Weekend link dump for January 10

Are you still writing “2009” on your checks?

The story of Esperanto. No, I’ve never heard anyone actually speak it, either.

It’s a Y2KXVI bug. Or something like that.

RIP, Curtis Allina. If you’ve ever collected a PEZ dispenser, you owe Curtis Allina a thank you.

The choice for this November is whether or not we want to repeat the abject failures of the past decade or not.

The end is coming sooner than you think.

The Donald and The Darryl. My head hurts.

Roger Ebert’s best films of the decade.

Nobel physicist George Smoot is smarter than a fifth grader.

Don’t cite these scholarly works. At least, not in that company.

Another look at Teach For America.

Yet another reason why I avoid debit cards.

It turns out there really are a lot of crooks out there. If only there were the justice to deal with them properly.

A computer “optimization” service actually sounds like a not-bad idea to me, but only if the service itself isn’t a load of hooey designed to boost profit margins.

From the First Up Against The Wall When The Revolution Comes files.

The Top Ten TV Business Blunders and the Top Ten Outrageous Reality TV Moments of the decade. How in the world did I not know about “The Littlest Groom”?

The 50 Worst Gadgets of the Decade, and the 11 Bonus Dishonorable Mentions.

I like my profanity-laden rants to be coherent and funny as well. This definitely qualifies.

From the “What Might Have Been” department (for better or worse): Minneapolis completes its municipal WiFi buildout.

Apparently, conservatives hate “Avatar”.

Self-preservation is more powerful than crazy.

How the Houston Zoo prepared for the cold front.

I sure hope Rick Perry enjoyed his son’s bachelor party in Vegas, since we taxpayers picked up part of the tab for his trip.

Darlton speaks. Twenty-three days and counting.

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3 Responses to Weekend link dump for January 10

  1. John says:

    If you want to hear Esperanto, you need simply rent “Incubus,” a film that’s in Esperanto, with subititles. With William Shatner! With evil women and strange cult activities! With William Shatner looking lustily at the women!

    It’s pretty amusing and pretty interesting to see some of the trademark moves and expresssions that would show up later in “Star Trek.”

    And you discover the fatal flaw of Esperanto: when spoken, it’s one of the ugliest languages I have ever heard.

  2. Bernardo says:

    Unfortunately, neither Shattner nor any of his fellow thespians actually spoke Esperanto — they merely parroted as phonetically as they could what ever lines they were expected to deliver. In Esperanto circles the joke goes that the most terrifying part of the movie was Shattner’s pronunciation. (To be fair, Shattner clearly made some attempt to get it right, if with varying success).

    + + + + + +

    You might get a better idea of how Esperanto really sounds here:
    Radio Poland Esperanto Podcast; http://www.polskieradio.pl/eo/

    or here:
    Warsaw Esperanto Youth-group Podcast; http://www.podkasto.net/

    And since we’re talking about whether the language sounds “good” or “bad”, you might check out some musical links?
    (and for these two, I found you the English language pages for them)
    http://panorama.ovh.org/angla/muziko.htm
    http://vinilkosmo.com/vko/shop.php

    or just amble through You-tube — you should be able to find *something* not too amateurish there, if you try… though it can be hard to know which language any given Youtube video will actually be in 🙂

  3. Thomas says:

    Mi parolas Esperanton! Or, at least I used to speak a little bit. I became interested in the language back in high school because I was intrigued by the idea of a neutral, constructed international language. Of course, now that I’m older and am more traveled, I’ve come to realize that English, for better or for worse, is generally assuming the role of “world” tongue.

    Thanks for linking the article. It was a good read.

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