Le Journal
du Chihuahua
numéro 12, 16 février 2006


Sommaire

Editorial: l'absence remarquée du marquis
Interview: "No format is more inefficient, more unreliable and more dangerous than doc"
La chronique de Mister Oli: améliorer son nutella
The Chihuahua's Word: How To Take Pictures Of The Chis
La crónica del tejón: la perra de Gargamela Iturritxe causa 130 millones de estragos al tribunal


Editorial
L'absence remarquée du marquis

Ce mois-ci, le marquis est absent de la chronique du blaireau et a laissé la place aux dernières aventures de l'avocate Gargamela Iturritxe et de sa chienne géante. Il est en effet en mission sur un chantier d'avant garde au Canada où il aide les ouvriers à pelleter de la boue hors d'une tranchée dont les bords s'effondrent sous l'effet des pluies diluviennes. Il a notamment expliqué aux hommes comment se dégager du bourbier sans laisser leurs bottes au fond. Le marquis d'Oliveras a ensuite montré à des apprentis comment attacher fermement des tuyaux avec du fil de fer en tendant fortement ce dernier sans le casser sous l'effet de la torsion et comment empiler des plaques contre un mur sans que celles-ci ne glissent sur le sol.

"On a gardé l'image d'un Canada peuplé de bûcherons québécois. Ce pays est désormais dominé par les ouvriers en bâtiment portuguais," 
nous écrit le marquis.

Tout cela ne l'a pas empêché de suggérer au journal de rajouter un formulaire à la fin pour inviter les lecteurs à s'exprimer. Leurs commentaires sont enregistrés dans un fichier texte protègé par un mot de passe, garantissant ainsi un minimum de confidentialité aux lecteurs dans l'expression de leurs opinions.


Interview with count Ludwig von Olivenholz, German writer
"No format is more inefficient, more unreliable and more dangerous than doc"

Le Journal du Chihuahua : Herr Graf, your last essay is emphasizing the necessity not to use doc files. Could you tell us how you realised how wrong it was to consider doc as a real format?

Count Ludwig von Olivenholtz : I realised that as I was reading your interview with Fra Olivieri who was stating that people did not know how to observe. They want to write a neat text, they adjust a font size, add a paragraph, and reduce a margin here and there to make their document look nice, and as a result nothing looks more ugly and unpleasant to read that their Word document. But they do not see it because of their superficial knowledge of litterature. Good observation requires strong knowledge of what you are watching. A writer is not a typesetter. I strongly encourage young writers to concentrate on their text and leave the typesetting to the editor.
 Le Journal du Chihuahua : In your last book, Displaying Your Ignorance Of Computer Science, you are stating that using doc format is discourteous.

Count Ludwig von Olivenholtz : No format is more inefficient, more unreliable and more dangerous than doc. By sending a doc document, your are imposing  the use of an expensive software and operating system to the receiver. By publishing in html, the Journal du Chihuahua is not imposing anything to its readers. Html is a free and universal markup language that is readable by free softwares on all modern operating systems. Moreover, Word causes your computer to crash more often than free simple text editing softwares. Doc documents transmit viruses and take up to 70 times more disk space than required.

Le Journal du Chihuahua : What formats would you suggest to publish information?
Count Ludwig von Olivenholtz : The 2 main publishing formats on the Internet are html and pdf. Both are readable and editable by free software. I would also suggest txt which is the most useful for a writer. Html and txt are text based format that guarantee long term readability. You can still read a text file written 20 years ago, and you will be able to read it in 20 years. This is not the case with doc. A book written in doc is lost after a few years.

Le Journal du Chihuahua : What software would you recommend to write a decent book?

Count Ludwig von Olivenholtz : Do never use Word. First you will save a lot of time and stress and second, the software designed to write books is LaTeX. It is free and efficient. It compiles text files to different formats like html or pdf and it does a professional typesetting. It forces you to organize the logic of your text. LaTeX will make your documents look outstandingly superior to Word's.



La chronique de Mister Oli
Améliorer son Nutella


Le Nutella, comme l'indique l'étiquette, contient surtout du sucre et de l'huile d'arachide. Peu de cacao, juste de quoi donner sa couleur au Nutella, pas assez pour lui donner son goût.

Première amélioration: rajouter de la poudre de cacao dans le Nutella. Une cuillère à soupe pour 100g donne un goût de chocolat inexistant à l'origine. Le mélange s'épaissit mais reste tartinable.
Deuxième amélioration: supprimer l'huile d'arachide. Prendre du miel et y ajouter de la poudre de cacao à raison d'un volume de cacao pour 2 volumes de miel crémeux. On perd le goût de noisettes mais on gagne celui du miel. L'avantage principal de ce mélange est de pouvoir rajouter du beurre sur la tartine pour compenser la perte de l'huile d'arachide. 
 



