Throughout an entire semester of localization and translation, few assignments have come close to being as challenging or labor intensive as this final one. The project covered four-thousand words from three articles from various German news organizations. These articles were to do with current events, namely the controversy surrounding WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange. The three articles were from Der Spiegel, Deutsche Welle, and the Berliner Zeitung. These publications represent a variety of political perspectives and they are tailored for different audiences, offering a broader sense of the subject than would a single source.

            The first article was pilfered from the website for Der Spiegel, whose political bias tends towards the left. Of the three, this was not only the longest by far, but also the most difficult. On the flipside, it was also the most informative and offered a side of the argument that most tend to ignore. That is, the author played the Devil’s Advocate when speaking of WikiLeaks’ founder, Julian Assange. He is portrayed as criminal; the leader of an organization whose works endanger national security of America and that of countries. He is also described as an internet activist, exposing the secrets of corrupt leaders abroad. With regards to the text itself, it required much editing. For instance, the use of adjectives like “American” and “U.S.” would be redundant to an American audience. The language used in the text was also somewhat difficult at times. Some sentences I used an extremely loose translation, others were omitted from the text altogether. An example of this can be found on page 3 of the original article. “selbst die laufenden Ermittlungen der australischen Bundespolizei gegen sie selbst habe die Hackergruppe online verfolgt.” I could not accurately translate this, so I decided to omit it from my polished translation piece. Another problem that I came across in this text was the seemingly constant use of incomplete sentences. This can be seen in the first couple sentences in the article. “Und andere als gefährdet ansehen.” If translated directly into English, it would read “And others seen as vulnerable” By itself, it makes sense, but it is grammatically incorrect. Sentences like these were either incorporated into other sentences or were expended so as to make them a proper sentence. 

            The second article was much shorter and to the point. It discussed the recent actions of major financial institutions such as Visa and PayPal. More specifically their ban on services to the WikiLeaks organization. From what I can tell, the article was largely unbiased: it neither condones nor condemns the actions of WikiLeaks or the financial institutions taking action against them. This is, in my opinion, great journalism in that it allows the reader to form their own opinions. Never mind that it makes the article much easier to translate! The language is also much simpler. Unlike its counterpart from Der Spiegel, this article used a much drier language, which is much more appropriate for a news article. Although I needed some outside information, such as the proper names for the Swiss Banks mentioned in the article, the article was overall very simple to translate.

            The last article from Berliner Zeitung was a bit more complex in that it involved legal matters. Overall, the article was somewhat difficult to understand. To overcome this, I read articles in English so that I could understand the facts and then use them to adapt my translation. Some words such as “federal attorney” and “rape-allegations” took a bit of work to translate as well.

            Overall these three translation assignments were nothing like I’ve ever done before. In past assignments, we have translated older, less relevant and simpler articles. This collection of articles was different in that they had longer text, generally more complex vocabulary, specialized jargon having to deal with technical and legal terms, and were current. The currency of the articles proved to be very helpful, because if I had trouble translating a certain part, I could read a similar article in English, and base my translation off of that.                                                                                                               

The Revealer by John Goetz and Marcel Rosenbach

With the constant release of secret documents, WikiLeaks-founder Julian Assange has become a risk. A visit with the Australian: a man deemed dangerous by the Pentagon and other vulnerable parties.

Suddenly he is there; with springy steps, he enters. Before he had even greeted anyone, his eyes had been looking for a power outlet for his little black computer.

It’s a simple little netbook, costing a mere $ 300.The intelligence agencies of this world would give much to be able to analyze its contents.

The man to whom it belongs is Julian Assange. He comes straight out of Stockholm. Before that he was in Brussels briefly, and beyond that he was untraceable.

The Australian is a wanted man these days. You’d think he was on the run.

When he should have been speaking this past weekend at a conference in New York, five American Homeland-Security agents were waiting for him. Having been forewarned of this, Assange remained in England. His lawyer had told him that several other U.S. authorities wanted to speak to him urgently. American Defense Secretary Robert Gates has recently condemned him and his works as “irresponsible”.

Assange founded the website, wikileaks.org – combining “wiki” as in the open-source online encyclopedia Wikipedia, with the word “leak”. Together with a few permanent staff and many volunteers, he has run the site since 2007. It is sort of a mailbox and showcase at the same time: WikiLeaks collected and published material, which has been classified as secret by corporations and government agencies. It is a forum for anonymous informants. No rumors, nothing he had written himself-only original documents.

