T w e n t y S i d e d
It is part of this Korean site.
The right tool for the job
Earlier I mentioned my backyard fence-removal project. I have three sections of fence down. Huff. Huff. Wheeze.
Sweet mercy this is a pain in the butt.
While I’m doing a job like this I can’t help thinking that I could turn days of back-breaking labor into a ten-minute job if I could just get my hands on a lightsaber. I could lop the fence posts right off with little or no effort. The only real work would be hauling the sucker away. I could also use the lightsaber to chop up the remaining scrap metal so it would be easier to transport or dispose of. Sure, lightsabers are a little dangerous, but are they that much worse than a chainsaw?
If lightsabers were possible, what would they be like?
Well, first off: They would make terrible weapons. A lightsaber is like a sword that acts as both a noisemaker and a beacon. Waving around bright colorful lights is usually a bad idea in modern combat situations. If you’re in a fight, you’re much worse off once you turn the thing on. Unless you have The Forcetm, then you are going to be filled with bullets long before you get anywhere near your opponent.
Pzhhhhhhz! Vwoom. Vrrrwwooooom. Pksh! Mwwahooom. Pxskz! Vrmomwoooom. Mwwahooom. Pksh sizzle!
No, lightsabers would not be weapons: They would be tools.
You could go to the hardware store and get a nice Black & Decker lightsaber, which could cut right through trees or metal beams in no time. It would cost a couple hundred. They would be a bit shorter than the ones in the movies, since you shouldn’t need anything more than 2 feet long unless you’re cutting down some really big trees, in which case you’d need to buy one of those industrial-grade lightsabers. Or, you could go for the inexpensive off-brand at Wal-Mart, which would have a handle made of cheap plastic and the blade would flicker or dim if you tried to cut anything heavy-duty. It would cost around $49.95 and the blade would only be a foot long. This would only be useful for small jobs, since it would be annoying and perhaps dangerous to use for big things like trees.
Handles wouldn’t be made of metal like in the movies. You really don’t want one of these slipping while you’re cutting, so the grip would be made of rubber. All of them would be designed with a safety switch that would need to be held down to keep the blade on, so if you dropped it the thing would turn off instantly. They would also require a key to operate, just to keep kids from playing with them. You’d probably insert the special key at the base of the handle and turn it to enable the lightsaber, and then grasp the handle and squeeze the dead man’s switch to turn it on. Some models might even be set up with two dead-man switches so that both hands were needed to keep it on. This would greatly reduce the primary risk, which is taking off one’s own forearm in a stray movement.
You’d need to wear insulated fireproof gloves for safety, because the stuff you’re cutting is going to get very hot and it’s going to be close to your hand. (Qui-Gon Jinn must have fire-proof hair and eyebrows, judging by how close his face gets to the molten metal of the door he cuts in Episode 1) Safety goggles or glasses are a good idea too.
I can’t imagine how the battery would work because the power requirements are going to be way beyond what the typical house can deliver (particularly through an outlet) and it’s many orders of magnitude beyond what current battery technology can hold. The power required to instantly melt metal is huge. Needless to say, this sucker’s going to be on the charger for a long, long time between uses.
Okay, this post went to a wierd place. Sorry about that. I don’t know how that happened.
UPDATE: Steven made some facinating comments below, be sure to check them out.
Go Outside and Play
The coming weekend looms large. My back yard:
Notice the oh-so-classy green chain-link fence. It’s great for creating that “junkyard” look. It was installed by the previous owners, and it’s been on my list of Stuff That Has To Go since we moved in. Last summer I managed to uproot some of it:
The pink line marks where there was a section of fence. It ended right at the house, between the back porch and the basement steps, which means if you wanted to go into the basement you had to go all the way around the house or jump the fence. Annoying.
It took about three days (well, three evenings) of back-breaking labor to get rid of that much of the fence. At the end of each fence post is a big ‘ol lump of concrete. Digging these up is no picnic. Sure, the previous occupants installed a fence that was ugly, cheap, and inconvienant, but at least they made sure it would last!
Sigh.
It was hard enough to get rid of the fence on level, open ground last year. Now this year…
…I’ll be working on this section, which is on a hill and tangled up in tree roots. Fun!
It turns out that spending years in a computer chair typing has left me ill-equiped for physical labor. Last time I was sore for days, and this time promises to be a good bit worse.
Boo freakin’ hoo.
haibane.info – lookin’ good
haibane.info is a fairly new Anime blog. I just noticed that Fledgling Otaku now has a new design up for the site.
Wow. That looks fantastic.
European Travel Guide
Den Beste links to this handy set of french phrases. To which I add: If you end up in France, you may also benefit from this European travel guide.
I’m just trying to help.
Lum no Love Song
Adding to the stuff I said yesterday about anime openings, Pixy Misa has this, and then suggests that this song is catchy. I played it through and I’m not inclined to argue. I think it’s catchy like ebola. I won’t say I liked it, but much like Gollum and the One Ring, I may never be rid of my need of it.
Ai Yori Aoshi: English Dub
One of the odd things about this series is the way Kaoru and Aoi act in the English dub. Both of them talk in a very formal manner. Their speaking is slow and even, and they never use contractions. (Their speach is a bit like that of the character Data in Star Trek.) At first I thought this was due to the difficulty of matching the dub to the original mouth movements. However, their delivery seems stiff even when the character speaking isn’t onscreen.
Now I have a new theory: I think they speak this way in an attempt to re-create the very formal speaking style of the characters. I’m betting that due to their traditionalist upbringing, Kaoru and Aoi have strong accents that I could hear if I had Japanese ears.
Another interesting note is that unlike most dubs, they preserved a great many of the honorifics. Even in English Kaoru and Aoi call each other Kaoru-sama and Aoi-chan. However, they call Miyabi “Miss Miyabi”, a translation of Miyabi-san. In turn, Miyabi calls them “Sir Kaoru” and “Lady Aoi” instead of Kaoru-dono and Aoi-sama. I can’t tell why some honorifics were translated and some were preserved. Sempai (sp?) is translated for certain combinations of characters and not for others. At least it’s consistant throughout, though.
For Tina’s character, they simulated the effect of her American accent by having her speak in a southern (Dixie) accent for the dub. The accent is a bit heavy-handed, and the way it’s played it makes her sound a bit unsophisticated, which might be how an American accent would sound to people in upper-class Japan.
Tina also leaves off honorifics entirely. I checked the subtitles and listened as well as I could to the Japanese voices, and I’m pretty sure she does indeed leave off honorifics, at least sometimes. This is odd. I didn’t know you could do that. I thought one of the challenges facing foreigners was that you couldn’t refer to someone without knowing what honorific you needed. Perhaps this is only a problem if you don’t know their name.
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