Google Translation: Sumo Indiscretion
A poignant and poetic excerpt here from a Google Japanese-to-English ("Beta"!!!) translation of a Sumo wrestler's blog (as mentioned on boingboing today):
When you mention some contents, * & *
It was in university age Martial romance And
By your Trick of liquor habit (@ @) Story,
As for the classmate doing what, the る?
While with laughing at the story which is said, you speak eternally.
Tell me about it, man.
google-ish , japan-ish , sumo-ish , translation-ish by tangentialist at 12:32 PM on 25 Oct 05 | Perm-a-link | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Google Maps Tokyo: Slurpee Detector
Google Maps now speaks Tokyo, and the true influence of American chain eateries on the Japanese psyche becomes achingly clear. Apparently, the relative position of every 7-11, McDonald's, and Circle K is crucial to an understanding of where you are situated in Tokyo's notoriously opaque street system. Check out this power cluster of three Mickey D's within four city blocks, calling to the unsuspecting lost masses of Tokyo tourists with promises of grilled familiarity!
Actually, I had heard Tokyo was confusing, but is the local 7-11 as good as it gets for street signage?
(The photo above, by anotherview on Flickr, is of a 7-11 in Kobe, who also get the full Google Maps treatment. Strangely, when you google "7-11, Kobe, Japan", you get loads of map points, but none of them correspond to the 7-11 icons.)
google-ish , japan-ish by tangentialist at 05:58 PM on 14 Jul 05 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (0)
Google: Accepting Inch, Taking Mile
How could this really be a good idea? One week ago, Google was just going to keep track of what you searched, but now they're in for the whole bagel. I'm not trying to be alarmist, and I'm sure Google has other things besides the sovereign privacy of the world's citizenry to plunder with each new tool, but I think it's important to note what Stewart at Ludicorp had to say in the panicked anti-Yahoo! backlash after Flickr's purchase.
Google is great, sure, but so was Yahoo! when they first hit the scene, and it seems to me that the sense of noble invincibility that now surrounds the geniuses at Google grows thinner with every creepy new announcement.
geek-ish , google-ish , paranoid-ish by tangentialist at 07:59 PM on 04 May 05 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (0)