Archive for November, 2006

Friday Nostalgia Videos – Airwolf and Manimal

Friday, November 24th, 2006

After the previous post with the A-Team, we have two other 80s shows:

Air Wolf

Manimal

If you’ve found any other “classic” TV show intros, link to them in the comments.

EDIT: Streethawk

Fluffy Links – November 24th 2006

Friday, November 24th, 2006

High-tech retro. Cup and string telecoms goes wireless.

Jokes and the Unconscious Graphic Novel.

Flat Screen TV – Irish Style.

Convert your videos so they can play on your Wii.

Has the demise of TV critics started?

Because I can:

Variation:

Third version now with more techno:

Social Experiments with MySpace, BeBo, FaceBook, Vox

Thursday, November 23rd, 2006

I’ve always dissed the likes of MySpace and Bebo and all the rest and I have a post in draft about how I see uses and drawbacks with these sites but it was about time I tried them all out and saw what they are like from a user’s perspective.

If you want to add me to Bebo, follow this link. This is my profile. I thought with Bebo it was popular because you could register your old school and add classmates? Hmmm. Are Bebo locking out videos from YouTube? I only stuck a video on it after uploading using some app that made FireFox stall.

On Vox I am DamienM.Vox.com. I’m not sure how the hell this works and how I add people. Pity I can’t have blog posts here go over there too. I do like the privacy features though. Elana, where are you on this?

My Facebook profile. I’ve added myself to the Ireland network and the UCC network but there doesn’t seem to be much activity. Wow, this seems very much like a dating system. More open about it than the rest I suppose. I’ve noticed a few people I know. Small world.

My mySpace profile. Feels cold and quite boring. I’m at a loss to know what the fuss is/was. Edit: Just found their search thing is like a singles bar thing too.

So far impressions from all are that they are spam machines. They are very pushy about importing MSN and GMail contact lists so they can spam your friends with invites.

Oh I must try Orkut now, since it brought me so much traffic 🙂 SecondLife is sure to follow.

Corrib Gas – Ads in my GMail

Thursday, November 23rd, 2006

Why on earth are there Corrib Gas ads from Shell in my GMail?
Corrib Gas

I wonder what keywords are triggering it? CorribGas.ie redirects to a Shell corporate website.

Fluffy Links – November 23rd 2006

Thursday, November 23rd, 2006

Irish Bloggers can make money from blogging. Congrats John.

A social diary for Cork. Christ. Next we’ll have doggy mags.

Interesting “toy” on Amazon. Read the reviews!

Handy Technorati widget for showing what blogs are linking to each blog post. Who needs trackbacks!

Mike Tyson is a whore for money. No, really.

Possibly morbid but now we might see tombstones connected to the grid which can give a visitor to a grave a multimedia overview of the deceased’s life.

Leverage points. Super nodes. Areas to spend most energy on? Reminds me of the book “Linked“.

Just when you have hope for mankind, you read this upsetting report from the Congo.

How to sell vapourware.

How code can make the world a little greener.

Via BoingBoing: Skateboarding Mannequins

KLF – 3am Eternal:

Get thee to a conference .. and a dinner (Part 1)

Thursday, November 23rd, 2006

The IT@Cork 2006 conference is on Wednesday the 29th of November. If you are in Cork or near Cork I suggest you get yourself along to this event. Lots of high-calibre speakers and lots of people to network with.

If you can’t afford the cost of the ticket (it’s probably worth paying for it in my view) then don’t forget about the pre-event dinner where the cost of some grub will connect you with some of the local people going to the event, as well as some of the speakers who fly in early.

I did a video search for some of the speakers but not many of them are available, here are a few:

Here’s a video of Hugh Macleod:

Here’s a video of Marc Canter talking in an MTV stylee video about People Aggregator:

Quick TechCrunch video with Salim Ismail and tonnes more people:I couldn’t find Eddie Hobbs on YouTube but Podge and Rodge talk a little about SSIAs:

Irish Politics Blogs – Who are they all?

Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006

There used to be a list (oh no the L word!) on some site that listed the various Irish political bloggers but I can’t find it now. I seem to recall last year that there didn’t seem to be that many Irish political blogs represented at the blog awards so I’ve thrown together the below list from submissions to the last blog awards as well as from the Irish Blog Directory and IrishBlogs.info. It’d be nice if we could could tag such blogs so we could stream the likes of IrishBlogs.ie and planet.journals.ie into sections. Are there any blogs I haven’t on the below list?

