Category Archives: Languages

World environment day – think about how you think

Photos, Languages

The dolphin jumps and splashes water (Dubai, June 3 2011)
The dolphin jumps and splashes water (Dubai, June 3 2011)

 
 
 
 
 
Today, June 5, is the World Environment Day.
The reason it’s observed on this date is that UN environment conference started in Stockholm (of all places) on June 5th 1972.

Due to this date, I’ve noted new stickers in some washrooms here in Dubai, with the text:

“Imagine a world without water – don’t waste water”

And, for the first time, I noted that someone had forgotten to close the water tap, next to the new sign.

The purpose is, of course, good. But there’s a problem with the text. As you may be aware, what you imagine becomes reality. So, if anyone would have asked me, I’d suggested the following text:

Imagine a world where there’s enough water for everyone – take care of the water!

Why are you here? (100 characters)

Photos, Poetry, Languages

One out of several hundreds active oil pumps in Baku, Azerbaijan
One out of several hundreds active oil pumps in Baku, Azerbaijan
-Why are you here?
I had no answer, despite all the times I’ve asked myself the same direct question.
 
 
 
On the Swedish poetry site poeter.se there’s a rather popular short-story format :”100 words”, i.e. you should write something interesting in exactly 100 words.
I decided to try a new format for poetry, to use exactly 100 characters, including spaces. In the process I realized that Word doesn’t count the “new paragraph”, so neither do I 🙂
What do you think? Is this an interesting format?

Russian karaoke at home

Computers, Russia, Languages, ,

A friend works as “animator” for one of the hotels here.
The hotel regularly has Russian guests.

For him, I wrote instructions about how to convert Russian karaoke files in the .kar format, in order to use them in the software “Karafun” (which he likes more for its graphical capabilities and because it supports unicode, so you may use it for virtually any language).

If you’re interested, have a look. (The instructions are in English).
Here’s the link: http://fjellner.com/KAR2KFN.doc

Are the instructions easy to follow?
Does anyone need a Russian translation?