Monday, July 21, 2008

Security Blogget

I suppose you need some evidence that I, a blogger, am really and truly old-fashioned. Well, here it is. I don't know the first thing about the person profiles that we all have. I see that I can "Edit Profile" and I am siezed with a mad desire to do so.
However, discretion is the better part of valor (sorry, that wasn't from Chesterton). I noticed that some of you, when I click on your interests, have links to other people. Are these people bloggers who have the same interests as the person concerned on blogs that said person enriches with their membership? Because if they are not, I deem it prudent to cease and desist. For me anyway.

And, just in case you don't like to write comments on boring but pracitical questions like that, I will give you some real food for thought so that you can comment on its more interesting nature. While you're at it, would you be so kind as to answer my first question?

The Ten Commandments of Algernon's Game
1. I am the LORD thy God. Thou shalt have no other Gods before me. Thou shalt not translate the word "god," when it refers to a graven image so that the translation refers to me.

2. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD, thy God, in vain. Thou shalt not translate so that any words referring to sacred things are degraded. Thou shalt not translate the names and words of sacred things so that they refer to something else.

3. Keep Holy the Sabbath day. Thou shalt not translate the Bible or the liturgical texts of any Christian religion.

4, Honor your father and your mother. Thou shalt not translate when your parents tell you to stop.

5. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not translate so often that the game gets boring.

6. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not translate anything that is sexual or becomes so in the translation.

7. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not steal a definition from a definition by using the definition of the word as the translation and then translating the definition.

8. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Thou shalt not plagarize. Thou shalt be unclear.

9-10. Thou shalt not covet. Thou shalt not consciously imitate the translating style of another.

3 comments:

Hans Georg Lundahl said...

"I noticed that some of you, when I click on your interests, have links to other people. Are these people bloggers who have the same interests as the person concerned on blogs that said person enriches with their membership?"

if you have as interrest "lying sweetly down in my hammock in the garden of my aunt" you will be the only one listed on that interest

if you have as interest "reading" you will be one of very many

not however of those who instead note "lesen" "lire" "läsa" "legere" et c

whenever you click on any interest you will be linked to a list of all profiles that have the same interest spelt the same way

any interest is limited from other interests by a comma

"reading, writing, arithmetic" are three interrests:
1 reading
2 writing
3 arithmetic

"chatting with Tom, Dick, and Harry" are also three:

1 chatting with Tom
2 Dick
3 and Harry

I think, but I may be wrong, that a click on someones interest "chatting" will link to any interest including that word - thus also "chatting with Tom" of the fictitious example above.

One practical corrollary of this: if you divide any list (like favourite books or music) into sublists beginning with a noun and a colon, make a comma after the colon and divide from previous by a comma, not a semi-colon. Then all the titles, authors, composers et c in one subgroup will be listed correctly with additional items such as "classical composers like:" or "comics:"

One other is, if you want to reach people who have read like LotR in more than one language, write:
Lord of the Rings, Senhor dos Anheis, Herr der Ringe, Ringtrilogien, and clicking on any will give you readers in English, Portuguese, German, Swedish.

The computer will not link to readers of Sagan om Ringen if you click on Herr der Ringe or even to readers of "Lord of the Rings" of you write "Lord off the Ring".

One of the proofs that computers know nothing, understand nothing, et c.

The translations available are for things like profession: if you are student, you will also link to édutiant and estudiante. But there there are only limited options.

Hans Georg Lundahl said...

the question of consent is actually regulated from the fact that you put clickable info in your profile

each one who does so is deemed to know that that implies the technical possibility of being found when one clicks the interest or industry or so on of someone else - particularly after being active in updating a blogg - and to have thereby consented

as to plagiarism, using a dictionary definition to thou art translated is not plagiarism, because there is creativity in reuse

using a dictionary definition from someone else's dictionary to make your own usually is because same thing is used for same purpose while changing only name of author - unless there is no doubt about the word's meaning, so that coincidences of definition are inevitable - and that is so not what has been done here

Hans Georg Lundahl said...

same thing applies to place names
if you live in Valladolid in Valladolid, you are one of 862, if you live anywhere in Valladolid (whether Valladolid itself or e g Seb Estéban), you are one of 1300