If..Else Log

This morning, I was awakened to a familiar smell. I wasn't exactly sure what it was but the aroma was certainly something which I remember. However, despite it being quite pungent and the lure of sleep was too tempting. So I ignored it and nodded back off.

About an hour and a half later, I woke up and the aroma was still there and if anything, perhaps more pungent. I made a quick mental note of what it could be. I had the place to myself this weekend so it can't be someone else cooking food. I had left the computer on but it doesn't seem to be overheating or anything. Could it be something outside? Quite certainly but there was nothing that I could see of notice.

Still thinking on what it could be, I opened the kitchen door to get a glass of juice and olfactory system was immediately hit by a wave of smell. But I was by myself, and I didn't cook anything at home last night. And then I saw it.

There was a pot of soup/broth which still had a gentle flame going on underneath. This must have been heating up for the last 2 days. I quickly switched off the heat, grabbed a couple of cloths and lifted the pot off the stove. Looking inside, the soup had all vapourised and the constituent meat and vegetables were all blackened and burnt. The bottom of the pot now resembled something from the black lagoon. I mean, should man ever run out of tar, then there'd be no need to worry for I'd discovered the recipe. If only I hadn't left my camera at my parent's place, you'd be able to see the mess it made of the pot.

Damn

48 hours. That's how long it had been cooking. Enough time for a whole chef's pot of liquid to evaporate. I was lucky.

I was lucky that the place didn't burn down. I was lucky that it was soup cooking. I was lucky it was a large chef's pot and on a low heat. I was lucky that I got to it in time.

I even felt lucky that had I not, that I was the only one in the house.

Usually, I share the place with my brother; the rule is that the last person stepping out the house does a sweep to make sure all the usual culprits are checked off. Water, check. Windows, check. Cooker, check. I'd delegated this to my brother and he'd say, yes, it was good before he left. When I came back, I'd assumed that since I hadn't touched any of the offending items, that, yes, it was ok.

It wasn't. But I was fortunate this time. A lesson learned. Thankfully, the cost of the lesson wasn't too high.

I wrote a short post earlier today regarding names and I thought that this would be an interesting topic to delve into and talk about.

A rose by any other name

"Names are easy to understand, right? Forename, Surname; what's so difficult about that? OK, so sometimes, there's a middle name in there but that's about it, right?"

The fun starts when you consider that there are a variety of cultural naming conventions. Lets start with the basic western naming construct.

Personal Name, Family Name

The dominance of English as the dominant form of communication has also indirectly meant that the above construct is familiar to most. However, looking beyond the anglicised form, it's easy to see various divergances. Firstly, in China and other eastern countries, the order would generally be family name, given name¹ i.e. Ly Phu Cuong, Wong Fei Hong.

Even the two phased construct isn't a given as the Arabic system follows a more sophisticated naming in which an individual would be addressed as a chain of names². An example of such would be Osama bin Laden; an expanded form of his name would be Usamah bin Muhammad bin Awad bin Ladin. This would allow you to trace back an individuals family history; the bin (also spelt as ibn) means 'son of'. Hence you can, for example, work out that he's the son of Muhammad Awad bin Ladin. A similar construct is also used countries in Irish speaking countries e.g. John Michael Patrick Reilly; John son of Michael son of Patrick Reilly.

Family Name

"So, maybe I was a bit hasty there but at least I can't go wrong with saying that everyone has a Family Name, right?"

Well, step back a couple of years and you'd be wrong. Until 2004, most people in Mongolia were identified strictly on a firstname basis. This lead to a lot of confusion and severely pushed back many forms of census analysis. Upon attaining power, the communist goverment had abolished the use and record of family name, fearing that tribal loyalty would provide a power challenge.

The results of the 2004 election swung the seat of power away from the communist party and one of the more progressive legislations was to reinstigate the use of Family Names.³

Moving westwards, Russian surnames generally differ depending on the individual's gender; compare Boris Yeltsin with his wife, Naina Yeltsina. The use of grammatical gender is repeated across many other Eastern Slavic countries, though often each with their own regional variations; for example, whilst Russian names generally end with the masculine ov or the feminine ova, the suffix enko is generally restricted to Ukraine.