The Chihuahua's Word
How To Take Pictures Of The Chis
If you have a chance to look at pictures of pets on the Internet, you will find that most of them are ugly, chihuahuas included. Those pictures are usually taken by pet owners who have a strong bias in favour of their animal. This bias makes them believe that their pet is the most beautiful animal in the world and any picture of it must be beautiful. However as any picture, it can be very ugly if not taken properly.

Chihuahuas are not cooperative. They move all the time, they have dozen of characteristic faces that last a very short time and the photographer must know the animal well to know when the chihuahua looks best. This is the hardest part.

Then technically, almost any camera will do. For those who still have their flash activated, just turn it off. It smashes all shades and make the chis flat and static. No good picture of a chihuahua have ever been taken with a flash.
Take a lot of pictures. Chihuahuas move a lot and you will miss a lot of good postures. When processing them, throw out all pictures that have no interest. The animal may be cute, a lot of pictures will be ugly. Be very critical and do not  imagine the animal is good looking enough to make bad pictures look good.


The chihuahuas of the marquis de Oliveras looking at Gargamela Iturritxe making faces.

Then select, crop and process only the best shots and only show these ones. Do not hesitate to chop off part of the animal if it is no use to the picture. Most people think their animal deserves to be shown entirely but it may weaken the
picture to see the paws when only the eyes are important. In the first picture, the yellow chi is extremely important as it seems to control the situation and provide protection to the white one. Therefore it has been place at key points of the photo.

The chihuahuas of the marquis relaxing after she left.

In this second picture, the yellow chi is a lot less important and only underlines the smart look of the white one.  Retour au sommaire



La crónica del tejón
La perra de Gargamela Iturritxe causa 130 millones de estragos al tribunal

La abogada Gargamela Iturritxe había dejado su perra Pantagruela en el castillo de su padre, Don Pascual Iturritxe de Guipúzcoa, conde de la Marmola, mientras que iba al tribunal para su trabajo de rutina. Pero el animal que puede comer todo lo que le interesa, husmeando de todas partes  en el castillo, encontró una bolsa de 50 kg de café y comió casi todo con apetito voraz, lo que resulto en un enervamiento excesivo. El conde que estaba dorando los caballetes de su cúpula en el tejado de su palacio con los obreros portugueses, no vió nada. Esta mañana había dejado todas las puertas del edificio abiertas para captar el aire fresco de la sierra. La perra se escapó y decidió ir al tribunal para buscar la abogada. Pantagruela se fue en Sevilla por la carretera mayor y a llegar al tribunal, muy enojada por el café del conde, se puso a rascar toda la madera que pudo encontrar, entró en la sala del tribunal dónde Gargamela no estaba porque había estada atrasada en los embotellamientos. La perra se echó sobre el almuerzo del juez, pues sobre un hueso de la victima,  una pieza de convicción muy importante y estaba poniendo su nariz en los papeles legales de la defensa cuando la Guardia Civil y tres brigadas de bomberos llegaron con el matador Pepe Chocolozo para metrisar el animal.

Mientras tanto, Don Pascual decidió dejar sus herramientas para tomar un café con sus obreros portugueses. Encontró la bolsa vacía, llamó a la perra, y compredió que se había escapado.
Llamó a su hija por teléfono. Todavía estaba bloqueada en los embotellamientos pero pudo volver a la casa de su padre para reñir con el.

Mientras los bomberos estaban tratando de evacuar el tribunal, la perra estaba dañando el marmól de las columnas. Por fin la Guardia Civil pegó unos tiros soporíficos a la perra, que enojada por el café condal se detuvo en el parquet, el mismo parquet que Fernando y Isabel los Reyes Católicos habían pisado, a cavar un hueco histórico antes de caer dormida en la cripta.

Los daños al tribunal fueron evaluados a más de 130 millones y la abogada tendrá que vender tres casas para pagar todo. 


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Quels articles avez-vous préféré? / ¿De los cinco artículos cuáles ha preferido? / What articles have you prefered?
L'absence remarquée du marquis
"No format is more inefficient, more unreliable and more dangerous than doc"
Améliorer son Nutella
How To Take Pictures Of The Chis
La perra de Gargamela Iturritxe causa 130 millones de estragos al tribunal

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