unspeakable things

Eventually one stumbles upon a thing that worries him/her, but nature of that thing makes it impossible to speak about it to anyone or make it known in any other way...Even if it's nothing illegal, it can be sensitive enough to keep quiet and... keep quiet.

I've found that king of thing today, so I'm left pondering about it myself. I have few other identities which I can use to ask people for their opinions, but all that activity can be successfully traced back to me...Which seems unacceptable for now.

Heh, this post too isn't something I should write...

On copyright and anti-copying

 I've been thinking about endless and idiotic struggle of "copyright owners" against "unauthorized distribution and usage" for some time now.
When one group of people provides a platform of content sharing, another group has a content to share, yet another group wants to get that content, "copyright owners" fight against it. The tell us about profits they lose as their content gets distributed for free, but what happens is in fact free and very effective advertisement and evaluation of ... well, anything. People get to try something for free, use it and evaluate it. If they like it, there's a good possibility that they'd buy original product or improved version of a product. Though it only works if people find that the product you offer is WORTH what you charge for it.
It makes sense if you think about it: imagine you wonder whether to buy an album of a singer for 30$. Radio rotated one or two songs from it, therefore you heard about one sixth of tracks on the disk. "Copyright owners" want you to pay 30$ right now and... that's it. Pay and whether you like what you bought or not is not their concern.
The same goes for other copyrighted content. Let's take recent Bioware's release Dragon Age 2 as an example. All gaming magazines and sites praise DA2. Demo that Bioware released tells you next to nothing about the game. And so they want you to buy, buy, buy... But when you buy it, you find it not as great as reviews described. Players' ratings differ drastically from gaming magazines' and sites' ratings... If you had no chance to try out what you buy, it may end out in big fat disappointment.
What "copyright owners" want in this case is you buying a dark horse. Buy and then evaluate it. Don't look at what's inside the box, no way we're going to let you...

An article I found on BBC News site discusses the issue. Here's a quote:

"There's really no way I could stop someone from reading one of my books if they wanted to without paying for it. So I need to find creative solutions to that and those I think take several forms. One is competing with free by presenting a better offer."

The whole article can be found here (BBC News).

Tsunami and earthquake hit Japan...

A powerful earthquake hit Japan. I won't quote news, you can read it in various languages in the net.

My sympathies are with people who suffer there now

Itou Kanako - A.R. lyrics + перевод на русский (1)

Базовая версия перевода песни Itou Kanako - A.R. (из игры Steins Gate)

"Все закручено" - таки да, закручено... или переводить очень литературно, или...
Ладно, позже доберусь сделать правки.

Сама песня:

Itou Kanako - A.R.

僕の視界が経験をした
boku no shikai ga keiken wo shita
Мое мировоззрение приобрело опыт
全部のあの空がホントだとしたら
zenbu no ano sora ga honto da to shitara
Если бы все в этом небе было правдиво
正しい答えも求める事は
tadashii kotae mo motomeru koto wa
И требуя честный ответ
馬鹿げた振る舞いと聞こえる失笑
bakageta furumai to kikoeru shishou
Вместе с абсурдным поведением слышу насмешку

繰り返す漂流と君の証明
kurikaesu hyouryuu to kimi no shoumei
Подтверждение от тебя продолжает парить в воздухе
出口の見えない孤独へのキャプチャ
deguchi no mienai kodoku he no CAPTURE
И заперло внутри безысходного одиночества
羽ばたいた瞬間に収束をする
habataita shunkan ni shuusoku wo suru
В момент, когда взмахну крыльями, приду к твердому решению
バタフライあなたは神のごとく姿さえ見せない
BUTTERFLY anata wa kami no gotoku sugata sae misenai
Бабочка – ты подобно Богу даже вида своего не показываешь

パラレルな人、人々は背中合わせて
PARALLEL na hito, hitobito wa senaka awasete
Параллельный человек, люди стоят спинами друг к другу
饒舌な注釈でまやかす支配者
jouzetsuna chuushaku de mayakasu shihaisha
Те, кто говорят не смолкая, - обманывающие лидеры,
仕組まれた境界線を裏切っても
shikumareta kyoukaisen wo uragitte mo
Даже если перейдешь установленную кем-то границу
時間は不器用に歪曲を始める
jikan wa bukiyou ni waikyoku wo hajimeru
Время начинает неумело искажаться,
世界は綻びを揉み消すように書き換える
sekai wa hokorobi wo momikesu you ni kakikaeru
Мир, как будто пытаясь скрыть разлом, переписывает себя