In Iceland, the last name is usually a patrynomic. I'll talk a bit more about what patronymic are in the next section.

The etymology of family names.

Before we move on, lets have a look at the etymology of family names. With English names, the derivation of the name can be broadly sorted into five categories:

• Occupation (Baker, Smith),
• Descriptive (Brown, Young),
• Location/Geographic feature (Hill, Rivers),
• Aspiring trait/expression (Hope, Goodspeed)
• and Ancestry.

Ancestry is an interesting one; generally, this would take the form of a Patronymic. A patronymic is component based on the name of one's father; for example, thtere is Richardson (son of Richard), and Wilson (son of William). Patronym are a popular cultural construct and arise all over the world. In Netherlands, you'd have Pietersen; in Iceland, you'd have Karlsson. There are patronymic such as di Marco (son of Mark) in Italy, and the Hiberno-Norman prefix fitz manifests itself in FitzGerald and Fitzroy⁴. Mac, the common surname prefix is also a patronymic (Mac being gaellic for son of).

In East Slavic countries, the patronymic would generally be used as the 'middle name'; for example, Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, who is the son of Sergey.

The other form of derivation through ancestry is the direct use of an ancestors name as the surname. For example, the Chinese family name of Yuan is believed to be descended from Yuan Taotu's use of his grandfather's name, Boyuan, as his surname.

Given name

"OK, you've beaten me over the head with your talk of family names. But I bet you can't do the same with first names. I mean, people just choose a name for their kid that they think sounds nice."

Popular opinion does have a big impact on the choice of first names. Names fall in and out of favour as time goes by. The big screen often plays a large role with many children being named after the current big star. For example, in recent times, names such as Keira and Leo rose up the charts; even Prime Ministers aren't immune.

The choice of name for a child is rarely an easy one. Chinese names are often chosen by consulting other family members (esp. Paternal Grandparents) and with extensive research. An interesting aside is that many Chinese also take up a western name as well e.g. Tony Leung Chiu Wai. I use my Chinese name as my forename (there's an interesting aside which I'll talk about later) whilst my kid brother uses his western name Michael as his forename.

The etymology of given names

"What, etymology again?!?"

OK, I'll try to be brief but personally, I find this interesting. However, we cannot reasonably summarise or encapsulate this in a tiny paragraph⁵, so I'll just give a quick introduction to this.

The popularity of many names stem from their roots in Religious texts; Michael (Hebrew, Old Testament), Muhammad (Arabic, Qur'an), Luke (Latin, New Testament). The origins of the words however, are often found everyday language. Many names derive from desirable titles or properties such as Sophia (Sofia, Wisdom). This can sometimes be in the form of multiple words or expressions such as Alexander ("Protector of men": Alex, protect; Andros, men) or Albert (Bright nobility). The decision to name the child in this manner was, perhaps, an attempt to shape the life of the child; that is, via a name, the child would be bound to a virtue or destiny. The other reason, which follows on from this, is that a name can provide legitimacy or purpose. There are certainly names that derive from titles/occupation such as Sarah (Sara, Princess) or George (Georgios, farmer).

Another popular source of names are Objects; for example, we have Peter (Petra, rock) or Steven (Stephanos, Crown). Another common example of such is in the popularity of flowers as female names e.g. Lily. Other origins include Locations e.g. Britney (Brittany) and Paris or Weather e.g. Fong (Cloud).

Another interesting thing to note about names is how they can evolve so as to jump across barriers. For example, the popular name Michael can be seen in other forms as Mikel, Mikael, Miguel as well as in the feminine name Michelle. There are always transliterations, of course. My western name is a romanisation of my Chinese name. This also works the other way, and often with humourous consequence; for example, Charlie would be transcribed as Tea Pot (Char Lae).

Middle Names

"That's the unimportant part of your name, isn't it?"

