Schizomusicology At Its Finest
No, I’m not in Fargo, ND. Fargo is an outlining application I’m testing out.
This is the text.
This is Hawaiian text ÄÄ“Ä«ÅÅ« ĀĒĪŌŪ Ê»
OK, Hawaiian Unicode doesn’t work when rendered in WordPress, but looks good in Fargo. Hoping Dave and crew will get it figured out soon.
Posted in Core Dumps.
– May 1, 2013
The male parental unit found this relic while conducting an archaeological dig in his garage. I have no recollection of this at all. I remember my brother Robb and I having Teisco Del Ray guitars when we were in elementary school, but not the amp. Model is a Checkmate 15, 70W tube amp. The custom 6-plug outlet in the back makes me suspect Robb, but maybe it was Millie Moore Danno’s? I want to plug it in and try it out but afraid it may blow up. Maybe take it to a tech first…
Update: Mystery solved. It belongs to brother Robb.
Posted in Core Dumps.
– April 30, 2013
Interested in learning the craft of Hawaiian Music from industry professionals? For the first time since the program’s launch, the Institute of Hawaiian Music is accepting new students starting in Fall 2013. An information session is scheduled Friday, March 8th at the UH-Maui Campus, room 105BCD in the Ka‘a‘ike Building. Attendees will learn more about the history of the program, entry and graduation requirements, and availability of financial aid. The first auditions are scheduled for Saturday, April 27, 2013 from 8AM to 4PM. Priority for the auditions will be given to those who attend the information session. For more information email ihm@hawaii.edu or call Dr. Keola Donaghy at (808) 984-3570. You can also download the informational flyer. Mahalo!
Posted in Core Dumps.
– March 4, 2013
I caught a fascinating, fan’s-eye view documentary on Paul Williams on Palladia yesterday called “Still Alive”. Paul is a Grammy and Academy Award-winning composer, performer and actor who was seemingly everywhere in the 1970s. Even if you weren’t around back then, I bet you’ve heard his music. He’s also the current president of the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers (ASCAP). Aspiring songwriters would do well to become familiar with his work, and anyone struggling with alcohol or drug addiction would hopefully gain some inspiration from his story.
Posted in Core Dumps.
– January 27, 2013
Twenty six year old Aaron Swartz took his own life on January 11, 2013. He did so after facing the possibility of spending 35 years in jail for what could be characterized as the digital equivalent of borrowing too many library books at one time(1). I never met Aaron, read of his exploits, and first learned of his prodigious talents and voracious curiosity via Dave Winer during a period where I followed Dave’s work closely and used several of his programming and web content tools.
I believe it is time that we in academia rethink our role in a system so perveted that it turned into a vendetta that led an intelligent and thoughtful young man to believe he had no choice but to end his own life. In our pursuit of tenure, promotion, and a path to climb the ladder we are privileging ourselves and our ambitions over the knowledge we create, and contributing to this outdated system.
Since I’ve entered the field of ethnomusicology, I’ve often thought that getting an article published in Ethnomusicology or Yearbook of Traditional Music would be a huge accomplishment and contribute to my career goals. I’m rethinking this, as long as they are part of this system. The demonization of Aaron Swartz all started with JSTOR, and while it seems they tried to extract themselves from the witchhunt, it is still complicit.
We also bear the cost of our own choices. My current institution, University of Hawai’i Maui College, does not have access to JSTOR because they say “we can’t afford it.” I’m sure other institutions are in similar circumstances. This prevents me from teaching the material I would like to present to my students. Why would I want to create knowledge and put it in a repository that my own students lack access to? I realize that publishers need to make money to print dead tree-based publications, but there are other options available today. If these formats are not recognized by our instutions as credible vehicles for validating our value and worth, it is because we allow them to do so.
I’m hoping that the leaders of our organizations will also rethink their participation in the status quo and create a system that rewards open creativity and eliminates punitive and vindictive actions like these. I call on the members and leaders of the Society of Ethnomusicology and the International Council of Traditional Music to explore options that will extract us from this archaic system and create one that both rewards our work and creativity but prevents our work from being the justification for this kind of abuse.
More thoughtful writing on this subject from Bernie Goldbach. Aaron’s family and partner have started a memorial blog for him on Tumblr.
1) you have to imagine a library where you could borrow every book, but the library still had an infinite number copies of every book still available to others.
