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Telepolis article (german only, may the fish be with you)

There is plenty of misinformation and hearsay in regards to the sales of HL2 in Russia. The best weapon to combat the rumours are the facts, and here they are.

1) The authors of the article on GamesRadar is stupid. The game was on sale in Russia basically since October, when it was leaked. And it wasn't sold in Novosibirsk only, but pretty much everywhere.

2) The author of the page about Ukraine is a complete idiot. I don't even want to comment on all the stupidity he wrote there.

3) The game has a couple of playable levels, including textures, models, AI, everything. Of course, it doesn't yet form a coherent story, but as far as I know, it includes all demoed levels, among others.

4) Here is one of several reviews of Half-Life 2 alpha version: http://www.3dnews.ru/games/half-life2-alfa/. It's in Russian, but you can look at screenshots, or use the fish. Among other things, the reviewer says that the graphics are not revolutionary, despite the hype and cool videos. There is no per-pixel lightning and no realistic destruction physics (like in Silent Storm), e.g. indestructable boxes, etc. Water is pretty cool, though. On Athlon 2500+ with GeForce Ti4200 the game runs at 22-35FPS in 1024x768x32 with average details and 4xAA. Overall the reviewer thinks that the final version would be good, but not as good as we were led to believe.

5) The game doesn't collect your CC numbers, Mr. Fortunato. Despite what one may think, pirates are not criminals.

6) Doom3 alpha also was/is on sale pretty much everywhere in Russia. Still, nobody risks buying it believing it's a real deal, because the most sellers would always specifically warn you that it is just an alpha and everyone would say that when asked.

Wow the "T-52 support dragon" weighs in at 5 tons. If it does not find somebody on the first pass then their will be no need for the second as it will crush them into oblivion.

babelfish translation

Sony plans to release FOUR new devices in April. They are expected to cost $200 for the MZ-NH600D, $250 for the MZ-NHF800, $300 for the MZ-NH900, and $400 for the MZ-NH1, with Hi-MD blanks costing about $7. They are also planning to release a bookshelf system, the LAM-X1.

There are a few concept ideas also. Look here (Japanese) to see a bunch of other Hi-MD items, including a Hi-MD Camera!

Click here for a translated (Babelfish) document with a bit of technical information.

You want altavista advanced search: (linux AND modems) OR ("AT commands" AND NOT windows). I know, not the C-like shorthand you want, but you can do the search you like.

You want altavista advanced search: (linux AND modems) OR ("AT commands" AND NOT windows). I know, not the C-like shorthand you want, but you can do the search you like.

AlltheWeb, Altavista, Ask Jeeves, Teoma, WebCrawler - all of them redirect the search results through their servers (and no doubt log it), but not Google (altough it did that couple of years back for a few weeks IIRC).

In adition to using non redirecting search engine one should be blocking their cookies too to get you little bit more privacy.

And BTW, MSN search doesn't redirect too, how scary is that 8o
Something wicked is going on in MSN land...

No, as it happens.
A quick Altavista search delivers the goods, I must try it out on my classical-music-snob associate, ask him if he can identify it:)

The main problem is that languages, especially English, are so idiomatic that mechanical translators will be a too much of a disadvantage - take the Babelfish translator for instance.

Furthermore, the English language is so flexible that just about any word can arbitrarily substitute for anything else - for instance, take 'bad' meaning 'good'.

It would be impossible to program a machine to be able to understand the full spectrum of idiomatic phrases but the future may lie in employing neural net technologies so that computers can do some limited learning.

here
- rale

Uh, check your Slashdot Japan link. (free Babelfish translation)

altavista's translation

click on the test button on this page.... it's quite scary.

For those of us who have trouble understanding german, here's the English translated version of the page, thanks to babelfish.

FUPIDS (fuzzy user of profiles intrusion detection system) is a Patch for the OpenBSD -- Kernel. FUPIDS produces user profiles and supervises their activities. Momentarily is limited to the evaluation of the programs used by the user, however still by some intelligent ueberwachungsstrategien will extend. Which I still planned at nice features experience one as soon as I it programmed and/or for any reasons directly into the ton DO -- list on the project side wrote.

babelfish.

If the pages you are looking at are in Italian/Polish/whatever language then why not use "The Fish" to translate. It won't be perfect but it should give you an idea of what they are doing...

A translated link, using The Fish for the German article is here.

A translated link, using The Fish for the German article is here.

