Life Without Toast - Sibling Rivalry

By now pretty much everybody who reads this will know of the ten climbers that were tragically killed after reaching the summit of K2 last weekend, in the worst accident that has ever happened on that most dangerous of the worlds' highest peaks. Most of the media attention in Ireland is focussing on Ger McDonnell, a Limerick native, who had been living in Alaska with his partner Annie prior to his K2 attempt.

I had the good fortune to meet Ger and Annie in July of last year, in McCarthy, Alaska. He was a worker on the oil fields in Prudhoe Bay, working one week on and one week off, and was visiting McCarthy for a bit of craic, being that it was open mic night in the New Golden Saloon (aka "The Golden") and he wanted to share his considerable bodhran-playing skills with the locals and tourists in McCarthy.

Myself and Nikki were inside the Golden when we heard that someone outside had heard that someone inside was Irish, and that they were Irish too (an Irishman is definitely a novelty most places in Alaska, and for two of them to randomly meet is an occasion for boisterous drinking and merriment). We went outside and chatted to Ger for a while, told him what we were doing during our time in AK and he talked about what he was doing and how he came to be in Alaska and general small-talk. He played a bit of bodhran while we chatted, he had an amazing talent with the goatskin. We told him that we would be in Anchorage for a day at the end of our trip, and he insisted that we come over to his place for dinner, even though he was going back up to Prudhoe Bay, and he wouldn't even be there at the time! The real pity is that we actually missed him playing inside the bar for the open mic, because we had spent the entire day trekking on a glacier and were falling asleep standing up.

You hear of people being killed in climbing accidents and other "extreme" activities all the time, and although it often makes headline news, it's rarely talked about for longer than a few days. I know I will think about Ger's tragic death for longer than it's in the news.

Indeed, any time when I think back to myself and Nikki's amazing holiday in Alaska last year, where I proposed to her and we had the most amazing time we've ever had, I will think about Ger McDonnell. My heart goes out to anyone who was close to him, especially his family and friends, and his partner Annie Starkey.

More here, here, and here.

Book of condolences here.

Posted by Matt at 1:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There's an amazing documentary over at Nature all about The Antikythera Mechanism, an ancient mechanical calculator (also described as the first known "mechanical computer") designed to calculate astronomical positions over time, which was built over 2,000 years ago, most probably by Archimedes in the colonies of Corinth in Sicily. It's absolutely mind-blowing.

The The Antikythera Mechanism is basically a big (very complicated, and way ahead of it's time) clock, which calculates the date of solar and lunar eclipses, as well as when the various "games", including the Olympics, are scheduled to happen. In that way it's one of the few ancient mechanisms which displays not only astronomical events, but also events of cultural significance.

I highly recommend you click on that there link above and spend a few minutes learning about one of the most important archeological finds in history.

There is, of course, also a (long!) page all about it ovar at Wikipedia.

I also recommend spend a bit of time going through the Nature Online Video Archive, there's loads more there that will blow your mind.

For those of you who don't watch the video, it's pronounced "ANT-EE-KITH-ER-A".

(I'd embed the video, but there's no easy "embed video" option and I'm too tired to fiddle with embedding .swf files the hard way. Sorry!)

Posted by Matt at 11:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

George, originally uploaded by Matthew Verso.

As requested by TUG, a quick George update.

Georges' current favourite activities are eating, sleeping, and running around at great speed after inanimate objects. His favourite toys are pieces of paper, corks, and a ribbon (do you buy cat toys for your cat? You're a numpty). He's also currently sporting a poofy red elasticated "training collar", after he obliterated the nice reflective one we got him.

We've had lots of visitors lately, and he's coped admirably. I mean yeah, he's mad as a brush, but he's cool. He got on particularly well with Jack, my cousin Ame's (and her husband Adam's) baby. And Nikki was away for a week and a half so he seemed to miss her a lot too, so it's been a difficult time for him*, but he's doing alright.

He's also currently teething (George I mean). At the moment he's got four canine teeth on the top and two on the bottom, He looks like a cross between a shark and a cat. He also has no premolars on one side, so he has the look of a pirate about him too. Kind of like a mutant shark-pirate-cat.

