两把刀

No english translation: I need to sleep

　几个月前，我对钢刀感上了兴趣。与白钢比，用钢铁制造的刀刃比较好保持锐利。短处就是很容易生锈，不细心照顾就完了。

　回到家时就到处找钢刀。妈说：“厨房里的抽屉好像有一把，你去找找。”翻了几次，找了老半天都找不到。“那就不知去哪儿了。问婆婆看她有没有。”

　我给外婆打个电话，问有没有钢刀。她答：“你要生锈铁的？有，有。这把很好用的，只是照顾比较麻烦些所以我不用它。有点重，碎骨很好用。四姨过来时我叫交给你。”

　“碎骨？不不，我很少切大块的肉，找的是菜刀。又薄又轻，要切很快的。”
　“生锈铁的菜刀就没有了。你为什么不用白钢？生锈铁很麻烦的。”
　“我知道，只是好玩些。没关系，我去店里找找。谢谢。”

　下一回见到外婆时，她拿了一把刀给我。公公听到了我找着刀就出去买了一把白钢刀。外婆跟他说是要生锈铁的，他又去换了一把钢刀回来。这是一把片肉刀，没碎骨刀那么粗，但比菜刀重了些。销了刀刃之后，这把刀真是很好用。带猪皮，肥肉和瘦肉的花肉都可以切成一毫米薄的肉片。

　但我还没得到我的钢菜刀。去几间杂货问了，终于放弃。只好买把白钢菜刀。这把刀全都是银色的，虽然相当大，但是很轻。抓了在手中的感觉很好，马上就想切东西了。回到家给刀刃削了削，随便抓起了一刻蒜头就给它切成薄片。

On the optical power of a lens and the effect of additional optical elements

Albert Ng remarked in recent comment:

I've been calculating lately, the relation between minimum focus distance, focal length and magnification factor; if you can focus as close as your focal length, you should get 1:1 reproduction. Hence, a 100mm macro can focus to 10cm near. Knowing this, I could get a +10 closeup to do the same thing on a standard 100mm (since +10 = 1000mm / 10 = 100mm focus when lens is actually set at infinity). However, how would I know where the focus will be at when the lens is NOT set on infinity?


Firstly, an unnessecary introduction to the units:

Dioptre: a measurement unit for the optical power of a lens. It is the inverse of the lens’ focal length. The net power of optical assemblies consisting of thin lenses placed closed together can be closely approximated by summing the optical powers (measured in Dioptre) of all the lenses. This is the advantage of using Dioptre instead of focal length.


Let’s say you use a 50mm lens. When its focus is set to infinity, its power is 1/0.050m, or 20 Dioptre. (After approximating the 50mm lens as a thin lens located 50 mm away from the film plane.)

Now, suppose you want to focus on something 50 mm away. Instead of turning the lens’ focus ring, you put another 50 mm lens in front of the first, but positioned back to front. The focus of this second lens is also set to infinity.

In this double-lens set up, light from the target enters the reverse-mounted lens, and is projected as parallel rays (since it is focused to infinity). The parallel rays then enter the second lens and converge onto the focal plane.

The second lens is identical to the first, so it would be rated at 20 Dioptre too. The total optical power of the system is 20 + 20 = 40 Dioptre.

If you used a 10 Dioptre lens instead of a reverse-mounted lens, light from 0.1 m away would be projected as parallel rays towards the first lens. These parallel rays would then be focused by the 20 lens onto the focusing screen. Thus a 50 mm lens that focuses on a subject 0.1m is effectively a 20 + 10 = 30 Dioptre lens


By using this argument, it appears that you can estimate the dioptre of a lens when it is not set to infinity. Working backwards, you can then estimate the subject distance.

Have fun.

Pay rate integrated over the day's working hours: $85.00
Tips, after division with colleagues: $32.40
Ratio of tips to pay: 0.381
Gross income: $117.40
Effective tax rate: 0.0 %
Net income: $117.40


Estimated travel time, by tram: 60 minutes
Actual travel time, by car: 15 minutes
Ratio of actual to estimated travel times: 0.25


In terms of productivity, not a bad day at all.

The fine-structure of snowflakes

May in Beijing

The snowflakes I observed were approximately 3 mm in diameter. When these photographs were taken, it was still snowing heavily. All snow flakes were fresh and undisturbed.

