Who wants to pay duty?

Posted 11 Mar 2010

Daily Life, Signs | 1 Comment 

These neighboring shops in Pondicherry, India offer a very interesting question … to pay duty or not to pay duty? Which would you go for?

But seriously, anyone have any ideas that could explain these two stores’ differing positions on charging duty?

Cloudy and Cold

Posted 10 Mar 2010

Daily Life, Places | 2 Comments 

Are we likely to “have a great day” if today’s weather is “cloudy and cold”?

The words seem rather dim and dreary, respectively and alliteratively.

I then started to wonder if they even bother to change the sign throughout the winter.  Seems like from November to April, the degree of coldness changes but it is almost always cloudy and cold.

Soiling the bread knife

Posted 9 Mar 2010

Daily Life, Food, The Little Things | 6 Comments 

There has been a local debate raging for some time about whether or not a bread knife needs to be cleaned every time that it’s used to slice through bread. I argue that it doesn’t get that dirty and therefore only deserves a wipe down in most instances. Those on the opposite side of the argument suggest that every usage of the knife warrants a proper cleaning.

Please, dear readers, weigh in with your thoughts and comments please. How often do you clean your own respective bread knives?

The natural sounds of mechanical harmony

Posted 8 Mar 2010

Daily Life, Design, People | 5 Comments 

A well-oiled machine emits a certain sound that indicates it is running well. The smooth, almost elegant sound of mechanical gears and parts is a beautiful noise to some – while the click, clank, clunk of mechanical failure is hard on our ears. Without being engineers or mechanics, we need only listen to a machine to tell if it is running smoothly.

Over the weekend, I had a wonderful interaction with a young boy of two that showed some (at least anecdotal) insight into our perceptions of mechanical harmony. The little boy in question suddenly rushed into the room ‘Emergency! Emergency’ Naturally concerned, I followed the little fellow into a neighboring room. Nothing seemed amiss. The lad pointed to a CD-player. Thinking the boy wanted music, I pressed the play button — and was greeted by the grinding sounds of an improperly-seated CD being jostled by the spinning parts of the player. It was grinding on my ears.

It was only after a moment or two that I realized what had just transpired. A little child, with only two years of life and life experience had heard those sounds of ‘mechanical chaos’ and knew that something wasn’t right. Could there be something inherent in nature that details what mechanical fluidity should sound like? Is the soft, quick and efficient sounds a deer racing through the woods more closely linked to the hum of a modern engine than I could have imagined? These thoughts filled my head this weekend.

Korean word count

Posted 5 Mar 2010

Daily Life, Language, Weird | 4 Comments 

Working on an article for a guest blog post that I was asked to submit, I had just about completed a first draft. Thinking to check my word count, I called up the word count tool in Microsoft Word. What I saw rather surprised me.

The default language was set to UK English. So, why did the good people at Microsoft think to advise me of the non-Koreans words? Why would I want to know the number of Asian characters in Korean words?