Signatures for referendum to make Russian second official language in Latvia near target but short

You can read about it here in English and here in Latvian. From what I understand a ballot initiative requires signatures of 10% of the voting public, after which it is voted on in Parliament, and if it doesn't pass there then it is brought up a final time as a national referendum. The most recent number of signatures as of 29 November is 130 678, which is 12 533 short of the necessary 154 379. I believe there is only a month to gather signatures, meaning that about 4000 were gathered per day, making the necessary amount somewhat difficult but still quite possible. We'll find out soon what the total is.

The next Page F30 reader poll will be on this subject.

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Page F30 reader poll results on Belgium, 2012 Obama vs. Huntsman matchup

I plan to put up a new poll either today or tomorrow so it's time to take down the two I have up now. The two are completely different subjects.

The first was written in the pan-Germanic constructed language Frenkisch as a test to see how many people understood it well enough to respond. The poll question was about Belgium and what it should do as a country: stay the same, split into two, split into two and join France and the Netherlands, etc. The total number of responses was 59, slightly more than I expected.

HWAT TENK DOU OM FLANDERS, WALLONIE OND BELGIE?

Belgie is goud als ett is - nein and'ring tou de toustand nou 27 (45%)
Belgie mout deile sick in twei landen - francisch ond flemisch 11 (18%)
Belgie mout deile sick in tri landen - francisch, flemisch ond tudisch 4 (6%)
Belgie mout deile sick ond binde sick tou ander landen - Flanders tou Niderland, Wallonie tou Frankryk ond so fort 18 (30%)
Ander 1 (1%)

Votes so far: 59
Poll closed



The second was a simple 2012 US election matchup against Barack Obama and Jon Huntsman (former ambassador to China and two-time governor of Utah) to gauge the political views of Page F30's readership. The result was Obama in a landslide.

IT IS 2012 AND THE US PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES ARE BARACK OBAMA (DEMOCRAT) AND JON HUNTSMAN (REPUBLICAN). WHOM DO YOU VOTE FOR?

Barack Obama 67 (62%)
Jon Huntsman 41 (37%)

Votes so far: 108
Poll closed

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Russia may require working immigrants to prove their fluency in Russian

Not much detail from this article in Spanish - anyone have further knowledge on this bill?

The Lower House of the Russian Parliament has introduced a bill that requires immigrants to confirm their knowledge of the Russian language, if they intend to work in public services and trade.

If approved, immigrants would have to present a document certifying their fluency in Russian. The certificate could be one obtained at secondary schools in CIS countries, or a certificate that proves that the student has taken a state test of the Russian language.

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Cape Verde wants a Portuguese-language (CPLP) peacekeeping force

From here today in Portuguese:

Cape Verde wants to see a military peacekeeping force created by the eight member states of the CPLP, an issue that will be addressed during the 13th reunion of ministers of defence of the "Eight".

The meeting, to be held Monday and Tuesday (28 and 29 November 2011) will bring together the ministers of defence of Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal and Sao Tome and Principe, while East Timor will be represented by the Secretary of State. It will take place on the island of Sal.

Defence minister Jorge Tolentino of Cape Verde said today to Agência Lusa that Cape Verde will continue to defend this idea of a CPLP joint force, although he admits that there would be institutional and constitutional difficulties in implementing it.

View Larger Map

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Entire New Testament has now been released in Latin

A few weeks after the original planned October release date, Faith Comes By Hearing now has a Latin version of the New Testament (go here, scroll to the bottom and do a search for Latin). The Latin version is halfway between the non-drama and drama New Testaments they have there, with various voices for various characters, but none of the same music and sound effects one hears in the other dramatic versions. However, each book and letter begins with some Gregorian chant.

And with that you should be able to guess what kind of Latin it was recorded in: it's ecclesiastical Latin, not classical. That means that v is like the English v, c before e and i is ch, g before e and i is like g in giraffe, t before e and i is ts, ae is e, gn is ny, there don't seem to be any long vowels, etc.

The Latin text used is the Nova Vulgata, which you can select here along with a ton of other languages next to it for comparison.


And in other news: starting tomorrow the entire Roman Catholic church will be using a new missal (in English at least, not sure about other languages). By pure coincidence I happened to attend a church last Sunday for the baptism of a friend's baby, so I was able to hear the current missal for the last time. There were a lot of mentions during the service about how this was the end of the current missal, and that the next one would begin the next week. What makes the next missal different from the current one is that the translation is more literal in relation to the original Latin.

One of the most obvious changes is explained here, the change from "and also with you" to "and with your spirit":

‘And with your spirit’ is the literal translation of what we find in the Latin text, ‘et cum spiritu tuo’. This translation is already found in other languages, for example, German, Italian, French and Spanish.

Scripture is very much the source for this dialogue between priest and people. In four letters of St Paul he uses the following greetings: Galatians 6:18 – ‘May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit’; Philippians 4:23 – ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit’; 2 Timothy 4:22 – ‘The Lord be with your spirit’; Philemon 25 – ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit’. Similar greetings can be found in the Old Testament.