The U.S. vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s emails were made public, the Kenyans saw the unmasking of its former ruler Daniel arap Moi, and there were also documents from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo. At that time WikiLeaks was something for insiders. The site had its international debut in April. WikiLeaks had invited journalists to the National Press Club in Washington, where Assange showed them a video.

It showed the fatal attack of an American “Apache” helicopter on a group of about a dozen civilians in Baghdad in 2007, including two Reuters staff (more about the video …) .The dialogue of the helicopter crew could also be heard. Their cynical comments made the video even more unbearable. The news agency Reuters has since tried in vain to take possession of the video. Assange acquired it; it was his biggest scoop thus far.

Hero to some, traitor to the others

For some, Assange and his colleagues have been heroes ever since; fighters for total freedom of information and against any form of censorship. Others see them as traitors.

American authorities regard the Australian as a serious threat to national security. Since 2008, the US Military has classified WikiLeaks as a grave security problem and has discussed how to best combat the site. This document was also leaked to Assange. And then it was published on wikileaks.org.

Since then, there are those who are concerned for his safety – and even for his life. It is not clear whether the man, whose base of operations is now in London, is more dangerous or endangered. Either way, he is quite striking. Assange is a lanky character with snow-white hair and, considering it’s summer, an almost unnaturally pale complexion – which is also due to the fact that he had been preparing for his next project for weeks and hardly went outdoors in the daytime.

In an office on the fourth floor of the publishing house of the British newspaper “The Guardian”, he has met with the British, together with the New York Times and Der Spiegel in advance to reveal more than 90,000 individual reports from the Afghanistan war, the majority of which are classified as “secret”.

The publication of these archives, says Assange, will not only change public opinion about the war, but “also that of people with political and diplomatic influence.” It raises “a spotlight on the everyday brutality and misery of war” and would “not only change our view of this war, but of all modern wars.”

The archive contains secret information, evaluations, and many names – of those in the military, but also those of informants. The publication of secret military war documents, which were never intended for public viewing, raises new questions: Is this journalism covered by the right of the public to be informed? Is this a legitimate look behind the propaganda machine of war? Or is it an act of espionage, making Assange and his colleagues guilty of the betrayal of state secrets? Would this, in the end, jeopardize the international troops and the Afghan collaborators that help them?

Part 2: Listings like WikiLeaks change the handling of sensitive information 

Already listings such WikiLeaks change the handling of sensitive information.

Whistleblowers, whether corporate or government employees, who make confidential material accessible to the press in order to point towards failures or to expose corruption, have always existed. But a comprehensive database of war that can be fit on a single USB flash drive and simply uploaded to the internet – this is new.

Is WikiLeaks thus a new beacon of intelligence? Or is the site a threat to democratic states, because an ex-hacker, together with some confidantes, decides which information-bomb to detonate next- without giving the other side the chance to reply or defend themselves legally? “People can publish whatever they want, and they are not held accountable for it,” said U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Rarely has one seen representatives of a U.S. government so helpless.

The problem starts with the fact that WikiLeaks is still more of an idea than an organization in the traditional sense. There is no headquarters, not even an address-only an anonymous mailbox at the University of Melbourne. Assange and his German colleague, Daniel Schmitt, are to date the only two members to show their faces in public. Otherwise, there is only the site itself, a few mail addresses, and a Twitter account, which is used for their PR purposes. The heart of the operation is their servers, which are located throughout the world and exist where the government grants especially far reaching legal protections for informants. The operations costs of around 200,000 euros per year are covered by donations. So far, neither Assange nor Schmitt have paid themselves a salary, they say.

In London one quickly realizes how much WikiLeaks affects the lives of individual activists-and the large role of Julian Assange and his little black computer. Those who do not see the highly intelligent, self-confident 39 year old as the hero of the information age, see him as a serious threat.

“We need a function that classifies the weight of the incidents”

Assange works like a dog on the database, and wants to clarify the WikiLeaks of the Afghan-War. He wears a strange combination of a wrinkled jacket, a T-shirt and cargo pants; his feet stuck in worn out sneakers, he is unshaven and looks as if he had not slept for two nights. Those close to him say that he desperately needs a few weeks of vacation.

