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Post by Pacmanite on Aug 18, 2011 7:20:45 GMT -5
Ehh... I thought more about this. If the bugs could be farmed responsibly in large quantities, I think that's all a good idea. Because otherwise eating wild-caught bugs runs the same sort of ethics risk as eating non-farmed fish when the ocean is getting more and more overfished.
That said, I love eating fish, especially tuna, so I'd be a hypocrite to say I wouldn't eat wild caught bugs for the ethical reasons.
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Post by Pacmanite on Aug 17, 2011 21:33:36 GMT -5
I watched a program about how, in certain parts of South-East Asia, bug-eating and the bug food market is becoming increasingly popular as a roadside snack. But it makes me worried seeing how the bugs are caught - there's this cricket species which lives in burrows underground, and you catch it by digging through the hard soil with a farming hoe. Most of the time the bug dies because it gets chopped in half or squished or something, so the guy who found it can't sell it on the market because the market only takes live bugs. He has to kill a lot of bugs before he can get some he can actually sell.
Granted, all the bugs he killed will be cooked up for his family to eat on the same day, so the food is not wasted, but it begs the question of whether we need so much of these bugs that the guy who also owns a farm and can feed his family through farming should go out of his way to kill tons of wild bugs which would also probably benefit the soil culture of his farm. The wild populations of these crickets have gone down quite significantly as a result of market demand and good prices. And I think it's good that the farmers have another way of getting more cash flow for their household. But... the only problem I have with this practice is whether, in the long run, it will be detrimental to the soils of the farms. Whether it will degrade the environment and harm the farm's ability to sustainably produce food.
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Post by Pacmanite on Aug 17, 2011 9:29:15 GMT -5
Azzie, I'll be sure to pray for your aunt Susan. And I'll keep your friend and her mum and her family in my prayers, Makimia. =)
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Post by Pacmanite on Aug 15, 2011 10:45:51 GMT -5
I consider myself a rather lucky person in that I have not experienced bullying. I can maybe recall one or two times my peers were intentionally mean to me... (the earliest I can remember was two kids telling me I couldn't draw) but the instigators of those isolated incidents never repeated their meanness a second time. By coincidence I was already moving school or I just happened to never cross paths with the mean one again or the teacher told them off or whatever. I certainly do not have any memories of extended periods of time when I was made to feel bullied, worthless, pushed around or targeted.
And, um. I think I developed a well rounded and balanced character, if I may say so myself. I love my family and friends, and I understand that people can be mean sometimes and not to let their meanness sink in. I didn't learn this from the experience of bullying because I am not familiar with bullying. I learned this from meeting and knowing people. Not from the trauma of being bullied.
I also think that schools are capable of doing a lot of things to combat bullying. I went to an international school in Singapore, then to an Australian private school for primary and another private school for secondary. Maybe I have a distorted view, or maybe I only hung out with the good crowd, but through pretty much all my school career I never saw any of my peers get bullied either. Importantly, both the private schools I went to had a blatant zero-tolerance policy towards bullying. As a kid, I could always see big colourful posters on the walls saying, "WE HAVE A ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY TOWARDS BULLYING" with instructions on what to do, how to act, who to talk to if you are bullied or see someone bullied. And every so often there would be classes (Personal Development, I think) devoted to the subject of bullying, we'd do role playing, watch short films about how to stand up to bullies, have open discussions etc.
So I don't think that schools are entirely helpless to stop bullying. Maybe schools can't stop kids from being intentionally or unintentionally mean, at certain times. But bullying and making a target of a particular individual and harassing them over the course of a term or a year, is in my opinion preventable. It just requires there to be a culture where bullying is not acceptable, which is reinforced by regular education on the subject and upheld by the attitudes of the teachers, parents and kids.
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Post by Pacmanite on Aug 7, 2011 10:02:52 GMT -5
That job offer sounds really wonderful, Komori. =) I will pray that the Lord may reward all the constant hard work you put in developing your art skills and that He will grant you a job which allows those skills to shine for the whole world to see.
