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Wow... It's very rare that a HN post intersects so closely with my current work... I say, as I look out the window into downtown Iqaluit. Interestingly enough

Wow... It's very rare that a HN post intersects so closely with my current work... I say, as I look out the window into downtown Iqaluit. Interestingly enough newer versions of Windows allows users to easily add support for both Inuktitut Syllabic and Latin languages, I have yet to see a physical keyboard. What irks me the most, is the lack of server-side language support for cloud offerings, on-premise Enterprise products, etc. If Microsoft can support Klingon for translation purposes, then just maybe they could support Inuktitut a little better.

aerovistae 7y ago
Holy fuck I had to look that one up on the map....you are OUT there. I realized when I saw the map that I was just reading about that place the other day! That's incredible. I honestly never thought in my whole life I would ever meet someone who had been there, even on the internet. I would be super interested to hear ANYTHING you have to share about that place. What it's like getting there, being there, what you're doing there, the people, the life, anything.
- jjkaczor 7y ago
  It's a very interesting place - the people are welcoming and friendly (well YMMV, but if you are willing to listen and understand the local challenges and culture - then you will have a good time). Food security is a challenge for people who do live here, due to the general high-costs. Interesting fact - at one point in time, Amazon Prime shipping to Iqaluit was 2-3 times the national average for Canada (and that probably increased with their purchase of Whole Foods - items, which may be most expensive through Amazon for the rest of Canada can often be cheaper than purchased 'locally') - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/iqaluit-amazon-prime-1.4193665 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/iqaluit-amazon-prime-1.... The landscape is beautiful (personally, I am a sucker for mountainous/rocky terrain and ocean) - it is above the Arctic circle, so - no trees! The weather is currently really nice - a little rainy today, but no snow - the big freeze hasn't happened yet. Myself, I find that even during winter months, the cold is not unworkable - as technically the local climate is considered a polar desert zone, so the reduced humidity helps. Myself, I don't live here - but I do come up every 2-3 months, primarily working on Microsoft-stack products and technologies. Most often, one gets here from a flight from Ottawa - almost 3-hours in duration. (And hey... you still get a hot meal in-flight!) However, it is possible that you might fly in from another territory or community - during the summer there are some flights to/from Greenland. All data/communications connectivity currently occurs over satellite connections (your flight lands, your phone connects to a local "LTE" network, but that is then bridged back over satellite automatically - no extra charges ;-)) - this can be challenging during weather events, heavy rain, snow or fog can often interfere. There are plans for undersea fiber, but that will take a few years - the upcoming newer LEO satellite networks will bridge the gap until that arrives.
  - aerovistae 7y ago
    Why does your work require you to be up there? Consulting?
  - jcranmer 7y ago
    Do you have any recommendations for people who want to visit it? One of the reasons I have a curiosity about learning Inuktitut was its different writing system, so the Inuit officially moving away from it saddens me.
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      Not OP but: Stay at the Airbnb, there’s one run by the only parole officer in Nunavut. Check out each of the restaurants and the Nunavut brewing company ^_^ check out Sylvia Grinnel Park, walk down to Apex and the old HBC outpost. I hear prices went up at the museum, but there’s a fantastic local art scene, and Janet Armstrong is a great local artist. You can always hang out at the restaurant at the Frobisher and get better deals directly from the artists. Watch out for airfares, they’re crazy high, $1200-1600 usually round trip on Canadian North out of Ottawa, but they partner with Aeroplan and with enough advance planning Aeroplan only charges 7500mi + $30 each way, and you can transfer from AMEX Membership Rewards. [1] [1] https://travelupdate.boardingarea.com/first-air-and-canadian-north-merger-and-redeeming-aeroplan/ https://travelupdate.boardingarea.com/first-air-and-canadian...
      - jjkaczor 7y ago
        Thanks for replying (OP here - I have been "heads down"), yes - have had a friend stay at the Airbnb, he loved it. (Better internet than at the 2 hotels) Oh - and the art is amazing - and yes, when at the Frobisher, local artists will always be showing their work for you to buy directly, but there are stores as well. Also - make sure you tour the Legislative Assembly (when open) - https://www.assembly.nu.ca/faq https://www.assembly.nu.ca/faq Come in the Winter if you like snow - come in July/August if you want to get out on the water or like rocky hiking. Get some coffee at the Black Heart Cafe - https://www.facebook.com/BlackHeartCafe/ https://www.facebook.com/BlackHeartCafe/ There are about 4-5 good restaurants, 2 attached to the current hotels, but I also recommend "Yummy Shawarma" and "Big Racks BBQ". Something interesting for the HN crowd - a new hotel is going up, built from modular shipping-container sized units - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/iqaluit-hotel-rooms-built-in-shanghai-china-1.5212876 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/iqaluit-hotel-rooms-bui...
