December « 2009 « blog.elevenseconds

Archive for December, 2009

User Manuals

Thursday, December 31st, 2009

A few months ago I started using a new music sequencing software (called Logic). At first (something I, as well as many other people like to do) I simply launched the application hoping to get up to speed naturally. This usually works — in case of Logic, I realized that by just playing around, I acquired a certain level of proficiency — I could do most things, but probably not in the most efficient way. I also saw that there were also certain parts of the application that I didn’t understand — I may have figured out what setting to use, for example, to achieve a desired effect, but I didn’t know why I needed to set it that way, what else I could do with it.

I decided to enhance this threshold level of understanding I had by reading a user manual. I don’t usually do this so it was a rather new experience. I chose to focus only on those sections that I somehow deemed important in making me more efficient and in filling the gaps I perceived. This amounted to reading the abridged version of the user manual (100 pages) and a few sections of the full, 1000-page version. Beyond a certain point I perceived a point of decreasing marginal returns; spending the time to read the user manual simply wasn’t worth it and so I stopped.

I took some useful lessons from this experience.

Good software should be self-documenting: it should be possible to jump in, if you’re a generally tech-savvy person. In fact, most software (and hardware) we use these days, I feel, is like this.
Sometimes, for specialized software (like software for music sequencing), and for software that introduces a new paradigm to user interaction, the above may not provide a level of understanding sufficient for continued use. In such a case, a kind of quick start should ideally anticipate and fill the gaps
Nobody should read user manuals cover to cover

In general, then, the time required to get up to speed should be inversely proportional to the amount of functionality one gains proficiency in. The “thresholds” of proficiency/time required should follow an exponential curve.

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Translations

Sunday, December 27th, 2009

Translating creative works is no small feat. By far the most difficult are translations of poems but some masterpieces of prose can be just as challenging. The task is not as crucial in case of movies, but, having just spent the past week watching English-language movies with Polish voice-overs, I can see that movie translations are given much less thought (likely due to lesser budget) because a lot gets lost in translation.

One thing in movie translations that I have been fairly impressed by are movie title translations. Movie titles are similar to book titles but I feel that there’s a lot less pressure to maintain a literal translation; the translator can allow him(her)self more creative input.

There are some good translations; a classic horror movie “The Lawnmower Man” has been translated in Polish into what literally means “The Mind Mower” which I think is a far better title. “Alien” was given a curious alternate version “Alien: the 8th Passenger of Nostromo” which I think is a perfect teaser (unlike the many video teasers these days that make the movie no longer worth watching). “Finding Neverland” became “A Dreamer” which is an aesthetically-pleasing sound to it in Polish. “Goodfellas” has a great translation (the literal “Boys from a gang” doesn’t do it justice though). “Catch 22″ is translated into “Paragraph no. 22″ which is a good save. “Birdy” becomes a Polish word Ptasiek which is a made-up (nonexistent) diminutive of “Bird”.

Sometimes movie translations lose some of their magic because the literal translation doesn’t make much sense and the translator decides to play it safe; and so “Million Dollar Baby” was translated into “At All Costs” and “Cinderella Man” became “The Man from the Ring”.

I’ve seen, of course, some bad translations. “Crank” was translated into “Adrenaline” which is unfortunate because “Crank 2″ has very little to do with adrenaline and the translation forced the sequel’s name. “Slumdog Millionaire” was translated into “Slumdog. Millionaire from the street” which is a terrible name because “slumdog” was just inserted literally (there is no such word in Polish) and why would titles consist of two sentences anyway? “American History X” was translated into “A Prisoner of Hate”. “Bowling for Columbine” became “Playing with guns”. Sometimes titles are translated literally which sounds fine in English but terrible in Polish (for example, “Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street” was translated word by word).

I encourage you to look through imdb and reading some “alternate” (in other languages) titles given to movies.

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Fatherhood and marriage

Sunday, December 27th, 2009

A friend of mine remarked that men seem to be ready for fatherhood before they are ready for marriage. In fact (while this is nowhere close to a proof), I have been thinking somewhat about fatherhood but not really about marriage.

I think it makes sense — fatherhood is an evolutionary instinct while marriage is a social one, and the former is much older and thus more deeply rooted.

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Experience

Friday, December 25th, 2009

Experience is the set of consequence of all the decisions we’ve made in life.

Posted in for reflection, reductions, whatis | No Comments »

P is for Prefix

Friday, December 25th, 2009

I got this scan from a friend. A good read (sorry about poor accessibility).

P for Prefix

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The “beep” featured in many Hollywood OS systems

Monday, December 21st, 2009

Take a closer look at any one of the movies or TV shows that depict a character using a computer: downloading files, or searching for something, or hacking in to the FBI database (which is apparently the least secure system in the world since everybody and their uncle is breaking in). Other than a candy-like, blazingly fast interface (which I can suspend my disbelief of), there’s this omnipresent high-pitch brief “beep” sound. You know–the kind that shows up when the character is faced with a progress bar. Beep-beep-beep, and the download is done! Or when the characters appear on the terminal, one by one (and seriously, one by one? The OS is so fast yet the character display happens to be noticeably slow?). I have never heard any OS in the world make it, and I can only suspect why it’s being so universally abused in movies (to drive it home that the character is using a computer perhaps?).

Posted in The Daily Badness, technology | No Comments »

Will my Carry-on fit?

