Author: Simon

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Lost in Translation

A colleague recommended the Netflix original Black Mirror.  So far, it’s be an incredibly disturbing set of Philip K Dickian-type stories involving humanity’s failures with using their own technology responsibly.  And “disturbing” might be a bit of an understatement.  I find them to be haunting, like the stuff my subconscious latches onto in order to feed me back nocturnal hellscapes.

So I found the show’s title to be aptly named, as I assumed it was an allusion to “through a glass, darkly”.  Despite my growing aversion to organized religions, I can’t escape my exposure to it during my youth, and I had remembered the Bible verse.

Of course, I didn’t remember where exactly, so curiosity won out and I resorted to the Internet to fill in the information gap.  Turns out it’s from Corinthians 13:12.  I walked to the bookshelf and retrieved a bible (something we’re certainly not short on–there were 3 (why do we have 3 Bibles?)).

“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face…”  Wait, what?  That’s not right.  I shelved the Bible, scoffing at its translation.  The power of culturally-significant prose can invoke strong contempt when modified, just as my copy of The Divine Comedy pissed me off when I realized it was a more contemporary translation.  You can’t do that!

So I pulled out my copy of the Oxford Study Bible, complete with the King James’ omitted texts:

“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; but then face to face…”  That’s not right either.  What the hell?  The mystery deepened, and out of stubbornness, so too did grow my resolve.

Eventually, I found a site with the translation I was looking for, and as it turns out, the verse so well-known had been King James’.  Go figure, that the version everyone knew was that of the most ubiquitous translation.  But this begs the question: why were there so many different translations?  The site I found offered over 20.  I compared them:

  • “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face…”  So I can’t understand myself as others see me.
  • “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; but then face to face…”  Wait, so what I see is only a facsimile of the world.
  • “For now we see through a glass, darkly…”  Okay, this is the translation I’m used to.  What I see is a filtered version of the world.
  • “Now all we can see of God is like a cloudy picture in a mirror…”  Now we’re referencing God directly.  So understanding of the divine is limited.  Makes sense.
  • “What we see now is like a dim image in a mirror; then we shall see face-to-face…”  I don’t understand myself, but I will when I die?

My problem is that a text so important to people that they use it as a moral guide, maybe shouldn’t be translated so lightly.  I realize that the attempt is to give an ancient writing modern context, but in so doing, we modify its very meaning.  Stop it!

Maybe the glass was just dirty and needs to be Windexed.

–Simon

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Sewer Inspection

Earlier this year I installed a Ring video doorbell.  And thankfully, the majority of its motion captures involve routine comings and goings, with a smattering of false triggers.

But then it captured validation to paranoia.  One morning, as I left work, I noticed a plain white van parked in front of the house, with a simple label: “Sewer Inspection”.  Now, the sewer line was indeed replaced prior to our purchasing the house, but according to the neighbors it had been done by a certain prominent company, and I know from casual observation that their vans are decorated.

Adding to the suspicion was that the man inside the van never approached the house while I was home, nor did he look up to meet my gaze as I was leaving.  And a half hour after I left for work, the doorbell did its job and sent me an alert:

Click image to view movie, or watch on Ring:
https://ring.com/share/6535749457719096295

He also wandered around nowhere near the sewer line.  Liz thought he might be looking to steal the edging.  It does appear that he’s examining it.

Maybe it was a legit inspection, but nothing about it seemed right, and that usually means it isn’t.  I think it’s time for more cameras.

Validation from Ring’s social network!

–Simon

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Edging

To further beautify the house, we got some expensive edging.  I’m kind of ashamed to say how much the edging costed, so I won’t.

But we needed something, and as was evidenced by the fact that I pulled ancient plastic edging out to install the new–cheap plastic edging is ineffective (and ugly).

So after much digging, behold!

Fancy-ass edging.  That is all (I mean, I’d talk about it more, but it’s edging.  And I’m not paid by the word here).

–Simon

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Strawberry Garden Upgrade

Last summer, we constructed a strawberry garden out of old wooden boxes.  It worked, but it was quaint, and Liz wanted a real strawberry garden.  And I like strawberries and gardens, and I was itching to finally use that saw that’s been sitting in a box in my garage since we bought the house, so this seemed like as good a reason as any.

So after procuring some 2x8s and a work table from Lowe’s, I had a perfectly respectable setup, ready to butcher some lumber:

My blood coursed with suburban manliness (and histamine–Spring allergies that did not appreciate the sawdust)!  I really only needed to cut a single board in half, but it was the manliest single cut I could make!

The majority of the work was far less creative and primarily involved grunt labor: digging trenches and hammering stakes.  But I had no intention of installing a garden that would shift and become unsightly, so all boards were carefully leveled and secured with corrosion-resistant deck screws:

Okay, it just looks like a box (because it is), but soon it’ll be growing delicious fruit and look way cooler.

–Simon

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Kill it With Ozone!

Dogs pee in the house.  It’s an inevitability, despite their willingness to please their human masters.  Bladders are small, and days are long.  Ergo, dogs pee in the house.

A myriad of devices exist which attempt to deal with this problem.  And indeed, the pee can be extracted, but residual proteins remain.  And these proteins stink!  So, a myriad of products exist which attempt to neutralize them.  And…none of them work.

So I was left with a choice: kill the dog and burn the carpet, or live with the smell.  Neither seemed ideal.  But then I remembered the final invoice I received from our last apartment.  In it, a specific deduction was itemized from our deposit: an ozone treatment for the dog smell.  Faye had a tendency to pee in the second bedroom.

At the time, I considered this bizarre procedure to be limited to a specialized commercial application, and therefore necessitating expensive equipment.  But they say smell is the sense most strongly linked to memory, and when walking down the hallway one day, the stench wafted into my nose and my hippocampus short-circuited.

A quick search through Amazon revealed many affordable products.  So, as I normally do, I made a selection based on recommendations and ordered the Enerzen ozone generator.

Excitedly, I unboxed it as soon as it arrived.  I concluded that the best place to test it would be the bathroom, since if anything went wrong, the room already had ventilation.  I set it for a modest 20 minutes, plugged it in, then immediately ran away as its insides glowed purple.  An overreaction, perhaps.  But I’ve seen enough post-apocalyptic movies to not be disconcerted at the color (even if it’s oxidation, not radiation).

I returned an hour later, figuring it had been enough time to dissipate.  I figured wrong.  In fact, it was 2 days before the ozone smell was finally gone.  But, the bathroom no longer held that mild mildewy essence.

Unfortunately for Liz, it triggered memories of her numerous hospital visits and she became nauseous.  Turns out that they use these to sterilize surgery rooms.

But despite that, it was a preferable alternative to dog pee.  I started treating the carpet, cleverly devising a method to trap the ozone under a storage bin so as to avoid flooding the house in painful free radicals:

But as it turns out, an ozone generator can’t keep generating ozone with oxygen (ah hindsight).  So the viable output of this method was insufficient to deodorize anything.  So now, I’m running it for short bursts in problem areas, which is difficult because I can’t evacuate the house, and too much will kill the houseplants.

So it remains to be seen if this tool is effective, since I have yet to run a proper test.  Hopefully the multitude of supporting anecdotes out there will foreshadow my own success.  And if not, I can always kill the dog and burn the carpet.

–Simon