Posted in Core Dumps.
– January 13, 2013
When my wife and I moved from Hilo back to Maui, we looked into buying a house, but settled on a nice townhouse condo at Ho‘ole‘a Terrace, just outside Wailuku on the road to Waikapū. One of the few drawbacks of this choice (see one view to the right) is that we don’t have the option to add photovoltaic or solar water heating panels. I have written previously about our attempts to get our electric bills under control in our old home in Kurtistown, and these limitations proved to be motivation to find other ways to lower our electric bill.
The water heater for our unit is in a ground floor storage room that we are forbidden from entering without advanced approval from the management company. Fortunately, the circuit breaker for the heater is in our unit. We’ve been manually turning it on and off to save electricity, but you know how that goes–some days we forget to turn it off when we leave in the morning, or when we go to sleep at night, or forget to get up early to turn it on to have hot water for morning showers.
I considered adding a simple, mechanical timer to the circuit, but also wanted to get a grip on other appliances that unnecessarily drained electricity. After looking at various X25 and Insteon units, I decide to get a Z-Wave system from Mi Casa Verde called VeraLite. It looked like it had a pretty nice web interface with flexible programming, and could be accessed via my mobile phone. There also seemed to be a nice selection of receptacles, switches, web cameras, door locks, sensors, and other devices that could be controlled from this unit. So I ordered one and several receptacles.
The next task was to find a 220v relay for the water heater. It turns out there is no receptacle or any other Z-wave compatible device that can control a 220v appliance. I did find this Elk 9200 220v relay that could be controlled by a 110v Z-wave receptacle, so I ordered on of those as well. At this point I needed to call in a pro, but opted to call in my father instead. Hehe. The Elk relay was a bit bulky and housed in an unecessarily large white metal lock box. The excessive size turned out to be a blessing, and it was large enough to hold a receptacle box.
We pulled another line from the breaker panel to power the relay, connected the water heater’s line to the other side, and brought in another 110v circuit to power the Z-wave receptacle outlet that controls the 220v relay. Confused yet? Dont worry, we were for a while, too. What we figured would take about two hours turned into a five hour job, but hopefully it’s worth it.
Mi Casa Verde’s MiOS web interface turned out to be not as intuitive as it seemed at first glance, and took about a half hour to figure out. Their docs are not that great, and lack any really helpful examples or explanation of their scenes, triggers and schedule, or at least how they are interconnected. But I set up the heater to come on in the morning, turn off after two hours, turn on again in late afternoon, and turn off again in the evening.
The next step was to find an Android app that works with the VeraLite, and House Buddy turned out to be the winner. I simply logged into my account on Mi Casa Verde’s site, it automatically showed all of my “scenes” and devices. Turning the water heater relay on or off from my HTC One V was almost instantateous.
The next step was to seek out vampires… vampire loads, that is. Vampire loads are devices that use electricity even when they are not in use. The power supplies that come with just about everything we own use electricity all the time, though in recent years they have gotten much more efficient. I pulled out my trusty Kill-A-Watt, as I had done at our old home, and began sleuthing. The technician from Time-Warner Oceanic cable that installed our equipment warned me against using anything to power down their devices for any length of time as the system updates it frequently, and if it were powered down during an update it could disable the unit and require service. A quick check with the Kill-A-Watt showed that all of their devices combined, as well as our Apple Time Machine, cost about $20 a month to operate. Figuring someone is in the house and probably using the Internet about 60% of the time, the cost saved by powering these units off didn’t outweight the inconvenience of having to get a disabled device working again.
My CPAP uses about $5 a month just being plugged in as it has one of those block DC power supplies like many printers do. That will be the next to receive a Z-wave controlled outlet so the power supply will be disconnected during the day. Another nice feature of these receptacles is that they have a button on them that allows you to turn them on if they are off, or off if they are on. Pretty handy. Until I get a computer desk and some of my other equipment online, it doesn’t seem that there is much else worthy of the cost of these recepticles. The electric bill for the first full month in our unit was $127, so I’ll report back when I figure out if this was worth the time and effort we put into doing this.
And thanks, Dad!
Posted in Core Dumps, Sustainability, Technology.
– January 6, 2013
While still a devout Macintosh user, I’m extremely grateful for friends at Microsoft who shepherded this project through to completion, and saw that the work we did stayed embedded as Windows 8 was being developed. I’ll be documenting how to activate the keyboard and type the ‘okina and kahakō later, but if you have Win 8, please feel free to explore and experiment.