捏造されたその痕跡は
netsuzou sareta sono konseki wa
Тот оставленный намеренно след
時間に閉ざされて 知られざる場所へ
jikan ni tozasarete shirarezaru basho he
Ведет в неизвестное место, скрытое во времени,
たった一枚壁の向こうは
tatta ichimai kabe no mukou wa
Указывая на другую сторону стены
知らない世界線否定は出来ない
shiranai sekaisen hitei wa dekinai
Не могу отрицать неизвестную мировую линию

契約の交わされた犠牲の未来
keiyaku no kawasareta gisei no mirai
По контракту выменянное жертвенное будущее
回避を許さぬ螺旋ストラクチャ
kaihi wo yurusanu rasen STRUCTURE
Спиралеобразная структура, которую перестала избегать
後戻りの出来ない悪夢のような
Ato modori no dekinai akumu no youna
Как кошмар, из которого не вернуться,
バタフライあなたは神のごとく姿さえ見せない
BUTTERFLY anata wa kami no gotoku sugata sae misenai
Бабочка – ты подобно Богу даже вида своего не показываешь

パラレルな過去と未来は隣り合わせて
PARALLEL na kako to mirai wa tonariawasete
Параллельные прошлое и будущее соприкасаются
ねじ曲げた光速で騙す創造者
nejimageta kousoku de damasu souzousha
С перекрученной скоростью света обманывает выдумщик
そびえ立つ城壁を乗り越えてみせても
sobietatsu jouheki wo norikoete misete mo
И даже если попытаться перелезть возвышающиеся стены замка
宇宙は意図的な不正を始める
uchuu wa itotekina fusei wo hajimeru
Вселенная начинает целенаправленные подлости
世界は綻びを揉み消すように 書き換える
sekai wa hokorobi wo momikesu you ni kakikaeru
Мир, как будто пытаясь скрыть разлом, переписывает себя


パラレルな人、人々は背中合わせて
PARALLEL na hito, hitobito wa senaka awasete
Параллельный человек, люди стоят спинами друг к другу
饒舌な注釈でまやかす支配者
jouzetsuna chuushaku de mayakasu shihaisha
Те, кто говорят не смолкая, - обманывающие лидеры,
仕組まれた境界線を裏切っても
shikumareta kyoukaisen wo uragitte mo
Даже если перейдешь установленную кем-то границу
時間は不器用に歪曲を始める
jikan wa bukiyou ni waikyoku wo hajimeru
Время начинает неумело искажаться,
世界は綻びを揉み消すように書き換える
sekai wa hokorobi wo momikesu you ni kakikaeru
Мир, как будто пытаясь скрыть разлом, переписывает себя

what people want to hear

Lately I've been thinking over some things in my life and came to nearly same conclusion as truthful angler in 'Three men in a boat" by Jerome K. Jerome.
The book itself is perfection of classics, so if you haven't read it... indulge your sin :)

What most people want to hear from you is not truth. No way. Even not "nearly truth". No freaking way.
When they ask something, they already know what answer they want. That's nothing new.
But what's more is the fact that most people don't want to hear any rightful doubt. Like when they ask you "will my favorite guinea pig live after I gave it ammonia?" they want to hear "but yes, of course" and nothing less. Nothing else is permitted and taken into consideration. And if they ask you "can you do it?" they want "yes" without any ifs, doubts and conditions. Also they want to know the price without ifs and conditions.
No details either.

If you were entrusting your life to a surgeon who's about to perform risky surgery, you'd like to know details.
Why they don't you want to know details of something that may not be life threatening immediately, though in a future may lead to a great loss?
Is it just laziness?

...returning to the point...
I remember one scene that has taken place in my life. A person was asking me something like "will you learn Chinese to fluent level if needed?" and was greatly dissatisfied with the fact that I didn't say "sir yes sir" or something. I expressed willingness to start learning Chinese with all my effort and watch how it goes, but said I can't guarantee I'd be fluent in a year. What that person wanted to hear was what most people would answer: "but of course I'd be fluent in no time! (I'm so self-assertive, so smart, so willing, I'd do it in less than a year)". We know that "but of course" part wouldn't be true in most cases. Still, people want that lie.

Well, when in Rome, do as Romans do.
That's my conclusion for today.

Chicago

Accidentally found a gallery with interesting photos of Chicago. It is located here.