Assange sees it differently; his fingers fly over the keyboard, now and then he pauses for a moment. “We need a function that classifies the severity of the incidents,” he says in his sonorous deep voice. Shortly thereafter, he has installed a filter, with which the users of the site can browse the thousands of cables based on their “significance.” Assange chose the criteria, often ordered by the number of civilian casualties. You can also sort the database by date and region, and look at each incident on a map and see where in Afghanistan the incident occurred-the war as a multimedia presentation.
“Ha,” he says suddenly, “unbelievable.” He has found a new grotesque example of the jargon used by the military on the battlefield. “Vital Signs Absent” In other words, dead. The language employed by the war is a reason why WikiLeaks gave the Baghdad-Video the title “Collateral Murder.” He wanted to discredit the cynical term “collateral damage” and make it impractical to use, said Assange.

When Julian Assange spoke about his project during a dinner, in which the Australian ordered only two balls of cardamom ice cream, he conveyed one overall message: WikiLeaks is a radical, accurate, and well thought out project. Assange thinks long before answering, and he insists on fully answering questions. He does not like interruption.

3. Part: Who decides what is published and when?

The basic idea came to him in the nineties, says Assange; in 1999 he had reserved the site leaks.org. The basic rule of open societies must be that everyone can communicate freely about anything. Experience has shown that things often go wrong when dealing with secrets; because of secrets people would abuse positions of power.

Then they must address a few concerns, WikiLeaks allegedly has a wealth of other material. Who decides what is published and when?

The source, says Assange. WikiLeaks asks every anonymous contributor why the informant believes the material was of political and ethical relevance. “Our criteria are clear, and if they are met, we publish,” said Assange.

What do you mean we? “In the end, one individual must have the final say, and that would be me,” said Assange. “And if in doubt I will always publish.”

“He hacked into the computers of others as if God the Almighty”

A remarkable stance for an organization that has not even published the names of their alleged five permanent employees. And for a man, who tries to avoid questions concerning his own life. A few basic facts, however, are clear.

Assange was born in 1971 in Queensland, Australia into a family of artists. The parents were divorced, and a new relationship of his mothers had gone bad. So bad, that Julian and his mother fled from the stepfather and lived under false names.

He led a nomadic life, even then, and is alleged to have attended nearly 40 different schools.

Even in the Internet Stone Age of the eighties, when the computer was called the “Commodore 64″ and the modems were “acoustic”,  Assange developed a passion for computers and networks- later he made a name for himself in the hacker scene of Melbourne, because he broke into the networks of corporations, the government, and even the American military.

“He hacked into the computers of others as if God the Almighty,” a prosecutor said a few years later. The judge sentenced Assange a kind of probation and a fine. A television report on the procedure shows Assange in a trench coat, with long brown ponytail and sunglasses. The hacker group was called “International Subversives.”

The problem arises in the mind of the reporter

When he was sentenced, Assange already had a young son; he became a father at an early age. However, he found himself in a bitter custody battle with the mother that lasted for years-and led to renewed clashes with government agencies.

Is WikiLeaks the act of revenge of an injured hacker, a misunderstood computer genius? Does Assange reflect on his personal story when he calls the government the enemy?

For Assange these are the typical questions posed by journalists. He hates them with the same passion as he despises the “secret” stamp on official documents. For him, WikiLeaks is also a media-critical project. He wants users to be able to derive opinions based off of the original documents, without journalistic “Spin”. Through the “Collateral Murder”-video, WikiLeaks has already violated this principle by use of its judgmental title, which has brought much criticism to Assange.

The problem arises in the mind of the reporter, says the Australian. His ideal setup would be scholarly journals with footnotes and source references. He describes himself as an investigative journalist. His work more closely resembles that of an archivist and a documentarian. It is no coincidence that he has registered WikiLeaks in Australia as a library.

Assange and his colleagues just might be very pleased with the development of WikiLeaks. The Australian held a lecture on investigative journalism a few days ago in London- his German colleague, Daniel Schmitt, held one in Hamburg, both of which received enthusiastic applause. Last year they won the Media Award from Amnesty International.

Part 4: “Operation Station hammer”: The shadow over the project

Since May 29th, a shadow had lain over the project. It was the day on which the 22-year-old US soldier Bradley Manning was arrested at his base, “Operation Station Hammer” in Iraq and taken to the military prison at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military’s accusations against the former military analyst Manning have been publicized: In the period between November 19th 2009 and spring of this year, he had downloaded the Baghdad Video, which appears on WikiLeaks, in addition to 150,000 secret State Department documents and a secret “PowerPoint-Presentation.”

