Tom Hanks likes typewriters...

I've been interested in Gaelic typewriters for a long time, and as many of you know, have made digital versions available.

An article in the Belfast Telegraph as well as this follow-up are interesting. I wonder if Mr McIlwaine managed to get one for Mr Hanks.

You can see a part of Hanks' typewriter collection in this endorsement for Barack Obama made round about May 2008.

Post in haste, repent at leisure....

How splendid is it that President-Elect Obama's team has already created change.gov. Looks as though the "new" technology is going to be a part of things to come.

Alas, creating the page so quickly didn't preclude an amusing error. I decided to subscribe to the site to see what they'd be sending out. I put in my e-mail address, but no zip code as we have no postcodes in Ireland. That causes an error, and a page comes up asking you to put in some more data. (On that page you can change the country of residence for instance.)

The error involves placeholder text which is still visible... I'm sure it will be gone soon, but here's a screen shot:

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One friend to whom I pointed this out wondered if the page had been attacked. But no: it's just place-holder text.

All hail President-Elect Obama!

On a quick trip to Vienna to work on encoding the Teuthonista phonetic alphabet as well as Old Hungarian, I went to bed at about 01:00 on the night of the U.S. Election. At 06:30 I woke and pretty much rushed to the TV to turn on BBC World News.

And lo! But the election had been called for Barack Obama!

I'm pretty much a bellwether myself, but the President-Elect's leadership really does inspire.

Indeed, for the first time, I understand what all the fuss about Kennedy was about.