Marcin Wichary

> "Have it compose a poem—a poem about a haircut! But lofty, noble, tragic, timeless, full of love, treachery, retribution, quiet heroism in the face of certain doom! Six lines, cleverly rhymed, and every word beginning with the letter s!!" > Seduced, shaggy Samson snored. > She scissored short. Sorely shorn, > Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed, > Silently scheming, > Sightlessly seeking > Some savage, spectacular suicide. I've found an article that compares the translation the original Polish. The translator had to change the premise of the poem and write a completely new poem: https://medium.com/@mwichary/seduced-shaggy-samson-snored-725b5a8086d9

Obligatory plug for Le Ton Beau de Marot, by Douglas Hofstadter. He explains his accidental fascination with the translation of a simple short minor poem from Renaissance French into English. He experimented with a few different approaches to translating it (preserve the rhyme? the meter? the avuncular tone? write it in Shakespearean-style English because it's old?) and then began to challenge his friends and colleagues and students to make their own translation. The act of translation is a beautifully subtle one, built on decisions of what elements of construction, theme, presentation, meaning, context to preserve, adapt, or abandon. It's also a personal tale of a difficult time in Hofstadter's life. I found it moving and enlightening. Much recommended! Hofstadter talks with a lot of different translators, including the much-beloved translator of Stanislaw Lem's works, Michael Kandel. Kandel's rendition of the poem of Trurl's Electronic Bard is rightly famous. The ever-astonishing Marcin Wichary (a native speaker of Polish) reproduces, and discusses it, here: https://medium.com/@mwichary/seduced-shaggy-samson-snored-725b5a8086d9

Regards translating the Cyberiad, the famous scene where Klapaucius tests Trurl's AI poetry machine has been translated by Michael Kandel: “Have it compose a poem — a poem about a haircut! But lofty, noble, tragic, timeless, full of love, treachery, retribution, quiet heroism in the face of certain doom! Six lines, cleverly rhymed, and every word beginning with the letter S!!” “And why not throw in a full exposition of the general theory of nonlinear automata while you’re at it?” growled Trurl. “You can’t give it such idiotic — ” But he didn’t finish. A melodious voice filled the hall with the following: “Seduced, shaggy Samson snored. She scissored short. Sorely shorn, Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed, Silently scheming, Sightlessly seeking Some savage, spectacular suicide.” ... I don't know any Polish, but having found a more literal rendering of the original[1] it seems Kandel has not made it worse! 1: https://medium.com/@mwichary/seduced-shaggy-samson-snored-725b5a8086d9

Reminds me if this fun post [1] [2] from a few years back. [1]: https://medium.com/@mwichary/system-shock-6b1dc6d6596f [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10437485

He also coded quite a few interactive Google doodles[0]. [0] https://medium.com/@mwichary/stanislaw-lem-on-google-s-homepage-aedc9a…

He also has some nice posts about typography: https://medium.com/@mwichary

"They first appeared as tape transport symbols on reel-to-reel tape decks during the mid-1960s." See https://gizmodo.com/the-secret-histories-of-those-ing-computer-symbols… which is linked to from this article which you may also find interesting: https://medium.com/@mwichary/the-ghost-tech-in-todays-language-c3becc9…

Here is another article that goes much deeper into how to actually use CSS to implement the dark mode. While it does not rely on the media query (the article is almost 17 months old after all), it shows many other CSS features you could use. https://medium.com/@mwichary/dark-theme-in-a-day-3518dde2955a