Suara Tuannya – Catatan Penerjemah

This is my notes and comments for my Indonesian translation of His Master’s Voice.

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Catatan Penerjemah

Gaya menulis Hannu Rajaniemi ini lumayan unik. Pertama, dia saking Hard SF-nya, udah seperti novel fantasi yang gak kira-kira melempar istilah sihir sana sini. Ini lalu diliput dengan gaya narasi yang seakan ngebut, saling menyambungkan kejadian dan situasi tanpa jeda. Pertama kali ku membaca cerita ini seperti pertama membaca The Quantum Thief, seperti disambar petir terus-terusan, tapi di antaranya sambaran semua istilah baru dan bangun-dunianya yang bukan main, inti ceritanya masih ketangkep.

Suara Tuannya – Sebuah Terjemahan

This is an Indonesian translation to “His Master’s Voice”, a short story by Hannu Rajaniemi. You can read the original here. Rajaniemi is my favourite science fiction author and I’ve yelled about him often enough in this blog. The Quantum Thief is definitely one book I’ll recommend forever, but His Master’s Voice was what pulled me into his work initially. After reading it, I had to take a deep breath and settle down an urge to yell at everyone I know to read it.

Bit of a shame that I don’t have a lot of friends who read science fiction, then.

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Komentar bahasa Indonesia kupisah ke post sendiri ya, karena ceritanya lumayan panjang. ~4000 kata.

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Suara Tuannya

Karya Hannu Rajaniemi dan diterjemahkan Aliya N. Anindita

Sebelum konser dimulai, kami mencuri kepala tuanku.

Necropolis adalah hutan dengan jamur beton sebagai pohonnya, gelap di bawah malam biru Antarktika. Kami berdempetan di dalam gelembung kabut multiguna, menempel di dinding selatan nunatak—lembah es—yang curam.

Si kucing membersihkan dirinya sendiri dengan lidah merah mudanya. Rasa percaya dirinya berbau menyengat.

Summer’s End Checkpoint

I decided to not take extra classes or internship this summer break so I had time to do some of my own personal projects. I’m majoring in International Relations is college, which is a field that I’m always glad to study, but not necessarily to work in. Two years in college, and I still honestly have little idea how to think about it. It certainly taught me a great deal about the world, a whole great deal that I won’t learn if I chose to study something else, but I’m still torn for a lot of things. College has, for example, made it almost impossible for me to pursue some longer programming or fiction writing projects.

So! This summer break was a lot of successes and failures and finished projects and ongoing-for-who-knows-how-long projects. I think, and I’ve noted this multiple times in my diaries so I know my memory’s not messing with me again, I did pretty well this break. Not a lot of wasted time at all. Got things done even though it doesn’t feel like it.

I spent entirely too much time on writing this guide to basic JavaScript

Okay, maybe not too long. And I did enjoy the process. And I did go in with the expectation that nothing good will come out of it But hey, I’d really like it if people will read it, yeah? And I’d like it more if people find it useful, and that they’ll help me find ways to make it more useful if they have difficulties with it.

I call it The No-Nonsense Basic JavaScript Guide for the Novice Web Developer. It is exactly what it says on the tin. It teaches just enough JavaScript to start building responsive websites, and not an ounce more.

I made it for two reasons: 1) I’m sitting on pile of web development a knowledge I have no idea how to utilize. I don’t have a job building websites (yet), and I don’t really have a pet project  since finishing Lightning Cards. Might as well make something useful out of this; 2) I learned front-end web development by diving head-first into places a beginner clearly shouldn’t go into yet. It was difficult, and it made the entire learning process agonizing. So I wrote this with the hope that other novices won’t have to go into the same hellscape I went through.

Okay, another reason. 3) Quite a lot of websites are bloated with excessive script and functionalities, even when just sticking with the basic will result in exactly what they need. I’m just guessing, but I think this is partly caused by the same hellscape I encountered as a novice. Not a lot of people even understand the basic enough to know that it’s all they need.

So that’s why I wrote that guide.

I’ve attempted making coding/programming tutorials/guide for a while now. First it was a Python tutorial, then a HTML/CSS tutorial. I always kind of stopped halfway. Sometimes because I forgot the point of what I was trying to teach. Sometimes I get bogged down by my own explanations, spiralling into, frankly, a whole load of nonsense. So when I wrote this JS guide, I strived to do it as quickly as possible, with an explanation that’s simple, but without having to spend a million years explaining the particulars of the terminology.

I spent a while writing the guide and then I spent a while polishing it. I think it’s pretty good, but honestly, I won’t know until I actually have someone actually reading it and telling me what they think.

If you’re trying to get into web development, maybe give it a look, eh? Or maybe if you’re already in web development, give it a skim and see if my explanations are bonkers or not? And maybe pop into its guestbook when you do.

Here’s the link again.