In My Life

Fall of 2004. That was the time where I used to stay evenings in cafes reading Nabokov. Actually, I only stayed in a cafe in the evening reading Nabokov once. I was reading Pnin, and was eating one of those deliciously cold lemon squares. I'm sure it wasn't something I did just on a whim either, I probably had to wait at the place for some reason. I'd say the dentist, but that's only cause my teeth hurt now. And besides that would cast an incurably unromantic pall over the whole thing. What I want to say is, isn't it wonderful? I only did the thing once, but now a whole era of my life is associated with being "the time where I'd do" such a thing. This little manoeuvre of extrapolation just saved me hundreds of dollars in melting lemon squares that I'd all remember as variations on the one lemon square. Hours spent in cafes, thinking of what to do next, feeling slightly awkward. And there's only so many times you can re-read Pnin.

It Had to Be You

It Had to Be You [Só tinha de ser com você (Antonio Carlos Jobim/Aloysio de Oliveira)]

And so you say [E só eu sei]
You feel loved
You feel saved
Don't you know
This is my
Love for you

And, darling it had to be you [E só tinha de ser...]
Or else it just wouldn't be true
Or else it would be more heartache
Or else it would be a mistake

And here's what nobody can see: [aquele que o gente...]
Love that has given to you
What you never could have before
Love that has given to you
What you never could have...

And, your love is as blue as the sea [E, você que e...]
Without you I'm blue as can be
But with you here I can feel
A joy and a peace so unreal

If only you could understand [Se ao menos podesse...]
I'm always alone without you
You're always alone without me
I'm always alone...

And here's Elis Regina singing it over a video of umm... something 70's ish going on, I guess. Well, Elis Regina is in the video, too.

Furry Alphabet H-P

More of translations of Zakhoder's Furry Alphabet

If you meet a HEDGEHOG, it is nice to say
"My my, isn't someone sharply dressed today!"
-
"It's hotter here than in a sauna!"
The walrus told the IGUANA
"Why it's so cold I thought I'd freeze!"
Said the iguana with a sneeze
-
The brains of a hare
The tact of a bear
A hyena's good looks
(including the hair)
The JACKAL's an animal beyond compare
The greatest that's ever been seen anywhere
-
Every KANGAROO will vouch
Nothing's better than a pouch
"Its advantage is apparent!"
Says the proud kanga-parent
"It's a lovely hiding spot!"
Says the happy kanga-tot.
-
The LION, as you are aware,
was once the king of beasts.
But these day monarchies are rare
and lion's reign has ceased

The lion wasn't a good king
and he abused his power
so I don't have much sympathy
if now he's feeling sour.
-
Us MONKEYS and you humans share
Ancestors (were you aware?)
Now we're in zoos and people stare
Dear kids: do you think this is fair?
-
In deepest night
It's quite a fright
To meet a great big OWL
But when it's light
They're just about
As scary as ... a towel??
-
The PEACOCK is pretty - I wont pretend
That I can't see what sets him apart
But all of his beauty begins at the end
And that's not the best place to staart

Don't throw out your ball mouse + An idea that will put us out of business?

Once upon a time (when I wasn't being paid for my job, and there may be a correlation), part of my job description was to look at arXiv and see if anything cool was up there. Although my weekly reports thereon were, frankly, incompetent, and would have led to a change of assignment even if our lab didn't start having actual work to do, it was really fun. So, I thought, why not continue doing this and relate what's on there to this blog (yes, I know I'm the only person who reads it, and sometimes not even. "кто ищет смысл..." as Гражданская Оборона says).

So, here are two cool things:

(I) One paper (Gintautas and Huebler) makes an angular motion data logger using a ball mouse with the ball taken out (the paper includes a link to code which converts the movement of the cursor on a screen to angular position data for measuring a pendulum). This is pretty cool, because it seems obvious once you're told that it can be done. Then again, I don't know that nobody came up with this before. Also, my mouse is all-optical.