*This is called "anthropomorphism".

Posted by Matt at 1:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

We've been shortlisted for best group blog.

I didn't see that happening. I still don't harbour any illusions that we have the slightest hope of winning (indeed I see us as having the least chance on the list of winning), but still, nice to be short-listed.

I suppose I should probably put my name down to actually attend the awards really! Is anyone else going? We should totally sit together like, wearing our Fluffy badges.

Posted by Matt at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We've been nominated for the 2008 Irish Blog Awards in the category of "Best Group Blog". Thanks to whoever it may have been who voted for us, the cheque's in the post. :-)

I don't harbour any allusions that we might even make the shortlist, never mind win anything, as we're up against some very good blogs, but it's nice to be on the long-list.

Posted by Matt at 9:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Everybody, meet George.

Isn't he gorgeous?

We picked him up from the Cats & Dogs home (in Rathfarnham) last Friday week, and he's settled in very well. He's house trained (thankfully), and his favourite activities are chasing things, sleeping, eating and spreading kitty litter all over the utility room floor (we're hoping he'll grow out of the last one). He also loves snuggling into his Mammy and Daddy on the couch of an evening.

We always had cats while I was growing up, but George is Nikki's first kitty, and she's loving it. He's also great around guests, and fell asleep last week when we had people around and we were all jumping around playing Wii Sports, so he's pretty cool really. In fact, he's very cool.

Posted by Matt at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBacks (0)

Everybody's favourite half-decent WebTV service Joost has emerged from Beta all shiny and new and full of goodness. There's now literally hundreds of channels (well, about a hundred) and there's actually some decent stuff on some of them. Over 15,000 shows now, apparently.

The biggest news though, is that Joost is no longer invite-only. Which means that anyone who was previously looking for an invite from me can bugger off and just sign up themselves. Simply click on that there logo and sign yourself up to some webby-TV-torrenty-sharingy goodness.

Posted by Matt at 2:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

They've just re=printed this t-shirt over at Threadless, and I think anyone who spends any time cycling should definitely plonk down the 15 dolla and buy it, it's totally cooltacular. Me, I drive everywhere, so I think buying it would be a crime against cycling, and also cyclists.

Posted by Matt at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

As of today, I am certified by the University of Ulster as an Arts Manager.

Yay for me! Today was the final, "presentation" day. We had all (16 of us) completed three academic assignments through the year (Leadership, Personal Development Planning, and Marketing) and were given our final grade on those, but today we had to do a presentation on... "Something". Some way the course had helped us do something in our jobs. It's an arts management course, and everyone in it is an Arts Manager or some description, so the variety and "artistic-ness" of the presentations was great.

Mine was very techie. As in Theatre Techie, Health & Safety, that kind of techie.

Here's the Powerpoint presentation if anyone wants to have a look. Everyone thought it was brilliant, I thought it was ok, and it was the only one anyone wanted to ask questions about, and provoked discussion during the presentation. In a good way like. People were interested, if not necessarily entertained. :-)

It's fairly A-B-C, but if any Powerpoint Ninjas out there want to give (constructive) feedback or ask questions, please do.

_{(Special thanks to iRed Lite for assisting me in using my Apple Remote for my Presentation, letting me walk around in a much more relaxed fashion, and enabling me to gesture profusely, as is my wont)}

Posted by Matt at 7:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBacks (0)

Ok so someone has to give me proper advice on this BEFORE Monday avo when I call the customs bastards. I won this handbag on ebay, I would link it, but I am not arsed at this stage and also, too lazy to go look for the link, anyway, all in all including postage and packaging it cost me ?198, and then I get a notice in the letterbox today informing me that I owe the customs 50 fucking euro, sorry for swearing, but I do it, and I do it more when I am angry, WTF seriously, are they allowed to do this, and where did they get this ?50 from, is it just a figure they pulled out of their arses or what, I am mucho confused! And also, instead of holding it for collection in my local post office sorting place, they send it to the headquarters where I cannot get to, should I sue? Or what? I want my feckin bag, but is ?50 extra too much, a tenner I could handle, the value I paid was about ?150 so is the customs rate 33% or what? HELP MEEEEEE!
Thanks!!

