James Tauber's Blog 2006/06
Update
June has probably been my biggest writing drought since I started blogging—mostly because of helping lead a major software release at work. The good news is that mValent Integrity 4.0 has gone gold. I'm also on my way back to Australia.
Both these things mean you can expect more posts soon. I have a lot of updates to give so I'll do a post per project over the next couple of weeks.
Incidentally, this is my first post on my new 17" MacBook Pro. I'm loving the speed and screen size increase over my 12" PowerBook.
by jtauber : Created on June 30, 2006 : Last modified June 30, 2006 : 0 comments (permalink)
Apple Store Woes
I wanted to buy a new MacBook Pro while here in the US but I can't buy it from the online store. The US store won't accept an Australian billing address and the Australian store won't ship to a US address.
Today, I went into the Apple Store nearby but was told they only sell the default configuration (I want more memory and the faster drive) and for anything else I should go to the online store.
UPDATE: Just got off the phone with Apple. Telephone sales has the same problem with billing country vs shipping country but the guy told me I could pay by wire transfer so I've now been able to place my order.
UPDATE (2006-06-23): The estimated delivery in US was after my departure date, so I rang Apple a couple of days ago to switch to two-day shipping. However, instead of bringing the delivery date closer, it got pushed out even further because, after changing the shipping method, the estimated ship time got postponed six days. I rang Apple last night and they assured me it would ship sooner than that and, in fact, within the next 12 hours. Sure enough, when I woke up this morning, it had shipped from Shanghai.
by jtauber : Created on June 17, 2006 : Last modified June 23, 2006 : Categories mac : 0 comments (permalink)
György Ligeti Dies
György Ligeti, perhaps my favourite 20th century composer, died earlier this week.
Like many people, I was introduced to the music of Ligeti in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. I still remember pouring over scores of his Requiem, Lux Aeterna and Atmosphères as a high school student. He inspired my composition Nebula from that period, which is the only composition of mine so far to be played on the radio. The movement from his Musica Ricercata used in Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut is one of the most chilling uses of music in film.
I find myself saddened that I will never get to meet the man.
by jtauber : Created on June 15, 2006 : Last modified June 15, 2006 : 1 comment (permalink)
The apostrophe in Hawai'i
Previously, I've talked about the scifi/fantasty love of the apostrophe and how, in most cases it's meaningless but in some cases can be useful in separating vowel sounds.
It certainly looks cool which is why I use it in the word Hawai'i where I thought it made sense to separate the diphthong ai from i. In printed (Ancient) Greek you'd similarly mark the separation with a diaeresis: Hawaiï.
My girlfriend is in Hawai'i at the moment and, on the phone, I told her that I like to spell it with an apostrophe. "Oh," she said, "they always spell it that way here".
Turns out the reason is that it is pronounced as a glottal stop and the glottal stop in many Polynesian languages is distinctive: its existence or absence changes the meaning. So "Hawaii" is a different word to "Hawai'i".
Also, it's not an apostrophe, it's actually called an 'okina and is ʻ or Unicode U+02BB which is more like an opening 6 quote and may or not work in your browser.
by jtauber : Created on June 4, 2006 : Last modified June 4, 2006 : Categories linguistic_observations : 0 comments (permalink)
The L Bug in MSN Messenger
I was IMing with my sister Leonie when MSN messenger beeped and refused to display what she had just written to me. I asked her to repeat it. Beep again. Repeat. Beep again.
I got her to describe what she'd just typed and it turned out it was the word 'netball'.
Why would 'netball' cause MSN messenger to freak out?
Well, after about half-an-hour of trying various things, we narrowed down the bug to any time a lower-case L ends the line.
It works fine if I type it to her but not her to me. She's on Windows, I'm on Mac so it might be a bug in the Mac client. I've never noticed it before, though. Perhaps not many lines in an IM end with lower-case L.
by jtauber : Created on June 3, 2006 : Last modified June 3, 2006 : 4 comments (permalink)