Transblawg

I was wondering what the wording would be if they unlocked this sign:



Ice is now 10 cm thick (the Elfstedentocht requires 15). Town employees clearing snow so it doesn't freeze and make skating impossible:



Goalkeeper (ice hockey goal marked by boots):

The FTD has an article on Leo (= Link Everything Online) and Hans Riethmayer, the computer scientist who founded it at Munich Technical University in 1992.

Leo left the university and became a GmbH in 2006. Maybe that was when it removed its pages from Google linking.

The Financial Times Deutschland is interested in new businesses that succeed where traditional businesses fail. Leo earns 500,000 euros per year if all its banner advertising is taken.

The quality has improved.

Heute schenken Nutzer ihnen Vokabeln. Eine Tunnelbaufirma schickt ihr Glossar, der Verband der Nähmaschinenindustrie seine Fachbegriffe, nun kennt die Seite auch Stichmuster auf Englisch. Riethmayer hat Übersetzer eingestellt, die alle neuen Begriffe prüfen. "Zugegeben, unsere Qualität war am Anfang mäßig, weil Informatiker sich um die Inhalte gekümmert haben. Aber wir wurden immer besser." Und die Rivalen immer unruhiger.

What I find interesting are the discussions about problem words. Click on Forum at the top left to find them. Or if you enter a problem word, you will get links to previous discussions. Here is a discussion on Hundekotaufnahmepflicht.

Of course, you have to work out whether to trust the suggestions.

(Thanks to Herbert for the link)

Many signs of beaver damage, as reported in local rag - apparently the beaver, unlike the muskrat, is welcome:

Joshua Rozenberg in der Telegraph beschreibt sein Schreiben als "Journalismus, nicht Bloggen". Seinen Vertrag hat die Zeitung jetzt beendet, er wird aber nächstens auf der eigenen Website weiterschreiben.

Besonders interessant: Rozenberg erwähnt eine neue Art einstweilige Verfügung in England, die jede Erwähnung ihrer selbst verbietet (siehe letztes Zitat).

Joshua Rozenberg writes of law in 2009.

As already noted, he regards his writing as journalism, not blogging. He writes that blogging is largely opinion and journalism news.

Now to the nitty gritty:

I have had the misfortune to have been the last full-time, legally-qualified legal correspondent employed by both the BBC and The Daily Telegraph. There is now less coverage and analysis of law, politics and other demanding topics in the mainstream media than there was even a decade ago. ...

In recent years we have seen the creation of an impressive trade press, chronicling the success or otherwise of lawyers and their practices. But the serious general reader looking for rigorous reporting has had to turn to the internet. As newspapers have shrunk, their on-line coverage has expanded.

Although this may not been immediately obvious to website readers, none of the stories and commentaries I have published on www.telegraph.co.uk/law since September 2008 has appeared in print. This is the last of them: the Telegraph has terminated my contract. But I plan to resume these reports, before long, on my own website — www.rozenberg.net — unless, of course, somebody makes me a better offer in the meantime.

He also refers to a new type of injunction that may not be mentioned. I haven't yet traced the blogger who did mention it:

And blogging is also a way of by-passing the normal constraints of journalism. For example, it is now possible for the courts to issue an injunction which bans any public reference to its existence. I cannot tell you whether I have ever seen such an injunction — or at least, one that may still be in force — because to do so would be to breach it. But a very well-read blogger has recently done just this. If I were to link to that blogger’s website, I would be at risk of putting the Telegraph in contempt of court and I have no intention of doing this — tempting though it might be to test the law.

Donzdorf am 1. Januar.

(Readers please ignore - this is not an entry)

I suppose that in lieu of local graffiti artists, this is one of the better things that could happen:



And finally, Marks & Spencer gearing up for Christmas:

Transblawg is not really here, just posting a few Christmas messages. No time to make a Christmas quiz, but here are two for comparison.

German lawyers' Christmas quiz from beck-blog:

1. Frage
Innerhalb welcher Frist darf der Vermieter bei unverschuldetem Ablauf der Abrechnungsfrist eine korrigierte Abrechnung vorlegen?

The rest is here.

British Christmas quiz from RollOnFriday:

1. JANUARY: Whose Christmas party involved "half a bottle of Jacob's Creek and an extensive cash bar"?

DWF
Tarlo Lyons
CMS Cameron McKenna

Rest here.

No prizes for spotting cultural differences.

1. Some people would appreciate sending their MacBook Air in for repair and getting it back with a German keyboard. I use a German keyboard all the time, because I can write German or English on it.

MacMacken: Amerikanische MacBook Air-Reparatur mit Umlauten

2. Some astronomers (simplex by name) do not believe that specialist translators know about their subjects:

Und: gibts wirklich z.B. ausgebildete Übersetzer, die genügend Ahnung von Astronomie haben um mit den ganzen Fachbegriffen klarzukommen? Das war nämlich auch ein Argument gegen einen Übersetzer...

Comment by author under Lost in Translation at Astrodictum simplex

Via Gabi, who writes:

Da meint wieder einmal jemand, einen Fachübersetzer nicht nötig zu haben und ohnehin alles viel, ja unendlich viel besser zu wissen als ein Mensch, der sich sein Leben lang mit der Übersetzung genau dieses Fachgebietes befaßt hat. Also will er seine Software selbst übersetzen. Das Ergebnis kennen wir alle: eine Software, bei der sich der Anwender fragt, welcher Vollidiot die geschrieben hat … welcher größenwahnsinnige Trottel sich an die Übersetzung einer Software wagt, obwohl er nicht einmal so simple Fachbegriffe wie »pan« und »crossmatch« übersetzen kann.

Mother Goose at the Hackney Empire:


Part of the theatre:


From a poster outside:


A very good traditional pantomime.

Those who requested a review may be pleased with the Youtube clip.

Set in Dalstonia in Hackneytopia. But I think the one I saw in 1980 was full of local policitical references. This wasn't.

Typical dialogue (not 100% guaranteed):

Baron Bonkers, in a dark wood: We've got to get away from the ghosties and ghoulies.
Frightening Freda: I don't want to be caught by the ghosties.
Baron Bonkers: And I don't want to be caught by surprise.

Superb singing and dancing.
The first act was a trifle too long. The second act wasn't.
We didn't have to stand up and flap our wings much.

Do all pantomimes use a wild variety of costumes, possibly from other productions?
We particularly liked the little boy with bear ears. Did he go home early, or did he reappear as one of the rubber-masked wizened old dancing men? or the dancing geese?
Was the troll-like giant created for this panto, or did they take the body of previous giants and add a new head?

And here's another review and video clip by Eros Vlahos (13) in the Guardian.

This is wonderful. Oh no, I mustn't say that. But after seeing the Großes Volksatlas of 1941 with no Poland, it only makes sense.

Europe without Germany (from Strange Maps - and see their earlier entry)

Thanks to Trevor - for some reason this didn't appear in my RSS feed.

Transblawg is taking a bit of a break and wishes everyone happy holidays (hoping that doesn't infuriate too many) and a great new year.

It says on this tablet that Nuremberg is the city of peace and human rights. We won't discuss why that is. This is a sculpture by Hermann Pitz commemorating forced labourers, with some symbols of peace sitting on it.

The German Federal Constitutional Court decided yesterday that changes to tax status of travel between home and work were unconstitutional.

Today, I get an English version of the press release in my RSS feed.

(The key word Pendlerpauschale is rendered as "commuter tax allowance" (in inverts))

German press release
English press release

German (part of) judgment

Sun Developer Network Open Translation website. Lots of goodies.

(Thanks to Elm on the pt list)