Posted by Babs at 12:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

Lexia brings up interesting points about The Electricity Supply Board planning to close a number of its' power stations, and wonders where Ireland will get its' energy from if these stations are closed.

I remember (kinda sorta) the proposed Nuclear Power station at Carnsore Point, Co. Wexford in the 70's. My parents were heavily involved in the Anti-Nuclear movement back then, and also involved in the organisation of the Hippy Jam-Festivals/Protest Concerts of '78 and '79 ("Get To The Point" and "Back To The Point"). These may have been the last time popular opinion and government policy was swayed (for the better) by organised protest in this country.

Of course now, Carnsore point is home to one of the States' biggest wind-generated power stations, pumping out 12MW from 14 turbines. From nuclear power to wind power, hooray for poetic justice.

My point is, this country is battered by some of the strongest prevailing winds in Europe, and the West Coast is constantly hammered by the Atlantic. We couldn't be in any better position to replace ALL of our electricity generation with renewable, wind and wave-powered generators.

So why aren't we doing this? I say close the crappy, dirty old coal and gas-fired power stations as planned, and open up lovely, clean, green wind and wave-powered ones. But of course that's not going to happen, now is it?

UPDATE: Today just happens to be World Earth Day. Total coincidence, I swear.

Posted by Matt at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I got this one today on eBay:

This now takes pride of place as my coolest shirt, only to be worn on the most special occasions, or when I need to look really, really cool.

UPDATE: If you follow the link on Jimmy J's comment, you'll end up here, where there's still a few shirts left, some for a lot less than mine went for. C'mon dudes, it's for charidee, and the shirts are fucking cool. Just imagine strolling into a gig by the really cool band that everyone likes, wearing one of these bad boys. You'd be like, the man (or woman).

Posted by Matt at 4:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

Help me ... I have a swollen face, it's not visibly swollen, but still scary to feel. I am convinced I have Bell's Palsey, even though I have no symptoms, all under my eyebrow is swollen and sore, and also I have a big lump in my jaw, sobaroonie! What if I wake up and I am the Elephant Woman. I am unimpressed with my immune system, I haven't been to the doc since November 2004 when I had a horrendous chest infection. I don't even know what time the surgery hours are ... worst face in the world.

Posted by Babs at 9:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBacks (0)

I would've said hammered myself, but "bounced" is an accurate description.

Posted by Matt at 8:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

(Woohoo!) So yesterday was my 2nd driving test (yeah I failed the last one due to total panic after I fooked up the reversing around a corner). It went great, I totally love myself now, driving around the streets without my L(oser) plates, looking groovy!

Embarrassingly enough for myself I cried when he told me that I had passed, I tend to do that a lot when I get good news, he was a lovely dude my tester, some country chap, he went and got me a tissue and all, and then piped up as I was walking out the door ?don?t be driving like a lunatic now? ? gas?

Go me anyway, I rock ass officially! (and here are some pics to prove it s?there!!)

Posted by Babs at 1:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (20) | TrackBacks (0)

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Posted by Matt at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Right, so I spent a couple of hours tonight (much to Nikki's chagrin) creating some new stuff for the archives page (just in case anyone looks there apart from the DRS's*).

Firstly, I created a list (on the main archive page, just under the 'Recent Posts' section) of the last ten posts from myself, and then the last ten posts from Babs. Go there now, and have a look. See? Nice, isn't it? Not bad, eh?

Secondly, as you can see from the big fat link beside the title of each list, there's now a new archives page for ALL posts by me, and another page listing ALL posts by Babs. Which is also nice, and not bad.

This is mostly for me, to see what I'm capable of in the copy-and-pasting stakes, and creating the odd original bitín of code myself, with this Moveable Type thingy, and this other PHP thingy, and possibly extending the functionality of the LWT a little bit. Mostly for me, I say, but definitely a little bit for Adrian, who's poor head has been fucking WRECKED since he lashed this blog together for me, with constant "how do you do this?" and "can you do this for me?" -type questions. Now, Adrian's a mate, and I hate asking my mate's for TOO much, in anything at all. Ade's been brilliant, but it's really time I started doing some of this shit myself. So I have, and this is what I've done for starters.