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Link roundup for 25 November 2011

Not too many links today, but all very interesting:

* Euronews in Portuguese is in danger: this article (automatically translated from Google, just beware of the parts where it sometimes says English but actually means Portuguese) says that Euronews in Portuguese has no guarantee for funding past 31 January 2012 when the contract with RTP expires. Two possibilities for extending it: funding from the Portuguese government...or Angola. Losing Euronews in Portuguese would be a real shame, as it is one of the best places to find text with matching audio in European Portuguese. Brazilian Portuguese - now that's easy to find, and losing a news station in that would be hardly noticeable.

* Ten years of adaptive optics! Few know of this, but adaptive optics is one of the most exciting developments we've had in astronomy over the past number of years, simply because it gives us the opportunity to use earth-bound telescopes to achieve some pretty amazing things. Telescopes that don't need to be launched into space can naturally be built to sizes unimaginable for something that must be launched into orbit, and there is also the possibility of further development and advancement to existing facilities, another task that is more or less impossible for something in orbit. 2018 will be a very exciting year when a full three new observatories with 30+ metre telescopes are finished.

* A Latin murder mystery was published a few months ago, the first original novel in the language in 250 years. The author would love to have it reviewed by a fluent speaker of the language:

Berard is also hoping a reviewer who can actually understand his book will step forward to wade through all 627 pages. It’s published by his own imprint, Cataracta, through Author House and is available in hardcover, paperback and e-book versions.

I wonder if he'd send a complimentary copy to someone without the financial means to obtain a copy but with fluent Latin skills and the intention to review it (not me).

* Sarkozy reaffirms commitment to French space spending.

Oh, and Mars Science Laboratory launches tomorrow. Given the complexity of the landing, I'm purposely avoiding thinking about it as much as possible. Once it gets to the surface and begins operations then I'll get excited about it, but my state of mind now is pretty close to just pretending it doesn't exist. Best of luck but I don't intend to stress out about it for a full nine months.

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Throwing out the word planet

Watch what happens when you describe the Solar System without using the word planet, a term that in my opinion has done a lot of damage to the way the average person views it. There are eight (or nine) planets...and a bunch of other stuff, as the general view gleaned from our textbooks goes.

Oh, and I'm going to use surface area instead of diameter.

The Solar System is composed of the Sun and all the objects that orbit it. There are large gaseous objects, smaller rocky and spherical objects, and the smallest which are rocky or icy and irregularly shaped.

The four largest are gaseous spherical objects, and have others orbiting them. Given their large size they are systems of their own. Their names are Jupiter, Saturn, Ouranos and Neptune.

The next one is the body we live on.

The next one in size is a spherical rocky object called Venus, with a surface area 27 times that of Russia.

The next one is a spherical rocky object called Mars, with a surface area 8.5 times that of Russia.

The next few orbit the giant gaseous body called Jupiter, and we won't explain them here.

The next one is a spherical rocky object called Mercury, with a surface area 4.4 times that of Russia.

Then we have two spherical rocky objects located very far out, in different locations but with similar sizes.

One of these bodies is called Eris, and has a surface area....the same as Russia. The other one is called Pluto with the same surface area, but another world orbits it called Charon (along with three smaller ones), and this is also a rocky spherical body with a surface area greater than India.

The next largest is a spherical rocky body called Makemake. Makemake has a surface area about that of two Indias, and it is also located very far out.

After Makemake comes the spherical rocky body Sedna. Sedna is extremely far out, and orbits the Sun once in 11,400 years. It has a surface area nearly the same as Makemake, two Indias.

After Sedna comes a spherical rocky body discovered just five years ago with the tentative name of Snow White. This body has a surface area greater than India.

Next comes a spherical rocky body called Haumea, with a similar size.

After that comes a spherical rocky body with a lot of ice called Ceres. It has a surface area equivalent to Argentina.

skip a few dozen....

after that comes an irregular spherical rocky body called 433 Eros. It has a surface area about the same as the country of Bahrain - walking around it once would take about two days at eight hours a day, and a velocity of about 36 kph is needed to break free from its gravity.

....and so on. Note how the moment we remove the word planet we are suddenly open to everything outside the standard destinations we all know. Now we are just talking about bodies in the Solar System, what they look like, what they are like to stand on, where they are, and anything else worth mentioning.


I am not suggesting, of course, that we do away with definitions such as planet. However, when presenting the Solar System as a whole, in a textbook or in a planetarium for example, these definitions do more harm than good in the beginning. A presentation of the Solar System needs to be very simple:

1) The Solar System is (basic definition)
2) Here are some objects in it. They look like this, are this big, are interesting because of X and Y.

Our current myopic view of the Solar System is harmful to our exploring of it. It gives great precedence to the spherical bodies that have received the name planet, and almost entirely obscures those that have not been bequeathed with such a title. Going from largest to smallest, even getting to the 1000th place gives us a body with a surface area about three times that of Luxembourg. That's a lot of ignored territory, most of it in more or less our back yard.

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Portuguese continues to be an important language for education in Extremadura

From here in Spanish:

The Ministry of Education and Culture will continue to develop the teaching and learning of Portuguese as a defining element of education in Extremadura...The Ministry will take effective measures to make sure that Portuguese is the second foreign language taught in schools funded by public money.

The first Portuguese bilingual area has been adopted this year at i.e.s. Francisco Vera school, in Alconchel. In addition there are some thirty primary schools and twenty secondary schools that teach Portuguese as a second language, and 14 secondary schools that teach it as a third language.