(Also don’t forget the Politics in Ireland competition. Only a few days left.)

http://www.sluggerotoole.com/
http://iepolitics.typepad.com/iepolitics/
http://www.disillusionedlefty.blogspot.com/
http://dossing.blogspot.com
http://gaskinbalrog.blogspot.com/
http://unitedirelander.blogspot.com/
http://elblogador.blogspot.com
http://gavinsblog.com
http://freestater.blogspot.com
http://www.threatstodemocracy.com/
http://1169andcounting.blogspot.com
http://www.thefi.org
http://www.theleveebreaks.co.uk/
http://www.damienblake.com/
http://www.youngunionists.org.uk
http://bestofbothworlds.blogspot.com/

http://rossfrenett.blogspot.com/
http://www.michaelturley.com
http://www.midnightpublishing.net/wordpress
http://stormont.blogspot.com/
http://backseatdrivers.blogspot.com/
http://badmananthem.blogspot.com/
http://www.chrisandrews.ie/
http://fdelondras4.blogspot.com/
http://www.brianmeaney.net
http://www.youngunionists.org.uk/
http://pneill.blogspot.com/
http://progressiveireland.blogspot.com/
http://skinflicks.blogspot.com/
http://greeninkpen.blogspot.com/

http://seamusryan.blogspot.com/
http://semperidem.blogs.ie/
http://www.branedy.net/
http://harpingon.blogspot.com/
http://www.irishelection.com/
http://www.realitycheckdotie.blogspot.com/
http://ericbyrne.blogspot.com/
http://wagging-the-dog.blogspot.com/
http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/
http://stephenspillane.blogspot.com/
http://kalcase.wordpress.com/
http://braz.blogspot.com/
http://www.everythingulster.com
http://hilloftara.blogspot.com/

http://irisheagle.blogspot.com/
http://cmurf.blogspot.com/
http://tomgriffin.typepad.com/the_green_ribbon/
http://theirishliberal.blogspot.com/
http://thelandofireland.blogspot.com/
http://ceadaoin.blogspot.com/
http://saoirse32.blogsome.com/

Fluffy Links – November 22nd 2006

Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006

Oh someone doesn’t like our beloved Twenty. Diddums didn’t get his own award. Awww.

A very handy open source flash mp3 player.

A piggy bank moulded from an actual piggy. Pricey though.

The head of Carphone Warehouse has a blog though it was quite silent for the past while when the company was getting a lot of flask about their broadband offering.

Via William Gibson is Zadie Smith’s take on readers and how they are meant to be like musicians interpreting your work more than people being passively entertained. Wonderful viewpoint.

Watch all of Michael Moore’s Roger and Me on Google Video.

Via Eoghan: This scared the crap out of me.

Bob Dylan – Hurricane:

Aberdeen for most of next week

Tuesday, November 21st, 2006

I’m being shipped off to Aberdeen to do some work-related training all of next week. I actually leave via Dublin on Sunday. Anyone been there and want to recommend places to go eating and drinking? I’m staying in the city centre. I’ve been told to prepare to be cold.

At least the Brits are doing something about online engagement

Tuesday, November 21st, 2006

Tony Blair’s advisor gets all “sky is falling” with blogs and the web. As a result, UK bloggers were not amused.

“We have a citizenry which can be caricatured as being increasingly unwilling to be governed but not yet capable of self-government,” Mr Taylor told the audience.

Maybe then you create systems that allow self-governance? “unwilling to be governed” , er maybe unwilling to be governed by you I would think? I’m sure the people want more input into what their tax money is being spent on and where their country is being steered to. It almost sounds like a civil servant from Yes, Minister in the old boys club giving out about the public wanting to live in a democracy. Something Sir Humphrey would say to a colleague.

“The internet is being used as a tool of mobilisation, which is fantastic, but it only adds to the growing, incommensurate nature of the demands being made on government.”

And….? It is the Government’s job to address the needs of the population and to also communicate to them why decisions are made which both satisy and do not satisfy the demands of the population. This guy is digging a hole for himself and the Government.

“At a time at which we need a richer relationship between politicians and citizens than we have ever had, to confront the shared challenges we face, arguably we have a more impoverished relationship between politicians and citizens than we have ever had.”

How about the notion that the web has highlighted the fact that people are pissed off with the current system be it left or right inclined? That finally those slightly or wholly disillusioned have found a voice and have found others who feel the same?

But at least in the UK they have the Hansard Society, WriteToThem, TheyWorkForYou and so many more organisations, many funded by the Government. The Government itself has e-democracy initiatives and not just press releases about winning numerous e-Government awards.

What is our e-Minister doing?