Not always so. We've spoken about the use of patronymic⁶ but in Chinese names, the 'middle name'⁷ is often a generation name. As far as I can tell, there's no analog to this in Western languages. The generation name, is as the term suggests, a name shared by all those in the same generation. For example, all my brothers share the same generation name⁸. The generation name is usually derived from a family's generation poem⁹.

My name

OK, enough. Let's wrap this up with your name?

Everyone knows me as Phu; using the western convention of Forename, Family name, it's Phu Ly. No surprises there; it's emblazoned all over my site.

In Chinese, I'd announce myself using the eastern system of Family name, Generation name, Given name as Ly Phu Cuong (pronounced Li Fu Keung). Phu means 'fortune' or 'prosperity' in chinese; Cuong means 'Strong' or 'Strength'. The transliteration of my name chosen by my Grandfather gives it a Vietnamese slant (which is not surprising as my Grandfather worked in Vietnam and is fluent in Vietnamese).

A rose by any other name

Since, in Chinese, my given name is Cuong, why Phu as my forename¹⁰? Well, I've already given away the answer. If you write my name in the eastern style, it'd be Ly Phu Cuong. Ly's my family name so Phu-Cuong must be my given name. And what happens when you write that on a form? Cuong is abstracted away as the middle name (as per western convention).¹¹

My family all call me Cuong (pronounced Keung) and when I speak Chinese, that's the name I give. However, in English, I'm Phu and that's the name I use in public.

Wrapping things up

So, this was a brief walk into the world of names. What's your name? How was it chosen? Do you have any information on the origin of your name or any interesting rules/information of your own? Feel free to add a comment:)

1. I'll use given name to denote what is commonly thought of as the forename/personal name so as to avoid confusion. [back]
2. Though as is the case with Eastern naming conventions, for practical purposes, a westernised naming convention is now commonly followed [back]
3. Rather ironically, the (perhaps predictable) dominance use of Borjigin, Genghis Khan's tribal name, mitigates some of the advantages of this new law. [back]
4. An interesting aside; Fitzroy would mean King's son and would be used by an acknowledged Royal bastard. [back]
5. Actually, the same applies with this whole entry in general [back]
6. This can informally manifest itself in Western culture by the choice of the Father's name as the middle name [back]
7. I hesistate when using this terms as the order often depends on the cultural convention as discussed above. [back]
8. I chose these words carefully; read on. [back]
9. I have a different generation name to my brothers because of an accident; the wrong generation name was picked in my case; an off-by-one error:) [back]
10. It's everywhere; all my official documents use Phu as my forename [back]
11. Yes, a bit of a cockup. But I've learnt to live with it:) [back]

Like many others, I'm a bit fan of Spybot Search and destroy. It's usually high up on the list of things to install on a new PC. So naturally, I'm disappointed to see Symantec try to throw it's huge weight and damage such a trusted product. Like Podz, I know who'd I trust more.

Dave Seah¹ tries his best to convince people that he did not write the Zen of CSS Design.

My name is…

I especially empathise with the section on surname pronounciation. My surname is Chinese and, as with Dave, through the process of roman transliteration, some linguistic information has been lost along the way as you try to do a 'best fit'. In the case of my surname, Ly, it's pronounced with an e' sound i.e. closer to 'Lee' than 'Lie'. The reason it has been spelt that way is because with Chinese, small intonations result in different words². Hence, Ly was the best judged match which would also allow some differentiation from Le, Li and Lee etc…

I'm generally quite pragmatic and I've accepted that people will read it as 'Lie'; sometimes, in the interest of getting things done, I pronounce it as such over the phone just so as to speed things up. However, you'll earn yourself gratitude points if you get the pronounciation right:)

In addition, my first name, Phu, is pronounced Foo³. Fortunately, most people get this right but I've been called Poo and Pe'Hoo before in the past.

A slight digression

There's an episode on Friends where one of the guys that Chandler works with, calls him by a different name. Chandler doesn't correct him as it wasn't worth the hassle especially as they don't work together. However, when the guy applies for a position on his floor, problems begin…

I actually had a similar thing happen to me in Uni. There was a guy who would think that my first name was Lee⁴. The only times we'd meet were really just the occasional bumping into each other in the corridor so I didn't bother raising the issue. However, we ended up having a class together which made things a bit more awkward. Somehow, I managed to make it through the whole semester without anyone the wiser… I'm awful, I know.

