://archive.ph/GokfI/5fff3abf855b5851484418965bf747d1d8a... Russian fake: https://habrastorage.org/getpro/habr/post_images/249/838/546/2498385462c888f8b343108aa86c35e5.png https://habrastorage.org/getpro/habr/post_images/249/838/546... English original: https://archive.ph/GokfI/33461173f8f068f29ae392ddde9833c1000a4e2d.jpg https://archive.ph/GokfI/33461173f8f068f29ae392ddde9833c1000... Russian fake: https://habrastorage.org/getpro/habr/post_images/c73/e8f/088/c73e8f08891a280973bc10519e5ba57c.png https://habrastorage.org/getpro/habr/post_images/c73/e8f/088... If you zoom in you can see that the Russian fakes have some but not all of the jpeg artifacts from the English originals smoothed out (look around the letters, then around the lines on the graph), and the large numbers are missing commas, so they are definitely fakes based on the original jpegs of English screen snapshots. I don't even know if there was a Russian version of SimCity 2000. There's certainly a Russian version of The Sims 4, but Russia is so existentially terrified of a computer game turning their delicate children gay that they banned it. https://www.cbr.com/sims-4-wedding-stories-russia-banned-proganda-law/ https://www.cbr.com/sims-4-wedding-stories-russia-banned-pro... Edit: I explained above why I am sure they are fakes. Look at the jpeg artifacts closely, which give it away, especially around the letters and lines: some are missing (around all the letters and in some background areas), others are perfectly identical (around the lines of the graph). That proves the Russian versions are fakes beyond a shadow of a doubt, based on the original jpegs of English screen snapshots. Open each of the above four links in consecutive tabs, zoom in on each several steps, and flip back and forth between them to compare them yourself. Some but not all of the background was smoothed (gaussian blur, median filter, unsharp mask, etc), which removed the jpeg artifacts, and the old text was background-cloned away and the new text composed on top of the smooth background, without any jpeg artifacts. They definitely did not make new screen snapshots of the Russian version of the game on the original save files at the exact same time (how would they have even obtained that save file at that exact time?), because then none of the jpeg artifacts would match. It's as terrible a fake screen snapshot forgery as it's a terrible round trip translation from English to Russian back to English. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compression_artifact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compression_artifact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringing_artifacts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringing_artifacts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaussian_blur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaussian_blur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsharp_masking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsharp_masking