Arafoo Kenja no Isekai Seikatsu Nikki - Vol. 6 Ch. 31

[Agoengss]

Thanks for continuing this.
I prefer this version because it's slower.

 

[GridLite]

YEEEEEEEEEESSS AFTER WHAT FEELS LIKE SEVERAL DECADES, IT'S FINALLY HERE
PRAISE THE ✨💡✨HUNLIGHT ✨💡✨

---

i think it's much more reasonable if they portrayed it that it's uncommon to have cooled drink simply because it's either freezer or nothing, no in-between like cooler since freezer is a must for prolonging the life of meat

 

[zetsuravez]

Yeeeees an update...

 

[Zorander]

Not going to lie, when I read him say that converting spells from a( n unknown) character set into binary made the spells "less wordy" I was mostly unable to focus on anything else that the chapter said.
Assume, for a moment, a character set of 26 characters. To convert a single letter into binary (which consists solely of "0" and "1") it would take no less than five consecutive characters (digits: 00001, for example, as "A." and that assumes only upper case letters). To convert a character set such as Japanese, with more than fifty thousand distinct characters? Sixteen consecutive distinct characters (digits: 0000000000000001, for example, as "あ"). (Please note, every f'ing time I try to do math, and post it here I somehow screw up. Someone please check my math. The quantity for "50,000+" characters for Japanese should be correct - see Unicode 16 or ask Google for 50k in binary and count the digits... Anyway).
How is this less "wordy" than a written language? In Japanese there exist single characters for entire words and/or entire concepts and to convert that to binary you have to extend it by fifteen minimum... "1" becomes: "0000000000000001" minimum...
BINARY IS NOT THE ANSWER. BINARY IS NOT BETTER. Binary exists solely because it is far easier to represent everything as "off" and "on" for computers. (Or somewhere below 5 volts as "0" and somewhere above 5 volts as "1" - depending on decade, technology and standard, and, yes, I know more standards exist).

Am I wrong? Am I crazy (with regards to this specifically)?

You're not wrong, but the spells in this had the same system as programming. Even if A = 0000001, the spell still needs to convert it to the base form to activate it so you're not saving anything by writing A, and you're losing efficiency because of the conversion. You're also adding extra stuff to it to make readable words if you don't understand binary and i think that's what they are trying to say.

 

[Doenyon]

Ah yes, the good old trope of forcing young children so they can learn the joy of living in an ultra capitalist state and then calling it welfare.

 

[WhimsiCat]

Not going to lie, when I read him say that converting spells from a( n unknown) character set into binary made the spells "less wordy" I was mostly unable to focus on anything else that the chapter said.
Assume, for a moment, a character set of 26 characters. To convert a single letter into binary (which consists solely of "0" and "1") it would take no less than five consecutive characters (digits: 00001, for example, as "A." and that assumes only upper case letters). To convert a character set such as Japanese, with more than fifty thousand distinct characters? Sixteen consecutive distinct characters (digits: 0000000000000001, for example, as "あ"). (Please note, every f'ing time I try to do math, and post it here I somehow screw up. Someone please check my math. The quantity for "50,000+" characters for Japanese should be correct - see Unicode 16 or ask Google for 50k in binary and count the digits... Anyway).
How is this less "wordy" than a written language? In Japanese there exist single characters for entire words and/or entire concepts and to convert that to binary you have to extend it by fifteen minimum... "1" becomes: "0000000000000001" minimum...
BINARY IS NOT THE ANSWER. BINARY IS NOT BETTER. Binary exists solely because it is far easier to represent everything as "off" and "on" for computers. (Or somewhere below 5 volts as "0" and somewhere above 5 volts as "1" - depending on decade, technology and standard, and, yes, I know more standards exist).

Am I wrong? Am I crazy (with regards to this specifically)?

He's not saying he converted letters to binaries, rather he wrote a new language based on machine coding to achieve the same result as the 56-runes system without the bloat of the old system.

 

[Hitansy]

I don’t know why but it’s somewhat common for adaptations. Like the Apothecary Diaries (one of the mangakas got sued for tax evasion) or, Be mine, Hero — I refuse.

Which adaptation axed again? The one with shorter title?

 

[pataponnaako]

He's not saying he converted letters to binaries, rather he wrote a new language based on machine coding to achieve the same result as the 56-runes system without the bloat of the old system.

I am wondering how the author imagined this.

