running with paper

I heart closed captioning. Live captioning can be hilarious, with interesting interpretations of names and places (don’t they have a script to work from?).

Closed captioning hides other gems, as well. Names of songs, or types of music. Watching reruns of WKRP or Quantum Leap are a hoot – you get the name of the song originally paired with the episode instead of the bland filler replacement music. Or entirely different conversations – little bits of drama or reaction lost in the shuffle.

What I don’t get, however, is why some closed captioning, the kind that the movie producers put directly on screen (access this option through a DVD menu rather than your TV menu), are so abbreviated. They leave out large chunks of dialog, subtleties that really can wreck a scene. Do they think we can’t read fast enough? Does some captioner think they’re improving the story?

Does anyone work in the industry? Help a curious soul out!

I’ve been looking at the Facebook client for the iPhone. A couple of things annoy me, a few things are good. Better than not having Facebook at all when you’re stuck somewhere and need to send or get information, but a few tweaks can make it amazing.

But that’s for another day.

Today, I come to praise Facebook. I’m still learning my way around, but it’s got a few nice features. They’re updating their privacy options and such; we’ll see if that’s an improvement. I resisted joining for so long because there wasn’t a really decent, compact privacy policy. Add an application and there’s access to a lot more than is really needed. But like I said, maybe there are improvements.

But someone programmed their update function well. Sure, any coder can put a period at the end of a sentence if the user leaves it off. But my last update ended in quotes – sans punctuation. The code inserted the period in the right place. Before the end quote, instead of after it.

I don’t know why we do it this way, or our parent (parent? cousin?) language in the UK does it their own way, but I suppose one punctuation rule is easier to program than half a dozen or more.

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Facebook’s new interface loses this functionality. Hopefully it means they can improve the iPhone interface.

From sci-fi movies to office supply ad campaigns, the big red button is in the news again.

Unfortunately, the American side had attached the word “peregruzka” on the makeshift device as the Russian translation for the word reset. Lavrov could not resist a lighthearted remark on the oversight.

“You’ve got it wrong,” Lavrov commented with a smile. He then explained that the words the Americans chose – “peregruzka” meant “overloaded” as opposed to “reset” (The correct choice of word should have been ‘perezagruzka’). But the Russian minister nevertheless thanked Clinton for the warm intentions.

A big shout-out to the translators out there. May your translations be accurate and when a bit off, not quite so heavily featured in the international press.