Entertainment Corner

L is Laughter: L is for Life of Pi

I had two choices (well, more than two actually, but these were the top two) for this letter. And my first choice was Little Women, but then I am running late like the Rabbit in Alice, and playing catch up on this challenge. So I decided to reuse content I already had on my blog and go with my second choice – Life of Pi.  I wrote a Book Vs Movie post for Life of Pi earlier! So I am using excerpts from that post here and you can click hereto read it in entirety.

The Book:

This book is definitely one of those books I wanted to keep reading. I think I kind of felt like the shah must have felt when Scheherazade stopped one of her Arabian night tales whenever I had to put the book down for something else.

The visuals I made up in my head as I read the book left me wonder-struck – Yann Martel’s vivid descriptions of the beauty of nature – real and imagined – are so detailed and, well, vivid, that it was not hard to come up with images as we read. This also meant that the darker, gorier aspects of the book were also described and imagined as vividly.

The Movie:

Stunning visuals, a couple of deviations from the book (like a love interest for the teenage Pi), an attempt to keep the dark side and gore of the book to a minimum (this was maybe to keep the PG rating of the movie), wonderful acting by each and every character (including the animals), and once again STUNNING VISUALS make this movie a must-watch.

The Question: The Book or the Movie:

Poetry Corner

L is Laughter: L is for Lanturne

What is the lanturne?

The lanturne is a relatively new poetic form from Japan. It is a shape poem and derives its name from the shape that appears when the poem is center aligned – a lantern. Like many other forms from Japan, this poem has a fixed syllable count for each line.

Like the haiku, it is very short; and challenges the writer to use the words that not only help express their ideas and make the intended impact but words that have the right amount of characters to lend that lantern shape when centered.

How to write the lanturne?

The lanturne personalizes and/or reimagines a single object, a feeling or an idea. It has five lines with a syllable structure of one, two, three, four, and one syllable per line. Since the idea is that each line of the poem can stand on its own, you could have the format of the lanturne as below:

• Line one – one syllable – the central idea/theme of the poem – could be a noun, a verb, …
• Lines two through four – two through four syllables – describe/expand the theme
• Line five – one syllable – a word related to the central idea – could be a synonym, or something that brings to mind the first word

So, the lanturne:

• has 5 lines
• is syllabic, with syllable structure – 12341
• center aligning this poem lends it the shape of the Japanese lantern – hence the name
• Each line is able to stand on its own
• While the poem may or may not be given a title, the title of a lanturne sometimes functions as an integral part of the poem, working as a ‘sixth’ line

My example lanturne:

(this one shows one of my weaknesses!)

Sweet
Dessert
Decadent
Delicious
Yum
– ©2019 Vidya Tiru/LadyInRead@LadyInReadWrites

“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.”
― Sophocles

QA Corner

L is Laughter: L is for Localization Testing

What is Localization Testing?

Simply put – Localization testing checks how well any software (be it a product, an application, a website, a game, etc) has been translated into a particular target language.

This is critical today’s scenario where software users are spread across the world; and if they cannot understand the website, then it simply does not serve its purpose (duh, obviously, you say?!)

For any software to be localized, there are many things that need to fall into place and be considered. Localization testing needs to ensure that everything is correct, consistent, and coherent; and that the linguistic, stylistic, and cultural specifications of the target locale/region have been met by the software. Some languages are written from right to left, some regions might have different age specifications for games or website content based on their culture, certain words/characters might not get translated easily to the target language and those need to be considered; and so on and so forth.

This makes it doubly(more than) important that localization is done correctly and tested efficiently so users have a seamless, wonderful experience of using whatever they are using.

Further Reading Resources (just a couple):

• From Microsoft Docs – Testing for World Readiness
• 9 Tips on Localization Testing

Wrapping up the L post

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”
— Lao-Tzu

What are your comments or questions about today’s post? I would love to hear from you. Check out previous posts in this challenge using the links below.

Day 0 Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6Day 7  Day 8Day 9Day 10Day 11

Day 12

Linking up to BlogChatter A to Z, A to Z Blogging Challenge, and the Ultimate Blogging Challenge