Tuesday, June 21, 2022
How to Use Translation Apps and Extensions Without Sacrificing Your Privacy - Lifehacker - Translation
When you want to translate something, the easiest option is often a free translation service like Google Translate. But you should avoid pasting sensitive information into free translation services, as your data could end up in the public domain or used for advertising. (Generally, if you have highly sensitive information that you need to translate, you should draw up non-disclosure agreement and hire a translator you can trust.) But if you want to translate some stuff that’s not very sensitive while still protecting your privacy, consider the following privacy-oriented translation services.
Firefox Translations
Mozilla has developed a Firefox add-on called Firefox Translations that automatically translates webpages for you. The service works locally on the client side, which means that your data doesn’t leave your device, and it currently supports Bulgarian, Czech, English, Estonian, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish—so it lacks several languages, but it works well with the ones it supports. Other languages like Farsi, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Russian are in development.
Apple Translate
Apple ships a translation service with your iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and it can translate between Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. It uses Apple’s servers by default, but you can force it to translate everything offline for better privacy.
Vivaldi Translate
Vivaldi Translate is baked into the browser, supports 108 languages—a lot more than Firefox or Apple—and is designed for privacy. You can decide if you want to translate every webpage automatically or to make the browser ask every time if you want a page translated.
Offline translation apps aren’t necessarily better
Using your translation app offline is less than ideal for people who care about privacy, but it’s better than nothing: Your favorite translation services probably have an offline mode, meaning you can use disconnect your devices from the internet and still use their service and your data won’t immediately be sent to some remote server. The disadvantage is that there’s nothing stopping these apps from sending the data to their servers once you’re back online. Apps such as Google Translate and Microsoft Translate offer good offline translation options.
Or you can use a dedicated translator device
If you really need private translation, consider buying a dedicated translator device. For about $100 to $250, you’ll be able to find good translation devices that provide offline translation support. You can check sites like Amazon for some options, but be sure to pick a model that supports the languages you need, has offline translation support, and doesn’t need to be connected to your smartphone.
Monday, June 20, 2022
Image Of Artificially Made Crystallized Dictionary Viral As Quran Found Under Deep Sea - FactCrescendo - Dictionary
An image of a book is going viral on social media. Users are claiming that this is a very old and rare copy of Holy Quran which was found in the deep sea.
However, Fact Crescendo found the claim to be false. This book is not Holy Quran but an artificially made crystallized dictionary.
What’s the Claim?
Social media users are sharing the image of the book claiming that “This is Quran which was found in the deep sea. It has been under water for several years but remained intact.”
Facebook | Archive
FACT CHECK
After running various keywords, we came across the same image posted on Facebook in 2018 with a different claim saying that this book is an ancient Bible that was found at the bottom of a sea.
Archive
After running Google Reverse Image Search on the viral image, we came across a blog by Catherine McEver in 2014 in which a similar image was uploaded. In this blog, Catherine mentioned the procedure and formula to create a crystallized book. It was mentioned in the blog that the image of the book is a crystallized German-English dictionary.
Archive
Other images of the same book can also be seen in this blog.
AFP contacted Catherine McEver who told them that the book is not a Bible, Quran, or any other religious book. This is a German-English dictionary that she used to create the artwork.
Conclusion:
Fact Crescendo found the claim to be false. The book is not Quran, Bible, or any other religious book. This image is a piece of artwork of converting a German-English dictionary into a crystallized form.
Title:Image Of Artificially Made Crystallized Dictionary Viral As Quran Found Under Deep Sea
Fact Check By: Siddharth SahuResult: False
PG&E Wants to Add 'Scope 4' Emissions to Your Climate Dictionary - Financial Post - Dictionary
The California utility is using an unofficial term to categorize some greenhouse gas emissions. What do climate-change experts think?
Author of the article:
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(Bloomberg) —
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I was reading the new climate strategy report of one of the nation’s largest utilities, PG&E Corp., as one does, and stumbled over a term that stopped me in my tracks: “Scope 4 emissions.”
Now, here’s the thing: I’ve heard of Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions before. They represent different pieces of a company’s climate pollution footprint. Maybe you’ve heard of them, too. After all, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in March proposed a new rule that would require companies to disclose this and other climate information. The public comment period for the proposal closed last week.
