Abruptly Departed - Miguel Llorens @ TM-Europe 2012

We were all very sad to hear that Miguel Llorens passed away recently. It happened very suddenly, just a couple of weeks before he was due to participate in The Warsaw Pact Debate and the panel discussion on machine translation at the TM-Europe International Conference 2012 (3-5 October 2012, Warsaw) .

He was very much missed and often quoted at TM-Europe Conference. I am very sorry to have missed the opportunity to meet him in person. But as a tribute to this talented and provocative individual, I have published some of his memorable quotes below.

 

His comment on the invitation to speak at TM-Europe 2012
I'm being invited to something called the "Warsaw Pact Debate" for an October MT conference. I honestly know nothing about nuclear weapons." - Miguel Llorens

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"Seven Similarities Between the Machine Translation Crowd and a Religious Sect

1.- Both fervently await a significant event that is in the future, but constantly deferred (the Second Coming, the Rapture, alien invasions, the day when machine translation [MT] is actually useful).

2.- Both gather periodically at ritual events to recite incantatory nonsense (covens, black masses, localization conferences).

3.- Both demand that you renounce all your worldly possessions in favor of a fuzzy afterlife no one has ever seen (Heaven, Paradise and the 72 virgins, well-paid post-editing).

4.- Both seek to alienate you from your loved ones and take all your money.

5.- Both solicit funding on the basis of preposterous premises.

6.- Both demand a significant amount of blind faith.

7.- Both have been denounced as farces by Richard Dawkins.

(I’m not actually sure about this last one)." - Miguel Llorens, 15 June, 2011

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"'The main question archeologistsof the future will have about our civilization: "Why did they have so many goddamned headphones?'" - Miguel Llorens

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"A reader calls me a 'conservative when it comes to the translation business' because of criticism of MT and crowdsourcing.

I suppose I am a conservative if innovation means producing shitty work."- Miguel Llorens

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"Allegedly, we are facing a case in which demand for a service has expanded fantastically but the price per unit of that service has dropped." - Miguel Llorens

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"Language Technology Isn’t Getting Better, Our Expectations Are Just Getting Lower" - Miguel Llorens

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"When we push back the curtains, however, we find a huge hamster wheel powered by thousands of underpaid and underqualifiedtranslators post-editing stuff the agency downloaded from Google Translate." - Miguel Llorens

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"Ha! Finally did it! I replied to an agency query asking them to "please provide your best rate." #HowYouLikeThemApples?" - Miguel Llorens

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"McLocalization: –The Answer to a Question Nobody Asked" - Miguel Llorens

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"My God, all these vacationing bankers returned to work today and they want me to translate the equivalent of the BaghavadGita in two hours." - Miguel Llorens

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"Google Books asks me for my location. That's endearing. Oh, don't be coy, Google. You know I know you know where I am 24 hours a day." - Miguel Llorens

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"Ok. I am a translator. Power is why I got into this game (not the sex... not the money...)." - Miguel Llorens

 

RIP Professional Translator!

 

Source of all the quotes - Miguel Llorens' blog & twitter

Copyright: Miguel Llorens

For more insightful and frequently hilarious posts visit Miguel Llorens' blog: http://traductor-financiero.blogspot.com