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but what if i read one of your fanfics and then went to your ao3 accounts and read all of your fanfics and left a comment on every single chapter of every single one and you got spam emails from all of my kudos and comments and it made you smile, what then? what if i brighten your day with my words like you did mine, what then???
I'm often really dedicated to the visual quality and authenticity of the memes I make, but like idk if I could ever make another human being care about that. I used the proper font and color picked the correct color and sized everything correctly and used the alignment tool to get the spacing right and redrew the nebula background and spent way too long messing with the drop shadow settings to mimic the original text. Skyrim media literacy 0 skill meme. If you care.
Your commitment to craftsmanship is appreciated. Years ago I spent way too long on this stupid meme to get the pull lines in the dark green and the fading of the lime color just right.
are you whiny bitches seriously acting like faster and more affordable and more accessible translation is bad? it’s a bad thing? it’s a thing we should be against now? is that seriously where we’ve arrived? can you people think for ten fucking seconds just ONCE?
machine translation is really good for many languages - esp the romance ones - and while its not perfect or anything, like.. i don’t know how to tell you it’s a good thing we’re able to instantly speak to people, 80% accurately, from anywhere in the world
I went through the notes on this post specifically to find this reply - or one like it. Because it has a point, and it’s a decent point for you, the person. But it’s also missing the info of the larger scale problem.
(Or it isn’t; as you rightly point out in the tags, it’s a capitalism problem. But I’ll expand on this point of “capitalism”. I need to rant. I need to scream.)
I’m a professional translator. I work in video games and software, with an occasional dash of literary translation. I’ve worked in translation proper, I’ve worked on editing other people’s work, I’ve led a couple of translator teams. I’ve worked the occasional miracle, working around some Really Dumb Choices the developers made.
(Spoiler alert: other languages have different syntax and grammar, if you give me a list of nouns to translate, and then give me the plural “s” to translate separately, this is not good. Even in English, woman -> womans is dumb.)
I am a fan of making things affordable and accessible. I am really happy that Google Translate and similar things can tell me the gist of what people are saying in conversations I only half care about. As the poster above says, it’s great! Not perfect, but ok!
Do you know what’s not great? Do you know what the OP in the original image means?
The client the original image is talking about isn’t you. It’s not some person on the internet trying to find out what someone said in a Post. The client they’re talking about is, essentially, the corporation: the translation agency, the publishing house, the IT giant.
You, the individual, do not have the power to demand how I do my job. If you come to me and say, “Sarshi, I want you to take this 300-word post, run it through Google Translate, and then charge me half of what you usually do for translating it”, I can take it or leave it.
But I get contacted by agencies - half of them want this. “We have a game, Sarshi! Just post-edit the results of a machine translation!” “We have support articles, Sarshi! We’re paying you a lot less to post-edit the results of machine translation!”
You say it’s ok to have 80% accuracy, and I feel you! Yes, sometimes it is! But companies are like “lol, this works”, too!
It’s happening over and over. And these aren’t… they’re not people, you know? They’re not Auntie May trying to figure out what the dough recipe she got from her niece in Indonesia says. They’re agencies, trying to increase their earnings by promising top quality to companies, then going, “gosh, we said we’d do it for cheap, how can we manage that?”
Or they can even be large companies themselves. Oh, you’ve spent a bajillion trillion dollars trying to create the CryptoNFTVirtualRealityAI hybrid that everybody knew wouldn’t work and now you panic because your earnings are lower than usual? Oh, and you want to “cut costs” by screwing over every contractor you have? Great. Just great.
This is going to screw you over - you, the individual. Not my client, not the translator’s client in general - the company’s client. The corporation is too big to really care about how you feel about their product - the employees individually might, but the company’s only metric is if you buy it or not. And the company makes decisions based on what brings the most money for the least cost.
So your hardware manuals might be crap and you might be in tears because you have no idea how to make your new appliance do the thing. You’ll go on YouTube and you’ll find a solution, and you’ll eventually figure it out. And maybe you’ll forget about the crap manual in time. So next time, they still won’t get a good translator, because they already have a cheaper solution that seems to work.