Scope 1 and 2 were rigorously defined back in 2001 under the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, the established resource for emissions accounting developed by the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. Scope 3, the most complicated one, came in 2011. The trio of terms was designed to capture the full sweep of a company’s climate footprint, according to WRI climate expert Pankaj Bhatia. This includes the direct emissions tied to a company’s activities (Scope 1), as well as the indirect emissions from a company’s energy use linked to making its product or delivering its services (Scope 2). It even includes pretty much any other indirect source of emissions associated with a company’s value chain (Scope 3).
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So, what do Scope 4 emissions cover? And are they even real?
Bhatia provided a decisive answer to the second question: No, officially they are not an established category under the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. And Bhatia would know because he’s the program’s director and has been tracking these conversations for decades.
The fact that PG&E recently used this terminology was news to Bhatia and others interviewed for this article.
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PG&E doesn’t dispute the term’s unofficial nature. Spokesperson Lynsey Paulo wrote in an email that in the recent report, “we acknowledge that ‘Scope 4’ is ‘an emerging term for categorizing emission reductions enabled by a company’ and present the term in quotations to distinguish it from Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas emissions.”
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She went on: “As a utility that provides gas and electric service to millions of Californians, we have dedicated programs and strategies to enable our customers to reduce their carbon footprint and our ‘Scope 4’ goals quantify our 2030 objectives.”
For example, by providing energy efficiency and electrification programs, the company said they can help customers save 48 million metric tons of carbon-dioxide equivalent by 2030. And by promoting and supporting the uptake of electric vehicles in the utility’s service area across California, the utility said it can save customers more than 58 million metric tons of CO₂ equivalent by the decade’s end.
PG&E seems to be using “Scope 4” as synonymous with what others more commonly refer to as “avoided emissions,” said Laura Draucker, Ceres’ director of corporate greenhouse gas emissions. This isn’t the first time this has happened, but it’s not common or widely accepted.
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It’s not hard to see why a company would find this appealing. Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions track just how sizable the company’s greenhouse gas emissions are. In a world barreling towards a dangerous 2.7° Celsius of warming due to the rising emissions in the atmosphere, these are almost always unflattering numbers.
Reporting on avoided emissions, in contrast, is a way to show something positive on the climate fight and connect it directly to consumers. Sharing “avoided emissions or reporting on climate benefits of the product you provide — that’s good information for a company to get out there,” Draucker said.
The CDP’s Simon Fischweicher took it a step further, saying such reporting could “send strong signals to investors that this company is investing in the low-carbon transition, not only in their own operations.” (The CDP does not currently track avoided emissions.)
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But there’s also the potential such reporting could be a form of greenwashing. The goal of sharing such emissions, Draucker warned, should not be “to take pressure off their Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions.”
To be sure, PG&E is tackling its greenhouse gas footprint. In the report, the company outlined its target to be a net-zero energy system in 2040, five years ahead of California’s similar climate goal. The company has also pledged to cut its Scope 1 and 2 goals by 50 percent from 2015 levels by the end of the decade, and to cut Scope 3 emissions by 25 percent from 2015 levels in that same time period. Still, the report didn’t offer a formula or detailed data behind PG&E’s “Scope 4” figures, making it hard to understand what’s fully counted as avoided emissions or how to compare that to any other companies that may follow its lead.
If companies do follow PG&E, Bhatia advises that they don’t adopt the “Scope 4” label and find something else instead.
“I think a corporate player who makes a move that goes into a new direction that could be considered outside the box, should be encouraged,” he said, but — and this was a big but — “at the same time, that direction is not the right direction.”
Zahra Hirji is a climate solutions reporter for Bloomberg Green.
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Sunday, June 19, 2022
Howell Joins M.F.A. Program as Assistant Professor in Literary Translation and Poetry - University of Arkansas Newswire - Translation
June 20, 2022
Rebecca Gayle Howell
The Program in Creative Writing and Translation, a nationally-ranked M.F.A. program in the Department of English, is pleased to welcome literary translator and poet Rebecca Gayle Howell, who joins the faculty as a tenure-track assistant professor this fall.
Howell earned a B.A. and M.A. at the University of Kentucky, an M.F.A. at Drew University and a Ph.D. at Texas Tech University. She is a 2019 United States Artists Fellow and the author of two award-winning novels-in-verse, American Purgatory (2017) and Render (2013). She is also the English-language translator of Amal al-Jubouri's verse memoir of the Iraq War, Hagar Before the Occupation / Hagar After the Occupation (2011).