Converting the 56-rune system to a more efficient binary encoding is simple enough, and he could have used a Huffman-like coding (the most used runes are assigned binary strings of the shortest lengths) for more efficiency. However, this is where I‌ run into problems. To come up with a Huffman encoding for the runes, you must first have a good idea of which runes are most used, which means being able to check all spells (all spells that have ever been devised).

Even if we go directly to the magical equivalent of machine code, I still think he could run into the problem of having to know which "operations" are available, and if it's possible to "alter the laws of magic" to add more of these operations to make incantations shorter. The more "operations" one can use, the shorter your incantation would be on the average.

I am guessing that what the author has in mind here is something like going from a high-level language (like Python) to machine code. Sure, machine code can be very efficient, and one can write really optimized code using it, but writing programs like what we currently have now in real life is way too difficult to do in machine code. There's a reason why assembly language, and then higher-level languages have been devised and used.

 

[PuruNyan]

Its been so long that I forgot the plot, but its always fun to reread and binge when its updated

 

[brykanst]

something about his explanations makes no sense doing things in binary would not make things more efficient as it would just add 40x the character count to any formula being made

 

[brykanst]

I am wondering how the author imagined this.

Converting the 56-rune system to a more efficient binary encoding is simple enough, and he could have used a Huffman-like coding (the most used runes are assigned binary strings of the shortest lengths) for more efficiency. However, this is where I‌ run into problems. To come up with a Huffman encoding for the runes, you must first have a good idea of which runes are most used, which means being able to check all spells (all spells that have ever been devised).

Even if we go directly to the magical equivalent of machine code, I still think he could run into the problem of having to know which "operations" are available, and if it's possible to "alter the laws of magic" to add more of these operations to make incantations shorter. The more "operations" one can use, the shorter your incantation would be on the average.

I am guessing that what the author has in mind here is something like going from a high-level language (like Python) to machine code. Sure, machine code can be very efficient, and one can write really optimized code using it, but writing programs like what we currently have now in real life is way too difficult to do in machine code. There's a reason why assembly language, and then higher-level languages have been devised and used.

even if we think like that every time magic would be used be it on items or casting a spell you would need to define all 56 runes even if 2 of them are being used in a system like this... we don't think about it in programing due to the fact that those definitions in programing are done on a system level or by calling something that defines them... you can't really do that by just making spells binary

 

[damadicius]

Which adaptation axed again? The one with shorter title?

Apothercary Diary? Not sure if it’s axed but it’s Nekokurage’s version.

 

[Yoyojor]

it's been so long...

 

[Aricitic]

You're not wrong, but the spells in this had the same system as programming. Even if A = 0000001, the spell still needs to convert it to the base form to activate it so you're not saving anything by writing A, and you're losing efficiency because of the conversion. You're also adding extra stuff to it to make readable words if you don't understand binary and i think that's what they are trying to say.

Again, the existence of binary is solely for computer use. It literally has no place anywhere else. Unless that universe "runs on computer/machine physics" (i.e. a physical processor in "another" universe) it has no place. And I mean this literally: unless that universe runs as a modern (our) Earth processor he can use anything other than Binary for better results.
Hypothetically speaking the "coding" for a "real" universe any "symbol" would be usable because the universe doesn't "process" its information through the physical architecture of a modern (our) Earth processor, but - if a real-world comparison is required - through quantum processing, which doesn't require (but can use) binary to function.
Finally, and I do this in the next response, but I feel the need to do it here, what he says is [Citation: this chapter (31) page 13, fourth panel]: "The 56-type magic formula describes phenomena and chemical reactions directly in [words], so it inevitably becomes [verbose]." and "My new formula can express those processes in sequences of [0s and 1s]."
Note the "describes phenomena and chemical reactions directly in [words]" and "becomes verbose." IF this is translated correctly (and/or literally) then what it's saying is: "describing phenomena and chemical reactions in [words] (meaning 'text') [using or expressed in more words than are needed (taken from "verbose" definition)]" and that "by expressing it in sequences of 0s and 1s (i.e. binary) it will not be [using or expressed in more words than are needed]" which is literally impossible. At least in this chapter, he is saying nothing about how the universe "functions" like a mechanical processor and therefore requires "machine language" to function. So, while it is entirely possible that you are actually correct on this matter (that the universe he is in functionally and literally runs on the architecture of a real-world processor -- which is, again, entirely possible because it was a game) this isn't what is being said, and therefore no "conversion into binary" would be required.