He had passed the video and 50 of the reports to an “unauthorized person”, as accused by the US Military. According to an Army spokesman, Manning could face a penalty of up to 52 years in prison.

It appears that Manning had incriminated himself. On 21 May he apparently began a series of Internet chats with an American hacker named Adrian Lamo. The U.S. magazine “Wired” has published excerpts of these chats.

He had poured his heart out to the informant, which US authorities suspect manning had not known before the incident. He describes that he had access to two computers on the secret networks “SIPRNET” and “JWICS” at work; he also found unprotected material on a Centcom terminal. “I could not believe that which I had confessed,” he adds.

He even reveals in the chat the ways he claimed to have smuggled the data: back at his workplace in Iraq, he had inserted re-writeable cd’s, which were labeled with names like “Lady Gaga”, into his computer. Later he allegedly took these “music cd’s” home. “I listened and lip-synced to Lady Gaga’s ‘Telephone’ while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history” he states in the published part of the chat logs.

He made multiple references during the chat to WikiLeaks and Assange, with whom he was in contact. He also gave details of his motive: a deep dissatisfaction with the US Military concerning the situation on the ground.

Lamo informed the FBI and surrendered his chat logs. He had seen a threat to national security, he tells  US media. Shortly after Manning was arrested.

“We must support all of the alleged sources”

Thus, a delicate situation arose for WikiLeaks and Assange. It strikingly resembled the case in which the US Military had written a secret document in 2008 designed to damage WikiLeaks: It explains that a successful identification, prosecution and making a public example of those who disclose information to WikiLeaks would damage the organization, possibly even destroy it and discourage others from performing similar acts.

What did the WikiLeaks front man have to say about the alleged self-incrimination of the US- Soldier?

“If we are to believe the allegations that Manning was betrayed by an American hacker who has nothing to do with WikiLeaks” said Assange. “We can not save people from themselves, unfortunately.”

Is Manning perhaps even the source of the Afghanistan material? “We have no idea if he was our source,” said Assange. “We have our system deliberately set up so that we do not learn the identity of our informants.”

And why does WikiLeaks want to legally support Manning, when it is allegedly impossible, due to the virtual security measures, for WikiLeaks to know who had sent the material?

“We have to assist all our alleged sources,” says Assange. “We should remember that regardless of whether Mr. Manning was the source for the ‘Collateral Murder’ video or whether he was directly or incidentally involved in any of the materials we have published, he is a young man who is detained in Kuwait as a result of an allegation that he is our source.”

After Manning’s arrest, Assange also disappeared for a few weeks; his lawyers advised him to avoid the United States. “I have been told  that someone could decide  for me to be charged of espionage,” he says.

Germany is one of the most important locations for WikiLeaks

That is the reason why he checks into London hotels under an assumed name and from there quickly disappears again, slipping away with a supporter of his. Just as he has done in the previous years, all over the world- from Kenya to Iceland, where he and his team of supporters had prepared the publication of the Baghdad-Videos. These precautions apply to everyone. Such is the case of the famous programmer, Jacob Appelbaum, who had replaced Assange at the New York Hacker Conference the weekend before last; he had specially arranged for a double, who had taken over his role immediately after the lecture. Applebaum immediately drove to the airport, armed only with an ID, cash, and a copy of the Bill of Rights, and flew out of the country.

Even Daniel Schmitt, the German representative and Assange’s right hand man in WikiLeaks, has become more cautious.

At a meeting in a Berlin cafe, he was cautious of potential eavesdroppers, and he does not like it when people shot photographs in the vicinity.

Germany is one of the most important locations for WikiLeaks, a solid pillar of a rather loose organization. There are many “Leaks” submitted in German, there is technical assistance from members of the Chaos Computer Club – and there is a high number of German donations.

Schmitt is a slender 32-year-old with a beard and horn-rimmed glasses; he studied computer science and IT security work before he devoted his entire career to WikiLeaks. Unlike the slightly eccentric Assange, who had once run around London in his socks and done somersaults in the street, he is a sober type.

Later this year, a foundation called “Friends of WikiLeaks” is to be established in Germany; Schmitt is also working on a brochure that would ask for “Leaks”-and he wants them to be distributed in front of the Reichstag and the Department of Defense. He has also been thinking of subway advertising.

Both Assange and Schmitt say that WikiLeaks is sitting on a mountain of unpublished documents-and this is just the beginning.

