Written on Friday, the 5th of September, 2003 at 2:16 pm and was filed under:
Diversions
Thanks to Matt Dees for this one:
http://ssshotaru.homestead.com/files/aolertranslator.html
TEH GOGLA GIEVTH AND TEH GOGLE TAEKTH AWAY!1!!! WTF LOL I LOV3 GOGLA - ITS LIEK A RASEARCH LIBERRY AND TECH SUPORT AL IN ONA!!1! WTF LOL I FIND TRANSLATIONS FOR NM3S OF DALICIOUS FODSTUFS AND PEOPLA FIND MAH WEBPAEGS 2 LAAEV O COMENTS ON MAH BLOG ANTREIS AND MAH!11!! OMG ROMAET ASKED WUT I WUD DO IF GOGLE WARE 2 DISAPEAR AND IT WAS A V3RY IMPORTANT QUESTION1111!1!1 WTF LOL I US3 GOGLA SO MUCH TAHT IT PRACTICALY IS DA WEB!11! WTF LOL WUT WUD U DO?!!?!?? WUD IT MAEK A DIF3RENC3
?!?!? WTF
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Written on Wednesday, the 3rd of September, 2003 at 11:52 pm and was filed under:
Diversions
The google giveth, and the google taketh away. I love google - it’s like a research library and tech support all in one. I find translations for names of delicious foodstuffs, and people find my webpages to leave semi-coherent comments on my blog entries and images.
My roommate asked what I would do if google were to disappear, and it was a very important question. I use google so much that it practically IS the web. What would you do? Would it make a difference?
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Written on Tuesday, the 2nd of September, 2003 at 12:37 pm and was filed under:
Diversions
Oops, that's the Iowa state fair. I think that Minnesota's fair is called “the Great Minnesota Get Together“. My mom's husband calls it “the Great Goddamnit, Why Did They Book Boston?” The music from the grandstands carries into the surrounding neighborhoods. At least Lynnard Skynnard was unable to torment Saint Paul with endless “Free Bird” solos. I wonder if anyone shouted “Free Bird!” to their replacement.
Melissa and I went to the fair together, and we had a terrific mini-donuts. Time! I mean time! We had a great time! We also had roasted corn, Pronto Pups and fried cheese curds. I was tempted by the breaded fried lard, but Melissa talked me down.
I couldn't go to an event as spectacular as the State Fair without a camera, so I packed the Canon S30. I only took 256 pictures, since we were only there for five or six hours, and I only had one battery for the power-mad S30.
If you are going to the fair, please use the park 'n' ride sytem of shuttles. You can pay $2 and get a $3 coupon or catch a free shuttle and not get a $3 coupon. We opted for the free shuttle a mere half mile from my house. On the ride back we enjoyed the luxurious splendour of a charter bus - entertainment was even provided!
A half dozen “urban youths” took the back few rows over. The joyful sounds of beatboxing and freestyling filled the air, interspersed with trash talking and quotes from Friday. Most of the folks around us tightened their grip on their children and trembled, but Melissa and I were cracking up. In retrospect we should have gone to the back of the bus to kick it. Oh well.
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Written on Friday, the 29th of August, 2003 at 2:55 pm and was filed under:
Nerdity
Jeffrey Lee Parson, 18, is t33kid. t33kid is probably the lamest hacker handle I have ever seen. t33kid has been arrested for releasing a variant of the Blaster worm. t33kid lives in Hopkins. Hopkins! That's twenty minutes away! If I would have known, I would have gone and kicked his ass.
I probably would have needed help, because he is a big big guy, and I'm not talking about what may or may not be in his pants. This time.
t33kid!
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/virus/story/0,10801,84501,00.html
t33kid!
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Written on Friday, the 29th of August, 2003 at 1:55 am and was filed under:
Food,
Speaking in Tongues
If you have ever struggled with a menu in a Chinese restaurant, take a gander at this site:
http://www.inu.org/meiwah/
It's the joint. Bonus points for you if you can send me the unicode entities for “potsticker”. Oh yes, you will be mine.
Update: thanks to http://www.tigernt.com/, I got my characters. They don't look anything like the drawings. Dammit!
锅贴 [guo1 tie1] /fried dumpling/
锅 [guo1] /pot/pan/boiler/
贴 [tie1] /to stick/to paste/to keep close to/to fit snugly/allowance/
Also, “gold” (金) is supposed to be a part of the “pot” (锅) character. I'm not sure that I see it, but maybe.
Another update- my friend beckett came up with this alternate pair of characters:
鍋贴 [guo1 tie1] /fried dumpling/
Then, because we were arguing over which character was correct, I found this on an online menu:
http://www.222.to/shanghaitown/menu.asp
鍋貼 [guo1 tie1] /fried dumpling/
The last one looks closest to what was on the site where I started, but doesn't match the online dictionaries.
As far as guo (鍋) goes, I found a kanji reference to it, which is Japanese, but the Japanese used Chinese characters as a starting point, so I think that we're on the right path.
http://www.kanjidict.com/demo/934b.html
Ah ha! I spoke with a coworker from Taiwan, and she explained that all four characters are correct, and that one set was Traditional and the other was Simplified.
Traditional: 鍋貼
Simplified: 锅贴
Here's some explanation as to the difference:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese
Of course, all of those characters are displayable via Unicode. I use html entities like 鍋 and 貼 to display the characters that I want. I could code my page in UTF-8. Then, I could just cut and paste the characters instead of translating them into numeric codes. However, my work computer doesn't have Chinese locales installed, so I don't have the fonts to show those characters. They just show up as boxes. My home computer shows everything correctly, which is way cool.
Oh yeah - Beckett wins the prize: a homecooked dinner whenever he is in Minnesota or I am in Los Angeles.
Next up: steamed or fried dumplings? Obviously, I am a fan of the fried variety, but Beckett holds the incorrect opinion that steamed dumplings are somehow better. What ever.
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Written on Friday, the 29th of August, 2003 at 12:59 am and was filed under:
Speaking in Tongues
自杀
哲 [zhe2] /philosophy/wise/
杰 [jie2] /hero/heroic/
士 [shi4] /scholar/warrior/knight/
狮 [shi1] /lion/
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Written on Thursday, the 28th of August, 2003 at 3:32 pm and was filed under:
Diversions
In my tiny corner of the world, everything happens on Thursdays- especially at work. Oh, sure, Friday might be just as busy- but when it comes to sheer edge-of-your seat excitement, there's nothing like Thursday to make you scream: “where is my report you fuckers! I want to finish and go home!” That report will never come, and I will be late getting home, which just rolls into the next day, and the next. And the next. It's a big smear of lateness that will someday end in horrific tragedy.
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Written on Thursday, the 28th of August, 2003 at 2:39 am and was filed under:
Diversions
From: Matt Hotujec
Subject: yes!
http://www.worldbeardchampionships.com/
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Written on Thursday, the 28th of August, 2003 at 2:36 am and was filed under:
Diversions
My friend Matt Hotujec sends the best links!
From: Matt Hotujec
Subject: Porn Titles
http://www.starma.com/penis/daddyswank/daddyswank.html
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Written on Wednesday, the 27th of August, 2003 at 7:07 pm and was filed under:
Diversions
It's hard to keep a rational perspective when you're temping. notmydesk.com is there to help. Read it and weep… with laughter! It's wacky! Honestly, it's an awesome site. If there was a book, I'd buy it.
note to notmydesk.com: I can do a phat human beat-box in times of need. :P
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