He's not saying he converted letters to binaries, rather he wrote a new language based on machine coding to achieve the same result as the 56-runes system without the bloat of the old system.

Um? Literally this chapter (31) page 13, fourth panel: "The 56-type magic formula describes phenomena and chemical reactions directly in [words], so it inevitably becomes verbose." "My new formula can express those processes in sequences of [0s and 1s]."
From "words" to "binary." He doesn't literally say the words "converted letters to binary," but he does literally say it with "more detail". "New language based on machine coding" is literally binary, by the way. Regardless of any "higher" form of programming, it all boils down to binary (0s and 1s), and he says "sequences of 0s and 1s."
So, for argument's sake, I'll assume he isn't "simply changing letter by letter to their corresponding sequence of 0s and 1s" (because that isn't "exactly" what he says), but instead, he converts the entire "process" into a sequence of 0s and 1s. It doesn't matter. You would still have to take an equal number of 0s and 1s sequentially for absolutely any event you want to describe distinctly. If you have only two events: that's 0 and 1 respectively. If you have four events: 00, 01, 10, 11 respectively. If you have 50,000 that's... well, to describe the number 50,000 you require no less than 16 digits (0000000000000001 as "1", for a visual example).
There are likely a minimum of that many distinct events that would need to be described, and if you include variables into those events (such as location, orientation, velocity, etc) you would need that many more.
So, sure, he doesn't say the words: "letters to binary," but please explain to me what you think this meant if you don't think he was converting something shorter into something VASTLY longer. You say "he wrote a new language based on machine coding to achieve the same result [...] without the bloat of the old system," but he literally says "sequence of 0s and 1s" so there exists no interpretation where he "writes a 'more efficient' language (not using binary) to simply remove 'bloat'" if only because using binary (sequences of 0s and 1s) creates bloat by nature of its existence. Please, I mean this with absolute respect, please explain how you think - given the words he used - he is doing what you said.
Again, Binary (0s and 1s) is never the answer. For efficiency and "shortness" there is always a better solution.

I am wondering how the author imagined this.

Converting the 56-rune system to a more efficient binary encoding is simple enough, and he could have used a Huffman-like coding (the most used runes are assigned binary strings of the shortest lengths) for more efficiency. However, this is where I‌ run into problems. To come up with a Huffman encoding for the runes, you must first have a good idea of which runes are most used, which means being able to check all spells (all spells that have ever been devised).

Even if we go directly to the magical equivalent of machine code, I still think he could run into the problem of having to know which "operations" are available, and if it's possible to "alter the laws of magic" to add more of these operations to make incantations shorter. The more "operations" one can use, the shorter your incantation would be on the average.

I am guessing that what the author has in mind here is something like going from a high-level language (like Python) to machine code. Sure, machine code can be very efficient, and one can write really optimized code using it, but writing programs like what we currently have now in real life is way too difficult to do in machine code. There's a reason why assembly language, and then higher-level languages have been devised and used.

While you are technically correct with the addition of Huffman-like coding, however, that's an extreme stretch for what was said in the manga (unless in the past, what, two years I've forgotten the manga saying something about compression... which is entirely possible). The likelihood that he has done this, as you mentioned, is extremely low because, as you mentioned, it would require him to assess all previously generated spells outright. While it "was a game" this would be feasible as the "number of spells" would be limited to what was originally coded into the game and what the "players" created after. However, once it became a full-on "universe" it certainly is not. He's not a "God" with "God-like" knowledge and mental capacity... and, let's be real for a moment, in a world where "magic exists" and can be "expressed in a 'human-readable' 56-type rune formula" a higher level sentient entity is required to have created it. -- I won't argue against the existence of "magic" in general, but any time "predetermined spoken/written spells" exist this is unnatural. Therefore "something" is required to have "created" it. Versus a world of "magic" where one's "intent" dictates the magic? That's vastly more feasible for a "naturally" occurring universe as it's basically a sentient "mind" exerting their "will" on the universe through the "medium" of "magic". i.e./e.g. Harry Potter, this story, Mushoku Tensei, WoW, etc require a creator or originator for their magic; "Didn't I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?!" technically "wouldn't" (even though it is completely upfront about having a creator), Pawn of Prophecy (or the Belgariad and the Malloreon series), or any universe where the "spells" are "similar" but not identical because their "purpose" is solely to "create an image of the desired outcome".
tldr (after "--"): Saying "avera cadavera" while waiving a "magic wand" producing a "death beam" requires a "creator/originator" of magic; 'thinking/willing' "form [orb] of [material (e.g. stone, ice)] at [relative location] and [project at angle and speed]" does not (necessarily) require a creator/originator but simply for the universe itself to "interpret" your "intention".

