no.stupid.answers

no.stupid.answers

Get WikiAnswers in your language

October 2nd, 2008 . by Shaya

Google has added 11 new languages to its translation tool, so now, with a little G-help, we can get answers in even more languages.

Redeeming the cow

Consider the cow of Mrs. O’Leary, famous for starting the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 by kicking over a lantern and setting her barn - and one third of the city - ablaze. That rumor was put to rest in English long ago, but what of the cow’s reputation in, say, Tagalog? Ito ay tunay na Mrs Oleary ng baka na nagsimula ang Chicago Fire? WikiAnswers rises bravely to the occasion:Moo - me?

Ang isang peminista Dyaryo na tinatawag na “Ang Rebolusyon” na nakasulat sa ilang sandali lamang matapos ang Chicago Fire of 1871, basahin ang mga sumusunod: “Mrs Leary denies na ang kanyang baka kicked sa paglipas ng ilaw na set ng apoy sa dayami na masunog ang kwadra na sanhi ng pagkawasak ng kalahati ng Chicago. Alin ang nai-render sa pamamagitan ng lubha maaaring mangyari ang mga kilalang katotohanan na Chicago cows hindi sipa, at Chicago gas ay isang non-sunugin likido, at Chicago hay ay natipon mula sa marshes at sa gayon ay puspos na may asin na ito ay hindi matupok, at na Mrs Leary’s kubol ay binuo ng sunog-patunay na materyales, at ang pagkasira ng Chicago ay sa parusa ng kasalanan, at, saka, ay isang magandang grasya na para sa mga taong hindi masunog out ay lubha tumatanaw ng utang na loob. Ang baka ay dapat exonerated.”

Bean sprouters of the world, unite!

Many folks like to grow beans, but one could say that some foreign-language speakers have been at a disadvantage because of the dearth of bean-sprouting methods in languages other than English. At last, translations are as easy to come by as peas in a pod. Here is how to grow green beans in Catalan:beans, beans...

En primer lloc fins al lloc on plantar.
Quan estigui llest per posar la seva planta dels fesols en remull amb aigua durant uns 15 a 30 minuts per suavitzar l’exterior perquè sigui més fàcil per al fesol de brollar.
Fer una rasa en el sòl no més d’una polzada de profunditat i, a continuació, posar el fesol a la trinxera amb voltant d’un 6-polzades d’espai entre ells.
Després, cobrir lleugerament el fesol, no el paquet de sòl.
Lleugerament l’aigua cada dos dies i en una setmana et comencen a veure els brots a través d’Chasque.

Being entertained by translation

Some cool alphabets debuted, too, with Hebrew and Serbian. It seems, though, that the more a language differs structurally from English, the more twisted its translation on Google Translate. I can’t speak for all the languages, but at least a few are guaranteed to make you laugh. For example, in Hebrew, Google translates “dough” into “money” when talking about donut batter. Here are some translated answers to Why do donuts have holes? (Note: Some of these character sets may not display properly if your computer doesn’t support these languages. Just skip down to the next section.)

In Hebrew:

אחת הסיבות לכך היא לאפשר את הכסף כדי לבשל באופן שווה. בלי חור בסופו של דבר גם עם כדור כי הוא חסר נסיון במרכז או מבושל יותר מדי כלפי חוץ.Hansen תמיד לקח קרדיט על החור של סופגניה. סופגניה כמה היסטוריונים חושב שזה היה קצת Hansen של קמצן והיה רק מנסה לשמור על עלויות המזון. אחר אומר כי הוא נתן את סופגניה כאשר החור הראשון שלה, באמצע של סערה ואת נורא על מנת לקבל את שתי הידיים על ההגה ספינות, הוא crammed אחת האמהות שלו מטוגן תחושות עלה אחד של wooded spokes של הגלגל. עוד סיפור טוען כי הוא החליט, לאחר ביקור ממלאך, כי מרכז בצקי העוגות של פריד היה צריך ללכת.

In Serbian:

Један од разлога је допустити да се тијесто равномјерно кувате. Без рупа сте завршили са или лопта да је сировом у средини или прекухано на ван.Хансен увек узме кредит за рупу у уштипак. Неки повјесничари мисле да је крафна Хансен је мало од цхеапскате и био је само покушавате сачувати на трошкове хране. Други кажу да он даде свој први крафна рупа када, у средини страшна олуја и како би добили обе руке на бродовима точкова, он Цраммед један од његових мајки пржена сензација на једном од спокес у шумовитим звијерка. Још једна бајка тврди да је одлучио, након посете од Анђела, да је гњецав центра у пржени колача морали ићи.

