Archive for November, 2008

LON

Friday, November 28th, 2008

In London for the weekend. No posts til Sunday night. Play with the buses or amongst or with yourselves.

Museum of London at night
Photo owned by Matt From London (cc)

I Trust Tommy

Friday, November 28th, 2008

I Trust Tommy

I Trust Tommy.

Rick does too.

Fluffy Links – Friday 28th November 2008

Friday, November 28th, 2008

Manky Toy Show, ready to go. Ho ho.

Only in fucking Ireland could you get off from drunk driving with this excuse.

Via Paul Meaty! A chicken stuffed in duck stuffed in a turkey, all wrapped in bacon.

Friend in Dublin is looking for someone to move into her flatshare. Details here.

Five things you should know about Advert Recording. (An Irish perspective) I like this:

Smile when you read, trust me this makes the read so much more inviting to the listener, you look stupid in the studio, but you can hear the smile and the warmth that generates

The IIA’s Social Media Working Group are inviting you to give feedback on ther Business Blogging Guide which will be released soon. Oh and you have to pay them 30 quid to give them feedback. Not very social then is it?

Too soon too soon! Concentration Camp Lego.

What is it with Australians and Facebook and getting caught?

The Dutch get their own typeface. Nice.

Via Jonathan is this video of video in video:

Now playing in the Abbey: The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui

Fluffy Links – Thursday 27th November 2008

Thursday, November 27th, 2008

John has announced the winners of the Boards.ie data thingy.

Three Ireland. Muppets.

At the Golden Spiders (where I did an Uncle Tom it seems) Peter from EuroLanguages.com came up to me with his card and handwritten on it was a request to be added to a Fluffy Link. And here we go. Nice way of reaching me!

Check out Short.ie that shortens your website link.
Good survey results from Frank on social sites and blogging.

Stephen has never gotten flack from people in Cork when walking around holding his hands with his boyfriend. I’ve gotten odd looks and heard snide comments when I’ve held hands with a guy in Cork so I don’t fully agree with him.

Parsnips!

As predicted Seán Kelly is the Fine Gael candidate for the euro elections in Ireland South. Colm Burke is the weakest link, shame.

Batt O’Keeffe now profiled by the Dáil Ministers.

Motorola get caught astroturfing which is now a breach of consumer law in most European countries.

Oh yeah?

Spiritualized – Ladies and Gentlemen…

Well done Leo Varadkar

Thursday, November 27th, 2008

Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t it Leo Varadkar who brought all this Fás stuff to light in the Dáil last year? And tonight we hear about Harney’s Haircut and before we learn of it, it seems Leo knew, based on his statement here:

Fine Gael Enterprise Spokesman Leo Varadkar TD has questioned whether any Government Ministers benefited from FÁS largesse by having gifts or services bought for them at taxpayers’ expense

The Fine Gael machine needs to capitalise on this more. More of this kind of thing and they’ll bring down the whole house of brown envelopes around Fianna Fáil and the Greens. Enda being boring and saying he’ll be Taoiseach won’t work. Learn some fake humility. I really do wonder at times about the Greens though. It seems once they get Fianna Fáil to use recycled brown envelopes they won’t act as their conscience.

Clarification:
Given Markham and Suzy noted FG need to concentrate not on haircuts but abuses of power, I should have pointed out that when I meant “more of this” it was in terms of blowing the lid off all these abuses in the public sector, not ignoring the millions squandered to concentrate on a haircut.

Naaran Zodiac Leo word
Photo owned by zeevveez (cc)

George Lee on a Segway at it@Cork conference

Wednesday, November 26th, 2008

Via Gavin. Seriously:

I have a stack of about 60 business cards

Wednesday, November 26th, 2008

Yes the Arts Council conference went well. Exceptionally well. Audio recordings already up. When I grow up I want to organise a conference like that. Very very well planned. Best organised conference I was ever at in Ireland. What I liked the most was the BarCamp style spaces idea. Want to talk about something? Then do. So a structured and unstructured part. Free grub at lunchtime, swimming pools of tea and coffee. AV people in every room recording all the talks and providing mics to the audience. Impressive.

