Cold cuts

Joe Drumgoole has showed off a fridge of shame, for which I'd like to thank Karlin for reminding me and partially wondering if a fridge should be made available for everyone going on the PaddyValley trip?

To explain, when I worked in cubicle land, every cube had a whiteboard for explaining things. You could always tell a highly detailed explanation when the smell of the fumes wafted around the building. I suspect that whiteboard marker fumes are necessary for our technological progression much in the same way that leaking gasses were necessary for the Oracle at Delphi to have her (their?) visions of the future.

Notice how the Celtic tiger arrived around the same time as school leavers who when to the schools that got rid of their chalk based blackboards and moved on to the marker based whiteboards?

Of course, if you are a small start up or a single entrepreneur working on a laptop in their kitchen, or a small start-up where the meeting room is the break room) you simply don't have room for a whiteboard. Until NOW. GE have made a whiteboard covered fridge available in Brazil. Think about it. All your cold caffeine needs and a display platform combined in one!

Personally, I think whiteboard paint should be made available for rooms. Better still would be magnetic whiteboard paint so you could leave messages to yourself without all the fumes.

As you can see from the picture below, I'm more of a magnet man than a drawer.



now then, should I tag people for fridge pictures, or would that be cruel?

stay cool,
Will

tags : Joe Drumgoole, fridge of shame, Karlin Lillington, whiteboard, fridge, refrigerator, GE, PaddyValley

Instant Karma: Free Samples

A CD being unveiled today will showcase some of the world's biggest artists in aid of Amnesty International's Darfur campaign... blah blah blah, the full press release is available at Ireland.com.

However that's not entirely why I'm typing...
Springwise reported on a widget and affiliate programme called GoodStorm. In theory you can create a virtual mixtape of "new" musical acts, pick songs from GoodStorm's collection tracks (or upload your own if you own the copyright) and visitors can listen to clips and purchase downloads via the widget and iTunes (and others, evenually). Essentially its an affiliate sales program built around widget technology.

And the widget for the album based on John Lennon's songs... Instant Karma is available below... (you can get the code here). Just wondering if anyone has used it. Should I?

Will



tags : Music, Amnesty International, Darfur, Springwise, widget, affiliate programme, GoodStorm, mixtape, John Lennon, Instant Karma, code

Play in to the archives

Its a press release, but it might be of interest...
Cork City Libraries has begun to extend the resources of the Local Music Archive. The archive will collect two copies of recordings by Cork singers, musicians, groups, choirs, quartets, bands and orchestras across all genres of music : pop, rock, indie, jazz, traditional, classical, operatic, etc., plus 2 copies of music books and scores of Cork interest. we would be grateful if any individual, musician, group or music shop would alert us to any new material by Cork artists.

In addition to new material, the Local Music Archive will retrospectively collect material by Cork artists already released in an effort to make the archive as comprehensive as possivle.

Contact :
Cork City Libraries,
Local Studies Department,
Rory Gallagher Music Library,
or the eLibraries Services

I suppose all those mobile phone videos and bootlegs of the gigs at the Cork Midsummer Festival or the Live at the Marquee event (or anyone with a bootleg of the now ledendary Nirvina concert at Sir Henry's) should get in contact. I'm sure IMRO won't be contacted... but I haven't asked. You might want to.

take care,
Will

tags : Cork, Cork City, library, Cork City Library, Local Music Archive, Music, Local Studies, Rory Gallagher, Rory Gallagher Music Library, eLibraries, bootlegs, Cork Midsummer Festival

Meat is playing

Another sighting of a blog post on the Cork Midsummer Festival, this time its BifSniff on Meat a sordid affair for which he designed the poster.

I've heard scary things about this play. I wonder if that says anything about him? Hmmm. Must get to know him.

take care,
Will

tags : Cork, Midsummer Festival, Meat, BifSniff

Midsummer murmurs

Tonight is Midsummer night (the bonna fires were burning last night, or something was around Cobh). As I mentioned earlier I'm doing some stuff at the Cork Midsummer Festival and I've noticed a few other blogs on it.

