facepalm

  • The dangers of Google Translate

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Tech

    Amongst professional linguists, Google Translate is a constant source of amusement, frustration and other emotions in between due to its lack of reliability.

    However, the rest of the world doesn’t necessarily recognise the limitations of machine translation tools and this can have devastating effects in some instances.

    This is amply illustrated today as UPI reports that Danish police made a mistake when they used Mountain View’s language mangler on a text message while questioning a man suspected of financing terrorism.

    The suspect’s attorney says the result was a mistranslation that caused his client to suffer a breakdown following his interrogation. The man in question, an ethnic Kurd, was suspected of donating money to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) through ROJ-TV, a Kurdish language station based in Copenhagen.

    The European Union classes the PKK as a terrorist organisation.

    According to the Copenhagen Post, Thorkild Høyer, the suspect’s lawyer, said the mistranslation violates a Danish law barring police from giving misleading information during questioning and also called the use of Google Translate unacceptable in legal proceedings.

    Inspector Svend Foldager of the Copenhagen Police said the incident was the only one he knows of where police have used Google Translate.

    The Google Translate version of the message in Turkish read: “I call for a meeting.” However, according to Høyer, the message was a mass invitation and part of a text-message chain without a personal sender.

    The mistranslation of the text message was subsequently discovered by an interpreter.

    ROJ-TV itself has been found guilty by a Danish court of supporting the Kurdish separatist organisation PKK and has been fined Kr. 5.2 mn. in a controversial case that took 6 years to reach a verdict. However, the station is appealing the fine and has not had its broadcasting licence revoked.

  • The Golden Bull Awards 2012

    Steve WoodsLanguage

    image of the Golden Bull trophy
    The Golden Bull, the ultimate accolade for gobbledygook
    I might not always agree with everything done by the Plain English Campaign, but I must commend them for their excellent work in combating the spread of impenetrable and confusing jargon by both public sector organisations and the private sector with their annual Golden Bull Awards. The Golden Bull Awards are presented annually for the year’s ‘best’ examples of gobbledygook.

    This year’s awards were announced yesterday, 10th December, and there are some real corkers amongst the winners.

    For instance, there’s the following from the newly created Cheshire, Warrington and Wirral NHS Commissioning Support Service:

    A unique factor of the NHS Cheshire Warrington and Wirral Commissioning support organisation is its systematised methodology for project and programme management of small, medium, large service re-design and implementation…Building in equality and risk impact assessments the options are taken through a process to arrive at the content for an output based specification and benefits foreseen as a result of the implementation.

    The service is inclusive of full engagement with Clinical Commissioning Groups who direct at decision-making points how they wish the proposal to be deployed (re-commmisson, de-commission or changes to current services/providers), and lastly an implementation team who see the service redesign through to evaluation and benefits realisation.

    Another fine example comes from the London Borough of Enfield for this extract from a letter about a building’s change of use.

    NOTIFICATION OF THE MAKING OF ARTICLE 4 DIRECTION (REF: Art 4/HMO) RELATING TO HOUSES IN MULTIPLE OCCUPATION

    I am writing to inform you that on the 15th October 2012, the London Borough of Enfield made a direction (reference: Art 4HMO) under article 4(1) of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995 as amended.

    The direction relates to development consisting of a change of the use of a building to a use falling within Class C4 (houses in multiple occupation) of the Schedule to the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987 from a use falling within Class C3 (dwellinghouses) of that Schedule, and removes permitted development rights for this type of development from the date when the direction comes into force.

    Finally, a private sector example. Can you decode this extract from the Investors’ Report of December 2011 from The Children’s Mutual?

    UBS believe that the ‘New Normal’ economic environment of relatively low growth means that the ability to differentiate between secular and cyclical growth opportunities becomes more important and that for the foreseeable future the main driving influence on market sentiment will be the structural adjustments and the political capital required to help mitigate the contractionary influence of low growth.

    What this means for portfolio construction is that in a low growth, low return, capital constrained environment, competitive advantage favours a combination of income generative, conservatively funded, self sustaining businesses – groups that UBS class as “dividend aristocrats” and who are experiencing secular growth. This leads UBS to their long-term core investment objective of being invested in high quality businesses.

    If any passing reader can render the above quotations into plain English, please feel free to do so in the comments below.

  • Pinnies at prayers

    Steve WoodsOddities, Politics

    A protest by women will be taking place today in the Anglican Diocese of Hereford, which covers Herefordshire and parts of South Shropshire.

    They’ll be wearing their pinafores and aprons in church in protest at the Church of England’s recent rejection of women bishops.

    One of the organisers of the protest, Christine Walters, from Stoke Lacy in Herefordshire, said: “The idea is that women wear an apron or pinafore on top of their clothes as a mockery of the idea that they are fit only for tea making. We all know that women contribute so much to the church and especially our women priests who need our support at the moment. We are asking men to wear a purple ribbon”.

    pinny protesters in action
    The hardcore pinny protesters of Stoke Lacy

    One report also suggests the pinny protest is to show they are not tied to their church by apron strings.

