information age – Page 3 – don't confuse the narrator

voices from the past **

My past has caught me up: this afternoon
I checked my e-mail, as I always do,
and found a message from an old flame who
I hadn’t seen since school. Out of the blue
a bolt that sends me tumbling through the years
to adolescent angst and teenage tears,
to poems scrawled in chalk while classmates jeer
and playground fights that fade when Sir appears.
I was his One True Love, there’d be no other.
At sixteen I was far too young: I fled.
But now he’s tracked me down; who needs the men
from Pinkerton’s when Google is your friend?
(Though Google’s failed me time and time again
in my attempts to trace his younger brother.)

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gatsby-mail and the green light

Gmail chat screenshot (LHS status lights only)

Whatever program(s) I’m using on my computer, there is almost always a narrow strip of another window showing on the left hand side where I can see if I have new emails. (Yes, I’m sure I could set up an audio alert, but we all have our idiosyncracies.) Not only do I see when new messages arrive, but I also see the little green lights flicker and I know when contacts around the world log on and off.

Perhaps the “g” in gmail stands for Gatsby.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…. And then one fine morning —

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

I’m not sure where “the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us” fits into things, but I can see my attempts to keep up with everything that’s happening on the web mirrored in that quote.

Tomorrow we will read faster, scroll down the page farther…
And so we click on, surfing against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the ether.

And so I blog on, posting against the current…

the RAE gets a round tuit

I’ve never really understood what the “urgente” refers to in the title of the “Manual de Español Urgente”. If it was a quick guide, surely it would be manual urgente? So, under what circumstances would we be writing “urgent Spanish” and need to check whether we had the details right?

That said, La Fundación del Español Urgente (Fundéu BBVA), have brought out a new Spanish language guide which was launched yesterday, with the title “Escribir en internet: guía para los nuevos medios y las redes sociales”.
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red blues

Social media networks – “the mean redes”

I read somewhere years ago that feng shui experts recommend using red folders for projects as it’s an auspicious colour and increases the likelihood of success.
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same difference

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to quote for a translation project that entailed translating a big corporate website from Spanish to English.

The potential job was passed on by a friend, so I didn’t know the client and they didn’t know me. We exchanged a few emails, in which I hope I came across as professional and experienced, and then I sent them a price per word (they’d agreed they could provide text documents) and a time frame.

I never heard back from them, so I suspect they chose a cheaper option with a shorter time estimate.
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