...it's about damn time. I've been paying about $30 - $45US a month for years - first for 1.5Mb ADSL, then 8, 12, and now 24Mb ADSL. YahooBB will be offering 45Mb ADSL (3Mb upstream!) in January for about the same price (translation courtesy of the fish: here).

Amazing? Yes, I know. But keep in mind these technologies are severely distance limited and wouldn't really be an option in most of the US (I live in Japan BTW - no, not Tokyo and no, I will not buy you any anime). 8Mb ADSL and up normally drop WAY off at about 1KM. I have 24Mb ADSL from OCN/NTT and live about 2.5KM away from the central office. I get anywhere from 3 - 5 Mb/s down and a full 1Mb/s up.

Cable is also cheap here. FDDH/FITH is coming down (that's 100Mb/s fiber) too. If Japan keeps moving at this rate, I figure I'll be able to buy a direct nueral connection to the "Matrix" within 4 or 5 years - for $20 a month. SUGOI!

Peut-etre il est parce que vous parlez francais ? Babelfish...

Babelfish already does this.

The main electricity companies in Spain are already given service or close to do it (depending on the company) on cities like Zaragoza, Barcelona or Sevilla.
Article in spanish here and Babelfish translation to english here.

you can check the Dutch and use bable fi....

Damn, no Dutch to English

To me this doesn't look as user-friendly as Google news, the main image is too large, if the visitor is not interested in the top headline, chances are they would click away pretty quick.
On Google economy of space is used to fit in a variety of headlines above the "fold" of the page.

I'm sure these sort of things will be worked out, but at the moment it reminds me of Altavista's news feature, useful but slightly inferior to Googles.

What surprised me most was the URL of the story!

I remember using Excite as my search of choice for full-text searches, back before Yahoo! started charging for everything, including directory listings. Then, there was Webcrawler, once the home of the canonical robots.txt standard.

I even remember back in the day, when not all AltaVistas were created equal.

Then came Google's PigeonRank system, and it's been downhill (or uphill, whichever you see as a positive metaphor) ever since.

So the Excite.com link was a trip down memory lane. Not that I'm expecting the Good Old Days to return; when I tried to access the home page with my Opera browser, I got an error message: "The browser you're using is not allowing you to sign in to Excite." Don't worry, Excite.com... I won't be trying again.

Altavista searching worldwide: Google

The Hoover result is actually a sponsored link. But your mistake, which I shared for at least a few seconds, shows that the real problem is the absence of visual contrast between the sponsored and (I hope) unsponsored results, just a couple of small-ish text fields.

Therte's a line between using minimalism to aid clarity, as Google do, and using it to obscure matters, and I think Altavista are nudging it.

Google - Searching 3,307,998,701 web pages:

Google Search: Altavista
First site returned:
Hmm..... returns the 'competitor' - commies?
Or worse - liberals!
;~0

Altavista searching worldwide: Google
First site returned:

Serves business first - you're right - very American.

It looks like the hardware is exactly the same, although they seem to be showing photos of the small battery (a la SL-C750) but quoting battery life equivalent to the large battery that comes with the SL-C760.

Feeding the press release to babelfish it looks like they are just pushing new software features. Easier USB connection to a PC, JP->EN->JP transation and some different software included (Eg Mah Jong and a PDF viewer).

I love my SL-C750 and wish they would start releasing them outside Japan. The release says they will make 20000 per month, so it seems that official international sales are not planned.

I found out about this the other and leapt over to the babelfish. It appears to be identical to the SL-C760 but with some extra software loaded onto the ROM. Namely, a JapaneseEnglish dictionary and built-in support to connect to some of Japan's Wireless ISPs.

So not more powerful at all.

Pigeon, Quebecen (yes and not?), let know to me that plays which do not comprise sections of French-language in handbooks of English language are cars of the racks of store as well as the plays which are not available in English if a French version is available.

The pigeon provided this translation of law:

They are the sections of law 101 about the software:

Any inscription on a product, its contents or its packing, a document or an object accompanying the product including/understanding the instruction manual, certificates of guarantee must be written in French

[ this article ] also includes, examining article 91, that no inscription written in another language can regner above the inscription written in French.

The instruction manual and documentation are connect has a computer sold in a store must in French, the same thing for the software.

Any software, including the utilites or operating software, which east installs or not, must be available in French, has less than there is no French version which exists.

