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In our office lunch room, we’ve recently had a pair of appliances installed: a coffee maker and a hot/cold water filtration unit.  In using both, it struck me how divergent their designs are from each other.

On the right, the fancy filtration unit dispenses both chilled drinking water and hot water for tea, instant soup, etc.  As a safety measure, to get hot water from the unit one must push two buttons at once: the red button above the graphic of a steaming glass — and another button labeled “hot safety”.

Of course it’s meant to keep children from scalding themselves.  I suppose that justifies its intent, if not its necessity.

As an aside, this safety feature defeated our lead programmer, who is brilliant and intelligent and tech-savvy, but who skipped the hilariously elementary (example: “Take one coffee filter…” [hold filter up for all to see]) orientation session for these appliances.

On the left, the coffee maker will also dispense hot water for tea — via a big, red-handled spigot.

If a child walked up to these two machines, what’s the first thing they’d do?  Press the little red button — or pull the big red handle?

I’m not saying the coffee maker’s spigot is unsafe.  Not many (if any) children spend time in our offices, so it’s a moot point.  And if nothing else it enabled that aforementioned staffer to get hot water for her tea.

The filtration unit is not, however, exempt from my ridicule.  See that blue light that shines down on whatever container you’re filling?  At first I thought it might be one of those ultraviolet lamps that kill bacteria.  Not so.  This light is decorative — in fact, it’s not merely decorative, it’s purely decorative.

Why? Because if it had any function at all, it would make a lot of sense, while dispensing hot water, for that light to turn red.  But no, it doesn’t.  Instead, it’s counterintuitive: dispense piping-hot — nay, scalding — water that glows with a light that stays cool, cool blue.

Although the abuse that the English language takes on this weblog could be seen as a contraindication, I delight in wordplay.  So when last week — on April Fools’ Day, appropriately enough — I came across the Bad Translator website, I was hooked.

The site performs a simple task: it takes a phrase of 250 characters or less and passes it through the Google Translator, from English to another language and back to English again, over and over.  In the process, the original words and meaning are completely mangled.  As the site explains, “Machine translations are useful for getting a general idea about what text written in a foreign language means.”  But beyond that “general idea” — watch out!

Song lyrics are good fodder; it seems like their meter and prose are prone to very odd results.  So, after a few small tests, I fed it the chorus of the Michigan State University Fight Song.  Bad Translator responded with:

“Michigan, my son, ‘Sparta’ We see a strong team that won the game! Less! Less! Less! You can see a weak team and the sport and the game won! ‘Just below! Crew! University of Michigan Winners!’”

It starts out pretty good, but finishes horribly — somehow the word “State” has been lost.  To a Spartan, there’s little worse than being conflated with that other university, down the road in Ann Arbor (something that other school has attempted many times in the past 150 years or so).

So I tried again, using the alma mater, “MSU Shadows”:

“University of Michigan, in a cool, dark, black pine Plyushchev faith, our Alma mater, distribution of time dog wallpaper, admiration, respect and love the sound of the University of Michigan.”

Ouch! Again, it has converted my school’s name to (ahem) those other guys. And, insultingly, it managed to expand “MSU” into “Michigan State University” before obliterating “State” and flipping it around (ptui).  But still, this is great fun.  I mean, who the heck is Plyushchev?  And who can beat the absurd surrealism of the “distribution of time dog wallpaper”?

Smarting from the co-optation of two songs dear to my heart, I decided turnabout is fair play, and fed it the fight song of that other school, “The Victors”.  And that’s when I fell out of my chair, laughing.

Hot! This cream is a problem!
Long live the fighters,
if in the interests of the Hot!
Michigan best pilot!

Hot! This cream is a problem!
Long live the fighters,
if in the interests of the Hot!
Uesutotshanpyon Michigan!

Holy crap, that’s funny.  I imagine that opening line preceded by a spit-take — someone taking the first tentative slurp of a cup of steaming coffee, then suddenly spewing it out in a cloud of mist and shouting an indignant non sequitur, “Hot! This cream is a problem!”

Then, a left turn: the original lyrics’ notion of supporting one’s warriors is retained — but only if that troublesome cup of coffee approves!  “If in the interests of the Hot”… if not, well, too bad fighters, you’re at the mercy of that oh-so-fickle Hot.

Then, finally, that awesome word: Uesutotshanpyon.  It’s a totally non-existent word; a Google search returns zero results.  For some reason the translator, having gotten to the point where “Champions of the West” had become “West Champion”, failed to translate that phrase into Japanese and instead transliterated it phonetically.  It came back to English the same way, and remained intact through numerous other translations.  I find that hilarious.

Having taken State’s arch-rivals down a notch, I played with some other stuff.  Robert W. Service‘s “Cremation of Sam McGee” was delightful, starting off indecisive (“Sunday lunch or after work…”) and occasionally turning Mr. McGee into Montréal’s McGill University.  “O Canada” wound up being about Brazil.  The description of one of my company’s products included something about ferrets.

Bad Translator could be improved a bit.  It always runs through the languages in alphabetical order, starting with Afrikaans and ending with Yiddish.  I think it should take them in random order — then the results would be different every time.   If I were more Javascript-adept I might be able to do this myself.