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The optical set up consists of a Panasonic FZ-30, with a Tokina 28-105mm f4.0 lens reverse mounted onto the FZ-30. Illumination was provided by the FZ-30’s on-camera flash. The magnification as viewed on-screen is approximately 250 x. Due to the absence of a suitable light reflector to direct the flash output onto the subject, maximum magnification of this set up (400x ) was not achievable.

A 100% crop of the previous image.
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Data processing was performed using Adobe Photoshop. Due to the high diffusivity of snow, much of the original images were mostly white. The levels algorithm was used to increase the images' contrast, thus improving viewability.


Conclusion:
Therefore God exists. QED.

:p

Colours of the Wind

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The (perverted) pleasures of computation

Lao Chen: The rectangle is 2 m by 1.5 m.
Senior Engineer: Yup, so the diagonal distance would be…

The Senior Engineer picks up a pencil and prepares to perform some squaring operations ala Pythagoras.

Lao Chen: 2.5 m. You scale the dimensions up to 4 by 3, and it becomes a 3, 4, 5 triangle. Scale it back down and you get 2.5 m.
The Senior Engineer: Oh, yes yes. You’re doing it using similar triangles. Very professional…


***

Lao Chen: How much tips did you get today?
Ruth: I don’t know. I worked 9 hours today, so my pay would be 8.5 times 9…
Lao Chen: 9 squared is 81. 9 times 5 is 4.5. 81 minus 4.5 is 76.5.
(Muffled gasps of wonder from back of the car.)
Ruth: So my tips would be [omitted]. I think the Manager paid me an hour less.



Finding existing solutions to compare with an existing arithmetic problem (and them solving it rapidly) gives me a strange pleasure. Of course, it can be used to impressed boys and girls, but that is obviously an utter misuse of mathematics.

You can probably tell that I'm showing off.

Working on a job with normal hours means I do not have much time for myself.

After wasting Monday night away in a haze of nothingness, I have decided I will not surf the web aimlessly. I will not watch TV unless it is a program I want to watch (which is limited to the Paris-Dakar Rally for the time being).

On a very positive note, my grasp Chinese is continuing to show improvement. Having looked up unfamiliar words, it is extremely satisfying when you recognise it in a conversation. "Ah, that word! I know the meaning, but if I heard this sentence 2 days ago I wouldn’t know what it implied."

It’s close to midnight now. It still shocks me that I have to be in bed at 12. Sucks.

A glimpse of Beijing

9 images totalling to 529 kb. Please exercise patience.

Experimental format: photo essay




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Cities need electricity. Some cities hide their power plants in remote corners; others scatter their coal fired plants throughout the suburbs, smokestacks billowing continuous clouds of steam and particulate emissions.

Modern apartment blocks sprout among decades-old residential areas.

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The cost of buying a flat can be quite staggering. Compared to the average price of housing of RMB 6776 per square metre (source), the average income is only RMB 1878 per month (source).

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Due to increasing population densities, new buildings are mostly skyscrapers.

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Feeding the city’s energy requirements is a serious business.

Public transport consists of an underground train network, buses, electric buses and taxis. Pictured above is an articulated electric bus powered by two overhead terminals. The long power couplings allow the bus to change lanes while maintaining contact with the overhead cables. Buses can travel short distances without overhead power supply.

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Powered tricycles are a common way of ferrying small amounts of goods. Fundamentally a modified motorcycle, it offers the manoeuvrability and low maintenance cost of a motorcycle while protecting its occupant from the cold.

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While bicycles remain a popular form of personal transport, images of ‘hoardes of cyclists thronging the roadways” do not apply in central Beijing.

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12.19am, 宣武门外大道
Partly due to the bitter winter cold, there is not much night traffic outside the city centre and commercial areas.

On the joys of an ice cream

It had been a night of prolonged madness at the restaurant. The weather was exceptionally kind to those inclined to lazing at beaches: moderate temperature, intense sunlight, blue skies, and slight breeze. At sunset, beach bums hauled their UV-irradiated bums off the beach and into the strip of cafes and restaurants nearby.

I finished work and headed across the road to get myself an ice cream. Ice cream cone in one hand, I waited for the next tram. It may be 11.20pm, but the place was showing no sign of quieting down like the rest of this early-sleeping country.

