i keep having to remind myself that biking is a normal person term and that when the average person says it they’re not actually referring to the act of cheating at quizbowl
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why does biking relate to cheating in quizbowl?
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“The origin of the term is disputed. One common explanation points to Lance Armstrong, and his cheating case. Another less common theory holds that when an early online cheater was caught, he told the TDs that he was out biking to excuse his lack of a camera or mic[rophone].”
- QB Wiki
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this explanation is fake and i’ve only ever seen it be used to slander one specific player (for the bit, of course. no actual hard feelings). genuinely no one knows why it’s called that
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This is also similar to the fast food debate i had with arctic. I dont think im pedantic, im not pedantic in other contexts. I think my programmer brain is heavily trained to never assume something makes sense and to walk through stuff like a baby. You need to talk to the conputer like youre talking to a baby. You can never assume the computer will figure it out and when i see a contradiction my instinct is to fix it because it isnt going to fix itself
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This is such a funny observation. So, yeah, this is true. Our brains build mental models of interlocutors to help understand what someone is saying because language is fundamentally vague. We’re all constantly and unconsciously estimating what context the other person is using when they say things to us. This is why translation is often really hard and why machine translation is only okay (it fundamentally lacks context).
When someone translates a piece of media, they’re doing a lot more than just translating it word for word. A good translator understands the context a thing is being said in, and then translates it to a new language in a way that’ll make sense with the reader’s context. An example I remember was a manga translator talking about a bit of dialogue that when translated literally is some random statement about a fish or something. It makes zero sense to an English speaker when translated literally, but to a Japanese reader, they understand it’s referencing a folk tale or joke everyone knows. To translate that, the translator had to essentially come up with an entirely new bit of dialogue to impart the same meaning to the readers. It was translating authorial intent more than the words themselves.
When translating visual media, particularly video, a translator does everything they can to ensure the translation more or less aligns with a character’s lip movements. This can often lead to really awkward or forced sounding dialogue, and it’s gonna sound weird no matter what, but at least it’ll look like the character is actually saying the words you’re hearing. You’re probably aware of the “subs greater than dubs” discourse for anime. Often times the subbed dialogue is a more accurate and better written translation, and I think that plays into it.
So yeah, communication is always highly dependent on not only having a shared context, but interlocutors correctly guessing the context the others are operating in. If you lack the necessary context someone is operating in, you may be confused about what they’re saying or just come away with the entirely wrong interpretation.
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holy shit actually jumpscared me
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i was reading and a wall of text appeared
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I’ve often expressed this as “translation is adaptation”. Came up recently when I was discussing Monogatari with a friend.
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Ok, but this kinda works really well in the context of the scene.
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would u take a potato chip… and eat it
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Yes.
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I enjoyed reading this essay thank you nbowie 
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Arnock, on the night of his joining
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I dont know who that is but i know that bunnies reproduce all the time because theyre scared shitless their entire lives
Pet bunnies also have a high mortality rate because they hide it from their owners when theyre sick or injured. They hide it as a survival instinct because again theyre scared all the time
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Kadir beneath Mo Moteh
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