_{*Dirty Rotten Spammers}

Posted by Matt at 11:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBacks (0)

^{(...Idly strolling through Tesco...)}

Hmmm... Sandwich, sandwich, sandwich. These are all crap, I'd be better off going to M&S. In fact, fuck this, I think I will...

I think we need Jam. And butter. That schmancy Italian coffee I got in town will only last until the end of this week.

Tesco Value Digestives are really good. They're at least 95% as good as McVitie's, and they're only 37c. THIRTY-SEVEN CENTS! How do they do it?! It's Witchcraft I tell you!

Hang on. This can't be right. Tesco Anti-Virus...?

"Bollocks", I cry.

No, it's really real.

Holy shit! Tesco Office! Like Microsoft Office, only not quite as good, and it's ?30! THIRTY FUCKING EURO!

Hmmm... If I didn't already have MS office on my computer, would I buy this? Probably not. I'd probably download Open Office, despite it's myriad bugs and problems, because it costs exactly nought cents...

Then again, Average Joe probably hasn't got a clue about Open-Source goodness. He'll buy Tesco Office and like it. He'll think it's the best thing since... Well, either Tesco Digestives or MS Office, depending on where he's coming from. Hmmm... It appears Tesco office is just Ability Office with a Tesco sticker on it. And Tesco Anti-Virus is the godawful Panda in sheeps clothing.

So I was totally right with my cry of "Bollocks!" then...

_{(...Goes to M&S for a superior sandwich...)}

Posted by Matt at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

Steve Irwin, the eponymous "Crocodile Hunter", has died in a marine accident while filming an underwater documentary off the coast of Australia.

I know some people thought he was annoying and a bit of an idiot, and his famous "holding the baby while feeding a crocodile" incident didn't go down too well with the masses, but he was basically a good guy, in my opinion, who did a lot for conservation and animal welfare during his lifetime, and his constant, boundless enthusiasm for what he was doing was always entertaining.

Rest in peace, Steve, we'll miss ya.

UPDATE: It seems that the news of poor Steve's demise was quite popular, to the extent that it completely trashed many website's bandwidth, including most of the big Australian news sites, and the crocodilehunter.com site I mentioned above. Steve was a popular guy.

Posted by Matt at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

It comes but once a year. That week that I do 70-80 hours of back-breaking work, with no overtime, and really, truly don't mind, as it's so interesting and much fun. The week 250-300,000 people descend on the town of Dun Laoghaire in county Dublin, to attend indoor and outdoor gigs, dance shows, theatre, workshops, clubs, markets and 'street events', and generally have a thoroughly excellent time.

This year, myself and herself have the pleasure of entertaining Adrian and Annie over the weekend. The Sev is arriving tomorrow, and Annie on Saturday. In between doing all those previously-mentioned hours of festival work (6 shows in 4 days, plus discussions, seminars, workshops, photoshoots, tv work, and general management and production-type stuff), I will endeavour to show them why exactly, once a year, Dun Laoghaire is the coolest place in the entire world.

As I'm kinda totally up to my tits (did I mention that already?), I don't know what's going to happen here on the LWT. If all goes according to plan, I will be 'live blogging' the entire thing, in photos (if all doesn't go according to plan, you won't hear jack from me all weekend, but that's not going to happen).

Later dudes. Updates (may or may not start) from tomorrow.

Posted by Matt at 10:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

In relation to Seamus' questioning of value of the ?2 per question answered on the AQA service, I decided, in fact, to go ahead and ask AQA the question:

What will the winning Lotto numbers be this Saturday 19th of August?

I'm going to trust AQA and see if I win the lottery this Saturday. If I am successful, I will inform AQA that they should probably increase the cost of the service.

AQA: They don't do 'the future'.