And I would like to ask my fellow Macintosh aficionados to refrain from the normal litany of Windows bashing. This is significant development for the language that will help other important projects move forward.
I’m cautiously optimistic that this will be my swan song when it comes to technology and the Hawaiian language. This PR piece went out today from the UH media office.
Kahului, HI — November 8, 2012 — In a major step forward in promoting and perpetuating the Native Hawaiian language, Microsoft’s recent launch of Windows 8 includes support for the Hawaiian language, thanks to a collaborative effort with University of Hawaiʻi faculty.
The Windows 8 operating software includes a Hawaiian keyboard layout in the operating system, many fonts containing the diacritical marks used in the Hawaiian language, and other localized resources such as the ability toshow days of the week and months in Hawaiian. This development was made possible by the joint efforts of staff of Ka Haka ‘Ula O Ke‘elikōlani College of Hawaiian Language at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo and Microsoft.
Keola Donaghy, formerly of Ka Haka ‘Ula O Ke‘elikōlani and now a faculty member in the music department of University of Hawai‘i Maui College, collaborated with programmers in Microsoft’s Local Languages Program for several years to develop these resources and see that they were included inWindows 8. “We’re getting very close to the day that Hawaiian speakers will be able to take for granted the fact that they can simply type in Hawaiian when they buy a new computer, tablet, or smart phone without installing special software,” Donaghy said.
“Providing technology support in a native language is critical to helping people access the tools they need to create better economic opportunities,” said Anthony Salcito, Vice President of Worldwide Education for Microsoft. “Language preservation and support also helps preserve cultural identities for the next generation of learners.”
Keiki Kawae‘ae‘a, a faculty member of Ka Haka ‘Ula O Ke‘elikōlani added, “We are thrilled that Microsoft has recognized the significance of the Hawaiian language to its people, and how important it is for us to be able to use it on our computers. Given the high percentage of personal computers that ship with and run the Windows operating system, this is one of the most significant developments that we’ve made.”
Language support for computer operating systems and programs has historically depended on the number of speakers of the language and perceived market. Major European and Asian languages have been widely supported by software vendors for many years, while speakers of native American, Polynesian, and other indigenous languages have had to depend on customized fonts and keyboards simply to be able to view, type and print the characters used in their languages on personal computers.
However, in recent years major operating system and software vendors such as Microsoft, Google, and Apple Computer, Inc. have recognized the importance of supporting a wider array of languages.
Posted in Apple, Core Dumps, Hawaiian Language Tech, Hawai‘i, Technology, ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i.
– November 8, 2012
It’s official: I will be joining the faculty of the music department at University of Hawai‘i Maui College this summer. Marie and I are going home after 18 wonderful years in East Hawai‘i, and for me, 18 years at UH-Hilo. We leave with lots of great memories, some not so great, but all in all I don’t believe I could have been better prepared for the challenges of my new position, helping to move the Institute of Hawaiian Music forward, and working with the staff and faculty at UH-MC. The adventure begins August 1. E ho‘i ana mākou i ka ‘āina aloha.
Posted in Core Dumps.
– June 20, 2012
My sister June Donaghy Kramin (AKA, Aunty Bug) and her husband Thomas Kramin live in Minnesota. He liked my little TSA Christmas Carol, and challenged me to come up with one for him. He’s an avid hunter, and once I got rolling on this I couldn’t stop. Took all of 10 minutes:
(Sung to the melody of “A Christmas Song”)
Tom’s nuts roasting on a barbeque
‘Cause he pissed off Aunty Bug
He shot at a deer but his aim was untrue
Now there’s one less cat for her to hug
The ground’s too hard for him to dig a hole
So the cat’s just chilling in the barn
It’ll keep until spring, he gives thanks for the cold
And hopes she lets him stay on the farm
He knows that hell he’ll have to pay
How she’ll take it isn’t very hard to say
He puts the kevlar vest upon his chest
And walks toward the house where she’s at rest
Tom sleeps in the barn with a frozen pet
And he will for the rest of his life
They say that an elephant never forgets
And sadly neither does his wife
Posted in Core Dumps, Life In General.