A middle-aged man approached me. He had neatly combed short grey hair, indistinctive silver-framed glasses, a conservatively styled short sleeved shirt tucked into a pair of khaki-coloured trousers and secured with a brown leather belt. His angular face was rough, slightly wrinkled.

"Hello," he greeted me uncertainly.
"Hi," I looked up from my Ferrero-Roche gelato.
"Have I said hello to you before? You look kind of familiar."
"No."
"Oh, well there are so many Asian people around here…"
I continued with my ice cream.
"And they all look the same. So, what brings you here?"
"I work at a restaurant," I was still engrossed with my ice cream, and he was disrupting my peace. Wait, find out what he wants and then ward him off. Unless he wants to discuss the finer points of automotive gearbox design…

"You work at the Japanese restaurant over there?"
"No. And what brings you here?"
"Well, I stay around here… and I talk to people about God."
Aha! But a plain "mm," was all he got from me.
He waited expectantly. I looked up from my ice cream (again!) and he was still waiting.
"No thanks, I’m not interested."

This subtle game of telling him frankly that I was not interested went on for a few sentences. It was not very successful, he got a line in.

"Did you know that God created the universe?"
"Yup," I answered as many thoughts ran through my mind. The "poof! tadaa!" kind of creation? Create as in produce a set of differential equations and setting the initial conditions? What if there was no universe, and I am only part of your imagination?

No, there would be no use taking the Darwinism angle, the Buddhist angle, the Hindu angle or the Taoist angle. It would lead us down the same well-trodden path. And I do not like the scenery there.

"I actually have my own ideas on how the world came about, so thanks," I decided to take the generic direction of agreeing to disagree.

"What if you were to die tomorrow, in an accident or something? Will you be comfortable with that?"
"Yup."
"Yes, we all think we know everything but…"
"Yes, I think I know everything and you think you know everything, so why not leave it as that? I’m quite happy to live in ignorance."

"If we do not go to Heaven, what is the alternative? Hell?"
"Maybe the alternative is this," I piped up cheerfully as I pointed at my ice cream, a daft grin plastered to my face.
"What?"
"Maybe the alternative to Heaven is this gelato," I explained my statement to him.

I’m quite sure he did not say anything for at least 3 seconds. He tried something else, but I pushed him away with the same "you have your beliefs and I have mine."

Finally, he gave up. "Then I’ll leave you to rot in your sins," he spat bitterly.
"Same to you!" I merrily returned his farewell in the typically clichéd manner.

Peace again.


The truth is I did not get peace again. I was exhilarated. This little bit of verbal sparring had provided an adrenaline rush, and coming up with that silly ice cream and Heaven comparison gave me plenty of dopamine. To be able to drive off an Evangelist by mere debate without resorting to insulting anybody’s religion was something to be proud of.

Today’s directionless ramblings

I’m supposed to start work on the 15th, but I’m not really looking forward to it. More specifically, I am dreading to have to iron my shirts and pants.

On Monday, the firm called. Something crept up, and there was some expression of interest from Hong Kong. Would I be able to help translate something to Chinese?

For two days, I was busy surfing three dictionary/ translation websites in my attempt to translate phrases like building codes, service changeover, analytical techniques. I only hope the person reading it does not get a heart attack and dies clutching my document. He can die of a heart attack for all I care, but please not while holding my translation.


I’ve been in Melbourne for 7 days already, and not much has happened. I worked 2 shifts at the restaurant, which gave me a bit of spending money. A portion of it was spent on ebay buying a couple of adapter rings for my optical setup. Another $20 was spent on purchasing a 15-inch Sony television from a friend who would be leaving soon. So I have a TV now, but the Formula 1 season has not started.

Buy food for the week, one or two lunches outside… it’s surprising how quickly $100 can start to evaporate. And I haven’t even started on the grander things like that fast Asahi Pentax 50mm f1.4 lens, a light meter and a slide projector.

Back to reality…


I’ve been attempting a bit of fiction lately, but it reads rather like a dull piece of modern history of number theory. Seems like I’ve lost my bloody muse.


