Hello, New World
Our guest columnist is Murray Evans of the Huffington Post.
Nine-year-old Lauren Hummingbird wants a cell phone for Christmas – and not just any old phone, but an iPhone. Such a request normally would be met with skepticism by her father, Cherokee Nation employee Jamie Hummingbird.
He could dismiss the obvious reasons a kid might want an iPhone, except for this – he’s a proud Cherokee and buying his daughter the phone just might help keep the tribe’s language alive.
Nearly two centuries after a blacksmith named Sequoyah converted Cherokee into its own unique written form, the tribe has worked with Apple to develop Cherokee language software for the iPhone, iPod and – soon – the iPad. Computers used by students – including Lauren – at the tribe’s language immersion school already allow them to type using Cherokee characters.
After Stinquer Redmanlaw brought this to our attention Friday, we looked into the “international keyboards” offered on our iPad. Yup. There it is.
Apple Teams Up To Use iPhone To Save Cherokee Language [HuffPo, 10/23/2010]
Cherokee Artist Roy Boney Jr. Reflects on Steve Jobs [Indian Country Today, via RML]
/Threadjack/ Much to my delight, Netflix has strangled Qwikster in its cradle.
@mellbell: My wife got an email to this effect and said “Do they know what they’re doing over there?”
Despite being an ex-Netflix user, I still got that email. I haven’t seen a company flail this badly since New Coke.
@mellbell@Dodgerblue: @IanJ: To put their fail in perspective, I overheard my 11 y.o. and his friend discussing whether it was time to switch over to Blockbuster streaming or not.
@Nabisco: I rent movies from humans.
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/business/Video-Library-finds-new-downtown-home
@redmanlaw: I used to rent movies from humans, but (a) that was in Eugene, and (b) the local indie humans in SF didn’t have near the selection as Not Qwikster.
But then, after a decade or so, there’s not much backlog left to mine. I exhausted streaming before they jacked the price, and I’m down to a DVD a week because that’s all that interests me.
@nojo: I saw The Debt in the theater last week, Hanna on DVD midweek, The Ides of March on Saturday and the JFK Mad Men episode somewhere in there (besides getting firewood, installing a door and various other shit.) I still want to see Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Real Steel. Son of RML really liked Contaigen, but I’ll wait for the DVD. (Real Steel was sold out.) Oh, and most of Tron: Legacy in TV in bits and pieces on TV over the weekend. That movie fucking sucks except for the look and the Daft Punk score.
As for the classics, I skipped Scarface and V for Vendetta on TV tonight but I’ll watch Metropolis, Casino or Goodfellas every time they come on the tube. It was cool to watch Casio one Thanksgiving while Mrs RML was putting dinner together. Also, Die Hard is totally appropriate as a Christmas movie.
@redmanlaw: Tron: Legacy is great in 3D. And when Silent Creative Partner manages to stuff eight cans of brew in his backpack.
@nojo: Regular size or pints in cans? Lots of tops popping at the George Clooney movie this weekend.
@nojo: There’s always “The Battleship Potemkin.”
@redmanlaw: I better get to bed before I pour another martini and settle in with “I Walked With a Zombie.”
ADD: This film is exceptionally well lit. /geek
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