Month: August 2006

Calling All Native French Speakers

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date August 18, 2006
6 Comments on Calling All Native French Speakers

In the blog entry titled Oddball Cover of a French Book on China and Africa, I quote a description of a French book:

L’une étonne le monde; l’autre le désole. La Chine, le dragon rugissant du 21ème siècle, et l’Afrique, l’autruche impuissante à affronter ses défis.

Babelfish (which often gives wonky translations) and I have interpreted the line “L’une étonne le monde; l’autre le désole.” as “One astonishes the world; the other afflicts it.” Some people have suggested that the line would be better translated as “the other makes [the world] grieve”. Perhaps I’m not clear on the use of the verb désoler. I’m familiar with its use in the apology “Je suis désolé”, but that’s about it.

In the interests of fairness and accuracy, if you speak French fluently and have a firm grasp of its idioms, could you please read that description in context and let us know which translation is more accurate? Just post it in the comments.

In the News It Happened to Me

Ireland Bound

Photo of Aer Lingus jet with caption 'Heh heh heh...you said 'Aer Lingus'.

On Monday, I’ll fly to one of my ancestral homelands — Ireland (I came by my accordion and partying powers honestly) — to attend my cousin Kara’s wedding. I’ve been keeping an eye on the rapidly-changing restrictions on what you can bring onto planes departing from Canada, the UK and the US (since I’ll be connecting via Newark).

The real restrictions I was worried about were the UK ones concerning what you could take on the place. I’d heard that they were quite strict, forbidding not only laptops and ipods, but even books and magazines. I didn’t relish being stuck on a trans-Atlantic flight with naught to read but an airline magazine, the SkyMall catalog, the safety instruction card and the barf bag.

Luckily for me, the restrictions have been loosened a little bit. You still can’t bring a drink, but now we’re allowed to bring a single carry-on item as long as it’s no more than:

45 cm (about 17 3/4″) long
35 cm (about 13 3/4″) wide
16 cm (about 6 1/4″) deep

(All this information came from this page on Belfast International Airport’s special security page.)

My trusty laptop knapsack exceeds two of these maxima, so rather than risk having to negotiate with a security official who’s a stickler for regulations and having a bad day, I’m going to switch to a small laptop case. I’m bring my trusty PowerBook with me to offload the photos from my camera and to help make the 6-hour layover in Newark bearable (I’ll bring a small book for backup). As long as I’ve got a project I can work on, I can tolerate lengthy airport lounge sessions.

Naturally, I’ve pretty much given up on bringing the accordion on this trip, useful as it would be. Experience has proven that playing the traditional tune Wild Rover and U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday on accordion at an Irish pub pretty much guarantees you’ll drink free for the night and never want for conversation. Ah well.

Like many things in the UK, things are just slightly different from the way they are here in North America. Consider their terror warning colour codes, which illustrate how much more popular dance music is over there:

MI5 Terror Threat Levels

In the News

Oddball Cover of a French Book on China and Africa

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date August 17, 2006
7 Comments on Oddball Cover of a French Book on China and Africa

Cyrus Farivar pointed me to this recently-published French book titled Chine-Afrique: Le Dragon et l’Autruche, which translates as “China-Africa: The Dragon and the Ostrich). The cover, shown below, is pretty ridiculous and dated, not just for what’s depicted, but also the rinky-dink style in which it’s depicted. I’m reminded of the crappy artwork from grade school reading texts from the 1970s:

I wonder why the Chinese dude’s briefcase reads “Made in China” in English and not “Fabriqué en Chine”.

Here’s the publisher’s description of the book in the original French:

L’une étonne le monde; l’autre le désole. La Chine, le dragon rugissant du 21ème siècle, et l’Afrique, l’autruche impuissante à affronter ses défis. Qu’est-ce qui a bien pu se passer pour que leurs sorts respectifs soient si différents ? Cet ouvrage, l’un des premiers sur le sujet, établit les causes de cette dissymétrie des destins sino-africains, en passant en revue leurs expériences au cours des 60 dernières années, mais aussi en analysant leurs ressorts politiques, économique et sociaux actuels.

And here’s my (possibly loosey-goosey) translation:

One astonishes the world; the other afflicts it. China, the roaring dragon of the 21st century, and Africa, the ostrich incapable of facing its challenges. What could have happened that made their outcomes so different? This work, one of the first on the subject, establishes the causes of this disparity of Chinese and African destinies, reviews their experiences over the past 60 years while analyzing their current political, economic and social options.

Between the cover and that line about Africa “afflicting” the world, I’m tempted to say “French racism, Gallic charm, po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to, n’est-ce pas?”

I suggested to Cyrus that he write a review if he purchases a copy.

I thought that the Chinese dude in the dragon’s pouch wasn’t that far off from what I looked like. If you gave him an accordion, some sideburns and a goatee, you’d have Yours Truly. So that’s what I did, resulting in the book cover below:

Click the image to the see Scoble’s blog.

Uncategorized

The Ronald McHummer Sign-O-Matic

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date August 16, 2006
2 Comments on The Ronald McHummer Sign-O-Matic

[via Seth Godin’s blog] The Ronald McHummer Sign-O-Matic site is more than just a sign generator in the same vein as the Colbert Report “On Notice Board” Generator, the Church Sign Generator or the Tombstone Generator. There’s also a cause behind it:

This month McDonald’s is giving away toy Hummers — 42 million of them, in eight models and colors — with every Happy Meal or Mighty Kids Meal. That’s right: The fast-food chain that helped make our kids the fattest on Earth is now selling future car buyers on the fun of driving a supersized, smog-spewing, gas-guzzling SUV originally built for the military. Use the Ronald McHummer Sign-O-Matic™ to tell us what you think of this misguided marriage of two icons of American excess.

Here’s my current favourite:

Uncategorized

"Knuth is My Homeboy" T-Shirts

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date August 16, 2006
3 Comments on "Knuth is My Homeboy" T-Shirts

Here’s a t-shirt design that your non-computer-science pals won’t understand, but at the same time is weird enough and obscure enough for hipster cred:

'Knuth is my homeboy' T-shirt design.

Want one? It’s available here.

(No idea who Donald Knuth is? Check here, here, here and here. That’s how he rolls, yo.)

Geek In the News

You See a Funny News Item, I See a Domain Name Opportunity

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date August 16, 2006
No Comments on You See a Funny News Item, I See a Domain Name Opportunity

Shortly after Mel Gibson’s infamous arrest, I reported that the domain name sugartits.org was still available. It’s since been snapped up.

In light of Senator George Allen’s “Macaca” remark, I thought I’d check to see what macaca domains were still available. The answer: not much — only macaca.biz and macaca.us are available. I should not that the owner of macaca.ca (Ooh! Bonus “ca”!) says that the domain is for sale.