So your game looks like it was translated by a bunch of rats in a bunker and you can barely understand what anyone’s saying? Well, maybe they got a bottom-feeding agency overpromise that they totally have legit translators working for $1/hour. Pinky swear! Did you buy the game? You did. So… the system worked! They’ll hire the same agency again!
It’s like the clothing industry all over again. We could have better clothes, but it’s cheaper not to. They’re doing us a service by selling us shoes that won’t last a season, and T-shirts that will look like crap after washing them twice - they’re cheap, aren’t they? They’re affordable. Anyone can get clothes. (So you pay more in time are are more frustrated? Who’s counting!)
And meanwhile, it’s easy to forget things might be different. That we have the ability to create good things, pleasant things. That manuals can be easily readable, that games can sound great, that books can be awesome to read. It becomes harder to trust the market, harder to believe in quality, easier to say that this is normal, this is how things just are.
And if you speak English natively, well… You’re at a huge advantage. A lot of stuff is created by your people, for you. For countries like mine, that are small enough to import a lot, nearly everything is translated. I want you to imagine almost all movies subbed, every appliance made elsewhere (with menus needing translated and all), every app in a foreign language. And everybody who can cut costs will try to.
#excellent breakdown #i promise no translator worth anything is against individual people being able to use mt to understand texts and communicate #i’m a translator and i’m a big fan of machine translation in my everyday life but it should not be used commercially #machine translation in commercial products is at worst a health and safety risk #but NOBODY who actually understands the matter is saying that mt shouldn’t exist. for fuck’s sake
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people foolishly dismiss desserts and treats as having no nutritional value when they actually are necessary for refilling your sanity stat. to prove my point please observe the emotional stability of the next person you meet who doesnt let themselves ever eat any form of dessert
Feels like a good time to plug Lingonaut. It's 100% AI and ad free and the courses are developed by volunteers. It's in open-beta, so still a bit buggy, but it has the feel of Duo Lingo without the slop.
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Starlight Express Fic (AO3 Crossover) - Components x Electra
Fandom: Starlight Express (2025 London)
Type: Hurt/comfort
Rating: SFW
Triggers: Gender dysphoria
~~~~
There was something to be said about how engines had flocked to steam after only one victory on the track. But that didn't mean Electra wasn't going to get ahead while they still had the chance to. There was nothing more appealing than winning to Electra, and they couldn't lose twice in a row, as that would mean that they were perhaps actually not the best, and of course that wasn't true at all.
Electra was the best of all engines and would go through great lengths to prove this completely. They were going to be the most modern, the most upgraded and the most wanted engine in the yard, even if it meant ripping out their brand new electric engine in favour of rebuilding a better hydrogen-based one. That was what the future demanded, and Electra was not going to be outdated or forced into uselessness by people upgrading faster.
Electra would never be useless; they just couldn't be. It was not going to be the case, or Electra would… well, they didn't know what would happen because such things would never happen in the first place.
It was going to be a rather complicated and involved process, all things considered. Wrench had to start work on how this would be done mechanically, creating a good timeline to start fuel changes, installing pipes and trying to accommodate the lack of space in Electra's sleek design. The electric engine was built for smooth speed, not for hydrogen pipes and thick protective walling to stop explosions or overheating. There was going to be a lot that needed changing, and it had Wrench worried if it would be too much at once.
Of course, Electra would be able to handle anything, but when everything was going to be happening in the same week, the mind wouldn't be able to keep up with the changes to the body as quickly. It was a dangerous thing, and if they weren't careful it might create a disconnect between the mind and body of the engine, and who knows what that might lead to down the line.
Volta and Joule had been working overtime these past few nights, making sure that Electra could get used to the sudden temperature changes that a hydrogen-based engine could produce. They had a random schedule each day when they would have to approach Electra and take them in for the temperature treatment. Sometimes this would involve Joule lighting explosives inside of Electra's compartments to try and get them used to the pressure and the pain that could be caused by the transition to steam.
The conversion was getting on everyone's nerves, and of course all the components would have to update their couplers and connections in case a power transfer is needed during races or journeys from place to place. It was just a lot of different things all happening at once, and they had to believe it would be worth it.
