anyone went FOSDEM 2004 or read GWN Feb. 23 ?

[mignon]

I started to use gentoo a few months ago,
I love it soon, and now, I volunteer to struggle
with translating GWN on 23 Feb. 2004 into Japanese,
but I encountered some difficulty with understanding
the following paragraph, which is between Figure 1.1 and 1.2.

I asked gentoo-jp community members,
however, nobody has got that meaning clearly.
I also asked gwn-feedback@gentoo.org and irc(#gentoo) yesterday,
but nobody replied.

---quote---
Sadly, the quantum singularity Daniel Robbins and Wout Mertens
discovered at last year's show seemed to have disappeared.
Richard Stallman, posing as Saint Richard of the Church of Emacs,
had an Assisian encounter with a dove, while speakers from
Robert Love to Keith Packard attracted equally huge crowds to their
presentations on the ULB campus. And the Gentoo developers used
their spare time to do some retroengineering and brought drobbins'
singularity back! All is well that ends well.
-----------

Here is some questions.
What do you think about these?


1. Generally, "the quantum singularity" is an another word
for a black hole, and I know, in this case, it stands for something
brilliant in the figure 1.2 and also in the photo of the event last year.
But, what is it in fact?
Why is it brightening so much?
Is it CG os something like that?

2. The second sentence is very religious.
I'm not sure the meaning of
"Richard Stallman had an Assisian encounter with a dove"
Is this a kind of metaphor or something like that?
Could you guys say that in other words?
Of cource, I know Richard Stallman, who is a founder of GNU projects
and who wrote GNU Emacs from scratch.
Assisi is a small town in Italy, which is the home of St. Francis,
and which is particular among Christians, right?
Then, "Assisian" could be someone from Assisi or related to Assisi.

3. it says "to do some retroengineering",
but actually what did they do?
Looking around "singularity" and Getting it back to drobbins?

[ectospasm]

That paragraph confused me, and English is my native language. (-:

The "Assisian" word I would assume refers to the most famous Assisian: St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Order of Franciscan monks. The "with a dove" part has Christian religious significance too, but I'm not sure exactly what.

I have no clue about the quantum singularity. If you find out what it meant, let us know. (-:
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[mignon]

thx a lot, ectospasm.

[plate]

mignon, I'm really sorry! Why didn't you send a message to Carlos or to our feedback address? I'm assuming full responsibilty for the content of that FOSDEM report... Let me explain what I meant, even though it's probably too late now. You've got the quantum singularity bit mostly right, but maybe you can replace that explanatory note about Assisi you've included in your translation:

• Quantum singularity - Yes, I was indeed bringing back the memory of last year's report from FOSDEM. I actually went to look for the spotlight that drobbins had baptized a "quantum singularity" at the time because I wanted to get a picture of it and maybe write "it's still there" in the GWN. But it wasn't on the stage when I was there, hence "sadly vanished". Later that night when the Gentoo developers decided they'd form the Gentoo logo from empty beer cans, they took a photo, of course. The next morning we discovered that the flash had left a shiny reflection in the picture similar to drobbins' quantum singularity, so I put it in the report as a rediscovery. Just a running gag, really, with "retroengineering" being used as a synonym for alcohol-induced misconceptions...
  
• Assisian moment - St. Francis of Assisi was famous for preaching to the animals... The only reason for using this expression really was that during Richard Stallman's speech there was an actual dove flying into the room. Pure coincidence, of course, but wildly funny to everyone present. Picture someone with a large old harddisk from the 70ies worn halo-style on his head, who just said himself (we didn't make this up!) that he's St Ignatius of the Church of Emacs, and then, right into this already hilarious situation, comes a bird flying into the room - guess you would have had to be there.
  

ご迷惑をかけてすみませんが、母国後はドイツ語なので、たまに英語を使うときにドイツ語らしく変な文書を作ってしまいます。やっぱり、あれを日本語に翻訳するのはとても無理かも知れません。ごめんね。