    Church of England bishops are due to meet tomorrow (Monday) to discuss the fallout from the lay vote in Synod that defeated the proposal.

  • News from the (male chauvinist) pigsty

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics, Tech

    Q: What do the Bristol University Christian Union and the village of Suderbari, in the Indian state of Bihar have in common?

    A: They both treat women as second-class citizens.

    The Bristol University Christian Union has passed a ruling that women are not allowed to teach at its main weekly meetings, as well as making it clear that women will only be able to teach as principal speakers at away weekends and during its mission weeks if they do so with their husbands, according to a report posted today on Bristol 24/7.

    This action has since led a Christian Union committee member to resign and prompted one CU member to write to Bristol University’s independent student news site Epigram, saying:

    On a personal note, I believe that Jesus was a feminist and that women should be allowed to teach.

    Up in its Clifton eyrie, the University of Bristol Union is examining whether this move by the Christian Union falls foul of its equality policy (hint: it undoubtedly does. Ed.)

    However, it’s not just the Abrahamic religions that are treating modern women as second-class citizens.

    In Suderbari, as today’s Guardian reports, women in the village have been barred from using mobile phones since mobiles “pollute the social atmosphere” by encouraging women to elope. If women are caught using a mobile, they risk a fine of Rs. 10,000 if they are unmarried and Rs 2,000 if they are married (so much for equality before the law. Ed.).

    The reason given by the village’s leadership was summarised by Manuwar Alam, president of the local social advisory committee, who stated the following:

    Unrestricted use of mobile phones is promoting premarital and extramarital affairs and destroying the great institution of marriage. We are extremely worried.

    However, the real reason is likely to be that traditional male authority in India is now being challenged due to improved education for women and, as Corporal Jones in Dad’s Army used to say: “They don’t like it up ’em!”

    Update 06/12/12: An item has now appeared on Epigram to the effect that Bristol University Christian Union has issued a statement which says they will extend invitations to both women and men to speak at any of their events without exception. However, this might just be a little too late to save their reputation.

  • Crapita lives up to its name – again

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities, Tech

    Yesterday’s Daily Mirror reports that Birmingham City Council‘s new £11 mn. automated telephone system, which features computerised speech recognition technology, is a massive failure for the simple reason that it cannot cope with the local Brummie accent.

    Hundreds of locals have complained they are unable to get through to council services, such as the rent arrears department. To add insult to injury, when callers encounter difficulties, the recorded voice of a woman with a Geordie accent tells them: “I can’t understand that, could you please repeat it?”

    Victoria Square, Birmingham, with the city council headquarters. Picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

    Indeed the system is so abysmal that each call is costing the city council – the UK’s largest local authority – the equivalent of £4.

    Last year the council axed its call centre, which used to employ 55 people and contracted Capita IT Services (whose home page reads: “Capable. Our experts are able to create improved business performance with our customers”. Ed.) to supply the new, unusable system.

    Could this be a sister company of Capita Translation and Interpreting, the outfit responsible for the court interpreting fiasco (posts passim)?

  • More everyday sexism from Fujitsu

    Steve WoodsTech

    IT Donut has revealed that Fujitsu has announced a new range of computers, including a pink, sparkly one for women called Floral Kiss (although it’s also available in ‘elegant white’ and ‘luxury brown’).

    Floral Kiss also seems to have no trackpad. Presumably Fujitsu thinks women are either too delicate or too stupid to use one.

    While the IT Donut post states that Fujitsu will not be marketing Floral Kiss in the UK, I’m sure the patronising sexism of its marketing will not bypass any Brit of either sex with more than one working brain cell.

  • McDonald’s: “Do you want hacking with that?”

    Steve WoodsTech

    News arrives via E Hacking News that the official Mcdonald’s website in Thailand (www.mcthai.co.th) has been compromised by a chap called “Maxney” from the Turkish Agent Hacker Group.

    The security breach resulted in the harvesting of details for some 2,000 accounts, including users’ names, email addresses, postal addresses and phone numbers.

    Amongst the details leaked by the group were the login for the Administrator account and a link to McDonald’s Thailand Office Mail Login. The password of the administrator is in plain text. They are using a weak password; the password is ‘password’.

    If all other multinational corporations took the same rigorous precautions as McDonald’s…

  • More North Somerset Luddism

    Steve WoodsPolitics, Tech

    There must be something in the water in North Somerset that induces idiocy and Luddism in that unitary authority’s councils.

    Not far away from schizophrenic Clevedon, where members of the public can use social media to their hearts’ content during council meetings, but councillors cannot (posts passim), is Nailsea.

    Today’s Bristol Post reports on yesterday’s meeting of Nailsea Town Council which, with typical bureaucratic perspicacity, voted to ban councillors from using iPads and laptops during meetings over concerns that councillors would use them to either surf the internet, send emails or post messages on networking sites.

