The World of Stuff .com

Esper-whaaa?

It’s been nearly a year since I began studying the constructed language Esperanto. So, how’s that Esperanto thingy going? Last summer I studied from a book, and since then I’ve read some literature, magazines, and web sites while listening to videos, music, broadcasts, and podcasts in the language. Even so, I’ve spent little time actually writing in Esperanto and even less time speaking it (to whom am I to write or speak, after all, besides myself?). Skype might be a good way to practice those skills, but it will probably be tough to find good people to talk to if it’s so hard to find people to speak to you in pretty good English. I might start in chat rooms before moving on to voice chat.

Even with this lack of practice, I can speak pretty decently, as I found out the other day in programming class when I started spouting Esperanto for no good reason that I can remember. I was just saying basic things, but Gilbert was floored by my level of fluency (if you could call it that), so that was kind of cool. I still have a long way to go. A cool thing for an Esperantist to do — something that usually grown-up-types with money do — is to attend an Esperanto event and speak with people from around the country or world as equals, often without even knowing where they’re from. And then there’s the Pasporta Servo, a guide for Esperanto-speaking travelers who want to stay at other Esperantists’ homes, thereby saving money, experiencing the area like the locals do, and making friends. A good way to start at all this would be to take one of those summer courses in Vermont. Someday, perhaps.

You know what’s fun? Looking up the names of your teachers at the county’s Clerk of the Courts web site. Many of them are in the database, usually for petty things like traffic tickets. For example, one of my teachers is currently fighting a speeding ticket, and another got a ticket last year for making an “improper left turn.” I also uncovered things I didn’t want to know, such as the fact that one of my former teachers might be a felon. Still, it’s an interesting use of public records. Look to see if your area court has these records on the web. Finding dirt on your friends, family, and coworkers can be fun!

There are times when I really want to use JavaScript to write Greasemonkey user scripts. I knew I should have learned it years ago.

Top 10 Movies That Went Wrong. First on the list is The Conqueror (1956), which was responsible for the deaths of its stars and much of its crew. And it wasn’t even that good, supposedly. Come on… the Duke as Genghis Khan?

Worldmapper is a site with lots of cartograms. These particular cartograms are maps of the world in which the countries are resized on the basis of population or other statistics. Countries with larger populations (or whatever) appear larger on the map.

Two years ago: “What I mean is, what do you say when this mysterious guy who created everything, this guy who you talk to to receive terse but wise answers – they are similar in that sense – wants to drop by your house?”