The Physics of Falling Contacts

This is a poem I wrote after I almost lost a contact lens.

The Physics of Falling Contacts

The common laws of physics are suspended for a bit,
Some mornings when I get up and at the mirror sit.
I take a piece of plastic: small concave and blue,
And stick it on my eyeball -- if my aim is true.
Oftentimes I miss my mark and down the contact goes,
Or sideways, backwards, even up - why that is no one knows.
Shrodinger his kitty, has got nothing on these things,
For once they come out of their box, only trouble do they bring.
With the contact lens there's only one true state of being,
That's "aggravation," man, but it's worth it for my seeing.


Note: the Schrodinger's Cat reference is about this theoretical quantum mechanics experiment where there is a cat in a box and a vial of poison which is released or not by a radioactive particle decaying. Then there is something about the cat's existing as both a live cat and a dead cat until it is actually observed, at which time its state of being is fixed, or at least it is affected by the act of being observed. I probably got it wrong but it fit into the poem nicely I thought.

5-12

Working on a translation the other day, I logged onto Chinese Google. I was surprised to see the signature colorful "Google" title in grey, and a black and white banner with the exact date and time of the huge earthquake that hit Sichuan Province on May 12.

The banner reads: "May 12, 2008, 2:28 p.m. Let us always remember this moment, and wish peace for those who perished, and strength for those who survived."

Clicking on the banner brings you to an information page, which has links to news about the quake, and also has a feature where you can type in a message looking for a relative. Or, you can send a text message to a server with your name, location and contact information so others can find you. Google also has a search page where information for survivors has been posted. It says: "As of May 21, 5 a.m., 38,200 entries have been recorded, covering 80 hospitals."

A typical entry says:
Name: Ren Zhiping
Sex: female
Age: 21
Home address: Du Jiang Yan
Hospital: Chengdu No. 5 People's Hospital
Then it has the phone number and the last time of update: May 20

It is really interesting to see the online ripples of the quake. The first thing I thought of when I saw the 5/12 banner in black and white was 9/11. I remember looking up CNN.com that day and the whole Web site was messed up and the format was different. The fact that a familiar Web site looked so different was jarring and unsettling. Of course Google often changes its logo to suit an occasion or a holiday, but the change to black and white - the Chinese colors of mourning - had a similarly disconcerting effect.

I was in Chengdu once, and traveled through Sichuan Province briefly, but I have some vivid memories from there. It is a beautiful (and super poor) place with amazing food and a huge variety of people and cultures. I'm with Google in wishing peace and strength to all the people there.

UPDATE: Actually it looks like all of the search engines are doing the black&white color scheme as part of a whole period of mourning, not just Google.

Compassion vs. Competition

Competition is derived from the Latin, competere, which means "to strive for together." Compassion is also from a Latin word, compati, meaning "to suffer with." They both feature the "com-" prefix, meaning "together." And both of these concepts can translate into the setting of say, a badminton tournament, where players are both suffering and striving together -- to win.

But the questions I had to ask myself at the last tournament in Fort Collins were: Is it possible to be compassionate in the midst of competition? Or is the "killer instinct" necessary to become a winner?

Here is the scenario: Last time, Michala and I had played a tournament together in the B bracket at the Colorado Open. In our first match we got summarily trounced by a guy who was clearly an A-level player; and his daughter, who was clearly inexperienced (not to mention like 12 years old) and probably a C or below. We kind of avoided smashing at the girl, since she was young and it seemed kind of wrong. But we paid for it by losing the match. Our compassion for the opponent cost us the match; or at least it cost us a bunch of points, which is the currency of badminton medals.

This time at the Fort Collins Open, we played down a level, in the C-bracket, thinking we would have a better chance at winning. But, the lesson from our last tournament came back to us in a new and diabolical form. This time, our opponents were a really good woman, paired with a beginner guy. I had talked briefly with the guy earlier and knew he was a newbie, and we'd also seen them play together. So from a purely strategic point of view, we realized we had to play the guy as much as possible, and avoid hitting to the woman who could probably return anything we threw at her. Which is exactly what we did. I felt slightly sorry for the guy as we were hitting and smashing at him, but we were winning, and I figured that it was all in the name of competition, so let 'em have it.

OK, the game was won and we moved on. We were going to be in the finals! Yay! But wait. Here comes the guy from the previous game, walking over to me. I said Hi. But he was mad at me. He said I was "unprofessional" and played with poor character. He said he is good at pool, but if we were playing pool he would not treat me the same way. I didn't know what to say so I said I was sorry. The slight twinge of guilt I had during the match with him and his partner suddenly mutated into a giant guilt-monster. I had caused this guy to have a bad time, and it was because of trying to be competitive.

