wisp, will-o'-the-wisp, tealight, encased, drwback, The Jetpack:30-Second Hops

The Google Ogle Defense: A Search for America's Psyche

Science

A baby bird, encased in amber, is giving researchers an unprecedented glimpse 100 million years into the past:

This baby bird, trapped in amber, lived alongside the dinosaurs

Depending on your constitution, you may thrill or shiver at the sight of an insect frozen in a chunk of amber—so just imagine if it were half of a bird.…

SCIENCEMAG.ORG

Question: Do you think your Google habits -- your random, untethered wisps of thoughts manifested as search terms like "unexplained hives" and "Kate Beckinsale single?" -- can be bundled together to paint an accurate representation of your morality?
(By Monica Hesse, The Washington Post)


tealight, tea light

A tealight.

A tealight is a candle used in tea or food warmers. It is different from a regular candle in that it is encased in a thin metal cover and liquefies completely while lit. Tealights are often used in to heat fondue and as food warmers. They are also suitable for accent lighting and heating scented oil. In tealights the wick is tethered to a piece of metal to stop it from floating to the top of the molten wax and burning before the wax does. Generally, tea lights give off very poor light unless grouped together with many other tea lights.

Cup styles

As candles have become more popular, tea light candles have been protected under several patented designs. The standard tea light metal cup has been replaced with a clear plastic cup. However, the metal cups are still offered by some candle makers. The clear cup allows more light to escape the holder, and even offers a "stained glass" look when multiple colors are used. In the early 2000's, a new shape of cup was patented to encourage more even burning and complete liquification of the wax. The new cup shape slopes inward toward the wick, forcing the wax pool toward the wick. This technology change has worked to increase burn time and in some cases scent throw. These candles are also available in decorative pieces.

Decorative tealights

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Christmas Tree Shops Recalls Tea Light Candles Due to Fire Hazard

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed.
Name of Product: "Embers" Tea Light Candles
Units: About 146,000
Retailer: Christmas Tree Shops Inc., of South Yarmouth, Mass.
Hazard: The tea light candles have a clear, plastic shell that can melt or ignite, posing a fire and burn hazard to consumers.
Incidents/Injuries: The firm has received 13 reports of the plastic shells of the tea light candles igniting or melting, causing minor property damage. No injuries have been reported.

Description: The recalled tea light candles were sold in the colors and quantities listed below. The individual candles are 1 1/2 inches in diameter and 5/8 inches high. The recall includes the following models:

Model Name	UPC
Embers Multi-colored Spring Tea Lights (50-count package)	13826864
Embers Red/Green/White Tea Lights (50-count package)	14508462
Embers White Daydream Tea Lights (8-count package)	13838218
Embers Celebrate White Tea Lights (8-count package)	14327056
Embers Daydream Tea Lights (8-count package)	14326998
Embers Vanilla Tea Lights (8-count package)	14327100

The model name, UPC and country of manufacture are printed on a label located on the product’s packaging.
Sold at: Christmas Tree Shops retail locations in the New England and Mid-Atlantic regions from January 2004 through November 2007 for between $1 and $5.
Manufactured in: China and Hong Kong. Embers Tea Light Candles manufactured elsewhere are not subject to this recall.
Remedy: Consumers should stop using the recalled candles immediately and return them to any Christmas Tree Shops location for a full refund.
Consumer Contact: For more information, contact Christmas Tree Shops toll-free at (888) 287-3232 between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. ET Monday through Friday, or visit the firm's Web site at www.christmastreeshops.com





wisp Show phonetics
noun
1 wisp of cloud/smoke/steam a small, thin line of cloud/smoke/steam:
A blue wisp of cigarette smoke curled in the air.

2 wisp of hair/grass, etc. a thin, delicate piece of hair/grass, etc:
A few wisps of hay still clung to her skirt.
soft wisps of baby hair

wispy Show phonetics
adjective
in the form of a wisp or wisps:
a wispy cloud/fringe




{諾貝爾之路：十三位經濟獎得主的故事}( Lives of the Laureates : Thirteen Nobel Economists), 譯者, 黃進發. 台北：天下文化，1998

That isolation allowed von Thünen to spend prodigious energies on the
attempt to discover the formula for a God-given fair wage, a
will-of-the-wisp that he asked to have engraved on his tombstone√ap.
(George J Stigler, pp.86-7)
「這種孤立讓馮屠能耗去甚多寶貴精力去發現所謂由上帝賜予之公平工資的計算公式√ap.。(頁140) 」

評：prodigious似宜翻譯為「驚人/巨大的」。上文少翻譯了這一字/詞will-o'-the-wisp，這樣會讀者無法知道作者對這「上帝之賜」之公式的評價：「不過類似野狐禪罷了！」至於這所謂「自然工資」的導法和意義，可參考{新帕爾格雷夫經濟學大詞典}之Thünen 條項(北京：經濟科學，1996)。
(will-o'-the-wisp
━━ n. 鬼火, 狐火(きつねび); 人を迷わせるもの; （捕らえどころのない）あやふやな人［考え］)