The Portuguese Language and Culture Program relies on an agreement with the Ministry that allows Portuguese to be studied in 31 centres in Extremadura, near La Raya.

Extremadura is the only autonomous region in Spain that has implemented Portuguese in its nine official schools of languages, and has the second largest number of students in these centres. In total, 1,892 students enrolled in these this school year.

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When will we see photographs of 24 Themis?

Ice on the surface of the asteroid / minor planet 24 Themis was announced in October 2009, turning it from simply one of the largest asteroids in the Solar System into one of the most fascinating. But with no missions planned to explore Themis, what sort of observations can we carry out from Earth? First let's take a look at its orbit:

Fairly typical for an object in the asteroid belt, 24 Themis orbits between Mars and Jupiter, ranging from 2.7 AU to 3.1 AU. With the Earth at about 1 AU from the sun, that means that about the closest distance possible between us and Themis is 1.7 AU, and the farthest about 4.1 AU. How close has Themis been to us since its discovery? That is, have we had any good chances to observe it at a relatively close distance since we have found out about ice on its surface?

From the time since we found out about ice on the surface until now, the distance from Earth to Themis has ranged from over 4 AU to 2.45 AU, just two months ago. The two bodies are once again becoming more distant, so we will have to wait until....the first week of December 2012! At that time they will be just 1.982 AU apart, nearly as close as the two can get. An even closer approach will happen in mid-March 2014 at 1.775 AU, then 1.771 AU in January 2019, and then nothing of note until 1.755 AU in March 2025. Just under 1.8 AU seems to be about as good as it gets with Themis.

Wolfram Alpha has magnitudes for objects at different dates, and also provides an interesting comparison between 24 Themis at its current distance and at the next closest approach.

Current distance: magnitude +12.24 (higher = dimmer), equivalent to a 100 watt bulb 8473 km away.
At closest approach: magnitude +10.99, equivalent to a 100 watt bulb 4760 km away.

So what can we expect to see of Themis if we have the opportunity to observe it with our best instruments during one of these close approaches? This picture of 2 Pallas provides an insight:

This was taken in 2007, when Pallas never got closer than 2.2 AU. Pallas is some 550 km in diameter with an albedo of 0.159; Themis is 198 km in diameter with an albedo of 0.067.

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Wired article on why it's really hard to land on Mars

Wired has published an article today that I wish everyone interested in space would read at least once, if only to realize what a difficult destination Mars is to land on. The problem with Mars is that it looks extremely friendly and familiar - valleys, channels, ice caps, mountains, a 26-hour day, seasons and all the rest. But what's the problem? The atmosphere. The atmosphere is thick enough that one requires a heat shield to land and wind and weather must be taken into account when using retrorockets, but thin enough that parachutes don't provide that much of a decrease in velocity when landing. As a result, the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory represents more or less the limit of mass we're able to land there.

Oh, and don't forget the absolutely terrible time between launch windows, the worst of any major body in the Solar System. Mars clocks in at 2.1 years, while Venus is 1.6 years. All the other bodies except the moon (since it orbits us) are approximately a year and a bit. Mercury is also an exception here because of how difficult it is to match one's velocity with it as it zips around the sun, making it quite a difficult destination to reach.

The best example for a body nearly opposite of Mars is the moon Titan. In spite of the great distance from us and our complete lack of experience in landing anything there, the Huygens orbiter had no problem at all carrying out a soft landing on the surface and transmitting for some time after too. No surprise considering that Titan has an atmosphere that is both thicker than ours and a much weaker gravity.

Venus is another good example of a body with a nearly ideal atmosphere...as long as one stays up in the clouds, that is. A probe of just about any mass and complexity can be sent there as long as it is capable of staying afloat and resistant to corrosion. A solar flyer or balloon for example. Landings are also fairly easy; it's just the harsh conditions on the surface that limit the length of time a lander can function.

So where should we explore? Easy: first the moon, asteroids (minor planets) next. The best minor planet to explore may be 24 Themis, an asteroid in the asteroid belt covered in ice that is 200 km in diameter, giving a total surface area greater than Bulgaria.

One other option, if we are mostly concerned with terraforming, is to consider starting small: instead of trying to terraform an entire planet the size of Mars, find a suitable asteroid (perhaps some 20 km or so in diameter with enough gravity that one does not break orbit by jumping too high), and paraterraform it. In other words, build a roof across more or less the whole surface, pressurize the inside and live there. An asteroid with a diameter of 40 km would have a surface area roughly equivalent to Brunei (or Luxembourg times two), about 30,000 times less surface area than Mars.

I am firmly convinced that the only way to break out of this moon or Mars moon or Mars moon or Mars loop we seem to be in is to realize that 1) the moon is going to be colonized by other countries in the next decade or so even if the US is not interested and 2) there are *way* more destinations nearby than just the planets everyone knows. A body does not officially need to be deemed a planet in order for us to settle it, to make it our second home.

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Portugal analyzing Equatorial Guinea's application to the CPLP

Portugal is thinking:

Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho said today in Luanda that his government is "open" to considering Equatorial Guinea's application to the CPLP, the association of Portuguese language countries.

In a joint press conference with the president of Angola (José Eduardo dos Santos), he acknowledged the application and stressed that "Equatorial Guinea has a great importance in the region for the Portuguese language...we know about the commitment to adopt Portuguese as an official language and we note the statement of intent that their government made regarding the implementation of values and conditions of the CPLP."

