Jim DeLaHunt, world-ready

Redemption, and disappointment

Jim DeLaHunt — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 06:00:50 +0000

Obama was elected US President yesterday, and there was a huge celebration at a bar in Yaletown near our house (see the photo). It felt great to cheer the good news. Ducky and I have both been weeping from time to time over the last few days as the news sinks in.

This is about more than politics. This is a step towards redemption.

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“The Big Empty” (fivethirtyeight.com)

Jim DeLaHunt — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 23:33:00 +0000

Wow. This is so good I have to pass it on. Sean Quinn posted a marvellous article, “The Big Empty“, at FiveThirtyEight.com. Part of what I like is that it elicited one of the best blog comments I’ve read in a long time:

Frankly, I’m appalled at the blatant journalism that is evident in this story. It’s almost as though you’ve gone around the country actually observing what is going on in terms of the ground game, and reported on it. Typical lefties. (Sedi)

Quinn has been visiting McCain and Obama field offices across the country for some weeks, and reporting how deserted the McCain offices were and how active the Obama offices. Today he put it all together, with a devastating sequence of more than a dozen photos of empty (and closed) McCain offices from New Mexico to North Carolina. Check it out.

Silicon Valley says No to Proposition 8

Jim DeLaHunt — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 23:18:51 +0000

You know I am against California’s Proposition 8, which eliminates marriage, and I’m a Silicon Valley boy. I was really pleased to see over 50 Silicon Valley leaders take a public stand against Proposition 8, in the form of a full-page ad in the San Jose Mercury News today (October 31, 2008). One name really meant a lot to me: that of Chuck Geschke, co-founder and co-Chairman of Adobe Systems, where I worked for 16 years.

I heard about the ad in news stories, but I couldn’t find it on the newspaper’s site. (It’s funny that newspaper ads don’t make it to their websites. You’d think that for expensive full-page public statement ads, it would be part of the package.) But Techcrunch carried an image: “Silicon Valley Stands United Against Prop. 8“. (Oh, and the No on 8 campaign has a press release with the text.)

With respect to all the other notable people in the ad, Chuck Geschke’s name means the most to me. Like many Adobe-ites in the 1990’s, I learned about ethical, successful business from Chuck and from John Warnock, and from Adobe Systems, the company they founded. I was just a worker bee, but their ethics and culture permeated the place.

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Funny that McCain and Obama didn’t mention Canada or NATO

Jim DeLaHunt — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 07:13:52 +0000

I don’t really want to start commentary about the US Presidential race, since so many other people are already saying so much. But I do want to mention one thing that struck me, as a resident of Canada.

In last Friday’s debate (Sept 26, 2008) between John McCain and Barack Obama, they talked about the outlook for the war in Afghanistan. They both described it in purely US terms, as if the US was fighting that war alone.

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Unicode Doggerel (”I am the very model of a modern text encoding scheme”)

Jim DeLaHunt — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:05:31 +0000

This was fun! On Tuesday night (9. Sept 2008), there was a tribute to the 20th anniversary of Unicode at the 32nd Internationalization and Unicode Conference. I wrote this in a creative fury on Monday afternoon. The anniversary celebration was at an evening reception. It was very funny and enjoyable. Several other people contributed amusing tributes. My song appeared to be well-received. I hope you enjoy it.

Unicode Doggerel

(Sung to the tune of “I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General”, by Gilbert and Sullivan.)

I am the very model of a modern text encoding scheme,
a million scalars, astral planes, and UTFs like six-&-teen,
and UAX and UTR, collation, bidi, properties,
I am the very model of a modern text encoding scheme.

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Jim is a panelist at the Internet Marketing Conference, Vancouver, Sept 12

Jim DeLaHunt — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 07:13:33 +0000

I’m going to be a panelist at the Internet Marketing Conference Vancouver 2008, which runs from September 11-12, 2008. The panel is called “Writing for the Web“. It is full of experts on writing — and then there’s me. I’ll be approaching from the topic crosswise, talking about international and multilingual issues. In other words, how your writing is affected if it will be translated, or is part of a multinational project.

