Waxy.org
Waxy.org is the sandbox of Andy Baio, a journalist/programmer living in Portland, Oregon. I'm the CTO of Kickstarter, created Upcoming.org, and some other stuff too.

Contact Me: log@waxy.org or waxpancake on AIM
« January 2009 | February 2009 Archives | March 2009 »

Translating "The Economist" Behind China's Great Firewall

Posted Feb 26, 2009 (Updated Mar 5, 2009)

While researching Oscar screeners last month, I stumbled on a remarkable example of online collaboration in China that's completely undiscovered here. In short, a group of dedicated fans of The Economist newsmagazine are translating each weekly issue cover-to-cover, splitting up the work among a team of volunteers, and redistributing the finished translations as complete PDFs for a Chinese audience.

It reminds me of the scanlation movement, in which groups of fans scan, translate, and redistribute manga into another language. But I've never seen it applied to a newspaper or magazine, especially one as high-minded as The Economist.

It's an impressive example of online collaboration with simple tools, a completely non-commercial effort by volunteers interested in spreading knowledge while improving their English skills. In the process, they're taking a political risk in translating controversial articles about their homeland behind the Great Firewall.

Continue reading (1248 more words)...
24 comments

John Hodgman on "meh"

Posted Feb 24, 2009

I enjoyed this exchange with John Hodgman on Twitter yesterday, reminiscent of my own rant on "FAIL."

hodgman: Did I ever tell you people how much I hate the word "meh"? Nothing announces "I have missed the point" more than that word.

hodgman: It is the essence of blinkered Internet malcontentism. And a rejection of joy. Also: 12 hive mehs in the replies SO FAR

hodgman: By definition, it may mean disinterest (although simple silence would be a more damning and sincere response, in that case)

hodgman: But in use, it almost universally seems to signal: I am just interested enough to make one last joyless, nitpicky swipe and then disappear

wordwill: @hodgman Isn't rejecting joy how one traditionally demonstrates one's superior cool? Though, at the same time, to hell with that.

hodgman: @wordwill yes. It's part of the toxic Internet art of constant callous one upsmanship. And it is a sort of art, but not for me.

72 comments

Robin Hood's "Oo De Lally," Translated Into 16 Languages

Posted Feb 5, 2009 (Updated Nov 12, 2009)

There's something enchanting about these localized versions of Roger Miller's "Oo De Lally" from Disney's Robin Hood from 1973. While all of these videos were found on YouTube, each was created by a different person around the world. (Bonus points if you can find the Japanese, Chinese, and Norwegian versions. Got 'em all! Thanks, everyone.) April 7: Added Hebrew, but YouTube removed the Arabic version... Anyone have it? November 12: Added Finnish and Danish, but still missing Arabic.

Original in English

Portuguese, "O-La-Ri-Lo-Le"

Italian, "Urca Tirulero"

Continue reading (323 more words)...
45 comments
« January 2009 | February 2009 Archives | March 2009 »
Waxy Links
Ads via The Deck
March 17, 2010
Crowdsourced demographic study of Chatroulette — the info was gathered by Hacker News users
March 16, 2010
Progress Wars — countless hours of fun
March 15, 2010
Piano Improvisation on Chat Roulette — amazing how much creativity the site's inspiring (via)
March 12, 2010
8-Bit Austin — I think I'll use this map to get to Datapop 2010
Spritely, jQuery plugin for sprite and background animation — see also: gameQuery
March 11, 2010
Trololololololo Shreds — some context (via)
Preview of Sword & Sworcery EP for the iPhone — looks unlike anything I've ever seen
Sitby.us — essential iPhone-optimized site for SXSWi session planning
Danc on the release of Ribbon Hero — turning Microsoft Office into a game, with competition against your friends (via)
March 10, 2010
"Play" by David Kaplan and Eric Zimmerman — avatars as Russian nested dolls (via)
Chatroulette Map — I think I'd rather not know, thanks (via)
Steamshovel Harry — not sure how I missed this one last year, metagaming with music by Brad Sucks
El Fin Del Mundo by Alberto González Vázquez — there's so much I love about this, I can't quantify it all (via)
March 9, 2010
Wired Reread, blogging the best ads from '90s-era Wired — also, the complete SPIN archives are on Google Books
Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer — related: McSweeney's categories for the meta-awards (via)
Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg perform Lazy Sunday live — for the first time, backed by The Roots
Adam Savage's pursuit of the perfect Blade Runner gun replica — related: his quest for the perfect replica Maltese Falcon and dodo skeleton
The Panic Status Board — the instant feedback made work more game-like
March 8, 2010
Valve ports game library and Steam service to Mac — Portal 2 will be released for Mac simultaneously with PC, along with "all of our future games"
Maciej Ceglowski on the discovery, loss, and rediscovery of the cure for scurvy — fascinating story of bad science and the unintended effects of new information
March 7, 2010
8-Bit NYC, Brett Camper's videogame map of New York — he's using Kickstarter to expand to 15 other cities worldwide
Sleep Is Death, Jason Rohrer's new conversational two-player game — watch the slideshow for details; I just wish it was on the web instead
Obama appoints Edward Tufte to advise on stimulus transparency — "Maybe I'll learn something."
PS22 Chorus sings Phoenix's Lisztomania — I love how expressive they are
Echo Nest and SCHED's guide to SXSW Music — very nicely done, uses Echo Nest's recommendation engine
GameInformer's Portal 2 exclusive cover story — scans, since it's not on GameInformer's site yet; Valve hired the TAG: The Power of Paint team right out of Digipen
March 5, 2010
Cal Henderson on gaming probability in World of Warcraft — he's collected 118 pets, some of which only drop 1 in 10,000 attempts
March 4, 2010
LiveJournal rewrites outbound links with affiliate codes — looks like the regex was a bit greedy
NYT on Chinese "human-flesh search engines" — very similar to the H+ article on the topic from last year
YouTube launches auto-captioning for all videos — a free, automated audio transcription service based on YouTube should be viable now

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