This location had absolutely tall!

by Scott Carmichael on

Apologies for the insane article title, it’s one of the results of passing a piece of text through “Blahblahfish“, a fun yet useless re-translator.

The site takes any text you enter, and translates it to one of the 28 languages supported by the translation site, then translates that back to English again.

“This location had absolutely tall” is actually “this site is absolutely fantastic” in English to Croatian and back.

The purpose? None. But it makes for some absolutely hilarious results. The “highest rated” Blahblahfish translation managed to turn “Oh Shit!” into “Human waste of Ohio” when passed through English to Korean and back. Passing “George Bush” through a Latin translator, yields “Agricultural Shrub”.

Of course, if you need a way to justify wasting 10 minutes of your life on creating gobbledygook text, then you could always claim you are doing scientific research on automated translation sites, but the real lesson here is that online translation sites are horrible at doing their job, and that using them for anything serious might be a bad idea.

(Via our friends at Download Squad)

Korean shopping deal just what you need in a recession

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Here’s proof that the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing. Imagine a left hand holding nail polish while the right is rotting. The Shilla Seoul hotel is offering a “Shopping at the Shilla” package for around $205 a night through October 31, 2009. The duty free shopping trip includes plenty of stuff, such as a deluxe room, breakfast for two and a VIP Gold Card for the Duty Free Shop, with discounts of 5 to 15 per cent (and some other stuff).

Now, the next bit is from a press release, so it must be true. The Shilla Seoul is consistently voted South Korea‘s leading hotel (which leads me to believe it’s one of the best in both Koreas … but that’s just a guess). And, why wouldn’t it be? It’s part of the Leading Hotels of the World chain. The name says it all.

Now, back to that press release … it says that you should go to LHW’s website to take advantage of this deal. But, if you can believe it, the press release lies!!! (Or, maybe it’s just wrong). I couldn’t find it on the LHW site, but it turned up on The Shilla Seoul’s website. I shouldn’t be surprised at this debacle, given LHW’s awesome track record with the Internet.

It’s probably worth looking for this deal, because North Korea‘s Ryugyong Hotel isn’t open yet. The Shilla Seoul is probably going to be the top hotel on the peninsula for a while (at least if you believe LHW’s publicist).

How to Travel the World: website with the nuts and bolts

by Jamie Rhein on

Although the focus of the website How to Travel the World is to help folks plan for long term travel, also known as a gap year trip, the information is useful for anyone. Whether you’re a person who is going to travel for a few days or months–years even, browsing the site is a place to start planning.

Various links provide info on everything you need to consider from how much money to budget to tips on what to pack.

Before you buy a plane ticket, the budget page can help you decide where to go on a trip in order to match your cash flow. Thailand is cheap. Australia is expensive.

Buying a plane ticket and packing are obvious details. The site also includes those items that you might forget to consider before leaving home, particularly if you’re going to be gone for a long time. The page “Pre-Trip Planning” offers a handy list that ranges from bank accounts to wills.

Anyone who has traveled for an extended period of time knows about the almost certain let down that happens once a trip is over. Reading the section “Coming Home” is one way to ease the transition. Personally, I think it’s helpful to know these details before heading out on a trip in order to be prepared ahead of time.

Another helpful page is the F.A.Q where readers submit questions and receive answers. Any travel jitters you might be having could be calmed by browsing through this one.

The How to Travel the World is written by folks who are long term travelers and edited by Matthew Kepnes who also writes the Nomadic Matt Travel Site.

Japan smells

by Aaron Hotfelder on

It’s not often here at Gadling that we link to a website that’s entirely in Japanese, but this one’s too good to pass up.

A new site called Nioibu.com allows you to use Google Maps to plot all of Japan’s weird and wonderful smells. And when I say weird, well…

Here are a few odor-related attractions that have already been marked on the map: head to Yamamoto for the fumes of ferrets, check out Sagahirosawacho for the whiff of watermelon, or go to Kamakura for the odor of old lady.

A commentor over at JapanProbe (HT!) notes that the “old lady smell” has been improperly translated, and that it’s actually the nostalgic smell of grandma’s house.

But I’ll stick with the first, funnier translation.

More here.

FabSearch – A website for the out-of-the-know

by Annie Scott on

Do you ever read a review of some random restaurant in a national publication and think “gosh, if I ever go to Boise, I should totally eat there?” Some people I know even keep files for this kind of thing with newspaper and magazine clippings, and my friend Josh keeps a spreadsheet.

I’m lazy. What do I do? I go to FabSearch.com.

Then, I click on the random city I’m headed to for the wedding, or the story, or the Eiffel Tower (big cities like Paris are on there, too), and recent articles about hot places to stay and places to eat from local and national publications pop up! It’s like having a friend in that city who lays around and reads magazines for you.

You can totally wow your friends with this wealth of knowledge. You could be all “Oh, I read about it in the Financial Times,” and if they tried to call your bluff and checked the Financial Times, you’d be right, even though you’re too lazy busy to read it.

Check out the site – I looked up my hometown of Minneapolis and the recommendations were all pretty good!