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Post by Pacmanite on Aug 5, 2011 9:08:08 GMT -5
I'll be sure to keep you in my prayers, Alyssa.  Stay strong and know that wherever you are and however you feel, the Lord is watching over you with care. |
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Post by Pacmanite on Jul 27, 2011 8:52:18 GMT -5
I'm not American either but this crisis is one of the things that has been pushing the Australian dollar to terrifying heights. ($1 AD = $1.1 USD, anyone? Just a few years ago it was half that.) And the bloated Aussie Dollar has been bad for the domestic retail, because everyone wants to buy their stuff for cheaper on the internet and just have it shipped over. You can see the local stores going out of business in front of your eyes, and even the big retail chains are badly hurt. (As it happens, my casual job is one in the retail sector.)
But of course, I'm sure that the debt crisis is much more painful for the US. I hope for your sakes that the government can pull their act together. =/
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Post by Pacmanite on Jul 27, 2011 8:27:25 GMT -5
I'm not very much into buying my clothes online, but if I saw a cute accessory I might be tempted to get one of them. =D Toys... well, I don't play with stuffed toys anymore nor do I own a collection. So that part wouldn't interest me. As for artwork, would you sell the physical object like a canvas panel or prints, or do a commission? If I really liked the concept, and if I had an empty wall that was screaming for artwork, I could consider buying a print from an online store. (But at present I don't own my own house and all my walls are already covered in art.) I might consider commissioning an artwork if slots were open and I could think of a good subject for the artist to do.
The main barrier that would prevent me buying from any particular online store would be the shipping cost and waiting time - living in Australia means that stuff from anywhere in the world takes forever to reach here, and the postal system is pretty bad. So, although the Australian dollar is incredibly strong, I tend to only buy stuff online that really grabs me and is a sort of must-have item (like Lackadaisy, Volume 1, because I love Lackadaisy comics so much and the book is so awesome). And if I can get a similar product by walking down my street, then I'd rather do that and get to enjoy it instantly.
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Post by Pacmanite on Jul 26, 2011 9:17:43 GMT -5
Have an awesome happy birthday, Sae! Take time to relax and enjoy it, I hope you have a very special time.  |
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Post by Pacmanite on Jul 26, 2011 9:11:06 GMT -5
Yay, thanks for all the congratulations! And thanks for sticking around, everyone. Even if you were just lurking, I had a feeling that at least someone would be reading this, and I don't think I would have quite had the stamina to keep on translating the whole thing if it weren't for you guys. I don't think I explained it right, but I can definitely feel the difference between showing my creation stage by stage to friends like you, versus working in the dark by myself all alone. You motivate me, NTWF! And Nimmy, thanks for the heads up, but I found the book in my university library today! So I was able to read through a professional translation of the letter. I had my nose buried in the book even as I was just pulling it off the shelf, I was so excited. The words sounded very familiar, so that was a good sign. I can sort of estimate that I got about 85-90% of it right, but there were a few sentences I stuffed up. Maybe when I get the time I'll break out a red pen and give my translation a proper correction. <3 This was a really good experience for me personally, because for a while with my uni Latin work I've been able to "cheat" easily and flip over to an English translation any time I had trouble translating a sentence. Now I know my translation of Ratramnus isn't perfect but it's still really satisfying to know that I got the most of it correct without consulting another person's translation, and just plowing through it. I'm so pumped for this new semester's Latin class now. ;D |
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Post by Pacmanite on Jul 24, 2011 9:43:13 GMT -5
FINISHED! ;D ---------------------------------- Haec sunt quae de Cenocephalis arbitror sentienda. Caeterum an et aliis sic sentire placuerit, an e diverso, non erit nostri judicii.
“This is what I think about the sentience of the Cynocephali. Besides, whether you find it agreeable to think about them this way, or if you differ in opinion, that is not for us to judge. This point marks the end of what Ratramnus says about the Dog-Headed people. With a sign of humility and perhaps caution, he notes that what he extrapolated about the Cynocephali is, after all, mostly his opinion, and Rimbert is welcome to disagree.
I took “aliis” to mean “some things”, which I then assumed would be the things he said about the Cynocephali. It’s hard to make grammatical sense out of “an e diverso”, but it seems like an idiom that means “or if you differ [in your opinion]”. De libro vero beati Clementis quod interrogastis, non inter doctos viros plenae auctoritatis habetur, quamvis non usquequaque repudietur.
“Certainly, in regards to what you had asked about the book of Saint Clement, learned men do not consider it completely authoritative, although it is not always rejected. There are several Saint Clements, and I’m not totally sure which one Ratramnus is talking about. But it seems the only ones that would be famous writers by his time would be Clement of Rome and Clement of Alexandria. I think that if he’s talking about Clement of Rome, the only genuine extant work by that man is known to be a letter, not a book. So he could be questioning the authorship of a book that has been attributed to the Roman St. Clement. With “non... habetur,” I turned the passive sense of “it is not considered to be of full authority among the learned men” into an active construct. Leguntur enim quaedam in illo nostro, id est ecclesiastico, dogmati non usquequaque respondentia.
