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I am here to represent the Universala Esperanto-Asocio, or UEA. UEA was founded in 1908. We are the largest international organization of Esperanto-speakers. Esperanto, as you probably know, is a language first published in 1887 that was constructed by Ludwig Zamenhof because he thought there ought to be an easy-to-learn neutral second language: not to replace other languages, but to allow people to easily learn a common language and be communicate with everyone else.

UEA does many things. We organize the largest of the many annual meetings of Esperanto-speakers worldwide (the Universala Kongreso), provide services to the Esperanto community, support the Center for Exploration and Documentation of the World Language Problem, publish magazines and books, and most importantly in this context, we are advocates for language rights, multilingualism and the proposition that a neutral international language can improve the chances for peace by enabling direct communication among people who do not otherwise share a common language.

Esperanto has received little official direct acknowledgment. It was proposed to the League of Nations as early as the 1920s, but was never formally adopted -- the only outcome being that it was accepted as a clear language for telegraphy in 1925. In December 1954, after a high-profile campaign, UNESCO officially recognized UEA. Since that time we have participated as a non-governmental association (NGO) with UNESCO and sometimes UNICEF. UEA has also been granted special consultative status with UN, allowing us to place items on the agenda of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

UEA has volunteer representatives to the UN here in New York and also in Paris, Geneva, and Vienna. Our New York office here at the United Nations Plaza was set up in the 1970s by Humphrey Tonkin. Our current director, Neil Blonstein, has been extremely effective at making the office visible in the UN by attending meetings and conferences -- and organizing symposia like this one.

Primarily, however, UEA exercises the right to provide written statements, and in some contexts, to speak directly on issues before the UN related to language, language rights, and multilingualism. In September 2011, for example, the annual conference of the Department of Public Information Non-Governmental Organizations in Bonn issued a declaration regarding sustainable societies that essentially didn't mention language or multilingualism. Through the written statements submitted by Stefano Keller, the UEA representative in Geneva, the declaration was amended to acknowledge the role language plays in sustainable societies and to include the following statement:

"We call for the respect and inclusion of ethnic languages in the educational system, as these languages comprise the complexity of their respective environments, and to take into consideration the potential of a neutral international language that combines ease of learning and clarity with neutrality, and therefore can be seen as inherently sustainable;"

The other side of our organization is to represent the UN to the Esperanto community — to help Esperanto speakers understand how the UN works and how to take best advantage of the opportunities offered by the UN. We maintain a website that includes Esperanto-language translations of core documents and reports relevant to Esperanto-speakers, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, and many others.

Regularly, UNESCO has officially recognized the Esperanto community. In 1959, on the 100th anniversary of the birth of Esperanto's founder, UNESCO published a biography of L.L. Zamenhof and recognized him as an important historical figure. In 1987, UNESCO issued an address on the centenary of Esperanto's publication. In most years, a statement to Esperanto community is offered on the occasion of the Universala Kongreso. In 2011, Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO provided a message of salutation and encouragement that included this statement:

"The Esperanto movement, founded over one century ago, has steadfastly advocated equality between the world’s languages, cultures and peoples. Similarly, UNESCO is convinced that multilingualism has become crucial for preserving the wonderful diversity that characterizes humankind, particularly in the present era of ever-expanding globalization. Moreover, as an integral part of our identities, multilingualism has gained wide acceptance as a strategic factor for peace and sustainable development."

We in the Esperanto community look forward to continued positive and fruitful engagement with UNESCO and the UN.

Ta-Nehisi Coates writes eloquently in the Atlantic about violence as a human language and makes an analogy to the helplessness and humiliation he experienced learning French.

Only twice in my life have I felt as lost as I did on that first day at Lemmel: When I moved to New York and when I started studying French. The obvious point is that "not knowing" on the streets carries a kind of consequence which "not knowing" in French class does not. And yet the fear--the darkness--is still powerful. Violence isn't simply physically painful, it is degrading and humiliating. The worst part about getting jumped was my helplessness. This is how I have experienced learning French.

Learning Spanish was not like that for me initially -- only in the end when I realized that the deck was stacked against me did I have that sinking despair. I went into it brightly thinking that it was a field where I could compete, excel, and win. But you can't. Second-language speakers will never be able to hold their own against native speakers. It's a big part of why I fell in love with Esperanto.

In Esperanto, everyone begins from the same point: it isn't anyone's native language. We all meet as equals on a level playing field. And we all come to the language with the shared experience of having learned it as a second language.

Esperanto is better.

A couple of years ago, the Amherst schools purchased an alert system. With the alert system, evil robots dial the phone numbers of parents to communicate recorded messages by school administrators. I have told my elected representative that everyone involved in that decision should have their fingers slammed in a door.

You would think an "alert system" is to alert people about something important. Unfortunately, the school system seems to think that routine announcements about meetings merit using the alert system. This morning, though, takes the cake. This morning, I received a phone call while in the shower. The reason?

This is a message from Superintendent of Schools, Maria Geryk, to inform you that there was an extensive power outage this morning at the high school. Utility crews worked to repair this situation and classes are continuing as scheduled. Please check the district website, www.arps.org for periodic updates throughout the morning. Thank you.

That's why you interrupted my shower? Because classes are continuing as scheduled? How about an alert because the cafeteria food tastes bad? Or because the pollen count is high? I sent the following message to them.

I would like to strenuously object to the school using the telephone alert system to contact parents regarding routine meetings or (as this morning) to tell us that "classes are continuing as scheduled". The alert system should only be used when there is genuinely important information to convey: ie, that school is closed, classes are NOT continuing as scheduled, or if there is some genuine crisis or emergency to which parents should respond. For any other information, email is more than sufficient. Please stop calling me.

I noticed today that Google is trying to leverage their search monopoly into social meda again: at Google News, they now show you how many circles an author is in. I took a few minutes to look at Google Plus again today.

I don't much like either Facebook or Google Plus. I essentially don't post anything at Facebook, although I have my posts from Twitter set to show up there automatically. I would do the same for Google Plus except that (as far as I can tell) they've made that essentially impossible. I did see this fabulous post that details a craptastic way to do it (via GMail via Google Voice!) I'm not willing to do that.

At Google Plus, they have a "Connect accounts to your Google Profile", which I did for my twitter account -- I thought maybe that would work. Nope -- it just adds a little link onto my profile page. Gee, thanks.

I searched quite a bit for something that will let you post at twitter and have your posts gatewayed to Google Plus. There are dozens of pages that describe ways to gateway your content from Google Plus to Twitter, but none the other way. Then, I realized I was searching (dum, dum, DUM) using GOOGLE!!! O_O I even switched to Bing to see if I got more results that way. Nope, not really.

I don't particularly love Twitter, but I much prefer to skim my Twitter feed than either Facebook or Google Plus -- mainly because I don't like to have the stream broken up by images. I like to see words and I really, really like that the posts have to be short. If someone wants to write a blog post, then they should write a blog post. Crafting a message to fit in 140 characters takes both skill and effort: I'm willing to reward people who take the time and effort to do that thoughtfully.

I'm sometimes willing to participate in threaded discussions at Facebook -- and I would be at Google Plus if my content appeared there. But I don't really care to post directly in either either of them.

When I bought a cell phone, I went to the store fully intending to get an Android phone. When I looked at the actual phones they had, I didn't like the experience -- for a whole variety of reasons (including stupid ones). I ended up buying an iPhone, which I've had reservations about ever since.

My iPhone has actually been pretty darned good: I've had it for more than a year and its been very reliable. It works as a phone and can do a bunch of other stuff too. But there are particular gaps that have been very frustrating.

With an iPhone, you can't get an Esperanto keyboard. It's stunning to me that in 2012 you can get a device where you can't trivially fix this. The characters are available -- there's just no way to map them onto keys. Someone created an app called "Ĝusta Klavaro" that adds a row of keys above the keyboard and lets you write a message that's copied to the clipboard automatically when you leave the app. Then you can paste it into twitter (or wherever). But, really? Really, Apple!?! I can't just have an Esperanto language keyboard after years and years of waiting. Really?

With an iPhone, I can't find a chat application that supports OTR encryption -- again, after years of waiting: I've been looking for something like that since I first got an iPod Touch. It's just mind-boggling.

I've been thinking about buying a tablet computer for a couple of years, but (let's be honest here) I have been too cheap to buy any of the really full-featured ones. I liked the look of the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet, but decided I didn't want to buy a crippled device. It might be possible to jailbreak something, but I'd rather just buy something that does what I want.

Today, Samsung released the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 at $250 -- exactly what I've been waiting for. It runs the most recent Android operating system and looked perfect. I drove to Best Buy at opening time and was the first one in the door. I walked to the display, pointed at it, and said "That! I want that!"

I paid the "Geek Squad" extra to put on one of those hideously overpriced clear-plastic screen protectors. The installation alone was $15, but it took the guy at least a half hour and he messed it up the first time and had to go get a second one. I'm sure I'd have gotten a beard hair under it or something. I don't do it often enough (or have anywhere near enough patience) to actually get it right, so it was well worth the money.

So far, it's exactly what I was hoping for. The screen is bright, the performance is snappy, and I've already installed an Esperanto keyboard (AllSoftKeyboard for free) and a chat client that supports OTR (Gibberbot). I've set up most of my accounts (Twitter, Dropbox, email, etc).

A few things are less than perfect. I was slightly disappointed to discover I can't charge it via the USB port on my computer -- that would have been convenient. Its port looks almost exactly the same as my ipod/iphone cable, but the cable doesn't seem to quite fit. That would have been convenient too. So far, I haven't been able to get the MTP application to let me move files onto the device via USB.

Most of all, though, I find the openness of the device refreshing -- it's like a breath of fresh air. I can use Firefox! With NoScript! There's a Tiny Tiny RSS app! On Apple hardware, you increasingly feel like you're in a automat where everything is behind glass and requires a payment to use. Want to use your iPhone as a hotspot? Just $15 a month! I'm waiting for them to start charging a penny to change the volume or nickel for the brightness.

Finally, as an aside about how far, we've come, I got a 32gb Micro-SD card. I remember when I first saw an SD card: a flash memory card the size of a postage stamp and was amazed at how much data you could fit in that tiny space -- I was probably amazed that it could hold megabtyes! And now I have a chip that's smaller than my thumbnail with 32 gigabytes. That's just... wrong. Moore's Law in action. We truly live in wondrous times.

En la sekva mateno, mi ricevis respondon de Osmo Buller, la Ĝenerala Direktoro de UEA, kiu klarigis al mi ke, fakte, la limdato estis trovebla (kaj estas eterne sama de jaro al jaro.) Ĝi eĉ aperis en la Regularo de la Belartaj Konkursoj (Artikolo 2.4). Li ankaŭ sendis ligilon al la Gazetara Komuniko kiu anoncis la Belartaj Konkursoj, kiu aperas lastjare en novembro (kiel ĉiam), do ne estis inter la ĉijaraj komunikoj. Li resumis jene

Se tamen ne eblus trovi tiun informon, estus malpli tempoperdige
sendi unufrazan demandon al la Centra Oficejo de UEA ol skribi
multe pli longan blogajhon.

Mi sendis la jenan respondon:

Dankon pro via afabla respondo al mia blogafiŝo.

La punkto de mia afiŝo estas ke fuŝa retpaĝaro malhelpas al UEA. Jes, per serĉo tia "site:uea.org belartaj konkursoj 2012" eblas trovi. Sed mia punkto celas la fakton ke, se oni vizitas la retpaĝaron de UEA kaj trafoliumas ĝin por novaj informoj, oni ne facile trovas. Kaj se oni simple serĉas por "belartaj konkursoj", nur unu paĝo de UEA -- la regularo -- aperas ĉe la unua paĝo de rezultoj. Retpaĝaro nun estas la plej grava vizaĝo kiun organizaĵo montras al la mondo kaj la nia ne konformas al la nuntempaj bezonoj.

Plimalpi 80% de la vizitantoj al la retpaĝaro verŝajne venas pere de serĉrezultoj (ĉe Esperanto-USA pasintmonate, ekz., la cifero estas 81%). Se la retpaĝaro de UEA estus re-organizita por plibonigi kiel rezultoj aperas ĉe Google, ĝi estus multe pli efika vizaĝo por la organizaĵo.

