You’re in a Johnny Cab!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOYsI1cqUrw
Obviously the technology is making leaps and bounds, but it’ll probably still be some time before the wheels of bureaucracy allow self-driving cars on our roads.
One minute to read
Kindle 4 WiFi Frustrations
Just had a maddening time trying to work out why a Kindle 4
, which was to replace a Kindle 3, refused to connect to the family wireless. After trying all of the obvious – resetting devices, checking passwords – it was off to scour the web for a solution. All kinds of suggestions cropped up, relating to passwords or SSIDs with special characters, or wireless networks using channel 13, but none of them applied to our situation. Finally I hit upon a post
which hinted that the Kindle 4, unlike its predecessor, doesn’t support WPA2 with AES encryption. Switching the router over to accept WPA/TKIP and WPA2/AES together didn’t make a difference, but the device finally logged in when I turned AES connections off altogether!
2 minutes to read
Whose Syndrome is it Anyway? Apostrophes in Disease Names
In recent years the media enjoyed regaling us with the search for the Higgs boson, but I’m sure many people wondered what was so special about Mr Higg’s boson that we should all be so interested in him finding it again, let alone curious about how he lost it in the first place. Postulate a new thesis or make a new discovery and you’re liable to have your name enter the vernacular. Found a company associated with a new invention, and the name may even become standard for the innovation. Yet at what point does it all stop being yours? We all learn about Newton’s laws of gravitation in the classroom, whilst some go on to read up on Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Archimedes’ buoyancy principle, Kepler’s laws of planetary motion – it all seems so predictable, until it comes unstuck with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Not the laws of physics, the laws of English.
3 minutes to read
Real(ly Tacky) Tek Driver Update
Argh, you’re kidding me. Did the Realtek HD Audio Drivers 6.0.1.7245 really just copy everything it found in the folder with the setup file over to the Program Files directory? Not the files in the executable .zip file, not the files in a list, no, everything it could get its grubby digital hands on. So a quick driver update ended up copying 40 GB of crud between two hard drives. Reminder to self: clean out the TEMP folder more often!
One minute to read
On Self-Reflection
I am a child, and the world is my crib, and everything within it is a toy, to be twisted and pulled, played with and tasted, and bitten, before finally being thrown out of the cot.
One minute to read
CAT Calls: Searching for Translation Software
I’ve been translating on the side for some time, but have only recently decided to make this a steadier form of income. As part of that, I wanted to investigate some of the CAT tools currently on the market. Aside from tinkering with the open source offering OmegaT some years ago, until now I hadn’t tried any of the tools listed.
As with many software niches there are a lot of options in this market, and not many straightforward answers. It sometimes seems that the smaller the niche, the more choices there are. On my list to try out were SDL Trados Studio 2011, memoQ 2013, Wordfast Anywhere, OmegaT, Déjà Vu X2 Professional and Across Personal Edition ((I didn’t actually get to try out Across’ free software option, as it immediately complained that it couldn’t open my documents as I don’t own Microsoft Word, but rather use OpenOffice. Nevertheless most reviews suggest it is software to be avoided.)). In this post I look at the market leader’s offering SDL Trados Studio 2011.
7 minutes to read
Eine Anekdote über das britische Klassensystem
Neulich habe ich eine tolle Anekdote gehört, die ich mitteilen wollte. Sie stammt von einem britischen Komiker, einem Londoner, der mit seinem breiten „Cockney“ Akzent sehr deutlich seinen Arbeiterklassenhintergrund betont. Allerdings ist er laut dieser Geschichte mit einer Frau aus der Mittelschicht verheiratet, ein klassisches Beispiel dafür, wie man so schön sagt, dass der Schlüssel zu der Liebe im Humor liegt. Im Übrigen zeigt die Geschichte das reine Genie des Komikers, und verkörpert die typische gegenseitige Verspottung der Arbeiter- und Mittelschichten.
2 minutes to read
Bigger and better, like
This post is also available in English .
Kleine Randbemerkung. In meiner Zeit als Sprachdozent habe ich oft den Fehler bei den Steigerungsformen gehört, wobei der Deutsche die Präposition ‘als’ durch ein ähnlich klingendes englisches Wort ersetzt:
Die Grünen sind beliebter als die SPD.
The Green Party is more popular as the SPD.
Jedoch wo man eine andere Komparativform verwendet, ob umgangsprachlich oder als Dialektform, führt dies zu anderen Fehlübersetzungen in dem Englischen:
One minute to read