“For certain things are read in that [book] of ours, which support a dogma that does not always correspond with the one held by our church. Very shaky sentence there. And the suddenly common use of “usquequaque” just makes me imagine he’s imitating a duck or something.
“Leguntur enim quaedam in illo nostro” = “For certain things are read in that of ours,”
“id est ecclesiastico” = “it is with our church/that which is of our church,” (this is the shaky bit, because “id” usually doesn’t have the latter demonstrative sense in Classical Latin)
“dogmati non usquequaque respondentia” = “things corresponding not always to the dogma.”
Hmm. I think I got it in my translation. Verum quae de gestis Pauli apostoli scribuntur in illo, recipiuntur, at pote nihil quod doctrinae Christianae vel contradicat vel repugnet, continente.
“But actually, the things written in there about the accomplishments of Paul the Apostle are accepted, and it contains nothing that would possibly oppose or contradict the doctrine of Christ. So I suppose this book is not part of the canon or fully embraced by the church, but it’s worth keeping for what it says. Don’t get too tied up about it, Rimbert.
I had trouble reasoning out why “continente” (lit. “with it containing...”) is in that form. It’s a participle in the ablative case... so I guess that would probably make this into an ablative of attendant circumstance or something. Still seems a bit weird. Why wouldn’t you just say “and the book contains” instead of “with the book containing”. Valere beatitudinem vestram semper in Christo gaudemus, et ut memor sis nostri deprecamur.
“Let us be glad to bid you farewell and happiness in Christ always, and we pray that you may keep us in mind.” Ratramnus ends his letter with a formal goodbye. I translated “memor... nostri” (lit. “mindful of us”) as “keep us in mind”, but “remember us” would fit as well. ---------------------------------- Yay! That's the end! This was a really fun piece of Latin to translate. I'm not sure if I could have sustained my enthusiasm for it if it wasn't such an interesting and amusing topic. And the Dog-Headed letter has become a good talking point for dinner parties and such. So awesome. <3 What intrigues me about Ratramnus is how he writes so rationally about a subject that seems so irrational by nature - legendary people who have dog heads and bark. But the way he reasons it out is very insightful, and I've ended up quite liking this guy Ratramnus. He treats these "monsters" with uncommon dignity. And I really like the way he thinks. His writing style admittedly isn't something too flashy. I've lost count of how many times he's said "vero" or "verum", (both of which mean "indeed", "actually", "truly", "in fact", "surely" etc.), and it irritates me that I have to find tons of synonyms for his overused words to make my prose sound good when he only bothered to randomly alternate two forms of essentially the same word. But then again, I did hear that this tendency to fall back on, "well, in fact" in this letter is symptomatic of how unsure he is about the veracity of his sources. I think he does sound a bit insecure. But in all fairness it does seem like he just wrote this letter rather quickly as he was thinking about it. Earlier on he defined the key question as "Are the Cynocephali descended from Adam or from beasts?", but then as he thought about all the mindless monsters and even animals who were also descended from people, he refined the question to that of: "Are the Cynocephali rational and sensible people?" which, for him, would carry a lot more significance because in his mind the only difference between humans and beasts is in terms of sentience. This was a very strange and very satisfying piece of Latin to work with. It makes me want to find an actual published English translation of it so I can compare how well I fared and maybe give the whole thing another edit. I know there's a translation in "Carolingian civilization: a reader", but that book's selling for $36 on Amazon and I don't really want to buy the book for just the one chapter on Ratramnus. Maybe I'll be able to find it in my libraries or something. Until then, I hope you enjoyed reading along with Ratramnus and his modest, law-abiding, intelligent Dog-Headed people. |
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Post by Pacmanite on Jul 24, 2011 7:08:26 GMT -5
Remember the pillow page where you can type stuff on it and it doesn't do anything else?Bam! Suddenly it got like a thousand page hits in one day! ;D And I don't think this is the first time it's happened, either. I like that page. I made it at least three years ago and barely updated it at all. And then I just left it alone, I didn't even advertise it or anything. But I still keep getting comments about it all the time, and it seems so well-liked even though it's the most minimalistic petpage I ever made. It makes me so happy knowing that the page only lives on its own viral momentum. <3 I like it so much that so many people are still finding and liking it and telling each other about it, completely without my meddling or prompting. =D The spike even gave my other petpages a sudden surge of hits as well. I love it.
