Our family met on Friday evening to discuss our various return options, and we decided to catch a flight out of Dunedin on Saturday, June 28. We’ll spend two days in Sydney, Australia, then head back home to Hawai‘i on June 30. June 29 is my birthday and June 30 is Marie’s, so it will be a nice last present for us before we return home and deal with all of the things that we were able to put off until our return. M?lia wanted us to leave on the 27th so that she didn’t have to perform a hula…
Keola’s del.icio.us bookmarks for May 23rd
These are my links for May 23rd: iPhone line forms at Apple's flagship for absolutely no reason – So word on the street (literally) is that a large number of people are queuing in line outside of Apple's flagship store on 5th Avenue in New York City (see above) — keep in mind the Cube is open 24 hours a day. High gas prices drive farmer to switch to mules – High gas prices have driven a Warren County farmer and his sons to hitch a tractor rake to a pair of mules to gather hay from their fields. Son…
Keola’s del.icio.us bookmarks for May 21st – May 22nd
These are my links for May 21st through May 22nd: WordPress – Improve SEO and user experience: 10 Useful Tips – Here are my tips for improving your WordPress blog once it’s installed Daily New Zealand News: New Zealand pilots run out of fuel; prayers answered – When two New Zealand pilots ran out of fuel in a microlight airplane they offered prayers and were able to make an emergency landing in a field, coming to rest right next to a sign reading, "Jesus is Lord." Universities Baffled By Massive Surge In RIAA Copyright Notices – n the last 10…
Last Week Of Instruction at Otago
One of the more enjoyable aspects of our semester in Dunedin was the opportunity for me to act as a teaching assistant in the Department of Music. The classes here are structured a bit differently than back home. Monday is the big instructional day, and the class instructor, Shelley Brunt, would lecture on the week’s topic. On Tuesday, small groups of students would make presentations on the week’s set reading, and their fellow students assessed their work. On Wednesday, Shelley and I would split the class in half for tutorials – she would take half to a different room, and…
How Not To Treat A Customer, Part Douche
Frank Prendergast in Cork documents his experience at a Vodafone retail store when he attempted to collect his repaired mobile. He forgot to bring the power supply for the loaner mobile phone they gave him, and the manager refused to give him his cell back with the promise that he return the power supply. Apparently Frank is a heavy mobile user who spends over €200 each month. In doing the math, the store manager‘s crappy attitude cost Vodafone €1704 and a million dollars worth of bad publicity.
Keola’s del.icio.us bookmarks for May 16th – May 18th
These are my links for May 16th through May 18th: Does the ‘Real’ Ireland Still Exist? – “Over the years, I have spent a lot of time in the western counties of Galway and Clare, and if nothing else, this is what I have gleaned: Ireland can be that place you missed as you traveled around Ireland, looking for Ireland.” (From the New York Ti Leslie Wilcox Blogs: John De Fries' Always-Full Glass – Hawaii Island businessman John De Fries always has the same answer to the "Is the glass half-empty or half-full?" question. Read Leslie's post for the answer.
Steve Cisler Passes
I was deeply saddened to learn of the passing of my good friend Steve Cisler today. Steve was a champion of community networking for many years and helped countless individuals and communities, including our Hawaiian language community. The director of our Hawaiian Language Center and I met Steve at a community networking conference in Honolulu in 1993, when we were looking to start a Hawaiian language bulletin-board service for the immersion schools. He showed us FirstClass, the software we used to create Leoki, and continue to use to this day. He lent us (in his capacity with the Apple Library…
He’s Cute, But Can He Speak Hawaiian?
But Does Google Translate Team Answer Emails? No.
This blog post espoused the additions of several new languages to Google Translate. Congratulations to advocates and speakers of those languages. What the post doesn’t say that when someone representing an endangered, indigenous language found in the political US, like Hawaiian, contacts the team offering to do a translation for that language no response ever comes. I have sent an email using the coordinator’s email address as found on the Translate In Your Language page at least a dozen times expressing the interest of our College of Hawaiian Language in providing a translation, and have not gotten a single reply.…
Davey Jones Has Soul… But A Different Kind
I’m not embarassed to say that I loved the Monkees when I was in grade school (though Scott may be embarassed for me). Davey gets a lesson in rhythm from pianist Charlie Smalls: