Category: Misc.

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Misc.

Google Quechua

Thanks to Google Quechua, Indigenous people in the Andes can now search the Web in their native tongue.

Economist:

Estimates of the prevalence of Quechua vary widely. In Peru, there are thought to be 3m to 4.5m speakers, with others in Bolivia and Ecuador. The language has long been in slow decline, chiefly because the children of migrants to the cities rarely speak it. But it is now getting a lot more attention.

In recent months, Google has launched a version of its search engine in Quechua while Microsoft unveiled Quechua translations of Windows and Office. Demetrio Túpac Yupanqui, who last year translated “Don Quijote” into Quechua, recalls that a nationalist military government in the 1960s ordered that the language be taught in all public schools. It didn’t happen, because of lack of money to train teachers. By law its official use—and bilingual education—is now limited to highland areas where it is predominant.

After spending a year in Ecuador, I can tell you this: I know precisely two words of Quechua, both of which have made their way into everyday Ecuadorian parlance (at least in the sierra): 1) “chuchaqi” (which means hungover), and 2) “cha-chai” (which means cold).

Related oldie-but-goodie: Ecuadorian slang.

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Misc.

Skype, Writely, and GMail Notifier for Mac

Three tech updates for you:

1) Skype. It rules. But you knew that. I’m all up on it. Finally got a headset and mic and am no longer pussyfooting around. So hit me up VoIP-style. My Skype ID is newleypurnell. (And yes, I know I’m like five years late with the whole calling-over-the-Web thing, but still.)

2) Remember Writely, that sweet Web-based word processor that I told you about back in December? Yeah, well, Google seems to think it’s pretty good, too. Memo (composed using Writely) to my product development friends in Mountain View: stick with me. We’ll go places. (FYI: WebOS, here we come.)

3) Speaking of Google, they recently released the Gmail notifier for Mac, so that you can receive Outlook-style alerts — complete with snippets of text that pop up on your screen and screw up your workflow — when you receive a new email (or should I say a new Gmail?). I’ve had some connectivity issues, but the application looks promising.

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Misc.

“The Quiet Farang”

John Burdett, author of two excellent novels about Bangkok, had an informative op-ed in yesterday’s New York Times. He says that there’s a reason delinquent foreigners come to Thailand — and that the country has some endemic problems of its own:

The story of the cute white girl in the red tartan bonnet who had been dead 10 years burst into the Thai news media just as another equally harrowing local story was breaking: allegations, vigorously denied, of the systematic serial rape of five 8-year-old girls by two highly respected Thai teachers with decades of experience as educators.

In Thailand, only monks are revered more than teachers. But this local news, which surely touches the lives of Thais more deeply than John Mark Karr’s confession to the murder of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey a decade ago, was knocked off the front page even as doubts began piling up about Mr. Karr’s reliability.

Since her death, JonBenet has become a multimillion-dollar American industry, whereas the allegations at Prachanukul School in Bangkok’s Sai Mai district are just another Bangkok crime story. Or are they?

As of now, it seems possible that Mr. Karr did not commit the murder, but is an attention-seeking farang kee-nok — “Western drifter.” Like other members of that group, he tried to make ends meet by taking on teaching jobs, made regular visa runs to Malaysia, lived in a budget hotel, drifted around Southeast Asia with no apparent direction.

Yet it is exactly his familiarity as a type that has concentrated the attention of those Thais most familiar with it. Nit Dandin, a veteran teacher of the Thai language to Westerners, put it to me this way: “Why do farang come to Thailand after they kill or rape somebody in their own country?”

Why indeed?

Read the whole thing.

(Via.)

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Misc.

Karr’s Creepy Usenet Postings

Thanks to A for passing along this site, which details some of Karr’s sicko Usenet postings as well as a mirrored copy of his (similarly creepy) teaching resume.

This case gets stranger by the day. Now there’s a potential link to a yearbook inscription Karr made 20 years back.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the answer is yes: John Mark Karr now has a Wikipedia page.

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Misc.

John Karr and Tourism in Thailand

In my most recent Gridskipper post, I take a look at Karr’s bust and the Thai tourism industry.

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Misc.