    The move hasn’t gone down well with one member of the town council – Councillor Mary Blatchford, who also represents Nailsea on North Somerset Council. Cllr. Blatchford has good reason to feel aggrieved: she has a hand injury; the latter makes it hard for her to write. She therefore quite sensibly uses her iPad for taking notes during meetings. It’s therefore hardly surprising she described the move as “archaic” and has moreover threatened to resign in protest.

  • Put icons back in church where they belong

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media

    Once upon a time the only place one would see anything “iconic” was in a Greek Orthodox or Russian Orthodox Church. A gilded frame, copious amounts of gold leaf and a halo or haloes were usually involved.

    However nowadays – much to my dismay – something just has to exist to be regarded as an icon: no veneration is necessary and the word has become hackneyed and synonymous with lazy journalism, as in this piece from today’s Bristol Post, where the undeserving victim is traditional British fish and chips.

    Let’s see what the Guardian Style Guide says about iconic:

    In danger of losing all meaning after an average three appearances a day in the Guardian and Observer, employed to describe anything vaguely memorable or well-known – from hairdressers, storm drains in Los Angeles and the Ferrero Rocher TV ads to Weetabix, the red kite and the cut above the eye David Beckham sustained after being hit by a flying boot kicked by Sir Alex Ferguson. Our advice, even if our own writers rarely follow it, is to show a little more thought, and restraint, in using this term.

    Turning to icon, the Style Guide lists the following objects which were described in the Guardian as “iconic” in a single fortnight in 2010:

    Archaeopteryx
    bluefin tuna
    Castro’s cigar
    David Beckham wearing an anti-Glazer scarf
    Grace Kelly in casual wear
    Imperial War Museum North
    Liberty prints
    limestone stacks in Thailand
    Nigel Slater
    Mad Men
    Variety
    the John Hughes films Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Weird Science
    postboxes
    prints of the Che Guevara image
    Stephen Fairey’s Obama Hope design
    the parliamentary constituency of Hove
    the Brandenburg Gate
    Bach’s St Matthew Passion
    a community-owned wind turbine
    Kraft cheese slices
    salmon farming
    the blue and white stripes of Cornishware pottery
    Penarth Pavilion, Cardiff
    the Norwegian church and Pierhead Building in Cardiff Bay
    a multimillion-pound arena in Leeds
    a “rock-built engine house at Bottalack near St Just”
    the Royal Albert Hall
    wind turbines (“iconic renewable energy technology”)
    Wembley Arena
    the video for Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Out of My Head

    This abuse of language has gone on far too long. Let’s put icons back where they belong: in an Orthodox church, in a gilt frame and covered in gold leaf; is that too much to ask?

  • Bristol City Council – heritage vandals

    Steve WoodsBristol

    Take a look at the picture below, taken in Bristol on Monday 8th October. Fairly unremarkable isn’t it? What’s the most interesting thing about it? The digger perhaps?

    No, the most interesting aspect of the picture is what isn’t there. However, before we come to that, a bit of history and context is required.

    Lower Castle Street, Bristol
    Lower Castle Street, Bristol showing the old alignment (cobbled) and the new alignment (asphalt)

    As the caption states, the image shows Lower Castle Street in central Bristol. The cobbled surface near the foot of the picture shows the street’s old alignment hard by the moat and outer defensive walls of the now demolished Bristol Castle; the modern asphalt surface beyond is the modern alignment of Lower Castle Street designed to accommodate modern motorised traffic. The old cobbled bit of what was Lower Castle Street has been incorporated into Castle Park, which occupies the site of Bristol Castle and what was Bristol’s main shopping area until the Luftwaffe razed it during the Blitz in the Second World War.

    Bristol City Council has recently commissioned some works in the corner of the park occupied by the old alignment of Lower Castle Street, as the picture shows. New flowerbeds or grassed areas (it is not yet obvious what they’ll be) have been laid out and the cobbles relaid. So far, so good.

    However, before Bristol City Council sent in its contractors to do the works, the old cobbled bit of Lower Castle Street held what some would regard a significant element of the city’s transport heritage: one of the last set of tram rails visible in any road surface in the city and, as can be seen from the picture, these have now vanished; this leaves just one place in the city where tram rails can still be seen set into the road surface – Bristol Temple Meads station, where the tracks are part of the former tram terminus between the ramp and the old station.

    Perhaps the City Council thinks that ‘heritage’ is something that belongs in a museum. It doesn’t: it’s part of everyday life in a city like Bristol which has existed since Saxon times; and some parts of the city are even older than that. By its vandalism the City Council has shown it is not a fit and proper curator of the city’s history and heritage.

    There’s yet one more place in central Bristol where a tram rail – a single one – can still be seen; it’s in the churchyard of St Mary Redcliffe. During the Second World War a bomb exploded in a nearby street, throwing a rail from the tramway over the houses and into the churchyard, where it remains to this day.

    (I am indebted to Pete Insole for information re Temple Meads.)

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