Will the insistence of photographic evidence cost N. Ireland a chance at peace? If it does, there are a few politicians whose testicles should be removed, pickled and photographed for posterity.
Inaugural Hawaiian Grammy Finalists.
The National Academy of Recording Arts and Scienes has announced the finalists for the 2005 Grammy Awards, and it includes the finalists for the first ever “Hawaiian Grammy.” Nothing really surprise, though a bit of disappointment at the failure of a few outstanding releases to make the cut. More to come on NahenaheNet.
Night Thoughts of a Field Linguist.
Kevin Roddy is a friend and former colleague at UH-Hilo who is pursuing a Ph.d. in Linguistics, and is doing field research on the Satawalese language. It’s very interesting to follow his work on the web.
Talking a Language Back From the Brink.
The Chronicle Of Higher Education presents a nice feature on our faculty and our efforts to keep the Hawaiian language alive. Most of the people mentioned in the article have been at it a lot longer than I have, and I’m proud to work with them.
I set up a blog on the MSN Spaces system, and so far so good.
It seems to handle the Unicode characters necessary for Hawaiian with no problem. If I can get them to allow us to do a Hawaiian localization of the user interface it just might work for us.
I tried to post a comment on Mike Torres’ MSN Spaces blog, but got an error.
It said “This comment contains language that is prohibited. Please delete the prohibited language, and then click Publish Comment.” Here is the content of my post… “Aloha Mike, mahalo (thanks) for the reply on Scoble’s blog. I’m very interested in providing a Hawaiian translation of the MSN Spaces user interface if your team would allow me. I’m an Assistant. Professor of Hawaiian Studies at UH-Hilo and work with our Hawaiian Language Center on all tech issues. i’ve translated Netscape Communicator, the FirstClass Client, Appleworks and other apps into Hawaiian over the years. We’re looking at setting up a Hawaiian MovableType…
A sad day for the natural world.
As this article mentions, while many species become exctinct each year, it’s rare when we know the exact day that it happens. This may be the case for the po’ouli, one of the many native Hawaiian honeycreeper species that have become extinct or on their way there with the help of man. According to statics I’ve seen, Hawai’i is home to nearly 75% of the endangered plant and animal species in the US.
I have many things to be grateful for this year, but one stands out above all others.
That after 9 months in Baghdad, my son is still alive and well. I’m praying that I’ll be able to say that again next year.
Irish May Become An Official EU Language!
It was a while in coming, but I’m sure advocates of the language are celebrating this news, that Ireland will seek official status for Irish Gaelic. EU treaties, including the new European Constitution, have been translated into Irish, and it will also mean that European citizens may contact the EU institutions using Irish and expect a reply in the language.
MacFamilyTree 4 Rocks.
I highly recommend this software for any genealogy buffs who use Mac OS X. It was at version 2 when I first bought it. It was pretty good, but had a few glitches and interface issues then. It has progresses solidly since then. I was able to import a fairly large GEDCOM file from someone who had extensive history on one branch of our family tree with no problem at all, and it generates great looking HTML. It’s only $45, and major updates are $20.