Mark Rothko
Photo owned by libbyrosof (cc)

And the content? Andrew Keen appealed to the luddites and kept talking about monetising everything. I didn’t realise Arts was so vulgar as to stick out your paw and demand money before doing something that’s meant to be a passion and a career. I never noticed the F1 style stickers on the Mona Lisa. He talked in half-truths and rhetoric that appealed to those that wanted to keep us all living in a world where only certain people could give their opinions and tell you what you should like. It was good to see him spar with Charles Leadbetter too because while I think Keen did nothing more than write a gutter journalism styled book, he was the only one that really said “woah there a second folks, let’s face the reality of this.” Nick Carr does this too though oddly not in book form. We need people with contrarian views around what is sometimes snakeloiling.

I made a few empassioned pleas during my workshops and on a panel I was at for the Arts community to get using the web and the latest tools. They need to stop being so inward looking and find new people to work with and show off too. I pointed out that there are dozens of music bloggers in Ireland now and who are doing a fantastic job of promoting music but where are people from the Arts? I pointed out that Darragh is going to various events as a volunteer and promoting them but why is it pretty much Darragh on his own doing this? I think I may have gotten everyone in the room to invite him to all their future events too. Loads of content from Darragh to come.

The future is engaging with people and speaking their language and sharing your work and your talents with them. I also may have been harsh with David McKenna from RTE when I said what they do for the Arts is pointless as only people in the Arts listen to their shows and that audience is dying. RTE are doing nothing for the Arts where the current generation is and that’s online.

Later I asked David McKenna again (poor guy, I wasn’t picking on you!) to give us OUR content back. We’re the taxpayer, give us the raw data back and let us play with it and promote it using our tools on our spaces. A podcast is not enough. Or an RSS feed. Don’t build channels, just let us take it and distribute it. David mentioned licensing issues but as John Kelly and Andrew Taylor pointed out, everything from tomorrow on can be done with a new contract so live versions of whatever songs or performance pieces can be redistributed.

MIddle
Photo owned by Tom Hemmings (cc)

I’ll have further thoughts on this in the days ahead so this is my first take. Overall a great great day, O learned a lot, people asked me a lot of questions which always makes me happy and now I need to send Online Marketing documentation to all those business card owners.

Update: Don’t forget that you can comment on the official blog too.

Disclosure: I got paid to give workshops at this event. I’d go again just to participate though. Well worth going to.

Fluffy Links – Wednesday November 26th 2008

Wednesday, November 26th, 2008

At the it@Cork conference today so blogging will be light.

Hey ho, let’s Joe. Joe is blogging. Bye bye spare time Joe!

Soundcheck this Thursday in Dublin. You have to go!

Mulley Communications blog now asking how you’d run an online campaign for Pat the Baker.

Got this in an email:

The final Phantom 105.2 Music Quiz of 08 takes place at The Sugar
Club, Leeson St. on Wednesday, December 3, with proceeds going to the
Concern Christmas Campaign to protect people from hunger next year.
Tables are €50 (five people maximum) and can be reserved in advance by
e-mailing webmaster@phantom.ie

Or see here.

They’re called Villagers.
Nialler and others have said they think they’ve found the next big thing in Irish Music. Judging by this video, I think they’re right:

Three Ireland win National Dialup Tender

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

This is the 373 page thread of complaints about Three on boards.ie

This is a cataclysmic failure. eircom would have been better to give the tender to as they have way more experience in rolling out broadband, wireless and satellite. Of the two that were in it, eircom certainly could have offered more. Best of a bad lot for sure. Remember Three outsource everything with BT building the network for them and that network was a piece of shit for months after they first starting selling broadband.

People who use the Three service right now get dialup rates a lot of the time in Dublin, not broadband, so you can be sure those few people who can actually avail of broadband under this scheme will getting nothing close to event he loosest definition of broadband. A giant FAIL by Eamon Ryan and his Department over this.

There is also the huge, monstrous irony that some people will not be allowed to avail of broadband under the National Broadband Scheme in their area because they’d be classed as being in areas where they can already get Three Broadband, yet obviously they can’t.

Festival Linux IPVG Chillán
Photo owned by gonzalemario (cc)

FAILorama.

The End is Night

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

A short comedy about the end of the world.

Widescreen version.