Google volas montri pli bonajn rezultojn sed ĝia algoritmo antaŭsupozas ke oni uzu la retpaĝaron malsame ol ni uzas ĝin. La fakto ke ni kaŝas la plejparton de nia agado tiel ke Google ne povas vidi ĝin ŝajnigas al la cetera mondo ke la organizaĵo apenaŭ ion faras. Tio ege malhelpas nin. Ni devas malfermi kaj eksternigi nian agadon kaj kuraĝigi ke oni prikomenti kaj fari ligilojn al la paĝoj kiuj estas novaj kaj gravaj: tiel Google ekscias kio estas interesa kaj trovinda pri ni.

Pri demandon al la centra oficejo, jes mi povus sendi mesaĝon -- sed je la 5a ptm en usono, jam estas meznokte en eŭropo: oni ne atendas ricevi respondon rapidan en tia situacio, ĉu? Kaj mia punkto temas precipe la retpaĝaron.

Dankon, denove pro via informo. Bedaŭrinde mi refoje mistrafis la limdaton. Ho, ve. Eble iam mi partoprenos.

Antaŭ kelkaj jaroj, mi verkis hajbunon "Patro kaj Filo ĉe Sukerpanmonto" kiu aperis ĉe Beletra Almanako. Nun mi finlaboras novan hajbunon "Spuroj Sub Franc-Reĝa Ponto" kaj pripensas kien celi ĝin.

Phil sugestis ke la UEA Belartaj Konkursoj taŭgus. Mi scias ke la limdato okazas dum la printempo, sed volis trovi ĉu ĝi jam pasis, do vizitis la retpaĝaron de UEA. Tute ne estas mem-evidenta kiel oni serĉu tian informon: Agadkampoj? Servoj? Kongresoj? Dokumentoj? Estis nenio en la Gazetaraj Komunikoj de 2012 pri la konkursoj.

Poste, mi serĉis ĉe Google. Mi trovis la regularon (laste reviziita en 2008 -- interese ĉar mi scias ke lastajare ĉe la UK, oni proponis ŝanĝon kiu estis akceptita, laŭ mia memoro), sed trovis nenion pri la ĉijaraj konkursoj. Mi supozas ke la nura rimedo estus elŝuti kaj unuope serĉi tra la PDF-dosierojn de la Esperanto-revuo.

Mi konfesu ke mi ekde tiu ĉi jaro ne plu ricevas la paperajn revuojn nek por Esperanto-revuo nek por Usona Esperantisto sed mi nek legas ilin eletronike ĉar mi tiel malamas PDF dosierojn -- do mi simple tute ne plu scias kio okazas en la tiel-nomata Esperanto-movado. Eble iam, ili afiŝos la novaĵon tiel ke Google povos fari ke ĝi estu serĉebla. Aŭ eble ne. Sed, ĉiaokaze, nun mi devas serĉi alian lokon por eldoni mian hajbunon.

Today, I tried to use my library's website to request a book. Daniel asked me about zombies and vodooism and I mentioned the book The Serpent and the Rainbow, which I read many years ago and enjoyed immensely. I checked my local library, Jones Library, which didn't have it. So I clicked on the "Virtual Catalog" button to request it, and was taken to THE WORST WEBSITE EVAR: the new old C/W Mars website -- Powered by Dynix!

It requires you enter your library card information and pick your local library to do anything. There's no way to get the site to remember your info, so you have to do this every time you come here which, as you'll learn, you'll probably have to do several times. You click to the next screen and are taken to a butt-ugly frames-based site with revolting garish colors and cheap Web 0.95 graphics that look like they're straight out of the 1980s: I saw prettier websites using Mosaic. You have to click an ugly little graphic to do anything at this point: conduct a search or review your requests. So you conduct a search. There's a field, some radio buttons (title, author, etc) and a pop-up menu with only one choice: Virtual Catalog. You click an ugly little graphic to "begin searching"

At this point, I made a typo in the title (serpent and the rainbox :-). I tried to hit the back arrow and discovered you can't do that. None of the browser cache pages are valid. So I had to start over.