"We feel incredibly fortunate to welcome Rebecca to our community of writers. Her presence on our faculty will expand the work of the Program in Creative Writing and Translation and enhance its national reputation. She is an extraordinary poet, an accomplished translator and a brilliant teacher," said Davis McCombs, director of the Program in Creative Writing and Translation.
Howell's work has received critical acclaim from such outlets as The Los Angeles Times, Poetry London (U.K.), The Courier-Journal, Asymptote, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, The Millions, Arts ATL, MINT (India) and The Kenyon Review.
Among her other honors are the The Sexton Prize (U.K.), the Pushcart Prize, the Carson McCullers Fellowship and two winter fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Since 2014, Howell has served as Poetry Editor for Oxford American, where she commissions and curates a new profile of Southern poetics. She and her fellow editors received the National Magazine Award for General Excellence in 2016, and in 2021 they were shortlisted for the CLMP Firecracker Award.
William Quinn, chair of the English Department, welcomed Howell, saying, "The entire English Department is thrilled to have Rebecca Gayle Howell join us as the newest colleague, a shining jewel in the crown of our Translation Program."
Founded in 1966, the U of A Program in Creative Writing and Translation in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences consistently ranks in the top 40 M.F.A. programs nationwide, according to Poets & Writers magazine. The Atlantic Monthly named the U of A among the "Top Five Most Innovative" M.F.A. programs in the nation. Noteworthy graduates include Barry Hannah, C.D. Wright, Lucinda Roy and Nic Pizzolatto.
Dominican sister helps with work on new translation of Book of Revelation - Crux Now - Translation
NASHVILLE — For the past five years, Sister Mary Dominic Pitts, of the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia Congregation in Nashville, has been deep in study of the Book of Revelation.
She and 250 others are working on a new translation of the last book of the Bible in a project known as “Le Bible et ses traditions” (“the Bible and its traditions”), or the French abbreviation BEST.
The project is sponsored by École Biblique, the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem.
“École Biblique is a center of research, translation and study of Scripture and archaeology. It is best known for its publication of the Jerusalem Bible,” Pitts explained.
The school was founded in 1890 in Jerusalem by Father Marie-Joseph Lagrange, a French Dominican priest, who was a Scripture scholar and pioneer in biblical exegesis. Its administration and much of its teachings are still in French.
Pitts had already spent two years writing notes on the Book of Revelation when Dominican Father Anthony Giambrone, vice director of École Biblique, called on her to do more in October 2019.
He said it was up to her to translate all five original languages of the book — the Latin Vulgate, the Syriac Peshitta and the three versions of the Greek New Testament — into English, as well as write notes on interesting grammar, words and more.
“Father Giambrone stressed the fact that they ‘needed a linguist’ to comment on the language-related aspects of the project. I think that my skill set with a doctorate in linguistics and in-depth study of the analysis of languages was what suggested my participation on the project,” Pitts said.
“It helps that I am an experienced editor, which helps keep the footnotes well written but short,” she told the Tennessee Register, diocesan newspaper of Nashville.
Pitts’s knowledge of the three languages came from years of study. In 2001, she studied Syriac with one of the world’s experts in the language, Dominican Father Stephen Ryan, during a summer course at Providence College in Rhode Island.
“That was an accidental acquisition,” she said, noting that she “signed up just for fun, never guessing that I would actually use it 16 years later.”
She learned Greek at Providence College as well, a requirement for her master’s degree in biblical studies. “I’ve tried to keep it up since then,” she said. “I have good dictionaries and grammar (books) to work with all these languages.”
She also has been studying Latin since high school and has continued her studies during her time at the convent.
Pitts spends roughly a month translating each chapter.
“I translate them myself a verse at a time from all five versions to insert into the BEST platform in English,” she said. “The texts that I translate are the original ancient languages in their own spellings and alphabets.
“Any significant variants are ‘stacked’ vertically in the text over the word or phrase where they actually occur, one language on top of another for ease of comparison.”
She said the five versions “are translated as literally as possible to ‘stay true to the text’ especially from Syriac, a language not known as well as Greek or Latin.”
Extensive footnotes at the end of each chapter also are part of the translation.
