zhongwen.com

A new intern in my office, another person serious about learning languages, recommended this site to me. I use lots of English online dictionaries, but hadn't found a good English-Chinese one yet. (Babelfish only translates...) This site is a GREAT discovery. A new character will appear every few minutes. I have posted that section in my sidebar for all those of you who'd like to learn some Chinese characters. You can click here to go to the main site and use the dictionary/tranlation functions. Or click on a flag in the Babelfish box in the sidebar to translate this whole page into your chosen language.

Monster Battle -Silly Things You Can Post in Your Weblog

Take the challenge:

Meezan is a Giant Lizard that came Back in Time from the 29th Century, can Change Shape, is Wreathed with Flames, and has a Humorous Nephew Sidekick. Strength: 10 Agility: 5 Intelligence: 3 To see if your Giant Battle Monster can defeat Meezan, enter your name and choose an attack: fights Meezan using Strength Agility Intelligence

Did you win? If you noticed, I am really strong, but really dumb. Doesn't seem to bother my humorous nephew though...

Beauty - a Mathematical Equation?

Following taken from Knowledge NEWS:

Plato, under the influence of Pythagoras, believed that beauty, architectural and otherwise, was expressed by a mathematical formula called the Golden Section. The formula demanded that the ratio of the shorter part of a given unit to the longer part equal the ratio of the longer part to the whole. And this perfect ratio boils down to 1:1.61803 (about the length of your hand relative to the length of your forearm).

Phidias, Greece's most acclaimed sculptor, applied the Golden Section to his statues of the gods, with divine results. In 1509, Leonardo da Vinci's close chum, the mathematician Luca Pacioli, wrote a three-volume book called De Divina Proportione, which argued that the equation was the cornerstone of all aesthetic endeavor. Some art scholars even believe that Leonardo's Mona Lisa conforms to a version of the formula called the Golden Rectangle.

The 1:1.61803 ratio refuses to go away. In the 1860s, German psychologist Gustav Theodor Fechner put ten rectangles varying in their length-to-width ratios in front of people and asked them to select the most pleasing one. Guess which rectangles ruled? In 1994, a London-based orthodontist updated the experiment, measuring the faces of fashion models. He determined that they satisfied the Greeks' perfect ratio far more closely than the average face.

The latest, most user-friendly incarnation of the theory belongs to retired plastic surgeon Stephen Marquardt. He's devised a mask for applying the Greeks' Golden Section to the face. The closer your features conform to the lines of the mask, the prettier your face, supposedly. As you might imagine, supermodels like Cindy Crawford and Linda Evangelista fit gorgeously. Other folks don't fare so well.

Fingerprints on Taiwanese ID cards?

In the future, Taiwan plans to add fingerprints to the backs of ID cards. In some countries this is already standard. In my second year of Japanese residence, this feature was added to the alien resgistration cards. I remember feeling slightly like a criminal as I stood there having my prints taken. (I don't know if Japanese nationals have fingerprints on theirs). However, in retrospect, it was more like stamping something with your chop as it wasn't a complete "fingerprinting". In Korea, my prints were taken properly (although not reproduced on my card).

 

Many Taiwanese are against having their prints on thier ID card. Recently there has been a scandal over a personal data leak. Financial agencies and credit investigation agencies leaking personal date; government investigation agencies bugging telecommunications lines and searching records... and law enforcement agents abusing power by selling data gleaned. I am still not sure exactly how and to what extent the "victims" suffered losses... but they are demanding compensation. There are some calling up just to find out if they were victimized without their knowledge. Anyway, people are now asking how they can give  their fingerprints to a government that cannot prevent data leaks.

 

Although Taiwan, like much of Asia, is somewhat cash oriented, the use of credit cards is already more widespread than in other countries. Many of my Taiwanese have as many as 5 or 6 (they can shift their debt from one to the other each month to avoid paying any interest). But what happens when all of society goes plastic and you can pay directly out of your account as in North America... and a NEC sensor that read prints directly from your digits rather than relying on ink prints is used as the ID method rather than a password (the police in Japan is now using this system of IDing)... or when all personal data is contained on one biometric "smart card"? Gattica here we come: Identification and passwords which check features such as irises, veins, vocal pattterns and handwriting. Who knows... maybe the biomentric smart card will be more secure?

