Soukie's Place
keeping track of random thoughts
Author Archive
Making Sense of 12th Century Philosophy
By Pavel Soukenik · May 10, 2011 · Filed under life and tagged: dogen, genjokoan, languages, translation
More than about philosophy, this article is about the thing I do to set my table: translations. I have avoided this topic because what I have to say is usually close to disclosing confidential facts about the company I work for and its customers.
Instead of talking about software giants of the 21st century and how they go about ‘localizing’ their products, I am going to discuss translations of the famous 12th century Japanese thinker Dōgen. His writing is characterized by elegant structures which often mix Chinese characters and quotations, and is notoriously difficult to translate.
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Gray Matter
By Pavel Soukenik · December 26, 2010 · Filed under entertainment and tagged: Gabriel Knight, games, Jane Jensen, review
After eleven years, there is a new adventure game by Jane Jensen who is best known for her Gabriel Knight Mystery series. Once again, the story is grounded in real locations and weaves facts with supernatural occurrences. The protagonists are obviously new – Sam, a street magician, and Dr Styles, a neurobiologist – and the chapters alternate between them just as we saw in Jensen’s two last full games.
Sam is after an illusive Deadulus Club for magicians while Dr Styles goes to extremes to prevent his memories from ever fading
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How Bashing Might Not Win Readers">PCWorld, ‘Really?’
How Bashing Might Not Win Readers
By Pavel Soukenik · November 27, 2010 · Filed under technology and tagged: Apple, Google, Microsoft, PCWorld, Windows Phone
Windows Phone 7
If you hold yourself to some standards, it is difficult to reach them when responding to something which does not have any. But I’ll try anyway. I know Vaclav Havel believes “the truth and love will prevail over lies and hatred,” but I figure that the truth might need a little help.
Microsoft has recently launched a new, great smartphone — there are many reviews online if you are interested in the particulars. But often when I did a Google News search to find out more, the top results were pointing to one or another PCWorld article — which one did not really make a difference, as a quick glance at the list of articles will attest.
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Dvorak vs. Colemak">Of Keyboards and Men
Dvorak vs. Colemak
By Pavel Soukenik · June 6, 2010 · Filed under technology and tagged: Colemak, comparison, Dvorak, keyboard
The computer age made it easy to switch the keyboard layout to Dvorak Simplified Keyboard without any hardware modifications, and also made it possible for anyone to swap a few individual letters or all of them. One such recent creation of a complete keyboard is the Colemak layout, named after its author Shai Coleman who released it in 2006.
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The Inventors">Of Keyboards and Men
The Inventors
By Pavel Soukenik · May 15, 2010 · Filed under history and tagged: Dvorak, keyboard, layout, QWERTY, Sholes, typing
One thing that children do very well is asking questions. “What is this?” “What is that?” The most difficult and important questions start with ‘Why.’ “Why are the letters on the keyboard arranged like this?”
Glad you asked. There are many detailed accounts of the history of the typewriter and its keyboard layout, and at least as many myths. The typewriter that became wildly used was invented by Christopher Latham Sholes in 1867.
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Childhood">Of Keyboards and Men
Childhood
By Pavel Soukenik · May 8, 2010 · Filed under life and tagged: childhood, Remington, typewriter
My Grandma worked in a sugar factory that stood at the end of my village. Part of the year was always filled with the constant noise of tractors hauling beet from the fields to be transformed into refined sugar cubes that would later be served with tea or coffee in nice porcelain cups.
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“You Better Run”
By Pavel Soukenik · May 2, 2010 · Filed under life and tagged: health, pronation, running, stress
I have never been an athletic guy – I lack the talent and the passion – but for a couple of months now I have found myself hooked on running.
A big obstacle in doing something good for ourselves is time. Life is throwing many things at us and this can sometimes build up stress faster than what can be taken away during the little time we spend relaxing. So without reclaiming some of that time, there is not much that can be done.
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Home Video Rip-Off
By Pavel Soukenik · February 13, 2010 · Filed under entertainment and tagged: blu-ray, dvd, extended, movies
Can I see the film that won all the awards, please?
I believe there exists an ideal length for a given book, song or movie. That does not mean that the same theme cannot be recreated in a more minimalist or expansive way but then it is a different work. Take Annie Hall as an example of a film which feels just right at an hour and a half.
Successful authors often produce more complex and expansive works as their skills grow. But the success can also inflate the egos, and then the length grows as any output seems suddenly worthy of preservation. The results are Metallica’s St. Anger full of endless yet uninspired songs, the Harry Potter series which even some fans admit does not need to be 40% longerWhen I saw the Order of the Phoenix in a bookstore I thought it was a ‘cumulative’ edition. When I realized the mistake, I decided to wait until Rowling edits the heptalogy to be shorter than War and Peace. than the Bible, and extended versions of movies. The popular culture, and especially Hollywood, is influenced by the dogma that bigger is better.
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Journal Is a Silver Bullet
By Pavel Soukenik · January 24, 2010 · Filed under life and tagged: Guildhall, health, journal, notebook, psychology
A journal is an intimate and useful companion
Keeping a journal has different connotations for different people. It could be old-fashioned and noble for one, practical and analytical for another, or stupid and pretentious for the next person. I used to be that next person.
What good is there in recapping the events of the day, laboriously putting down the details of all that transpired? I think the answer to this remains “not much.” But that is also not the best way of doing it. If you only wanted a record of what happened, a miniature camera could do a better job.
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The Eye and HDR Photography
By Pavel Soukenik · January 16, 2010 · Filed under technology and tagged: eye, HDR, photography
Gallery of images with high dynamic range
Sight is easily the most important sense we have, and not quite easily fooled with imitations. Although ’3D’ seems to be all the rage nowadaysWas this article first published when intended I could not have this reference. But I am going to leave James Cameron’s new landmark film alone, and get a closer look at HDR photography with examples taken by Steven Richards — happy birthday, man!, even if we turn a blind eye to the stereoscopic nature of vision, the other eye still packs enough powers to put TVs and pictures to shame.
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