Launching the Global Language Vitality Atlas. orb.gs
","summary":"We built an app to map the world’s 2,719 endangered languages. Curious how many have disappeared since 1950? Using UNESCO’s 2010 endangered language data, we built a global atlas and designed a predictive model inspired by Harmon & Loh’s work on linguistic evenness.","url":"https://orb.gs/2026/01/21/launching-the-global-language-vitality.html","date_published":"2026-01-21T11:24:05+00:00","author":{"name":"Quentin Lucantis","url":"https://orb.gs","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2025%2F11%2F1746369.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"orb"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2026-01-21 11:24","date_timestamp":1768994645,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":true,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"78410346","content_html":"Amazon’s AI Translation and the End of Legacy Localisation. orb.gs
","summary":"There’s an indicator in technological systems that always catches my attention: when a large institution ships a capability that is, by any reasonable standard, not good enough yet, but does so because the cost of waiting for “good enough” now exceeds the cost of releasing something imperfect.","url":"https://orb.gs/2025/11/20/amazons-ai-translation-and-the.html","date_published":"2025-11-20T18:58:25+00:00","author":{"name":"Quentin Lucantis","url":"https://orb.gs","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2025%2F11%2F1746369.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"orb"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2025-11-20 18:58","date_timestamp":1763665105,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":true,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"83636431","content_html":"Against Headcount as a Strategy. orb.gs
","summary":"Most writing on hiring treats team growth as inherently beneficial. More people are assumed to mean more output, more leverage, and more scale. In practice, each hire also adds cognitive load, coordination cost, and management risk. That cost should be justified, not assumed away.","url":"https://orb.gs/2025/11/10/against-headcount-as-a-strategy.html","date_published":"2025-11-10T14:08:00+00:00","author":{"name":"Quentin Lucantis","url":"https://orb.gs","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2025%2F11%2F1746369.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"orb"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2025-11-10 14:08","date_timestamp":1762783680,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":true,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"75665482","content_html":"AI agents at SlatorCon. orb.gs
","summary":"At SlatorCon Silicon Valley, Phrase attracted a small crowd for something that is equally an organisational revolution and a technological breakthrough: the emergence of AI agents.","url":"https://orb.gs/2025/10/13/ai-agents-at-slatorcon.html","date_published":"2025-10-13T10:42:42+00:00","author":{"name":"Quentin Lucantis","url":"https://orb.gs","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2025%2F11%2F1746369.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"orb"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2025-10-13 10:42","date_timestamp":1760352162,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":true,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"75663673","content_html":"Our Engineer’s Note on Contrastive Alignment. orb.gs
","summary":"Multilingual models are not equally safe in all languages. A prompt that works in English can produce toxic output in a low-resource language. This is usually more a problem of alignment than translation ressources. We use contrastive alignment. We embed prompts, responses, and safety labels into t...","url":"https://orb.gs/2025/10/13/our-engineers-note-on-contrastive.html","date_published":"2025-10-13T10:05:50+00:00","author":{"name":"Quentin Lucantis","url":"https://orb.gs","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2025%2F11%2F1746369.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"orb"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2025-10-13 10:05","date_timestamp":1760349950,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":true,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"75224922","content_html":"Why AI Still Doesn't Get Idioms. orb.gs
","summary":"A few weeks ago, Appen released a study showing that large language models struggle to translate idioms and culturally loaded marketing content. The setup was simple: they gave three LLMs a set of light, playful marketing emails in English, things like “Will you brie mine?" and asked them...","url":"https://orb.gs/2025/10/07/why-ai-still-doesnt-get.html","date_published":"2025-10-07T16:10:34+00:00","author":{"name":"Quentin Lucantis","url":"https://orb.gs","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2025%2F11%2F1746369.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"orb"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2025-10-07 16:10","date_timestamp":1759853434,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":true,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"75216135","content_html":"The L10N PM is The Overlooked Orchestrator. orb.gs
","summary":"The localisation industry has been drawn, always, to what’s most tangible : the translators making sense in new languages, and, in more recent times, the algorithms that purport to do their job. It makes sense; they’re the tangible elements of the system, the ones you can look at and mea...","url":"https://orb.gs/2025/10/07/the-ln-pm-is-the.html","date_published":"2025-10-07T14:15:49+00:00","author":{"name":"Quentin Lucantis","url":"https://orb.gs","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2025%2F11%2F1746369.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"orb"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2025-10-07 14:15","date_timestamp":1759846549,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":true,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"75213938","content_html":"Rapid fire on how to Build a Multilingual LLM. orb.gs
","summary":"We like to think of large language models as blank slates that just “learn everything.”\nIn truth, if you want a multilingual model that truly understands culture instead of just translating words, you can’t bolt that on later, you have to build for it from the start. There are som...","url":"https://orb.gs/2025/10/07/rapid-fire-on-how-to.html","date_published":"2025-10-07T13:45:16+00:00","author":{"name":"Quentin Lucantis","url":"https://orb.gs","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2025%2F11%2F1746369.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"orb"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2025-10-07 13:45","date_timestamp":1759844716,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":true,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"74248190","content_html":"Note on Crowdin, Agentic AI, and MCP. orb.gs
