Archive for June, 2009

Our own natural rhythm

Monday, June 29th, 2009

I get the feeling more and more that our brains operate with their own rhythm that can differ quite a lot from person to person and the various aspects of life can get in the way and change the rhythm to a less natural one. Everyone has their own natural pacemaker and for some, it goes wacky and they need an artificial pacemaker installed to tell their heart “this is how you should be ticking”. What if life is like some overbearing artificial pacemaker?

Maybe our natural rhythm is jazz or hip-hop or trance. It’s like you hear a sound from a band and within a few seconds everything clicks into place and you’re in synch with them. That pacing has always been there, it’s why it fits so well. Many of us go from artificial structure to artificial structure in life. From school to college, to work, fitting into a pattern made by another. Working for my self the past year and a bit, doing what I want, when I want to do it, I started falling into a different pattern, my soul’s song got stronger the more I turned off the music of the world around me. How in fuck’s name can you be good in business or life when you are tied to a 9 to 5 lifestyle? Fun is 24/7 and business creativity can be spread over that too.

And with my change of working and living came new ways of thinking and while not a calm, a natural ebb and flow resulted. I could understand things more, I appreciated new things and all the time enjoyed a different sanity. From what I can tell, artists are solitary in nature. They create on their own; they compose music, paint, draw, code as individuals. Creativity is solitary, displaying of it, is not. Allowing yourself to think, not squeezing your brain to perform will get other parts of the brain to start working and interacting. Genius business people are the mavericks; they are the loners, the people away from the crowd. It’s not a circadian movement they have going on but I wonder are they the ones that are letting their inner song through?

My soul detoxified by removing elements, doing things for fun, breaking out of grooves my brain was forced into. Maybe this is like people who don’t know they have allergies and when they address them, they feel better and are better. I attended a voice training workshop in the Gaiety school of acting a while back. It was a full day event and most of the day was spent on how to breathe. For most of us, it was how to change how you breathe and use muscles in a different way. It really was a fascinating course and I learned a lot. One of the things we did was finding your “natural” voice. Through various exercises you can find the sound that sits best with your body and your vocal chords.

Round four - Samba!!!
Photo owned by lepiaf.geo (cc)

It’s like a sleeping pattern, it took me a while to find mine and eventually I was getting 9-10 hours a night and felt like I was a ninja during the waking hours, able to shape the world around me. I’m now back to 6-7 hours and my rhythm is out of whack, even when I can lie in, I wake too early and wake with my brain racing. My creativity is hampered a little but business needs must. For now.

Are the best dancers the ones who learn all the steps or the ones who feel the dance and know what happens next? If finding your natural voice is about breathing and about using muscles differently, then maybe finding that rhythm is about knowing your brain and body and massaging different parts back to functionality. Eat healthy, brain healthy, less sugar, more fibre, read fact, love fiction, learn the Alexander technique, write and write and write. Do a day of silence where you don’t read, don’t use a computer, turn off the phone and don’t talk. Don’t take notes. Let all the thoughts bump off each other. This is probably best done in seclusion. Einstein worked his ass off in his lab/office but that was raw manufacturing in a way, it was when he escaped from those places that the eureka moments happened. Exercising like walking or running or for Einstein, cycling, got one part of the brain to work on the mechanics of the body and then the brain went off and experimented with the data he had gathered.

If our brains are in constant data gathering mode and are also working from the hymn sheet of someone else then it’s going to be hard for us to be creative. I think everyone has the potential to be creative and to think differently and add value to things we encounter in daily life but we can only do that when we find our natural state. Reading books is bad if you are never in a state of not reading books or rather, letting the brain alone to digest things in its own peristaltic state. That goes too when you are bashing out work, creative or not. Good business ideas can possibly be cranked out; great business ideas need to be contemplated. Einstein may have cracked the nut on relativity in a flash but it took him 6 weeks to figure it out properly.

Edit: Originally written in pen on a train then typed up. Composing on computer and editing took three hours.

Hennessy meets the bloggers

Monday, June 29th, 2009

Last week a few food and drink bloggers were invited out to the offices of Edward Dillon and company, who look after Hennessy in Ireland. This was organised via Brennan Sabatini (warning music plays). The meet and greet also extended to sampling some of the variations of Hennessy as seen below. We tried Hennessy V.S., Hennessy V.S.O.P., Hennessy X.O. and Hennessy Paradis. We got the history behind Hennessy and how the various cognacs are made. Hennessy then asked us for feedback on how they market and as people in the blogging and online media space, is there anything they should do. Feedback was given.