imglorp 7y ago
> I have yet to see a physical keyboard The custom keycap business is booming. It shouldn't be too hard to make a batch of physical keyboards and then a software map to support it. There was just a story last month about some guys standardizing the writing for an African language, including getting its own Unicode set finally, and the Microsoft guys helping to to support it.
- jarmitage 7y ago
  > keycap business is booming If you have any links related to this I would love to read more!
  - imglorp 7y ago
    You might find out this world overlaps with gamers and novelty mechanical keyboard people. Check out a search like "mechanical keycaps custom artwork", eg here's one - http://www.maxkeyboard.com/custom-art-icon-or-text-cherry-mx-keycaps.html http://www.maxkeyboard.com/custom-art-icon-or-text-cherry-mx... Maybe give these guys a ring and see if they can recommend who they work with for non-Latin caps: https://mechanicalkeyboards.com https://mechanicalkeyboards.com And also hang out on https://www.reddit.com/r/keyboards https://www.reddit.com/r/keyboards and /mechanicalkeyboards.
  - PowerfulWizard 7y ago
    I haven't tried this personally, but these ppl appear to be able to print anything on the keys: https://www.wasdkeyboards.com/ https://www.wasdkeyboards.com/ Some random examples: http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/index.php/products/make/wasd-87-key-arabic-noto-custom-mechanical-keyboard.html http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/index.php/products/make/wasd-87... http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/index.php/products/make/104-key-carnival-cherry-mx-keycap-set.html http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/index.php/products/make/104-key...
    - imglorp 7y ago
      Not the keycap thing, but I can give a +1 to the WASD company. Just bought a CODE model and very happy with their customer attention.
w457uiw4gftyi 7y ago
> What irks me the most, is the lack of server-side language support for cloud offerings, on-premise Enterprise products, etc. If Microsoft can support Klingon for translation purposes, then just maybe they could support Inuktitut a little better. I've noticed that in terms of language support in general. Of course, languages with Western and/or wealthy populations seem to have better support. In Elasticsearch, I can set up a field for Irish or Latvian or Basque analysis out of the box (each with ~1 million speakers or fewer). But Zulu or Uzbek or Malay (each with 10 million+ speakers), and sorry, no support.
- jcranmer 7y ago
  Part of this may come down to corpus availability. The EU requires that much of its official document production be translated in the official language of every member country (which would include Irish and Latvian). With essentially bilingual translation pairs, it's much easier to feed the data into machine translation; and the need to feed this translation machine for official translation also means it's relatively easy to contract out translation work if you need to.
100percent 7y ago
Hey - nice to see someone else from up there. Was born there in 1970s.
52-6F-62 7y ago
What do you do up there? This whole thing fascinates me. I studied a small amount of linguistics in university and have long been in love with Inuit artwork so several years back I started work on a typeface that loosely emulated the syllabic glyphs for the Roman alphabet. http://cng.rockylaurentian.info/ http://cng.rockylaurentian.info/ If it’s of any worth to anyone I might be able to dig up the source. Not sure.
- jjkaczor 7y ago
  Nice typeface. Myself, I am Microsoft-stack consultant. (SharePoint, Dynamics, Office 365, Azure, .NET, etc.)
zamadatix 7y ago
Support for a toy conlang in a translator made with the support of enthusiasts developing it via a partner program is not really comparable to expecting paid services (i.e. needs real support) to support a language with less than 5,000 monolinguals on their own.
dghughes 7y ago
My dad has visited Iqaluit on the Coast Guard ship Earl Grey and Narwhal. Nice to see a comment from someone in northern Canada (I'm in PEI). I love languages Canada is amazing there are so many languages here it should be a priority to support their use. That's a very good point you made about Klingon being supported but not actual languages. I was talking to a friend of mine who is Mi'kmaq about Linux. I said maybe it supported his language but I guess it's more of a ADLaM is another language that has had a rough history but eventually recognition. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20702404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20702404
arcticbull 7y ago
I spent a few weeks there every year, my mom goes out there for audiology rotations and it’s a great excuse for me to see more of my home country and family at the same time (I’m in California). I’m thinking of trekking out to Pang next time. Congrats on the new restaurant opening, that’s a big deal ^_^ ill be sure to let you know next time I’m in town haha

