Archive for July, 2007

He snuck it in at the very end – Blogger Dinner in Cork sooooon?

Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007

Mr. Uber event organiser himself has suggested a blogger dinner in Cork, sooner rather than later. I’m there. But please please please, not the same old fucking faces again. Ok, yes the same old faces but only if they bring a new face too. I really do fear that BarCamp and other events are getting far too cliquey. We need to expand the brainwashing programme.

Don’t bring a bottle, bring a new person. Start of August maybe?

Fluffy Links – Tuesday July 3rd 2007

Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007

This is the article I wanted to write about Cork and Cork people for years. Kathy Foley saved me the bother. Great great article. I don’t read the Sunday Times anymore because it is no longer online. I won’t buy half a tree just to read Kathy and a few more people.

New blogs on block are back.

Fraudband. What a great term.

Wow. Nice bit of dosh there for the IIA. Though not massive.

Google takes a few shots at Michael Moore’s new film in order to sell more ads. They suggest running ad campaigns to counter any searches for the movie on Google.

EI lends their support to Paddy’s Valley.

Another fantastic TED talk on poverty and the third world.

I still miss Ze Frank. Here’s an old post from 43 Folders about how Ze stays creative.

Majesty Snowbird. Again.

CC Licenced Spanish short film on YouTube has 10M views and encourages remixes of it:

The one with the waggily tail – Anyone own this dog?

Monday, July 2nd, 2007

Via Andrew:

Lost dog

My sister rescued this little fella when she saw a group of young boys, around 11 years old, throw him off the blackstone bridge in Kileens. The bridge had a drop of about 10 – 15 foot with water only ankle deep below. The kids walked off leaving him down there, he was okay but for a small cut on his paw, he must have landed well, luckily. He was unable to get back up from under the bridge as it was too steep. Lisa was able to get help from a teenager nearby to climb down and get the dog up.

He had no collar on his neck. My sister asked the teenager if they knew who might own him, but he had no idea. He looks like he’s been well kept up til now. Really nice dog. It’s likely the young kids led him away from his home.

He’s a Labrador, About a year old. Very friendly, luckily totally oblivious to what the kids had meant to do to him.

If anyone around Cork might know his owner, like to adopt him or know of a good home, email me.

amonaghan AT gmail.com

Haydn

Monday, July 2nd, 2007

Up until this week in a lift in a hotel in Lisbon, I had never met Haydn Shaughnessy which is shameful since we’ve been at at least one BarCamp together and we’re both in and around Cork county. I wish I had met Haydn way back at BarCamp in Cork last year because the conversations we had in Lisbon once we met were really inspiring and covered tech, business, our frustration with the lack of motivation to have a startup culture in Ireland and art. In case you didn’t see the mentions on other blogs, Haydn has put a lot of work into starting his own art gallery in Kilbrittain called Haydn Shaughnessy Gallery for Innovative Contemporary Artists. I need to get myself down there soon.

During one of our conversations I was telling Haydn how I’d love to do what he did. Start a gallery and get some not well-known (locally) but good artists some attention that they deserve. This is what Haydn is doing now. It seems to be a total labour of love and maybe when I have the time I might do the same, that or organise some shows for artists. I’d love to bring some bands and singers I like to Ireland and show them off here. I think Irish audiences are fantastic and greatly appreciate quality music moreso than other countries.

Haydn also mentioned that his office which is next to his gallery would make a great spot for those who want to escape their own environment and go on a work-type retreat to a scenic location while still connected to the world. Having your office in an Art Gallery overlooking the sea would certainly be a way of relieving stress and helping your creativity.

Twitter sub trends

Monday, July 2nd, 2007

Oh God, he’s still talking about Twitter. Thanks to Google Reader, here are some trends on my Twitter subs:

From your 77 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 3,255 items, starred 0 items, and shared 0 items.

Top 20 noise makers:

Subscription Items/Day
Paul Walsh – 13.5
Conor O’Neill – 13.4
Bernie Goldbach – 7
Matt – 6.7
Damien Mulley – 5.8
Brian Greene – 5.1
Uldis Bojars – 4.9
Don Crowley – 4.1
Ken McGuire – 3.6
Elly Parker – 3.5
Olivier Ansaldi – 2.5
Tom Raftery – 2.5
AlexiaG – 2.5
Gareth Stack 2.5
Robin Blandford 2.4
James Corbett 2.2
Liam Burke 1.9
Laura 1.8
Conn O Muineachain 1.6
Walter Higgins 1.5

Fluffy Links – Monday July 2nd 2007

Monday, July 2nd, 2007

Back in Ireland and the Fluffy links are back.