UPDATE: I am no richer today than I was yesterday, despite AQA's best efforts. I deduce that there is no need after all for them to raise their prices above the ?2 per question they currently charge.

Posted by Matt at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Taking a cue from Dan, I have investigated the AQA service, seeing as how it's now available in Ireland. You simply text a question (any question) to 57275, and you get the answer back a couple of minutes later, for a fee. Dan's had a lot of fun blogging questions and answers, so I thought I'd shamlessly plagarise join in on the fun, and have a go myself:

Me: "If you only have one leg, and you go into a shoe shop, do you have to pay for two shoes or can you just argue "but I only want one"?"

AQA: "There are no shops that specifically sell single shoes, but they could be ordered. Bear in mind that many amputees have artificial limbs and would want two shoes"

Well, that's that cleared up then. AQA: Any Question Answered.

Posted by Matt at 9:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (15) | TrackBacks (0)

Q: What's the difference between an apple and an orange?

A: There's no such thing as an apple bastard.

_{*Well, it was really the thought for yesterday, but I forgot was too busy.}

Posted by Matt at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

For those of you who are interested in such nonsensical whimsy, I have decided to set myself up a (fictional) nation state over at Nationstates.net. Anyone who want's to visit The Republic of Gunteria can do so here. Have a nice time in my wonderful, beautiful country!

_{[via ScrewYouHippy]}

UPDATE: Gunteria now has a national flag, pictured to the right.

Posted by Matt at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

In this list of the 50 most expensive cities to live in the world, Dublin comes 18th (London comes 5th btw, Adrian, Dan, Annie et al), more expensive than Rome, Dubai (kinda unbelievable?), Los Angeles (I guess Beverly Hills isn't included in the survey), San Francisco and Miami.

What's really weird is that Moscow, of all cities, is top of the list. Is this because you need to buy a new car every month because the Russian Mafia keep stealing the one you have? If so, the statistics are flawed, imho.

_{[via BoingBoing]}

Posted by Matt at 5:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

Slowly...getting...there...

So we moved all the stuff from my sister's garage to the new house yesterday. You may recall an amusing blog post about the original move, and the hilarity that ensued when Sean (the bro-in-law) got his truck stuck up a small lane and needed a Garda escort in reverse? Well, I'm pleased to report that due to our new place being ridiculously convenient to the motorway, no such hi-jinks occured in yesterdays move.

We got out to Garristown (North County Dublin, middle-of-nowhere) at about 10am, mostly due to the new N2 dual carriageway taking about half an hour or more off the journey time, which was brilliant (so from taking an hour and a half to get to my Mam and Dad's or my sisters, it now takes 45 minutes!). We loaded up the truck, chasing away a few cats and spiders as we did so (amid screams of "SPIDER!!!" from Nikki), I had a go around their garden on Sean's Quad Bike which was loads of fun, we had some breakfast and tea, and headed up to my Mam and Dad's for a couple more things.

Unloading was easy-peasy, and all the stuff stacked into one of the bedrooms as we're getting wood put down this week in the other two. We headed to Dalkey for a bit o' nosh, and ended up in the IN bar as there wasn't much else open. After lunch we parted ways, another stage in the moving process completed.

Today, the wood for the floors is being delivered, a skip is coming to take away the rubble from knocking down that wall, NTL are coming to hook up the broadband and TV, and I just got a call saying our lovely couch is ready. It's all go here!

Posted by Matt at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (18) | TrackBacks (0)

I love Annie Slaminsky. She's the nicest blogger in the whole wide world. I half-heartedly asked in my post about new Squeezy Marmite that "Should anyone in the UK wish to purchase me a sqeeeezy jar of Marmite, I will re-emburse you to the tune of TEN of your English Pounds" (it being not-yet available in Ireland), but I didn't honestly think anyone would actually do it (at least, not someone I haven't actually met yet). Which means, I suppose, that I owe Annie a tenner. I shall endeavour to make it to the next blogmeet that happens in London in order to furnish you with said tenner, Annie (and probably a hug too, coz I'm like that)!

I love the internet. You meet the nicest people there.

Note to Nikki: I do mean (of course) platonic love. You have no competition, m'kay?