","summary":"We’ve been fans of Crowdin for a long time, really since the early days. It was always one of those tools that just clicked: simple, reliable, and somehow always ahead of the curve. Lately, they’ve been experimenting with agentic AI and something called the Model Context Protocol (MCP), and it feels...","url":"https://orb.gs/2025/09/24/note-on-crowdin-agentic-ai.html","date_published":"2025-09-24T15:35:46+00:00","author":{"name":"Quentin Lucantis","url":"https://orb.gs","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2025%2F11%2F1746369.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"orb"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2025-09-24 15:35","date_timestamp":1758728146,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":true,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"66497062","content_html":"On the Evaluation of Multilingual Multimodal Models: orb.gs
","summary":"","url":"https://orb.gs/2025/06/11/on-the-evaluation-of-multilingual.html","date_published":"2025-06-11T09:15:24+00:00","author":{"name":"Quentin Lucantis","url":"https://orb.gs","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2025%2F11%2F1746369.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"orb"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2025-06-11 09:15","date_timestamp":1749633324,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":true,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"66461221","content_html":"Ohio Supreme Court Tests the Waters on AI in Legal Translation: orb.gs
","summary":"","url":"https://orb.gs/2025/06/10/ohio-supreme-court-tests-the.html","date_published":"2025-06-10T21:01:08+00:00","author":{"name":"Quentin Lucantis","url":"https://orb.gs","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2025%2F11%2F1746369.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"orb"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2025-06-10 21:01","date_timestamp":1749589268,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":true,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"66448963","content_html":"Automating Terminology Checks with Python: orb.gs
","summary":"","url":"https://orb.gs/2025/06/10/automating-terminology-checks-with-python.html","date_published":"2025-06-10T18:14:05+00:00","author":{"name":"Quentin Lucantis","url":"https://orb.gs","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2025%2F11%2F1746369.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"orb"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2025-06-10 18:14","date_timestamp":1749579245,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":true,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"66497834","content_html":"On the Evaluation of Multilingual Multimodal Models: orb.gs
","summary":"Some claims are safe because they are vague. Others are safe because nobody checks. When AI labs say their model is “aligned across modalities and languages,” they often benefit from both kinds of safety.","url":"https://orb.gs/2025/06/05/on-the-evaluation-of-multilingual.html","date_published":"2025-06-05T09:15:00+00:00","author":{"name":"Quentin Lucantis","url":"https://orb.gs","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2025%2F11%2F1746369.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"orb"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2025-06-05 09:15","date_timestamp":1749114900,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":true,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"66461300","content_html":"Ohio Supreme Court Tests the Waters on AI in Legal Translation. orb.gs
","summary":"In the world of language services, few domains are as fiercely protected from automation as the legal sector. Accuracy here isn’t just about brand reputation, it’s about civil rights, due process, and legal precedent. So when a state Supreme Court in the U.S. opens the door to AI-powered translation...","url":"https://orb.gs/2025/05/29/ohio-supreme-court-tests-the.html","date_published":"2025-05-29T21:01:00+00:00","author":{"name":"Quentin Lucantis","url":"https://orb.gs","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2025%2F11%2F1746369.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"orb"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2025-05-29 21:01","date_timestamp":1748552460,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":true,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"66450071","content_html":"Automating Terminology Checks with Python: orb.gs
","summary":"When localising large codebases or documentation sets, consistency in terminology is king, but manually auditing hundreds of files for term conformity can be a weeks‑long slog. To solve this, we built a lightweight Python script that:","url":"https://orb.gs/2025/05/22/automating-terminology-checks-with-python.html","date_published":"2025-05-22T18:14:00+00:00","author":{"name":"Quentin Lucantis","url":"https://orb.gs","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2025%2F11%2F1746369.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"orb"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2025-05-22 18:14","date_timestamp":1747937640,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":true,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"64466501","content_html":"Is Bitcoin De-localising? orb.gs
","summary":"The Bitcoin Core team just announced it’s phasing out territory-specific translations (like fr_CA, pt_BR, etc.) in favour of standard base language codes (fr, pt, etc.). No new regional variants will be accepted, and existing ones will be sunset, starting with French.","url":"https://orb.gs/2025/05/15/is-bitcoin-delocalising.html","date_published":"2025-05-15T08:23:00+00:00","author":{"name":"Quentin Lucantis","url":"https://orb.gs","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2025%2F11%2F1746369.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"orb"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2025-05-15 08:23","date_timestamp":1747297380,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":true,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"64465997","content_html":"Is Bitcoin De-localising? orb.gs
