How readable do you think the following is?
Yet some parameters endure. Phi losopher George Santayana famously said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Not precisely, perhaps, but human history, both personally and collec tively, is definitely thematic. And you didn’t record it, you either won’ recall it, or your memory of it will faulty. Historian Barbara Tuchman wrote, “The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree the primeval forest which fell with out being heard.” Perhaps that’s why launched the log — it made me seem more real. Or maybe the record is akin to scratches on the wall of a prisoner’ cell, tallying the days until release.
What kind of editor would let this text see print, what with dropped letters/punctuation and split words? Other examples have bold subtitles moved into the text and many other distracting errors.
This is an example of “To err is human; to really screw up it takes a computer”. The above is from “The snares and lairs of memory” by Peter M. Leschack in the Star Tribune, 4 May 2014, as displayed when expanding an article from the facsimile page of the Olive edition.
The actual printed text is:
Yet some parameters endure. Philosopher George Santayana famously said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Not precisely, perhaps, but human history, both personally and collectively, is definitely thematic. And if you didn’t record it, you either won’t recall it, or your memory of it will be faulty. Historian Barbara Tuchman wrote, “The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard.” Perhaps that’s why I launched the log — it made me seem more real. Or maybe the record is akin to scratches on the wall of a prisoner’s cell, tallying the days until release.
The human editor didn’t make any mistakes, but the computer editor really screwed up. This happens all the time in the Olive edition of both the Duluth News Tribune and the Star Tribune. The Olive edition displays a facsimile of the printed newspaper. You can easily “flip” the pages or jump to a section. You can click on an article to expand it.
The expanded view has the advantage of bringing together segments printed on different pages and of having larger text. But all the “translation” errors are distracting. Did the author really write that? Why is that unrelated bold text doing in this section? And on and on.
This computer-induced garble is present in both the iPad and the laptop/desktop versions of the software.
Isn’t this a wonderful example of “business efficiency”?
Oh, well! It still beats going to the corner with the right change in all kinds of weather or calling up to cancel when we’re out of town. And I can easily make clippings of things on which I want to base another one of these whining entries.
