• Bing Translate fails (yet) again

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities, Social Media, Tech

    Social media platform Twitter uses Bing Translate, (another fine Microsoft product? Ed.), for tweet translation.

    However, as this blog has highlighted before, Bing Translate isn’t all that good.

    Indeed, for all practical purposes, it’s completely useless.

    Evidence for this is legion. The latest in my timeline is shown below, where Bing Translate manages, with no external aid or interference, to confuse Somali, a Cushitic branch Afro-Asian language, with Estonian, a Finnic branch Uralic language.

    text related to Bing reads Translate from Estonian

    This for me is reminiscent of the old Stork margarine advertisements that were doing the rounds in my childhood, where gullible television viewers were improbably told that the taste of Stork was indistinguishable from that of butter (or butter from a dead crab. Ed.).

  • Bristol Crown Court judge resorts to Google Translate

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Politics

    Bristol Crown CourtThe shambles that is the Ministry of Justice’s outsourcing of court interpreting services continues, although it does not have such a high media profile these days.

    Today’s Bristol Post reports that a judge was forced to use Google Translate to discuss a case with the defendant.

    Bath resident Jaroslaw Nowacki was appearing at Bristol Crown Court on Wednesday 30th August to answer a charge of possession of a kitchen knife in a public place without good reason or lawful authority.

    However, His Honour Judge Euan Ambrose was unaware until the hearing that Nowacki would need the services an interpreter.

    After confirming the defendant was originally from Poland, the judge decided to adjourn the plea hearing until 6th September to arrange for an interpreter to be in attendance.

    The Post continues:

    But due to Nowacki’s limited grasp of English, he did not understand what he was being told and Judge Ambrose turned to Google Translate to get his message across.

    “Whether Google Translate will accurately translate what I want to say I don’t know,” said the judge.

    After spending several minutes typing out a message, Judge Ambrose printed it off and it was handed to Nowacki for him to read in the dock.

    Nowacki then confirmed that he understood the message and the case was adjourned.

  • Two point releases for LibreOffice

    Steve WoodsLinux, Open Source, Open Standards, Tech

    On the last day of August, The Document Foundation (TDF) announced two point releases for the popular LibreOffice productivity suite: LibreOffice 5.4.1 “Fresh”, the first minor release of the new LibreOffice 5.4 family; and LibreOffice 5.3.6 “Still”, the sixth release of the mature LibreOffice 5.3 family.

    LibreOffice 5.4.1 represents the bleeding edge in term of features, and as such is targeted at technology enthusiasts and early adopters, whereas LibreOffice 5.3.6 is targeted at more conservative users and enterprise deployments.

    As regards enterprise use, TDF suggests deploying LibreOffice 5.3.6 with support from certified professionals. Furthermore, many companies sitting on TDF’s Advisory Board also provide either value-added Long Term Supported versions of LibreOffice or consultancy services for migration to LibreOffice and training.

    LibreOffice 5.4.1 includes approximately 100 bug and regression fixes, along with document compatibility improvements. Technical details about the bug fixes can be found in the RC1 and RC2 change logs.

    LibreOffice 5.4.1 screenshot
    LibreOffice 5.4.1 (Writer) in action

    LibreOffice 5.3.6 includes approximately 50 bug and regression fixes. As with 5.4.1, technical details about the release can be found in the change log.

    Download LibreOffice

    LibreOffice 5.4.1 and LibreOffice 5.3.6 are available for immediate download for GNU/Linux, Mac OSX and Windows. Select the version you desire for your preferred operating system.

    Please note that if you’re still using Windows XP or Windows Vista, LibreOffice 5.4 will be the last release that will run on those legacy operating systems.

    Support LibreOffice

    LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members are invited to support The Document Foundation with a donation. Donations help TDF to maintain its infrastructure, share knowledge and organise events, such as this year’s LibreOffice Conference, which will be taking place in Rome in October.

  • Visit Bart Nil

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Oddities

    The shadowy East Bristol Tourist Board has recently been in action, welcoming visitors to Barton Hill, an ancient settlement recorded as Barton [Regis] in the Gloucestershire pages of the 11th century Domesday Book.

    Barton itself derives from the old English ‘bere-tun‘ corn farm, outlying grange of barley farm.

    From the visit of the Domesday assessors to the present day much has changed. The area still has one church, now St Luke’s, but the two mills mentioned in 1086 have long vanished. However, the area’s changes over the centuries – and those of surrounding districts – are being charted by the Barton Hill History Group.

    grafitti reads you are now entering Barton Hill. Have a nice stay

    This cheery message above can be found at the junction of Ducie Road (formerly Pack Horse Lane; there’s a street name that could tell a story. Ed.) with Lawrence Hill.

