Robert L. Read's blog
I'm reading just the 4th or 5th story now, "Pigopago", but this book by Tim Westover holds my attention as much as any book I have read in English in a while. Just on the strength of what I have read so far, I recommend it highly. It isn't an easy-reader, nor is it as difficult as "La Infana Raso".
Eble interesanta estas mia "marnaĝilo kvar", malneta invento por naĝi. Jen filmeto de ĝi, per la tute angla sed tre mojosa Fatman and Circuit Girl Show.
President Obama's inaugural address has been translated into Esperanto and published at Project Gutenberg.
This is the 60th text available in the language Esperanto at Project Gutenberg, the multi-lingual library of freely readable and reusable works, thanks to the work of many volunteers over the last few years.
Much more than a year ago, Donald Broadribb donated his translation of the Oz books and the Dr. Doolittle books into the public domain. James Gilmore secured his permission, but for a variety of reasons we have not finished processing any of his books for Project Gutenberg, which was our original intent. However, this summer when I was in Montreal at TAKE I successfully recruited Bruce Crisp to help with the first book. He has now completed the proofreading of it. I will now try to find someone to do final processing to place it in a format acceptable to Project Gutenberg.
Translating well is a tremendous challenge. I am a computer scientist, and I really believe having a computer that can do a good translation is exactly the same as saying we have true artificial intelligence.
As William Auld both asserts and demonstrates in his wonderful book, Traduku!, the key prinicple of translation is to translate always the sense, and not the words.
Andrew Sly is one of the most active people adding Esperanto texts to Project Gutenberg, and notably was responsible for placing Odd Tangerud's translations of Ibsen plays and other Norwegian literature there. On Friday he instigated an effort to translate President Obama's inauguration speech into Esperanto. Michael S. Hart, the creator of Project Gutenberg, had already typed in the speech and placed it as a text at PG.
At TAKE 7 in Montreal, Lucy Harmon made a momentous annoucement, although full appreciation of its importance requires a little thought.
Ni uzu ĉion oportunon laŭdi niajn verkistojn.
Multajn gazetojn Esperantajn mi abonas, tamen malofte tralegas. Lastatempe en numero 128 de "Kancerkliniko" (gazeto por plenkreskuloj, iomete maldeca) mi legas artikolon tian, kia meritas mencion. Eble la tuta enhavo kutime estas tiom bona; mi ne legas sufiĉojn por taksi. Tamen, mi legas tiun artikolon, kaj ĝi menstuŝis min.
A Wish List for America - Esperanto Day, 2008
I wish every child could walk safely to a library.
I wish rich men were thanked for their generosity, and deserved it.
I wish every lonely old person had children in their lives.
I wish every child was loved by someone a generation older than their parents.
I wish we would forgive.
I wish every person who is dying would know they made a difference
and would be remembered.
I wish we would fill a 50,000 seat stadium to hear a math lecture.
I wish everyone could remember what they wanted to be.
Despite a fair amount of labor and a reasonable expense, we have not been able to measure any effect from our print ad in the magazine "Language". This does not surprise me too much---we bought an ad in "The American Prospect" and we only know of one response to it.
I personally suspect that placing such ads does have some positive effect, but I would prefer to find some avenue in which we can measure the benefit of the ad. Part of the problem is that in today's world, people will just google Esperanto, making it harder for you to measure anything.
