Category - Esperanto

Today I got a large envelope in the mail from Russia. I had no idea what it was until I opened it and saw some familiar words. It contained two issues of La Ondo de Esperanto ("The Wave of Esperanto"), a magazine I had subscribed to a few months ago. I've read a little bit of it, and it seems pretty interesting. It includes news about the Esperanto movement, interviews, letters, and original fiction.

I've been studying and using Esperanto since the end of May, which, I am surprised to find out, was a whole ten months ago. Since finishing my book, Teach Yourself Esperanto, I've been continuing my education mainly by reading news sites such as Ĝangalo. I've also listened a bit to Ĉi Tie Nun, a podcast that covers weird news from around the world. Most importantly, however, I've been trying to think in the language. I constantly try to translate what I think and hear in English. I should probably try thinking straight in Esperanto, though. That will take a little more work. Also on the agenda is improving writing, speaking, and my vocabulary. Hopefully I'll be able to achieve a good level of fluency eventually.

Yesterday I had what could be the best ice cream in the world. It was a flavor called Cappuccino Fudge Blitz. I love coffee-flavored ice cream, and I love fudge, so you can just imagine the goodness. And what a blitz it was. That stuff could conquer Poland any day.

And now, three Ask Jordons.

Luke: What was on the All Your Base Are Belong to Us page? Also: do you heart library scientists?

The All Your Base Are Belong to Us page had a few images badly photoshopped to include the phrase. Also: not especially.

catherine: Do you know any single men between the ages of 18-23?

No.

ng: what is the longest word that can be typed with only 1 row

To find relevant QWERTY statistics, I did a little research and found that the longest words typed on a single row are "perpetuity," "proprietor," "repertoire," and "typewriter," all 10 letters long. I tried going through the Dvorak list manually, but it was so long that I gave up. Instead I wrote a quick (ha!) and dirty program to do all the work. It determined that "instantaneous" (13 letters) is the longest. That word also describes how long it took the program to figure out the answer. I love computers and they rule the world.

Here's a gallery of aerial photographs of Mexico City, one of the world's largest cities.

And here's how to fold paper into a secret note square. According to the page, "some people have trouble opening this type of note, so it's perfect for passing secret notes to your friends." If they can open it, that is.

One year ago: "Once you have a good set of filters, it's truly amazing to see the Internet in a whole new light -- and it's much more fun than simply avoiding sites that have annoying ads."

I think I'm going to get a new recorder for Christmas. Yes, I may just be moving up from a rather nice stereo cassette recorder to a rather nice digital recorder. I have my eye set on the Fostex MR-8HD. I feel a bit giddy just thinking about it, but of course, the nagging details remain. (Specifically, how can I trim space off the beginning or end of a track? I suppose I could just do it on the computer. But maybe there won't be enough noise for it to be a problem. Like, maybe the compressor could take care of it. That would be cool. But I doubt it. I'd probably have to do some editing on the computer.) I've looked at the PDF of the manual quite a bit, so I can start using it once I get it -- if I get it. It's $400, but I'd be willing to pay some of the price.

On this day in 1859, Dr. L. L. Zamenhof, the initiator of Esperanto, was born. Zamenhof Day (also called Esperanto Book Day) is the most widely celebrated day in the Esperanto world, but it's generally limited to internal celebrations, like formal dinners held by local Esperanto clubs. But I decided that today would be as good a day as any other to make contact with others by promoting Esperanto a little bit at school. I wore two pins: one that said "Esperanto" and another that said "Salutojn el Usono" ("Greetings from the USA"). For anyone who asked about them (many people tried to pronounce "Salutojn el Usono"), I gave them two flyers -- one with general information, and another with a small grammar and vocabulary. I managed to interest about three people, all friends.

This is a bold affirmation: We are in the digits of pi and live forever. If pi is a transcendental number, then the decimal places must continue infinitely. Therefore, the digits of pi contain -- somewhere -- numerical encodings of everything and everyone that has ever existed or ever will exist anywhere. Furthermore, each could be found an infinite number of times. Essentially, your DNA must be encoded somewhere, along with your thoughts (although these would be difficult to decode if they could even be encoded in the first place), experiences (ditto), the complete works of Shakespeare, and all your MP3s (imagine the record industry going after that!). Of course, this would be the case with any such number, including e, but pi intrigues people.

