Roadworks on Route 42 - take alternative route

Yeah, I've stopped posting - couldn't really get back into it, and also changed living and computer arrangements, and all that malarkey. Been a fun journey though, albeit a short one, and I might decide to try it again some day! Daithí

Why I'm not posting

I'm on holidays! Back at the weekend...

The important news today

First off, Life's Little Victories. Mőŧļéy Črũè (or whatever the hell it is) are going after NBC for banning them for having said a rude word. And not because their music sounds awful. Interesting. Personally I'm more offended that the august New York Times actually put the unnecessary umlauts in the band's title in the headline... I'd hate to be in Milan right now...

Misuse the force

It's been a while since I slated Star Wars fans. So.. Two hurt in mock light sabre duel (BBC News) Two Star Wars fans are in a critical condition in hospital after apparently trying to make light sabres by filling fluorescent light tubes with petrol. A man, aged 20, and a girl of 17 are believed to have been filming a mock duel when they poured fuel into two glass tubes and lit it. Police were able to trace the sequence of events by watching the videotape. I'm glad that survived, assuming all goes according to plan in the hospital, they'll at least be able to relive the moment. What the hell were they thinking?

Flowers

The Chelsea Flower Show is underway - silly flowers/gardens are not top of my list of interests, and much of the show seems quite pointless to me, but the following two things caught my eye... First off, the chocolate garden. Complete with chocolate water feature. And as I'm told, everyone loves the chocolate. Lovely. (And somewhat related to my recent discovery of the Cadbury's muffin - a chocolate muffin with bits of chocolate in it, chocolate topping and gooey chocolate centre. Dangerous stuff). And following up...the Dale Chihuly garden. I became enthralled with Chihuly's works (based on lots of colourful blown glass - e.g. here - on seeing an exhibition at the V&A museum in London four years ago (starting to feel old), and have since seen bits and pieces in various different places, usually by coincidence. A picture of the main V&A work (here) adorned my wall in one of my previous rooms. Anyway, there's a garden created with various bits of his work. Which is glass in a garden rather than a garden in a glasshouse. But there you go. Chihuly is an incredible artist. The 'picture of the week' in the side bar is the 'sun' that is the centerpiece of the Chelsea installation. Click on it to see more pictures!

An Daingean

After the passing of the Official Languages Act, work has been in progress to define accurate Irish translations of placenames, which are required for use in Gaeltacht areas. One such place such named is An Daingean (Dangean Uí Chúis, to be more accurate in historical terms) - referred to in English as "Dingle", a bastardisation of the original name of course. A few people are getting their brístíní in a twist about the fact that road signs etc will now just refer to An Daingean - you know, the actual Irish name of the town located in the Irish-speaking Gaeltacht area. The (London) Independent has a good article (they have an Irish correspondent and include Irish news in the 'Europe' section, as they should), but it has this very telling quote that explains why the matter is annoying me (and I don't have especially dogmatic views on the use of signs to begin with): Jim Wilson, an American living in Dingle, said: "Every businessman I talk to is upset about it. They're not for this at all." (emphasis added). Well gee shucks, if the American thinks it's wrong, it must be wrong. And fancy that, the businessman (obviously no women in West Kerry) says the Yank is right. Amazing. Súigh suas do thóin é, amadán. An Daingean abú!

Filling one's iPod

Latest download: Stephen Fry reading the Hitchhikers Guide - the audiobook version. Nice tie-in with Fry being the voice of 'the Guide' in the film, which I've yet to see. Now where's my towel? iPod competition from The Register..now what's with that? They ran a contest to come up with a health warning for iPods - winner being 'an iPod will make you a shadow of your former shelf'. Tut tut.

Radio silence

BBC staff are on strike, leading to some amusing attempts to fill time. This morning, the Breakfast tv show (usually heavily produced news with weather, OB, reports, studio discussion etc) was replaced with a re-run of a magazine show, followed by some poor fool from News24 (probably a director or producer that was dragged in front of camera) trying to present a bulletin, based on the holding up of newspapers (which kept falling out of shot) and small packages from yesterday's feeds. Backed up by the wrong captions persistently appearing on screen. I felt sorry for him, but had to giggle. Of course, there are a few scabs, but the support has been strong and all appears to be going well (apart from our poor friend on News24). Strange how things have turned - I'm currently reading Greg Dyke's book, Inside Story, which is a lot more positive and clearly reflects a (relatively) peaceful time between the insanity of John Birt (internal market squared) and the current difficulty in cutting back on news in particular. Anyway. The thought of Jeremy Paxman on a picket line is scaring me. God help anyone who tries to pass him!

Remix a Penguin!

Further to previous adventures in the world of penguins, this. They're supplying a series of samples (Jules Verne, Nick Hornby, Ruryard Kipling and other unrelated authors) and all you have to do is download the clip, incorporate it in your mix, and then submit your work for their competition!

Euro-media

Working on an assignment tonight as part of my secret life as a distance learning student with the OU - "What's so 'new' about new media?". Just saw the start of the Eurovision Song Contest (live from Ukraine) - now there's an aspect of new media that could be written about for pages on end! I loved the irony in the pathetic karaoke singers, who got their spot as Ireland's reps to the contest (unceremoniously booted out in the semi-final) by way of mass participation phone poll, criticising the validity of said booting as being tainted by phone polling. They call for the restoration of the jury system. Darlings, if there was a full jury system in place, you wouldn't have got to Cavan, never mind Kiev...

