context clues or remembrance of things past

Writing for Æon magazine, scholar and translator Arthur Goldhammer explores the nuance of translating versus interpreting and how context can be an elusive matter for even the cleverest algorithm—occasioned by one translation engine’s shift from a phrase-based system to a neural network that can infer at least some of the subtleties of natural language. 
Schooled on a variety of sources, the algorithm can essay something as rich and complex (in small bites at least) as Marcel Proust’s indulgent masterwork À la recherche du temps perdu, which we humans know is translated as Remembrance of Things Past—as the article demonstrates. A quick check of the new translation engine does reveal it to be pretty polished and refined—ever perhaps surpassing, and the foibles of a non-native speaker using an inappropriate synonym whilst addressing nuns—reminding me of my German step-father saying “shit-storm”—do illustrate how the goal of communication is not always to be intelligible.

luck dragon

Kottke invites us to marvel at the recently completed Lucky Knot Bridge (whose long form inexplicably name is the Lucky Knot / Dragon King Kong Bridge) which despite appearances is a real, physical work of engineering and not some concept artist’s rendering. Spanning the Xiang river, you can find the bridge designed by NEXT Architects of Amsterdam and Beijing in Changsha, the capital of the Hunan province and find out more about the projects at the links.

one planet, slightly used

Although this photograph from the NASA archives from a 1984 space-walk might look as if the Earth were for sale, astronauts Joseph P Allen IV and Dale A Gardener are actually making a comment on the quality of two recovered satellites that failed to deploy properly and fell into lower orbits. This space shuttle Discovery mission was the only time “space junk” was salvaged and brought back to Earth for repairs.

blessed are the cheesemakers

Although we’re a little late for this season with first Advent last Sunday already (I suppose that necessitates that we’ll just have to eat extra morsels to catch up) and as the finished kit won’t be ready until next Christmas—via Bored Panda, there are instructions on how to make a cheese Advents calendar of one’s own. That sounds perfectly delectable and preferable—at least to my wizened old palette—to chocolates. I know quite a few fancy delicatessens and fromageries that could pull together some truly gourmet ways to count down to the holidays. What would be your daily treat?

geodesy or tectonic fictions

The always brilliant and imaginative BLDGBlog has a feature about Danish geomancers that are getting close to unveiling an “atlas of the underworld,” won through ground x-rays and computerised tomography—that is, CT scanning.
While it’s amazing enough to be able to peer into the depths of what lies beneath (and I thought it would take the whole array of gravitational wave detectors on opposite ends of the globe to bring into any sort of focus what’s under the crust), these early images also narrate an inferred history of continental drift and whole islands, oceans and mountain ranges that are now lost to us ephemeral beings. Realising how short of a time our present map of the world has existed in its recognisable form is really humbling and it makes one wonder what other artefacts—not just fossils or treasure—might have been buried and forgot.

encomio

Since seeing that raw tweet put out by one major news organisation—since amended—announcing the death of Fidel Castro with the parenthetical instructions to update the number of US presidents he’s survived if George HW Bush were to perish first, I’ve been thinking about how the media keeps its reckoning for the dead in a very much animated manner, updated continuously for all persons of note. Sadly, this year has seen quite enough in those columns. Kottke takes a look at how another bulwark of journalism has been morbidly drafting and then revising Castro’s obituary for nearly six decades on a set recurring basis as well as every time intrigue or rumours began circulating—the Cuban leader having outlived not only several successive regimes but even print journalism, various formats of media storage and some of the industry’s other institutions.

free-ride, freifahrt

In the city of Düsseldorf (:D), there is an application that allows mass-transit goers to generate bus and tram fare in exchange for a few moments of inattentiveness and letting a few advertisements play on one’s mobile device. Because of few paying sponsors so far, the new service is finite and can only issue a certain number of free ticket per day and has proven wildly popular but that ought to change as more become involved. What do you think? If fare could be redeemed as cash, passengers could technically earn over one hundred euro an hour, but surely the demographics gleaned is even more valuable to marketers and more effective—despite the potential for ignoring them—than traditional billboards and posters.

7x7

how about a nice game of chess: Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s platform for discussion on the way machines handle moral dilemmas

dantooine: Rogue One to digitally resurrect Peter Cushing to reprise his role as Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin

flippy mcflipface: from Amusing Planet’s archives, a US naval research ship that can flip from a horizontal to vertical orientation

take this job and shove it: what if we’re deluding ourselves by praising the discipline and structure that work supposedly furnishes?

senior superlatives: humourous high school year book quotations and tag-lines from 1911

champagne wishes and caviar dreams: an essay by Dave Pell examining how celebrity distorts the institutions of justice and democracy, via Kottke

treble clef: clever, colourful tableaux illustrated on vintage sheet music from Russia duo People Too