    Have a nice day, y’all! 😀

    Update 20/08/17: The cheery welcome message has now been painted over. Does this mean visitors to Barton Hill are no longer welcome? In the immortal words of Private Eye: I think we should be told!

  • Proofreader, what proofreader?

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Oddities

    Evidence that accuracy is not a priority at the Temple Way Ministry of Truth abounds every day in the online edition of the Bristol Post.

    Below is a screenshot of the most egregious example of a lack of quality control in what passes for today’s local news since the title’s takeover by the quality-unconscious Trinity Mirror plc.

    headline reads Barclays warns online banking service won't work intermittently for five months

    For those interested, the title’s sub-editors, the people that exercised quality control over what was actually published, were all made redundant many years ago. It is now up to the folk who write the copy to check it themselves.

    That being so, your correspondent does wonder whether standards of English language teaching have declined in the five and a half decades since he first entered full-time education, or whether the teaching he received was of an exceptional quality.

    If you have any thoughts about the quality of media reporting or language teaching, please feel free to comment below.

  • Mr Gove pays a visit

    Steve WoodsMedia, Oddities, Politics, Social Media

    Yesterday the BBC reported on the visit of DEFRA Minister Michael Gove (the man who, when Education Secretary, wanted all schools to be “above average”. Ed.) to the Antrim Show in the company of DUP MPs Paul Girvan and Ian Paisley.

    The DUP are of course the minority Conservative government’s new best friends, having bribed them with £1.5 bn. from the “magic money tree” (© Prime Minister Theresa May) to prop it up in crucial parliamentary votes.

    Whilst courting his party’s new best pals in the DUP, Gove managed at the same time to snub half of the Northern Irish electorate by pulling out of a meeting with Sinn Féin at the last minute.

    However, the BBC fails to make mention of the sterling groundwork done by DEFRA civil servants in communicating the pre-visit wisdom of the Minister to the local media. In this context we should be grateful to Belfast freelance journalist Amanda Ferguson for posting the following on her Twitter account.

    shot of Defra statement for Gove's Antrim visit mentioning Welsh lamb

    No, you didn’t misread the above. Gove mentioned Welsh lamb, a product with a protected food name, the implication of this being that he believes this fine product from west of Offa’s Dyke actually comes from even further west from over the Irish Sea.

    One has to wonder whether Mr Gove could find his backside with both hands with such a poor grasp of geography. It was evidently not a subject at which he excelled at Aberdeen’s independent Robert Gordon’s Academy, to which he won a scholarship.

    For your ‘umble scribe this is yet further proof that the government in Westminster and their sidekicks, the mandarins in Whitehall, care little for anywhere in the country outside the M25 and the metropolitan commuter belt and tend to view the devolved regions of the United Kingdom and the English regions too as little more than colonies of London and therefore ripe for exploitation and patronising treatment.

  • Ambiguity

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities, Tech

    Throughout my professional life, writing so that one’s meaning is clear and there is no room for misinterpretation has been of paramount importance.

    However, writing without ambiguity is a skill that’s evidently bypassed those who currently write the news headlines for Yahoo’s UK website…

    caption to news story reads bride-to-be shot dead by police in her pyjamas

    Enquiries are continuing as to how the cops came to be in the woman’s pyjamas in the first place. 😀

  • Tidy Barton Hill

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Politics

    Bristol Clean Streets logoYesterday, along with Kurt James, Bristol City Council’s co-ordinator for the Bristol Clean Streets campaign, and local resident Eric Green, I joined a group of volunteers from Tawfiq Mosque in Barton Hill (usually rendered as “Bart Nil” in the local vernacular. Ed.😉 ) for a community litter pick.

    Starting at 10.30 in the morning, we split into 6 groups and tackled six different parts of the area for the next 2 hours, picking up litter and noting any larger, fly-tipped items for reporting later.

    While picking, we did get passers-by thanking us for our efforts, but ultimately I’m sure all those taking part would prefer it if our fellow citizens didn’t mess the area up in the first place. 😀

    It was a successful event and I was most encouraged by the cheerful enthusiasm and commitment of those involved. The photo below shows just some of the stuff we collected.

    litter pickers and litter picked
    Some of the litter picked up assembled at the Urban Park collection point.

    Your correspondent understands the mosque plans to make this a regular event. If so, I’ll try and get along again to assist.

    In the meantime, if you spot a problem on a Bristol street, be it an abandoned vehicle, litter, fly-tipping, a blocked drain or anything else, please report it to the council for attention.

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