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This is Alan, the mixologist. Wildly talented and entertaining:

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We got to taste a cocktail called a Miami and this is the vid of how it’s made:

But my fav from the day was the direct and simple ginger ale and Hennessy:

I’m a fan of Hennessy and Baileys mixed together but it can be heavy after a few, ginger ale works well.

Some other videos:

More cocktails:
Blowtorches and orange

How to make a Bloggertini

Tasting the various Hennessys:

Hennessy V.S.

Hennessy V.S.O.P.

Hennessy X.O.

Hennessy Paradis

Very interesting to hear that Hennessy in America is consumed mostly by African Americans and Hennessy is references a hell of a lot in hihop songs. Oh and by volume, not per capita, Ireladn is 4th biggest in world for consuming Hennessy.

So what did Hennessy get out of this, 5 people who may now consider ordering Hennessy based cocktails? Or them telling their readers? Perhaps. Still negligible audiences compared to print or radio though. Getting to know people who spend all their hours in this new medium might be a good thing though. I heard it has a future this internet thing. For the bloggers, they got to sample a small amount of booze but they also got new content for their blogs. They also know a little bit more about their subject area which is probably the biggest benefit. Cognac making and blending is to me at least, highly interesting. I do wonder what the next step after the various meets and greets are though. Will consumers eventually design products they want and so become part of the customer care and product design teams?

Fluffy Links – Monday June 29th 2009

Monday, June 29th, 2009

Annie Atkins has a new website for her work. Nice it is.

If you’re into Online PR in Ireland. We now have a dedicated Facebook Page.

2000 people moonwalking. It started with a single jokey Twitter message.

Cathal Mac Coille talks about what happens in the Morning Ireland studio, which you can now see with their webcam.

Kids Tunes is an Irish run website/store that sells albums you can play for your kids. Some run of the mill stuff and some pretty awesome ones like the kids album from They Might be Giants. Tge singer from The Presidents of the USA apparently has an album out too.

One week of free advertising on the Tribune website. Nice to see they have a DIY ad system.

HP calculators on your iPhone.

Fascinating piece on Nike+ and the data it sucks up.

Nike has attracted the largest community of runners ever assembled—more than 1.2 million runners who have collectively tracked more than 130 million miles and burned more than 13 billion calories.

Right now the HTC Hero looks sexier than the iPhone. Want.

Kiss – God gave rock and roll to you II, it has it all. Guitars, perms, leather, aircraft hangars, crosses, slow motion, spoken word, explosions and tongues.

PR firm running ads against my name (hey lads there’s a H in Fashion)

Sunday, June 28th, 2009

Bless. When you do a Google search for Mulley or Damien Mulley, Mary Crotty PR have ads running.

Mary Crotty PR

Good for them. I clicked on the ads too to see their site. I hope they have set a sane daily budget as if everyone that Googled my name clicked on the ads, it might cost them a lot over the space of a day and week. Also, because the keywords damien and mulley are not on their site, they pay more per click then if the words were there. Add my details to your landing page! I’m here to save you money! (Edit: Daily budget was hit it seems)

I like this page on their website. This image on the page says they take pride in perfection:

Mary Crotty PR and perfection

It sits just under this image about how image is important:

Mary Crotty PR Image is important

Portable TV studio of the future for €470?

Saturday, June 27th, 2009

Expansys have an Acer laptop for sale for a whopping €179.99. It runs Linux.

Acer Laptop

7 Day Shop have a Kodak Zi6 HD video camera for €110.

A mobile broadband dongle costs anywhere from €15 to €20 a month. Over 12 months that’s €180 to €240.

So for about €470, you can record HD video, edit it and upload it to multiple places. For basic video without bells and whistles, it’s a cheap and handy rig.

Fluffy Links – Saturday June 27th 2009

Saturday, June 27th, 2009

Suzy has some initial thoughts on the new civil partnership bill that the Greens are lauding up. They’re even marching in the Dublin Pride parade today. It’s just one more self-hammered nail in the coffin of the Greens. All social philosophies can be made toxic once a few planning laws get through. Despite Dermot Ahern saying the topic is now ended and gay couples will not get one single thing after this, the Greens are saying it’s a stepping stone, they’re still living in the same delusional world where the electorate are idiots, children in Crumlin Hospital are in no need of care (sad that they march with the gays today but not the parents of kids in Crumlin) and everyone and their warts have fast broadband. Keep forwarding those supportive emails around the office lads, that’s all that matters, not the pain you directly voted for. Stockholm syndromed Judas cunts.