Finally, as I mentioned to the same person you are responding to, even if he is using "compression" to shorten the length of the spells, converting it from a 56-character set to binary is idiocy. The only time this could possibly be "more efficient" is when the universe runs on physical (real/our) Earth processors because you are utilizing the mechanics of the device it runs on - and therefore "conversion" is not required. As you mentioned everything above "machine language" (i.e. binary) exists because coding in binary is insane, and higher-level programming languages generally have built-in functionality to make things process more smoothly regardless. This chapter basically says that he's taken the "high-level" "programming language" and said, "F it, that's not efficient, let's use BINARY!"
IF the original author (as this is an adaptation after all, and it isn't the mangaka who originated the story) believed that this is, in fact, more efficient, then they clearly don't understand programming, coding, or machine language or much about computer science in general.

P.S. it's entirely possible to do compression without utilizing binary. If a sequence of 0s and 1s can be shortened to "less 0s and 1s" then a sequence of [insert character set here] can be shortened to "less [characters]" in the exact same manner but with [character]^[character] more efficiency. i.e. to abbreviate any sequence of words (in, say, English) you "can" take the first character of each word (an acronym), to do the same thing in binary (0s and 1s) you have to express each of those characters utilizing the required number of digits. Further, to shorten this as in Hoffman coding, for binary, you can only use "0" and "1": so, if there are 50,000 different and unique things to "compress" you have to have a "unique sequence" to represent each one that does not repeat ever. Needless to say, this becomes exponentially easier the more "characters" one has to "represent" these different things...

 

[chendu]

IT'SSSS ALLLLLLLLLLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE !!!
Tanks for the food

 

[pataponnaako]

even if we think like that every time magic would be used be it on items or casting a spell you would need to define all 56 runes even if 2 of them are being used in a system like this... we don't think about it in programing due to the fact that those definitions in programing are done on a system level or by calling something that defines them... you can't really do that by just making spells binary

Yeah, I was more or less in agreement with the conclusion (just doing things in binary machine code won't make incantations shorter), and what I said is in attempt to try to understand what the author is thinking. More about this in my response to the other guy who responded to me.

While you are technically correct with the addition of Huffman-like coding, however, that's an extreme stretch for what was said in the manga (unless in the past, what, two years I've forgotten the manga saying something about compression... which is entirely possible). The likelihood that he has done this, as you mentioned, is extremely low because, as you mentioned, it would require him to assess all previously generated spells outright. While it "was a game" this would be feasible as the "number of spells" would be limited to what was originally coded into the game and what the "players" created after. However, once it became a full-on "universe" it certainly is not. He's not a "God" with "God-like" knowledge and mental capacity... and, let's be real for a moment, in a world where "magic exists" and can be "expressed in a 'human-readable' 56-type rune formula" a higher level sentient entity is required to have created it. -- I won't argue against the existence of "magic" in general, but any time "predetermined spoken/written spells" exist this is unnatural. Therefore "something" is required to have "created" it. Versus a world of "magic" where one's "intent" dictates the magic? That's vastly more feasible for a "naturally" occurring universe as it's basically a sentient "mind" exerting their "will" on the universe through the "medium" of "magic". i.e./e.g. Harry Potter, this story, Mushoku Tensei, WoW, etc require a creator or originator for their magic; "Didn't I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?!" technically "wouldn't" (even though it is completely upfront about having a creator), Pawn of Prophecy (or the Belgariad and the Malloreon series), or any universe where the "spells" are "similar" but not identical because their "purpose" is solely to "create an image of the desired outcome".
tldr (after "--"): Saying "avera cadavera" while waiving a "magic wand" producing a "death beam" requires a "creator/originator" of magic; 'thinking/willing' "form [orb] of [material (e.g. stone, ice)] at [relative location] and [project at angle and speed]" does not (necessarily) require a creator/originator but simply for the universe itself to "interpret" your "intention".