Posted by Matt at 1:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

I got an email from the bauld Google telling me that 'Picasa Web Albums' would be launching 'soon', so I should 'apply for an invitation', so I did (haven't heard back yet though). It looks to me like Google, with Picasa, is going to try to take on the might of Yahoo! with Flickr in the online photo-sharing world, which seems to me like a gargantuan challenge for the dudes at Google.

Almost everyone I know who wants to share their photos online uses Flickr (with the exception of Adrian, who designed his own photo-sharing experience, colossal geek that he is), and they pretty much have the market sown up as regards online photo-sharing. Flickr has all the tools too, for things like mo'blogging and such, which from what I can see won't be rolled out by Picasa for quite a while yet.

Now, I use Picasa to organise my pics on my computer, because it's brilliant, at least far more brillianter than Windows is. I'm sure iPhoto on the Mac is pretty good, but as regards Windows and organising pics, Picasa is King in my opinion. If it was really easy to post pics online from inside Picasa, and if they rolled out blogging facilities that were as good as or (dare I say) better than Flickr, I might be tempted to change over to this new service, but they'd want to be pretty far along in their program before I do that, and I think I'll wait (even after I get an invite) until they've taken down that 'TEST' banner from the 'Picasa Web Albums' logo before I even think about telling other people to look for my photos there (how is 'TEST' different from 'Beta', that's what I want to know...).

Have any other Gmail or Picasa users (who read this here blog) recieved an invite? Anyone seen what it's really like beyond the 'Learn More' page? Let me know in the comments, if you please.

Posted by Matt at 1:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

It's called "Marmite Squeeze Me". It will forever change the nature of my morning slice of toast. It is not, as yet, available in Ireland. Should anyone in the UK wish to purchase me a sqeeeezy jar of Marmite, I will re-emburse you to the tune of TEN of your English Pounds (or Scottish poooounds).

In other Marmite-news, the last ever 57g jar of The Yeasty Goodness™ was recently sold on eBay UK for £235. That works out at a little over four pounds a gram. That's some good Marmite right there.

Posted by Matt at 5:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)

I was up last night at about 2am. I was in work until about 1am, and met Andy in the pub where I had one bottle of Heineken and gave him and Nikki (his girlfriend Nikki, not my girlfriend Nikki, I'll explain another time) a lift home. "Oliver's Army" by Elvis Costello was on the radio in the car as we pulled up to the house, and as we went inside, Andy turned the radio on the hear the end of the song. We left the radio on (Today FM plays some good music in the wee small hours) and had another beer or two. Then we heard a very eye-opening advert (on the radio, which was still on).

It started with what sounded like a very real person telling a very real story about how someone he knew had killed himself and his girlfriend (the speaker's sister, from what I gathered) in a drink-driving accident. The tagline at the end of the ad was Ray D'Arcy saying:

"Don't be a fuckin' eejit, don't drink and drive"

-Not the kinda thing I can remember hearing before in an anti-drink-driving campaign, and something that kinda made me think a bit more about the fact that I'd just had a bottle of beer (probably not over the limit of 80 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood, but still) and driven home. I think it was basically the use of the "fuckin'" in the tagline, instead of the usual "(please) don't drink and drive". It's part of a campaign directed at people my age, who would be up at that time of the night, and who probably would have done what I had just done, and wouldn't be averse to using that kind of language, and would probably take the message in the right way rather than finding it offensive.

Made me think to myself, "don't be a fuckin' eeejit dude". Which means it's the first ad of it's type to really make me do that.

Posted by Matt at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For anyone with even a passing interest in technology and the web, anyone who's ever wondered exactly what 'Web 2.0' means, and almost every blogger worth their blog, the 'eTech' conference in San Diego last week was choc-full of great news, developments and gadgets that I found fascinating and educational all at once, even if I only read about them (much as I would've loved to be there). Click the picture here for a gazillion (ok about 60 or so) links to articles all about what exactly the web and apps like RSS, Atom, Ajax, blogs, and pretty much any online application you can think of, and a few more besides (like Google, eBay, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple, the usual suspects) are thinking up to make your web-based experiance all the more interesting, user-friendly and downright cool in the next year or so.