After some more play, with mixed results, I gave it one of my all-time favourite songs: “Alone Again Or”, from the 1968 masterpiece album Forever Changes by Love.  It distilled the whole thing down to two lines, and while it’s terse and a bit inscrutable, it retained a sense of poetry:

I remember well, we decided
Yes, I know who I am, what people think, a little love today.

Intrigued by how much it shortened the song, I got to wondering if it could get down to one word, and what it would be.  It only needed two more iterations:

I know very little memory.

Which reduced to:

Weakness.

This is based on the eggnog recipe from the one cookbook I consider completely indispensable: the America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. Through trial and error and personal preference I’ve modified it slightly (my notes in parentheses).

6 eggs
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
4 cups whole milk
1 vanilla pod
1/2 cup bourbon
1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg

(These are the standard amounts, but I recommend to double them — a double batch still makes only a little more than a half-gallon.)

In a large saucepan, whisk together the eggs, extra yolks, and the sugar.

Slowly whisk in the whole milk.

Add one vanilla pod, split lengthwise.

Heat slowly over low-medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture is between 160 and 180 degrees Fahrenheit and is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. (160 is needed for safety, but go past 180 and you’ll have scrambled eggs. Use an instant-read thermometer to monitor the temp. I use the same digital thermometer with a probe on a long cord that we use for roasts; I thread it through the handles of a binder clip attached to the side of the saucepan to keep the probe tip from touching the sides or bottom, for a continuous, accurate, and hassle-free reading.)

(Pull up a chair, you’ll be stirring for a while. It should take around 25–30 minutes, but my first time I was overly cautious with the heat and spent nearly 2 hours.)

Strain the mixture into a large mixing bowl. (Straining gets the spent vanilla pods out and also removes some of the larger bits that might have congealed. I usually have to give it a little encouragement with a rubber spatula to push it through the strainer.)

Add the nutmeg and bourbon, and blend thoroughly for a few minutes with a stick blender or hand mixer. (Blending really improves the texture. Fresh-ground nutmeg is a must — pre-ground nutmeg is no better than sawdust. For bourbon, no need to waste the top-shelf stuff. This year I used what I usually choose for a mixed drink — Jim Beam — and it was at least as good as last year’s batch with Maker’s Mark. Also, the amount listed here is a fairly low-octane amount, so spike it to taste.)

Cover with plastic wrap, pressing the plastic right down onto the surface to prevent it from skinning. Chill for at least 3 hours. (Overnight or two will really bring out the flavor.)

Shake well or blend one more time before serving.

(America’s Test Kitchen wants you to fold in some heavy whipped cream at the last minute before serving, but I find this makes it much too rich. For a fancy presentation, top the glass with a dollop of whipped cream and sprinkle some nutmeg on for garnish.)

I hope this recipe doesn’t sound overly complicated, because it’s really very simple — and the results are so very worth the effort.

A couple of weeks ago my Lego Star Wars X-Wing took a tumble off its display shelf.  (I suspect a mild earthquake that morning was the culprit.)  The X-Wing dove off the shelf, bounced hard off the printer, and landed, shattered into major constituent pieces, on the floor near the paper shredder.

The destruction was substantial, although luckily the individual pieces (in particular the rare-if-not-unique clear cockpit canopy) were not damaged.  All four wings tore off, and inexplicably the upper left and lower right wings split in two while their equally flimsy counterparts remained intact.  The wingtip laser cannons went flying, one landing on a windowsill behind the curtain where it went undiscovered for more than a week.  The nose section, which is an independent sub-assembly that snaps onto the main fuselage, split into three major parts; while the aft end of the fuselage evidently took a major shot because it was blasted apart, leaving only the rugged, central gearbox assembly that actuates the “S-foil” motion.

Yet, as I arranged the parts on the coffee table for post-crash analysis, I noticed that the R2 unit stayed nestled in its socket, and the cockpit section held together.  In fact, in spite of the considerable disintegration of the X-Wing, I got the impression that this could have been a survivable impact, much like a Formula One racer crumples when it hits the wall but leaves its monocoque safely surrounding the driver.

That led me to this strange notion…

Imagine a rebel pilot, during the attack on the Death Star, who for whatever reason — shot down, engine trouble, pilot error, etc. — crashes into the surface of the space station without dying.  (Obviously, we’re not talking about Porkins here.)  What could that pilot do?

He’s not wearing a pressure suit, so unless he’s carrying some kind of emergency suit he’s stuck in his ship.  Even if he can get out, then what?

There were no search-and-rescue ships sent out along with the rebel fleet, just the thirty X- and Y-Wing attack fighters — each a single-seater with no room for a passenger.

His R2 unit might have rocket packs (R2-D2 did in Episode III) but would that be sufficient to launch them far enough away from the impending blast?  I doubt it.

Otherwise, the pilot’s only option is to sit and wait for the ground beneath him to explode into oblivion.  If any pilots did survive a crash, this is exactly what would have happened, as no pilots survived the battle without flying out of it in their own ships.

What a weird, horrifying thought.

Google reports the following results for the term “search engine”:

1. AltaVista
2. Dogpile
3. Wikipedia’s article on “Web search engine”
4. Yahoo
5. An optimization company
6. A CBC Radio show called “Search Engine”
7—11. More optimization companies
12. Ask.com
13. Live Search
14. Mamma Metasearch
15. Google… UK!

What’s going on here? Are the optimization companies starting to figure out Google’s arcane secrets, or is it that Google’s expanding horizons are distancing it from its search engine roots?