In Vietnamese:

Là một lý do gì để cho phép các bột để nấu ăn như nhau. Mà không có một lỗ cuối cùng với bạn hoặc là một quả cầu đó là nguyên ở giữa hoặc overcooked trên bên ngoài.Hansen luôn luôn lấy tín dụng cho các lỗ trong doughnut. Một số doughnut historians nghĩ rằng Hansen là một chút của một cheapskate và đã được chỉ cần cố gắng để tiết kiệm chi phí thức ăn. Những người

khác nói rằng ông đã cho các doughnut đầu tiên, khi lỗ, ở giữa đáng sợ của một cơn bão và để có được cả hai tay trên tàu thủy, bánh xe, ông crammed một trong số các bà mẹ chiên cảm giác của mình lên một trong những wooded spokes của bánh xe. Tuy nhiên, một tale khiếu nại rằng ông quyết định, sau khi một truy cập từ một thiên sứ, doughy rằng các trung tâm của các chiên bánh đã phải đi.

How it’s done

Well now, I can’t tell you what I don’t know. But if you want more than cows, beans and donuts, I can show you two ways to get your own translations from Google Translate.

  1. Translate text: Copy some text you want translated. Go to Google Translate and paste the text into the “Translate Text” section. Using the language buttons underneath, pick a language to translate from (that’s the original language of the text you copied) and a language to translate to, and click Translate. The translation will appear, magically and almost immediately, on the right.
  2. Translate a whole web site: Find a web site you want translated (perhaps a news site, where you can’t understand the headlines or the email settings). Copy the address of the web site from the address bar of your browser. Go to Google Translate and paste the address into the “Translate a Web Page” section, pick your languages, and click Translate. Voila! The site will appear in the language of your choice.

Site translation (option #2) is currently way more exciting. Everything on the page, from “Log In” to “About us” to “Lost Password” - and all the content in between - gets translated. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to edit the translation and make it better for generations to come (sometimes, though, this feature doesn’t work). To try it, hover your mouse over some mis-translated text. If the text turns blue, it’s editable and a popup should appear with the original language so you can see where the mistakes were made.

Be prepared for sites you translate to lose some functionality and design integrity (i.e. they might stop working properly and look really bad). If you need something translated but also need to keep working on a site, it may be better to use straight text translation (option #1).

Happy translating!

Google Translate

What’s the average speed of a dugout canoe on Lake Malawi?

October 1st, 2008 . by Liz

Hey there! How’s going? Feel like learning about speeds of dugout canoes on Lake Malawi today from Jim? I knew you did!

What’s the average speed of a dugout canoe on Lake Malawi?

As many of you know, I was in Africa for several months this year including several weeks in Malawi, almost all of which were spent on the shores of beautiful Lake Malawi. Almost immediately upon arrival I was intrigued by the very question asked by a clearly intelligent WikiAnswers participant, as noted above. Immediately I began to devise experiments to determine the average speed of the canoes.Lake Malawi National Park

I thought the best way to discover the answer to this perplexing riddle was to be in the water itself next to the canoes. However, almost from the beginning things began to go horribly wrong. Unknowingly, I swam into the sacred nesting grounds of a group of hippos. Hippos don’t eat meat, but they will crush you to death if they feel threatened and are responsible for more human deaths in Africa than lions, tigers, polar bears, penguins, bald eagles, and raccoons combined!

Before I knew what was happening, I was fighting off a pack of hippos armed with waterproof guns and huge powerful jaws that kill a man with one bite. Fortunately, I made it past the few hippos, but soon thereafter I encountered my next challenge: overly chlorinated water.

My eyes began to burn like the fires of a fiery-hot hell. Someone thought it would be a good idea to try to chlorinate this part of Lake Malawi and accidentally spilled 2 million metric tons of chlorine into this one part of the lake. Ironically, this accident is what led me to solve the great riddle of the dugout canoe speed. Seeing that I was in excruciating pain, a fisherman paddled over to me and put me in his canoe. He paddled me back to shore and took me to the local clinic for treatment. On the way I asked him what the average speed of a dugout canoe was and he kindly responded: ten kilometers per hour.

I want to wish our Jewish readers out there a happy new year and to all my friends in Malawi and the rest of you, have a great October.

Yours truly,

Jim

Rockin’ the contributions with RockandRollPirate.

September 29th, 2008 . by Liz

Now, here’s one for the record books for most fun username: RockandRollPirate, a.k.a. Liz, has been a contributor since January.