Finally, as I mentioned to the same person you are responding to, even if he is using "compression" to shorten the length of the spells, converting it from a 56-character set to binary is idiocy. The only time this could possibly be "more efficient" is when the universe runs on physical (real/our) Earth processors because you are utilizing the mechanics of the device it runs on - and therefore "conversion" is not required. As you mentioned everything above "machine language" (i.e. binary) exists because coding in binary is insane, and higher-level programming languages generally have built-in functionality to make things process more smoothly regardless. This chapter basically says that he's taken the "high-level" "programming language" and said, "F it, that's not efficient, let's use BINARY!"
IF the original author (as this is an adaptation after all, and it isn't the mangaka who originated the story) believed that this is, in fact, more efficient, then they clearly don't understand programming, coding, or machine language or much about computer science in general.

P.S. it's entirely possible to do compression without utilizing binary. If a sequence of 0s and 1s can be shortened to "less 0s and 1s" then a sequence of [insert character set here] can be shortened to "less [characters]" in the exact same manner but with [character]^[character] more efficiency. i.e. to abbreviate any sequence of words (in, say, English) you "can" take the first character of each word (an acronym), to do the same thing in binary (0s and 1s) you have to express each of those characters utilizing the required number of digits. Further, to shorten this as in Hoffman coding, for binary, you can only use "0" and "1": so, if there are 50,000 different and unique things to "compress" you have to have a "unique sequence" to represent each one that does not repeat ever. Needless to say, this becomes exponentially easier the more "characters" one has to "represent" these different things...

I am doubting that the author, or the one adapting this to manga has really thought this through--had a fully-thought-out and written magic system that they can include in the story as needed; kinda like making a fully-rendered 3d model of a school building for a slice-of-life school manga that they can refer to whenever they need to. And to be honest, they haven't really needed to. Magic systems can be as hand-wavy as it can, it even not be consistent, but this series had more or less given the reader the expectation that their magic system has internal logic to it.

Not only was the magic system less hand-wavy because of how the writer (original or adaptation) did it, characterizing magic as "programming" made things way more difficult for them. They wrote themselves into a corner, leading to them messing up like this.

It's a bit too bad since I was intrigued at how the author would flesh out this premise of "spellcasting as programming". But at least the other aspects of this title still interest me enough to see things through.

 

[Shirimochi]

2 years... i feel like i was reading ch30 yesterday(or the day before...)

 

[GreC_89]

YEEEEEEEEEESSS AFTER WHAT FEELS LIKE SEVERAL DECADES, IT'S FINALLY HERE
PRAISE THE ✨💡✨HUNLIGHT ✨💡✨

---

i think it's much more reasonable if they portrayed it that it's uncommon to have cooled drink simply because it's either freezer or nothing, no in-between like cooler since freezer is a must for prolonging the life of meat

 

[WhimsiCat]

So, for argument's sake, I'll assume he isn't "simply changing letter by letter to their corresponding sequence of 0s and 1s" (because that isn't "exactly" what he says), but instead, he converts the entire "process" into a sequence of 0s and 1s. It doesn't matter. You would still have to take an equal number of 0s and 1s sequentially for absolutely any event you want to describe distinctly. If you have only two events: that's 0 and 1 respectively. If you have four events: 00, 01, 10, 11 respectively. If you have 50,000 that's... well, to describe the number 50,000 you require no less than 16 digits (0000000000000001 as "1", for a visual example).

I feel like you're assuming the 56 rune letters are each a full word on their own or something, when usually these form words/sentences (y'know, as he said 'described with word')

Using English comparison:
Fire Water Earth Wind - up to 5 letters space, with 10 different unique letters overall (firewathnd)
00 01 10 11 - 2 digits of space for input, all just 0/1.

If there's only so many variation to a part of the 'sentence' that form the spell, he can simplify each section down into the smallest amount of digit required.

We have example from all the way back in chapter 3 that spells aren't written concisely.
https://mangadex.org/chapter/6b3f34dc-cf5a-4c3e-b469-56a54cec09e2/7
Heck even in this chapter:
https://mangadex.org/chapter/fc30435f-9858-45a1-a76d-c67b2f066d3b/3
And those spells still work, just very inefficiently.

So some of the 'verbose' stuffs he talked might just be the 'trash' people left in the old system (like, say, calling upon spirits/gods for power when the magic doesn't actually do that)

 

[piratesgoyarrrr]

Thanks for picking this one up, I like the whole "magic is programming" schtick, and this is one of the few that leans into that.