Two good photos from there:

And:

Maybe you too would get interested and take a look :)

Remember 11

Today I've at last started my delayed quest: playing Remember 11 in Japanese. Luckily it runs well on my system.
Also as an alternative to studying at smart.fm I make Anki lists of words I find unfamiliar in the game. Of course, just as any other literature work in contains a lot of "new" words for me... as, for example, 口号む (くちずさむ or kuchizusamu) meaning "to hum; to sing to oneself; to compose impromptu (poems)".
It is quite educational task even if I'd forget many of those ords (if they would not repeat themselves) till I reach the end of the game. At least any end :)

on medicines

it has happened again. friends and relatives have depleted my supply of medicines, be it cold medicine or painkiller. generally I don't say no if someone I know asks for a tablet or two (or more). but now we came to a line when if I'd need something from my late supply, I'd have to run to drugstore...

ok, I'm done transferring

That's it, I'm done importing posts. From now on everything I wrote is up to date :)

Tall vs. short

Few days ago I had a talk with my grandmother. Not that surprisingly the topic of conversation shifted to difference between ‘those times’ and present times. And since she’s 75 now ‘her’ time was more than 50 years ago.
What struck me was the fact that in ‘her’ time she claimed to be one of the most tall women and to think about it, it seems true enough. Have you ever noticed that old ladies are generally small and short?
Only 50 years have passed and while my grandma was considered tall with her 160cm, me being 170cm is only average. Many girls in Europe are taller than me and many are shorter, but most are about the same height.
I remember how one of my friends once exclaimed ‘oh how come you’re taller than your parents? my parents are the same height as yours but you are much taller than me’ (yeah, that person certainly has a bit of ‘height complex’, but nevertheless)...
Really why did I grow taller than my parents? xD
People are growing taller with each consequent generation. Even countries that usually were a home to relatively ‘short’ people are now dealing with it.
Some tried to prove reduction in Earth’s gravity is causing it, some claim it’s ‘rise in standards of living’... What’s important is how it’s going to affect our lives.
—--
Ok, I wrote many more things here at first, but then deleted all of them.
Some people might find my thoughts aggravating so let them stay in my mind. ^^

Ukraine\Kiev - Obolon' district (my personal opinion)

Step by step Kiev is becoming a city of contrasts (hehe, that’s a pun I love from the old USSR movies… “Стамбул – город контрастов” ^^ ).
Last week I went to another part of the city on business and couldn’t stop myself from taking few photos.
Obolon’ district is newly promoted “vip-district” with its “fine buildings”, “improved infrastructure” and “picturesque harbor”. If you look at one side of the street you’ll see modern-looking residential area.
[Like this]:

Well yeah, if you look at buildings solely it may seem nice. But I don’t find harbor too picturesque and infrastructure too improved. It’s the same dirty (because … there’s a lot of dirt ALWAYS) old post-USSR Kiev, but in new clothes.
You look at another side of the street and you see the same old view of gray and sullen panel buildings accompanied by usual dirt and tired faces.
[Like this]:

To the left so-called ‘Europe’ and to the right ‘Ukraine’.
Personally I don’t like how businessmen try to make Obolon’ look like a vip district (prices for apartments are very high there). And I can’t say I like that part of the city.
If I had to chose between left bank’s Poznyaki district or right bank’s Obolon’ district to live in, my choice would be Poznyaki (where apartments are even cheaper ^^). Even though now I reside at the right bank of the city.

New post How do you translate colloquial expressions?..

Each language has its own idiomatic expressions and it’s not a secret that certain people succeeded in creating dictionaries of such expressions.
But what do you do with colloquial expressions if they haven’t transformed into idioms yet?
I usually come to my wit’s end when my foreign friends ask me to translate some expressive words of my native Russian language.
As you may know Russian has many colorful colloquial phrases that describe events and things in our life (and I don’t count in abusive language). They are not exactly what you can call slang, they’re just language or region specific.
Like jokes that are understood only in your close circle of friends.
For example driving today I came to a conclusion that it’s not only “день грузовика” (‘a day of lorry’), but also “день непуганых идиотов на дорогах” (‘a day of unscared idiots on roads’).
Is it heat or something, but people were driving awfully today… got me really anxious at least 4 times in an hour.
Many such phrases first came into our speech from USSR movies, that’s why there’s still a trend to convert apt quotes from movies into colloquial expressions.
Bad thing is you won’t fully understand what people mean if you haven’t seen the corresponding movie.
If you’ll ask someone why he’s still holding that heavy backpack instead of putting it on the floor chances are you’ll get “я с ним сроднился” (‘I became one with it’) and won’t actually know why it’s supposed to be funny.
Same happens when, for example, someone tells you “я ее и так, и этак, а она – ну никак” (‘I made this and that to her but there’s no response’). You can guess what it means, but joke and half of the meaning are lost in translation.
And check out expression “будем искать” (‘we’ll be searching [for it]). Seems simple enough, but used in certain circumstances may mean not exactly what it means…
I could give you tons of examples of situations when foreigner could be lost in expressions we daily use.
But I regularly have to translate such (and more mean) things into English and sometimes lose my temper…

Victory day...

