The Meaning of Life

 

By David Shamah, The Jerusalem Post, September 3, 2004

 

Snappy headline, huh? Step right up, folks – we've got all the answers right here!

 

I don’t mean to get all philosophical on y'all, but it's a question that crops up occasionally – even in the world of computers. PCs that talk, think, and do just about everything more efficiently and at a higher level of quality than humans do are one of those conundrums that beg an answer.

 

Fortunately, discovering the meaning of Life is simple – if you know where to look. Life is a "characteristic state or mode of living." And a "mode" is a "manner of performance." And a "manner" is a "way of acting or living."

 

Or maybe Life is "the course of existence of an individual." And a "course" is "a connected series of events." And "events" are "things that happen at a given place and time."

 

I could go on all day like this – in fact, I actually did recently, with one of the best free programs I have ever come across – StarDict, the most amazing dictionary you will ever use, online, download, print, or otherwise!

 

I almost missed StarDict, because it's not promoted by a shareware or commercial software manufacturer. It's developer home page and on-line documentation are in Chinese, and it’s located on an obscure Web site dedicated to non-Windows software. But if you’re looking for a complete off-line all-in-one dictionary, thesaurus, style book, gazetteer, and translation database for about 35 languages, StarDict has everything you need.

 

Most of us use Windows systems on our home an office computers, but if you've ever used non-Windows systems like Linux for purposes other than programming – in other words, employing them for Web surfing, e-mailing, word processing, etc. – you are immediately struck by the amount of sophisticated software available, almost all of it free. Many of the available free competitors to Microsoft Office, including StarOffice and  OpenOffice, are programs that were ported (translated) from Linux, which is based on Unix, to Windows. There programs don't cost any money, but they are not necessarily freeware; they are distributed under a set of licenses that reserve the copyright to the manufacturer or distributor, but ensure that the user community gets the maximum benefit from the writer's efforts. It's a refreshing change of pace from the philosophy you find among commercial Windows software manufacturers.

 

The StarDict we are talking about here has been ported to Windows, but the program's Linux origins require that you install a couple of prerequisite programs in order to use it. StarDict was written in GTK (Gimp Toolkit), a software environment often used in Linux. In order to install StarDict, you need to download the GTK+ runtime toolkit for Windows at the program's site, http://stardict.sourceforge.net. It's a big file (84 MB), but without it, StarDict won’t work – and it is free.

 

The other thing you need to install is a program that can unzip the dictionary files you are going to be downloading for StarDict, which are in the BZ2 compression format (there are dozens of compression schemes out there, most of them used outside of Windows).  Most Windows users are familiar with zipped files created and unzipped with Winzip. Winzip does not work properly in Windows XP, which has its own decompressor that I discovered does not recognize BZ2 files. In keeping with the freeware/open source theme of StarDict, I recommend downloading and install IZArc (http://www.izsoft.dir.bg/download.htm), a free program that can handle nearly every compression scheme out there. You can configure it to decompress just the BZ2 files, or use it in place of Winzip (which you are supposed to pay for).

 

When everything is in place, you can download StarDict itself from the aforementioned http://stardict.sourceforge.net site. For Windows, download the file called Stardict-2.4.3.exe, and install it as you would any other program.

 

Now it's time to download those dictionary files. There are dozens of dictionaries available on the seven download links, many in English, but also in Russian, Chinese, Japanese, French, Afrikaans – even Arabic (I didn't see any Hebrew, but the authors do take requests). When you download a dictionary file, right click on it and decompress it with IZArc, which should appear in your right click contextual menu. You should end up with one or two subdirectories with three files (with their names ending in .dz, .idx. and .ifo) in them. Copy all the files to the following directory on your C: drive (or whatever drive your Program Files directory lives: Program Files\StarDict\dic. (don't open up StarDict until you've copied them over). As you will discover, there are many dictionaries to choose from. I installed the Webster's Unabridged 1913 Edition, WordNet dictionary, U.S. Gazetteer, Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary, The Devil's Dictionary CIA World Factbook 1995, and the Elements Database 2000, along with an English-Spanish and English-French dictionary.

 

I know this process will seem messy and geeky to many, but it's actually very easy. It's the same as downloading and installing a "regular" program, just different. Now that all the unzipped files are in the right place, it's time to open up StarDict, and see what we were working for!

 

When you open the program, you will note the dialog box on top, where you will type your word. Let's try one- type in the word "life." Most of the 14 definitions come from Webster's, which gives you a definition, synonyms, and sample sentences (all taken from works of great literature – an education in itself!).

 

So far, so good – until you highlight one of the words. I aimed in on the word "potential" in the fourth definition on my list of definitions on Life. ("Figuratively: The potential or animating principle… of anything"). I highlighted the word – and a definition for "potential" popped up! Since it looked interesting, I clicked on the Query button (the first one on the left in the popup menu), and into the main window came the word potential with its six definitions, one of which was "The energy of an electrical charge measured by its power to do work."

 

Feeling energetic, I highlighted the word energy, with the same result – a popup list of definitions for the word, this time with about seven English language definitions, and the French and Spanish translations of the word (energie and vertud, respectively). But what's this? Along with the verbs and nouns, there was a listing for Energy, Illinois, population 1,106 (1990 census)! That tidbit was courtesy of the Gazetteer, no doubt.

 

On the left side of the program you see a list of the next 30 some words in the installed dictionaries  that come after the one you are examining, and there were a few other words having to do with energy. One of them, energy-absorbing, caught my eye, so I checked it out, and found that it had a reference to bumpers on vehicles that absorb energy. Vehicles interest me, so I highlighted that word – and discovered that there was a usage for the word in pharmaceuticals and painting, which led to an examination of a reference in that definition of Gum Arabic, which, as it turns out, comes from trees grown mostly in the South Pacific, as opposed to Arab countries – which led me to click on Polynesia, which is in the Pacific, which I checked out, which – well, I'm sure you get the idea by now!

 

If all this cross-referencing is not enough, StarDict has a couple of other tricks up its sleeve – like letting you do "fuzzy queries." Let's say you're thinking of a word, but only remember one syllable. No problem; run a fuzzy query and StarDict will show you all the words it can find that seem like likely candidates. For example, typing in "idra" gives you a list that includes disray, hydra, array, - and midrash, which I highlighted, which led to a discussion of the Talmud, which led to – oops, there I go again! To do a fuzzy query, put a backslash in front of your term in the input box on top and click away. StarDict also does wildcard searches with the * or ? characters in place of letters.

 

Did I mention, by the way, that all the while, StarDict was reciting words that I was highlighting? At the site, there is a text to speech package you can download with thousands of recorded WAV files that pronounce the word when you highlight it! It's not an advance vocabulary, although I imagine you could record your own WAV files and place them in the sound file directory, but even if you limit yourself to the many wav files it does come with, you can use StarDict as a tool to teach your kids proper English pronunciation.

 

Now, is that a dictionary or is that a dictionary? I haven't been able to stop playing with StarDict since I installed it – it's just that much fun (yes, my life obviously is dull). The only caveat I found was a problem when quitting – don't use the regular close button on the top right (the "x") as with most problems; there is a quit function on the bottom left of the program window. Other than that, you'll thoroughly enjoy using StarDict – you will get pleasure from it, and pleasure is a fundamental feeling that is hard to define but that people desire to experience; and to experience is to have firsthand knowledge of states, situations, emotions, or sensations; and sensations are…

 

StarDict is free for all Windows and Linux systems; download all programs and dictionaries from http://stardict.sourceforge.net/

 

Questions/Comments to ds@newzgeek.com