– December 20, 2011
Aloha kākou. Ka Haka ‘Ula O Ke‘elikōlani, our College of Hawaiian Language at UH-Hilo, is having a new building constructed on the UH-Hilo campus. Some of the foundations and concrete columns are already done, and we are anticipating the building’s completion in December of next year. We are having one issue that I would like to get out there and seek some advice and/or help.
As our college functions in Hawaiian, we are very picky about language use in the new building. Most of the office and other signs in the complex will be either Hawaiian-only or perhaps Hawaiian and English, with the Hawaiian being larger in size and prominence. What we are having issue with is the Braille. We want the signs to have Hawaiian in Braille, and include the ‘okina and kahakō. The sub-contractor handling the signs says he cannot manufacture the Braille signs with the diacritic marks, even though they are in the IPA Braille spec. We’ve made numerous inquiries, and cannot find a Braille sign manufacturer that can do this. We need help in finding someone who can make these signs for us. To be clear, these are the hard plastic signs that are found outside of each office and in other areas of the building.
According to the IPA Braille spec, these are the two characters we need for the ‘okina and kahakō:
If there is anyone out there that knows anything about making signage in Braille, or knows someone who might know something about them, please contact me. We can find no prior use of these diacritics in Hawaiian in Braille, but like much of the work we’ve done with technology, we hope that we can blaze a trail for the use of Hawaiian in Braille. Mahalo.
Posted in Core Dumps.
– December 15, 2011
A new iPhone was announced today, the iPhone 4S, and the response to Apple’s press conference was a bit lukewarm. Many were expecting the iPhone 5 and/or iOS5 today. But one of the more exiting developments for us was found on the specification sheet for the phones (tip o’ the cap to Joseph Erb for the heads up): there will be a Hawaiian keyboard and spell-check document included. Yes, we’ve had support for the ‘okina and kahakō in the iPhone and iPad for a while; however, while you can generate them from the soft keyboard by long-holding your finger on a vowel, you could not type it when your device (iPads, mostly) was attached to an external keyboard. With this new development you will be able to do so. As soon as these features show up I’ll discuss them further. I believe all you will need to do to activate the Hawaiian spell-checker is select the Hawaiian keyboard.
Mahalo e ko Apple i ke kāko‘o mau ‘ana i ka ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i!
Posted in Apple, Core Dumps, Hawaiian Language Tech, Hawai‘i, Technology, ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i.
– October 4, 2011
For all of the comments and jokes I post about Guinness on Facebook, I never was much of a beer drinker. When I turned 18 (back when the drinking age was still 18), my best friend bought me a six pack of Heineken. On my 21st birthday, I gave the last four bottles away. Didn’t care for it at. Over the years I tried a number of different beers, mostly of the mass-produced variety, and didn’t care for any of them either. I recall a conversation I had with a bartender in Ireland during our 2002 trip there. He asked what kind of beer people in Hawai‘i drank. I explained that most of the people I knew drank Bud Light. He replied, “No, I asked what kind of *beer* do they drink.” Touché.
During that same trip to Ireland I developed a taste for the Guinness, though it does taste quite different there than anywhere else. Perhaps it was simply the influence of the place. When I returned I found it difficult to enjoy Guinness on tap where it is served. May obviously don’t know hot to pour the perfect pint. Others seemed to do it right, but it still wasn’t the same. Since then I’ve been a bit more adventurous about trying new beers, both at home and while we travel, and try to support micro-brewers where we can. Some of have been great, and others, well, blech! Here are my current faves, in no particular order. Don’t ask me about the citrus-y taste or how it finishes. I’m no beer-tasting expert, just know what I like.
Guinness Extra Stout
While I don’t care at all for the Guinness Draught in a bottle or can, with that funky widget they put in to to aerate the beer, Guinness Extra Stout definitely whets the whistle. Dark and heavy deliciousness. It also has the advantage of being available just about everywhere.
Kona Brewing Fire Rock Pale Ale
My partner in musical crime, Kenneth Makuakāne, brought a six pack of this local wonder to my house on night a few years ago and I was hooked. Has a nice bite but still smooth. It’s also found throughout the state, in stores and on tap in many places.
Sam Adams Boston Lager
I tried Sam years ago and didn’t like it at all. I know it couldn’t have change that much between now and then, so it must be that my taste buds are getting more sophisticated. Like Guinness, widely available and a solid fallback or for a change of pace.