【我們可以談一下學術的傳承。這一例中，顯示約150多年前西方就有這種微分應用，所以類似W. Edwards Deming他們找”進料和最終成品的最低總測試成本之計畫”（Plan for Minimum Total Cost for Test of Incoming Materials and Final Product）{轉微為安 (Out of the Crisis)} 中文施姓編者竟然將它改成：「便宜好用的測試」…………】

***
猜他們為什麼翻譯錯誤：will of the wisp

文／史美延 （『破報復刊第400期 editorial
AE手記：打混是一門高度智慧的生存方式』）：「上回的AE標準作業程序給大家介紹了ASO9000，出刊後，接獲無數受苦受難受雇者的來電來函指教。回應除了不恥筆者行徑外，部份乃期許未來能夠轉職轉業，為自身尋覓一處更為柔暖的寄生環境。….
什麼是ASO14000標準？…….」
HC案：「整篇都用ASO 而不是 ISO ，有點匪夷所思……..」
（原要FEEDBACK，不過他們要登記……）

******
hc 請問：
「為什麼（畫題） "Une partie d'echecs" ：英譯 為"Chess Game"；中譯為"失敗的比賽"？ 」（R.
Barthes 『顯義與晦義：批評文集之三 』之翻譯質量（ 4 ））
----
我的看法：英譯正確，中譯錯誤
通常說 faire une partie d'échecs
échec（echecs）單數做失敗解；複數做象棋（非中式）解
---
感謝 rl和 Oba 。其實翻譯者沒常識或懶得去查。
*****
這個錯誤比較深：

『法國中尉的女人』
He turned then and went back to his pew; and did something very
irrational, since he knelt and prayed, though very briefly. Then he
went down the aisle, pulled down the wire till the gaslight was a pale
will-o'-the-wisp, and left the church.

大陸（粗糙）翻譯：「隨後，他轉過身，做了一件極不符合理性的事情：他跪下禱告起來，但是禱告的時間很短。禱告完畢，他走到遊廊上，關掉煤氣燈，離開了教堂。」這pew、pale
will-o'-the-wisp等漏譯。

HC案：台灣翻譯本似乎將它翻譯成「捻成一縷青煙」。
這兒的pale will-o'-the-wisp用得妙，希望讀者找WIKI等資料，它類似「（磷火）鬼火」，有很豐富的民間傳說，能激動種種想像，或許與「捻成一縷青煙」大異其趣。
又這部分之所以無法翻譯得好，因為我們多半不知道1860s時英國gaslight-era 的種種設備和使用方式。


2009.3.10
The Jetpack: An Idea Whose Time Has Never Come, but Won't Go Away
Flights Are Limited to 30-Second Hops; Another Drawback Is the 1,300-Degree Blast

By BEN WORTHEN

Ever since Buck Rogers wore a comic-book jetpack in 1928, enthusiasts have predicted that the backpack-rockets would someday fly real people around.

That day is here for a new group of jetpack enthusiasts. This year, two tinkerers plan to pilot their homemade packs in free flight. And a Silicon Valley company that started marketing jetpacks in 2008 has collected deposits from four prospective buyers.
The question is whether any normal person would do this. Pilots flying the devices jet around with 1,300-degree steam shooting inches from their legs while they worry about landing before the pack runs out of fuel in 30 seconds.
"When you tell someone that you are going to build a jetpack, you get strange looks," says Gerard Martowlis, an environmental engineer in Rahway, N.J., who has been building a jetpack in his basement since the late 1990s. Mr. Martowlis, 55 years old, says he has spent about $50,000 on his pack, which he has tested six times on a tether in his backyard. In one test, he got his feet caught in the exhaust and was thrown 15 feet; he escaped with just a big burn blister.
Mr. Martowlis based his jetpack on one built in 1969 by an inventor named Nelson Tyler, who says he quit flying after about 70 flights because he was afraid to go more than 20 feet off the ground. "If you know too much about something, it makes you nervous," Mr. Tyler says. Mr. Tyler modeled his pack on a rocket-fueled version developed by Bell Aerosystems in the 1960s for the U.S. military, which concluded that it was dangerous and impractical.

 Eric Scott

Eric Scott has injured his knees four times in roughly 800 jetpack flights.

The danger and expense have kept the ranks of jetpack pilots to an elite few. Only 13 people are known to have flown jetpacks without a line connecting them to Earth, jetpack enthusiasts say. The few jetpacks in existence today were made by people willing to invest years and thousands of dollars to build their own.
The risks are considerable. Most jetpacks use a type of rocket propulsion rather than tiny jet turbines. (A few purists insist on calling them "rocket belts.") The fuel is a form of hydrogen peroxide that is 30 times as concentrated as drugstore peroxide and costs about $140 a gallon. The fuel spits out of the pack's tanks at 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit, creating a jet of steam that's powerful enough to lift a man in the air, but that also makes burns a constant threat.
Once aloft, a jetpack pilot is preoccupied with getting down quickly: A typical pack holds about 10 gallons of fuel, only enough to fly for about half a minute. The Federal Aviation Administration doesn't regulate jetpacks. "Thirty seconds is not sufficient to be considered a flight," says FAA spokesman Les Dorr. He adds that it's up to the individual to assess the risks.