","summary":"The Bitcoin Core team just announced it's phasing out *territory-specific translations* (like `fr_CA`, `pt_BR`, etc.) in favour of standard base language codes (`fr`, `pt`, etc.). No new regional variants will be accepted, and existing ones will be sunset, starting with French.","url":"https://orb.gs/2025/05/08/is-bitcoin-delocalising.html","date_published":"2025-05-08T20:23:00+00:00","author":{"name":"Quentin Lucantis","url":"https://orb.gs","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2025%2F11%2F1746369.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"orb"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2025-05-08 20:23","date_timestamp":1746735780,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":true,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"64466277","content_html":"On the Authorship of Machine-Made Meaning. orb.gs
","summary":"The emergence of AI-generated translations poses a deceptively simple question: who owns the output? But behind that lies a deeper riddle, perhaps even a quiet crisis. As machines increasingly mediate our words across borders, we are not merely confronting questions of legal ownership; we are brushi...","url":"https://orb.gs/2025/05/08/on-the-authorship-of-machinemade.html","date_published":"2025-05-08T20:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":"Quentin Lucantis","url":"https://orb.gs","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2025%2F11%2F1746369.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"orb"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2025-05-08 20:00","date_timestamp":1746734400,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":true,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"81266697","content_html":"On the Authorship of AI Content. orb.gs
","summary":"The emergence of AI-generated translations poses a deceptively simple question: who owns the output? But behind that lies a deeper riddle, perhaps even a quiet crisis. As machines increasingly mediate our words across borders, we are not merely confronting questions of legal ownership; we are brushi...","url":"https://orb.gs/2025/05/08/on-the-authorship-of-ai.html","date_published":"2025-05-08T19:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":"Quentin Lucantis","url":"https://orb.gs","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2025%2F11%2F1746369.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"orb"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2025-05-08 19:00","date_timestamp":1746730800,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":true,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"64465475","content_html":"Decision Theory for the Globally Entangled Brand. orb.gs
","summary":"Through the prism of global expansion, the decision problem facing ambitious brands is no longer simply: What should we do next? It becomes: What will they do if they see what we do next?","url":"https://orb.gs/2025/04/24/decision-theory-for-the-globally.html","date_published":"2025-04-24T09:28:00+00:00","author":{"name":"Quentin Lucantis","url":"https://orb.gs","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2025%2F11%2F1746369.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"orb"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2025-04-24 09:28","date_timestamp":1745486880,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":true,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"64465267","content_html":"Notes from the 2025 Web Globalisation Report Card. orb.gs
","summary":"Let’s say you wake up one day and, by some coincidence or divine comedy, you’re asked to rank the most globally competent websites on the planet. What would you measure? Word count? Flag emojis? How many local payment methods they support in Bulgaria? The real answer (or at least a real ...","url":"https://orb.gs/2025/04/17/notes-from-the-web-globalisation.html","date_published":"2025-04-17T21:46:00+00:00","author":{"name":"Quentin Lucantis","url":"https://orb.gs","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2025%2F11%2F1746369.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"orb"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2025-04-17 21:46","date_timestamp":1744926360,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":true,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"62218083","content_html":"Is Bitcoin De-localising? orb.gs
","summary":"","url":"https://orb.gs/2025/04/14/is-bitcoin-delocalising.html","date_published":"2025-04-14T20:23:27+00:00","author":{"name":"Quentin Lucantis","url":"https://orb.gs","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2025%2F11%2F1746369.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"orb"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2025-04-14 20:23","date_timestamp":1744662207,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":true,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"62216978","content_html":"On the Authorship of Machine-Made Meaning. orb.gs
","summary":"","url":"https://orb.gs/2025/04/14/on-the-authorship-of-machinemade.html","date_published":"2025-04-14T20:00:46+00:00","author":{"name":"Quentin Lucantis","url":"https://orb.gs","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2025%2F11%2F1746369.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"orb"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2025-04-14 20:00","date_timestamp":1744660846,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":true,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"64465074","content_html":"The Quiet Syntax of Expansion: I18N as Infrastructure. orb.gs
","summary":"Software is actually is logic for someone. And that someone may read right-to-left, might input text from a soft keyboard using phonemes you’ve never heard of, or might prefer their commas as decimal separators.","url":"https://orb.gs/2025/04/10/the-quiet-syntax-of-expansion.html","date_published":"2025-04-10T14:34:00+00:00","author":{"name":"Quentin Lucantis","url":"https://orb.gs","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2025%2F11%2F1746369.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"orb"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2025-04-10 14:34","date_timestamp":1744295640,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":true,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"81266126","content_html":"I18N as Infrastructure. orb.gs
","summary":"Software is actually is logic for someone. And that someone may read right-to-left, might input text from a soft keyboard using phonemes you’ve never heard of, or might prefer their commas as decimal separators.","url":"https://orb.gs/2025/04/10/in-as-infrastructure.html","date_published":"2025-04-10T13:34:00+00:00","author":{"name":"Quentin Lucantis","url":"https://orb.gs","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2025%2F11%2F1746369.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"orb"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2025-04-10 13:34","date_timestamp":1744292040,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":true,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}}]}