Hammergrinn are doing a chat show for the festival (apparently, more posts please) as well as the Threat of Humour. I have no idea what to expect, but I'm going to be there.

Donal blogged about the play in a pub. Its also over, but Mairtín de Cogáin stared in Thailand: What’s Love Got To Do With It? in the Quad Bar. As if there wasn't enough playacting in pubs.

Now I have to say hello to Fin, who is cringing slightly when her interview for the Mooney Show (MP3 file) when out on the Internet for anyone to hear, but it was all done to promote Corcadorca's Woyzeck. I think its completely sold out, and it's a cold but entertaining (if slightly cold) walk. The Naval Base on Haulbowline Island looks wonderful but gosh it's chilly.

Will

and it awards points for artistic merit?

"Thankfully the cat is nice around the baby, which is a bit surprising as it's a stray which adopted up us. House trained already too, but in an odd way. You see we couldn't get him to go outside, or in the house. The poor thing kept holding it in, then we discovered that he'd be trained to go at the same time as us. He'd charge in after you in to the bathroom and watch you go, judging you and then following your lead."

Thankfully it's an overheard, but it's my first cat post... (hangs head in shame)

tags : overheard

I'm Mandy, fly me (after I complain about you)

I'm coming a little late to this party so excuse the recap.

First off, what on earth was 10cc thinking when they wrote that title of the post in 1976.

The time line seems to be as follows...
On June 1 2007....
Irish A list blogger and all round rights guy Damien Mulley went to the reboot 9.0 conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. On his return, the company handling the luggage for Cork Sky Handling Partners Ltd, formerly known as "City Jet Handling", lost his luggage.

Mulley being Mulley complained (with extra crunchy profanity).

And so it seemed to be over.

On June 20 2007...
Around lunchtime (and quoting starts here) he ..."started getting email confirmations from dating sites, including gay ones saying [his] account for their site has now been created. Seems someone was creating profiles saying [he] was looking to meet men and had rather interesting profile descriptions. One of the emails disclosed the IP address where the person submitted the details from:

62.77.175.251

inetnum: 62.77.175.248 - 62.77.175.255
netname: CITYJETHLING
descr: City Jet Handling Dublin.

City Jet Handling is the former name of Sky Handling Partners. "

IP spoofing not withstanding, it seems a little dumb to not cover your tracks.

Damien gives a fuller description on this post, which may have to be pulled because Handling Partners Ltd's lawyers have served him with a take down notice.

If this was an attempt to harass Mulley, it's backfired a bit. This news has spread out so much that a Google searchshows lots of details on the incident, from the humorous, to the business, including the telecoms business, the media to the legal. The other reason it might not work is that you don't silence an openly gay man by adding his profile to a gay dating site.

It's going to be interesting.

take care,
Will

tags : Damien Mulley, reboot 9.0, Copenhagen, Denmark, Cork, Sky Handling Partners, City Jet Handling, complain, dating, fraud, identity theft, IP address, 62.77.175.251, lawyer, take down notice, harassment

hate crimes and comments

People have a habit of telling me things. Sometimes it's things I don't want to know about.

In this particular case a post from 2004 about the Life of Brian being re-released brought forth a comment...

"I just kicked the shit out of a [derogatory term for a minority] after i followed him outside [Cork nightclub] on [day of the week] night"

Sorry about the censoring, but I have my reasons, which will become apparent below.

So what do you do when someone admits to committing a crime on your blog?
I took it down as soon as I saw it.

The next question is, what do you do next...

Well wither this assault is fictional or real. Worst case... its real.
If its real and I don't report it... am I liable?

Well, since it concerns a minority, there is a chance that an incident such as this would have crossed the desk of the Garda liaison for that minority... so I checked, and there was one.

I've dropped the details I have off (approximate time, place and minority concerned) and I'm leaving the investigations in the hands of the authorities.