“If we want to use the metaphor of a mountain climb, we are now at Base Camp,” said Assange.

Then he closes the small black computer, packed it in his gray-black nylon backpack  and leaves.

Original Article : http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/0,1518,708300,00.html
Word Count: 3,096

Funding for WikiLeaks is Blocked

The conflict surrounding WikiLeaks has escalated. Some financial institutions have cut business ties upon hearing this news. Now, the Internet-Activists have struck back, disrupting the websites of these companies.

The whistleblower website, WikiLeaks, is funded entirely by private donations. However, this is becoming increasingly difficult because such financial institutions are no longer handling payments to Wikileaks. “Visa Europe has temporarily disallowed Visa card payments to the WikiLeaks website”, said the Visa Europe spokeswoman on Wednesday (8.12.2010) to DW-WORLD.DE. It is clear that the first step would be to determine “whether Wikileaks violated any applicable laws in the markets in which Visa operates, or against regulations of Visa.”

Even Visa’s rival, MasterCard, has already blocked payments to the whistleblower website. “MasterCard is currently working to suspend the acceptance of donations for Wikileaks until the situation is clarified at Wikileaks,” said the spokesman for Master Card Germany to DW-WORLD.DE.

PayPal also blocked wire transfers

A step further was the Swiss Post Finance Bank: They locked the account of Julian Assange, the controversial founder of Wikileaks. The Swiss Post finance Bank took things a step further: They locked the account of Julian Assange, the controversial founder of WikiLeaks.Apparently he had given incorrect information about his place of residence, said the bank representative to the news agency AFP.   This step increases the pressure on Wikileaks, since Assange used this account to collect donations from supporters. PayPal, another important financial service used by WikiLeaks, has also blocked the account of Wikileaks – citing a violation of their terms of use. The internet giant Amazon.com banned Wikileaks from its servers. Even the American companies Tableau Software and Everydns.net have followed suit.

Is the US behind this?

This approach is certainly not welcomed by all sides: in Internet discussion forums, said companies are being accused of acting under duress of the U.S. government. Washington is particularly angry with WikiLeaks after the release of confidential diplomatic reports. Even German politicians are criticizing the recent actions: termination of cooperation with WikiLeaks would make these companies stooges of the US government, said the legal spokesman for the FDP party, Christian Ahrens, to the news agency DAPD.

Activists fight back

Meanwhile, internet activists are reacting in their own way: they blocked MasterCard’s website. Both the international MasterCard website and its German variant were unavailable on Wednesday. This was due to a cyber-attack organized by the “Anonymous” movement, which became famous in 2008 with its protests against the Church of Scientology. On the day before had hackers and sympathizers in the vicinity of the movement, the website of the financial services provider of Swiss Post, Post Finance attacked. The website of the Swiss bank, Post Finance, was attacked by hackers sympathetic to the movement the day before. Since Wednesday evening (08/12/2010) then was also the site of visas no longer available. Visa’s website has been unavailable since Wednesday evening (08/12/2010).

Wikileaks Continues

Meanwhile, Wikileaks continues to publish secret documents. “We cannot be silenced, whether by legal means or by companies that try to censor us”, writes spokeswoman Kristinn Hrafnsson via Twitter. Users of social networks such as Facebook are calling for a boycott against MasterCard, Visa, and Amazon. Wikileaks still is still asking for donations, however – and recommends the emergency sending of checks by mail.

Author: Alexandra Scherle (with dpa, afp, DAPD)
Editors: Henrik Böhme

Original Article: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,6309577,00.html
Wordcount: 554

Look Out, it’s a Trap?

Suspicion of Rape Against the Wikileaks Founder Quickly Dissolves Into Thin Air

AFP

The WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was suspected of rape by Swedish officials over the weekend. Within a few hours, the prosecutor’s office in Stockholm cancelled the search for the Australian. Assange, whose website was in the headlines for releasing secret Afghan-War documents, speculated that the U.S. Department of Defense might be behind the allegations.

According to authorities, two women came forward to the police on Friday, accusing Assange of rape and sexual harassment. The police furthered the prosecutor’s investigation, by issuing an arrest warrant. By Saturday night, prosecutor’s finally declared that Assange was no longer being suspected of rape. The allegations of harassment against the 39-year-old are still under review.

