Currywurst is not really a Franconian thing, but you can get Nürnberger here too. Snowing too much to take many pictures. The town hall now has energy-saving light bulbs.

This is ridiculous. I already said some books I could read again, so the rest are the ones I won’t read again.

The most likely category are potboiler crime novels, which I have read a lot of but not recently. And I don’t have too many of them left on my shelves. I have been known to read Ruth Rendell, and I liked the Barbara Vine novels, at least those I read. I have read P.D. James but liked it less. Also Ian Rankin, Sue Grafton, Sarah Paretsky. And whoever wrote Bella Block, before Bella Block became Hannelore Hoger. I have found one of the spook Minni Mann series by Helmut Zenker, Die Mann ist tot und lässt Sie grüßen, which has a touch of Müllers Büro about it. Maybe I could read that again. But these are mostly page turners, and when I know the story I won’t enjoy the book on a second reading.

The EPO announced on November 30 that it is going to collaborate with Google:

The EPO and Google have today signed a Memorandum of Understanding to improve access to patent translations in multiple languages.

Under the agreement, the EPO will use Google’s machine translation technology to translate patents into the languages of the 38 countries that it serves. In return, it will provide Google with access to its translated patents, enabling Google to optimise its machine translation technology. Google technology will be used to translate patents originating in Europe as well as patents originating in other regions of the world and enjoying protection in Europe.

Exactly how the MT will be used is not clear from this announcement. It’s clear that patents can’t be translated by MT, but rough-and-ready translations which give the gist might be useful when it comes to searching lots of patents and seeing which might be worth investigating further.

I don’t translate patents. Although the legal and language aspects interest me, the technical knowledge is beyond me. But I know they can’t be translated by Google’s online MT.

The matter was discussed by Dave Grunwald on the GTS Blog and more positively by Renato Beninatto.

(Thanks to Karen for reminding me of this)

This first of Advent, which people keep wishing me a happy one of, seems to be a big deal.

And here are two jackdaws on the Stadttheater.

Palm tree near Nuremberg:

A German shopping centre with bottle banks (Here it is in Street View):

All taken this morning. Nasty raw cold weather.

I suppose there are some novels I could read again and again. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, some of Kleist’s stories such as Michael Kohlhaas, Die Verlobung in Santo Domingo, Das Erdbeben in Chili, maybe War and Peace (I’ve only read it twice, though), some Ishiguro, the Thomas Bernhard autobiographical books (I mentioned his autobiography, but there are other books like Wittgensteins Neffe).