I am a translator and I regularly have to deal with plays on words, though seldom ones so intricate as this example.
It's true that it's hard to reproduce the entire essence of the joke/pun/play on words, but a competent translator will always come up with something that has a similar impact and "works" equally well in context. (To the extent that "similar impact" is even possible once you've accounted for broader cultural differences.)
In this case the trick is to aim for the impact, and not complete semantic accuracy. And that's where a human translator will continue to trump machines/software/statistical approaches for the foreseaable future: the human can make a judgment call as to when it's best to privilege intent over literal signification. By default, the computer will always come down on the side of semantic accuracy.
It'll also tell you that "Time flies like an arrow and fruit flies like a banana" is supposed to be "Time flies like and arrow; fruit flies like a banana" by a vote of 18,600 to 279.
Unfortunately, the whole thing won't fit in a/. Subject line, hence the slight mangling.
Interesting argument, though, and probably quite right as long as the corpus has or can find the information on who said it and what it is/how to parse it...though I still wouldn't expect to see a pun come out the other end. An accurate literal translation, maybe.
I first came across the sentence in a translation class (English to French, FWIW, though I doubt it really matters what the second language is). It's a Groucho Marx one-liner, and it does give both humans and computers trouble -- not just in arriving at a "correct" translation, but in arriving at a funny play on words. (Humans of course do much better, but it's still a significant challenge.) And as far as I'm concerned, the goal of translating something funny is to arrive at something funny, not only something strictly, literally correct.
Could the translator described in the article come up with a correct translation? I very much doubt it, but even if it could it would be even more unlikely to come across as a play on words.
As the article says, the system is most useful for technical material with specialized vocabulary, which also happens to be the case with every automated translation system already on the market. Throw ambiguity, metaphor, and plays on words into the mix and they will make mistakes. I see nothing in the article to indicate that that problem has been solved.
The reason is probably that there's no iPhoto for Windows, and there never will be. Therefore all iPod-related functionality is part of iTunes (for which a design goal is surely to be as close as possible to identical on both platforms).
Actually, I think massively lowering the accuracy level of rumor sites (by whatever means -- leave that aside for the moment) would only lead to more speculation and more fun for the fanboys. As recently as a month ago, macrumors.com, essentially an aggregator of Apple news and rumors, was drawing lots of posts saying more or less "it's no fun anymore now that Think Secret has top-notch sources."
"A journalist is anyone reporting news to the public. "
I like this one. Just one question: since when is information about a company's future plans (whether possible, probable, or leaked) "news"? I thought news consisted of things that are past or ongoing.
* runs a website that covers only a single company * claims to be a fan of that company * provides more coverage of "future news" than of stuff that's already happened * relies exclusively on anonymous sources * solicits "insiders" to be anonymous "contributing editors"
Last time I checked, serious journalists used anonymous sources as a last resort and tried to have corroborating sources for stories. And they cover things that are happening or have already happened, not "rumors." Think Secret is just the opposite of all that.
The Aenar (ep. 4.13) is full of telltale scenes proving that the cast, crew and writers were told of the cancellation during its making:
Romulan Voice of Reason (R'Vor): Admiral, the humans did a great deal of damage to the ship and the one kidnapped alien on which our whole strategy depends needs some sleep!
Admiral: We have been hired for three episodes, and three episodes we shall make! Arrr, mateys! Attack!
R'Vor: Very well. Say, do you think I can keep this jacket? It's kinda cool, like it came from a Duran Duran video.
Admiral: Bid for it on eBay like everyone else.
****
Shran: The Aenar are a race of blind Andorians who live below the surface. They were thought completely mythical until just 50 years ago...sadly there are only a few thousand of them left.
Archer: I guess that explains their huge high-tech city, which is lit up like Times Square.
Shran: Dammit, Pinkskin, I'm a hotheaded but friendly alien, not a continuity guy.
****
T'Pol: I should be the one to test the device. Repeatedly.
Phlox: Well, yes, Vulcans do have some telepathic ability...
