Earth (Arts and Literature) – Page 9

Learning Toki Pona

I’m learning Toki Pona. Most people seem to think Toki Pona is a massage technique, some sort of tantric practise, or a musical instrument. It must be the Polynesian-sounding name, but it’s more exciting than that! Toki Pona is a constructed language, similar to its more famous relatives such as Esperanto and Interlingua. Anyone who… Continue reading Learning Toki Pona

Hopeful Monsters

It’s been a long time since I’ve come across a book so unexpectedly startling as Nicholas Mosley’s Hopeful Monsters. At the end of it, I find myself wordless and in awe, as if I’d experienced a flash of satori, wanting to but unable to say anything of the insight. I can find surprisingly little written… Continue reading Hopeful Monsters

Learning Languages Revisited

I’m making vague plans to go to Argentina in August, so I’ve started brushing up on my Spanish. I’d learnt Spanish for a month before going to Peru in 2001, but haven’t used it since, and have forgotten everything but Hola and, of course, Hasta la vista, Baby. I’ve been considering how my personal language… Continue reading Learning Languages Revisited

South African Literary Awards and the internet

If the purpose of a literary award is to expose and market the winners to a wider audience, the South African literary awards are doing a terrible job. Somehow I ended up on the Wikipedia page for the Exclusive Books Boeke Prize. The page was missing the 2008 winner, so I followed the link to… Continue reading South African Literary Awards and the internet

Wikimedia and the Cape Town Book Fair.

I’ll be at the Cape Town Book Fair helping at the Lettera27 stall. One of their projects is WikiAfrica, hence my involvement. Lettrea27’s principal aims are: to create awareness of the WikiAfrica Literature (WAL) to generate new virtual pages in WikiAfrica/Wikipedia. to involve authors, publishers and new readers/users in the WikiAfrica Literature project. to involve… Continue reading Wikimedia and the Cape Town Book Fair.

The South African Wikimedia communities

My South African Wikimedia communities submission has been accepted by the Wikimania 2008 Program Committee, so I’ll be presenting it at the conference in Alexandria later this year. So how are those communities doing since my last update? Not particularly well… Progress is slow, and there’s a proposal to close the Xhosa Wikipedia as well… Continue reading The South African Wikimedia communities

Launch of the FOSS Awards

The FOSS Awards have launched. The awards are aimed at encouraging South African tertiary institution students to contribute to FOSS projects, particularly those that will have local benefits. Students can enter by submitting a summary of their contributions to FOSS projects over 2007. So far there is R15 000 prize money available. Entries close at… Continue reading Launch of the FOSS Awards