Today was an incredibly humid day even though it wasn’t too hot (thank you God). Yes, it was my holiday and I had to suffer stuffy air all day long.
And all due to the fact that today’s the Victory day (9th of May) – the day when former USSR won World War II.
You may wonder what this has to do with humidity… well, the reason is, it’s been raining for few days here and it was going to rain today too. Of course, officials never risk getting plans for the celebration altered by such a trivial thing as weather. Therefore they used ‘weather guns’ to scatter clouds all over our city (the capital, huh) and prevent rain.
As a result it never actually rained, only random drops fell to the ground, but you could cut air with knife since all that unused water was trapped above the city.
It actually was less stuffy inside than outside, so my plans for a long walk around the city were done for, I just took a walk to the Kiev Pechersk Lavra and back (took me two hours or so).
By the way here’s the photo of Kiev Pechersk Lavra (orthodox church complex):

If you walk past Lavra you’ll enter National museum of History of World War II complex, an interesting place to walk once in a while (if you don’t live close enough of course ^^).
A thing you’ll surely find interesting there is Kiev’s biggest (and I mean it – the biggest) monument and popular attraction – a monument of Motherland.
Here’s the picture:

The monument is big (102m high, seems like it’s even higher than 93m-high Statue of Liberty in US) and immensely heavy. As it is situated at the hill, it can be seen from many places in the city.
Here’s how it looks like in general:

When my foreign relatives come to visit Ukraine I usually take them to see World War II history museum. It has good view over river Dniepr, war scenery and ‘lesser’ monuments. I must confess it’s a popular tourist spot, but since I grew up nearby it’s an ordinary thing for me.

Good thing is the celebration is finally over, fireworks display started at 22.00 as it does every year and has ended by now. I hope they will leave weather alone now and we’ll have a nice healthy summer rain.
Did I tell you that I love summer rains? No? Well yeah, I do.
Anyhow, that’s how my holiday went.
Somehow I felt like sharing this with all who’s interested ^^

A night to remember ^^

Today something I read in the net made me remember a silly incident I had few weeks ago.
You know it was a Friday night or something when I was sitting home all alone (naturally) and wanted to relax and watch a movie.
My friend just brought back a DVD I lent her long ago and somehow I decided to watch it.
The movie was “Silent Hill”, not the best title, I know. But it makes you shaky two or three times.
It was just getting to the point of main heroes’ getting to the church for the first time, when I got a bit bored and decided to go and make myself some tea.
So I pressed ‘pause’, left the light on and went to the kitchen. To get to the kitchen I had to pass two small corridors and a big room. When it is pitch dark I always follow small red dots – indicators – placed on the light switches to get people an idea where they are. Of course I know my way around even without them, but it makes life easier ^^.
And when you get to the kitchen light switch, it’s actually in the small corridor between hall and the kitchen itself. So I’m used to the fact that when you stand there you see a distorted reflection of an indicator on a hall light switch in the glass door (yeah, they are pretty bright red).
It was ok when I was passing, but as I went to the kitchen light switch and raised my hand to touch it, all went black. Totally black and silent, without a sound. And then I heard a sound like someone’s scratching a metal with glass, or vise versa.
It was just like those horror movies you watch… The lights go out suddenly, scratching sounds…
I nearly jumped, I swear, and my heart fell. I raised my hand and pushed the switch and then realized the indicators are gone, which means the electricity is gone too.
The metal sound continued and I put myself together to go to the hall and inspect the electricity counter. It was turned on and silent, so the problem lied in the apartment electricity supply.
But I still wasn’t sure what the sound was, so I went around the flat all jumpy, peered out of the windows, took a glimpse of what’s happening behind the front door and then sat down on the sofa. When there’s no electricity there’s no hot water in my flat too. So I just sat and thought and listened to the metallic sounds that were coming from outside. I didn’t bother with finding a candle, I had my mobile phone, but it didn’t help much.
It was (maybe) the longest hour of this month.
Then the electricity supply was restored and I gathered my courage to watch “Silent Hill” until the end. I still do not know what those sounds were, but I’m not too eager to hear them again.