I got back to the same point, typed in the correct name, and what it returns is a weird list of the libraries that matched the string formatted as a simple HTML table (no links), and below that is a table with various entries some of which seem quite unrelated to the search (e.g. "Teeny Tiny and the Witch Woman"). I see the one that looks most likely and click it to make sure it's what I'm looking for: the book by Wade Davis published in 1985. It says there are 13 matches. It is the right one, so I look in a popup menu for the catalog that seems like where I want to request it from: C/W Mars Western Mass libraries is there, so I choose that. It shows me that it's available at four Western Mass libraries: Forbes, Longmeadow, Berkshire CC, and West Springfield. I click Request and it says,

Problem: The item you have requested already exists in your local library. The system is configured to prevent you from making an inter-library loan request for an item that is available at your local library.

But it's NOT! I searched Jones FIRST. Then I try to click its "back" button (having learned to not use my browsers back button) and discover it's Javascript based, which I use No-Script to block (and if you have any sense, you'll do so too). So I turn Javascript on from flo.org and it says it has to reload the page and BAM, 404's in every frame. Again.

So I go through the whole thing one last time to write this. Now javascript is turned on. I click the "return to the previous screen" and it says:

Document Expired
This document is no longer available.
The requested document is not available in Firefox's cache.

Heh.

Alisa was mocking me the whole time I'm struggling with the website. Using her iPhone, she logged in and requested it for me: it turns out that you can search C/W Mars from within the Jones Library interface: the mistake I made was trying to use the "Virtual Catalog" link. Sheesh. Worst Website EVAR!

I spent most of the day feeling like I was in a kind of frenzy working on four or five things at once: email, phone calls, walk-ins. The afternoon culminated with a mad code-sprint on two separate projects.

The morning was just a preview: I'm working with a student to set up a complex d7 site that will manage student applications to projects that faculty advertise. Trying to learn the changes associated with d7 while teaching the student has been challenging. We couldn't get the view block to show up on the front page. Eventually, I discovered that by default the block had been created to only show up on node-pages. Once I unchecked that, it worked fine -- but that cost me 45 minutes of fruitless struggling until I started googling around and figured out what was going on. I had a similar struggle to figure out why the exposed filters wouldn't show up -- it turns out you have to turn on Ajax. Who knew?

In the afternoon, I worked with Tom to set up yin/yang staging for the new microbiology drupal multisite. Our current plan is to build a multisite that can support d5, d6, d7, and d8 sites concurrently. Microbiology is transitioning to a new URL that allows us to set up the site and then migrate the old content into it. The bigger trick will be to impose the same structure on the Biology department website that is much larger, more complex, and already in full production.

Shortly after I started with Tom, I needed to also help Rodger who is learning to script running automated analyses using the BCRC computers. They have a data set with ~1600 individuals and ~9 loci and are measuring population structure fit making different assumptions about the number of populations. We crafted a first pass at the script a couple of days ago: I debated a bit about whether to write in the script in bash or perl, but eventually settled on PHP. People have been hating on PHP lately. (Well, that's really nothing new -- people have been hating on PHP since the very beginning). Still, I've been using PHP very nearly since the beginning (back in the PHP/FI days) and find it comfortable. The script is actually just a few control structures wrapped around shell commands. We parse the data file to measure the number of individuals and loci (using wc), we use a horrible string of piped sed commands to rewrite the mainparams file for the structure program, and then invoke the program with an algorithmically defined output filename, so the results won't get overwritten after each run.

I kept switching back and forth between each project, trying to keep Tom and Rodger engaged and just solving problems as necessary. It was a wonderful experience of flow: being totally absorbed in my work. At the end of the day, I was exhausted but sated at the same time. On days like this, I really love my job.

I let Thunderbird update itself the other day and then discovered that older versions of GPG, as I was using, were no longer supported. The actual error message said something about not being able to find gpg-agent I downloaded the newest version of GPG tools, but it still didn't work. I found this helpful post and tried to follow the directions, but couldn't seemingly get anything to work.

Eventually, I found that the pinentry-mac.app appears to be broken: even when I downloaded the source and built it myself with xcode, it didn't work. Something has changed about the way the MacOS launches things -- it passes in some process identifier that appears to confuse something. But I didn't know enough about how it works to figure it out.

Eventually, I solved the problem by building plain old pinentry via macports and when I configured gpg-agent.conf to use that pinentry, enigmail just started to work again. Hurray!