07/03/10
Posted in Interface, Languages, Programming | No Comments » 
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I just found this weird dummy text in the tutorial for the Symphony CMS.
He aquí al Oso Eduardo bajando las escaleras con la cabeza—plom, plom, plom—de la mano de Christopher Robin. Es la única manera que él conoce de bajar las escaleras, aunque a veces piensa que deber haber otra forma mejor que seguramente la descubriría si pudiera dejar de darse golpes en la cabeza y pararse a pensar.
Some questions came to my mind after reading it:
- Why is Oso written in capital O?
- Why is he walking down the stairs on his head?
- Why is he holding hands with Christopher Robin and who is Christopher Robin.
- If they’re so close as to hold hands while walking down the stairs why doesn’t Christopher Robin tell Eduardo the Bear the right way to walk?
- Who chose this sick example to create a dummy text when there’s clearly better texts such as:
El veloz murciélago hindú comía feliz cardillo y kiwi. La cigüeña tocaba el saxofón detrás del palenque de paja.
(Weirder than the Oso Eduardo story but at least it contains all characters in the Spanish alphabet plus all the accented vowels)
Link: Learn – Tutorials – “Say Hello to Symphony” – Symphony.
27/08/09
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Conversation with Carla, my friend’s 17 year old niece yesterday in Barcelona:
Carla: I was at the door and when I clicked on the doorbell nobody answered.
Me: What did you just say? “Click” on the doorbell?
Carla: Yes, how would you say it?
Me: Well,.. push maybe? Ring?
Carla: Nah. I’ve always said click in this case.
Less than 24 hours later a 10 year old kid talking to his mother at the supermarket:
Kid: Mum, which number do I have to click for peaches?
I almost expected his mum to answer:
I twittered you 10 times: it’s number 42!
(Disclaimer: both conversations were in Catalan)
17/02/06
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“The ability to learn faster than your competition may be the only sustainable competitive advantage in the digital economy”
Heard in the MuLiMob review at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. It came up in a discussion related to the mobile web and how “the perpetual beta”, a concept of Web 2.0, applies to the mobile world.
The presentation was done by Grant Lemke from plusCONNECT Telecom UK, a mobile billing solutions company.
Another quotation by Guy Kawasaki in the same line is:”Don’t worry, be crappy”
ie: just get it out there, don’t wait to perfect.
07/02/06
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Metaphors have different meanings in different cultures. Here’s the perfect example.
February, 2006. Sun Microsistems use a picture of the Catalan “castellers” (human towers) as a metaphor of team working in most homepages of their international corporate websites (see picture below).
Here are some sites where you can see the picture of the Catalan “castellers” as a metaphor of teamwork:
Here’s the Spanish website with another metaphor of teamwork (a picture of Sun’s founders):
Sun’s Spanish website
I assume it’s a matter of culture: the Catalan picture would be understood everywhere as teamwork except in Spain. Wonder why.
02/12/05
Posted in Languages, Mobility, Music, The real world, Travel | 1 Comment » Tweet This Post
MuLiMob is a European Commission funded project in order to explore new trends in music and mobility in a multicultural environment to turn them into business opportunities. Last Wednesday a presentation was held in London SoHo.
Major record labels have vast resources to deploy and capitalise on the mobile music opportunity. Independent labels and their artists are not represented and the offer is now biased towards commercial hits. Music diversity and multicultural representation are being compromised especially on mobile platforms, where content has to fit in small screens and access to large amount of data is a tedious task.
MuLiMob hosted a presentation and a networking event in London to stimulate the discussion between independent music labels, the mobile industry and artists in order to support the music of artists you’re not likely to find in the download area of your mobile operator.
Marshall McLuhan Award winner Douglas Rushkoff made an excellent virtual appearance on a recorded webcam video, talking about preserving the cultural diversity on the internet era and why is not only a romantic argument but an economic one.
The pannel was composed by:
- Michel Lambot, President of Impala and Co-Chairman of Play it Again
- Edward Kershaw, Head of Music of Vodafone
- Simon Wheeler, Head of new Media of Beggars independent music label
- Cibelle, Independent artist
- David Williams, Music & Audio Industry Director of Nokia
- and Hélène Abrand, MuLiMob Team Leader
Of note also Rudy de Waele’s presentation on the current situation of mobile music.
The event ended with a dj session of exotica and strange music by Brazilian artist Cibelle from Belgian Crammed Discs label.
Worth to mention the two themes of Yma Sumac, Inca descendant and the only singer whose voice spanned 5 octaves!
A Paris based Brazilian artist recording for a Belgian label playing an Inca descendant mambo in London. I couldn’t find a better example of multiculturality, music and mobility.
Cibelle deejaying to Yma Sumac’s high pitched tunes (photo by Will Dennehy).
Check Cibelle’s latest limited CD and DVD “About a Girl” at Crammed.
21/09/05
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ICANN approved the .cat first level domain.
The news came in a pack of two: “The internet’s key oversight agency approved a domain name for the Catalan language Thursday while deferring final action on creating a red-light district on the internet through a .xxx suffix.”
Funny to see that in the same ICANN meeting the .cat and the .xxx suffixes were discussed.
I didn’t come to any conclusion but it makes you think.
puntcat.org campaing in English
I just found this weird dummy text in the tutorial for the Symphony CMS.