He was suffering alone by losing, thus there was a lack of compassion there from me. But were he and I both striving for the same thing, i.e. competing? I was striving to win. Was he merely striving to have fun? And is that really in the spirit of the overall tournament setting? His comment about pool made me wonder: if I was in a pool tournament with the guy, would he really not try to beat me, and instead play down or let me win? Probably not. (I am bad at pool anyway, so it is a valid hypothetical situation -- not that he knew that.)

In the finals, we faced a team of a high level male player, and his wife, who was not as good. We knew to play the woman as much as possible, but we wound up not being able to do that very effectively. Not because we felt bad about doing it, it was just that the guy was much better. So we got the silver medal, which was great, and we felt we'd earned it, especially because of the final match, which went to 3 games (you play best of 3).

It might just be that there are no clear lines here. We have another tournament coming up on Sunday, and hopefully we can continue to learn from our experiences. This time we have decided to play in the B bracket again, to test ourselves.

Is playing to win a sin? Honestly, I don't think so, as long as we are growing and learning and suffering along with everyone else while striving to get better. But I still feel for the guy.

Character development

Emperor Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇) (259-210 BC) unified China by standardizing weights and measures, building roads, burying Confucian scholars alive, burning books, and also standardizing the Chinese language.
This was no easy task because even today there are myriad dialects in China and many of them cannot understand each other. But, if you learn to read, everyone can read the newspaper. In mainland China they use simplified characters, as opposed to traditional characters, used in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Here is an example of a simplified vs a traditional character.
These two characters are the same (gui3, turtle):
龟 (simplified)
龜 (traditional)
However, there is also a third type of character: the crazy Cantonese characters. These characters are definitely not Qin Shi Huang approved, and they make no sense if you don't know what you are looking at. I recently had a translation project that used these characters, and it was pretty difficult trying to decipher it. Here are a few of them that I learned:

啱喇 (ngaam1 laa3): "That's correct." The first character is completely made up to fit an existing Cantonese word for "right, appropriate." The second is just a final sound to have the exclamation end in a long vowel noise. If you try to say it out loud, just drag out the "laaa" for about 3 whole seconds while trailing off, and you will be speaking expert Cantonese. It is interesting to note that many of the characters that are made up to fit existing words have a "mouth" radical (口) next to them, like these two do. In real characters that often indicates that the word has something to do with your mouth (the above 喇 is also part of a real word for trumpet), but it can also indicate a purely spoken word.

唔係 (m4 hai6): "No." Again we see the mouth radical on the word "m." In Cantonese this word basically indicates negation of any verb that follows it. However, it is also a real character that means "hold in the mouth." The second character is also a real word meaning "link, connection." In this case the words were probably chosen due to their similarity in pronunciation to the Cantonese words for "not" and "is," which equals the word for no.

細蚊仔 (sai3 men1 zai2): "Children." This is kind of a really weird one. If you take the meanings of the characters literally, it means "thin mosquito babies." I can only guess that it is a combination of pronunciation and a good sense of humor. Another word for children is 細路哥 (sai3 lou6 go1) "thin road brother." Yeah, I know.

Qin Shi Huang may have forced thousands of people to build the Great Wall, and created a huge tomb with terra cotta soldiers guarding his body, but the barbarians eventually went around the Wall to invade China, and people dug up the soldiers. (Actually there is a movie about him which I really like called 古今大战秦俑情 (Ancient and Modern War of the Terra Cotta Lovers), starring Zhang Yimou and Gong Li.) So I guess it is only fitting that the Chinese language is once again becoming divided. Which is OK, really. I mean the guy was kind of a maniac.

The lost language of trains

If you never thought about it, you might think trains just blow their horns randomly as they are going by.

I used to be one of those people, until I moved into an apartment that is approximately 100 feet from a "grade crossing," or crossing at street level.

Now, every night between 12 and 4 a.m., a train rolls by and blasts its horn at a bone-rattling 100 dB. While working on a news story for the Brighton Blade about train "quiet zones" I discovered that the trains blow their horns in certain patterns, which mean different things. In the loose constraints of the blogosphere, I figure this information fits into the translation motif, and so here is a brief posting about the strange language of trains....

Below is a list of the common signals. The main one we hear at night is the long-long-short-long ( = = o = ) signal, indicating the train is within a 1/4 mile of the crossing. Some engineers take liberties with this signal, and I can now identify the different drivers, based on their interpretation of the signal.

For instance, Mr. Longhorn makes all of his signals really long, so it just drags on forever. Shortround gives two shortish longs, then a really short short burst, but then he lays on the final long for like 10 seconds.

