Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Sometimes a Simulation Center is Just a Simulation Center


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Yesterday, I was reading the article on the war veterans visiting The New Suez Canal, and I came across this Arabic phrase:


I had not seen this word before, and I was not sure exactly what type of a place it would be. If it had been spoken of in some kind of a military context, it would have made more sense to me. As it was, I couldn't imagine what a "simulation center" located on the project site for "The New Suez Canal," would actually look like.

So I tried to make the word fit my idea of what kind of a building a bunch of veterans would be visiting, if they were in America, to watch historical, documentary movies at the site of a big construction project: maybe a "visitors center," or an "educational center," or "information center..." perhaps a "historical center," or possibly even an "education and technology center" where visitors could watch videos and mock-up displays of how certain parts of the canal work.

I knew that these definitions didn't work well with the actual word being used, but they worked better than any place I could envision in my mind. Then, in frustration, I Googled the phrase... and guess what? I found out exactly what a simulation center at the Suez Canal looks like. 


I'm not sure that the one linked above is the exact same one that is discussed in the article, but it definitely looks more like what is referenced than the simple visitors' center that I had imagined.

Sometimes a simulation center is just a simulation center.



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