A Warning from the Pentagon

Assange suggested in a published interview with the Swedish newspaper, Aftonbladet, that a conspiracy concocted by the U.S. Department of Defense was possible. “I do not know who is behind it,” he said. “But we have been warned, for example, that the Pentagon could fight dirty so as to destroy us.” That said, he was also specifically cautioned against “sexual traps”, said Assange. His Icelandic counterpart, Kristinn Hrafnsson, said there were “powerful organizations that want to harm Wikileaks.”

The website allows for the anonymous publication of controversial secret documents, potentially revealing abuses and scandals. Recently, WikiLeaks stirred the pot once more with the release of secret U.S. documents concerning the Afghanistan war, which have been leaked by an unknown source. The documents paint a grim picture of the situation in Afghanistan. Last weekend in Stockholm, Assange announced the impending release of around 15,000 additional Afghanistan-War documents.

Assange feared that such a short-term rape accusation against him could inflict “great harm” against WikiLeaks. “There were headlines around the world,” he told Aftonbladet. “And I know from experience that the opponents of WikiLeaks will continue to make such accusations, even after they have been ruled out”

The Stockholm Federal Attorney’s Office has received criticism on their handling of this case. A spokeswoman said that all of the evidence debunks the rape allegations, ruling his actions as “consensual”. The federal prosecutor, Maria Häljebo Kjellstrand, said in an interview with the newspaper Expressen, that she did not regret her decision to issue a warrant for Assange’s arrest. She says that the information they had received from the police was “convincing”. (AFP)

Original Article: http://www.berlinonline.de/berliner-zeitung/archiv/.bin/dump.fcgi/2010/0823/medien/0043/index.html
Word Count: 400

Charles Nordmann has developed a hypothesis according to which the sun emits electrical waves, which reach maximum intensity at the time of greatest solar activity. Based on this hypothesis, which allows easy interpretation of the peculiarities of the solar corona and the light emitted from comets, Nordmann is now trying to explain the nature of the aurora and the oscillations of the earth’s magnetism as well.

The most recent research, especially that of Paulsen, shows a close similarity between the spectrum of the aurora borealis and that of the light emitted from a cathode inside a Geissler tube containing oxygen and nitrogen. It has been concluded that the northern lights is cathode light generated in the high regions of the thin atmosphere. The peculiar disorder of the northern light beams can be also easily explained by the fact that cathode rays always follow the lines of force of a magnetic field. The source of the cathode rays, which form the northern lights, remains unexplained, however. Ebert and Wiedeman have now experimentally shown that their tube containing enough diluted gas under the influence of electrical waves produces light, and that this production of light is exactly like the cathode light in the Geissler tubes. Hence, Nordmann concludes that the aurora is cathode light, which is caused in the atmosphere by electrical waves emitted by the sun.

The different periods in the frequency of auroras are easily explained in the following manner. The eleven-year period, which directly coincided with the period of sunspots, as the largest number of auroras occurred at the time of the sunspot-maximum, is explained in that the most intense electrical waves emitted by the sun occurred at the time of a sunspot-maximum. Therefore, these auroras must have also occurred with the greatest intensity and number by the waves that had been emitted. The second period of the Northern Lights, which seems to correspond to the synodic revolution of the sun, is explained as well.

Given that the periods of maximum solar activity, including the maximum transmission of electrical waves, run approximately 26 days per cycle, it follows necessarily that the polar lights have an equal period. Finally, as far as the daily period of the Northern Lights, the explanation is equally simple.  The peak in the creation of the northern lights for any given place must occur at the time of maximum solar radiation, i.e. during the passage of the sun through the meridian. However the brightness of daylight overpowers the northern lights, so they are best visible in the early evening hours.

It is known that the changes in magnetism occur in an eleven year period, which, like the northern lights, run parallel with the period of sunspots. This fact indicates an intrinsic connection between the northern lights and the changes in Earth’s magnetism. On the other hand, it has been found that the intensity of Earth’s magnetism and the changes are in the same close relationship to the general electric currents of the atmosphere, which usually run in the upper, thinner, and proportionately good conductive layers of atmosphere.

Nordmann’s Theory first easily explains the eleven-year period of Earth’s magnetism. At the time of their maximum, sunspots emitted intense electrical waves causing an increase in conductivity of the upper levels of the atmosphere; the intensity, in agreement with the electrical current, will thus increase, and this in turn has a hardening of Earth’s magnetism as a result.