Domingos Simoes Pereira of the CPLP said last May that it would be desirable to get some progress for Equatorial Guinea's application, specifically the introduction of the Portuguese language in the system of education, and the fulfillment of human rights.

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Languages on the rise in Spain: Portuguese, Russian, German, Chinese.

From here in Spanish:

Brazil is in vogue for the World Cup, Olympics and for being an emerging economy. The EOI (Escuela Oficial de Idiomas) has noticed this change, seeing a 22.9% increase in the demand for Portuguese. This makes it the fourth fastest growing language.

The other languages with the largest increase in the number of students are Russian (52%), German (30%) and Chinese (27%). The EOI is preparing a trip to China this summer to establish contacts in the country.

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Animation of Asteroid Yuss

I saw on Twitter the other day a message by someone who likes to call the asteroid 2005 YU55 asteroid Yuss (YUSS = YU55), and that's not a bad way to remember it.

While the flyby is now over, people are still sifting through and compiling the data to make more detailed maps, temperature maps, and animations. Over on the Planetary Society blog here the most recent video NASA has released of 28 frames of the asteroid rotating has been turned into a .gif, which is much better than the original video - some 30 seconds of intro, then a quick animation and no repetition at all.

So here it is, Asteroid Yuss rotating:

So...when is the next approach of a close or interesting asteroid?

Barring any currently unknown tiny asteroids sneaking up on us to fly by any day now, this table shows us the expected flybys over the next few months. Fairly slim pickings, but if we isolate them by size, close approach and speed, we get the following:

Closest flyby until February: asteroid 2000 YA. Will fly by at 2.9 lunar distances, and diameter seems to be about 80 metres or so. That's enough to get a resolution of maybe...50 pixels?

Largest object until February: 1991 VK at about 2 km. Distance is a very safe 25.3 lunar distances, but with its size it should be a worthwhile flyby for Arecibo and Goldstone. Apparently if this one were to hit us (which it won't) it would create a 7.3 earthquake.

Slowest relative velocity: 2011 WD at 3.63 km per second, about a quarter the velocity of asteroid Yuss when it flew by. This asteroid is quite small (25 m diameter) and far away (28.6 lunar distances) so it will move especially slowly across the sky.

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Which languages do Austrians like the most?

From here:

http://www.pressetext.com/news/20111116011

In response to the question "which language could you imagine yourself learning or improving on in the future?" the answer is:

English: 33%
Italian: 29%
Spanish: 26%
French: 18%
Russian: 7%
Czech: 3%
Slovenian: 3%
Portuguese: 2%
Chinese: 2%
Hungarian: 2%
Turkish: 2%
Arabic: 2%

The article also goes into which languages they say they already speak - 85% of them say English. After that is French at 17%, Italian at 12% and Spanish at 7%. The article goes into more detail too, dividing the answers up by age, etc.

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More on Afrikaans at the University of Pretoria

This article has a lot of good numbers based on an analysis of 4300 university modules, showing how many of them are not available in Afrikaans. The worst faculty for this seems to be Veterinary Science with almost nothing in Afrikaans, and the best is Theology where 55% of the modules are completely available in Afrikaans. It would be interesting to see if there are parallels to the protests against the decline of Afrikaans in universities and Quebec before Loi 101 (the Charter of the French Language).

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Trade between China and Portuguese language countries grows 26.69% from January to September 2011

Another one of these "trade between China and Portuguese language countries" articles in Portuguese, courtesy of data from Macau. The titles of two others I wrote about were:

Trade between China and Portuguese language countries grows 25% from the first half of 2010 to 2011

Trade between China and Portuguese language countries grows 45.07% from January 2010 to January 2011

This time you'll notice a drop in trade for some countries, which I'll highlight in red. Poor Portugal.

Commerce between China and the eight countries that use Portuguese as an official language increased by 26.69% over the first three trimesters of the year, reaching an amount of 86.427 billion dollars - according to official data given out by Macau.

According to official data from customs in China, from January to September the eight Portuguese-speaking countries sold $57.681 billion of goods to China and purchased goods costing $28.809 billion.

During this period Brazil, the principal trading partner of the eight countries, sold $38.330 billion (38.59% increase) and bought $24.075 billion (35.49% increase) from China.

Angola was second: $20.264 billion (34.09% more) sold to China, and bought $1.953 billion (decrease of 0.29%) of goods.

Portugal was next, selling $2.152 billion (15.99% decrease) and buying $818 million (49.58% decrease) of products from China.

Mozambique was in fourth place, selling $529 million (38.02% increase) and buying $153 million (22.39% increase) of goods from China.

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Link roundup for 15 November 2011

A summary of what I've come across over the past few days:

A Latin - English interlinear text. These literal interlinear translations are my favourite way to read a language I know a certain amount of but am far from fluent in, and even more so with a language like Latin with a fairly flexible word order and a lot of declensions. More modern textbooks should have sections like these, possibly with English in red and a pair of red glasses attached if you want to try the text without the translation first.

More on Afrikaans at the universities of Pretoria and Stellenbosch: Pretoria here, Stellenbosch here.

An article here on Spain's recognition of exceptional Spanish-language programs (educational programs that is, not TV) in the United States.

