Slashdot Mirror
Chinese Moon Rover Says an Early Goodnight
hackingbear writes "The Chinese moon rover, Jade Rabbit, encountered an abnormality in its control mechanism before its planned sleep during the 14-day-long lunar night. In the form of a diary, the Jade Rabbit said, "The shi-fu ('kung-fu masters,' meaning the scientists and engineers) are working around the clock trying to fix the problem and their eyes look like a rabbit's (red due to fatigue), but I may not be able to survive over this lunar night." (translated, original in Chinese.) The rover landed on the moon on Dec 14 and was designed to operate for three months."
Ours just keep going and going... like the Energizer bunny.
They just don't make rovers like they use to
I don't know. Something like this supersede geopolitics, nationalism, etc., at least for now.
Good luck, Chinese comrades.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
The Jade Rabbit is an awesome piece of scientific equipment, and it's on the moon. Let's hope if makes it through the night and continues to send data that will benefit all of humanity.
I do hope they resolve the problem and keep going. It would be such an embarassment to China to have it fail on it's first night out.
You can make all the jokes you want about "Cheap Chinese Crap" you want, but you know as well as I do that when it comes to stuff that isn't intended for the dollar store sale bins, China can make as good a piece of hardware as anyone else. They wouldn't have made it to the moon in the first place if their rocket had been built with toy-maker electronics instead of mil-spec.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Shi-fu/Sifu is not a term specific to a 'kung-fu master'. It is refers to someone who is skilled in a profession or of high experience. Likewise, in Japanese the term 'sensi' doesn't equate to a 'karate master', it too is used to refer to someone skilled or experienced, such as a doctor, teacher, or even mentor.
This is a really weird feeling. I'm 90% sure you're a Chinese propagandist, but I 100% agree with your words.
Last post!
Rover talk like Kung-Fu Panda's dad
Only because of the bad translation. For instance, although "shi fu" can mean "kung fu master", it can also mean any master or expert, and that is clearly what it means in this context. Note to Slashdot editors: Next time, instead of using cut-and-paste from Google translate, find someone that actually understands the language.
With the recent successes of the Mars rovers it's hard to remember that conditions in space are a super difficult thing to deal with. It's a huge feat all by itself to land on the moon with a functioning rover at all, as China did... so if this rover falters hopefully they'll learn from it and build another.
Better still it wakes up again and keeps going for them.
Good Luck China!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Mars doesn't have 2 week long nights without an atmosphere. The Mars rovers get a nice helping of solar power each 24 hr period. If there is a software glitch, you can just fix it the next day. That doesn't work on the Moon.
Greetings, everyone ! Today is the 42th earth day since I've arrived on the moon. I have several good news and one bad news. Which one do you like to hear first ?
The first good news is that after the 42 days of endeavor I've travelled more than 100 meters. the scientific equipment that I've brought with me - the radar, the panaromic camera, the x-ray scanner, the infra-red scanner, and so on, - have gathered a lot of useful data.
The second good news is that at dawn time 2 days ago I communicated directly with Ms. Chang'e 3, who is some 20 meters away from me, using the UHF antenna for the first time, without the aid of the "Shi Fu". Although Ms. Chang'e 3 couldn't reply to my message, but I know she would be extremely happy to receive my "love letter". As this was a private message between me and Ms. Chang'e 3, hope that you guys can give us some privacy ...
The third good news is Ms. Chang'e 3 already went to bed early morning yesterday, preparing for the arrival of 2nd lunar night.
Now, the bad news.
I should have gone to bed this morning, but before I went to bed, the "Shi Fu" discovered some abnormalies within my control mechanism, resulting in part of my body isn't responding to command. Right now the "Shi Fu" are cracking their heads to solve this problem, even to the stage of forgoing their beauty nap. Rumor has it that their eyes look more and more like the ones on rabbits.
Even though with the intervention of the "Shi Fu", I understand that there is a distinct possibility that I may not survive this lunar night....
....
Good night, Earth ! Good night, Earthlings !!
Rover talk like Kung-Fu Panda's dad
Only because of the bad translation. For instance, although "shi fu" can mean "kung fu master", it can also mean any master or expert, and that is clearly what it means in this context. Note to Slashdot editors: Next time, instead of using cut-and-paste from Google translate, find someone that actually understands the language.
Remember all the jokes about the silly English translations you see when traveling in China? Well, that's because when China was poor, they have to do the translation to satisfy English visitors. So it was *always* some Chinese's fault when Google Translate gave something stupid.
Now that China got richer, well, we started to see cases when the table was turned, we see translation errors just as silly. Only now, in these cases, you cannot point at some Chinese and laugh at how stupid they were.
And, yes, "shi fu" is a general term of "master" of any kind. English natives like Americans usually take it to mean "kung fu master" because that's the only kind of master from China that they can see on TV shows and movies. "Shi fu" is commonly used as a respectful title for referring and addressing to technical workers, including plumbers, electrician, drivers, and of course, programmers and other high-tech workers. Such as asking a plumber: "Shi fu, can this be fixed? how much would this cost?" Nobody in China would automatically take "Shi fu" to mean "Kung fu master", unless you are already in a kung fu school.
Well, let's see, they invented movable type printing, a calendar that was as accurate as the Gregorian but developed hundreds of years earlier, percussive cap drilling that was capable of the deepest wells in the early 19th century, paper currency, watertight compartments partitioning ships, dental fillings, dominoes, clockwork escapements, forensic entomology, multi-stage rocketry, pontoon bridges, toilet paper, electronic cigarettes, Non-invasive prenatal diagnostic testing for Down's Syndrome, Synthesis of crystalline bovine insulin, and I know it's cliche, but since you arbitrarily set the period at 1500 years I have to include gunpowder.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
I mean let's see what's in the thread right now: An energizer bunny joke about the US mars rovers, someone saying good luck to the Chinese and how this transcends politics, someone saying Jade Rabbit is awesome, someone who hopes they resolve the problem, someone correcting the use of shi-fu, and then this.
So basically, he's making shit up. The higher rated comments are nearly all encouragement, and the one referencing the US rovers is a joke. This moron wants there to be a bunch of US nationalism for him to hate on, but there's not, so he just pretends like there is anyhow. He's making up reasons for US hate/China strong.
Also there's the stupid crap of trying to make the US look bad because "Your country is the biggest melting pot of foreign scientists and researchers in the world." As though the US is so stupid and has to import foreigners to do any work. No, quite the opposite actually: American universities are still some of the very best research institutions in the world, despite all the cuts and problems, and people come from around the world to work at them and do research. The US is a melting pot precisely because of the excellence of its research institutions, and in allowing people from all over to come, it helps to continue that excellence and enrich the world's knowledge.
The grandparent is just a jackass. He really wants this to be some kind of China hate thread so he can hate on that to try and deflect things from the rover's problem. Instead it is a thread largely of people saying "Good luck China, we hope you fix the problem and your rover continues to work."
I hope this ends soon. Robert Oppenheimer and others proposed a central global authority to control the world's plutonium. Since we know we only have so much left, each interested country could take part in a new organization that starts from scratch with no historical precedents hanging over it and use the plutonium only for space exploration.
Each country could & would want to contribute because everyone wants to get back into space & nuclear power helps alot.
In general I think nuclear power's time has come. You can list all the dangers but we have the same vulnerability with anything. Just look at the recent rail cars carrying oil products that crashed and burned in Canada almost destroying a whole town & killing 30+ people.
Thank you Dave Raggett