(II) I have no idea how new this idea is either, but another paper (Hudson) proposes a DC Stark decelerator (for decelerating molecules to become ultra-cold). Stark decelerators work something like this: a molecule is going at some speed, but you turn on a spatially sinusoidal electric field so that some of its kinetic energy is transferred to electric potential energy. This happens because of the Stark effect - say the molecule is in a J-state whose potential increases with increasing electric field. Then, as it is going along, it experiences a stronger and stronger field, thus slowing it down. But just as the molecule is reaching the peak of the spatial sinewave, you flip the field, so now it's at the bottom, and the electric field is again increasing in the direction it is going. This way, your molecule is always travelling into a region of higher electric field, and so is gradually slows down, and all without having to have a really huge electric field.
Trouble is, normal Stark decelerators suck (okay, m'n oud-collegas Rick and Ruth zullen waarschijnlijk niet 't zelfde mening hebben), well I mean, they are inefficient, because they rely on switching electric fields at precisely the right time (ie, exactly when the molecule is in the middle of traversing a region of high field). The idea in this paper is what if, instead of switching the field, we switch the property of the molecule. Again, seems obvious once you're told, which is nice. Since the switching of molecular properties is done by laser-stimulating some transition, you can just have lasers set up perpendicular to the molecule at the spatial peaks of your electric field. Probably hard in practise, but easy in concept!

Berimbau

...the onomatopoeia approach...

Berimbau (Baden Powell/Vinicius de Moraes)

Who in homage to Man won't try [Quem e homem de bem...]
To be kind and to care and then
He is constantly asking why
Without knowing the where and when
He will enter and see no sight
He is blind to the morning gem
All his life is regret and doubt
And the trouble that follows them
Capoeira won't lose a fight
But some things you cannot defend

Capoeira let me know that it is ready now [Capoeira me mandou...]
It's ready for the fight
Berimbau spoke to me too, and now I know the war
Will be the war of love

And now the obligatory youtube (Toquinho):

I need to roam

I need to roam [Preciso me encontrar (Cartola)]

Oh let me go, I need to roam [Deixa me ir...]
I am a wisp of ocean foam
A bird without a home

I want to meet the rising sun [Quero assistir ao...]
I want to see the rivers run
I want to hear the songbirds sing
My life has just begun

Oh I must go and not ask why [Si algun a me...]
Tell everyone I love "goodbye"
I'm laughing not to cry

Oh, yeah, almost forgot, here's a video of Cartola with the original

Renat Gilfanov

You know whose poetry I kind of like? Renat Gilfanov's.

Here is some, and here is some more and also here, although the poems are mostly the same in all three places. Here's one I copied here, just for kicks, you know, practising being a scribe and all. Which reminds me of another thing that makes becoming good at writing more difficult: copy and paste functions.

Школа жизни

Радио квохчет: "три года как убит Александр Мень"
На столе - рассказ "Frau Mutter" и деревянный нецке.
Узкоглазый толстяк улыбается, Пашку же ждет ремень
За невыученный немецкий.

Нина Петровна постанывает: мол, расшатались нервы.
Придвигает стул к пианино и херачит глиссандо.
Пашка смотрит в окно, на море, где производит маневры
Скутер, унося на себе Александра

Вдоль розовой кромки прибоя - все дальше и дальше от дома...
На облизанном прибоем пляже раздается девичий смех.
Это смеется, тыча пальчиком в скутер, красавица Тома.
Александр имеет успех.

Уж вечером он оттянется. И Тома будет довольна.
Потому что Александр умеет любить.
Паша смотрит на Тому влюбленно, на Александра - крамольно,
Мечтая его убить.

Хорошо бы, чтоб все они умерли: Фрау Муттер,
Вечно постанывающая тетя Нина,
Горы пирожного, Мальборо, Тома, скутер,
Вдребезги разломанное пианино...

Пашка лелеет образы, приходящие ему на ум.
Дверь комнаты открывается. В комнату входит мать.
Пашка смотрит в окно и привыкает к тому,
Что о лучшем в этой жизни приходится лишь мечтать.