The Benefits of a Language Translator

There are more than 6000 recognized languages in the world, so you’re bound to come into contact with a language you don’t understand. But just because you don’t understand another language and the culture it represents doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have anything to offer you. If we want to be open-minded, educated individuals, it’s important to take into account other worldviews and perspectives. But since learning other languages can be difficult and time-consuming, especially after we’ve passed the learning threshold of our youth, we have handy language translators that can help us out.

A language translator can exist in a number of forms. Take the online translator for example. Babelfish is one of the most popular and well-known online translators. You can type in a word, phrase or sentence in one language, then select the option to translate that language into another. This is quite convenient if you’re sitting at home with an wifi connection and if you only need to translate a word or two. Unfortunately, a language translator like Babelfish gets easily confused if you try to translate too much text at once. Often it will lose some of the meaning or translate exactly word for word so that the ending translation sounds very awkward. Also, Babelfish is limited in which languages it can translate. If you’re looking to translate a more obscure dialect, chances are that Babelfish won’t have that option available for you.

Another option is a pocket language translator. These can be taken with you anywhere and are commonly used by people trying to learn English. These devices cost money, so you’ll get a lot better result than with online translators. These days, pocket language translators are very accurate and even include slang so that a person can learn to truly speak like a native rather than someone who has mechanically learned the language. These kinds of translators are most useful for someone who is trying to translate one language into another only. If you’re looking for multiple languages translated, few pocket translators will do that.

Finally, you can have a live person act as a translator for you. The advantage of this is that a person can get a better sense of what you’re asking for than a machine or computer can. The person can also converse with you and help you to really practice a new language first-hand. Unfortunately, you can’t carry a person around with you everywhere you go and sometimes even a person will have difficult translating for you. Not every language can be translated one-to-one into a different language: languages have their unique structures and meanings, and through translation sometimes meaning is unintentionally gained, or lost.

But all in all, a language translator can be a very useful asset to understanding other cultures and expanding your horizons. Every language has something to say, and people to speak it, and you can learn a lot when you speak through the tongue of another, as well as seeing through their eyes and walking in their shoes.

Microsoft's Oddball Trackball and other Discontinued Items we Clamor For

Do you really miss the products that you took for granted growing up? Sometimes, manufacturers seem to just pull products from production for no apparent reason. One wonders what their logic might be; you certainly love it, and you suspect that there are millions of people out there just like you. What kinds of discontinued items do you really long for? Let's look at a few popular choices.

Did you grow up with a Honda Civic Wagon in the household? For hundreds of thousands of American households that did, it was about the first station wagon from Japan that anyone saw. And they loved the Japanese production values in an American concept. The Honda Civic Wagon was cheap, reliable and a workhorse. The euphoria was short-lived though. When they took that away and replaced it was the Accord station wagon in the 90s, prices began to creep up. That wasn't what people wanted out of Japan at the time.

For thousands of couch potatoes, Kraft Foods made the ultimate gaffe when they pulled their blue-tinned Planters Cheez Balls off the shelves. Thousands have signed an online petition asking the company to bring them back. For now, you can only get them imported from Europe, available at some special locations.

There are some discontinued items that people have been really longing for decades. Do you remember commercials from the 70s that featured a villainous character called Quick Carl who seemed to have manic-depression for the way he did everything too quickly? Even he couldn't finish Marathon candy bars quickly. Those candy bars from Mars were huge 8 inch hunks of chocolate and caramel and they were lovely. The huge candy bars didn't sell that well though and they pulled the product. But not before they managed to rack up quite a cult following. Now, we want it back.

Perhaps the ultimate in fame among discontinued items belongs with the women's contraceptive, the Today Sponge. When the product's makers, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, decided to pull the product in 1994 because the FDA didn't approve of their manufacturing techniques, there was a huge outcry from women. It was adequately represented on Seinfeld where Elaine buys as much supply as possible and then refuses to sleep with any man who isn't worthy of the use of a sponge that she only has a limited supply of. Thankfully, another company has bought manufacturing rights from the original maker and it is now back on the shelves. Hopefully, Elaine's future boyfriends won't have any trouble.

People don't really find themselves missing products by Microsoft. For people who suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome though, Microsoft's Trackball Explorer was a super-convenient product. It came out in the year 2000 as an alternative to the regular mouse, and sold for $70. But as the regular mouse became overwhelmingly popular, Microsoft decided to drop the oddball trackball. Fans of the product though still clamor for it and pay hundreds of dollars for it on eBay. Perhaps it's about time they brought it back.