The house that MS Paint built (Flash animation). I can't imagine spending a maddeningly long time on such a thing.

One year ago: "Now I've nearly been hit by a red ball that people are throwing around the classroom, so I'm out."

I doubted that I would lose weight on the No S Diet during November, but I figured that I had to have lost at least a little. Well, I'm glad to report that by averaging multiple weighings at the end of last month and the beginning of this month, it appears that I have lost 9 lbs. since I started about a month ago. Now the exact number, of course, is debatable, because we happened to get a new scale since I last weighed myself back when I started. But the fact remains that the No S Diet is helping me lose weight. It may not be long before I'm out of the "overweight" category. And the best part is, even though I lost all that weight, I still managed to do hardly any exercise at all!

I did start using the shovelglove for 14 minutes on Monday and Tuesday, but due to the pain I had to take some rest. I had to keep my arms -- especially my left -- bent or else they'd hurt like crazy. They only got better today, probably because I'm doing more arm-bend-requiring activities than when I'm in school (where I have to bend my arms to keep them on my desk). In any case, I'll probably feel good enough on Monday to try again. My parents say my muscles were just responding because they're never used that much, but I think pain is your body's way of saying something's wrong. I guess it's worth another shot doing the same routine; I'll just have to be more careful.

With the end of November I've been learning Esperanto for six months (It was at the end of May that I got into it again). I think is a sort of a milestone, because I commonly hear from others who have learned the language that they gained reasonable proficiency in six months. Now, I doubt I'm as good as them, but I read my Esperanto news sites along with English blogs. And I just wrote this article about the Liberty Bell (or, shall I say, la libereca sonorilo) for the Esperanto Wikipedia. I need an opportunity to talk to speakers, and learn more words, I guess. And gain proficiency in listening. In other words, I need help all around.

But, I have gotten an early Christmas present: a youth membership to the Esperanto League of North America, a subscription to "La Ondo de Esperanto" ("The Wave of Esperanto"), a magazine from Russia, and a couple of Esperanto buttons that I intend to wear on Zamenhof Day (December 15), Esperanto's main holiday, if you will. Hopefully these will foster my understanding of the language, like those books which I've finished some of.

Joel A. Friesen used a series of charts and graphs to show his girlfriend "Why You Should Continue to Date Me." After the last slide you can find out how she reacted to the presentation.

The best paper airplane in the world? It's quite possible -- I used to know how to make a similar one that flew rather well -- but I'm not enough of a paper airplane aficionado (or a paper folding aficionado) to find out.

One year ago: "No sleeping style is for everyone. You have to see what works best for you."

It's Thanksgiving today. Thanksgiving was historically a day of giving thanks for the harvest. Today it's stereotypically (but quite correctly) depicted as a day for eating turkey, bickering with relatives, and watching football.

What happened? Well, we sort of don't grow our own crops anymore. I can see Thanksgiving having a significance to some farming family outside Zuquardic, Nebraska. They raise their own grain and vegetables, I guess. And they grow their turkey themselves. Father, in his overalls and farmer's hat, slaughters the turkey in the barn, and mother cooks it and everything else all nice and old-timey. Mashed potatoes 'n' gravy, green beans, corn on the cob, yams, cranberry sauce, whatever. And the farmer's hot daughter churns the butter. Yeah. They have a feast tonight, and then tomorrow morning they start working again.

But for the rest of us, we can't help but trivialize the holiday. Like every other holiday in Western culture (except maybe Passover), we seem to have lost touch with its origins. Last year, a classmate of mine who didn't spend much of her childhood in America decried Thanksgiving as a celebration of gluttony. I didn't believe her, but now I realize that she's right. Today Thanksgiving really is all about the meal. Everyone who calls Thanksgiving "Turkey Day" knows this, subconsciously or otherwise.

Furthermore, Thanksgiving has traditionally been regarded as the gateway to Christmas. Franklin Roosevelt knew this when he changed Thanksgiving from the last Thursday to the second-to-last Thursday in November (rationale: longer Christmas season = stores make more money = no more Great Depression). He and Congress hammered out a compromise: it's now the fourth Thursday in November, which is sometimes the last and sometimes not. But now stores are going back even farther than Thanksgiving, no matter what the date. I started seeing Christmas decorations and stuff a couple weeks ago. It makes me want to puke.

I'm going to put the "Thanks" and "giving" back in Thanksgiving by giving thanks for things I'm thankful for. The other day I scribbled down a little list:

• Friends and family... duh!
• My willpower & desire to always improve myself.
• Good teachers, especially Dear Mrs. Vazquez [who, as I failed to mention, actually moved to Puerto Rico].
• Reinhard Engels for the No S Diet & shovelglove
• The people I've communicated with in Esperanto
• My chiropractor

I added that last one because the day before, I had been a little overzealous with the shovelglove. But I'm thankful for her anyway. I haven't missed a day of school in about three years because she keeps me healthy.

Today, some relatives will be coming for Thanksgiving dinner at our house, as usual. I like it best that way because if it were anyone else's house, it just wouldn't be the same. Part of the reason is that we have a large dining room table, so there's a lot of room for everything and everyone. The table's here in the room with the computer (or vice versa). It's already set for dinner (which will probably be in the late afternoon/early evening). My mom started setting it last night.

Are you going to fry your turkey? UL (as in "UL Listed") has a video saying that you might want to be careful. (You know the video's going to be great when you see a firefighter carefully placing the turkey in the fryer.)

And today Snopes (once again) tackles the question: Does eating turkey make you sleepy? Their answer, in a nutshell:

It's not the turkey that makes you tired, it's all the food. Who'd have thought?

Hypocrite alert. I've said that LiveJournal and MySpace are not for me. But then I went and got a LiveJournal just so I could read my friends' friends-only journals. And now, wouldn'tchaknowit, I've gotten a MySpace. It was some time ago, actually. October. Maybe September. I don't remember. I guess I just felt like jumping on the bandwagon. I don't post blog entries there and I don't beg for comments. Also, I'm not trying to collect as many friends as I can (unlike some people); I personally know all 32 of my friends (except maybe one, but she made the friend request to me).

In addition to that social networking craze, I've started another spinoff on the blogging thing. I've started keeping a diary in Esperanto in order to get practice. I get practice reading, but I hardly ever do any writing, and so my writing sucks. Whenever I feel bored, angsty, or simply skribema, I'll just pop open this journal book that somebody gave me for Christmas or my birthday a few years ago and I'll be able to write. In fact, it's already gotten me through the trauma of Hurricane Wilma. (I used to have a journal, actually, and I can't find it, darn it. It must be somewhere. Maybe I'll find it someday.)

Stolen from The Presurfer: Go to Google, then plug in "(your first name) needs" and see the results.

"Jordon needs parents who can help him deal with his losses." Nope, already have them.
"Jordon needs help in learning to control his frustration." How true...
"Jordon needs our prayers." Not especially.
"Jordon needs to come back here tomorrow for a few more tests." What am I being tested for?
"Jordon needs to move to France he would be more in tune with that government." Maybe I would.
"jordon needs to return half of the land it occupies that was part of the pal mandate in the forties." I am not a country!
"Jordon needs to mind her own business." I am not a woman!
"Jordon needs to ditch the band, the show, and get her own record deal." Ditto.
"Jordon needs someone to look after and love him in his old age." And young age.
"Jordon needs to cut his hair." I could swear this one's about me.
"Jordon needs help to realize this 'adventure of a lifetime'." Ooh, where are we going?
"Jordon needs to be shot!" I could swear this one's about me.

I can't explain this: iiiiiiii.com (Flash, sound). That's eight I's in the URL if you want to tell your friends (but I counted 94 in the song).

Oh, right, I had exams on Thursday. I already know what I got on them: an A in chemistry and an A in English. English was very easy (as I expected) and chemistry was too (surprisingly). I'm not sure what I got on Monday's exams, though. Anyway, this week is short because of Yom Kippur, so we have a four-day weekend. Our next days off are for Thanksgiving at the end of next month. Ay.

Yesterday I went to a surprise birthday party for my friend Mike. We met at an Italian restaurant and then went across the street to see The Greatest Game Ever Played at the movies. Although it was good, it's hard to make a 2-hour movie about golf without running into slow and boring bits. Happy 17th birthday (once again), Mike.

