by ais | Sep 16, 2013 | background info, behind the scenes, crossposted, hsin, icos, languages, Q&A, research, trying for accuracy
Q: How do you write Hsin’s name/what is the Chinese character used for Hsin? A: This question has been asked by various people over the years. Below is a post taken from when this was first answered, on September 10, 2011, at our forum. Read the original post if you’d like. Original post: A few people have asked this question recently on AFFN reviews and possibly elsewhere. I can’t recall whether we ever answered this somewhere else on the forum, so for the moment I’m doing the answer here. Hsin is Xin in Mandarin. The specific character is this: or this if it’s drawn a little less pretty: It’s pronounced roughly like ‘shin’ in English, although kind of between shin and sheen. There are several meanings to it and I’m sure even the ones I list will be debated by native speakers. But the ones I saw were: letter / true / to believe / sign / evidence That’s in Mandarin, which is his native language. A side note from my Japanese kanji dictionary: that same character is used in Japanese, where it means trust, believe. It consists of word (second part) and person (first). “A person’s word is something which can be believed and trusted” is the way to remember it. For those of you who have read Fade chapter 7, that (信) is the pertinent character. What seems to be Hsin’s middle name is technically his last name in China. That’s Liu, which is this: So if you were to write his name out directly the way it’s said in English it would be this: Hsin Liu Vega 信 刘...
by ais | Sep 16, 2013 | behind the scenes, crossposted, evenfall, icos, Q&A, R&D, research, technology, trying for accuracy
On October 13, 2008 , in the course of an email chain with a reader B.L. (name redacted for privacy) we received the following question. This post is placed behind a cut for minor spoilers through about Evenfall chapter 17. Note: the conversation we had back and forth following the initial question/answer might be interesting for people to read so I included the reader’s question and my answer, and then after that included our back and forth. It’s labeled B.L. for the reader and Ais for me (if that last part wouldn’t have been, you know, self-evident or anything ^_~). Since this conversation happened years ago I didn’t get express permission from the reader to repost this. I am hoping that it is acceptable to share this since there are no identifying details, but if you are the reader and wish for me to remove the conversation please let me know and I will do so immediately. Thank you! Q: How did Jeffrey break the OTP encryption on the second half of Thierry’s disk? A: Good question. Actually, if Thierry hadn’t subtly helped them out, it would have basically been impossible. Jeffrey didn’t mention it but what ended up happening was that as he dug further on the disc, he’d located some small, hidden,encrypted files that at first he’d thought to be throw away, nonsense files. They were each encrypted with a different, long key in a Vigenère square and they’d seemed to just be inconsequential, incomprehensible information to distract from the two larger, more heavily encrypted files. But when he deciphered all those he eventually figured out that mixed in with the mess was the private...
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