Hawai‘i Nui Brewing Southern Cross
I said I wasn’t going to put things in a particular order, but I have to admit that Southern Cross is my current fave. One of the more flavorful beers I’ve ever encountered, not too light, not too heavy. In the past it’s only been availably seasonally (October through March), but they are now bottling it and it is supposed to be available year round now. I have a growler and tend to fill it up at their tasting room on Kāwili St. in Hilo, but the bottles will do in a pinch.
I’m still not a big beer drinker. A six pack will last me a few weeks, and a filled growler a bit less. Then go weeks or months without. But when I do, I appreciate the wisdom of that Irish bartender a decade ago about Bud Light. To paraphrase Crocodile Dundeee, “that ain’t a beer. These are beers.”
Posted in Core Dumps, Hawai‘i.
– September 17, 2011
With electric costs soaring, we started to take steps to reduce our electric bill as best we could. Several years ago we replaced the bulbs in all of our most-used incandescent light fixtures to CFL (compact florescent lights). We also put most of the electrical devices I know use power when they are plugged in – whether or not they are in use. This included my computer equipment and our media system (TV, satellite receiver/DVD, Wii, audio receiver, etc.). When they are not in use, they are all switched off. It helped us cut down on our power use about 15% at the time.
Recently the bills have been climbing again, so I invested in a Kill-A-Watt Electricity Usage Monitor that lets you plug in any electrical device, and, given your area’s cost per kilowatt hour (in East Hawai‘i it’s currently about $.45 per kwh), it tells you how much your device costs per hour, day, week, month, or year of use. I tested a few devices around the house, and was surprised by a few things.
First, the power supply for my MacBook Pro cost approximately $5.20 per month / $63 per year when plugged in. Plugging in the MacBook Pro did not register any sigificant difference. I had heard for years that these kind of block power supplies do use a significant amount of power when simply plugged in. I have a separate power supply for its monitor, and along with a few other computer related devices, they are all on a switched outlet strip that is turned off when I don’t use them.
The power supply for my Droid X consumes little power, and no difference whether its plugged into the Droid or not. Kept plugged in, it used $1.95 a month or $23.85 a year. My CPAP has a large block power supply that is in turned plugged into the CPAP. Plugged in but not with the CPAP itself not turned on, it only uses $.32/mo or $3.95/yr. Turned on is another story – $1.52/mo. or $19/yr.
I had always been told that televisions used up large amounts of electricity whether turned on or not, so the devices in our entertainment center were the first I put on switched outlets. Our Samsung flatscreen (not LCD) uses on $3.95/mo. or $3.95/yr when not turned on. I was quite surprised it was that low. Turned on, the Kill-A-Meter showed its use as $40/mo. or $484/yr. A nickel per hour of use. That seems more like it.
The biggest suprise so far was our DishNetwork satellite receiver/DVR. Plugged in but turned of it uses a whopping $17/mo. or $204/yr. Turned on it’s just slightly higher – $17.50/mo. or $212/yr. Fortunately this is also on a switch box, though I must admit we occasionally do forget to turn it off at night. I’ll be a bit more diligent about doing so. Powering this unit off means that it takes about five minutes for it to boot up and re-acquire the satellite signal. It’s worth it.
I was also interested to hear about the Google@Home automation system that is under development, and need to keep a closer eye on that. It runs, or will run, Android, so I’m hoping it will allow me to control and program home automation from my phone. Wouldn’t that be a hoot.
Posted in Core Dumps.
– July 29, 2011
Last year we launched a mobile interface for the Hawaiian dictionaries on Ulukau. The system should detect all mobile devices automatically, and for those that it doesn’t, you can simply go to m.wehewehe.org to see the mobile interface.
The one limitation of this system is for Android users: Android’s default font does not have a glyph in the correct location, so Android users see a box instead of the ‘okina. We’ve looked into fixing this, but found that it would be costly to do the recoding necessary to make this work under Ulukau as it currently stands. I have been in contact with people who are trying to address the lack of the ‘okina in Android’s font. For the time being, Android users can use this page to search the dictionaries. The PHP script that drives it parses the returned text and replaces the ‘okina with a single open quote. Visually they are exactly the same, but reside in different locations in the Unicode font specification. iPhone users can use either this new page or the stock mobile interface at m.wehewehe.org.
A big mahalo to UHH webmaster Sunny Walker for putting together this script!