aerovistae 7y ago

Holy fuck I had to look that one up on the map....you are OUT there. I realized when I saw the map that I was just reading about that place the other day! That's incredible. I honestly never thought in my whole life I would ever meet someone who had been there, even on the internet. I would be super interested to hear ANYTHING you have to share about that place. What it's like getting there, being there, what you're doing there, the people, the life, anything.

jjkaczor 7y ago
It's a very interesting place - the people are welcoming and friendly (well YMMV, but if you are willing to listen and understand the local challenges and culture - then you will have a good time). Food security is a challenge for people who do live here, due to the general high-costs. Interesting fact - at one point in time, Amazon Prime shipping to Iqaluit was 2-3 times the national average for Canada (and that probably increased with their purchase of Whole Foods - items, which may be most expensive through Amazon for the rest of Canada can often be cheaper than purchased 'locally') - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/iqaluit-amazon-prime-1.4193665 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/iqaluit-amazon-prime-1.... The landscape is beautiful (personally, I am a sucker for mountainous/rocky terrain and ocean) - it is above the Arctic circle, so - no trees! The weather is currently really nice - a little rainy today, but no snow - the big freeze hasn't happened yet. Myself, I find that even during winter months, the cold is not unworkable - as technically the local climate is considered a polar desert zone, so the reduced humidity helps. Myself, I don't live here - but I do come up every 2-3 months, primarily working on Microsoft-stack products and technologies. Most often, one gets here from a flight from Ottawa - almost 3-hours in duration. (And hey... you still get a hot meal in-flight!) However, it is possible that you might fly in from another territory or community - during the summer there are some flights to/from Greenland. All data/communications connectivity currently occurs over satellite connections (your flight lands, your phone connects to a local "LTE" network, but that is then bridged back over satellite automatically - no extra charges ;-)) - this can be challenging during weather events, heavy rain, snow or fog can often interfere. There are plans for undersea fiber, but that will take a few years - the upcoming newer LEO satellite networks will bridge the gap until that arrives.
- aerovistae 7y ago
  Why does your work require you to be up there? Consulting?
- jcranmer 7y ago
  Do you have any recommendations for people who want to visit it? One of the reasons I have a curiosity about learning Inuktitut was its different writing system, so the Inuit officially moving away from it saddens me.
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    Not OP but: Stay at the Airbnb, there’s one run by the only parole officer in Nunavut. Check out each of the restaurants and the Nunavut brewing company ^_^ check out Sylvia Grinnel Park, walk down to Apex and the old HBC outpost. I hear prices went up at the museum, but there’s a fantastic local art scene, and Janet Armstrong is a great local artist. You can always hang out at the restaurant at the Frobisher and get better deals directly from the artists. Watch out for airfares, they’re crazy high, $1200-1600 usually round trip on Canadian North out of Ottawa, but they partner with Aeroplan and with enough advance planning Aeroplan only charges 7500mi + $30 each way, and you can transfer from AMEX Membership Rewards. [1] [1] https://travelupdate.boardingarea.com/first-air-and-canadian-north-merger-and-redeeming-aeroplan/ https://travelupdate.boardingarea.com/first-air-and-canadian...
    - jjkaczor 7y ago
      Thanks for replying (OP here - I have been "heads down"), yes - have had a friend stay at the Airbnb, he loved it. (Better internet than at the 2 hotels) Oh - and the art is amazing - and yes, when at the Frobisher, local artists will always be showing their work for you to buy directly, but there are stores as well. Also - make sure you tour the Legislative Assembly (when open) - https://www.assembly.nu.ca/faq https://www.assembly.nu.ca/faq Come in the Winter if you like snow - come in July/August if you want to get out on the water or like rocky hiking. Get some coffee at the Black Heart Cafe - https://www.facebook.com/BlackHeartCafe/ https://www.facebook.com/BlackHeartCafe/ There are about 4-5 good restaurants, 2 attached to the current hotels, but I also recommend "Yummy Shawarma" and "Big Racks BBQ". Something interesting for the HN crowd - a new hotel is going up, built from modular shipping-container sized units - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/iqaluit-hotel-rooms-built-in-shanghai-china-1.5212876 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/iqaluit-hotel-rooms-bui...

