According to the Boston Globe of March 18, the US government is putting Iraqi documents on the Web so the public can have a go at translating them.

bq. It’s the same ”open source” principle that drove the successful development of the Internet and of powerful free software like the Linux operating system. Instead of hiring a team of brilliant professionals to analyze Iraqi documents in secret, the open source systems will use hundreds of clever amateurs, who’ll publish their work for anyone to analyze and improve upon.

It sounds like Harry Potter fan translations but without the copyright problem.

bq. ”Workers control the means of production, but without all that tedious communism,” said Glenn Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee and author of ”An Army of Davids,” a book that shows how the Internet encourages public activism.

Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he? Apparently ‘conservative bloggers’ are behind this initiative, as it would bolster the case for war against Iraq.

Here is the Foreign Military Studies Office portal with the goods.

There are a lot of comments on Slashdot. One of them enquires whether the Amish have open source barn raisings. Another says this is equivalent to a voluntary tax upon bilinguals. Or this:

bq. I think they are forgetting that (for some deranged part of our society), creating Linux was fun. Will translating orders for toilet paper for the Iraqi National Guard mess hall be fun too? Only if you can write your translation as a perl poem!

(From Slashdot)

It’s very frustrating when you’re translating a long text and you realize it has hundreds of references to timber framing and you don’t know enough to handle it fluently.

But things could be worse.

bq. “It’s frustrating if you’re a microbe that’s been wandering the Universe for a million years to then die striking the surface of Europa,” Dr Gladman mused.

(BBC News)

Peter Griffin’s edition of Tocats pel foc (Catalan original by Pedrolo with English translation by Griffin) has been taken over by a publisher and can be got for $15. See amazon, for example (two Catalan persons appear to have given it the thumbs-up already).
The ISBN is 0977498808.

Bumper stickers and T-shirts say ‘No kangaroos in Austria’, but here you can see a lone kangaroo considering whether to cross a snowy road in Carinthia (shortly before being sedated and returned to its owner – Austrians who own kangaroos have to sign a declaration of secrecy).

Via Aktenvermerk

The Süddeutsche Zeitung has taken 20 of the Hessen questions and made them multiple-choice. Of course, some were familiar now, but I still found them tricky.

bq. 20 Punkte
Glückwunsch! Sie sind auf jeden Fall Deutschland! Bei soviel Kenntnissen von Land und Werten klappt´s ganz sicher mit der Einbürgerung.

That’s easy for them to say, but in Bavaria they don’t want us British people. Or rather, we should be allowed to have dual nationality (a reciprocal arrangement) but that’s only the situation on paper or in other parts of Germany.

I think this may be a mixture of Chaucer and Molesworth.

Sir –
Ich wishe for adyce in the matter of fashion and armes. Ys it verrily a mistake to wear a lilyflour in my helm? (Ich have a shylde of golde.)
Thopas

Mon Sire Thopas,
By seinte Jerome, finallye someone who kan spelle! Messire Thopas, yow seem a man fair and gent, and Y sholde muchel relish for to tellen yowre tale. Ich shalle have myne peple calle yowre peple. As for the lilye? It dependeth how whethir yow wolde ben ‘easte coaste’ or ‘weste coaste.’
Le Vostre G

(Via Cobwebs of Petty Inquisitiveness)