Posted in Core Dumps.
– March 4, 2011
This document shows which fonts on Win 7 have the ‘okina and kahakō characters used in Hawaiian and other Polynesian languages. You’ll find that only the following Windows 7 fonts have the ‘okina and all vowel-kahakō characters (at least in the standard install on our Dell):
Arial, Arial Unicode MS, Calibri, Cambria, Cambria Math, Consolas, Courier New, Lucida Sans Unicode, Meiryo, Meiryo UI, Microsoft Sans Serif, Segoe UI,Segoe UI Light, Segoe UI Semibold, Tahoma, and Times New Roman
Some others have some or all of the vowel-macron characters, but not all. Some fonts have none at all. This document is provided without warranty or guarantee, though if you find any errors I will be happy to correct it.
Posted in Core Dumps.
– March 1, 2011
This is pretty cool. We’ve been using FirstClass software for the past 17 or so years to operate Leokī, which was the first telecommunications server to ever operate completely in a Polynesian or native language within the United States. It took them ages to get Unicode support into it, and just recently they released a FirstClass app for iPhone/iPad/iTouch. It seems to work flawlessly, handling the ‘okina and kahakō with no issues. I love it when a plan comes together.
Unfortunately the app is not localized into Hawaiian like we’ve done for Macintosh and Windows users, but, hey, it’s a start! Now back to trying to get a Hawaiian keyboard into Android OS…
Posted in Apple, Core Dumps.
– December 17, 2010
A few weekends ago I was in Honolulu for the Mele Songwriter’s Conference. On Friday evening, after the conference events wound down, my buddy Tarvin Mākia and I headed to the Tapa Bar at the Hilton Hawaiian to listen to Jerry Santos. Jerry was on a break and talking with some visitors, so I snuck up behind him and waited for him to finished. After we chatted I turned around and there was a Japanese woman in front of me who asked, “Do you know O___ H_____?”
I was flabbergasted, and all I could muster was “Excuse me?” She repeated, “Do you know O___ H_____ who works at M______?”
(To backtrack, I’ve been corresponding with O.H. regarding some Hawaiian technology issues for a few months, and M. represents the name of the company that he works at)
Was she psychic? If she knew I knew O.H., why didn’t she just ask if I was Keola Donaghy? I replied, “Yes, but how would you know that?’
”I’m O.H.’s wife”, she replied.
“Yes,” I replied, “but how in the heck would you know that I knew him?’
Tomo (she finally got around to introducing herself) explained that she was preparing for her trip to Hawai‘i, and her husband O. H. mentioned that he had been corresponding with someone in Hawai‘i about Hawaiian language technology issues. Tomo then went on the internet, looked up my name, and found my website, which included a picture of me. When she was me talking to Jerry near the stage, she noticed the resemblance and decided to find out if I was indeed the fellow that her husband had been corresponding with. Guily as charged.
All in all one of the more interesting encounters I’ve ever had.
Posted in Core Dumps.
– July 24, 2009
In spring 1985 I moved to Hollywood to attend Musicians Institute. On the first day of instruction all of us students (@500) gathered in the school’s performance auditorium for orientation. As a “getting to know you” exercise they had all of us in odd number rows (I was in row 1) turn around and introduce ourselves to the person directly behind us, then stand up and introduce that person to the rest of the class. Yes it took a while.
The fellow sitting behind me was a guitar student named Nick Nolan, about 19 years old. He was also the winner of the Van Halen scholarship that the school offered that year, having beat out several hundred other entries and earning some very complimentary remarks from Mr. Eddie VH himself. But Nick was a very quiet, humble fellow, and turned out to be my best buddy during my all-too-brief stay at the school. Just out of curiosity I did a Google search for Nick to see what he had been up to, and found that he’s authored quite a few instructional books and DVDs on rock guitar. I heard that he was also hired as a teacher at MI, but don’t know if he’s still there or not.
Leaving MI after only three months remains on my short list of big regrets. If I could have a “do-over” year, it would be 1985.
Posted in Core Dumps, Gaeilge, Music.
– June 7, 2009
One day I saw a Facebook status update from my friend Kama Hopkins, noting that he was on the Pali Highway and it was raining. I thought to myself, “why the heck is he updating his Facebook status while he’s driving?”. I wrote a single verse of a song to tease him about it and to remind him not to do such dangerous things (turns out he was stuck in traffic at the time and not speeding down the road). Within about 15 minutes I had 7 verses and posted it on Facebook. Kama (a member of the N? H?k? Hanohano Award-winning group Holunape) then recorded it. Read the rest of the story here.