The Serbian Wikipedia right now has this article on the front page:

That's the page on Armenia, and it's very detailed. Slightly more content than the German version. That page led me to the page on Armavia (the Armenian airline), and thereafter to the page on an airplane model I had never seen before: the Sukhoi Superjet 100. Looks like Russia is finally making and selling civilian jets again:

And finally, the owner of Bad Astronomy has recently given a talk at TEDxBoulder, about near-Earth asteroids. Is it good? I'll find out in a second, but I assume it will be. Here it is:

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Play around with Wolfram Alpha for a quick and dirty understanding of geopolitics

If I were to have to recommend a quick and dirty way to gain an understanding of geopolitics over a few days, I would probably recommend the following:

1) read through as much of the Economist as possible,

2) play around with numbers using Wolfram Alpha.

The Economist with its quick and easy snippets of geopolitical knowledge is an easy recommendation to make, and Wolfram Alpha complements this with easy demonstrations of which countries have more people, larger economies, more or less growing economies, and so on...but what really makes it worth fiddling around with is that it provides these statistics over a few decades, not just the past year. Let's say you've just read an article about China and North Korea and are wondering whether China really does want to play a moderating role in the region. Let's see how the GDP of the two countries compares over time:

Until the 1990s North Korea held steady at 1/25th of China (and about 1/60th the population), but now this has increased over tenfold: North Korea is now at about a pitiful 1/350th. North Korea now provides China little else but a buffer zone in between the Chinese border and US troops; as a market, it is nearly nonexistent.

China divided by South Korea for comparison:

Population of China / population of India:

Population of the US / population of Pakistan:

GDP of the US / GDP of China:

GDP of the US / GDP of (Canada + Mexico) - i.e. the US compared to the rest of North America:

Now let's go to Europe and do a quick comparison of the German vs. French economic zone. The two languages overlap in some countries, but for a quick comparison let's assume that Belgium = French and Switzerland = German. The French-speaking part of Switzerland kind of makes up for the rest of Belgium and Liechtenstein and north Italy etc. make up for the non-German part of Switzerland. So here is the GDP of (Germany + Austria + Switzerland) / (France + Belgium):

GDP per capita in the US / Russia is particularly interesting. This graph alone shows why Russia has been more confident as a country over the past few years than since a few decades before.

By the way, the Nord Stream pipeline opened this week.

Next is the GDP of booming Azerbaijan divided by Armenia:

This is in comparative terms, of course; in comparison with other countries Armenia's economy is not shrinking. Here it is compared to Turkey for example.

Or compared to the United States, where the US goes from about 6000 times larger to 1225 times.

Finally, the GDP of Israel / GDP of Iran.

Wolfram Alpha here is a bit like Wikipedia (except for the most detailed articles): a good source to go to for a quick overview or hasty comparison, and after that if your interest is piqued you will want to proceed to something more detailed and well prepared.

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Norwegian student council wants students to get degrees in BRIC countries for free

From here in Norwegian:

Norwegian student council wants to give degrees for free if they are done in emerging countries, but faces opposition from the Ministry of Education, NSO, and NTNU. The proposal was adopted by the Student Council in a discussion meeting on 6 October. "By growing economies we mean all economies that are experiencing great growth. At the present time we are talking about BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) but in the long term it can include other countries with high growth", said director Per Martin Sandtrøen. According to ANSA (Association of Norwegian Students Abroad) there are 300 Norwegian students studying in China. Of these only 25 are getting an entire bachelor or master's degree, a number that Sandtrøen believes to be too low. "All the risk is on the students the way things work now. Taking an entire degree in these countries means that a person must support oneself for the entire first year, without any financial support...To work in the future in Norway we must educate students that know the language and conditions in these countries. The economic benefits would be far greater than what it would cost to educate them." he said.

Opposition to the idea seems to have more to do with implementation than anything else: the Ministry of Education and others don't believe it's an easy task to educate Norwegian students in countries that don't offer much education in English and don't think students would be prepared to learn in other languages by the time they get there either, and there is also difficulty in finding places that meet Norwegian education requirements.

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Cordoba gets its first Chinese language school

From here in Spanish:

More than 1.2 billion people speak Chinese, making it the most spoken language in the world (note: as a native tongue) along with English and Spanish. The number of institutions and centres that offer classes to learn this language is increasing, and the latest to do so is the Instituto Luis de Góngora, which is also the only one in Córdoba to offer the language this year, along with nine other centres in Andalucía.

The names of the other places that offer Chinese in Andalucía are in the article too if you really want to know them.

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RAI has a new site for learning Italian

This article today informs us that RAI has a site here for learning Italian. Looks like 42 lessons of 30 minutes each, with a lot of scripted dramas focused around a few main themes per lesson.

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Record high 78.3% of Norwegians say no to EU membership

From here in Norwegian:

In a new poll carried out by Norstat for NRK, 78.3% of Norwegians say no to joining the EU. 7.5 of those asked say they haven't taken a position on EU membership, while just 14.3% say yes.

Norway, of course, remains strongly tied to the EU: 80% of its exports go to EU countries.

Also:

In a survey Sentio has done for Nei til EU (no to the EU), published today, only 44% of those asked said that they wanted to keep the current EEA (European Economic Area) agreement, while 38% say that they would vote no to if a referendum were to be held today.

