Damien Mulley

And Irish Technology Museum? Yeah why not.

The first of the free review wine from Sublime Wines was sent out this week. I see Michele got his. You can still apply to be a reviewer by the way.

Black Button, a philosophical question:

I was reading a blog post recently from Jay Rosen about the press people belonging to the U.S. President’s Office who are there to give coverage if nobody else is present for some event. One or two of the more interesting snippets from someone that works on that team:

Well, there are two phrases that I’d like to pass along to your readers. They mean more or less the same thing. “Body watch” means covering an event that will produce zero news on its own because you need to make sure the president doesn’t collapse. The other is SSRO — “suddenly shots rang out” — which is basically equivalent, just a bit more dramatic.

When I emailed this to my friend, he asked whether we were responsible for the president’s safety, so I assume that others will have the same question. What we are responsible for is making sure that, if he collapses, or is shot at, we are in a position to get that information to our viewers/listeners/readers.

Think about how much JFK, RFK, MLK, Wallace, Squeaky, and Hinckley have shaped the logistical reality of White House coverage. The history of journalism is littered with stories of reporters who called it a day a bit too early, like the guy from the New York Times (if memory serves) who decided to head back to NYC hours before Wallace was shot.

This kind of ties into some of the stuff that Jeff Jarvis has been on about lately and supporting Journalism at the source and building new newsrooms etc. He’s spot on that journalists should reference and link to their sources. Blogs work very well doing that. With this idea of citizen journalism which seems to scare the shit out of traditional journalists, I do wonder is there a niche though for people who are like voluntary emergency workers, needed in case of emergencies or times when nobody else is about. Sky and the BBC are kind of doing this with footage and pictures but I wonder could it be done for actual reporting too. It’d be interesting to see media outlets train people on how to report in case they are needed. This works with first aiders and hell Switzerland gives everyone a gun, why not train all citizens in the basics of reporting and build a nation of good communicators. Might make for an interesting knowledge economy.

Arrrrrrr, it be talk like a pirate day, annoy all yourrrrr co-workerrrrrrrrrrs be talking like one. Arrrr.

Also today, the smiley face turns 25. 🙂

Check out Gordon’s latest web app, Yell If It Changes. It alerts you by email if a website changes or if their pagerank changes. I want RSS feeds of it too!

As a not so bitter Cork person, this quote on the Kerry slaughter of Cork rings true.

An excellent idea if you want to draw cartoons of certain deities but fear retribution.

Anthony Bourdain rips a new one into the latest trendy “gourment” creations.

Fiest – Mushaboom:

Feist – I feel it all. (Live on a bus)

Gavin O’Carroll sent me an invite to his digital lifestyle aggregator called Rememble.

It’s a pretty simple idea but lots of fun. Upload all your digital data, emails, text messages, music, photos and tag and comment on them, date them and share some or all or none of them. Current supported filetypes are: png, gif, jpg, avi, mpeg, mp3, wav, wmv, mov, mp4, 3gp and amr

You can upload from inside the site, you can email stuff to the site and you can text to the site as well. Additionally you can import from your Twitter and Flickr streams. Like it, love it.

Of course the coolest feature of this is that it builds a timeline for all of these items. This is like a Tumblr blog for all your digital bits and pieces. Scroll through your timeline and click on any object for more details about it. It has a really nice interface too.

I actually think this is a tool I’d use, I’d just like to be able to export it all in some standard format. Is there a DigitalLifeStyleML format out yet? 🙂 Overall the service is good and I think some minor UI tweaks would make it better again. I hope Rememble gets more attention as I certainly think it deserves it.

By the way, I have five invites to give out for this, as does anyone that’s signed up, so if you want one, leave a comment.

Kind of how I’d describe the new Roam4Free now known as MaxRoam products. Pat has launched the new roaming service as well as the mobile phones themelves at Techcrunch and already Scoble thinks the product is the biz. I think a lot of people will realise how good it is in a while. Not that the Engadget folks or their followers seem to be able to get their head around it.

I got to play with the phones and quiz Pat a little on how the service worls. The roaming part is easy enough. You get a sim. It has a number. When you roam, you get cheaper deals by routing over the MaxRoam network. You can add a new local number for the country you are in by adding it to the sim online for a fee. Clever. This means you can create a whole lot of local virtual offices and they all route to one mobile. Americans roaming in Spain? Get a sim with an American number, have Americans contact them on that and have local Spanish business people contact them on a Spanish number that they add to the sim. Come back to America and the Spaniards can still use the Spanish number to contact you.

The phones, they’re nice. Mobile and WiFi. Free handset to handset calls over WiFi networks and a small charge if you call via WiFi and terminate on a non cubic phone. Love this idea.