I seem to be hanging out at a site called Esperanto Radio Arkivo (Esperanto Radio Archive) quite a bit. Believe it or not, Esperanto radio programs are broadcast from China, Poland, Vatican City, Cuba, Italy, Australia, and (if you count Internet broadcasts) many more countries. I think my listening skills are getting better; I could understand everything pretty well, depending on the quality of the MP3s. On the site I listened to a few broadcasts from Radio Havano Kubo -- Radio Havana Cuba (broadcast from "a free territory in America," they remind us). One anchor typically mentions that you can listen to their shows online at the Esperanto Radio Archive and gave a tip of the hat to the site's webmaster who, ironically, is an American.

I haven't listened a whole lot, but apparently they take calls from people and talk about Cuba, generally. I get bored listening to it online, but I think it would be more exciting to hear it coming in on the old shortwave radio. I think their Esperanto shows are the only such programs broadcast in the Western hemisphere, and since they're coming from so close by, it should make for some good reception (although I guess shortwave signals can travel around the world). Cuba has always been mysterious to me (and other Americans, I'm sure). Because we're not allowed to go there, it only makes the place more alluring, like how you always want what you can't have. In any case, Esperanto allows for cultural exchanges to take place by means of a neutral common language.

Anyway, they broadcast from Cuba three times on Sundays, and all of those times yesterday I happened to be out of the house (or asleep). So next week I'll have to catch the half-hour program. That should be fun for my family because they get to hear me listening jibber-jabber that they can't understand.

If you're like me, you (a) like Esperanto and (b) can't remember people's names. If only (b) applies, maybe these tricks to remembering names will help. I'll have to try them.

The Jowler is a photo that makes anyone look unflattering. To make one, have someone take a picture of you (with the flash) while you shake your jowls really fast. Have a look at the gallery.

I couldn't think of a good title for this post, so I thought I'd call it "Free Candy."

On Saturday some guys in a truck came over and brought in a big chair. I had vaguely heard some mumblings about bringing a new piece of furniture into this "computer room" as part of my parents' master plan to make it less "computer" and more... "room." (The other parts of the plan are moving the computer to the opposite wall so that incoming guests cannot see it, and painting the former computer wall red.)

The chair is brown leather and it shows some signs of use because it is used. It looks to be about one and a half times the width of a regular chair, so it's not quite a loveseat, but it can fit two people. It's very comfortable also. Already I've spent many a minute lying across it. I imagine I could take a nap in it if I were tired enough, but that hasn't happened in recent (or not-so-recent) memory.

On Thursday my friend Michelle asked if I would be interested in going to an anti-war protest in Washington over the weekend. I said I'd consider it -- it didn't sound like a bad idea -- even though I knew my parents would say no. (It was something like $90 for the 20-hour bus ride there, plus the cost of food.) Needless to say (even though I'm saying it), they said no, so I was basically stuck at home over the weekend. (I had a lot of homework to do anyway.)

You can imagine my surprise when I saw footage from the demonstration on TV -- I had thought it was going to be a little thing. Ĝangalo, an Esperanto news portal, reported on its main page that there were 100,000 protesters. I printed out the article and showed her today at school. She said that they had made front-page news just about everywhere. Also, she had a souvenir for me: a poster from the demonstration.

Square America is "a gallery of vintage snapshots & vernacular photography." I find this interesting because my dad just showed me some old photographs of my grandparents and the boat that they apparently used to have. You can learn some cool things from old photos.

I've been thinking, as I am apt to do, and I think our language is illogical. Some major reforms are in order, but there's no one to carry them out. Unlike some languages (such as French, Spanish, Esperanto, and more), the English language has no governing body.

Well, I'll get to that later. But for now, here's what I think we as English speakers should do.