You gotta love a contributor who claims their talents include learning, music, entertainment and… arguing.

She’s hanging around the site, looking to help people. Hmm, does it get anymore WikiAnswers than that?

How did you originally hear about WikiAnswers?

I actually stumbled upon it when I typed in a question off of my study paper. I was doing research for a paper and just copied a question and a very similar one popped up from WikiAnswers. So… it was by the help of good ole Google! :)

What motivates you to volunteer your time to the WikiAnswers community?

Mainly to find tidbits of information. I love to learn new things, and I find that WikiAnswers is a great place for that. Also, I find there are a lot of questions and answers that need editing, so I try to help too!

What are your areas of expertise?

Um, mostly Ancient History (i.e. Egypt, Greece). Other than that, I think it would be the Jokes or the Harmless Nonsense. :D

What is your favorite WikiAnswers feature?

Oh, the option to fix spelling and grammar errors. They drive me insane and I am so glad that a site finally has the option to let people fix that! Also, the option to separate two joined questions and to recategorize them.

What is the funniest question/funniest experience on WikiAnswers?

I haven’t been there long… so that would be stumbling across a question that was asking about rainbow-coloured sandals, I believe, that was put under the category of ‘Photography’… Weird.

Share a random fact about yourself.

Oh, that’s a bit hard when I’m such a random person myself. Hah. Um, well to keep it simple, I’m an aspiring photographer. I love taking photos of nature, like flowers, landscapes, sky, etc. I’m aiming to become good enough to serve as a photographer for National Geographic. :)

But for now, I just post my pictures on my website. Hehe. :)

Do you want to be interviewed for the Contributor corner? Just leave a comment below and we’ll get to work.

Paint, plungers and lithium

September 28th, 2008 . by Shaya

plungersThere are a lot of new categories on WikiAnswers lately: Exotic Pets, Canadian Football, Eli Whitney, Copernicus

One new category on the block, Household Hints, has really caught my eye. Get a load of these questions!

Some creative cleaning issues:

Your basic household maintenance:

A green question:

And my favorite…

Take a crack at these questions - if you succeed, there will be some very grateful people out there.

Visit the What’s New page to see a running list of the newest WikiAnswers categories.

Get to know your Supervisors.

September 26th, 2008 . by Liz

There are hundreds of Supervisors from all over the world… as evidenced by the Supervisors Global map!

Check out the live maps for North America and Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.

Is it true that Tracy Jordan’s Werewolf Bar Mitzvah was actually based on a real person?

September 24th, 2008 . by Liz

And now, a word from Jim on the tradition that is the werewolf Bar Mitzvah:

I hear that Tracy Jordan’s “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” was actually based on a real person. Is there any truth to that?

Many people do not know this, but in the early 1960’s in Portland, Oregon, one of the twentieth century’s least reported yet most incredible events took place.

Thirteen-year-old Michael Brewer was preparing for his Bar-Mitzvah when he was attacked by a stray pack of wolves. Portland, in those days, was a town of mostly mill workers and was also rumored to be the site of a government project that helped develop the first semiconductors to power computers. This rumor is primarily due to the sign on the huge factory that said “US Govt. Property – We are making the first semiconductors to power computers here”. In those days wolves roamed free like the buffalo did in the plains states a hundred years prior.

Michael was able to fight off the wolves, but not without a few scratches. His parents reported that he recovered pretty quickly from the scratches and felt fine until a few weeks later. The first sign that things were not all well was when Michael began to stay awake only at night, especially during full moons, and sleep most of the day.Teen Wolf

Soon, other indicators began to be noticeable on a daily basis. He was covered in fur, his eyes went yellow, and he would always talk about a random kid recently born named Michael J. Fox. Somehow Michael Brewer was able to predict decades before its production that Michael J. Fox would star in Teen Wolf. Some say that Teen Wolf is a loose interpretation on Michael Brewer’s early life story.

Despite the physical and genetic changes, Michael went ahead with his Bar-Mitzvah, did an excellent job, and for an unknown reason shortly thereafter lost his werewolf features. Today he lives in Philadelphia teaching third grade-level Sudoku.

The story slipped into the cracks of werewolf phenomena legend and it was almost entirely forgotten until Tracy Morgan visited Portland a few years ago. Apparently, after seeing an old newspaper clipping about the famed Bar-Mitzvah he wrote the sketch for his TV show 30 Rock which has achieved a cult following.

It’s kind of a minor hobby of mine to follow Jewish werewolf related stories. If anybody has heard of any other such instances please contact me.

~Jim

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