Posted in Core Dumps.
– April 23, 2009
I posted a few days ago about finding the Hawai‘i region in the iPod Touch, and apparently the system-level support is even better than I thought. I set up a few locations using the Weather application, and found that it displayed the days of the week in Hawaiian as well. Too cool.
What would be cooler would be to have the Hawaiian keyboard, too.
I did find that I could not post this screenshot to this blog using WordPress for iPhone application – I kept getting: “Communication Error. Operation could not be completed (NSXMLParserErrorDomain error 5.” Hmmm.
Posted in Apple, Core Dumps, Hawaiian Language Tech, ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i.
– January 27, 2009
We’ve been trying to get Hawaiian support into the iPhone for a while now. A colleague just stopped by with his (I am still sans-iPhone) and showed me this screen! This is in Settings -> International -> Regions. When selected all of the date and time string in your iPhone will be displayed in Hawaiian, and in the right order, i.e., Po‘alima, 16 Ianuali, 2009.
There is no Hawaiian keyboard yet, but I’m hoping it will magically appear in a future update. Gotta love Apple!
Posted in Core Dumps.
– January 17, 2009
We completed construction of and moved into our home 10 years ago this month. Just a few months after moving it we went to the Humane Society and adopted Sam. As we walked up and down the line of cages no dog really grabbed my attention, but our daughter M?lia pointed out this shaggy fellow. He seemed nice enough, and when I asked what his name is, the person helping us said “Sam”, and the deal was closed. “Sam” was the name of the only dog we ever owned when I was growing up on Maui.
For some time now we’ve had to keep Sam tied up as he found a way out of our property. While it is surrounded on one side by a rock wall with chain-link fence and on the other three with hog wire, we’d wake up most mornings and he’d be nowhere to be found. During his nocturnal excursions he’d head on down the road and kill a distant neighbor’s chickens. We started tying him up, but he figured out how to slip every collar and harness we’ve ever bought for him, hence the “Houdini” nickname.
I finally located a single broken wire in the hog wire which allowed him to squeeze his skinny butt through it into our neighbor’s yard, and from there was nothing between him and freedom. I also rigged up a bar which tightened up our front gates and makes it impossible for him to squeeze through them if someone (eh-hem) forgets to tie the chain tightly enough.
We didn’t tie him up last night and to our delight he was still in the yard this morning (though he could get out easily he never seemed to figure out how to get back in to the yard). Hopefully his nightly romps are history and he’ll be happier not being tied up.
Posted in Core Dumps.
– January 5, 2009
Today was a state holiday in Hawai‘i, but I was in the office trying to upgrade Leok?, our FirstClass server, along with our other techie. Everything seemed to go fine, took four hours or so to back up the post office (where all user and conference data is stored) and migrate it to a new Mac Pro. There we discovered that the administrator account was borked. After a few hours on the phone with a consultant we use on the mainland, we decided to go back to our backup of the system and try again next week after we figure out what is wrong with and fix the administrator account.
So when was the last time you wasted 12 hours working on a perfectly good holiday?
Posted in Core Dumps.
– August 16, 2008
I thought we did a really good job of cleaning house and getting rid of a lot of things that we’d likely never use again before taking off for Aotearoa in January. We sold a lot of things in a garage sale, some went to the Salvation Army, and anything left over was taken to the dump.
Our perspective on clutter changed a bit after our experience in New Zealand. We only brought those things that we felt we needed to survive, and likewise we bought few things that would need to be sold or given away before we left. Our house remained relatively clutter-free for those six months.
It didn’t take us very long after we returned to East Hawai‘i that we realized how much clutter was still left around the house. M?lia had stored two boxes of clothes and miscellaneous items that she was going to unpack when we returned. She sorted through them and we ended up giving away the good stuff to the Salvation Army and throwing away almost everything else. Marie and I have also been going through the house and getting rid of a lot of things, and hopefully we’ll be able to maintain a clutter-free existence for a while. There are still a few boxes to go through to get there, though.
Posted in Core Dumps, Gaeilge, Hawai‘i, Music.
– August 6, 2008