Macdara is moving to wordpress. Good. Blog looks much better already.

Pink champagne Sorbet. 20 quid a tub though! Yeah I still will buy it methinks.

Via Clare Dillon is news that the NUI Maynooth team that won the Irish Imagine Cup showcased their entry on the Microsoft Island in Second Life. Nice boost to them. They’re off to Korea now in the world championships. The product they built was an 0ff-the-shelf product that uses webcams to teach people sign language. Very clever in my view. You can read more on their website: www.signal.ie

Oh bollards!

I don’t have interesting neighbours, unlike some.

Flirty has moved to www.irishFlirtySomething.com. Update your bookmarks, if you are all old school and still use them.

I never realised video games and games consoles were banned in Greece. The EU are not liking it either.

7 Hours sitting on the tarmac before their plane set off. Delta are loving this video:

One dead iPhone:

Sufjan, Sylar and John Wayne Gacy Jr.:

Paddys already in the Valley, er, San Fran – The Collison brothers

Monday, July 2nd, 2007

John Collison added me to his Twitter this evening and with a lil clicking about, I found his blog and his brothers’ blog. Seems these two Irish lads are working at a startup in San Fran called Auctomatic along with a few other people. Auctomatic plugs into eBay and makes the life of a seller easier, I think. Auctomatic is funded by yCombinator and some Angel funding.

Auctomatic are: Harjeet Taggar, Kulveer Taggar, Patrick Collison and John Collison.

Patrick won the Young Scientist in 2005. He only reinvented LISP, dontchaknow. 😉 John is in transition year in school , is that right John?

Update: They have investors that include Paul Buchheit, he of building GMail fame and he of suggesting the “Don’t be evil” Google motto. Imagine having Paul as an investor. Nice.

If Paddy’s Valley happens, we should call in. In fact, maybe they should give us classes?

The Officeless Office

Sunday, July 1st, 2007

Forget paper, when I got my new computer, I consciously decided not to install any Microsoft Office software or OpenOffice. The past 6 months of writing for the Tribune and ENN, I’ve been using Google documents to do so and it has worked out really well. Lots of stuff needs to be fixed to make it a little more usable but for someone that doesn’t need anything complicated but a little bit of formatting, it’s fine. Well it is, until you get this error, which I’ve gotten a good few times in the past few months. When that happens, I fire up Notepad.

Stupid Google Docs

More Twits added

Sunday, July 1st, 2007

Not been paying attention to those who added me as a friend on Twitter. It seems there’s been a bit of growth of late of those people signing up to Twitter from Ireland. I’ve now added the following to my Twitter feeds in Google Reader:

Eamon Leonard.
Eoghan McCabe.
Maryrose Lyons.
HeidiPJ.
Bill de hOra.
John Ward.
Niall Byrne aka Nialler9.
Paul Campbell.
Stewart Curry.
Triona Carey.
Paul O’Mahony.
Niall Larkin.
Update:
Aisling Coppinger.
Update again, a few more:
Manic Mammy.
Fiona O’Neill.
Marcas O’Duinn.

Hi everyone! Also, here’s my public Google reader feed of the Irish people I know that are on Twitter. Happy to send on my OPML file too. This is me on Twitter.

Regulatory Capture – Green Minister completely sells out

Sunday, July 1st, 2007

Being away all week I missed this, but Via Adrian Weckler is news that Eamonn Ryan is now being run by his civil servants who say everything is fine in broadband Ireland. It is a shame that a party I gave my vote to is now signing off on lies that they once called shenanigans on. Between this and kissing the ass of corrupt ComReg in the same week it really angers me. At least with Fianna Fail, you knew they’d carry on doing what they did which was nothing. That’s not hypocrisy. A Green Minister now copying and pasting from previous statements by Noel Dempsey after complaining so much

I’ve been told that Minister Ryan used to read my blog along with other Green TDs. Here’s the story to any of you folks who still do. Irelandoffline might be gone but I will happily monitor all press releases and statements and point out to my press list the utter hypocrisy of your new statements.