See here for a chart showing yes/no/undecided opinion since July 2009. During that time the highest positive response for EU membership was about 49% no, 39% yes, 12% undecided in February 2010.

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500 students learn Chinese at the Confucius Institute in Havana

Along with some other information from an article in Spanish here. Some of the more interesting parts:

China is the largest creditor to the island after injecting billions of dollars in loans in recent years, and is its second largest trading partner. Bilateral trade increased from $440 million in 2001 to $1.83 billion in 2010.

In keeping with the growing alliance, many Cubans are increasingly interested in learning Mandarin. The Confucius Institute in Havana, where Cuban and Chinese teachers work, has an enrollment of over 500 students, who come there since 2010 for professional reasons. Thanks to bilateral agreements, hundreds of Chinese students have also gone to Havana to learn Spanish, and others also study medicine or tourism.

China has grown in 15 years from an insignificant force in Latin America to become the largest trading partner of many countries, including Brazil. China is also a voracious consumer of raw materials in the region.

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How many Mongolians speak German? Plus asteroid 2005 YU55 again, and a bit on Portuguese.

I've been watching every source I can find for new images since the 2005 YU55 asteroid flyby about six hours ago, and still nothing since the observations taken and released yesterday when it was about 1.3 million km away, four times farther away than today' s closest approach. I assume we will see those in a few hours (tomorrow in North America). In the meantime now that the asteroid is moving away from the sun from our perspective there are a lot of observatories observing it as it flies away, including the Keck Observatory right now. We should see some of these videos soon as well.

Here's one video showing it flying by:



JPL also released a quick movie of a few images put together from yesterday's observations:



In other news, here is an interview by Pravda about promoting Portuguese in Russia and about the Portuguese orthographic accord.

An article here in French states that there are some 30,000 Mongolians that speak German, quite a high number for a country of its population (under 3 million) and location. The reason? Former close ties with the DDR, or East Germany.

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Here come the images of YU55

The images are starting to roll in now, even though closest approach isn't for a day. They can be seen here, but with the large size of the images it looks at first glance as if the closest image so far (from 1.38 million km away) is not so much better than the one we got last year:

If we make the images all about the same size though, the difference becomes obvious. First one from yesterday at a slightly closer distance than the flyby in 2010:

followed by the 1.38 million km one, the best image we have so far.

Closest approach will be four times closer than this one, so this is nowhere close to the best images we will see just one day from now.

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New poll on Barack Obama vs. Jon Huntsman

There's a new poll on the right that I've put up out of simple curiosity - which candidate readers would prefer between Barack Obama and Jon Huntsman, who is probably the most electable Republican in a general election - but a candidate that is barely receiving any attention in the GOP nomination. Then again, I remember reading that this race so far has had something like ten frontrunners so far, namely candidates that have received a spurt of attention, then were vetted by the national spotlight, found wanting, and then forgotten. Watching Republican primary voters agonize over which candidate to support, comparing their strengths and weaknesses and failing to decide on a single one is kind of reminiscent of Robert Winter last year doing the same thing with just about every constructed IAL he could lay his hands on.

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Asteroid 2005 YU55 closer than ever before, JP Aerospace gets a bit of love, Phobos-Grunt launches tomorrow

Three things to mention today:

- Asteroid 2005 YU55 is, as of yesterday, closer than any time we have known about it (i.e. since it was discovered in 2005). Last time when this image was taken (or rather formed) it was about 2.5 million km away:

And as of yesterday the asteroid is closer than that. Arecibo begins to observe the asteroid today if I remember correctly, and tomorrow will be closest approach. It's interesting to see size comparisons being made about this asteroid: most say that "asteroid the size of an aircraft carrier" will fly by, a Canadian news article said it was the size of Parliament Hill, another said the size of four football pitches, another a small mountain.

JP Aerospace has gotten some attention here today for their innovative plans to get to space by using airships. It's quite a simple concept and as far as I know they continue to test their designs on private funding and their own free time.

Phobos-Grunt launches tomorrow, Russia's first interplanetary mission since 1996. Good to see Russia back launching these types of probes, and don't forget that China's Yinghuo orbiter is hitching a ride too.

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What do Latvians think of high-speed rail?

I came across a pdf about this very subject here:

http://lietussargs.lv/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/RB_06_RailBaltica_TNS_Latvia_24-March-2011.pdf

The short answer is that the line from Tallinn through Riga and down to the south is the most popular option, while a large number also want to see Riga to Moscow.

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Testing the readability of Lingwa de Planeta

A few days ago Dmitry of Lingwa de Planeta sent me some news in LdP, a language I haven't really studied but one that I mention from time to time, and hope for the best for. The news is as follows:

(Moskva) Investiga de avion-krusha in Yaroslavl es finen

Dey 2 mes 11 yar 2011 Interstata-ney Avion-ney Komitee (IAK) deklari ke pilotas hi es kulpa-ney om ti eventi pa dey 7 mes 9 na avion-krusha in kel 44 jen tabahi. Avion Yak-42 krushi tuy afte en-flaisa, kili-yen tote fama-ney hokey-tim Lokomotiv. Sol un jen, avion-ney injenior, ausjivi. Segun IAK, un oda ambi pilota ouran presi brek-pedal duran en-flaisa. Por to avion bu mog ateni treba-ney kwaytaa, flai sol kelke stoka metra e poy lwo on arda. Ti presi brek-pedal na kausa mog bi to ke ambi pilota maistem gwo flai un otre tip de avion, nami-yen Yak-40. In Yak-42, kom in hampi oli nau-ney avion de munda, pilota ruli avion bay presi niche parta de pedal e breki bay presi it-ney uupare parta, bat in Yak-40 es otrem. Regulatot demandi ke pilota de Yak-42 pon topuk on poda de kabina, bat Solomentsev e Jevelov bin abyasen a Yak-40 e lasi swa-ney peda resti on pedal. Yoshi un li-ney galta es ke li bu desidi stopi avion pa hao taim, obwol ye-te indika, ke prosesa de en-flaisa bu go normalem.

