Eolai has an art sale on again. I bought two from him last time round and have ordered another two now. Buying someone an original piece of art is always fun. Prices start at $25 and go up to $95 and includes free delivery.
Also while we’re talking about Art, “Colours From the Heart” is a new exhibition from Anne Rigney. It opens tonight in The Front Lounge, Parliament Street, Dublin at 6:30
Fun with the Green Party Flickr Stream.
Trevor Sargent in Ethiopia and still pedantic – “Only one R in Organic actually” (Original):
Oh look and there’s Super Gorm and Ming the Merciless. (Original):
Super Gorm and his no no no, not going to make any super phallus jokes. (Original):
It’s no longer Super sandal weather, it’s Super hatty weather! Weeeeeeee. (Original):
Ciaran Rooney has a new blog. Simple address too: Ciaran.ie yet the same crew took Adrian.ie off Mr. Weckler.
Via Una: Graham Linehan very pissed about a bad Irish Times “profile” of him. File under fiction it seems. He’s since toned down the post but this is how it originally opened:
There’s a profile of me in the Irish Times today, which would be flattering if the thing wasn’t such a load of shite. Conjecture, myth-making and truthiness posing as my life story.
And again Via the Rockser: Fionn Times has a blog.
Via Adam is news that Michael O’Toole, the Crime dude for the Irish Daily Star is blogging.
Matt Cooper has a blog. And he has videos of Maurice Pratt!
Via Christian, Cybercom are running the Vodafone Pass the Pressie campaign on Bebo. It’s a bit better than yer man with the loaves but no fishies since it’s genuinely interactive, not write a poem interactive.
Via Enda 8 hours battery life to this very cheap netbook.
BizBookReview – Business Books reviewed in 140 characters or less.
Amazing design for a Blackberry welcome pack.
Via BoingBoing Michael Geist’s Copyright docu (48 mins long):
My Bloody Valentine – Sometimes
Via Red Mum – Boomtown:
19, from Fermoy and running for local elections with the Greens. Already in the press. Anyone younger running in the locals?
It’s good to see young people going into real politics and not the make believe world of the Youth Wings of these parties. I really do wish him the best of luck and I hope him and a good many more younger people get seats. I wonder is this one of the answers to Fergal’s post? No page yet on the Green Party site for him but at least he can use the Internet!
Twenty Major’s first book.
Grab Kieran Murphy’s wonderful Ice Cream Book. Book of Sweet Things.
Declan Burke’s The Big O (I only half read my autographed copy before the bag it was in was nicked. Irony…) and also Eight-Ball Boogie.
Get the Mr. Amperduke Graphic Novel.
Get Paddy Brown’s The Ulster Cycle: Ness comic.
Any I’ve missed?
Update: Yup
Via a comment from Rosie Homepages the book. Available in the next few days. Book of stories/works from Irish Bloggers.
And another. Big D’oh!
Rowan’s essential book in today’s uncertain times: Where’s My Oasis?: The Essential Handbook for Everyone Wanting that Perfect Job
Not one that perhaps you should give your friends or siblings but still an Irish book by someone that blogs: Trying to Conceive: The Irish Couple’s Guide
Photo owned by librarianidol (cc)
Bear with me here…
Via the National Dialup Scheme Three Ireland now are getting Government money to expand their mobile broadband market into areas other broadband providers are not going. Great. The EU says that’s cool.
But Three’s network is all data with voice going over it. Where they have service they have all service. Broadband and voice. Where three doesn’t offer a service, they use Vodafone. They pay them for this. If the Government pay Three to go into an area they were not before then they can offer voice too. Fabuloso! They can dump Vodafone and save a pile. But I bet those areas have a voice service from Vodafone, o2 and Meteor already don’t they? Now the taxpayer is giving an unfair advantage to Three in the mobile area.
Photo owned by markhillary (cc)
Wouldn’t you sue if you were these boys? And then there’s eircom with some good exchanges that could have been enabled. They have good lawyers too.
So who’ll sue first?
Irish people search less for property and more for porn. Related?
New to me. Lugus.
Handy competition from Curious Wines.
Shane Ross covers the shenanigans from FÁS in regards to his FOI requests.
Micksgarage Winter Driving Tips.
Irish man does Facebook for dogs. No? Jaysus.
Online retail traffic for Thanksgiving not so good compared to last year though good for some.
This is modern marketing. Neil Gaiman encourages his readers to come up with clever ways of marketing his new book and in return he’ll send them personally signed goodies. A decentralised marketing army doing 100s of small things to spread the word, all for the price of a few pieces of merchandise.
Malcolm Gladwell fever online at the moment. So a person is an Outlier, what about a brand?
Living Colour were a band around in the late 80s early 90s and had some great songs. Found three on Youtube, pity SonyBMG has denied embedding them. Nothingness. Love rears its ugly head. Cult of Personality. Leave it alone.
The brilliant John Caddell on Phantom played this the other night – Garland Jeffreys – Hail, Hail Rock’n’Roll
Longwinded piece but the gist is: The National Dialup Tender will use Three Mobile Dongles, no fixed line, no fixed wireless connections. 1Mb download, 200k upload. Or a Satellite dish!
From question time with Eamo today:
Deputy Eamon Ryan:
As regards the timeframe for completion, the ITT requires that all houses and business premises must be provided with a broadband service within 22 months of the signing of the contract. 3’s response to the ITT meets that requirement. The finer details are being worked out at present and will be finalised at contract signing which is expected to take place on 11 December 2008. As regards the bandwidth and download speeds, 3 will extend its network to provide mobile broadband services into the NBS area.
