Damien Mulley

Want to write about Rugby during the World Cup? Talk to Gerry.

Shite Drivers is now up and running. Visit and contribute. Niall, I am willing to do PR for the site for free. Just so I can see the word “shite” in print.

iQ Content are looking for a projector manager.

I’m still looking for a sponsor for “Best Blog Post of the Week”

David LaChapelle takes great photos.

Blogging not dead. Just smells that way.

BBC gets social bookmarking. Nice. Expect rise in Beeb stories on various sites. RTE, listening?

How did Skype go down and slowly and sluggishly recover? Lot to do with it being a parasitic network. A few DDOSs and you could wipe out this billion dollar subsidiary of eBay.

WTF. More on the gay “lifestyle choice”.

I want to see this on a bigger screen. Helvetica the film.

Via MeFi – This isn’t easy:

and THIS is just insane.

M.I.A – Bird Flu (she’ll be at Elec Pic)

I was interviewed this week about Facebook and LinkedIn and all the various social networking sites and whether they are a good way of business networking and ways of getting jobs. I answered in the positive and gave my reasoning and advice. Anyways, I should have reference how NOT to get yourself noticed with social media.

From the wiki entry of Aleksey Vayner:

In October 2006, Yale University student Aleksey Vayner applied for a job with UBS AG, the world’s largest wealth management company. Amused by Vayner’s apparent puffery, an unknown member of UBS staff emailed his application materials to other investment banks. They were soon posted on various blogs, then YouTube, from where they became an immense viral Internet phenomenon

Read the whole Wiki entry, the guy really was caught out a beaut and then his “charity” and “investment bank” and “book” were caught out too. Here’s a video, car crash TV –

Impossible is Nothing:

And a great spoof by Michael Cera – Impossible is the opposite to possible:

Posted this on the Awards website. Looking for a company to sign up to sponsor the “Blog Post of the Week” section on the Blog Awards site. Each week people can nominate the best blog post and the winner will get a voucher for Amazon or something like that. If anyone is interested in sponsorship, drop me a line.

Update: Just to clarify a few things. Sponsorship for this would start in September and would end just after the Blog Awards 2008. This is a long-term sponsorship commitment.

More details on how it can benefit the sponsor and why it benefits blogging:
There are now well over 2000 Irish blogs, with the number possibly over 3000 blogs. The Best Blog Post will feed into the Irish Blog Awards 2008. It is designed to keep people thinking about the Blog Awards but also as a way of promoting quality blogging.

There will be a nomination form on the Awards website which will allow anyone to nominate a blog post. The winner will be announced on the Blog Awards site each week and the winner is encouraged to display the Blog Post Winner badge link back to the blog post.

Currently the Blog Awards website gets about 2000 unique visitors a month but closer to the Blog Awards event, it gets a lot more visits. In February this year it had 13,575 unique visitors for the month.

The Beeb is picketed over the DRM in their video player. Do those picketing realise that they were mandated to restrict the content after commercial companies said it was unfair to have a taxpayer backed entity competing with them?

Jump up and down MORE.

Join the Irish Business Network on Facebook.

Meanwhile, Tripadvisor pay 3Million for a Facebook application. Easy money?

Over-capacity, y’think?

Force websites without feeds, to have them.

Múm – They Made Frogs Smoke ‘Til They Exploded

Walk Hard:

Myself and my work colleagues have been avid supporters of the Farmers’ Market in Mahon Point which is on every thursday. However of late we are getting more and more jaded at the almost weekly price increases by the providers there. It’s a shame that some people seem to see they are doing well and so will exploit consumers who are giving them business. Most of the stalls we visit (apart from O’Conaill’s) seem to have jacked up their prices a LOT over the rainy summer.

For example, the curry stand now charges €7.50 for a bowl of curry or €8 if you want a curry with meat in it. Now, I don’t have receipts from a few weeks back but I could have sworn I didn’t pay more than a fiver for a bowl of curry then and the veggie and non-veggie curries were the same price. 8 quid for a small bowl of curry? Sorry, no. UPDATE: See comments below, it seems this is for a different tub and not the one they server for consumption at the Market.

One of the most popular stands does nice steak sandwiches and Chorizo sandwiches. It is now €6.50 for a steak sandwich, they too were under a fiver at some point in the past few months. Even their pricing lists can’t keep up or their staff who sometimes forget the new prices. Same goes for the Sushi place. A small kebab cost €6.50 yesterday. Yes it was lovely but it was worth €4.50 at most.

