Sometimes I envy myself for being part of this wonder, the French culture. Sometimes I envy myself for being able to pay the tribute to the stereotype of the French: drink a bit of wine, sitting in a rock-chair covered with a blanket and reading the ingenious Paul Verlaine. Well, maybe it is just my own stereotype. Yet, should there be anything more to life that Le Ciel est, par-dessus le toit etc. etc.
Le ciel est, par-dessus le toit,
Si beau, si calme!
Un arbre, par-dessus le toit,
Berce sa palme.
La cloche, dans le ciel qu'on voit,
Doucement tinte,
Un oiseau sur l'arbre qu'on voit,
Chante sa plainte.
Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, la vie est là,
Simple et tranquille.
Cette paisible rumeur-là
Vient de la ville.
-Qu'as-tu fait, ô toi que voilà
Pleurant sans cesse,
Dis, qu'as-tu fait, toi que voilà,
De ta jeunesse?
By the way, found an article on this poem (http://www.textetc.com/workshop/wt-verlaine-2.html
), where they break it into pieces and analyze. I always wondered, why would anybody do such a thing to a poem. Why can’t you just enjoy it.
Good night, I say to my wife.
Friday, November 20, 2009
High-Tech Gadgets for Visually Impaired. How Far Are We Down This Road?
I have an Arab friend. His name is Khalid. Khalid is a visually impaired person and an excellent artist. He does wonderful things with clay. Khalid lives and works in Algiers , the capital of Algeria Algeria Chicago
And now I was posed with a puzzle: how do you find an electronic device for someone who can’t, unfortunately, see or know how to operate it without being previously thoroughly instructed? Not just a device for translation, anything: a microwave, a cell phone, an MP3 player etc.? Of course, there is some specialized electronics available somewhere, but it is still not a commodity, applied into items of everyday use. One cannot but think about the inconvenience of such state of things. Although the world is getting there, it does so still slowly.
This was the first time I had to look for this kind of a product. After a quick search on the internet I have stumbled into a company called Ectaco. They make electronic translators of all kinds, also English-Arabic ones. Of course I was skeptic about certain elements in the description they had on the website, like “speech recognition” or “voice navigation”, but with no alternative I went for the gadget and ordered it for my dear friend Khalid.
I don’t mean to solicit in this article, but I have to share in some way the joy and excitement with which Khalid was telling me about his new and, as it had proven to be, very useful toy. Apparently, you can name the application you want to work with – for example, “Translator” or “Phrasebook”, or “Dictionary”, or “Reader” etc. - and it opens up. Khalid was thrilled to actually know what he was typing in the device because each button was vocalized. In a short time he had learned to type on the small keyboard fast enough to make it efficient for conversations. And the speech recognition actually worked – for the preprogrammed phases and sentences, but it is still quite exact and truly impressive. When I spoke with Khalid over the phone, I asked him about the language that was coming out of the device. Obviously, a gadget with such characteristics must also tell you the translation and not just show it on the screen. And I was expecting the typical digitalized pronunciation, but then Khalid played for me a translation form his device and I was surprised to hear crystal human voice.
Khalid is still planning to visit his uncle. And now, much better off linguistically, he fears the miscommunication less. Khalid told me he would like everything in his home to work as his translator. Maybe some day it will. As for now we have a few thoughtful companies like Ectaco who actually think not only about the majority of its customers, but of their minority as well. What a truly great way to approach business!
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