Are prohibited on the market of Quebec the toys and plays, [... ], that operation requires a vocabulary other than the French has less than the this toy or the play is not available in French in conditions like favorable.

Fines for the stores which will not obeiront the law is 250$ with the Canadian 7000$ according to case's.

It has continuous for saying that the tastes of the Web arts, Sony and Microsoft had followed this law during some time, but each one A ignoree differently.

Thus, probably, the law now is imposee causing the rupture for stores, customers and editors.

Much of thanks to the pigeon of that.

I use BT to sync my calendars and address books between my PDA, Notebook, and Phone. I also use to do some small file ( click "Send via BT" -> click to choose the device -> click Send. 4 clicks in total, not bad.)
BTW, not only Apple but other brands also got BT built-in. SONY's latest VIAO(Japanese only, use the fish) is one such example.

SONY's PDA, Notebooks(Japanese only, use the fish), Apple's PowerBooks, are a few examples of BT+WiFi implementations. I am sure there are many other similar coming.

As an aside, has anyone else noticed that Altavista and AllTheWeb have turned their websites into Google-clones?

This is a good thing; less cruft -- more searching.

Teoma does sometimes search better than Google, and so does, surprisingly, AltaVista, if you skip the advertising crap.

Yeap, and it has babelfish, something google does not have (afaik)

I don't even remember if Altavista is still around

I don't even remember if Altavista is still around

I don't even remember if Altavista is still around

Interestingly, this link works too, the original link for it back when Altavista was just a technology demo.

av.com search for kernel note: sponsored sites first, half of the sites CRAP

google search note: 20% crap, no sponsored links

msn.com search note: 100% crap, kernel.org does NOT show up - useless

search msn.DE (!) note: 60% crap, but kernel.org is FIRST entry. - political corrections are only made in the us-website

Here in Brazil, were we have had last year the largest elections using proprietary-software-equiped-polls, it seens that there have been more than a
couple of frauds last year.

The latest news are these ones (In Portuguese. Use
the fish to read in English).

There have surfaced accuatins of votings being sold at R$10,00 (~U$3.30) each one, and of a candidate that had more than 1000 votes while they were being counted ending up with zero votes.

I just hope they get to the only one true: these eletronic polls, as they are, are nothing but election-buying machinnes.

Babelfished article

Enjoy.

- Jj

Some influentail people start to consider about
"Pressing button democracy".
Read original
Japanese text or English translation

They are not majority,of course.

This one brought us the famous .
Definitely worth a read, like most of his works, BTW.

Altavista shows up 138 unquoted

I think you're evading the key issue here.

Your premise, as I understand it, is that the presence of the search phrase in the result is THE most important thing.

I submit that this is generally NOT the case -- that usually, the user is searching for something ABOUT a phrase -- it's origin, whether it's legit or not (e.g. searches that end up on Snopes), things like that.

I just ran your search on altavista, like this.

Compared to Google, here.

I guess it really comes down to what you're looking for. IMHO, your criteria of JUST "pages with the phrase" is a peculiar and unusual example, but hey, maybe that's just me. I'd usually include a term or two to give context of WHY i'm searching for a phrase, and for those sorts of searches, Google still does a wonderful job (again, in my personal experience).

Xentax

For those of you who might have burned your penis on your laptop, cool it down!
If you are a mobile traveler like me, it's one less thing to pack when your toothbrush is USB powered!
Or while you are brushing your teeth, you can find time to make some noodles or whatever the hell this thing does.
And one last one to make soup with I guess.

For those of you who might have burned your penis on your laptop, cool it down!
If you are a mobile traveler like me, it's one less thing to pack when your toothbrush is USB powered!
Or while you are brushing your teeth, you can find time to make some noodles or whatever the hell this thing does.
And one last one to make soup with I guess.

I'm guessing it was supposed to be Systran, the company behind the translation engine used in AltaVista's Babel Fish translation service.

...another article at TP which fits as a follow-up. "The Virtual power station" (German only, Babelfish to the rescue) describes a possible solution. Since more and more power (at least in Europe) is planned to be coming from smaller plants (photovoltaic/wind energy etc.), there need to be more flexible methods of directing and diverting power, routing around failures and preventing overloads. Since the Great Vision is to connect any hoousehold appliance to the Internet, your fridge could, instead of automatically ordering food on-line, receive feedback about the state of the power network and more flexible rates per kWh -- and appliances could adjust their power consumption according to availability. All that is needed, according to that article: "intelligent, decentralized energy management."