I don’t think the Market has hit a tipping point just yet, but they will and people will stop paying through the nose for “organic” food. I thinkI saw some woman pay 4 quid for a few lettuce leaves the other day. Good christ is the country that rich and lazy?

Red Wine Gums blogger is the guest blogger today. Check out his blog at Random Reflective Rantings. This blog post is going out (now) in the morning. Fluffy links will be the afternoon treat instead.

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“Don’t ever put any facts into a speech.” “Even if you have three separate sources for it?” “No, they only cause trouble.” As a then political science student I would have thought the basic scientific triangulation principle would have counted for something. “I wrote speeches for the President a few years back. Put in all the flowery bullshit and they loved it.” He paused to take a bite of his mini spring roll. “All the papers were going on saying how great it was. Not one fact. People aren’t interested in facts. You save yourself trouble if you don’t mention facts.” The other piece of advice to a work placement student from a public servant with over 30 years experience was to always make sure you were near the door at a State function. You get fed quicker.

I hope to be able put the latter piece of advice in practice again some day but the former has stuck with me. The more I think about it, the more I realise that the facts matter very little in current discourse. The reality is no-one gives a toss. The oft cited “My mind is made up. Don’t confuse me with the facts” resonates among those who have seen decisions taken that fly in the face of all the available evidence. It doesn’t matter who said it first. All that matters is that it was said. The passive voice pervades life, even for those of us not overly au fait with matters grammatical. It comes back to what everyone expects the Government to do when a crisis presents itself – Something! How many times have you heard on the radio or television the phrase: “The Government must do something to fix this situation as it’s very serious and the people down here…”?

Not that it’s important that something is actually done. Merely that something is seen to be done. Preferably as a closure on the news story with a nice photo call of Bertie/Bush/Brown bringing beautiful, bountiful, billions to said local area in an iconic image that will have the Sunday papers debating the politics of spin rather than the substance of the issue. All alliteration attempts are average and abject of course compared to those tremendously tearful tabloids. The voices of the nation, they be. Those of us in the Irish blogging community may remember some of the more amusing glimpses of nose hair from those so much better than us.

My blog gets into the low double figures on a good day. Does that make me insignificant? I could become one of those forgotten greats who will only be acknowledged after my passing, or I could be delusional. It’s not that I don’t care about readers, hits or unique visitors. It’s that I primarily blog for myself. If I wanted a load of hits I could do what some newspapers do and start putting a whole load of naked women on the blog as well as pandering to racial stereotypes in some of my posting. If I genuinely wanted more hits, I could mention some of the places I’ve worked and I can guarantee that would make me the bubble gum flavour of the week. But people don’t really want to know about my life. I’m OK with that and don’t really want it to change either. Like Sweary mentioned on this blog, I probably could have picked a better name but what matters is that my real name is somewhat hidden although I’m sure a determined person could find it.

This is not a cynical poke at politics and the media… well not entirely. The public relations mantra that perception is reality carries weight in an era when the soundbite matters more than the speech. Where the idea matters more than the evidence to back it up. When Paris Hilton takes precedence over Iraq in the news. When the media sets up the parents of a missing white 4 year old girl for a fall and forgets to reminds us of the thousands of black 4 year olds dying because they don’t have enough food.

It doesn’t matter what the truth is or what the facts are. What matters is how what you write makes people feel . Whether I pander to my readers’ prejudices is irrelevant. Whether you read my blog after this is irrelevant. If I’ve made your day that little bit brighter I’m content.

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Thanks to Red Wine Gums, who as mentioned blogs at Random Reflective Rantings. Read his blog and subscribe if you want.

Last week Limerick Open Coffee did a live “TV” stream from their event. People tuned in as the Auctomatic lads talked about the land of Silicon Valley with the roads made from carbonfibre and a VC at every streetcorner giving out lollipops wapped in million dollar notes. Ok, not exactly, but they gave an interesting talk and that made the live TV stream interesting. It was FAR from revolutionary. The revolution was the new communications layer that happened in Ireland. Live TV without a national broadcaster or broadcasting licence and better than RTE as there was interactivity with this live coverage and all that was needed was a net connection, a laptop and a video camera on one end and a browser on the viewer end. 2000 employees and 100s of Millions of investment, not needed. That’s the revolution bit.

James and Bernie quoted my comments about it.