So...how readable is this to me, with fluency in Japanese and Korean, and background in all of LdP's source languages except for Hindi? Here's my translation just from what I can discern from the text alone:

(Moscow) Investigation of airplane crash in Yaroslavl is finished

On November 2 2011 the Interstate Aviation Committee declared that the pilots (would be?) at fault for the event on September 7 in the airplane crash in which 44 people (died, I assume). The plane Yak-42 crashed right after (liftoff?), killing the whole famous hockey team Lokomotiv. Only one person, an airplane engineer, survived. According to IAK, another two pilots (ouran - ?) pressed the brake pedal during the (assuming liftoff again). Because of that the plane wasn't able to reach the needed speed, flew (ah, now I see that flai in en-flaisa is English) just a few hundred (assuming this is Slavic for hundred) metres and then hit the earth. Pressing the brake pedal cause (?) could be that both pilots (usually?) would fly another type of airplane, namely the Yak-40. In the Yak-42, as in (most?) all new airplanes in the world, the pilot controls the plane by pressing no parts of the pedal and brakes by pressing it on (the top?) part, but in the Yak-40 it is different. Regulations demand that pilots of the Yak-42 (pon topuk on poda? not sure...) in the cabin, but Solementsev and Jevelov being (unused?) to the Yak-40 and let (therefore) feet rest on the pedal. (Yoshi un li-ney galta? no idea) is that they didn't decide to stop in good time, although it indicated that the process of lifting off wasn't going normally.

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Increase in the number of French-related complaints to the Office québécois de la langue française this year

From here in French:

The number of registered complains at the Office québécois de la langue française has grown by 24% compared to the year before. There was a total of 3661 compiled complaints between 1 April 2010 and 31 March 2011 throughout Quebec. These complaints include infractions on public and commercial displays, productions, on commercial documentation and services. Those about displays/signs were the most numerous, making up 26% of cases.

However, Martin Bergeron from the OQLF is not alarmed. "This is normal for us. Usually the number of complaints per year varies between 2500 and 3000, so we're a bit above the norm." For him there are a number of factors explaining the increase. "There are French defense groups who sometimes want their members to make these complaints. Also, whenever there are reports in the media they will increase a short while after."

Montreal is to nobody's surprise the area with the largest number of complaints, at 33% of the total. The second place, well behind Montreal, is les Laurentides, with 8.5%.

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Approximate distance to asteroid 2005 YU55 for every two hours until the flyby

If you're curious just how far away from us the rapidly approaching asteroid 2005 YU55 is, you can always look here. On the other hand, it's nice to see all the numbers on a single page for reference instead of having to enter a date oneself every time. This post is therefore probably more for my benefit than anyone else's, but hopefully there is a person or two out there that will also stare at these numbers for a bit and find some benefit in them.

Goldstone tracking of the asteroid 2055 YU55 happened today...and current distance looks to be about 4.5 million km.


November 5

12:00 AM -- 0.0312 AU (4,667,457 km)
2:00 AM -- 0.0306 AU (4,577,698 km)
4:00 AM -- 0.0299 AU (4,472,980 km)
6:00 AM -- 0.0293 AU (4,383,221 km)
8:00 AM -- 0.0286 AU (4,278,502 km)
10:00 AM -- 0.028 AU (4,188,744 km)
12:00 PM -- 0.0273 AU (4,084,025 km)
2:00 PM -- 0.0267 AU (3,994,266 km)
4:00 PM -- 0.026 AU (3,889,548 km)
6:00 PM -- 0.0253 AU (3,784,829 km)
8:00 PM -- 0.0247 AU (3,695,070 km)
10:00 PM -- 0.024 AU (3,590,352 km)


November 6

12:00 AM -- 0.0234 AU (3,500,593 km)
2:00 AM -- 0.0227 AU (3,395,874 km)
4:00 AM -- 0.0221 AU (3,306,115 km)
6:00 AM -- 0.0214 AU (3,201,397 km)
8:00 AM -- 0.0218 AU (3,111,638 km)
10:00 AM -- 0.0201 AU (3,006,919 km)
12:00 PM -- 0.0195 AU (2,917,161 km)
2:00 PM -- 0.0188 AU (2,812,442 km)
4:00 PM -- 0.0182 AU (2,722,683 km)
6:00 PM -- 0.0175 AU (2,617,965 km)
8:00 PM -- 0.0169 AU (2,528,206 km)
10:00 PM -- 0.0162 AU (2,423,487 km)


