Google celebrates Stanislaw Lem

[Peter_Morris]

I cant see the turkey one.

[sachertorte]

What’s with the needle and spaghetti?

[Heart_of_Dorkness]

@sachertorte

What’s with the needle and spaghetti?

I can’t believe I’m spoilering this, but I did get a kick out of the ending, and I don’t want to ruin it:

So, they get all the parts and finish building the robot. And then the robot says, “N”. So the guy says, “Um, how about a needle?”, and the robot makes a needle. The guy says, “Cool! How about some noodles?”, and the robot makes some noodles. Then the other guy says, “How about… nothing?”, and the robot makes “nothing”: it destroys everything in the universe, and finally, itself. Oops! Shouldn’t have asked for “nothing”! Heh heh.

ETA: The turkey one is just www.google.com

[CalMeacham]

Both the original Polish version of the novel (first published in 1961) and its single English version are titled Solaris. Jean-Michel Jasiensko published his Polish-to-French translation in 1966 and that version is the one that Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox used for their English translation of 1970 (published by Walker & Co., and republished many times since). Lem himself, who read English fluently, repeatedly voiced his disappointment about the Kilmartin/Cox version and it has generally been considered second-rate. Lem frequently expressed the wish for an improved English translation to be done and made available.[citation needed] He had, however, sold his rights to the book to his Polish publishers. Always remaining in print, the rights to it never reverted to the author.

Solaris (novel)

I recall reading that the translation was incomplete, as well, although I have no idea what was cut.

[Peter_Morris]

@Heart_of_Dorkness

ETA: The turkey one is just www.google.com

Every time I try that it redirects to http://www.google.co.uk/ which is the Stanislaw Lem one.

[orcenio]

@Peter_Morris

Every time I try that it redirects to http://www.google.co.uk/ which is the Stanislaw Lem one.

Look at the bottom right of the screen. There should be an option to “Go to google.com”

or alternatively go here: https://www.google.com/

However, his option doesn’t seem to be anything special for me (no turkey).

[DocCathode]

@Hello_Again

R.U.R. was written by Karel Capek, but the word is attributed to that play, and springs from the slavic root word “rabot” = “to work.” Capek was Czech. Lem was Polish.

Elipse of Bliss, converge, O lips divine
the product of our scalars is defined!
-Stanislaw Lem, “Love & Tensor Algebra”

I read a modified version of that poem at a friend’s wedding.

I LOVE Lem. Cyberiad is really fantasy masquerading as science fiction. It’s also full of joy and wonder and is just fun to read. Memoirs Found In A Bathtub, OTOH makes Kafka and Orwell look cheerful in comparison. Non spoilers- It’s set in a third and secret Pentagon sealed away from the outside world. Everybody is a spy. But who is doing what and for which side is never clear- not even to most of the spies. It is a fabulous book, highest possible recommendation. I’ve read it many times and still have questions about it.

[Heart_of_Dorkness]

@orcenio

Look at the bottom right of the screen. There should be an option to “Go to google.com”

or alternatively go here: https://www.google.com/

However, his option doesn’t seem to be anything special for me (no turkey).

Boo. Sorry about that. Well, here’s an article which describes it, along with a video of it.

Oh! There’s a link to it in the article - try this one: https://www.google.com/webhp?doodle=T11|230246

[matt_mcl]

@Malthus

My favorite Lem is The Cyberiad and The Futurological Congress, both of which are brilliant. I like Solaris but not as much.

The version of The Cyberiad I thought was very well-served by translators - considering one of the stories involved a poetry-writing computer (complete with poems), I really wondered how they did it!

There’s an excellent and engrossing discussion of the translation (which is how I discovered Lem in the first place) in Douglas Hofstadter’s book Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Beauty of Language.

[rowrrbazzle]

Has gotten different objects at the end? I used www.google.pl, and if I’m not mistaken, I think I got only a thimble and spool of thread the first time. The second time I got a nose (as in a prop human nose) in addition to the first two items.

What’s more, this video using the German site shows noodles and something flat. Toast?

[pulykamell]

@rowrrbazzle

Has gotten different objects at the end? I used www.google.pl, and if I’m not mistaken, I think I got only a thimble and spool of thread the first time. The second time I got a nose (as in a prop human nose) in addition to the first two items.

Which would make sense. All begin with “N” in Polish: *naparstek *(thimble), nitka (thread), and nos (nose.) Now why you would have gotten three the second time, I don’t know.