Eric Moreau sez,

You may remember I translate novels for French publishing houses and articles for a website and non-profit called Framasoft.
This week-end, Framasoft took part in an event called “Ubuntu Party” dedicated to promoting the Ubuntu distro, free software and free culture. This event took place in the Cité des Sciences de La Villette in Paris.

We were there with several other non-profits such as April (free software advocates) Mozilla (you may have heard of them already) and La Quadrature du Net (leading the fight in Europe for Net neutrality). Now let me get to the point : with a dozen other GNU/Linux enthusiasts (some with us in the room we were in, others online), we did a “translation sprint” (which we dubbed “Traducthon”) during which we translated your article “Why I won’t buy an iPad“.

How did we proceed ? We took your article and put it in a free software called Etherpad, then translated it live in front of visitors (who could get involved too) on a one and only document broadcast on a screen for everyone to see. We were all using free software only (ubuntu, firefox and an Etherpad installed on our own server. We only had three hours to do it and achieved our goal.

Now our translation is out on our blog free for everyone to read, share and remix.

Sam Ruff translated Little Brother into Pig Latin!

I’mway away eniorsay atway Esarcay Avezchay ighhay inway Ansay
Ancisco’sfray unnysay Issionmay istrictday, andway atthay
akesmay emay oneway ofway ethay ostmay urveilledsay eoplepay
inway ethay orldway. Ymay amenay isway Arcusmay Allowyay, utbay
ackbay enwhay isthay orystay artsstay, Iway asway oinggay ybay
way1nay5tay0nay. Onouncedpray “Instonway.”

*Otnay* onouncedpray “Oubleday-ouyay-oneway-ennway-ivefay-eetay-
erozay-ennway” — unlessway ou’reyay away uelessclay
isciplinaryday officerway o’swhay arfay enoughway ehindbay ethay
urvecay atthay ouyay illstay allcay ethay Internetway “ethay
informationway uperhighwaysay.”

Iway owknay ustjay uchsay away uelessclay ersonpay, andway ishay
amenay isway Edfray Ensonbay, oneway ofway eethray icevay-
incipalspray atway Esarcay Avezchay. E’shay away uckingsay
estchay oundway ofway away umanhay eingbay. Utbay ifway ou’reyay
oinggay otay avehay away ailerjay, etterbay away uelessclay
oneway anthay oneway o’swhay eallyray onway ethay allbay.

Last week I did a quick, fun interview with ABC News in New York, outside one of the bigger Apple Stores. We talked For the Win, the iPad, and copyright reform. The ABC folks were good enough to put the video online and make an embed available, too.

Hey New Yorkers aged 12-18! I’m headed to the New York Public Library Grand Central Branch this morning at 10AM for a reading, Q&A and signing — hope to see you there!

Reminder: I’ll also be at powerhouse Books tonight at 730PM, and McNally Jackson tomorrow at 7PM.

Shareable.net has just kicked off a new fiction series, “Visions of a Shareable Future,” with stories about a future in which sharing is part of the norm. I have the inaugural story, “The Jammie Dodgers and the Adventure of the Leicester Square Screening,” which I wrote as a kind of run-up to getting to work on my next YA novel, Pirate Cinema, which will likely be a 2011 Tor Teen title. Both “Jammie Dodgers” and Pirate Cinema are the story of streetkids in London who remix movies and screen them in impromptu theaters — the sides of derelict pubs, ancient graveyards, vaulted Victorian sewers — and establish an alternative to the mainstream Hollywood industry.

You can fit eight Jammie Dodgers into a single-occupancy Leicester Square hotel room. Provided that they don’t all try to breathe in at once. We breathe in shifts.

Cecil knelt at the window, phone on the sill, careful marks he’d made with a sharp pencil and his laser-pointer showing the precise angles to each mirror. He looked around at us all, his eyes shining. “This is it,” he said. “My Leicester Square premier.”

The monocle is already glued to the phone’s back over the projector’s eye. The phone’s been fitted to a little movable tripod. And now, with a trembling fingertip, Cecil prods the screen. Then, quickly, nimbly, spinning the focus knob on the monocle. Then the hiss of air sucked over teeth and we all rush to the window to see, peering around the drapes.

He was much better on the focus this time, faster despite his trembling hand. There, on the marquee of the Odeon, Keith Kennenson as an eight year old, begging his mother to let him have a puppy, then a montage of shots of Kennenson with his different dogs, a mix of reality TV, feature films, dramas, comedies, the story of a life with dogs, the same character actors moving in and out of shot.

Shareable: The Jammie Dodgers and the Adventure of the Leicester Square Screening

(Image: Tilt and shift – Leicester Square at night, a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derivative-Works (2.0) image from rthakrar’s photostream)