The panelists are an interesting bunch. I’m looking forward to meeting them. They are:

Crawford Kilian, author of “Writing for the Web 3.0“. My spouse sweated bullets to write two books, and they shared content. Crof has written 30.
Elizabeth Southall, Powerhouse Copy. Just reading her website makes my jaw drop. The lady knows her copy.
Tom McNamara, McNamara Communications. Writing for the web since 1995, which is about as long as we’ve had the web.
Monique Trottier, Boxcar Marketing, which is a Vancouver-based internet marketing company.
Moderator: Michael Straker, VKI Studios, which is an Internet marketing and website usability firm.
Jim DeLaHunt, Jim DeLaHunt & Associates. That would be me.

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Simple script-detection algorithm for font switching?

Jim DeLaHunt — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:00:51 +0000

Does anybody know of a simple script-detection algorithm (or heuristic) for font switching?

This came up with one of my clients. Suppose you have a guest book on your web site, and seven visitors left you the following inspiring messages:

すべての人間は、生まれながらにして自由であり、かつ、尊厳と権利とについて平等である。
人人生而自由,在尊严和权利上一律平等。
Semua orang dilahirkan merdeka dan mempunyai martabat dan hak-hak yang sama.
人人生而自由，在尊嚴和權利上一律平等。
Alle Menschen sind frei und gleich an Würde und Rechten geboren.
‘Ολοι οι άνθρωποι γεννιούνται ελεύθεροι και ίσοι στην αξιοπρέπεια και τα δικαιώματα.
모든 인간은 태어날 때부터 자유로우며 그 존엄과 권리에 있어 동등하다.

(It looks like your visitors all read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights courtesy of the UDHR in Unicode project).

Now suppose you are so touched that you want to lay out all seven messages in a PDF file, and print it out as a booklet. You have a beautiful layout template, and various complementary fonts: Latin script, Japanese, Korean, simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Greek script.

Which font to you apply to each message? More importantly, is there a simple heuristic by which software can make the choice? (More after the jump.)

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CASARA BC, the missing recruiting page

Jim DeLaHunt — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 04:53:59 +0000

One of my community service projects is volunteering with CASARA BC, the Civil Air Search and Rescue Association in British Columbia. They are a great bunch of folks providing a very important service. But they are hidden in a Romulan cloaking device as far as the Web is concerned. When I tried to join them, I couldn’t find a single page that described the basics of who what where when how and why they are and do. So I’m writing it, and here it is. I hope this will be helpful to others, at least until CASARA BC gets an official recruiting page up.

Or until the one obscure BC Civil Air Search and Rescue Association (CASARA BC) page can be discovered by a straightforward search. (A sneakily search-engine friendly link to it is part of my contribution.)

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Why we’ll match your donation [to No on Prop 8, California]

Jim DeLaHunt — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:47:12 +0000

My spouse and I are proud to have been part of this step to fight the anti-marriage Proposition 8 constitutional amendment in California. This was sent out today (July 22, 2008) to Equality California’s email list. I’ve edited it slightly to fit the blog format.

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:58:38 -0700
From: “Jim & Kate DeLaHunt for Equality California”
Subject: Why we’ll match your donation today

Ten years ago, we decided to take the plunge.
We got married.

Standing at our side were our friends, Rich and Chris. I don’t think we would have gotten married without their good example. Their household was filled with love and laughter, and the just and equitable relationship they built was an inspiration for us.

Jim & Kate DeLaHunt

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Jim presents to Joomla Day Vancouver this Saturday, June 14, 2008

Jim DeLaHunt — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:50:54 +0000

There is a Joomla! Day in Vancouver this Saturday. I’ll be giving a brief presentation, on jdlh.com as an example of a multilingual Joomla! website, with human-friendly URLs.

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