conallmurtagh☺com

Archive Page 2

Garage the Film

Published May 7, 2008 Uncategorized 0 Comments

With a tear in her eye, she said “I wish I didn’t see that”.

It’s an odd compliment to give a film, but it’s spot on.

Garage is the best Irish film I’ve seen in ages. Possibly ever.
It doesn’t drag you in straight away but if you give it a chance, it steadily burns a lasting image in your mind that will linger with you for a long time.

Pat Shortt is brilliant as he plays the main character, Josie; a good natured country soul lacking intelligence but floating on optimism. He’s the village idiot who looks after a crumbling petrol station in a small town in Ireland. His lack of intelligence and his foolishly positive outlook live in a happy balance with his lonely existence and his dingy old digs. His humility counterbalances the meanness of the other men in the town who treat him like the idiot. His strength is his happiness; his ability to accept routine and isolation with a smile.

The plot begins as a teenager is sent to work weekends at the Garage, who Josie befriends.
Events unfold that reflect to Josie the lack of intimacy in his life. This sets him on a search for contact that changes the course of his life forever.

Famous Scientists Together

Published May 3, 2008 Uncategorized 0 Comments

If you’ve studied physics, you’ll recognise a lot of the names in the above photo. It’s pretty amazing to see them all together.

I wonder if they all got along, or was it a case of massive egos clashing.

What Time Is It?

Published April 24, 2008 Uncategorized 0 Comments

I was reading the other day and found myself looking to the corner of the page to see what time it was..

There’s no turning back now!

Spain Declares War on America

Published April 24, 2008 Uncategorized 0 Comments

U.S. troops occupying a position near Manila during the Spanish-American War.

I got this in my email today and though: eh? What’s going on?

It was a daily email from Britannica online with a few examples of “On this Day” through history for the 24^th of April.

Bricannica Online have opened up their content to bloggers and web publishers so they can reference and link to content related to their posts. I read about it on TechCrunch at the weekend, so I signed up.

The content of the Britannica site is wide and good quality, but doesn’t reach the the staggering amount of content to be found of Wikipedia, their main rival. The layout of the pages are also visually very nice.

Unfortunately they don’t allow you to embed pictures from their site on your post, only a link, which I guess is fair enough. Pictures would eat up bandwidth at a rate of knots. I was going to link directly to the above picture but copied it into Flickr instead.

Anyway, here’s the link to the article on the American Spanish War of 1898:

Spanish-American War

Unfortunately, you will only be able to read the article posted here as the rest of the site remains subscription only, unless of course you are a web publisher or have a blog. In which case, I’d recommend signing up here.

Reading La Catedral Del Mar in Spanish

Published April 22, 2008 Books , Personal 7 Comments

I’ve just started reading La Catedral del Mar; a novel set in 14^th century Medieval Barcelona, by writer Ildefonso Falcones. The book has been a best-seller in Spain for couple of years now and has already sucked me in after only a few pages.

I’m reading it in Spanish, so the page turning is fairly slow. I have my trusty MSDict Spanish dictionary on my Nokia N95, without which the whole experience would be a lot more cumbersome. I can’t really imagine enjoying the laborious chore of turning the pages of my big Spanish-English Tome every few minutes to keep up with the book I’m reading. An electronic dictionary on my phone is just the ticket.

Writers tend to use language uncommon in normal speech, so reading novels means you’re going to come across words that you’ve never heard before. Luckily they tend to stick to certain choices for words, so the dictionary crunching gradually diminishes as you progress through the book.

With this book, I’m finding that I want to read at the pace I would read in English, simply because I want to know what happens next. The book is just exciting. It means I’m starting to let some words go; I have an idea of what they probably mean so I carry on. Of course this doesn’t always work and if I find myself confused, I go back and look up the culprit word and carry on.

What’s nice about reading a really good book in another language is that it makes learning new words so easy. It’s the best way to motivate you to learn. You’re learning to facilitate your enjoyment; the joy of reading.

The book is also now available in English. I saw it in Easons at the weekend.

Eircom and FON to Join Forces?

Published April 11, 2008 Internet 2 Comments

TechCrunch yesterday reported that the Spanish company FON has raised another €6 million Euro in investment, bringing their total investment to €34 million.

FON’s business idea is that you set up a WiFi router in your home or business and give away free access to your network to other FON users in exchange for access to all other FON networks everywhere around the world. Alternatively, you can charge people for access and get 50% of the fee.

FON already has a distribution deal with BT in the UK and this new funding will be spent on the June launch of FON in Russia in collaboration with the Russian telco Sistema.

FON will also be releasing a new 802.11n router with USB in June.

TechCrunch reports that FON’s founder, Martin Varsavsky, says:

As far as our strategy, more and more we are collaborating with large telcos, which pundits wrongly thought were going to be our enemies. And that is because we have proven that a Fonero is a more loyal bandwidth customer as he gets to roam for free.

This news comes just days after Eircom, via Red C Research, conducted market research specifically asking for opinion on whether a shared WiFi model, just like FON’s, would be of interest to their customers.

Perhaps Eircom are investigating the viability of copying the model within Ireland using just their own domestic WiFi customers and their public hotspots (which are free to existing broadband customers until September 2008), but if collaborating with FON can work for BT, maybe it makes sense for Eircom too.

Upload Video to Flickr

Published April 9, 2008 Internet , Photos 0 Comments

Flickr have finally released the ability to upload video; great news! But only for pro accounts and there’s a limit to 90 second videos.

This new feature is something I certainly welcome, but it now means that my choice of photo/video sharing service is even harder to make. Up to now, I had decided that Picasaweb was for me due to it’s video capability (on free accounts too), but I do prefer the layout and feel of Flickr. Also Flickr doesn’t change .png files to .jpeg’s like Picasa does.

I’m glad this has come out now, before my space limit was reached on my free Picasa account. I was going to be coffing up for a pro account on one service or another before long, and now I can make a better decision.

The only thing now is whether to wait and see what Photoshop Express come up with over the next few weeks, or state my loyalty to Flickr or Picasa now.. Hmm.

3G iPhone Evidence

Published April 9, 2008 Apple , iPhone 0 Comments

Inside the latest release of the iPhone SDK, which came out yesterday, there’s a telling piece of evidence that the 3G iphone is coming very soon.

The guys behind ZiPhone have discovered a new 3G chip listed in the firmware. The new iPhone will have Infineon’s SGOLD3.

Just before the iPhone was released in Ireland, it was discovered in the latest firmware that the O2 Ireland network was listed as a carrier. So these discoveries do indeed tell the truth.

Airport Security is Ridiculous

Published April 8, 2008 Personal 0 Comments

Having successfully avoided the mayhem of Heathrow’s new T5 this weekend, I still had to deal with the silly security personnel in London Luton.

First, I could only pass through security with one bag. If you have 2, you need to put one inside the other to get through. (It’s the same in every UK airport as far as I know) Only in the UK! I think every international airport should make this rule compulsory for any UK citizen travelling outside their country.

Second, and this the best one, upon arriving at the queue to pass through the x-ray machines, Luton had a very long snake effect path for large queues, but it was 95% empty. So, having ducked under the rope a few times to reach the end of the queue, the security guard, (who seemed a little too alert to be natural) ran after me to tell me that I couldn’t do that! It was already done, but he still felt obliged to teach me the Luton ways. In an international airport!

And finally, I had a nearly empty tube of toothpaste, which could fit more than 100ml’s. I said I would cut it in half and tape it up, but “nooo” was the answer. I know this one has nothing to do with Luton and I really didn’t expect them to let me, but why not? The rule is 100ml or less..

Silly altogether.