T'Pol: No, I mean if I can get my character killed off now I can do rehab and still have time to audition for some pilots.
****
Shran: Stay out of trouble, Pinkskin, because you probably won't see me for a while.
Archer: Why? Will the Imperial Command punish you for losing your ship?
Shran: No...it's just...do you have any idea how much these antennae cost?
****
Tucker: Cap'n, I demand a transfer.
Archer: No! I won't approve it!
Tucker: I'd rather not explain why I need it, but I'm beggin' you as a friend, please transfer me.
Archer: Is it T'Pol?
Tucker: No, it's, well, um...it's my agent. He says if I can get out now there's still a shot at a bit part on Desperate Housewives.
Archer: Really? Listen, can you have your agent call my agent? Thanks. Transfer approved.
****
Archer: Archer to Hoshi!
(silence)
Archer: Archer to Mayweather!
(silence)
Phlox: They can't speak, captain.
Archer: What? Is it an alien virus? Romulan telepaths? What???
Phlox: No, if they're given speaking parts this week the producers will have to pay them full scale.
I think you'll see FairPlay licensed when (if?) players become commodity items with razor-thin margins, and the real profit centre becomes music retailing. Increasing capacity and changing feature sets in the player world could make that day farther off than it might seem...not to mention tiny market penetration compared to cassette and CD walkman-type devices (tens of millions sold vs. hundreds of millions).
Choice is good, competition is good. The Napster model holds no appeal for me; the iTunes model has some appeal; and niche players that serve up non-DRM MP3s by independent artists have some appeal.
But that's just me. Others will differ, and it's a big enough world for there to be something for all of us.
I don't want there to be one grocery store, one shoe store, one car brand. Why should I hope for one music retailer, online or not, to be dominant?
Music is a huge business, and there is room for all of them to co-exist. I happen to like Apple's products, but I don't think they should be the only thing.
Crap, should have previewed. Here it is again properly formatted.
The iTunes value proposition is pretty simple.
It costs a bit less than a physical CD, but you get less and there's no attempt to hide that fact. So if that were the only factor, it'd be almost sure to fail. Only advantage: essentially instant delivery.
Unlike the CD, you have the option to buy a single song (with some "album only" exceptions). Big advantage for many people.
It costs way, way more than a p2p download, but you get convenience and instant gratification. Ever wait days for a torrent or eDonkey DL that never finished? Ever download something that wasn't what it was supposed to be, or was badly ripped?
The first point brings some of the appeal, but the second and third are where the real value lies. Spend ten bucks, get an album (or 99-cent song) that downloads right away and is guaranteed to be what you expect it to be. You are paying for convenience, and you do have a permanent license to keep playing that music, even if you don't have liner notes and you have to supply your own 25-cent CD.
Also, don't forget that 128 k AAC encoded directly from master is easily as good as 192 k MP3 ripped from CD. Maybe better
The iTunes value proposition is pretty simple.
1. It costs a bit less than a physical CD, but you get less and there's no attempt to hide that fact. So if that were the only factor, it'd be almost sure to fail. Only advantage: essentially instant delivery.
2. Unlike the CD, you have the option to buy a single song (with some "album only" exceptions). Big advantage for many people.
3. It costs way, way more than a p2p download, but you get convenience and instant gratification. Ever wait days for a torrent or eDonkey DL that never finished? Ever download something that wasn't what it was supposed to be, or was badly ripped?
The first point brings some of the appeal, but the second and third are where the real value lies. Spend ten bucks, get an album (or 99-cent song) that downloads right away and is guaranteed to be what you expect it to be. You are paying for convenience, and you do have a permanent license to keep playing that music, even if you don't have liner notes and you have to supply your own 25-cent CD.
Also, don't forget that 128 k AAC encoded directly from master is easily as good as 192 k MP3 ripped from CD. Maybe better.
