Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Maglev Train in Shanghai
The world’s only operational Maglev train runs between Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport and the city. Here are the tracks.
Train arriving at the station.
Waiting to leave. The trip takes 8 minutes.
256 km/hour
Maximum warp: 301 km/hr.
Shanghai 8
The gangster’s limo from the film, Shanghai Triad. I saw this movie in Miami in the 1990’s. Little did I know…
Shanghai 7
To avoid accidents with pedestrians and smooth the flow of traffic there are elevated walkways (with escalators) at several intersections in Pudong. The red building on the right is a shopping mall.
Arabic Looking Over my Shoulder
Lawyers love to define terms at the beginning of a contract, and then identify the definitions with capital letters as if they were proper nouns. So you might see a contract which defines “Annual Management Plan” as a management plan which is created or modified on an annual basis. I question the need for specially defining terms which have a well-understood meaning. Even in the case of a term which needs definition, the problem in the legal environment in the Gulf is that the contract has to be translated into Arabic. The English language text will specify that the Arabic language version is controlling in accordance with Saudi law. So while in the English version, the term “Major Maintenance Agreement” will use initial capital letters in all subsequent appearances of the term, doing so in Arabic is impossible. Arabic has no capital letters. As a solution I suggested using a bold Arabic font, but the translators were apoplectic. No matter, I got back at them: while the Arabic version is controlling, I included a provision that says that in case of any discrepancy between the Arabic and English versions, the English version shall be used as a guide to interpret the Arabic version.
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