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Post by Pacmanite on Jul 23, 2011 9:23:40 GMT -5
My rough draft has reached the end! And my more polished version is very nearly finished, only about five sentences to go. =D =D Which is good because my uni will be starting up again soon. -------------------------------------- Accedit ad haec, quod scripta vestra testantur, domesticorum omne genus animalium, quae nostris in regionibus habentur, apud illos haberi. Hoc vero fieri posse, si bestialem et non rationalem animam haberent, nequaquam video.
“In addition, your letter shows that all the kinds of domestic animals which are owned in our districts are kept among those [Cynocephali]. Truly, if they had a beastly and irrational mind, I see no way that they could do this. “Hoc fieri posse... nequaquam video” = (lit.) “I see this by no means able to happen” ==> “I see no way that they could do this.”
For some reason, I get chills when I try to imagine the Cynocephali owning dogs as pets. I don’t entirely know why... Siquidem homini animalia terrae fuisse divinitus subjecta, Geneseos lectione cognoscimus.
“If in fact the animals of the earth have been subordinated under people by divine will, we should know this from reading Genesis. Not much to say except I think “cognoscimus” is a Jussive subjunctive, “we must know/we ought to understand...” Ut vero bestiae alterius a se generis animantia, et maxime domestici generis, curent, et eis diligentiam adhibeant, suisque cogant imperiis subjacere et usibus parere, sicut nec auditum, ita nec creditum cognoscitur.
“Indeed, since [the Cynocephali] take care of other kinds of beasts living with themselves, especially of the domesticated kind, and since they treat them with carefulness, and herd them with commands, in order to master and prepare them for use, we wouldn’t know this was heard if it was not accordingly believed as such. “animantia” has to be a present participle of “animare” but that word only seems to mean “animate, encourage, fill with life”... but “a se animantia” only seems to make sense in the sentence if it means “living with themselves”.
“sicut nec auditum [esse], ita nec creditum [esse] cognoscitur” – literally, “just as it is not known to be heard, it is accordingly not known to be believed” (I later flipped the passive of “it is known” around to be an active “we know”). Ratramnus is careful since he has to rely on rumours about these people, so while he will not commit to saying that this picture is completely accurate, the stance he takes on Cynocephalic behaviour is that “if there’s smoke, there’s probably fire”. At vero Cenocephali, cum domesticorum animalium dicuntur habere multitudinem, eis minime convenit bestialis feritas, quorum animalia domestica lenitate mansuerunt.
“But surely, since the Cynocephali are said to keep a great number of domesticated animals, the wildness of beasts doesn’t seem fitting in the least for those who tamed their household animals with tenderness. “minime convenit” ==> lit. “it suits them not at all” ==> “doesn’t seem fitting in the least”... I could probably find a better phrasing for that, though. ---------------------------------------- In the next part, he spends about four sentences talking about a book written by Saint Clement which Rimbert was had some queries about, and then takes another sentence to sign himself off. ;D I am so close to finishing this. |
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Post by Pacmanite on Jul 23, 2011 8:46:22 GMT -5
I've heard of cats that look like hitler, but this is super cute! It's great that the cat found a good, quiet home. Now if there was a cat that looked like the phantom of the opera... Well you couldn't possibly find a cat that looks like Darth Vader. What have I missed? The Joker? xDD |
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Post by Pacmanite on Jul 20, 2011 9:47:28 GMT -5
To answer your question, Huntress, maybe we should consider that siblings raised in the same house can have radically different personalities? Then again, I guess one could form the argument that the parents treat their children differently depending on which one is the cute "little" one and which is the "responsible" elder, and this could feed into their personalities.
My tendency would be to think that yes, a kid could turn out radically different depending on who he/she grows up around, how much or how little attention he/she gets, and so forth. But if you swapped two babies around at birth, would the other child grow up to be completely identical to what the original child would otherwise have been if left in the same situation? I don't think so, but then again it's not like I could really observe both kids growing up in exactly the same placement.
It is a tough question to argue.
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Stay strong and know that wherever you are and however you feel, the Lord is watching over you with care.