Nordmann’s Theory can also satisfactorily account for the non-periodic, i.e. sudden appearance of auroras and disturbances of Earth’s magnetism. Since the construction of Carrington’s famous observatory in 1859, numerous cases have been reported of magnetic storms accompanied by auroras, with a concomitant severe disturbance of the sun’s surface through a sunspot. In these cases intense radiation of electrical waves have occurred on the sun due to the disturbances. A particularly important confirmation of Nordmann’s theory is that Young, based off the appearances that Carrington had observed and from the similar phenomena that he had perceived, came to the conclusion that any serious disturbance of the sun’s surface is transmitted to the ground at the speed of light. This speed is however the same, as that of the electrical waves.

This most recent translation project is very different than anything I have ever done before. The first barrier was, of course, the text itself. It was written in Fraktur, which in itself is difficult to decipher. As far as historical context, there really isn’t any. What I have instead is scientific context, which in my opinion is much worse. That is to say, I find it rather difficult translating scientific jargon from German into English. Geissler Tubes, Cathodes, and the concept of electromagnetic theory to name a few. Lucky for me, Leo Online understood these words very well, and translated them with ease. As far as the rest of the text, I “translated” the fraktur into a more modern script in a word document, then uploaded it to the Google Translator Toolkit. Overall it was not too difficult, but it was somewhat time consuming, as it took a while getting used to the various quirks of the  fraktur.

Was können wir noch tun,

in Wüsten geboren

planlos besetzt

von Borax Händler

streben nach

Stucco Eleganz, wenn

sie wirklich Glück haben?

Jemand muss hier

zuerst ansieldeln sich bevor

die Mythologie um

glücklich in der ersten

Überrest der Industrie zu sein

und natürlich einsam

und anfällig für

die Meinungen der

Hausesel, seit Hausesel

sind die Hauptbegleitungen

hier unter den

Mines. …

Overall I found this assignment to be very challenging. The fact that the text was a poem  made it much more difficult, because often times, poetry barely makes sense in English. This was one such poem. On top of that, I was forced to make a decision: rearrange the words so that they make perfect grammatical sense in German, or leave the poem as a series of phrases and clauses. I chose the latter route, as it was easier and I thought it would be better to stay true to the poetic aspect of the text, rather than strictly the grammatical part. I did, however, move certain words that would make no sense if left uncorrected. An example of this can be found on line 10. “Zu Sein” makes no sense by itself as it does in English. Therefore, I added the word “um” to line 10 and moved “zu sein” to line 12 so as to say ” in order to be happy”.

The translator toolkit did a fairly good  job of translating the text. Some words such as Esel did not translate too well. Esel means ass or blockhead, not donkey. Hausesel, as provided by Leo, was a more appropriate translation. Also, the word “claims” was not meant to be a statement, but rather it was said in the sense of a claim of land, or in the context of borax ( a mineral), a mine.

As far as culture is concerned, I define it in a very broad sense as any product of humanity, tangible or otherwise. Ryan adds to the defintion the certain lifestyle lived by the people described in the poem. I interpreted the people to be scavengers of sorts, living off the “tailings of Industry”, picking through in an attempt to find borax ore the aforementioned traders left behind. In this sense, culture is not that which is mainstream, or perhaps even legal; the lifestyle is culture nonetheless.

1german - page 1

1german2- page 2

For this assignment I chose the English and German variants of the John Deere website. The first thing that I noticed was alignment of the page. The American version was very much centered while the German version was aligned to the left. Although I cannot explain why the German page is aligned to the left (perhaps their more direct attitude?) the American’s centric page setup can most definitely be attributed to the very American ideal that everything must be neat and centered when it comes to presentation. This can also be seen in book covers, scholarly papers, other webpages, etc..  

It is also worth noting that the company slogan “ Nothing Runs Like a Deere” appears on the American page, but not on the German page. The answer for this is simple. Earlier in the semester we were asked to translate this phrase into our respective languages. Although each of us was able to translate the phrase, not one translation carried the same meaning, as it is a play on words. It appears that the web designers opted to avoid this problem all together, and honestly I can’t blame them.

 The advertisement for the World Equestrian Games is also absent on the German page, revealing that horse racing may not be as popular in Germany as it is here in the US.

The pictures displayed on the pages are visually different, but are very similar in terms of context. The main categories (residential, commercial, golf, etc) are displayed on each page. The colors of the links are different, however. The American site uses the traditional colors of green and yellow, whereas the German page is covered in green and white. This is possibly indicative of a negative connotation of yellow in German culture.

