我的英中翻譯練習-2

加粗字是我理解或表達有困難的地方。

Below is an excise of mine. Any understanding or translating issues spotted are welcomed and encouraged. Thanks.

The Mind of an Inventor

(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9558120/site/newsweek/)


This becomes clear as soon as one crosses the threshold of Applied Minds, which sprawls over five flat buildings in an industrial area of Glendale, Calif. Behind an ordinary reception area, a door opens to a small room with only a red phone booth that could have been a prop in an Austin Powers movie. Hillis picks up the handset. "The blue moon jumps over the purple sky," he says, a twinkle in his eye acknowledging the corniness of the process. The wall behind him opens up to what geeks hope to see when they go to heaven: a vast room packed with brainiacs at work and exquisitely bizarre gizmos, ranging from a 13-foot skeleton of a robot dinosaur to a gleaming outback vehicle loaded with more communications gear than the trailers outside "Monday Night Football." It's a virtual museum of the future that rambles over several buildings.


At every turn, there's something to make your mouth hang open. Here's an array of data-display screens that looks like Han Solo's cockpit. There's a room populated with architectural mock-ups of "podules," fully wired instant buildings designed for stealthy government agencies (that's a picture of Donald Rumsfeld running a meeting in the full-scale version of the model sitting beneath it). Another area looks like Albert Einstein's chop shop, stuffed with half- disassembled Cadillac Escalade SUVs hooked up to exotic telemetry. Oops! Almost stepped on a six-foot-long robotic snake, slithering on the floor with scary fidelity to a pit viper.


整個應智公司鬆散地分佈在加州哥蘭代爾一個工業區的5棟單層建築 里。一跨入公司的門檻，這一點就顯而易見。在一個普普通通的前台接待處後面， 一扇門通往一個房間， 裡面只有一個紅色電話亭， 頗似《王牌大賤諜》里的道具。赫里斯拿起話筒。 「藍色的月亮越過紫色的天空」，他說道， 眼裡的一絲亮光意味著此行的不同尋常。牆在他身後打開， 裡面是怪人們夢寐以求的：一間巨大的房間里擠滿了正在工作的科學狂和精緻奇異的玩意， 從13英尺長的機器恐龍骨架， 到閃閃發光的內陸車， 裡面裝配的通訊器材比橄欖球大賽外的新聞採訪車還多。這簡直就是一個置身於幾棟建築的未來博物館。




不論走到哪裡， 都有東西讓你目瞪口呆。 這邊是一排數據顯示屏幕，看起來如同《星球大戰》的駕駛艙;  那邊有一間房， 裝滿了「集成塊」的建築模型， 就是為政府機構保密而設計的高保安易拆型建築（想象一下美國國防部長多納德/羅姆菲爾德正坐在這個模型的真實版下主持會議）。還有一片地方就像是愛因斯坦的排骨攤, 裡面塞滿了拆卸了一半的卡迪拉克四驅車， 同稀奇古怪的遙控勘測設備連接在一起。哎呀！差點踩到一條機器蛇， 它在地上遊動著， 有6英尺長， 像極了可怕的尖吻蝮蛇。

歡迎HAOONE 新的作品， 這麼專業的東東還是要留給Adelyn 更多的欣賞把！
Adelyn 你怎麼這麼慢！！！！我要拱了。。。

好啦！都快四腳朝天了（趕著上帖交差，差點滑個跟頭）。。。

okay, here it is.

譯得好棒！
我英文能看懂可是跟中文連不起來，慚愧。
查了一下詞典，覺得你譯得都對。
比如the corniness of the process本意是說雖然有點老套但還是magnificent,譯成「此行的不同尋常」，這「不同尋常」四字本身就是「雖然有點老套但還是magnificent」. geek就是怪人啦，這裡是說像Einstein and Edison 那樣的科技怪人，頭髮亂蓬蓬，眼睛紅紅沒睡醒，半夜裡把地板炸個洞。podule seems to be a computer software term. i googled to find some info below. and i think your translation fits. and that 《王牌大賤諜》，it is really a funny and "cheap" spy!


(from Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002.)

corniness
: the quality or state of being corny <a musical revue marked by banality and corniness>

corny
3 : using familiar and sterotyped formulas believed to appeal to the unsophisticated : TRITE <the American satirizing the Englishman and the Englishman satirizing the American reach their corniest and most obvious depths -- Stephen Potter> <a play full of corny music and corny jokes> : mawkishly sentimental <fantasy about a blue kitten ... in less talented hands ... could have been painfully corny -- Atlantic> : OLD-FASHIONED <TV sets are selling poorly because their styling is a little backward, sort of corny -- Time> : characterized by threadbare moralizing, exaggerated theatricality, or grandiose but commonplace sentiments <especially eloquent in a slightly corny way, with the wide gestures and grandiloquent intonations of a United States senator -- F.L.Allen>


geek
: a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake.


outback vehicle
Usage: sometimes capitalized, often attributive
: the backcountry of Australia or New Zealand : 1BUSH 2c <outback life> <outback sheep stations> -- usually used with the when not attributive <bringing civilization to the outback>


mock-ups of "podules," fully wired instant buildings designed for stealthy government agencies (that's a picture of Donald Rumsfeld running a meeting in the full-scale version of the model sitting beneath it).


mock-up
a structural model built accurately to scale (as out of plywood, cardboard, canvas, clay) chiefly for study, testing, or display <a mock-up of an airplane>

podule
(1) http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/m ... e=print&sid=585
(2) http://www.engineeringtalk.com/news/ivs/ivs101.html
...a collection of highly configurable inputs and outputs, giving them the flexibility to be used in conference rooms, video suites, home cinema and theatre productions.

感覺Adelyn是在替我做功課了，我都不曾這麼考證，真是慚愧，還有感謝。

如果你英文比中文強的話， 以後我把中英的練習貼出來， 一定更能獲益。