1. Note the surname [back]
2. analagous to the homonyms that exist in English language such as accept and except [back]
3. Notice the programming parallel. I was born to be a geek:) [back]
4. Ironically, in Chinese, you'd name a person in the following manner: Family name, Generational Name, Forename instead of the western convention of Forename, Middle Name, Family Name. So I'd be Ly Phu Cuong (Yes, Cuong is actually my forename in Chinese; it's all a bit of muddle:-)). [back]

The annual "Innovations of the Year" Top Ten list for 2005 have been announced. Notable entries include:

• Self-cooling cups of tea and coffee ¹
• A food addictive designed for the elderly which when mixed with foods, converts it into an easy-to-swallow jelly without altering flavours or colours.
• Dave's Gourmet Adjustable Heat Hot Sauce which allows diners to adjust the spiciness of the sauce by simply turning the a cap that controls the hot-sauce mix of two separate halves of the bottle
• Auto Smolka Natural Chewing Gum, a lexible, sugar-free gum that not only fights cavities, freshens breath and whitens teeth but also decreases the desire to smoke and revives the body from the effects of breathing engine exhaust fumes.
• Ketchup au Fromage, a cheese and ketchup combination that is ideal for kids to put on burgers, salads, sandwiches and pizzas².

1. flip the drink over and press the bottom of the cup to activate the chilling system [back]
2. Actually, this sounds quite nasty [back]

BBC News:

A US man who threw a mouse onto a pile of burning leaves could only watch in horror as it ran into his house and set the building ablaze.
…
Luciano Mares found the mouse in his home and wanted to get rid of it. "I had some leaves burning outside, so I threw it in the fire, and the mouse was on fire and ran back at the house"

I guess you shouldn't mess with the little guy…

Patrick Breitenbach of werbeblogger.de has found himself receiving a series of "cease and desist" mails from Guenther Klum, father of the model Heidi.

The name "Heidi Klum" is protected by law (r) and TM. I’m asking you to delete the name from your URL and desist from using the name "Heidi Klum" for advertising purposes.

Andrea Weckerle and Timo Kissing have a good writeup on the situation.

Wong Kar Wai, one of my favourite directors, has been named president of the jury for this year's Cannes film festival.

The Shanghai-born director has long had a warm reception at Cannes - his Happy Together won him the best director award at the 1997 festival, In the Mood for Love was nominated for the Palme d'Or in 2000 and 2046 was hailed by critics as a "sublime exploration of inner time" at the festival two years ago.

"Each city has its own language. In Cannes, it is the language of dreams. Yet it is difficult to judge one's dream, much less compare it to another. There is an old Chinese saying, 'one can never expect the wind, but should always keep one's window open'," said Wong in a statement.

The 59th Cannes film festival will take place between May 17 and 28.

Mark Russinovich ¹has a good write up on the sleazy practices of some anti-spyware products including Spyware Cleaner, Spyware Stormer and SpySheriff. SpySheriff, in particular, appears to be as bad as (and probably worse than) the problems it purports to fix by the way it almost acts as malware itself.

Spywareinfo also has a list of of rogue anti-spyware products.

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"² Glad we have some people keeping an eye out to help protect us from these so-called helpers…

1. Developer of useful windows apps such as Process Explorer but now probably best known for his work in investigating and exposing the Sony DRM rootkit saga [back]
2. Who guards the guards? When anti-spyware products are worse than the stuff they defend against, what are non-techy users to do? [back]

I've got invites for the Newsvine beta for the first 20 people to respond to this post. If you don't know what Newsvine is, you can read up about it on Mike Davidson's blog but think of it as a News portal mixed with Digg, del.icio.us and comment moderation.

It's a great place to stay abreast of news that you may find interesting as well as add your own voice back to the news flow. Leave a comment to this post if you want to try it out (and of course, grab your seat early).