More on the JonBenet Murder Mystery

Wow. Yesterday was quite a day here in Bangkok, with Police arresting suspected JonBenet Ramsey killer John Mark Karr. Initial reports suggested that he was proclaiming his innocence, but then he ultimately confessed to the crime. But wait — could he be lying?

2Bangkok.com has a good round-up of news stories, many of which paint Bangkok (understandably) in a negative light. And here’s an interesting look at Karr’s life in Thailand.

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Misc.

Cuba for Dummies

Fidel Castro, as we all know by now, appears to be circling the drain. In response, Lisa Wixon gives us “Cuba for Dummies,” an excellent WaPo column. It begins:

I lived in Havana for nearly a year without permission from the United States. I talked to Cubans and found out what they had to say. Nothing bad happened to me. I took notes.

Be sure to check it out.

(Via.)

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Misc.

“Globish”

The New York Times’s Noam Cohen has an interesting story about efforts to advance a simplified version of English to be used around the world — what some are calling “globish.”

When its president proposed last month to ban English words like “helicopter,” “chat” and “pizza,” Iran became the latest country to try to fight the spread of English as a de facto global language.

But with interest in English around the world growing stronger, not weaker — stoked by American cultural influences and advertising, the increasing numbers of young people in developing countries and the spread of the Internet, among other factors — there are some linguists and others who say: why fight it? Instead, the argument goes, English, particularly the simpler form of the language used by most nonnative speakers, should be embraced.

Esperanto teachers world-wide must be totally bummed out by this turn of events.

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Misc.

Rambo: Coming to Bangkok (and Burma)

Hide the women and children.

Bangkok bad guys: run for the hills.

Rambo is coming to the Land of Smiles.

Filming for “Rambo IV” starts October 1st in Bangkok, baby. Who will (a now nearly geriatric) Sly Stallone be hunting down and killing like the vile pigs they are? None other than the Burmese military junta! This EW story is full of gems. Stallone, in making this new film, had to figure out who to slaughter (apparently an idea hatched in 2002, in which Sly would head to Afghanistan to take out Osama Bin Laden was scuttled):

‘You know, it’s hard,” says the 60-year-old star. ”Politics have changed so much. Who do we fight? The Finns? You can’t do that. The Dutch? That’s not gonna work. Wooden shoes are not gonna look cool.’

Sly Stallone: stand up comedian! He’ll be here all week, folks. Be sure to tip your waitresses.

Stallone may be joking, but finding Rambo a fresh foe was actually a serious problem for the Nu Image/ Millennium Films production. After ruling out the Mideast, Africa, and Korea, the actor finally hit on a solution. ”I called Soldier of Fortune magazine and said, ‘What is the most critical man-doing-inhumanity-to-man situation right now in the world? Where is it?”’ The answer was Burma.

Now, I don’t know about you, but when I’m jonesing for information on international human rights crises, my resource of choice is Soldier of Fotune magazine. Those pantywaists at Amesty International? Lilly-livered pinko eggheads, the whole lot!

So, the script that emerged — a ”first draft” Stallone has written with Art Monterastelli (The Hunted) — finds Rambo living a monastic lifestyle in Bangkok and salvaging old PT boats and tanks for scrap metal. (”It’s like he’s stripping himself down,” says the actor, pensively. ”That old piece of military equipment.”) When a group of volunteers bringing supplies into Burma disappears, a relative of one of the missing missionaries begs Rambo to find them. He heads off with a team of young guns, a plot point required by the financiers, who wanted to hedge against Rambo’s possible mono-generational appeal.

When I walk through the streets of Bangkok, I am struck by two things: 1) the countless retired Green Berets I see living monastic lifestyles, and 2) the preponderance of old PT boats and tanks lying around — you can’t swing a dead cat on Sukhumvit road without hitting discarded military hardware!

I cannot wait to see this movie.

(Via.)

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Misc.

Thomas Swick on Cuenca, Ecuador

View from my patio, Cuenca, Ecuador

Thomas Swick has an exceptional travel story about Cuenca, Ecuador in Sunday’s South Florida Sun-Sentinel. As many of you know, I lived in Cuenca for a year and I can tell you this: Swick nailed that story. He captures the essence of the city in a remarkable way: the colorful characters, the bohemian feel, and the languor that pervades life there.

(Via.)