I thought of this, too, as I sit here in a coffeeshop, feeling the floor shake as people walk by. However, I'm going to guess that most people's typing wouldn't register 4.0 on the Richter scale.
I'm also in the business, and frankly, I'm not impressed. Google Translator is a stopgap at best. A lot of posts here have said it's good enough for basic phrases, and that may be true, but how far is that going to get you? Great, you can read short phrases... assuming they're not too obscure, and that they're written correctly and legibly in the source language, and that there's not some double entendre going on, and that Google understands both the dialect being translated and your dialect, and so on...
Basically, good translation requires a vast amount of context -- both within a given document and in the broader culture. Google can accrue billions of documents that are reasonably good translations, but it can't accrue their context. The very fact that it's lumped them all together strips out their context. And what's appropriate in one context is quite inappropriate in another. [Insert well-worn anecdote about the Spanish verb "coger" here.] This simply can't be automated, because the same translator works in a variety of contexts, and will make different decisions at different times.
An obvious example: most languages have two or more levels of address, depending on social distance. English does not. English doesn't distinguish between the subject and object form, or even the singular and plural, in the word "you," and nearly every other language does. That means there are three independent decisions to make when translating that word, with two or three or four reasonable choices for each. And that doesn't count word order, or colloquial usage that wouldn't translate directly at all. That's all dependent on context.
In short, professionals won't be in danger any time soon.
And you can send me dead flowers every morning Send me dead flower by the snail mail Say it with dead flowers at my wedding And I won't forget to put roses on your grave No I won't forget to put roses on your grave
As a professional translator and interpreter, I also agree that Google has done better than anyone else, and that that's still not particularly good by objective standards. I've been using their Translation Center (NOT Google Translate) for a while now, and I've seen their translation memory evolve before my eyes.
The basic problem, however, is that the computer doesn't actually understand what it's spitting back to you. It only spits back the translations others have provided for similar phrases. It doesn't know if they're any good. Sometimes they're surprisingly good, and sometimes they're bizarrely bad.
There's a lot of ambiguity in human writing, and even more so in speech. Even assuming you hear the words correctly, it's tricky to tease out the precise meaning they wanted to convey, and trickier still to re-express that in another language, with appropriate cultural and regional context.
Google will get better and better at parroting good translating and interpreting decisions, but software will never be able to make those decisions, because, in the final analysis, they are subjective decisions.
This is correct. I know plenty of people who are clueless about security, and computers generally (I'm thinking of the ones who ask me "Do I have Adobe on my computer?"), but I'm not prepared to tell them they have to stop using them until they become experts. The real solution here is to offer proactive solutions. The ISPs could provide them for free (including house calls) and probably still come out ahead financially.
I wouldn't say it's impossible to do well, but it sure is hard, for two reasons. First, it takes a lot of staff time, proportionately, to get a short-term volunteer up to speed. Second, a lot of people (especially people working in their own fields) are very insistent about doing things they way they are used to, and not the way their hosts do them. This means that not only they not helping, they're actually setting the host organization back.
So, take some time to reflect on your willingness to do someone else's tasks, in their way, on their schedule. To really be helpful requires an uncommon amount of humility.
No kidding. I'm giving serious thought to getting a Mac -- just for its video editing.
To be fair, while I have tried every video editor that runs on Linux and found every single one lacking, it isn't entirely their fault. They can't import, or see the camera at all, and I assume that's a problem in the system, not the application. Will the VLC editor be able to work around this?
Who modded this insightful? Parent has no idea what they're talking about.
A monopoly is a unfair advantage in the marketplace. A standard is an agreed-upon way to do a given thing. If all the players agree on how things will be done -- assuming they can act on those standards -- that *reduces* the likelihood of monopolies occurring, because the playing field is leveled.
That said, I'm opposed to mandatory standards. I want people to be able to choose whatever way they want to do things they might like, and I want to be there, eating popcorn, as they spiral down in flames with their proprietary formats and measurements.
I have to agree. I get annoyed when I hear people describe Ubuntu as distro that's appropriate for Linux newbies. It's not that that's untrue, it's that it sells Ubuntu short. It makes it sound like it's dumbed down somehow, and that after using it for a while, you'd want want to move on to something more advanced. That's simply not the case. All the advanced features are there, waiting for you, as soon as you're interested in them.
I work in a hospital as an interpreter, so I see a lot of how people use computers... and how they don't. Generally in the ER, the patient first sees the triage nurse, who asks a series of questions. The answers all get entered into the computer. Then the patient sees their actual nurse, who asks many of the same questions again. This information may or may not get entered in the computer. Then the PA comes in and asks the same questions a third time. This time, the information gets written on a piece of paper, or maybe a tablet computer. Eventually, the attending physician stops in just long enough to ask the same questions a fourth time, and doesn't enter the info anywhere. If the patient is admitted and sent to another department, the process starts over.
Slashdot Mirror
Then he must weigh the same as a duck!
Let's work together on this. I'll cover the falling part, you find a way to make the rows disappear.
Google Fiber is about connecting homes and businesses to the Internet.
Not databases.
I thought of this, too, as I sit here in a coffeeshop, feeling the floor shake as people walk by. However, I'm going to guess that most people's typing wouldn't register 4.0 on the Richter scale.
True, but a paper copy doesn't run out of battery power at really inconvenient times.
Dude, do you know how much money Google has? They never run out of anything.
Ubuntu.
