My tweets, let me show you them

( Random thoughts )

Interesting

I'm back to watching TOS in German with the occasional language switch. While doing the latter, I accidentally changed/activated the subtitles and realised that the German dub and subtitles occasionally differ quite drastically. The subtitles are a direct translation of the English dialogue while the audio takes quite a few liberties. The dub also has some really odd errors. I'm watching Amok Time and Pille (Bones) says that they need to get Spock to Vulcan within 8 light days or he'd die. (in the original it's "a week, eight days on the outside" and the subtitles translate this correctly). "Light days" is obviously a unit of distance, not time. Obviously, George Lucas made the same mistake when he let Han say that he'd made the Kessel Run in eight parsecs.(Apparently, this has been disproven.)

ETA: I thought something was odd with the voices in the part when Spock talks to Kirk about Pon Farr. I hadn't remembered this (it's been, what, 25 years) but Memory-Alpha mentioned that the content of the German dub had been changed to avoid mentioning procreation (odd, that, for Germany, really).
So they redubbed it in this edition but made the mistake of referring to the dream thing in McCoy's dialogue after they're back on the Enterprise.

[Photography] Portraits of Power

new_brunette (via twitter) pointed me at this.

Portraits of Power (New Yorker), photos by Platon of world leaders taken during a UN conference. Excellent stuff and the audio commentary is very interesting (and, for Mugabe, scary). I agree with most of it, except the one of Ahmadnejad because I think his eyes make him look particularly evil.

Wow

Stephenie Meyer beats Dan Brown.
(hat-tip to eddyfate for the link via twitter)