Frightened to say so? No, the Castro regime has always publicly wanted to see the base closed. As a symbolic gesture, they have always refused to cash the rent checks the U.S. still sends. Supposedly Fidel keeps them neatly stacked in a desk drawer.
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I am a translator and I regularly have to deal with plays on words, though seldom ones so intricate as this example.
It's true that it's hard to reproduce the entire essence of the joke/pun/play on words, but a competent translator will always come up with something that has a similar impact and "works" equally well in context. (To the extent that "similar impact" is even possible once you've accounted for broader cultural differences.)
In this case the trick is to aim for the impact, and not complete semantic accuracy. And that's where a human translator will continue to trump machines/software/statistical approaches for the foreseaable future: the human can make a judgment call as to when it's best to privilege intent over literal signification. By default, the computer will always come down on the side of semantic accuracy.
It'll also tell you that "Time flies like an arrow and fruit flies like a banana" is supposed to be "Time flies like and arrow; fruit flies like a banana" by a vote of 18,600 to 279.
/. Subject line, hence the slight mangling.
Unfortunately, the whole thing won't fit in a
Interesting argument, though, and probably quite right as long as the corpus has or can find the information on who said it and what it is/how to parse it...though I still wouldn't expect to see a pun come out the other end. An accurate literal translation, maybe.
I first came across the sentence in a translation class (English to French, FWIW, though I doubt it really matters what the second language is). It's a Groucho Marx one-liner, and it does give both humans and computers trouble -- not just in arriving at a "correct" translation, but in arriving at a funny play on words. (Humans of course do much better, but it's still a significant challenge.) And as far as I'm concerned, the goal of translating something funny is to arrive at something funny, not only something strictly, literally correct.
Could the translator described in the article come up with a correct translation? I very much doubt it, but even if it could it would be even more unlikely to come across as a play on words.
As the article says, the system is most useful for technical material with specialized vocabulary, which also happens to be the case with every automated translation system already on the market. Throw ambiguity, metaphor, and plays on words into the mix and they will make mistakes. I see nothing in the article to indicate that that problem has been solved.
...and fruit flies like a banana.
When an automated translator can handle that one without bursting into flames, I'll start to believe.
The reason is probably that there's no iPhoto for Windows, and there never will be. Therefore all iPod-related functionality is part of iTunes (for which a design goal is surely to be as close as possible to identical on both platforms).
Actually, I think massively lowering the accuracy level of rumor sites (by whatever means -- leave that aside for the moment) would only lead to more speculation and more fun for the fanboys. As recently as a month ago, macrumors.com, essentially an aggregator of Apple news and rumors, was drawing lots of posts saying more or less "it's no fun anymore now that Think Secret has top-notch sources."
"A journalist is anyone reporting news to the public. "
I like this one. Just one question: since when is information about a company's future plans (whether possible, probable, or leaked) "news"? I thought news consisted of things that are past or ongoing.
So is a journalist a guy who
* runs a website that covers only a single company
* claims to be a fan of that company
* provides more coverage of "future news" than of stuff that's already happened
* relies exclusively on anonymous sources
* solicits "insiders" to be anonymous "contributing editors"
Last time I checked, serious journalists used anonymous sources as a last resort and tried to have corroborating sources for stories. And they cover things that are happening or have already happened, not "rumors." Think Secret is just the opposite of all that.
So...is it journalism?
The Aenar (ep. 4.13) is full of telltale scenes proving that the cast, crew and writers were told of the cancellation during its making:
Romulan Voice of Reason (R'Vor): Admiral, the humans did a great deal of damage to the ship and the one kidnapped alien on which our whole strategy depends needs some sleep!
Admiral: We have been hired for three episodes, and three episodes we shall make! Arrr, mateys! Attack!
R'Vor: Very well. Say, do you think I can keep this jacket? It's kinda cool, like it came from a Duran Duran video.
Admiral: Bid for it on eBay like everyone else.
****
Shran: The Aenar are a race of blind Andorians who live below the surface. They were thought completely mythical until just 50 years ago...sadly there are only a few thousand of them left.