In recognition of the fact that some areas will be very difficult to reach using standard infrastructure, 3 will make available a satellite product. The specific details are being discussed with 3 at present and will be finalised at contract signing. In order to protect the integrity of the procurement process, I do not propose to release details of the value of the NBS contract at this time.
Liz McManus asked this of Eamo then:
Does the Minister accept that, in fact, there are people who are not in the broadband scheme and are unable to access it even though their area might be described as having such access within the indicative map? We are going to end up with the anomalous position where people cannot access, for example, the 3 service, but because they are described as having access, they will not be able to avail of opportunities under the broadband scheme. Could he, perhaps, give us details of the technology platform, the guarantees in terms of speed, the penalties if the target of 1 megabyte is not met, as well as the coverage targets? Cost seems to me to be the only reason 3 got the contract, but how do I know, since I am not getting the information. The Minister is not willing to give us the cost, but he should at least give us the information about safeguards.
And here Eamon admits that the scheme is just a whole load of mobile dongles:
Deputy Eamon Ryan:
I am reluctant to give this information until the contracts are signed, which will be within the week.
…The service that will be provided will meet with widespread public support. There have been concerns with regard to the start of the roll-out of certain mobile broadband services over the past year. We should recognise those services have just started and there are naturally teething difficulties. That said, we now have approximately 250,000 people who have signed up for such mobile broadband services. We must also recognise that because 40% of our houses are one-off houses in the countryside, we will always be a country where mobile broadband services are in higher demand than in other countries. We may develop a benefit from this, particularly where we can get new evolving mobile, wireless and other connections onto fibre quickly and provide good high quality services.
Simon Coveney needled him then on the mobile:
Deputy Simon Coveney: However, the Minister seems to suggest that part of the solution will be provided via a mobile product, but one can get a mobile broadband service in a number of these grey areas already, whether on top of a mountain or wherever. The issue with regard to broadband connectivity is not about mobile services. Is the Minister suggesting that 3G or 3 will put up mobile masts in these areas to provide for broadband via a mobile phone?
…
That may be a useful service for people who want to access the Internet on their mobile phones, but it is not a consistent enough solution for people opening businesses in parts of rural Ireland that cannot get broadband currently.
Go Simon!
This resulted in:
Deputy Eamon Ryan: I used the term “mobile” in the way it is commonly used, as in “not fixed” line.
Deputy Simon Coveney: We want clarity.
(Very Tom Cruise in a Few Good Men!)
Deputy Eamon Ryan: This means it is connected to one’s computer or to whatever hand-held device one wants.
Deputy Simon Coveney: It is not mobile then.
Deputy Eamon Ryan: I am not restricting people in terms of how they access the Internet. However, we need broadband access. In this case, we will have speeds of over 1 megabit download and over 200 kilobits on the upload. There is also provision for those speeds in the services to be improved in the five-year period the contract will cover.
Via Annette: The Tribune did a tut-tutting piece on Fearghus Ó Conchúir and grants he got to be able to do his work as dancer-in-residence for Dublin City Council. Some fancy editing suggested to me that the money was mis-spent:
Ó Conchúir, who lives in London, even managed to squeeze in trips to Shanghai during his tenure as Dublin’s dancer-in-residence. His job was to surprise and entertain members of the public with his impromptu routines.
Luckily Fearghus has a blog, a good one too so why not subscribe, so he got his right to reply to a dodgy piece of journalism.
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Dermod has reviewed Oedipus Loves You which is on at the Project Theatre for another few days. He suggests you get there and see it pronto.
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The concluding part of the Art of the Ordinary programme is on in Dublin this week.
Friday December 5th
Forum: Creating Memory 10.30am-12.30pm
Memory building and archiving in the context of current visual arts practice – to what extent and why, are artists exploiting the ‘folk’ memories and traditions of the past?
Speakers including: Linda Ballard, Curator, Ulster Folk and Transport Museum; Sonia Boyce, artist; Tony Candon, Director, National Museum of Ireland – Country Life; Pat Cooke, Lecturer, MA Arts Management, UCD; Andrew Duggan, artist; Sandy Fitzgerald, Director, Olivearte; Prof. Kerstin Mey, Director, Research Institute Art and Design, University of Ulster; and Aishling O’Beirn, artist.
Chair: Declan McGonagle, Director of the National College of Art and DesignFollowed by interventions:
Sonia Boyce
Andrew Duggan
Alanna O’KellyVenue: Dublin City Library & Archive, 134-138 Pearse Street, Dublin 2
All events are free. A light lunch will be provided.
For more information please contact CityArts on 01-6394608 or thearchive@cityarts.ie
It being the season of goodwill and all of that, it’s worth noting that this can be done in many many ways. Right now with the recession biting and many good people being let go or made go part-time, it’s worth making a little effort in pointing out to others the good work they’ve done with/for you. Other people don’t even know it but they’ll be let go soon too. It’s unfortunately inevitable. One way for me to give thanks to people is LinkedIn, where over the next few days I’ll try and recommend as many people that I worked with as I can.
Photo owned by shirokazan (cc)
It doesn’t take much effort at all to make a recommendation but might be of immense benefit to the person you’re recommending. Don’t do it for any other reason than to recommend the other person. Don’t expect reciprocity. Also don’t ask for recommendations from people you haven’t worked with. That’s messy.
On that topic, please note I’ll be doing that LinkedIn thingymajig with it@cork next week and I’ll put the notes for it online after it. 50 people have so far registered for it. I would have thought events like this would have been snapped by a recruitment company to sponsor… 😉
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