(nb: Web 1.0='readable' web, Web 2.0='writable' web. Easy eh?)

Posted by Matt at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I like the Ricky Gervais Podcast. I think it's hilarious. Steve Merchant is an admirable co-host, and Karl Pilkington has now become an internet phenomenon all of his own creation. So when I got an email yesterday saying that 'the first in a new run of at least 4 shows is available right now!', I was happy. I looked forward to more Monkey News, more entries from 'Karl's Diary', and lots more observations and comedy musings from the point of view of the ineffable Ricky Gervais.

But then I clicked through from the mail I recieved from rickygervais.com to Audible.com, I got a horrible surprise. For 4 episodes of the Podcast, which up until now has been completely gratis, they wanted nearly seven flipping euros, or nearly two euros each. Now, if it was something I thought I'd listen to over and over, I probably wouldn't have a problem with that. But The RGS is not like that. I listened to all 12 episodes from Guardian Unlimited (for free), and thought them funny, but funny in a 'yeah-that-was-funny-but-not-a-second-time' kinda way. Three dudes sitting around a microphone and prattling on, occasionally interrupted by hyena-like laughter, while very funny the first time, isn't something you can listen to over again and again. Well I can't anyway.

Posted by Matt at 9:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBacks (0)

I don't know if news of the riots in Dublin on Saturday travelled across the water, and it's already been blogged to death by several more 'journalistic' bloggers than I, but I might as well throw in my 2 cents worth and what I think of the whole thing.

I'm not even going to bother to comment on the rioters themselves, or the loyalist marchers, as neither side deserves any comment. I will, however, mention the ineptitude of the Garda Síochána in initially posting only 250 officers along the route of an extremely controversial parade in the first place. Given the size of protests in Northern Ireland during essentially pro-Britain loyalist parades, surely they must have forseen that this would not be the friendliest of occasions, especially in Dublin, where (since the civil war) an Orange/Loyalist parade/march is (I quote) 'unprecedented'?

I also would like, after the above 'diss' of the Gardaí, to praise them in their swift response when the parade and protest turned into a full-blown riot and street battle. From what I saw on the news, and in the papers, they really took care of the situation in a professional way. If only there had have been another few hundred of them, perhaps the thugs responsible for the violence would have been cordoned away from the general public a bit quicker and with less damage and injury. But hindsight is always 20-20 isn't it?

Anyhoo, the real shame is that this happened on a rugby weekend, so the city was full of Welsh (and other) revellers and supporters, over in Baile Átha Cliath for a bit of a hooley and a nice game of rugger (which we won 31-5, wahey!). What a pity they were subjected to seeing bigotry and hooliganism of this order on what would otherwise have been a quiet Saturday afternoon in my beautiful hometown.

Fuck the fucking bigoted bastards.

Posted by Matt at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

So I see Simon Cowell is looking for budding entrepeneurs and tinkerers to take part in his new show, 'American Inventor'. Entrants from across the US of A will compete to see who can come up with the best 'product concept'. It's a good idea, but I really don't think Cowell is necessarily the best person to oversee/produce this show, and the name 'American Inventor' is a bit of a misnomer, as they're looking more for entrepreneurs than inventors when it comes down to it.

I think the BBC show 'Dragons' Den' is the best show I have seen using this idea. If you haven't seen it, basically each week someone comes in with an business plan/concept, and has to persuade a panel of five business investors to give him the dough to finance it. All they need is one of the panel to say yes to the amount they need, but if no-one wants to give them the that exact amount of money (or more), they get nothing. I think Cowell is actually better suited for the Dragons' Den idea than the American Inventor one, but if they'd used that format they would've had to give the BBC a bob or two, rather than claiming it as a 'new concept'.

(Cowell's next project after 'American Inventor' is 'Duets', kinda like American/Pop/X/Idol/Factor but with two entrants at a time. Now there's an original idea. I'm like, so looking forwardn't)

Posted by Matt at 3:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)