1. Avoid Roman numerals. We are not Romans. We already have our own numerals. This is important because if you're studying European history as I am, you have to know all the many kings -- European history is all about kings and queens marrying and killing each other. Why not just say, for example, "Henry 8th" or "Henry 8" instead of "Henry VIII"?
2. Similarly, and more importantly, avoid Latin phrases. Basically all of the Latin phrases with which people pepper their writing have perfectly fine English equivalents. For example: e.g. (never written out) means "for example." See how I've used it? "Etc." is a notorious example of a Latin abbreviation that no one can spell ("ect."). How about, instead of "et cetera," we say "and so forth," or "asf."? Let's write "t.i." instead of "i.e." or "f.e." instead of "e.g."
3. If we must borrow foreign words instead of coming up with our own, we should at least change the spelling. I know, spelling in English is haphazard, but we can at least make it something that -- in our own language -- is logical. "Hors d'oeuvres" is the archetypal example. (I had to guess at the spelling when I was looking it up just now.) "Orderves" is how I think of it anyway, so why not just write it that way? It's not like other languages don't do the same thing with our words. Another one I can't stand is "tsunami," a useless opportunity for a silent "t" -- I don't pronounce it, and I've never heard anyone say it either. For this word, which fits awkwardly into English speech and writing, I'd recommend coming up with a new word altogether.
4. It wouldn't hurt to avoid saying "he or she" or "his or hers" or "him or her." It's painfully awkward and makes me cringe. I suggest "it," "its," and "it," respectively. For example: "If a student wants to talk to me, it can." That also makes me cringe, but at least it is a logical time-saver. It would take getting used to, but I think it could be done. We already refer to babies this way.

All of these ideas came to me from studying Esperanto. Here are Esperanto's solutions for the aforementioned problems:

1. Hindu-Arabic numerals are always used.
2. Latin words and phrases are not used. Common phrases, like the ones we use Latin for in English, may be abbreviated.
3. Because Esperanto is phonetic, the spelling of a word usually has to change when it is borrowed from another language; however, making new words from existing words is encouraged.
4. Some people simply say "he" and "his"; some invent new pronouns to mean "he or she," "his or hers"; others use "it" and "its"; I, however, use tiu ("that person") and ties ("that person's").

But I digress.

Further along the line, a major English spelling reform would be necessary. But we'd need someone to carry it out: perhaps a body, assembled in London, of delegates from each of the major English-speaking countries. We could call it the Academy of the English Language or something, and it could hammer out an official English dictionary, resolve grammar disputes, asf.

Here are the Medical Histories of the Presidents of the United States. A few seem to have been pretty healthy, but others have a slew of conditions to their name.

First, an observation. This is the 31st post in July. Therefore, I have posted every day, thus achieving a perfect month. I thought I would feel better by achieving this feat, which is unique for me. But instead I'm so burned out from posting that I wonder how some people can do it so frequently. Just give me a day or two to recharge. I now know that when it comes to blogging, it's about what you say, not how often you say it.

Now that I've finished "Teach Yourself Esperanto" (the ending was sad), I've started reading one of the Esperanto books I recently got. "Gerda Malaperis!" is a short book that takes the reader from basic to advanced Esperanto, while introducing new words along the way. What I plan to do while reading this book and others is to write down new words and then, after I look them up, write their definitions. That way I have a list of words to study. Pretty clever, huh?

Another observation: I've noticed that I get at least one comment for most of my entries, but whenever I write about Esperanto, nobody comments. Jeez, people, you act like you don't ca -- no, wait...

Kids can't draw. This is not just an observation, but a fact. They have terrible coordination and no knowledge of the world. But what if a professional artist helped them out? Dave Devries does just that. He produces high-quality artwork based closely on children's drawings. After seeing his versions, the originals actually look good.

I guess that Saharan dust storm passed by unnoticed or didn't come at all. I thought the air seemed... sandy... on Monday night, but I might have just been imagining it. It was supposed to cause some great sunsets, but I didn't look.

I'm almost done with "Teach Yourself Esperanto," the book which I've been using to teach myself Esperanto since the end of May. It's a good thing, too: pages are falling out left and right. I'm going to have to tape them back in, because I'm sure I'll continue to use the book as a reference.

Answering Ask Jordon:

Stephen Mead: I have a 1996 courtesy $100.00. Crisp Gem and well centered signed by both Withrow and Rubin. Any ideas on value?

It can be hard to put a price on courtesy autographs, but just to throw a number into the air, I'd say roughly $200. A Withrow-Rubin autographed $1 can go for $100, so that's how I base my estimate.

For the first time in nearly two and a half years, the Space Shuttle is back in flight. Here are some tables to show you when the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle can be seen overhead in your city (or enter your own location to get exact times). And here's a real-time map tracking the two.