The Technology Vent and Rant Thread

[cc_in_oh]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Maybe Samsung build Dell's monitors, when I had to repack one of their 32" 4K monitors I had to do similar. Heavy damn thing - not mine, unfortunately.

BR

My new monitors are Dell and both have stand release buttons - a u2719 and s2716dg. Maybe it's my color blindness but I actually like the TN better than the IPS even for non-game use...

[4691mls]

Originally Posted by cc_in_oh

After a couple of tries it worked, but makes me wonder where Samsung is finding their engineers, and whether anyone anywhere has ever figured that out just from the picture?

Instructions by illustration often don't work for me. I usually need words along with the pictures.

It sometimes helps me if they use photos instead of drawings.

[Gardenman]

Originally Posted by 4691mls

Instructions by illustration often don't work for me. I usually need words along with the pictures.

It sometimes helps me if they use photos instead of drawings.

Even more helpful is videos. That should be mandated for all instructions.

[4691mls]

Originally Posted by Gardenman

Even more helpful is videos. That should be mandated for all instructions.

Sometimes you can find homemade instruction videos on YouTube.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by 4691mls

Sometimes you can find homemade instruction videos on YouTube.

Oh, god, yes, all the time! I'm constantly looking for that sort of thing (particularly on this bloody DENON receiver that we have, which has instructions originally written in Martian, translated by Koreans, subsequently machine-translated into Tibetian by Google Translate, then adjusted by a human translator using Dragon Naturally Speaking, into Japanese and from thence, into something termed English. That is utterly incoherent).

Hitch

[poohbear_nc]

My most recent favorite Google Translate fail was on the instructions for a blood pressure monitor made in China - Where 'Trouble Shooting' was translated as "Trouble Removal" ....

[cc_in_oh]

I remember one from the Alta Vista days where they translated from English to Russian and back - "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" came back as "the vodka is strong but the meat is raw"...

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

My most recent favorite Google Translate fail was on the instructions for a blood pressure monitor made in China - Where 'Trouble Shooting' was translated as "Trouble Removal" ....

Originally Posted by cc_in_oh

I remember one from the Alta Vista days where they translated from English to Russian and back - "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" came back as "the vodka is strong but the meat is raw"...

Honestly, I'm dithering back and forth on which one of these is my fave....but "vodka is strong but the meat is raw" has gotta be right up there.

Hitch

[Freeshadow]

Originally Posted by Hitch

originally written in Martian, translated by Koreans, subsequently machine-translated into Tibetian by Google Translate, then adjusted by a human translator using Dragon Naturally Speaking, into Japanese and from thence, into something termed English. That is utterly incoherent).

Thanks for this "I love you" -statement for human translators who actually DO their work.
translating myself I KNOW how utterly f* up some translations are - especially those where some smartasses think "Goo Translate is good enough" or a translation across three or four languages *sigh
Often enough I just don't know if I should just bleed from my eyes or chew up my keyboard...
Translation is much alike good typesetting or sysadmin work - most people don't not notice it until it's ABSENT. So yes I know what you mean.

hugs, F.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Honestly, I'm dithering back and forth on which one of these is my fave....but "vodka is strong but the meat is raw" has gotta be right up there.

Which is why they had strong vodka. Many things were raw, but after a few shots you ceased to care...

I had dinner a few years back in a place in "Little Russia" in Brooklyn, NY. I posted elsewhere that when opening an ethnic restaurant, you probably didn't want to accurately reproduce the service levels in restaurants back home. It took something like half an hour to get a server, he spoke no English, so we pointed at the dishes in the menu to indicate what we wanted, it took another half hour or so to get our dishes, which were at best mediocre, and paying for the meal had me wandering back looking for someone to take our payment, and passing a kitchen with a guy smoking like a chimney while preparing dishes.

A table full of locals across the room from us where knocking back vodka and having a fine old time. I guess for them the place did reproduce life back in the old country. We weren't vodka drinkers (my tipple is malt whiskey), so that wasn't an option for us.

That place no longer exists, and in its most recent life was trying to be a high end steak house. Failing at that, too, though I suspect different owners also lacking clues.
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

Translation is much alike good typesetting or sysadmin work - most people don't notice it until it's ABSENT. So yes I know what you mean.

I've been a sysadmin, so yes, exactly right.

I had conversations with co-workers about it, where I said "If everything goes well, we're invisible. Things Just Work. We are only noticed when they don't. Our challenge is educating the non-technical managers we work for about all that is involved in making things Just Work, so they can properly appraise us when performance reviews occur."

(My first boss at that employer was the SVP/Operations. He was non-technical, but knew he was non-technical. I said "That's okay, Larry. That's what I'm here for." He would tell me what he wanted to accomplish, I would research it and present a list of hardware and software he needed to do it. He didn't try to second guess me. His concern was getting the President of the company to sign off on the budget.

OTOH, Larry was a stress puppy who needed to be in a nervous tizzy to do things, and would unconsciously create things to be in a tizzy about, so he could behave in his accustomed manner. I managed to not say "Larry, take two Xanax and call me in the morning", but it took doing... )
______
Dennis

[Dylrob]

So I’m not able to sync my Garmin fitness tracker with my phone ATM, on account of the fact that hackers have breached their systems and are ransoming them. This is both frustrating and unnerving. Frustrating because I can’t use my device properly thanks to something happening thousands of miles away. Unnerving because it means hackers now have even more of my personal information. (This isn’t as bad as the Equifax breach, but I still don’t like these scumbags having my information)

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

Thanks for this "I love you" -statement for human translators who actually DO their work.
translating myself I KNOW how utterly f* up some translations are - especially those where some smartasses think "Goo Translate is good enough" or a translation across three or four languages *sigh
Often enough I just don't know if I should just bleed from my eyes or chew up my keyboard...
Translation is much alike good typesetting or sysadmin work - most people don't not notice it until it's ABSENT. So yes I know what you mean.

hugs, F.

FREE! Boy, have we MRers missed YOU!

Yes, I have deep and abiding love for human translators that know their stuff. How many of us grew up, reading material we never would have, due to superb human translators?

I deal with this a lot, b/c I get emails all the time--ALL--from folks for which I don't have either personal ability or a crewmember that speaks or writes, etc. the writer's language. We cover a pretty good spectrum--Spanish, French, Mandarin, German, Serbian, Hindi, Tamil and Portuguese--but we do get emails that request correspondence with us. I slog through, using GoogTranslate, to say "we don't have a native or cradle or competent speaker of X," and the outcome is never pretty. We've tried it, with the languages we DO speak and it's resulted in much hilarity. But it's No Bueno for the would-be customers that want our service. :-(

So, yes: MUCH love for human translators.

Hitch

[binaryhermit]

Especially all the Restaurants in China named "Translate Server Error" in English.
Or this delightful messup http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7702913.stm
https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=11907

[Freeshadow]

fun fact: the irish garda frequently writes speeding tickets for ppl. called "prawo jazdy" (PL for "driving license)

@Hitch (& rest of "the gang") missed you all too.