Religiously Speaking, is there such a thing as Good Plastic Surgery and Bad?

Here you are, three months after having given birth to twins, feeling special and motherly and grateful for every moment you are alive. Except for when you get to see the effect that the experience has had on your abdomen. What used to be a firm, flat, and admirable abdomen, is now definitely squishy. You do know that Hollywood actresses make a point of proving that they are still in the game after a baby by taking up projects that show a good bit of skin. You certainly don't have the stomach for that kind of an exercise regimen (or the cash for a personal trainer). And then it occurs to you - maybe those Hollywood actresses have recourse to more than just a good personal trainer. Maybe they have access to good plastic surgery as well. Couldn't you do that as well? How bad could a tummy tuck procedure be? Even Oprah says that cosmetic surgery is nothing that women should be guilty about.

What does religion have to say about plastic surgery though? Even in this day and age, with everyone seemingly in hot pursuit of a good plastic surgery practitioner, conscientious objectors do exist. And for good reason. If you happen to be religious, in general, religion doesn't take a wholly liberal view of plastic surgery. Spending thousands of dollars on vanity, altering one's God-given body, are all looked down upon by religious authorities (even if, understandably, the Scripture has nothing specific to say about plastic surgery).

If altering one's God-given body is where the problem is, one does wonder why the church doesn't have anything to say about coloring one's hair or putting on perfume. It could be because pursuing plastic surgery needs a lot more personal determination than coloring one's hair. You have to accept the risk of death - that's how intent on personal vanity you need to be to accept plastic surgery. Actually, a tummy tuck is supposed to be one of the most risky cosmetic procedures on Earth.

Major religions, Catholicism, Islam and Buddhism, seem to have a particularly nuanced view of cosmetic surgery. Basically, Islamic clerics are okay with good plastic surgery – which would mean surgery that helps a person gain back normal function. Surgery for mastectomy or surgery after a burn accident would make for good examples. As far as vanity surgery goes, the Catholic Church doesn't ban it. They leave it to one's personal sense of right or wrong. Buddhism, surprisingly, for a liberal religion, specifically terms it an offense. But they are completely okay with body piercings and tattoos.

Basically, the major American religions don't dismiss cosmetic surgery out of hand. While the major religions don't exactly approve of vanity, as with any other personal decision, you get quite a bit of leeway.

A New Drug for Acrophobia - the Fear of Heights

When you have a fear of flying, the experts don't actually treat you with medicines to help you. They expose you to the thing you fear in small and bearable installments. When it comes to a fear of heights, this kind of hair of the dog treatment is what has traditionally found favor. Exposing yourself to the thing feared in small and gradually escalated doses, as the psychologists see it, is what is supposed to help you overcome any irrational fear. People who suffer from any of these phobias, when they are put through these gradual courses of exposure often fervently wish that there were some kind of pill that they could just take and be done with it - instead of being forced to confront the thing they fear head on. As luck would have it, such a thing actually has come about now for those with the fear of heights.

The drug is a hormone that kind of helps the mind cope with a fear of heights. A person with a phobia, trying to go through a traditional behavioral modification course that exposes him to experiences of being at a height, is apparently greatly helped when he is given doses of a stress hormone called cortisol. When a person afflicted with an irrational fear of something is exposed to the source of his fear, his mind generally reacts by freezing. The stress hormone cortisol makes it difficult for the mind to shut down. It helps a person stay awake, alert, aware and in action.

About one in ten Americans suffer from one form of phobia or another; and one in three try cognitive behavioral therapy or some other form of treatment to help cope. The aim of the therapist in such a course of treatment, generally, is to help a phobic by getting them to think about the thing they fear in a different way. They want to train their brains to think about the object of their fears and see no more than what really is. Many clinics try to use virtual reality to make a treatment course more effective; they place the phobic patient in a virtual environment where they are faced with fleeting bits of exposure to the thing they fear. Since they know that the thing feared is virtual and not real, it helps them think and get a grip.

Acrophobics, people who suffer from a fear of heights, when they are placed in a virtual reality environment high up in the air an hour after they've been given shots of cortisol, are very clearly able to avoid the crushing fear and any need to leave the environment. They are able to stand there in spite of their fear and think about what they're doing. It speeds up the process of a cure considerably.

While work is still in progress on this, if you are seeing a doctor for your fear of heights, you should probably ask about his opinion on the use of cortisol.