Holleywood Halloween

Seems that this summer I may have to give a seminar re: teaching "festivals" in class. Each time I do one of these I find that I am unable to answer the multitude of questions. A few years ago, I ended up learning lots about Celt history in relation to Halloween. But the questions I received were not about history. People asked things like, "What kind of costumes are popular? Do they all have to be scary?" I wanted to be prepared this time, so I did a little research and it seems the inspiration mostly comes from Holleywood. I mean this is so obvious, but I never noticed before as my friends would dress up as wierd and wacky random things fashioned from whatever materials were at hand. (Plus I have been overseas for 11 years now).

Internet sources say that adults are as much into costumes as kids these days... and that people spend an average of US $55.00 per costume. Costume sites say that the trend this year will be less gory and more sexy (sexy-classy, stylish). I wonder if 2004 Holleywood costumes below have anything to do with it.



I searched for costumes priced in the $40-$60 dollar range and It would appear they don't even come close to thier Holleywood counterparts. I am thinking that if I am lucky enough to get home for October, I will make my own costume. Maybe I can steal a character from a local producer's film (although NOT from Ang Lee's Hulk!)

Troy @ Warner Village

Last week a friend and I bought a block of tickets for Warner Village (buy 10 and the price is only NT$270 with popcorn and warm, flat soda - as opposed to NT$290 without)! Last year, the popcorn was the best part of most of my movie-going excursions.
This time, however, was different. We used up our first two tickets to see Troy. I have to say, if I had seen this movie before reading the Iliad in high school, I probably wouldn't have found it so hard to struggle through. I would have been too busy picturing Brad Pitt as Achilles (although I don't really remember Achilles having that big a role in Homer's version). The movie was too long and had too many battle scenes for my liking (I have a short attention span), but the battle scenes (and random almost nude scenes) were what Brad did best in this film... I found him unconvincing wherever dialog was involved.
Seeing as mostly only the biggest most mainstream of movies come to Taiwan, I don't feel my critiquing ability to be all that sharp... I will watch anything that's in English (or has English subtitles). However, I thought Troy was completely watchable. Orlando Bloom and Eric Bana brought plenty of personality to their characters and if the kids in the row behind us hadn't gotten up ever 10 minutes to go to the bathroom, I might have cried when Hector (Bana), and later Priam (Peter O'Toole), died. Somehow, I wasn't quite as moved by Diane Kruger's performance... but WOW! What a wardrobe! Wasn't Helen supposed to die too? High school was too long ago for me to remember.
Anyway, what will really stick with me is the imagery... I guess is that this is what all that big budget was spent on; creating huge armies, ships, etc. etc. The Trojan Horse was more formidable and impressive than I could have imagined. I always pictured a friendlier horse as I thought it was given as a gift... Anyway, click on the pictures above/below (no permission to reproduce these here) for a better view... or rent it when it comes out on DVD.
Our next Warner trip takes place tomorrow: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Anatomy of a Nose Pin

FAQ: Although standard jewellery in many parts of the worlds, why do people still question me about my choice of jewellery?
Questions:
1. What do you call that thing?
2. Doesn't it hurt?
3. Do you ever take it out?
4. What do you do if you have a cold? Can you blow your nose?
5. Why do you wear it?
6. Do you have any other piercings?
My answers:
1. It is called a nose pin.
2. No more than getting your ears pierced.
3. Of course... got to shine the diamonds.
4. Note the curving post. This lies flat inside the nose. That means you can blow your nose with ease.
5. I think it's pretty. Plus, being as my nose is my best feature, why shouldn't I draw attention to it? Think of it as a beauty mark.
6. As if that were anybody's business!