After another month, it was done. Electra was officially hydrogen-based. They were steam. The whole thing was revolutionary and something that was making headlines now that they had let the press know what had happened. Electra was out for interviews and newspapers and all kinds of things; everyone wanted to know about the new fancy engine that was going to make everyone seem second-rate.
Especially after Greaseball had given up on the whole thing. Electra thought it was so pathetic to try halfway for only a couple of months and then give up; it was laughable, and Electra made that known. Much to the upset of Dinah – not that Electra ever cared about that silly little dining car. Greaseball didn't matter now that Electra was going to be the next champion, and even Rusty didn't stand a chance with this new and renovated form. It was completely perfect.
Then why did Electra feel strange about it all? This was what they wanted, and the new engine was running perfectly, but it was strange. They couldn't seem to get rid of the urge to sit in a charging station. The desire to just power down when that was no longer an option. And of course there was no more electric hypnosis, which was certainly something they weren't getting used to all that quickly.
But then again, it wasn't like they were unhappy with their body; it was just rather different, and it was going to take a moment for the software to update to the same level as the hardware. "Everything alright, boss?" Killerwatt asked, snapping Electra back to some state of reality. They were sitting in their office chairs and gave a small nod in Killerwatt's direction. "Are you sure? I know this whole hydrogen thing has been a lot at once." He said, trying to peel back that layer of professionalism that Electra insisted they had at all times. He actually cared about them after all, as stupid as it was.
"That's all. You're dismissed for the evening." Electra said firmly, not even giving Killerwatt another glance. Killerwatt went to protest, but Electra raised their hand. That was it. Killerwatt bowed his head and then left the room, the door closing automatically behind him.
Now alone, Electra was just staring at the wall, not certain what to do but knowing there was a lot going on inside their mind. There was so much they could say or do, but there were also so many things they didn't want to do right now. Sitting here in silence seemed like the best option over all of them. But even then Electra didn't really think they were the same engine sitting here as they were a few months ago. Well, they weren't; the old electric engine was gone now, and the new hydrogen engine was in.
But in a deeper sense, how could Electra be the same engine as they were a few months ago? With all the things that had happened with Greaseball and Rusty and all those in the yard, their components going off to race with others, helping and hindering them in the races.
There was a lot that had changed in such a short span of time; it was no wonder things felt different: they were different. And the yard was different too. It was a lot of change, and Electra hadn't really been able to assess it all or enjoy the new engine, even if it came with a lot of faults and differences compared to the original electric one. And yet, there was something comforting about this new engine.
It didn't feel out of place, but they hadn't had it long enough to feel at home just yet. It was like a new pet in the home. It belongs there, yes, but it hadn't had the time to settle in yet. Yes, perhaps that was the best way Electra could think of it. After all, that was how it felt truthfully.
Electra had never been one to care about such things as the internals, so long as the external appearance was one of power, sleek modernism and wealth. That was what this new hydrogen engine screamed, and it was a good fit for Electra in theory.
Time would tell if in practice all the care that they had put into getting this engine would pay off. If they would truly get to be the one and only engine of the future. Electra stood up, looking down at their body and placing a hand against their smooth chest. It felt right. Even if in some moments they would still doubt if this was a safe bet to have made. If this was really the best thing to do for the long run.
After a full conversation, it would be very difficult to go back, but Electra had faith they would truly be able to be a better engine after this. This was something they needed, even with the doubt sometimes creeping in. The soft yearning for the better race was going to overwhelm such doubts any day of the year.
Making their way back to their private room, Electra noticed the way their engine was humming. Not in that consistent drone of the electric engine that they had known and loved for so long, but instead the humming was a gentle rock with each push of their wheels against the tracks.
Pumping liquid back and forth in a steady flow that gave a soft reassurance to Electra once more. It was different, and of course, they missed the steady, familiar sound of electric but there was more to be gained from being hydrogen. It was a better noise and a better flow, and it was going to let Electra be a better engine. And perhaps it might even let other things become better within them as well.
~~~~
Gif from: @greasepearls from this post
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