Monday, December 21st, 2009

Airlines have these boxes you can put your carry-on in next to the check-in counters. In theory, they are a good idea: you can test if what you intend to carry with you will actually fit in the overhead compartment. Which is why I was surprised that nobody ever uses them.

There are probably four interesting things happening here:

One of the reasons that nobody uses them, is a case of a signalling problem: nobody wants to try their carry-on only to reveal to the check-in clerk that their carry-on won’t fit
Another reason is quite simple: these boxes are tiny! In comparison with the actual space in an overhead compartment, they are probably half the size they should be:
- Least common denominator problem: there is a standard size for the box yet very different overhead compartment sizes. So, to be safe, the airline probably picks the smallest one
- Inflation problem: if the testing box was actually the size of the compartment, most people would assume they can squeeze their slightly larger piece of luggage in so the boxes are made deliberately smaller to account for this
- Finally, variance: not everyone uses the maximum size allowed and so the largest size of carry-on you can have is much larger than the average. The airlines are taking advantage of the fact that nobody maxes out the allowance

Posted in The Daily Badness | No Comments »

Making ginger beer

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

I decided to brew ginger beer the other weekend. For one, it’s an easy way to debut in brewing (ginger beer has a negligible amount of alcohol — 0.5% — which makes it easier to brew) and establishing one’s presence in the kitchen in general. Ginger beer also happens to be one of my favorite drinks (if you think you’ve tried ginger beer before, try Fentimans Ginger Beer and prepare to be gobsmacked).

I found very helpful recipes online and adapted them slightly to make the beer taste a little more like Fentiman’s: ensure a distinctive “kick” of ginger with hints of juniper. I did two batches — I wanted to try the first, then improve my process for the second one. The first batch took forever and the beer was too lemonade-y and not ginger-y enough. I improve my recipe and the second batch turned out to be a success.

The Recipe for 5 bottles (16 oz each)

10 cups of water — I used Poland Spring
1/2 cup of ginger juice
4/3 cup of cane sugar
2 tbsp of lemon juice
1 tsp of yeast — I used Fleischmanns Instant baking yeast
A pinch of cream of tartar
A couple of handfuls of juniper berries

I bought some fresh ginger root, peeled it and juiced it with a garlic press, chunk by chunk (each chunk was big enough to fit in the press).

I brought the water to a boil, added the ginger juice, the sugar, the lemon juice, cream of tartar and the juniper berries. I let the water boil for 10 minutes.

At the same time I reconstructed the yeast — I put it in a cup of lukewarm water with a teaspoon of sugar and let sit for 10 minutes.

I let the compote cool down, added yeast and poured into a large bottle (I used two large orange juice bottles). I covered the bottles with cloth and let sit for 16 hours, undisturbed in a dark, warm place.

Finally I poured the mixture into bottles (I used those flip-top bottles, they are great), sealed the bottles and let them sit in a dark, warm place for 36 hours.

I was very pleased with the result — the beer had the kick I was looking for, and the lemon wasn’t overpowering. Mind you, I was probably biased since I wanted the beer to work out, but overall it was a fun experiment. I think what would make it even better would be to use actual ginger beer plant.

I encourage everyone to try and do something in the kitchen. Brewing is an interesting offshoot of cooking — it teaches patience; but it’s still relatively easy to make. Even a poorly brewed ginger beer will no doubt taste excellent in a Dark and Stormy…

Posted in miniproject, things everyone should do | No Comments »

Vices

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

A good friend told me once that to really conquer a vice, you have to be able to enjoy it in moderation (reflect on this sentence).

Apparently for many people, “moderation” is a relative term…

Posted in for reflection, principles, whatis | No Comments »

Swearwords and Society

Sunday, December 13th, 2009

I love swearwords. Not swearing — just swearwords (though I’ve found myself to be swearing more ever since I started being permanently employed. I think it’s partly due to what I inherited from my father–he’s a seaman and thus (curiously, it is a forgone conclusion) swears majestically–and partly the open culture I enjoy at work).

Swearwords make language so much more expressive. They allow one to convey otherwise indescribable emotions. No matter what word you think of, there is another one more powerful than it (and thus more insulting than it). This makes language more useful than it would be without swearwords–more accurate, more engaging.

I used to think that those who are insulted at swearwords are just conservative; backwards-thinkers, in some way. An ideal society wouldn’t have swearwords, all words would be fair game, I conjectured. Now I think that such a society would be an unbearably tedious congregation of automata.

Swearwords address one fundamental problem with language, a problem that no language can solve. A language is–by definition–a convention, a kind of lossy translation from thought. Expletives allow for a momentary disclosure of pure thought; they violate convention and are closer to actual thought than any other word can ever be. They need no definition; they are always accompanied with rich and unique intonation. If swearwords ever die, so will language.

It’s also fascinating to see how swearwords evolve. At any given time (and in any given society), there is a set of words considered offensive. This set changes over time –while we tend to think that it gets smaller (“shit” used to be an offensive word; it doesn’t seem so anymore), but there are always new words being invented that become the new taboo. This shows how dynamic language is, how easily the rules change. And it’s not like there is some group of scientists who decide what should be a swearword and what should not; it’s the society at large that decides.

So even if you don’t approve of swearwords and have never used them, I hope you appreciate their existence. They make language, and with it our civilization, more human.

Posted in art, for reflection, reductions, retrospective, whatis | No Comments »