I'm also in the business, and frankly, I'm not impressed. Google Translator is a stopgap at best. A lot of posts here have said it's good enough for basic phrases, and that may be true, but how far is that going to get you? Great, you can read short phrases... assuming they're not too obscure, and that they're written correctly and legibly in the source language, and that there's not some double entendre going on, and that Google understands both the dialect being translated and your dialect, and so on...
Basically, good translation requires a vast amount of context -- both within a given document and in the broader culture. Google can accrue billions of documents that are reasonably good translations, but it can't accrue their context. The very fact that it's lumped them all together strips out their context. And what's appropriate in one context is quite inappropriate in another. [Insert well-worn anecdote about the Spanish verb "coger" here.] This simply can't be automated, because the same translator works in a variety of contexts, and will make different decisions at different times.
An obvious example: most languages have two or more levels of address, depending on social distance. English does not. English doesn't distinguish between the subject and object form, or even the singular and plural, in the word "you," and nearly every other language does. That means there are three independent decisions to make when translating that word, with two or three or four reasonable choices for each. And that doesn't count word order, or colloquial usage that wouldn't translate directly at all. That's all dependent on context.
In short, professionals won't be in danger any time soon.
And you can send me dead flowers every morning
Send me dead flower by the snail mail
Say it with dead flowers at my wedding
And I won't forget to put roses on your grave
No I won't forget to put roses on your grave
Three dimensional? Anti- this and that? A bit hyper? Fairly strange?
Sounds like they've discovered my friends.
I'm pretty sure the GP was asking about the moon's South Pole.
As a professional translator and interpreter, I also agree that Google has done better than anyone else, and that that's still not particularly good by objective standards. I've been using their Translation Center (NOT Google Translate) for a while now, and I've seen their translation memory evolve before my eyes.
The basic problem, however, is that the computer doesn't actually understand what it's spitting back to you. It only spits back the translations others have provided for similar phrases. It doesn't know if they're any good. Sometimes they're surprisingly good, and sometimes they're bizarrely bad.
There's a lot of ambiguity in human writing, and even more so in speech. Even assuming you hear the words correctly, it's tricky to tease out the precise meaning they wanted to convey, and trickier still to re-express that in another language, with appropriate cultural and regional context.
Google will get better and better at parroting good translating and interpreting decisions, but software will never be able to make those decisions, because, in the final analysis, they are subjective decisions.
This is correct. I know plenty of people who are clueless about security, and computers generally (I'm thinking of the ones who ask me "Do I have Adobe on my computer?"), but I'm not prepared to tell them they have to stop using them until they become experts. The real solution here is to offer proactive solutions. The ISPs could provide them for free (including house calls) and probably still come out ahead financially.
+0.5, Insightful
I wouldn't say it's impossible to do well, but it sure is hard, for two reasons. First, it takes a lot of staff time, proportionately, to get a short-term volunteer up to speed. Second, a lot of people (especially people working in their own fields) are very insistent about doing things they way they are used to, and not the way their hosts do them. This means that not only they not helping, they're actually setting the host organization back.
So, take some time to reflect on your willingness to do someone else's tasks, in their way, on their schedule. To really be helpful requires an uncommon amount of humility.
How did I get "insightful?" I was going for "funny."
I'd love to see that done with darker, grittier feel.
And when small computers use e-paper for their display, we'll have paperbackbooks.
No kidding. I'm giving serious thought to getting a Mac -- just for its video editing.
To be fair, while I have tried every video editor that runs on Linux and found every single one lacking, it isn't entirely their fault. They can't import, or see the camera at all, and I assume that's a problem in the system, not the application. Will the VLC editor be able to work around this?
Who modded this insightful? Parent has no idea what they're talking about.
A monopoly is a unfair advantage in the marketplace. A standard is an agreed-upon way to do a given thing. If all the players agree on how things will be done -- assuming they can act on those standards -- that *reduces* the likelihood of monopolies occurring, because the playing field is leveled.
That said, I'm opposed to mandatory standards. I want people to be able to choose whatever way they want to do things they might like, and I want to be there, eating popcorn, as they spiral down in flames with their proprietary formats and measurements.
I have to agree. I get annoyed when I hear people describe Ubuntu as distro that's appropriate for Linux newbies. It's not that that's untrue, it's that it sells Ubuntu short. It makes it sound like it's dumbed down somehow, and that after using it for a while, you'd want want to move on to something more advanced. That's simply not the case. All the advanced features are there, waiting for you, as soon as you're interested in them.
I would love to mod my own car, but I haven't had mod points in ages.
All it takes is to save your document, send it to everybody you want to share it with (or upload it onto RapidShare).
I'm liking Ubuntu One. You save locally, and it automatically saves a copy to the cloud. That way, you have the best of both worlds.
Now... if only it worked as described. It's still pretty much in testing.
I work in a hospital as an interpreter, so I see a lot of how people use computers... and how they don't. Generally in the ER, the patient first sees the triage nurse, who asks a series of questions. The answers all get entered into the computer. Then the patient sees their actual nurse, who asks many of the same questions again. This information may or may not get entered in the computer. Then the PA comes in and asks the same questions a third time. This time, the information gets written on a piece of paper, or maybe a tablet computer. Eventually, the attending physician stops in just long enough to ask the same questions a fourth time, and doesn't enter the info anywhere. If the patient is admitted and sent to another department, the process starts over.
Hey, thanks a lot for traveling back in time for the express purpose of not telling us anything useful.