The event was replicated in Dublin today and I really wonder why, though everyone else thinks it was the greatest thing ever, judging by the Twitter love and comment love. It brought nothing to the table at all. The Limerick event showed what could be done and the special guests made it worth watching. Just like blogging, podcasting and all the other new communication layers and platforms, just because it is there does not mean it is suited for everyone. As Conn himself said:

If Ustream.tv has taught me anything, it’s that not everything is worth broadcasting! Robert Scoble figured this out early on, and soon began to keep his live broadcasts for special events. And last Thursday’s OpenCoffee Limerick was undoubtedly special – and certainly worth sharing with others.

I tuned in today, just again to see how well could the livestream and interactivity work but switched off quickly enough. Anyone who tuned into the whole Dublin event must have a lot of time on their hands or an employer who doesn’t mind employees watching something that steals their life for while. I find TV very boring but bloody hell, this is much much worse than that. Maybe Ustream needs two revolutions, one for the infrastructure and the next will be to stream something that will interest more than a clique. James, after attending the Limerick event gives sage advice for future UStreams.

You’re a Star or whatever that drivel is on RTE show shows in the opening rounds stthat not everything should get broadcast. Please god don’t do the same for Open Coffee. The Bebo of live streaming. Apparently Cork Open Coffee tomorrow is going to be streamed too. Hopefully less over-the-top ohMyGoshness over that and hopefully not a regular thing unless there is some kind of special guest every time or a script.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give to you another guest blogger – Flirty Something, if you like her writing, then visit her blog and subscribe.

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Most bloggers write about serious matters like technology or politics. I focus on much more important issues such as how to score a (decent) bloke in Dublin. Sometimes I diversify into stories about friends or living in ‘Celtic Tiger 2.0’, but generally it’s about being single in Ireland.

Mr. Blog Oracle thought that some of his readers may be interested in such rantings and has invited me to post on his page. Now this is curiously fortuitous as I have been looking for an opportunity to relate the following tale, but promised my friend I wouldn’t post it on my site. Technically I’m not breaking that promise.

Last month I was due to spend a girlie weekend with my old school friend; we’ve been inseparable since school. Sadly she moved on and got married to her very wealthy husband, relocated to a posh address and insisted on changing her name from Helen to Helena. Thankfully there are some upsides to her new status. Her very kind hubbie decided to treat us to a weekend in Monart, while he buggered off with the kids to Kelly’s Resort. Naturally Helen(a) was wildly excited at the prospect of a child-and-husband-free weekend (which sums up most of them for me). If you knew the kids and husband you’d understand why.

I arrived up to the cobble-lock of Helen(a)’s house on Saturday morning. After ringing the bell for some time Helen(a) eventually answered. She wasn’t wearing any make-up. I’ve known her 30 years and I think it was the first time I’d observed her without full war paint. It was like seeing the Taj Mahal up close and realising it was made from ear wax, amazing but slightly disturbing. Something was obviously very wrong. I was ordered to bring her to ‘The Beacon Hospital’ immediately. Granted Helen(a) goes to great lengths to visit the newest, coolest place in town, but this was definitely pushing it – more hip replacement than new and hip. Pulling up at ‘The Beacon’, we were ushered through A&E quicker than you could say “of course I’m a member”.

Thirty minutes later I was called to the bedside and found Helen(a) looking even worse. She had managed to apply a quick coat of lipstick but nothing can really counter hospital white. The doctor ( who happened to look like a boy band singer, but in a pin stripe suit ) told me that Helen(a) had suspected appendicitis and needed to get a scan and potentially an operation. This was a serious stuff. I wanted to call the family, but was ordered to wait until the results were back. Sixty minutes and many swipes of the credit card later a prognosis was delivered.

Now I’m not a ‘hold hand’ kind of gal, but as that’s what they always do in medical dramas I figured it was best to imitate. Sadly there was no background music of Artic Monkeys or Snow Patrol to accompany the medical mini-drama moment. Gazing deeply into the doctor’s eyes he told me in his sober, but sexy consultant tones that Helen(a) was … severely constipated. This did somewhat ruin the moment. The good news was that after years of telling her she was full of shit – finally I was right ( insert own colon related joke; we’ll get to the end of this, I couldn’t give a shit and neither can you etc ).

Despite claiming she had no idea how it happened, I knew that her bizarre no carb, Chinese tea and herbal supplement diet was a pretty considerable contributing factor. The rest of the night was spent waiting for her to get very expensive enemas and laxatives. A bit of a bummer (sorry). On the plus side she did check out far cleaner than Monart ever could have achieved and for much the same price. Even better I managed to get the doctor’s number. A very happy ending for all.

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Check out the latest exploits of Flirty Something at www.irishflirtysomething.com

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