DavidSimpson's blog

Esperanto in TV Shows

I can remember Esperanto being mentioned at least a couple of times in TV shows:

• The Mary Tyler Moore Show. In the Season 1 episode "Second-Story Story", there is a scene where Phyllis tells the police about having seen the people who burglarized Mary's apartment: "As I was leaving for my Esperanto class, I saw a big truck parked right out in front...".
  

Star Trek and Esperanto

Beside William Shatner's well-know appearance in the Esperanto-language film Incubus, I've recently come across some other connections between Esperanto and the TV series Star Trek.

In the 1960s Star Trek comic book series published by Gold Key, there are several references to Captain Kirk speaking to aliens using "the interplanetary language Esperanta". In at least one other issue of the comic book, Captain Kirk is speaking to aliens in "Space Esperanto".

Esperanto Flags

CRW Flags in Glen Burnie, Maryland is now selling some nice Esperanto flags. I had them custom-make an Esperanto flag for me a few years ago, and now they're selling it as a regular item. For details, visit http://www.crwflags.com/page0115esperanto.html.

Amazon Kindle DX and Esperanto

The latest e-book reader from Amazon.com, the Amazon Kindle DX, now includes native Esperanto language support. I've successfully converted an HTML file (with ĉ=& #265; etc., and specifying the UTF-8 character set in the header); the accented characters then appear correctly on the Kindle DX. The font size can be set to one of six different sizes, and the accented letters are displayed correctly in each size.

Nova Blogo ĉe Transparent Language

Jen nova Esperanta blogo ĉe Transparent Language:
http://www.transparent.com/esperanto/

New Language Book

I just found a new book on Amazon.com: In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build A Perfect Language by Arika Okrent (ISBN 978-0385527880). It is due out in May 2009, but can be pre-ordered. Looks interesting.

Plej Novaj Gutenbergaj Libroj

Nun estas 43 Esperantaj libroj ĉe la retpaĝo de Projekto Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org). La plej novaj estas:

• La Libro Ruth (tr. E. Neumark)
• La Nigra Galero de Wilhelm Raabe
• Doktoro Jekyll kaj Sinjoro Hyde de Robert Louis Stevenson
• La Montarino de Arne Garborg
• Rosmersholm de Henrik Ibsen
• La Batalo de l' Vivo de Charles Dickens
• Karlo de Edmond Privat

Amazon Kindle and Esperanto

I've been experimenting with the new Amazon Kindle - it's a device for reading electronic books using "e-ink" technology. I've found it to be quite a nice device, allowing me to carry around many books in a very small space. However, the device is still in its early stages, and does not yet support the accented Esperanto letters (ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ, ŭ). It will, however, display several other accented letters (vowels with acute and grave accents, umlauts, etc.).

Esperanto Paper in arXiv.org

A paper has just appeared in the scientific paper archive arXiv.org (formerly xxx.lanl.gov) entitled "A Comparison of natural (english) and artificial (esperanto) languages. A Multifractal method based analysis". The paper is listed as arXiv:0801.2510; you can find it by following this link.

David

Gutenbergaj E-Libroj Lau la h-Sistemo

Mi ŝanĝis la aron da Esperantaj e-libroj en Projekto Gutenberg al la h-sistemo de literumado, por ke oni povas facile legi ilin per elektronika aparato kiu ne povas korekte montri la ĉapelitajn literojn. Vi povas trovi la librojn laŭ la h-sistemo ĉe mia retpaĝo:

http://esperanto.davidgsimpson.com/eo-gutenberg-hc.html