The next Facebook Garage Dublin is Thursday. There are still some spaces left. Grab em.

Ann is doing a blogging workshop in Cork in July. Jaysus, this blogging thing might just take off, there’ll be awards next and the like.

The Snowman movie, music done by the Orchestra of the National Concert Hall. Get booking for December now! How many days til, you know…

Unlocked new iPhone 3GS is only a grand.

The Indo yesterday has a piece on the disaster that is the Metropolitan Area Networks project. I was also asked to stick my oar in. Delighted they left in the “rings of fibre bit”.

Jack’s far from stellar experience with eircom. Beware of upgrading!

Creating your own economy. Nice thinking.

For the Greens:

Fluffy Links – Thursday June 25th 2009

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

Where’s my Summer? A new Flickr pool for geotagging the Irish summer. This group will be picture-mapping the Irish summer with a collection of geo-tagged images from across the island. Parks, cycling, walks, sports events, views, festivals, parties, beaches… and (maybe, just maybe), sunny days.

And on Flickr, via Niall this cool app:

It’s a page where you select a colour from a palette and it (very quickly) scans flickr and shows you an array of photos from there where that colour is predominant.

Do you realize? – Flaming Lips

iPhone/iPod Touch backup app from the folks from Irish devshop SuperCrazyAwesome.

BVisible have launched a new website and their blog is kicked off with some good content including an interview with John Kennedy from Silicon Republic on how to send him pitches.

The Indo now have a branded Internet Explorer browser. Download it from the Microsoft site. Will the Irish Times bring out a Firefox browser?

Oh and happy birthday Mum. You rock.

Fluffy Links – Wednesday June 24th 2009

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

Seán’s redesigned his site again. Gets better each iteration!

Nice takedown of the latest Government Broadband mumbojumbo.

Want to find a Wired UK magazine in the UK? Now a handy service to find a store.

Bubble Brothers get oldskool advertising newskool.

Tips from Fred on how to write EU Proposals.

Via Suzy, congrats to Dermod Moore on his short film:

Gundamfantastic. Giant Gundam!

Recycled Coke Cans used to redo an old Coke Ad, giant style.

Boards of Canada – Everything You Do is a Balloon

Fluffy Links – Tuesday June 23rd 2009

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

Coddle Pot. Humour blog. Talented bunch there. G’wan, abandon me and head there or do that Right-click | Open in New Tab

Irish property prices not the real deal. Think we all knew that. Nice to see more evidence.

Tuesday Push is today and Collab.ie features.

National Print Museum doing workshops in Origami.

Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. Woah.

Some great ads for season 2 of True Blood. Real brands mixed with the fiction in the show.

Nice Vodka called Samurai, great design.

Fred Wilson talks to Howard from Stocktwits. More insight from an amazing guy.

Andrew WK doing a kids show?

Squarepusher – My Red Hot Car

Fluffy Links – Monday 22nd of June 2009

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

The 18th Hothouse Programme that will start in September. Want to start a startup in Dublin? Off you go. Tell your friends.

MeasurementCamp Dublin is on June 24th (that’s Wednesday) in the Odeon from 10am to 12pm. Register to come along.

Foinse, the last Irish Language newspaper is finishing up due to lack of funding. Save Foinse is a petition to ask for them to be kept going.

Wait for the punchline with this post from Maxi.

The Centra Good News Network launches today. Twitter account. YouTube account. Will be interesting to see what they do with it.

Congrats on Locle for this nice writeup.

The Guardian crowdsources MP expenses. Great idea. Shame our pols work on an honour system. No receipts needed even when they claim up to 80k a year.

MindApples.

Mindapples is a social movement to promote individual self-management of mental wellbeing. The original “5-a-day” campaign encouraged people to take care of their physical health through simple daily activities, and we want to do the same thing for mental health

James points out the latest iPhone software is better for radio listening now. Play it in Safari and it keeps playing when you go back to the main menu.

Via Ewan: Filter Government sponsored news.

Via Smartmobs: Participatory Sensing