Lets assume it is a real event, what is traceable?
Blogspot (or Google) have probably recorded the incoming IP address and time of the comment being recorded. This means that the commenter could be traced back to his (I think it's a safe assumption that an assault described above is more likely to be bragged about by a man than a woman) IP address assigned at the time of the post.

This IP address may belong to a household, public place or a company.
In most cases It should be possible to figure out who posted it...

However it all depends on if the assault took place.

What should I have done, and should I have done something different?

Will

tags : blogs, blogging, crime, assault, hate crime, comments

Even if the toys are better

I mentioned before that I was looking forward to the toys from the Transformers movie.

I called in to Smyths and saw the following...

Yup the movie toys have started to come out.

Which means the "stop gap" classics line is finished. So I'll have to use eBay to search for Mirage, Grimlock and the other 2 waves of minicons which was supposed to come out over here.

Not even Optimash makes up for it... see


Why do I hear a wallet crying?

tags : Transformers, movie, toys

Take note of the venue

On Thursday I was planning to go to the Irish Microsoft Technology Conference in Dublin, but given that I'm currently listening to the podcasts generated at the Reboot (human) conference in Copenhagen, (and asking Clare Dillon for access to the slides and recording from the conference) I think I might be able to pick up the necessary.

And saying the word conference a lot.

The reason I couldn't go was because I'm doing some voluntary work for the Cork Midsummer Festival. Most of this work involved heaving boxes of event flyers and books to stops around the city (mostly libraries and shopping centres). The energy level in the offices (administration and box) are high... the events and gigs start in about a fortnight.

Tips for distributing these around...
1)Don't hit between Thursday and Sunday. The weekend is fairly busy but the free sheets arrive on a Thursday so space is limited. If the venue asks for more however, ignore this tip.
2)Take note of the venue. If it's a library with a large children's section, then they will actually want the kids information. Obvious but its easy to miss.
3)Take note of the venue. If there isn't a information point in the shopping there isn't really a chance of getting stuff in there. In general however, Tesco's information point, which is also a shop counter, is more accommodating than the customer service desk in Dunnes, which is purely an office point.
4)Take note of the venue. If there aren't any other flyers, or if there are a handful which look like the are related to the centre, chances the centre isn't going to be interested in them.

Now I'd like to ask, is there anywhere else (on the North side of Cork in particular) where these flyers should be going?

Tags : Microsoft, podcast, Reboot, Clare Dillon, conference, Cork Midsummer Festival, library, Tesco, Dunnes, shopping centre, Cork

Dublin's Saint

I've been waiting a week to post this because I've been waiting for RTE to update their podcast but it's too late.

Today, Sunday June 3rd 2007, Ireland gets a new saint (and a Dublin based one to boot).
The 19th century Passionist priest Father Charles of Mount Argus will be canonised today by Pope Benedict XVI. I first heard about this on Sunday Miscellany, hence my little RTE rant. This guy was a living saint (dead for some time I know) who James Joyce mentioned in a way that Mother Teresa would be mentioned now.

I had never heard about him before the programme, and I don't think there is going to be much press about it (unless it's been a really slow news week, which it hasn't been). Of course if you live near Mount Argus I'm sure you know about it, but still. It seems a bit quite.

Do many actually care now?

(and no argos jokes please...)

Will

tags: saint, Dublin, Charles of Mount Argus, canonised, Pope Benedict XVI, Sunday Miscellany, James Joyce, Mount Argus

Crikey

I don't know which is worse.

That there is a Steve Irwin "The Crocodile hunter" line of action toys or the fact that, from the pictures, they look so cheaply made.

tags : toys, Steve Irwin

Go flip yourself

There is a Caopeira Festival on in Cork over the June Bank Holiday weekend (a festival during a Irish Bank Holiday, what are the odds)... It's been put together by Candeias Ireland

Anyway, there will be a public show outside of Brown Thomas on Patrick Street, Cork City tomorrow from 10am until 11:30am. Where you'll see people do stuff like these photos...









Needless to say, my back is killing me right now... I'm not too sure I'll make it for the public show but...

tags : Candeias, Caopeira, Cork, Fermoy