Archer: I guess that explains their huge high-tech city, which is lit up like Times Square.
Shran: Dammit, Pinkskin, I'm a hotheaded but friendly alien, not a continuity guy.
****
T'Pol: I should be the one to test the device. Repeatedly.
Phlox: Well, yes, Vulcans do have some telepathic ability...
T'Pol: No, I mean if I can get my character killed off now I can do rehab and still have time to audition for some pilots.
****
Shran: Stay out of trouble, Pinkskin, because you probably won't see me for a while.
Archer: Why? Will the Imperial Command punish you for losing your ship?
Shran: No...it's just...do you have any idea how much these antennae cost?
****
Tucker: Cap'n, I demand a transfer.
Archer: No! I won't approve it!
Tucker: I'd rather not explain why I need it, but I'm beggin' you as a friend, please transfer me.
Archer: Is it T'Pol?
Tucker: No, it's, well, um...it's my agent. He says if I can get out now there's still a shot at a bit part on Desperate Housewives.
Archer: Really? Listen, can you have your agent call my agent? Thanks. Transfer approved.
****
Archer: Archer to Hoshi!
(silence)
Archer: Archer to Mayweather!
(silence)
Phlox: They can't speak, captain.
Archer: What? Is it an alien virus? Romulan telepaths? What???
Phlox: No, if they're given speaking parts this week the producers will have to pay them full scale.
Archer: Dammit.
I think you'll see FairPlay licensed when (if?) players become commodity items with razor-thin margins, and the real profit centre becomes music retailing. Increasing capacity and changing feature sets in the player world could make that day farther off than it might seem...not to mention tiny market penetration compared to cassette and CD walkman-type devices (tens of millions sold vs. hundreds of millions).
Take it a step further.
Choice is good, competition is good. The Napster model holds no appeal for me; the iTunes model has some appeal; and niche players that serve up non-DRM MP3s by independent artists have some appeal.
But that's just me. Others will differ, and it's a big enough world for there to be something for all of us.
I don't want there to be one grocery store, one shoe store, one car brand. Why should I hope for one music retailer, online or not, to be dominant?
Music is a huge business, and there is room for all of them to co-exist. I happen to like Apple's products, but I don't think they should be the only thing.
The iTunes value proposition is pretty simple.
The first point brings some of the appeal, but the second and third are where the real value lies. Spend ten bucks, get an album (or 99-cent song) that downloads right away and is guaranteed to be what you expect it to be. You are paying for convenience, and you do have a permanent license to keep playing that music, even if you don't have liner notes and you have to supply your own 25-cent CD.
Also, don't forget that 128 k AAC encoded directly from master is easily as good as 192 k MP3 ripped from CD. Maybe better
The iTunes value proposition is pretty simple. 1. It costs a bit less than a physical CD, but you get less and there's no attempt to hide that fact. So if that were the only factor, it'd be almost sure to fail. Only advantage: essentially instant delivery. 2. Unlike the CD, you have the option to buy a single song (with some "album only" exceptions). Big advantage for many people. 3. It costs way, way more than a p2p download, but you get convenience and instant gratification. Ever wait days for a torrent or eDonkey DL that never finished? Ever download something that wasn't what it was supposed to be, or was badly ripped? The first point brings some of the appeal, but the second and third are where the real value lies. Spend ten bucks, get an album (or 99-cent song) that downloads right away and is guaranteed to be what you expect it to be. You are paying for convenience, and you do have a permanent license to keep playing that music, even if you don't have liner notes and you have to supply your own 25-cent CD. Also, don't forget that 128 k AAC encoded directly from master is easily as good as 192 k MP3 ripped from CD. Maybe better.
No, they can't do that because this new campaign implies that buying 99-cent songs is "stupid."
Frightened to say so? No, the Castro regime has always publicly wanted to see the base closed. As a symbolic gesture, they have always refused to cash the rent checks the U.S. still sends. Supposedly Fidel keeps them neatly stacked in a desk drawer.
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