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The Linux Launderette

Editor's Note

Jimmy's out for the month. I've done my best to pull out the funnies from this month's Mailbag for your amusement; we're lacking Jimmy's ever-trenchant comments, but I hope the laughs are unimpaired by their absence. -- Kat

(p.s. - if you *do* find that the lack of Jimmy's comments deflates your enjoyment of the Launderette, the only possible recourse is to mount an e-mail campaign to get him back in the saddle. Actually, y'all should do that anyway.)
(p.p.s. - Ben cringes at the "y'all" up there and resolves ever more firmly to leave the South ASAP.)


[SEAPY] PyCon

Mike Orr [sluggoster at gmail.com]


Wed, 27 Feb 2008 07:55:15 -0800

On Wed, Feb 27, 2008 at 12:46 AM, Jon Dugan <jdugan@x1024.net> wrote:

>  John DeRosa wrote:
>  > EGO diligo utriusque intentio, tamen EGO ventus virga per a tenuis
>  > margin. Gratias ago vos pro effectus is! Quam can EGO transporto vos
>  > nonnullus viaticus ut destituo vestri sumptus?
>
>  I am afraid my latin is paltry at best, so I had to rely on machine translation:
>
>  I to value highly both intention , nothwithstanding I wind a green twig very a
>  thin margin. Give thanks you for rendered this! How can I send you some
>  pertaining to a journey when to place your expenses?

I was stunned that some of it looked exactly like Esperanto:

tamen : however ventus: would have vented (though "ventumus" is traditional for this) virga: virgin (adjective) per: by means of pro: because of transporto: transportation -is : (past tense verb) -us: (conditional tense verb) vesti (dropping r): to clothe tenis (dropping u): held

I've heard that "tamen" came from Latin but this here's proof. I think "sed" (but) also comes from Latin.

Taking the English and making it grammatical results in this Esperanto:

Mi tre sxatas ambaux intencojn, tamem mi volvas verdan brancxeton mallargxe margxene. Dankon pro prezenti tion cxi! Kiel mi povos sendi al vi monon por via viagxo?

Translating that back into English makes:

I much value both intentions, however I wind a green twig narrow-marginly [1]. Thanks for rendering this! How can I send you money for your journey?

[1] That means as little in Esperanto as it does in English, but I don't know what else "very a thin margin" means.

I had some trouble with "render" in the computer sense because there was no obvious equivalent. realize: realigi draw: desegni make: fari present/introduce: prezenti But these didn't sufficiently express "make a copy from prepared instructions" as opposed to making something original. But one of Webster's definitions for "render" is "to reproduce or represent by artistic or verbal means : depict", which is one of the meanings of "prezenti" so I went with that.

-- 
Mike Orr <sluggoster@gmail.com>

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Birthdays and more

Mulyadi Santosa [mulyadi.santosa at gmail.com]


Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:04:30 +0700

Hi...

On Jan 28, 2008 9:08 AM, Ben Okopnik <ben@linuxgazette.net> wrote:

> You have nothing to be sorry about, and no reason to feel stupid;
> everything worked exactly as it was supposed to. "Stupid" would be
> beating up on yourself when you've done everything right and achieved a
> good result. :)

And this is why I put more respect to you. Anyway, I share that tips at the same time I celebrate my birthday :)

regards,

Mulyadi.

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Young People These Days

Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]


Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:20:49 -0500

Just a few minutes ago, I set my 6-month old son, Michael, on the table in front of my laptop; several moments later, when I looked at the 'xterm', the commandline said

perl -wle'print chr(rand(95) + 33) for 1..40'

"Dear Ghod," I thought to myself. "They certainly do inherit bad habits at a young age!"

(Yes, he was leaning on the 'up-arrow' cursor key while staring at the screen. But he did stop at that particular entry... that's my boy.)

-- 
* Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *

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Arabic translation

Rick Moen [rick at linuxmafia.com]


Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:16:29 -0800

Quoting Ben Okopnik (ben@linuxgazette.net):

> When you consider the mutually-unintelligible varieties of English -
> e.g., Brooklynese vs. Louisiana "lazy mouth", or Chicano vs. Ebonics -
> it becomes less startling. Unlike the varieties of Arabic, the base
> words are (mostly) the same, but watching the 300-car pileup when people
> try to communicate across those divides can be horrifying and amusing.

Yes, we're sort of in a silent conspiracy to make (other) foreigners believe we actually understand the Australians when they say, e.g., "Jareedna piper wairtsed abat the bushfires? Eiche nardly bleevit."

P.S.: http://users.tpg.com.au/users/bev2000/strine2.htm

-- 
Cheers,           "I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate
Rick Moen         those who do.  And, for the people who like country music,
rick@linuxmafia.com         denigrate means 'put down'."      -- Bob Newhart

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2-cent Tip: Bats and lutefisk

Faber J. Fedor [faber at linuxnj.com]


Tue, 5 Feb 2008 00:36:59 -0500

On 04/02/08 00:27 -0500, Ben Okopnik wrote:

> But I like keeping people in suspense, Faber. It often has pleasant
> results - like getting you to come down out of the rafters. :)

"Arrgh! Curse you, Okopnik!" Faber wraps his cloak around him and slinks off into the shadows....

> Since you have asked, though, here it is:
> 
> ``
> http://okopnik.com/temp/vimrc	# Temp location; will be available at
> http://linuxgazette.net/148/misc/tag/vimrc	# after 148 comes out
> ''

A few minutes later, a bat is seen flying into the rafters carrying a sheet of green-bar paper.

Fin

-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

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Published in Issue 148 of Linux Gazette, March 2008

Tux