Links for a Friday

A silly link: Art From Fruit - good enough to eat... A clever link: OpenCourseWare from MIT - hundreds of courses from MIT, lecture notes, reading lists and all...totally free. A useful link: Dublin Transportation Office JourneyPlanner - calculate the distance between two points and draw a map, complete with zoom in to street level! A useless link: The Bugs Are Coming! - and your work rate is going.

Doo da ba da doo dee (circa 1973)

Eurovision weekend! And flicked on the TV last night just in time to discover that Irlande won't even have the privilege of nul points this year, as the idiots put forward at the end of RTE's You're a Star (ooh, clever pun, have a lollipop) competition did themselves and us proud and failed to proceed beyond the semi-final. Losing out to Moldova (a barely functioning state), Israel (functioning, but not really in Europe!), Norway (yes, nul points Norway), and MACEDONIA!! We need to ditch this Louis Walsh nonsense quick and return to less pseudo-democratic ways of selecting our entries. Relying on local newspapers to organise mass phone-ins for an elongated televised vomit is not the way to go... Better musical news: Hippocamp Destroys Pet Sounds. I like the original, and love this bizarre remix album.

Bonk bonk bonk...

Dr. Curtis Bonk (from Indiana - apparently they don't giggle as much at the term 'bonk' as we do) was the main speaker at today's conference. His presentation was truly excellent, and that's without even considering the genius involved in distributing chocolate in a GW Bush rubber mask ("there's got to be something worthwhile in there"), talking about the 'perfect storm' of e-learning while wearing a mac and holding a brolly, and other such 'unique' methods of presentation... Back to the same place in the afternoon for presentations of projects from history and chemistry - the latter including a crash course in basic chemistry from Dr. Draper, who Ní Chaoimh says is very nice! The last of the stress pigs are to be given out this evening.....mmm, bacon for all.

Learning tech

Down in the Hamilton building this morning for the Centre for Learning Technology's conference - and working through the wireless network (very useful altogether). Updates to follow.

Proud of our politicians...

Fianna Fáil junior minister Conor Lenihan has apologised to the Dáil for telling Socialist TD Joe Higgins to "stick with the kebabs" during an exchange this morning. Story here, here and here. Higgins has been raising the issue of Turkish workers who are getting screwed by Gama construction, hence the reference. Clever, clever boy. (The Dáil is the Irish parliament, by the way)

Oh Bodley...

Oxford University is in a bit of a tizzy at the moment, with various types of modernisation taking place or at least being suggested, and the place seems to be up in arms about it all. The three aspects that are being dealt with at the moment are governance (including the dumb idea of bringing in 'business' trustees to have overall control), appraisal of staff, and changes to the library, which I find the most interesting... Oxford has an incredible system of libraries, and gets a copy of every book published in the UK (Trinity has the same privilege). There are many specialist libraries, which are threatened with closure, and there's an ongoing threat of turning some or part of the library system into a tourist attraction. Eeugh! The main aspect of the plan is to put virtually all books from the Bodleian (which contains the 'copyright' collection) into a robot-controlled storage area 2 miles away, which while it works in other areas (to some extent), really strikes at the fact that the library is currently one of the biggest open-shelf collections in the UK, and would be reduced to a shell. The acting head of the library responds that it's not all it's made out to be, and that the changes are in fact beneficial and necessary. Ah, academic disputes - where the only thing of substance you can rely on is words like 'and' and 'or', and even at that, only just.

Flyer-camera

We sent out the following job ad today through our jobs email list...thought it was worth repeating. FOUR HOURS WORK IN CITY CENTRE Do you have four hours to work on Thursday 19th? Delivering flyers to pubs, health stores, 'alternative lifestyle' shops and cafes. Taking photos of people taking and holding the flyers. Pay is e10 per hour.

Ahem

While trying to find (relevant) information on the (British) NUS website, I followed links and ended up at this creative creative competition.... Bollocks to Poverty! Winning artistic film/animation entries (including digital arts) end up at the Reading Festival.

Bullets over the square

They're shooting people in Front Square. Or at least that's what it sounds like. It's fairly cold, but that hasn't stopped the annual 'chariots of fire' races (perhaps one of the silliest titles reflecting the overblown nature of it all), currently taking place out on the cobblestones, organised by DUHAC. It's like this - two people race each other around the square, and the person who finishes first is the winner, the person finishing second therefore not winning. That's pretty much it. Oh, there goes another gunshot. Either another race starting, or a pack of American tourists from North Dakota finally getting their comeuppance. Hey, right to bear arms and all that. Apparently you have to run around in the time it takes the Campanile bell to strike 12 times. Or something like that.

Mother Mary (Harney?)

Some of today's interesting bits that came my way: The joint Anglican/Catholic commission (ARCIC) gave a very positive report on the question of Mary - pretty much out of the blue. This will really (fill in swear word of choice) the fundamentalists on both sides, but especially the 'Anglican evangelicals', the ones who haven't gotten over women priests and have tried to sabotage everything decent since! As for the RC side of things, I suppose it is Kasper the Friendly Kardinal that's involved, not the formerly named PanzerKardinalRatzinger that's involved, so it's hard to know how seriously the commission is being treated by the Vatican, past or present. The privatisation of Aer Lingus is apparently to go ahead. Idiocy. Paul Sweeney wrote a book entitled 'Selling Out' that gave the economic arguments against this step, and it should be made breakfast reading for Cabinet members before they consider this decision. It's hardly a surprise, given the reluctance of the shareholder (the Government) to properly invest in the airline, but still, it's a decision lacking in strategy and sense. Not that the Government would do (Eircom) anything (Eircom) like (Eircom) that (Eircom).