There are 2 things I would like to do once I have started work and settled into the rhythm:
Train in a form of martial arts
Learn to play the violin (not very sure about this)

When I was back home, I returned to my old Taekwando class for session. The agenda for the day was chopping-kicks and its application in sequences.

The chopping-kick is a very technical one, and requires a certain degree of flexibility in the hips to be able to execute it. Which was good, because I have both in decent quantity and the pace of the session was somewhat slower than, say, a turning-kick session.

A turning-kick session would have been no fun as my stamina and aerobic performance has been extremely low lately. Turning kicks without speed and abundance is just boring.

Chopping kicks are fun. Coil up the leg, and unfurl it towards the heavens. With the help of gravity and judicious momentum transfers, bring the foot of the extended leg crashing onto the unfortunate target, driving it backwards and downwards.


Earlier this afternoon I was experimenting with a different approach to my light box, and made these shots.

Find the Slide Film

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420mm, 1/20s, f5.6, ASA 80

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I quite like this one, it looks very much like what an engineer/draftsman would produce if summoned to make a front view/projection of the Ricoh KR-10 Super. Like a blueprint, there is no sense of depth- you cannot visually gauge how far the lens is ahead of the camera body. This was achieved using a very long telephoto lens (equivalent to 420mm).

Streaks in the Sky

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In December 2005, my family and I took a leisurely 10-hour drive to Sydney. Along the way, I snapped a sequence of images intended for a panoramic conversion. Well, now that I have the software, this is it.

Photographs from the Temple of Heaven and Ming Dynasty Tombs

Temple of Heaven



The main building of The Temple of Heaven is circular, consists of 3 levels, and sits of 3 circular levels of stones.







A Kiss at The Temple of Heaven
lasts forever

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Ming Dynasty Tombs






They are not sisters.

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Photographs from the the Great Wall

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May - 25/12/06

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Stairwell

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Girl with Fast Camera

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Photographs from the Forbidden City, Beijing

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Restoration work was being done on one of the main buildings





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Summary of events

I’m in Melbourne again, and back online. The past 5 weeks were fantastic.

But all fantastic things must come to an end (even if my holiday continues perpetually, I will get bored and my satisfaction will decay, resulting in the fantastic-ness evaporating) and here I am in Melbourne preparing for the next step.

Roses Outside Beijing

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A random selection of things that happened over the past weeks:


Instead of a polite ‘excuse me’, I asked a bunch of cousins in my way to “go away, scram, disappear, evaporate.”
The word ‘evaporate’ tickled them sufficiently, and was commonly used in placed of ‘excuse me’.


Christmas Eve was spent at Tian An Men Square and the Palace Museum, also known as the Forbidden City. Symbolically slapped May under the watchful eyes of Mao Zedong.


Christmas was spent on walking the Great Wall, skiing on artificial snow and soaking in hot-spring water (piped into a huge tub in our own hotel room). Christmas rituals were restricted to a few ‘Merry Christmas’ greetings during breakfast.


I licked a pile of 5-hour old snow in Beijing. The texture was wonderful- it was a cross between fine soap suds, cold air, iced water and dense fog. The smell was exquisitely non-existent. The taste was horrible- it was a delicate mixture of unburnt hydrocarbons, dust, vehicle emissions and factory smoke, delightfully infused into nature’s hexagonal crystal structures from the heavens.


Two of my cousins were surprised that I could write their Chinese names better than they themselves do. Both are girls, and it is common that girls’ handwriting are better than that of boys.


My New Year celebration was held in a dark Boeing 767 at 37000 feet in the air. Four of us pointed at our watches, mumbled something about ‘Happy New Year’, forced a half-dead smile, looked around for anyone awake, and finding none, went back to sitting out our bland, sleep-deprived flight.


Finally test driven a Satria GTI, which was great fun. The clutch was heavy and unforgiving, the engine was happy to rev deep into the 6000s, the gearshift was slick and the steering was heavy but precise. To be able to execute smooth double-clutch heel-and-toe downshifts was a great ego-sweller.


Arrived at Melbourne on Wednesday evening. My current visa entails that I check the “returning resident” box in the arrival forms, which is a rather strange feeling, given that I have always crossed the “visitor” and “studying” boxes. The immigration officer said “welcome back” (wtf...) instead of “have a pleasant stay”. Extremely disconcerting, to say the least.