CATs and dogs: funny blog spam

I normally just delete blog spam, but sometimes you kind of see why the spammed  a particular post...

XXX has left a new comment on your post "A step back to the past: translating without a CAT...":

Incredible, you are good to go for the dog preparing school you had always wanted. Presently, we are acquainting you with the 10 concealed diamond schools with 5-star Yelp evaluations that represent considerable authority in the kind of dog preparing you are searching for. Simply ahead and locate the one for you!

How to preview a Bitly address without clicking on it

Sometimes we receive Bitly shortened addresses in e-mails, or sometimes we see them in tweets or blog posts.

The problem is, how to be sure that clicking on them won't redirect us to a malicious address?

A solution, of course, is to just never click on such shortened addresses... but that might mean missing on some interesting sites or links. fortunately, for Bitly there is a way of checking to see what the real address behind the shortened one is, and also what reputation that address has:

Just copy the Bitly address to your browser's address bar, add a "+" sign to it, and hit Enter--you'll be sent to a preview page for the link, where you'll be able to see the real address, and any warning about the reputation of the address, like the following:

SDL invents new language

Not content with providing some of the best-known software tools for translators, SDL, a language technology company, is apparently hard at work inventing previously unknown languages.

The proof: recently translators have been receiving messages to offer them free training. and apparently that training is available in multiple languages.

One of them is "Mexican":

Mexican, a brand new language brought to you by SDL

When asked about the new language, SDL representatives said they could not answer right now about Mexican, as they were busy at work developing other new languages, including Swiss and Belgian.

They confirmed, however, that work on the Yugoslavian language had been definitely put on hold, as news that the country of Yugoslavia no longer existed had finally reached SDL's headquarters.

Vocabulary.com

Vocabulary.com is an addictive game (and resource) ideal for translators.

Tina and Mouse

I’m probably very late to the party, and you may already know it, but…

…if you are looking for a freelance translation-themed cartoon, especially now that Mox’s Blog is quiescent, check out Tina and Mouse, a (minimalist) comic on translation: many freelancers will see themselves reflected in it.

Denver in May

Not-so-typical mid-May in Denver...

Mafalda, Libertad and translation

I've always liked Quino's Mafalda: I think it's much better than Peanuts. One of my favorite strips has always been this, about translators...

 (click on the strip to open a larger version in a new window) 

For those who don't know Spanish:

Mafalda: "What's your mom typing?"

Libertad: "Translations of books, because what my dad makes only pays for the rent. My mum knows French. The French write books in French, my mom copies them the way we speak, and with what that brings in she buys noodles and stuff like that. There's this guy... wait, what's his name? Yanpol... Yanpol Belmondo... no, Yanpol... Sastre, is it?"

Mafalda: "Ah! Sartre?"

Libertad: "That one! The last chicken we ate was written by him!"

(Translation adapted from the one posted in Bob's Comics Reviews)

The unintended poetry of spam comments

Certain spam comments, though essentially meaningless, attain a certain poetic quality. See for example this comment to an earlier post of mine:

No matter:
If some one searches for his essential thing,
Therefore
He wants that to be available in detail,
Thus that thing
Is maintained over here.

This has a certain haiku-like feeling, and even a tangential connection to the post it purports to comment (Simple regular expressions for SDL Trados Studio filters).

For the second time since I became a US citizen four years ago...

Colorado in the Fall

These are the colors of Colorado in the fall...

I wonder if they are going to pay him in lettuce: rabbit signed up as court interpreter by ALS

From the Birmingham Mail: Jajo the Rabbit 'hired' as translator at Birmingham courts

Money quote:

"[The owner] successfully filled in an online application for carrot-chomping Jajo with Applied Language Solutions, which supplies linguists to West Midlands police and local courts.
The rabbit [...]  later received emails from the firm welcoming him aboard as a translator – and inviting him to an online seminar to learn more about his role."

Guess they are not kidding when they say the ALS contract has been somewhat problematic for court interpreting in the UK.

Update

And now Jajo, the interpreter rabbit, has his own Twitter account:

Happy Holidays!

I'm sorry I have not posted since the end of November: I had to bring up to date our invoicing (as well as sending some payment reminders to a few customers), close our accounting for the year, and was also pretty busy with the University (I taught two courses at the same time during the Fall term, and was also mentoring two students through their Capstone project).

I'll catch up with some very interesting comments that have been made in the Can translators ignore theory? as soon as I'm back in Denver, after the Christmas holidays.

Speaking of holidays,

my very best wishes to you of Happy Holidays, a Merry Christmas, and a happy, healthy and prosperous new year!

My newest blog

I've just created a new blog (Riccardo Schiaffino, Italian Artist in Denver), to display some of my artwork. Little to do with translation - except I'm now trying to incorporate some classic translations into my artwork.

Original and Translations - acrylics on paper

It should be fairly easy to identify the original and the two classic translations in this work...

Somehow, I don’t think they’ll be successful…

I just received an announcement from a wannabe translation portal:

I have some doubt they’ll be able to attract too many customers. It’s very clear they have not found too many proofreaders, yet. But then, what do I know: I’m no “writting” specialist, myself .

Happy New Year

Best wishes of a Happy and prosperous 2011!

Merry Christmas!

Best wishes of a Merry Christmas to all!

The Call

Sometimes, it's about people you never met, but it affects you because you had heard so much about them, and you were looking forward to the chance of meeting them later.

Usually, it's about someone you love, it's the call you always dread when you left home to live abroad.

It's always at night or early in the morning, or at least it always seems so. It's the call that tells you to come home, you mother is worse and won't last much longer. You board the plane hoping to arrive in time; you land, and it was too late. It's the call that tells you your father-in-law has died, and you have to turn and tell your wife, but she already knows.

Three days ago, again, the call woke us in the morning: this time from the rehabilitation center: my father had, suddenly, worsened, and the head nurse had requested an ambulance to take my father to the emergency room.

We arrived as soon as possible, to be told that my father was again struggling for his life. The doctor on duty didn't give us much of a chance, then, but my father survived the night, and the next one. Now he is back in a hospital ward, still conscious, but very weak.

Back to where we were almost three months ago.

Cheap pun shows real ignorance

Today the New York Times has a short article about the recent LinkedIn translation controversy ("Translators Wanted at LinkedIn. The Pay? $0 an Hour").

The text of the article, however, shows either the love for a cheap pun at the cost of accuracy, or that the author, Andrew Adam Newman, is unclear about the difference between translators and interpreters:

"But LinkedIn insists that the interpreters are, well, misinterpreting."

Back from long absence

Sorry for the long absence: It's been a hectic period. A long on-site QA project (in Palo Alto); developing, teaching and grading the last few classes of the localization course at Denver University's University College, and, above all, the last-minute work for the Art Students League of Denver's Summer Art Market.


The Summer Art Market went well, considering the economic downturn: I sold several pieces, met other artists and old friends, and felt re energized and encouraged to devote more time to painting.


I also have plans for more writing: at least a few long articles, both for About Translation and possibly for some print media.

Speaking of which: the next ATA Chronicle contains a piece chosen from this blog (Translation tests v. translation samples).

On eBay you can find everything

I was reading an article by Ben Yagoda "The inevitable epicene solution" (very interesting piece about the growing prevalence of the singular "they"), when I noticed a really strange eBay ad on that page:

I wonder if they could sell me some adverbs, as well.