User:Yakushima
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Name: Michael Turner
Location: Takadanobaba, a college district of Shinjuku, in Tokyo, close to the science and engineering campus of Waseda University.
Occupation: technical translator (J-E) and co-manager of a ryokan. I do some writing as well.
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[edit] Technical translation and its woes
As a translator, I mostly work on patents, but sometimes on technical manuals as well. My specialties reflect my erstwhile career in software engineering, with its concentration on CAD for VLSI, hardware diagnostics, electronic instrumentation, device drivers, embedded systems and firmware. I have always worked freelance. I got into technical translation by way of living in Japan and learning the language, but also by working as a proofreader, and technical rewriter. Increasingly, I'm interested in developing software tools to facilitate the patent translation process.
My main frustration in patent translation, aside from feeling that I lack the speed and skill required for some jobs, is that a great many patents lack originality. Or, as I put it rather acerbically sometimes, "My career goal is to always be working on patents for real inventions." Translating a good patent from Japanese involves a struggle with not only the source language, but with the idea. There should always be an "ah-ha!" moment that dimly echoes the inventor's, something in the idea that makes it non-obvious to "one skilled in the art." All too often, I struggle longer with an obvious "invention" than with a real one, not just because the vacuous patent is usually egregiously padded, but because I have to keep combing through all that padding to see if I've missed real innovation somehow. The work (when it's good) has a benefit besides pay: it's keeping me abreast of some frontiers of 21st century technology.
[edit] Hospitality: the brighter side of the coin
As co-manager of an inn, I am somewhat more 19th century Japan than 21st century anything. I help with greeting guests, giving them advice and directions, cleaning, repairs, etc.--tasks that haven't substantially changed in centuries. However, my main function is processing reservations, maintaining the schedule, and promoting the ryokan as cheap (and authentically Japanese) accommodations in the otherwise rather expensive (and overbearingly Westernized) city of Tokyo. So I suppose I'm more 21st century after all, even in what is otherwise a dying Edo period accommodations niche.
I find I rather like running a ryokan more than software development, and more than patent translation. It's not rocket science, but it has its satisfactions. A software project might run for months, then fail, leaving nobody involved very happy about the result. In patent translation, the clients often know that the idea documented is pretty vacuous, and that it will probably come to nothing. In this ryokan business, chiefly catering to foreign tourists, we're part of making people quickly feel reasonably happy for a little while: they get a room in a Japanese-style family home that makes them feel they are really in Japan, and that they really know somebody here. Being involved in budget travel brings in unusual (occasionally eccentric) guests, most of them on the younger side, from many countries, and that keeps it continuously interesting. We're a guest-house, but increasingly a friend-house.
[edit] Writing: an avocation and a mission
As a writer, I'm decidedly 21st century. Though I've written a few articles for the English language press in Japan about the IT industry, I've mostly written op-eds on space development for SpaceDaily.com, and one essay in The Space Review. I still follow such commentary closely, but have written much of it in a while.
I am currently working on a book: a history of the concept of the space gun (projectile launch from the Earth's surface) as a cheap alternative to rocket launch, at least for bulk materials and ruggedized equipment. This approach includes using conventional artillery-style propulsion to launch multistage rockets, but among the promising alternatives, there are also rail guns, coil guns, light gas guns, and (my personal favorite) ram accelerators. Space guns would have some nice features if they could be made to work, such as low-cost repeatability and a relatively high payload budget for the vehicle compared to its overall mass. If space tourism, and in particular the concept of space hotels, takes off over the next two decades, some space gun launch technology could be a significant contributor to space commercialization. I feel that working on the book is a service; even people with PhDs in aerospace engineering suffer from misconceptions about the concept, and the idea is more associated in the popular mind with Belle Epoque SF (Verne) and latterday sources of angst (weapons proliferation) than with space aspirations.
My researches on the book have so far taken me twice to Seattle, to look at the University of Washington Ram Accelerator lab and interview researchers there, and to McGill University in Montreal, for its significance in the history of Gerald Bull (of Project Babylon infamy) and also for the interrelations between University of Washington and Canadian researchers on gun launch and the relevant science and technology. The book mission has also taken me to some interesting space-oriented conferences.
[edit] Why I work on Wikipedia
I find working on Wikipedia satisfying and useful in several ways. It is an opportunity to hone my proofreading, writing, and rewriting skills, as well as my technical knowledge, while supplying useful information to everybody for free. The encyclopedia at your fingertips -- this an idea that occurred to me almost immediately when I first started programming computers over 30 years ago. Now it's happening and I can be a part of it.
At some point, I might also start translating Japanese articles for which there are currently no English equivalents, and perhaps clean up some J-E translations. This could help me stay in practice in the sometimes-long lulls between freelance translation jobs.
Perhaps it's only a side-effect, but I find that the concentration required for improving Wikipedia also helps me find better uses for the information I seek out on Wikipedia--that working on Wikipedia is making me better at everything else I do. As a hotel operator, I'm a better source of advice to guests about Tokyo, and Japan generally. As a technical translator and a sometime journalist, I'm better informed on my subjects and continuously expanding my knowledge. As an aspiring author of a book for a general audience, I find that NPOV is actually an edifying exercise, not an obstacle (and it's making me aware that I need to improve in this respect).
If, as someone once said, "style is the perfection of a point of view", it's nevertheless important in writing to stay in close touch with what is perfectly factual. If perfection in writing is your aim, you should always stay alive to exactly what it is you're trying to perfect, whether you're concerned with fact, style, or some blend thereof. Working on Wikipedia helps me do that. If similar benefits are felt by most other contributors, then Wikipedia might be one of the biggest win-win volunteer games on the Internet since Open Source software development.
[edit] Links, and enough about me
My (out of date) resume.
My (usually neglected) blog, Transcendental Bloviation.
About my Wikipedia name: Yakushima is a fascinating island off the southern coast of Kyushu. I once tried to cross it on foot, years ago, but had to turn back because the trails were obstructed by trees blown down by one of the worst typhoons since WW II. The Wikipedia article does not yet do it justice.