Crashes Happen

Crashes are inevitable, although there are no reports of any jetpack pilot being killed or even permanently injured. One longtime pilot, Eric Scott, says he has blown out his knees four times in landing mishaps. Mr. Scott is a pilot for JetPack International LLC, a Denver company that flies at events. He says he has made about 800 flights since 1992.
Once, Mr. Scott accidentally flipped while 35 feet in the air. "Rockets go a lot faster down than they do up," he says of the crash that followed. Mr. Scott says that for insurance reasons he told the doctor he fell off of a friend's roof; he needed shoulder reconstruction surgery. The misadventures, however, didn't deter him from flying his pack across Colorado's Royal Gorge, a 1,500-foot flight last November.

View Full Image

William Suitor

Bill Suitor inspired many jetpack enthusiasts.

A tiny group of jetpack enthusiasts have kept the flames burning since the military abandoned its packs in the 1960s. Many were inspired by one of the original Bell test pilots named Bill Suitor, who flew Mr. Tyler's pack at the opening ceremonies of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, landing amid a sea of giant balloons in front of an estimated TV audience of 2.5 billion people.
That sight is what inspired Stuart Ross to design a jetpack and, 25 years later, plan to fly it untethered. Like most would-be pilots, Mr. Ross first taught himself to fly with a steel cable anchored to the ground to keep himself from going too high. Mr. Ross, a commercial airline pilot for the United Kingdom's Thomson Airways , says he has made about 45 tethered flights over the past several years and is finally ready "to say hello to the open sky."
"You have to be slightly eccentric to do something like this," Mr. Ross says.

'Irresistible Rush'

Experienced jetpack pilots say the lure is irresistible. There's nothing like the rush of flying one of the machines, says Mr. Suitor, the 1984 Olympics pilot. "There's noise, there's heat, something is pushing you and all you have is these two handles in your hand," he says. "It's mental overload."
Mr. Suitor, a retired power-plant worker from Youngstown, N.Y., says he has logged more than 1,200 jetpack flights since the 1960s. The original military contract for the contraption called for a pilot of draft age with no aviation experience. Mr. Suitor, who was the next-door neighbor of the engineer in charge of the project, got the job.
He says his first flights were terrible and that it took him 60 tethered attempts to get the hang of it. Since then he has flown in the James Bond movie "Thunderball" and at the Super Bowl.

The 64-year-old Mr. Suitor now flies jetpacks under contract with Thunderbolt Aerosystems, a San Jose, Calif., start-up that hopes to popularize the packs. The company is the brainchild of Nino Amarena, who says his "dream is to be the Henry Ford of rocketeers." Mr. Amarena, who founded Thunderbolt in 1998, also based his design on the military pack from the 1960s. He sells jetpacks for $90,000, although that price will soon go up because he hasn't completed any sales and needs to cover his costs. He says he has collected deposits from a yet-to-be opened U.S. theme park and a handful of rich overseas buyers.
Mr. Amarena insists that buyers take a training class, which includes practice in a jetpack simulator he built. But he hasn't made any untethered flights himself because, he says, it is "dangerous." Mr. Suitor, the veteran pilot, agrees that the packs can be dangerous for self-taught pilots. "I say a prayer for them and hope they don't ruin it for the guys who know what they're doing," he says.
Still, when Mr. Suitor first test-flew Mr. Amarena's Thunderbolt R2G2 jetpack in October 2007, he didn't tell his wife about it until later. He says he is writing a book to teach readers how to build and fly their own packs. His jetpack guide, he says, will include a warning that the book "is not intended to encourage anyone to try to build one."
Write to Ben Worthen at ben.worthen@wsj.com




will-o'-the-wisp, phenomenon known also as ignis fatuus and
jack-o'-lantern. It is seen at night as a pale, flickering light over
marshland. There is no generally accepted explanation for it; it may
result from the spontaneous ignition of gases (e.g., methane) produced
by the disintegration of dead plant or animal matter, or it may be a
form of phosphorescence. The eerie lights have given rise to many
superstitions.

The noun will-o'-the-wisp has 2 meanings:

Meaning #1: a pale light sometimes seen at night over marshy ground
Synonyms: friar's lantern, ignis fatuus, jack-o'-lantern


Meaning #2: an illusion that misleads
Synonym: ignis fatuus

That isolation allowed von Thunen to spens prodigious energies on the
attempt to discover the formula for a God-given fair wage, a
will-of-the-wisp that he asked to have engraved on his tombstone
(square root (ap)).
George J Stigler pp.86-7


這種孤立讓馮屠能耗去甚多寶貴精力去發現所謂由上帝賜予之公平工資的計算公式
頁140