Damien Mulley

So where is the exact centre of Ireland and can we see it on a Google map? And for all of those Cork folks, where is the centre of our universe? First to pinpoint the agreed exact centre of Ireland wins a prize. The Cork one is optional.

I really love old microphones and would very much like to get my hands on one that I can use for a desk ornament. Anyone know any good places to get one? There are a few on Ebay alright but some look like new plastic things made to look like the vintage ones.

Via boards.ie – Faceography.:

uses a process of automatic random blending techniques to “remix� the faces in its database together in a near-infinite variety of combinations, producing new abstract images of human faces every time the page is reloaded.

A Noah Grey creation, he’s also the dude that created Greymatter, the software I used to create my first blog.

Amazing storm pictures.

Via Tuppenceworth comes news that this Web 2.0 malarky will also ban college courses from mentioning web 2.0 in their title.

If I were a university, college or educator I’d look askance at the property rights being sought in relation to Class 41. If granted it would allow CMP to prevent any educational institution from running a class, lecture, conference or workshop with the phrase “Web 2.0″ in the title. And according to their own statements and letters, once such property rights had been granted to them, they would feel themselves obliged in all cases to take action to protect them.

Now that’s a bit rich.

As part of the Cork Midsummer Festival, Corcadorca bring you their large scale outdoor production of Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’

Directed by Pat Kiernan and brought to you by the same creative team as their double award nominated sell out success ‘The Merchant of Venice’, ‘The Tempest’ will take place on the pond in the beautiful surroundings of Cork’s Fitzgerald’s Park.

Ticketing information available from the Cork Midsummer Festival box office on 1890 200 555 (operational from May 30th) or on CorkFestival.com

Performances daily at 10.15pm
June 22nd – July 1st, excl Sunday. Tickets 18 \ 12 (conc)

Uh, am I wrong in thinking their webform for booking tickets is insecure? I’ll buy the tickets over the phone or just call in.

Joe suggests O’Reilly should give free tickets to their web 2.0 event to anyone going to the Cork event.

Via Electric News:

O2 Ireland commissioned TNS mrbi to survey 300 owners, managers, or directors of Irish businesses employing less than 250 employees

According to the research, only 37 percent of SMEs have a website. “Twenty-eight percent of firms employing less than three people have a website which is perhaps understandable, but we were a little surprised that only 56 percent of those employing more than ten people possess a website,” commented Farrell.

Wuh? Are we still so far behind in these things that businesses don’t see the benefit of websites? That’s a very disappointing figure.

Via Euan Semple is an Amnesty International initiative to mess with censorship. A quick piece of code on your page linking to them allows fragments of censored material to be displayed on your own site. Not sure how it’ll defeat censorship in the likes of China that’ll happily ban the whole net if needs be but it might work in other countries at making them climb down.

Adam Maguire jumps into the discussion about blogging and mainstream media and how blogging will replace traditional media. He makes a few statements that I thought I’d address.

It can’t help but concern me that the only thing bloggers really get going over is blogs; of course a multitude of issues are discussed across the community every day but none of them see the scale of interest that an issue of blogging does. The ‘conversational’ aspect of our media seems to be saved for incestuous discussions on ourselves.

He mustn’t be reading any of the Irish blogs that I read because like web 2.0, most bloggers don’t get going over blogs and the medium we use to converse. UI gets going over various issues that have nothing to do with blogs, Slugger is the same. The Limerick blogger cares and gets going about Limerick and Rugby. Red Mum gets going about her young wan’s bedroom and has written some good pieces on Bebo, though I’d have a different view on the site. Auds gets going about conservative issues and quality music. Suzy Byrne gets going about personal/political issues. The biggest “get going” in the past 12 months surely had to be the feminism debate. Some other big stories of late were Bertie and his makeup kit, Munster Rugby, Lordi and the Eurovision. There was a huge amount of discussion over the Danish Cartoons all over the Irish blogs. I don’t recall many “incestuous discussions on ourselves”. Still though, how is this “get going” measured? We all react differently to something and care or not care in different ways. What are the units of emotional reaction and discussion?

Adam, maybe you mean that it is easy to unite and piss off a great deal of bloggers by making general statements about what they do, such as saying they only got upset when a tech issue came up such as Tom Raftery’s or saying that they only talk in unity about blogging and not about anything else. I’m sure if someone made a sweeping generalisation that all polticians are illiterate, they’d all unite to address the issue and measuring their reaction would show that in total this issue was talked about more than other issue because as smaller groups and individuals they would generally be more passionate about different areas.

Adam went on:

Perhaps it’s not that blogging is being discussed too much in blogs but that other topics are instead ignored or contained.

The terrible price of freedom of speech and freedom of choice! Bloggers talk about what they want to talk about not about what they “should” or what others expect. As for ignoring topics, am I ignoring hurling because I blog about broadband? Ignoring something is not the same as having no interest in it. Bloggers don’t owe the world anything, they’re not the national broadcaster with some obligation to appeal to every area in society. There is no blog licence fee. We don’t have editors commissioning us to write about areas we might not be passionate about. Is there a bloggers civic duty to society?

I’ll also add a quote from Simon McGarr:

the proof of blogging’s relevance to its audience is that we talk about the things that engage us personally- not the things we’re told ought to.

Adam also stated:

but I do feel an opportunity is constantly being missed when people decide not to point out another blog or post or interest, decline to comment even when they have something to say or refuse to engage in a discussion for whatever reason.

To me, that sounds way more like print media than bloggers. God bless generalisations.

There’s lots of talk that bloggers are saying they’ll replace traditional media. I don’t actually see many bloggers saying that at all. I do read Jeff Jarvis who says old media is going to dwindle and wither unless they change their structures. The odd thing is that the people that talk most about bloggers taking over from paid media are those who say it won’t happen. It’s them that are talking up a non-issue. It’s like writing that the end isn’t nigh because some whacko on the street is saying it is. I don’t think the majority of bloggers think or care if they replace traditional media, they just get on with doing what they do. The same people who declare that the established media’s sky isn’t falling are generally the ones that seem to want parity between blogging and old media and almost demand we toe some invisible editorial line.

Thanks to my friend Matthew for the post title which he used in a recent convo.