A friend of mine sent me this link as the last word on Star Wars Episode III. Despite so many of my fellow SF-geek friends liking it, well, or at least liking it well-enough, I sat in the theater, yes, watching it, knowing it would be utter trash, and thinking to myself, “Why didn’t they spend the money making ____ instead?” I know why, of course: they knew Star Wars III (which is in all reality Star Wars VI) would make piles more money, even if it was trash. Never mind that The Forever War would make a much better …
Month: June 2005
Babelfished Student Email
A student just sent me a completely garbled, incomprehensible email that had obviously been written in Korean and translated using a service like Babelfish. So here’s what I put in my response: 너가 이 원본에서 볼 수 있는다 대로, 전산화한 번역은 흔하게 아주 잘 일하지 않는다. 형은 불가해한 나오고, 기계가 사용된 독자에게 명백하다. 너가 그같은 프로그램을 사용하면 외국어 교사를 이메일로 보낼 때 특별하게 좋지 않다. 간단한 형 너자신을 쓰는것은 낫다. 이해하기 간단한 형은 쉽다. 너가 나에게 보낸 무엇을 어떤 이해되지 않는다. (As you can see from this text, computerized translation usually does not work very well. Sentences come out incomprehensible, …
Feeling Slightly Less Secure
Walking around downtown today, picking up gifts for my upcoming visit to my family, I ran across a few scary shops. One of them had posters of all kinds of hunting rifles all over the front door and, when I glimpsed inside, there were more gun posters up on the wall. Are hunting rifles legal for Korean citizens? Well, even if they aren’t, they could go on ahead and pick up a new chainsaw or two. The chainsaw shop (I’m not kidding—there were five or six new chainsaws on display out on the street in front of the shop, and …
On Top Of Things
Well, there is nothing to makes you feel like getting as much work as possible done ahead of time as knowing that you’re leaving the country only a few days after the last test you’re giving. My gradesheets are all pretty much ready to hand in: homework ticks have all been made, attendance grades assigned, midterm marks all converted to out-of-30-marks. This means that during testing, all I need to do is plug in a mark out of 40 for the test grade, assign an in-class participation mark to be combined with the homework ticks into a single Homework/Participation grade, …
A Screed Worth Reading
This John Ross article at counterpunch.com brings my friend Adam to mind. It’s called Pope Ratzo and the Hucksters of Death. It’s viciously critical of the American “Christian Right” and of the Catholic Church’s nomination of Rightwing Ratzinger as Pope. Again, the hammering point where I have to agree: if everyone’s so damned Christian, why are they wasting time talking about condoms and sex when there are literally millions of people dying from something both Jesus and all other voices in the Bible condemn thoroughly—poverty?