Lastly, I’d like to point out the heavy use of the word “mehr” on the German page. Mehr, or more in English, appears 4 times in the animated graphic on the right side of the page. “Bieten Mehr”, “Mehr Auswahl”, “Mehr Produktivitaet”, “Mehr Informationen”. The overall mood of the graphic seems to say something along the lines of “ i want more for my money” More options, more productivity, more information. All of which are appropriate for a culture of now.

Overall, I found this project to be much more difficult than the last one. Not only was it significantly longer, it contained much more complicated grammar. This text had many separable prefix verbs such as aushalten, ausstiegen, and vorstellen. Also, the author tends to change between simple and perfect past tenses. The word “Spiesser” was also quite difficult to translate. It directly translates to conformist, or something to that effect. Her use of the word, however, did not always apply to our English definition of conformist. Therefore, several different variations of “Spiesser” were used(conformists, suits, philistines, etc). In a sense, the word itself was lost in translation, as there is no exact equivalent in English. Other words like “Fratzen” could mean face, mask, mug, etc. The key is to use words that would closely resemble the typical vocabulary of an angry stoned teenager. That is something easier said than done, especially considering the mood changes throughout the story.  She begins the story as a curious teenager, and an apparent first time user of heroin. She takes the pills and becomes a raving lunatic. She becomes angry, and then happy again. The story then ends in a very pessimistic note with the speaker talking about her mother. This change in mood coupled with more difficult grammar and vocabulary made for a very difficult, yet very manageable translation project.

At ten o’clock the youth club “Haus der Mitte” closed, which I did not notice. I went with Piet to the subway station. At the subway station we met two friends of Piet, Frank and Pauli. They were wearing matching clothes. They seemed extremely quiet. I liked them. Piet told me, “They’re on H.” –Heroin. At the moment, his words had no effect on me. I was too consumed with myself and the pills, which slowly took effect.

As we boarded the subway and the subway then pulled out, I almost flipped out. It was utter madness. I believed I was in a tin can being stirred by a giant spoon. The noise of the subway in the tunnel was crazy. I could not stand the noise. The people in the subway had dreadful faces. That is to say, they actually always looked this way, these conformists. One can only see how disgusting these conformists  were by seeing their faces.  I imagined these fat philistines coming from some sort of shitty bar or from some sort of shitty job. Then these pig-faced people went to bed, then to work, and then watched tv. I thought to myself: you can’t celebrate your individuality. That’s why you’re in a clique. That’s why you’re on pills and are seeing visions on what kind of crappy conformists are in the subway.  That’s basically what I thought, as well as on later trips. Then I became afraid of the faces. I looked at Piet. He was also uglier than usual.  His face was very small in contrast to the pig-faced people. However, he looked somewhat normal.

As we approached Rudow, I was happy.  Now I was in a good mood. All of the lights were incredibly bright. A streetlamp above us was brighter than I’ve ever seen the sun. I had been cold in the subway. Now I was really hot. I thought I was somewhere in Spain instead of in Berlin. It was like one of the beautiful posters that hung in the travel office in Gropius City. The trees were palm-trees and the street was sand. It was incredibly bright. I didn’t tell Piet that I was in a good mood. I wanted somehow to be alone during this awesome trip.

We went to Piet’s house. Oddly enough Piet could paint very well. In his room hung a painting of his. There was an incredibly portly horse. On the horse sat a skeleton with a sickle. I focused my attention on the painting. I had seen it a few times before and only thought that it was death. The drawing no longer frightened me. I had a very naïve mind. I thought that the skeleton could never control this bold horse. It had already lost control of the horse. We discussed the painting for a while.

I went home. My mother was naturally still awake.  There was the usual fuss. Where I had been. This will not continue. And the like. My mother appeared oddly funny to me, thick and fat in her white nightgown, her face distorted with rage. Like the philistines in the subway.

I didn’t say a word. I did not speak with her anymore. Or at least only about the most noteworthy and least important things. I wanted from her no fondness or contact. I imagined-at least sometimes-that I didn’t need a mother or a family anymore.

My mother with her boyfriend and I live in very different worlds.  They haven’t the slightest idea of what I did. They probably thought I was a very normal child. What could I explain to them? They would not understand. At best they would have forbade it. I thought about it. I pitied my mother. How she gets stressed out from work and comes home. However I thought, the old lady has only herself to blame when she carries on with her conformist life.