A joke – there are worse things in life.

A father passing by his son’s bedroom was astonished to see the bed was nicely made and everything was picked up.

There he saw an envelope propped up prominently on the centre of the bed. It was addressed, ‘Dad.’. With the worst premonition, he opened the envelope and read with trembling hands:

Dear Dad,

It is with great regret and sorrow that I’m writing this. I had to elope with my new girlfriend because I wanted to avoid a scene with mom and you. I’ve been finding real passion with Barbara and she is so nice even with all her piercing, tatoos and her tigth motorcycle clothes.

But it’s not only the passion dad, she’s pregnant and Barbara said that we will be very happy. Even though you don’t care for her as she is much older than I, she already owns a trailer in the woods and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter. She wants to have many more children with me and that’s now one of my dreams too.

Barbara taught me that marijuana doesn’t really hurt anyone and we’ll be growing it for ourselves and trading it with her friends for all the cocaine and ectasy we want.

In the meantime, we’ll pray that science will find a cure for aids so Barbara can get better; she sure deserves it!!

Don’t worry dad, I’m 15 years old now and I know how to take care of myself. Someday I’m sure we’ll be back to visit so you can get to know your grandchildren.

Your son,

John

PS. Dad, none of this is true. I’m over at the neighbour’s house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than my report card that’s in my desk centre drawer. I love you! Call when it’s safe to come home.

I laughed even when I read it in the second time. But I think it has something beyond just joking.

“There are worse things in life than my report card.”

There are worse things in life than no money, urgly dressing, small house and etc. Many of us do not see this point until the worse things come.

Movie review: 12 Weeks With Geeks

It is a documentary about a software project development. Four interns worked in the Fog Creek Software for the Copilot project. They worked for 3 months and delivered the first version of the application.

I learnt about Fog Creek Software from the book and the blog Joel On Software. The book gives some very interesting and enlightening explanations on software engineering and project management.

I expected that I could find out from this movie in details how Joel led a team to develop software, web application particularly. I’d thought this movie would show me something like collecting user specifications, making plan, working on code, fixing bugs and so on. But the movie actually is about the life and thoughts of the developers. You can not learn project management skills from this movie. Rather, it is about what makes a dream office, team, or life to geeks, the software developers here.

Though they kept saying they have to work over night, long hours, they all looked very happy and satisfied. They had very nice workstations, though lack of privacy, and comfortable dorms. They grew tomato, went jogging, and had parties. They made fun out of samll or senseless things in life. For example, they tried hard to figure out whether they could escape the building by jumping to the next block in case of fire.

The movie gives me some senses of how the start-up gets started in the US too. But it does not go deep into that. It does not show how and where you can get funds or what you should do after complete the development.

Overall, it is an interesting movie. I would suggest the viewers to read the Joel On Software before or after the movie.

The driving force (for the hackers) is usually a combination of the desire to get rich, the desire for power, and the desire to sort of make something. And they (are) kind of overlap. – from the movie.

Automate Language Translation

美国之音3月24号的Talk To America的节目介绍了一种新的翻译技术。跟其它的自动翻译有点不同，这种技术除了翻译普通的语言外，它还尝试翻译非语音的交流(Non-spoken Language)。这种非语音的交流包括身体语言（Body Language）与表情（Expressions）等。

咋一听起来有点玄。其实我们平时在网上用QQ，ICQ，MSN聊天的时候都有尝试做类似的事情。我们会用一些特殊的符号如 🙂 :p 等等去表答我们的情绪。这种新技术就是想通过记录人的神经信号去“翻译”人的情绪。

我想，如果这种技术能成功应用的话，那么人类日常交流就会有很大的变化。如今，逢场做戏都成了现代中国人必要的生存技能了。见人说人话，见鬼说鬼话，反正就不要说真话。但有了一个“情绪翻译机”情况就会不同。似想想，每个人随身都带着一个象“测谎仪”的东西来翻译别人的内心的想法，也许大家都会变得真诚一些吧。不过那样的话，世界又变得太单调，没那么有趣了。:-)

节目里有个教授还提到翻译的问题。他认为，翻译不仅仅是语言问题。语言和文化是不可分割的。如果要做到真正好的翻译，那么就必须对双方的文化都有很深的了解。换句话说来就是，要学好英语首先要对英语文化有所了解。

我的情况刚好相反。我是想要了解他们文化，所以我才花心思去学英语的。希望是殊道同归吧。

另外这个教授介绍了一种练习同步传译的方法。

  1. 录下一段外语节目，比如说CNN的外语新闻。
  2. 根据所录的节目录下自己做的同步传译。
  3. 同朋友一起复习检查自己做的传译。

随着全球化的深入，同步传译的需求一定会极大的提高。希望这个方法对有志做同步传译的朋友有用吧。
对这期节目有兴趣的朋友可以在以下的链接下载mp3文件。
Download the mp3 file of this program here.