Anyway, here is a list of the now-de-mystified, secret language of trains. (Courtesy of the Union Pacific Web site)

= means long
o means short

Sound		Translation
Succession of short sounds		"Look out you fools" An attempt to get people or cows to look up and get the heck off the train tracks.
=		"Psssst" Hitting the air brakes while train is stopped.
= =		"Leaving Dodge" AKA: woo-woo sound. Train releases brakes and proceeds.
o o		"OK whatever" Acknowledgment of any signal not otherwise provided for.
o o o		"Backing the thing up" Train is backing up, or acknowledging hand signal to back up.
o o o o		"Huh?" A request for a signal to be given or repeated if not understood.
= o o o		"Watch my back" Instruction for flagman to protect rear of train.
= = = =		"Come back!" The flagman may return from west or south.
= = = = =		"Come baaack!" The flagman may return from east or north.
= = o =		"Wake up, Ben and Michala!!" Train is approaching public crossings at grade with engine in front. Signal starts not less than 15 seconds but not more than 20 seconds before reaching the crossing. If movement is 45 mph or greater, signal starts at or about the crossing sign, but not more than 1/4 mile before the crossing if there is no sign. Signal is prolonged or repeated until the engine completely occupies the crossing(s). In addition, this signal is used when approaching private crossings if pedestrians or motor vehicles are at or near the crossing.
o =		"Crap, no brakes!" Inspect the brake system for leaks or sticking brakes.
= o		"Coming through! Quiet zone be damned!" Train is approaching people or equipment on or near the track, regardless of any whistle prohibitions. After this initial warning, "o o" sounds intermittently until the head end of train has passed the people or equipment.

Tela Mundi

The Internet is fun.
I probably spent like three hours doing research for this graphic that I wanted to post with the tournament posting. Here's how it went down:
I searched for a picture of jousting. Then I found this one, and wanted to put the word "badminton" into the text so it was kind of funny and clever.
But after I inserted the word badminton, I wanted to find out what the original text on the thing actually said. Then it could be even more clever, since it would actually say something in Latin. So I searched for text that I could actually read, namely "di cam deo", and I found
(here is how awesome Google is) this site: http://www.aug.edu/augusta/psalms/psalm41.htm
Which happens to have the entire Paris Psalter Psalm 41 in Latin and its translation -- in Icelandic or something. But I was able to grab the Latin phrase "Apud me oratio Deo vite mee. Dicam Deo: Susceptor meus es."
Notice on the tapestry that "oratio" is actually "oracio." What that implies I don't know. Anyway, I then searched the whole Latin phrase and found this site: http://www.medievalist.net/psalmstxt/ps41.htm
Which in turn allowed me to discover that the phrase is actually part of two verses, that mean:
"With me is the prayer to the God of my life, I will say to God, thou art my support."
Amazing!
So then I played around trying to find other even cleverer things to do to the text. I had "dicam deo forma et filum meus es." Trying to say "I will say to God: thou art my racquet and strings," and I finally found a forum somewhere where I learned how to say "do you want to play __" (ludere cupio ___ ), and then threw in "badmintonus."
SO now it says "With me is the prayer to the god of my life. I will say to God: do you want to play badminton?"
Blasphemous? Maybe. Fun? Definitely.

Rotten cake

糟糕 (zao1 gao1) in Chinese means "rotten cake." It also means "really bad," which is how I did at the Colorado Open badminton tournament last weekend.
Not that I had a bad time! It was really fun, but that doesn't change the fact that I didn't do very well. Fortunately, there are about 4 other tournaments in the area in the next couple of months, so I have plenty of opportunities to improve/try again.
To the right is a picture of me serving, with my doubles partner Note to the right.
We did well in our first match and moved on to the second round. There, we won our first game against a pair of brothers, I think, but then got sloppy and lost the next two games. Michala was watching from the rafters, and said we would have won the second game if we'd been keeping better track of the score, but such is the way of things I guess.
In mixed doubles, we had been sitting around for about 5 hours, then had 4 minutes or less to warm up. Things were running very late at that point, and needless to say we did poorly. We played an unscheduled match against a very good player -- and his 10-year-old daughter. If you ask me, that was a decision made in poor taste and sportsmanship. OK, he was giving her experience, but the fact was that she barely played, and we didn't want to smash at her (at first) so we got totally spanked.
By the time we caught on to the fact that the only way to beat them was to "attack" the little girl, it was way too late. Then, the same team beat the German guy I lost to in singles and his female partner. During their match I was trying to think of a way to tell him to go after the girl in German, but I couldn't think of it.
Later I thought it might be something like "blitzen der fraulein!!" but I'm not sure. That may have just confused him.
Well, the next tournament is the Fort Collins Open in April. But, I just got a large translation to do so I will likely be distracted by that. It is interesting in that it is written Cantonese, which is quite different from written Mandarin. Mostly the same, but some key words are altered.