November 7

12:00 AM -- 0.0156 AU (2,333,728 km)
2:00 AM -- 0.0149 AU (2,229,010 km)
4:00 AM -- 0.0143 AU (2,139,251 km)
6:00 AM -- 0.0136 AU (2,034,532 km)
8:00 AM -- 0.013 AU (1,944,774 km)
10:00 AM -- 0.0123 AU (1,840,055 km)
12:00 PM -- 0.0117 AU (1,750,296 km)
2:00 PM -- 0.011 AU (1,645,578 km)
4:00 PM -- 0.0104 AU (1,555,819 km)
6:00 PM -- 0.0098 AU (1,466,060 km)
8:00 PM -- 0.0091 AU (1,361,341 km)
10:00 PM -- 0.0085 AU (1,271,583 km)


November 8

12:00 AM -- 0.0079 AU (1,181,824 km)
2:00 AM -- 0.0072 AU (1,077,105 km)
4:00 AM -- 0.0066 AU (987,346 km)
6:00 AM -- 0.006 AU (897,588 km)
8:00 AM -- 0.0054 AU (807,829 km)
10:00 AM -- 0.0048 AU (718,070 km)
12:00 PM -- 0.0042 AU (628,311 km)
2:00 PM -- 0.0037 AU (553,512 km)
4:00 PM -- 0.0032 AU (478,713 km)
6:00 PM -- 0.0028 AU (418,874 km)
8:00 PM -- 0.0024 AU (359,035 km)
10:00 PM -- 0.0022 AU (329,115 km)

...then holds at 0.0022 AU until 1 am November 9 when it has passed us and is beginning to move away again.

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Rolls Royce and the translated French patent

Today's a bit of a busy day due to cats, but this article in French (automatically translated to English here) may be interesting to readers. It seems a French translation of a patent was rejected by a judge who said it served no purpose, while Rolls Royce insisted that it was necessary for it to be valid according to French law. The question is whether international patent law means that France cannot demand patents in French, and if so, from what year.

Now if only we had a French speaker that reads Page F30 who knows a thing or two about French and international law and could provide a bit of insight.

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Quebec's ever so slight increase in immigration for 2012 to 2014

From here and here in French, with random parts translated and mushed together:

In 2012, nearly a third (31%) of all new arrivals to Quebec will come from Africa, a quarter from the Americas, another quarter from Asia, and the rest from a European country. Quebec will continue to welcome a large number of immigrants, more than 50,000 per year. A third of these will not know a single word of French when first setting foot in Montreal. The Minister of Immigration Kathleen Wail said that the process of francization of immigrants is going well and that Quebec would bring in between 51,200 and 53,800 new immigrants in 2012 to meet its manpower needs. This is expected to also be the case in 2013 and 2014. The Charest government continues this way to pursue a policy of stability in immigration, both from the number of people to bring in as well as their knowledge of French and the diversity of origin. From this, it is expected that 18,900 of immigrants next year will begin not knowing French. The plan for immigration contains a few adjustments from previous years. Immigrants that know French will move from 62% to 64%, and economic immigrants from 65% to 70%. The PQ does not have an issue with the number of immigrants. "What we criticize on the other hand is the lack of places for francization courses, and the lack of measures to verify that one has done a good job in francisizing the new arrivals", said Yves-François Blanchet.

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Le petrol portuguese: Portugal ha du milion tones in reserves del mineral de litium

De un article in portuguese con video:

Portugal ha du milion tones in reserves del mineral de litium. Con reserves posible, le bara monta a duce milion tones. Cil e sufizante por presque 70 anos de exploracion mineral. Con un particularitá: le aparicion de litium se trova entre 20 i 30 metres de profonditá, in altre paroles, lo non e necesari uvrar minas tubteran.

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Faith Comes by Hearing is LATE

with their Latin version of the New Testament:

For four weeks this summer, the group gathered in the crypt of an old Franciscan monastery in Newark, N.J., for the recording sessions. Stravinskas said with the recording finished by the end of July, the entire project is expected to be finished by October.

Late! But beggars can't be choosers - if they're late then we will wait. Very curious to see which pronunciation the whole thing has been recorded in. I expect it would be Ecclesiastical considering that priests have been involved, but then again there are also:

(in bold)

The 15 men and women chosen for the recording project include priests, teachers, graduates of classical studies programs and an accountant — all who share a passion for the Latin language.

Let's just hope it's not a mixture of both.

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Live Q&A with NASA on asteroid 2005 YU55

Quick note: there is going to be a live Q&A with NASA here in an hour on the fast-approaching asteroid 2005 YU55, which will make its closest approach just a week from now at a distance closer than that to the moon. Also see here for an article which details exactly which observatories are going to observe the asteroid when. 2005 YU55 is currently about 9 million km from us, approaching at over a million km per day.

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Norway increases funding for Sami by $3 million

From here today in Norwegian:

The government proposes to allocate a total of 843 million kroner ($152 million) for Sami language purposes in 2012, an increase of around 17 million kroner ($3 million).

Over the past three years the government has provided an increase of 23 million kroner ($4 million) for the Sami language in the government administration and church affairs budget.

Of the budget, 5.246 million kroner ($950,000) has been allocated to the Divvun project, which has developed spell checking and correction programs for North, Lule and south Sami. 2012 is the first year of full operation of Divvun at the University of Tromsø.

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