“They are keyed to cover the verses and cover many linguistic and sociocultural facts never before commented on, including grammatical features, derivations and meanings of words, figures of speech, historical or other contextual facts, and Jewish and Christian tradition,” Pitts said.
Quoting the project’s website, she said the purpose of the translation is to “create the most extensive and helpful set of notes for the entire Bible, with information of interest both to biblical scholars and casual readers.”
As she continues to work on the translations, Pitts said, she expects to complete the project by mid-fall and has high hopes for what it will contribute to the church.
“Pope Leo XIII and Pope Pius XII issued encyclicals inviting modern study of the Bible so that Scriptures would be opened up to the faithful in the same methods that Father Lagrange pioneered at the École Biblique,” Pitts said.
“The BEST approach contributes to the richness of Scripture in, for example, ‘biblical polyphony’ resulting from the different versions and will restore the Catholic feel and appreciation of God’s many voices in Scripture,” she added.
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Editors note: For more information about the BEST project, visit https://ift.tt/HlV2kNo.
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Peterson is on the staff of the Tennessee Register, newspaper of the Diocese of Nashville.
Editor's column: The insurrectionist's dictionary – Tennessee Lookout - Tennessee Lookout - Dictionary
Those of you who were among the 20 million Americans to tune into Thursday night’s opening hearing of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol and those of you who plan to continue watching will likely become familiar with a number of terms.
And if you read newspapers or pay attention to chitchat on social media from those who dispute the attack was an insurrection, you are going to hear many of the same terms but may notice differing interpretations.
So, in an effort to best prepare you to follow the hearings and ensuing conversations from talking heads, we offer up the insurrectionist’s dictionary.
Tour group. They say: The mob around and in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 were tourists.
We say: Many of us have gone on tours of Washington, DC, and when I lived there, I gave plenty of them to visiting family and friends, promenading them down the Mall, around the Tidal Basin and, for the very special, even going into the West Wing of the White House.
Things we did not do on those tours include beating Capitol Police officers with the American flag, spraying them in the face with bear spray, threatening to hang the vice president of the United States and breaking out windows and stealing statues in the Capitol. Yet, those were some of the activities of the supposed “peaceful protesters.”
Violent insurrection. They say: Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020 were as bad if not worse than the Capitol attack and that protesters should be arrested.
We say: We now know the pro-Donald Trump faction plotted to overthrow the peaceful transfer of power.
The Black Lives Matter protests were not such a plot to subvert any type of transfer of power.
The Black Lives Matter protests after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer and Breonna Taylor by Louisville police were a response to those killings and other injustices perpetrated by police against Black Americans. And at least in Nashville, authorities did arrest protesters who set the Historic Metro Nashville Courthouse on fire: They were white.
Innocent young woman. They say: A woman killed in the Capitol by Capitol Police was trying to stop the riot.
We say: When a supporter of former President Donald Trump refers to an “innocent young woman” in context of the insurrection, they are likely talking about Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed during the attack. From that description, if you knew nothing else, you might think Babbitt was a bystander, martyred by a savage shooting.
In reality, Babbitt was a 35-year-old Air Force veteran who was shot by a Capitol Police officer when she tried to climb through a broken window into the lobby of the U.S. House of Representatives. She did so despite being warned multiple times, as is documented through numerous reports, not to do so.
That’s not to say her death wasn’t dreadful, a tragic outcome of her brainwashing by bizarre Q-Anon stories that led her to the Capitol in January 2021.
Traitor. They say: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Jan. 6 committee Vice Chair U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and anyone who voted for Biden.
We say: An elected official who plots to retain power by any means necessary despite losing a free and fair election, exhorting a crowd to storm the Capitol, disrupt the certification of the election, and suggesting the crowd might be right in suggesting one’s vice president be hanged. Abbreviated version: Trump.
Patriot. They say: People who beat U.S. Capitol Police officers and vilified them in the process of breaking into the Capitol.
We say: U.S. Capitol Police and members of the Jan. 6 committee.
The President of the United States. They say: Donald J. Trump.
We say: No. The President is Joe Biden, who won both the popular vote and the Electoral College, the former by more than 7 million votes and the latter by 74 votes.
Note: Definitions are subject to change as the Jan. 6 committee proceeds. Please stay tuned for semantic updates to the dictionary.