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badcomputer.org

Sunday, March 26, 2006

I have found myself spending a lot of free time (what? a geek with free time?!?!) over at Wikitravel. It is a really neat idea. You know how wikipedia is a wikified encyclopedia right? Well, Wikitravel is of course a wikified travel guide, with the ambitious goal of covering the entire world. It is not huge yet, but at 7800 guides as I write this, it is certainly on its way.

I first found my way there researching a trip that I am planning, and decided to check on my home town just to see if they got it right. To my chagrin the page didn't even exist yet, but the helpful wiki software told me I could make it right there and then so that's exactly what I did. After a couple of weeks I got the Pentictonguide to a state I could be proud of. Not only that, but some friendly folks there decided it was so good it got nominated for Destination of the Month. The guide is duking it out with Oxford right now but I like Penticton's chances. I have started plugging away at all sorts of places in British Columbia, as it is not represented all that well just yet.

After hanging around the community for a while I took a shot at creating some maps for wikitravel, and I am quite impressed with the results considering my complete lack of artistic talent. But you be the judge: I have created maps for Penticton, Vancouver's Downtown Peninsula, Stanley Park, Downtown Toronto, Toronto's Annex, and the Queen Charlotte Islands, among others. I am using Inkscape for the maps, and after wrestling with it for about 10 hours to make the Penticton map, I am now able to crank one out in about two hours.

Of course, all this travel planning has made me brutally self-conscious about being an imperialistic monoglot, so I have decided to do something about it. Not content to learn just one new language, I have decided to go the difficult route and teach myself three at once: French, German, and Italian. So far I think I have enough to order a meal and a secure a hotel room, all while making the locals laugh at me hysterically. Being Canadian, I do have no less than three French-language television channels to help practice, but with German and Italian I am stuck just reading websites in those two languages.

So anyway, that's what I am up to now, so I will leave you with:

Guten Tag! Ich bin Kanadischer. Ich spreche nicht das gute Deutsche sehr, aber ich erlerne. Ich habe ein englisch-deutsch-Wörterbuch, und ich bald komme zu Ihrem Land und zerfleische die Sprache.

Buongiorno! Sono un Canadese. Non parlo italiano molto buon, ma sto imparando. Ho un dizionario inglese-italiano, così presto verrò al vostro paese e mangle la vostra lingua.

Bonjour. Je suis Canadienne. Je ne parle pas français très bon, mais j'apprends. J'ai un dictionnaire anglais-français, ainsi je bientôt viendrai à votre pays et mutilerai votre langue!

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