imglorp 7y ago

> I have yet to see a physical keyboard The custom keycap business is booming. It shouldn't be too hard to make a batch of physical keyboards and then a software map to support it. There was just a story last month about some guys standardizing the writing for an African language, including getting its own Unicode set finally, and the Microsoft guys helping to to support it.

jarmitage 7y ago
> keycap business is booming If you have any links related to this I would love to read more!
- imglorp 7y ago
  You might find out this world overlaps with gamers and novelty mechanical keyboard people. Check out a search like "mechanical keycaps custom artwork", eg here's one - http://www.maxkeyboard.com/custom-art-icon-or-text-cherry-mx-keycaps.html http://www.maxkeyboard.com/custom-art-icon-or-text-cherry-mx... Maybe give these guys a ring and see if they can recommend who they work with for non-Latin caps: https://mechanicalkeyboards.com https://mechanicalkeyboards.com And also hang out on https://www.reddit.com/r/keyboards https://www.reddit.com/r/keyboards and /mechanicalkeyboards.
- PowerfulWizard 7y ago
  I haven't tried this personally, but these ppl appear to be able to print anything on the keys: https://www.wasdkeyboards.com/ https://www.wasdkeyboards.com/ Some random examples: http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/index.php/products/make/wasd-87-key-arabic-noto-custom-mechanical-keyboard.html http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/index.php/products/make/wasd-87... http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/index.php/products/make/104-key-carnival-cherry-mx-keycap-set.html http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/index.php/products/make/104-key...
  - imglorp 7y ago
    Not the keycap thing, but I can give a +1 to the WASD company. Just bought a CODE model and very happy with their customer attention.

w457uiw4gftyi 7y ago

> What irks me the most, is the lack of server-side language support for cloud offerings, on-premise Enterprise products, etc. If Microsoft can support Klingon for translation purposes, then just maybe they could support Inuktitut a little better. I've noticed that in terms of language support in general. Of course, languages with Western and/or wealthy populations seem to have better support. In Elasticsearch, I can set up a field for Irish or Latvian or Basque analysis out of the box (each with ~1 million speakers or fewer). But Zulu or Uzbek or Malay (each with 10 million+ speakers), and sorry, no support.

jcranmer 7y ago
Part of this may come down to corpus availability. The EU requires that much of its official document production be translated in the official language of every member country (which would include Irish and Latvian). With essentially bilingual translation pairs, it's much easier to feed the data into machine translation; and the need to feed this translation machine for official translation also means it's relatively easy to contract out translation work if you need to.

100percent 7y ago

Hey - nice to see someone else from up there. Was born there in 1970s.

52-6F-62 7y ago

What do you do up there? This whole thing fascinates me. I studied a small amount of linguistics in university and have long been in love with Inuit artwork so several years back I started work on a typeface that loosely emulated the syllabic glyphs for the Roman alphabet. http://cng.rockylaurentian.info/ http://cng.rockylaurentian.info/ If it’s of any worth to anyone I might be able to dig up the source. Not sure.

jjkaczor 7y ago
Nice typeface. Myself, I am Microsoft-stack consultant. (SharePoint, Dynamics, Office 365, Azure, .NET, etc.)

zamadatix 7y ago

Support for a toy conlang in a translator made with the support of enthusiasts developing it via a partner program is not really comparable to expecting paid services (i.e. needs real support) to support a language with less than 5,000 monolinguals on their own.

dghughes 7y ago

My dad has visited Iqaluit on the Coast Guard ship Earl Grey and Narwhal. Nice to see a comment from someone in northern Canada (I'm in PEI). I love languages Canada is amazing there are so many languages here it should be a priority to support their use. That's a very good point you made about Klingon being supported but not actual languages. I was talking to a friend of mine who is Mi'kmaq about Linux. I said maybe it supported his language but I guess it's more of a ADLaM is another language that has had a rough history but eventually recognition. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20702404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20702404

arcticbull 7y ago

I spent a few weeks there every year, my mom goes out there for audiology rotations and it’s a great excuse for me to see more of my home country and family at the same time (I’m in California). I’m thinking of trekking out to Pang next time. Congrats on the new restaurant opening, that’s a big deal ^_^ ill be sure to let you know next time I’m in town haha