Everything about this is great except I am really really not a fan of the website. Business people won’t appreciate how informal it is, it does not look professional and I think it might be good to do some SEO work on the site too. I’m not sure how these people do it, but some sites appear BIG, like they are built to serve millions, this looks nothing like that.

Press release blurb:

Cubic Mobile is a dual-band GSM/Wi-Fi phone that comes with several major innovations enabling callers to make and receive low-cost calls around the planet, wherever they roam:

* MAXroam: the world’s first universal SIM card, offering consumers the best country-to-country phone rates anywhere. The MAXroam SIM, which can also be purchased separately, is a major breakthrough, and the result of years of negotiations with GSM carriers around the world.

* As many phone numbers as you like: full PBX functionality on the handset. Consumers get a single phone number, but can create multiple permanent local numbers for themselves – up to 50 – anywhere around the globe. All calls are forwarded to their Cubic Mobile phone, no matter where the calls originate, at the best rates for the callers.

* All Voice over IP (VoIP) calls within the Cubic network are free. All Cubic Mobile customers get a short code that they can use to make free VoIP calls to any other customer on the Cubic network. This is an especially attractive feature to families who live across borders and globally distributed companies and workgroups.

Cubic Mobile has been designed by a team with extensive experience in consumer and wireless technologies. It also has the ability to route a call to the lowest cost network available, whether it is GSM or Wi-Fi. “It’s consumer friendly in many ways, said Pat Phelan. “It is friendly in its utter simplicity, but also friendly in its ability to also ensure that you and your callers are always getting the lowest rates”.

Pricing and Availability
* Cubic Mobile, which comes in two models, will be available from October 1st at www.cubictelecom.com. The basic model will sell for EUR99.95 and a Windows Mobile version at EUR159.95 (both handsets come with a MAXroam SIM included and an initial EUR5 calling credit).

* MAXroam, which operates on any unlocked GSM phone, can be purchased separately for EUR29.99 (with an initial EUR5 calling credit) and is available on September 24th at www.maxroam.com.

Lucky escape for these soldiers in Iraq. Someone buried the IED too deep it seems.

The jokes had to happen. Interesting service is this, Lost.ie

Syria has nukes now?

Yahoo! buys another mail company?

Massive list of videos from the Sunday Night with Jools Holland and David Sanborn show.

Royksopp – Remind Me

A different version of Peaches – Fuck the pain away

So the Guardian today linked to what they alleged is Stephen Ireland’s Bebo page where he said: Football Is SHIT Why Did I get Stuck Doin It

Now, the Bebo profile is public and shows off loads of pics of whoever this person is.

Love this Bebo sign-in name:

This is a better pic of the alleged Stephen, is this the real deal?

This here is the alleged Stephen and his GF with “alleged” Stephen sporting a thong, though some are saying they’re the legs of a woman, what you think folks?

This is the version with just “Stephen”:

The whole gallery of pictures is here.

Hah.

My own little addition to online Irish Politics, Politics In Ireland is an aggregator that Rob built for me last year. It’s now been rebuilt from the ground up by John and covers all the current TDs once again. As well as a new design, there’s widgets so you can stick a mini version of the site on your blog sidebar for your politician, party or constituency of choice.

You can also subscribe to the site by email or RSS and there is an Irish Politics wordpress plugin too which will link to the pages of the TDs that you mention on your blog.

If you’re feeling generous, I’d love if you could link to Politics In Ireland from your own blog or give it a mention in a blog post. Ta very much.

Al arrives for BarCamp Galway, a week early.

For the Star Wars IT Nerds – R2D2 Projector

Oh god. Too far. Million Dollar homepage, Million Dollar pubepage.

I watched the first episode of Muslim comedy Little Mosque on the Prairie. Stay away, it’s awful. The running joke is people think they’re terrorists. Haha. Not.

Love the ads that Facebook shows on the profiles of Google employees. Google should do the same for Facebook IP addresses.

Brian looks at Irish data plans if you had an iPhone.

Civil Service in action. In the BBC 40 procedures and 30 forms are required to be followed/completed if the police catch a thief in the act of snatching a handbag. Uhm…

Shame the All Tomorrows Parties Portishead special event is while I’m away withPaddy’s Valley.

Via BoingBoing, to market a new Dylan somethingorother, you can add your own text to his famous Subterranean Homesick Blues video. This is a Battlestar Galactica version.

Further nerd alert. Check out the Polish Vision Express ad. Notice the nerdcore messages on the chart.

Toblerone bars have a hidden bear on the packaging. Well I never.

Via Random Reflective Rantings

Daft Punk done with hands:

Placebo – Running up that hill