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June 29, 2006
Moscow rain
Brendan (who lives in Moscow) told me about his trip through Moscow where he complained that there was a little bit of rain. I thought he was getting soft not having lived in Ireland for so long he had forgotten what real sudden, cactaclysmically proportioned precipitation was like.
How wrong I was. Check it out:
Check out some other shots here
Posted by dottie at 9:04 PM | Comments (0)
My backup requirements...
Could possibly be filled by the following:
one of these
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA2 16MB 7200RPM
and one of these:
Maxtor DiamondMax 11 500GB SATA2 16MB 7200RPM
configured as RAID1. Different drives are used to minimise the possibility of simultaneous failure - something that is marginaly higher risk with disks from the same manufacturing run / supplier.
Then slap them into one of these:
Infrant Ready NAS 600
Then leave that running either in my borthers or my mothers house when they get broadband.
I'll have another setup much like this in my own apartment that will be synced with the remote server.
Then I have a few options - maybe a subversion repository, possibly an automated system using rsync - who knows.
All I know is there won't be any more DVD burning sessions - yay!
Posted by dottie at 8:30 PM | Comments (0)
The Next Big Thing?
I think the NEXT BIG THING will be boring. It won't be search, it won't be social, it won't be tagging and folksonomies - although it might well encompass all these things.
The Next Big Thing will be storage. Specifically remote, accessible, easily synched backup services.
For your digital camera you want to have the equivalent of the drawer where you store all the family photos. For your music you want the equivalent of a cardboard box full of gooved (LP's) and pitted (CD's) vinyl where you can store all your MP3's.
If you are a developer/designer or business person you need to store your email, documents, code, images and versions of all these.
The Next Big Thing will allow you to easily do all of these things, easily, simply, from any computer at any time.
Here follows a brain-dump think through (more for my own edification than anything else - ignore if you will):
I have thought for a long time that a SET@home-bittorrent distributed application would work well for this.
The idea would be to have an application running on each contributors computer that sets aside a little bit of space on the hard drive (say 1% of the toal available). The application allows easy addition, retrieval, synching and even deletion of stored data.
The data is submitted to the distributed-p2p network where it is broken into pieces bittorrent style before having pieces distributed to all the members of the network where it is stored on their PC's.
Immediately you can see a problem with this - imagine the network has 1 million people on it and all those 1 million people have on average 2GB of storage reserved for the network. Imagine now that all the members wanted to store 1GB of information. The system would have to be storing multiple copies of your data to ensure data integrity so lets say at a very low estimate it stores three copies of the data you send it. Suddenly the system is overloaded.
Even coming close to overload the system would have problems. The point is to have yur data distributed all over the world so that it is safe but approaching overload the system would start clumping large numbers of bits of your files together. This reduces the security of the data and renders the system a little bit pointless.
In reality most people would be storing a hell of a lot more information that that. Photo and MP3 collections for Joe Soap currently could easily run to 30+Gigs.
Currently we have been talking about a peer-based service. But what if we could build a business that hosts servers that also contribute to the storage capacity? Big boxes that run the client and share out 100% of their drives as storage. That would definitely help the situation. This is not practical either. The machines would need to be stored in different places all over the planet, and there would need to be millions of them - impractical for a start-up.
Possibly you could get each hosting provider to dedicate a rack of machines to the client/storage. What incentives would there be? Money? Doubtful, the users could be tiered as so:
- Basic - store up to 20GB - retrieve whenever - refresh once per week - includes data integrity only
- Heavy - store up to 50GB - retrieve whenever - refresh daily - includes data integrity only
- Developer Basic - store up to 250GB - retrieve whener - refresh whenever - data integrity and versioning
- Developer Heavy - store up to 1TB - retrieve whenever - refresh whenever - data integritu and versioning
You could also add storage increases on top of each package ie. by the percentage of current level - so a 10% increase costs roughly the same whatever package you have.
In conclusion - boil the sea? - I think so.. pity :(
Posted by dottie at 6:56 PM | Comments (0)
June 28, 2006
It's art, stupid
Jill Greenspun, an exploitave photographer - sorry 'artist', is threatening the livelihood of photographer Thomas Hawk who criticised her through his own private blog
In short Thomas Hawk sees Jill Greenbergs work as abusive to children.
From what I can gather Jill photographs kids in order to highlight her own (and presumably our) feelings about George Bush and the second Iraq war.
The kids she photographs go through a little bit of attitude adjustment before Jill starts snapping. Apparently she first strips them of clothing* and then offers them a lollipop only to snatch it away from them when they become sufficiently attached. This of course starts anything from immediate tears to a full-on temper tantrum.
The removal of the lollipop is marginal - what makes this, for me, so abhorrent is the fact that she then continues to goad the child by not allowing his parents to comfort the child, parent who, by the way, are standing by 'monitoring' all of this...
Of course the child gets very distressed and this is the moment that Jill chooses to strike.
In the legitamate criticism that has followed, Jill and her cronies attempt to shield themselves from reproach by explaining that all this is done in the name of art. Further, Jill's husband claims that this 'technique' is used to upset children all the time for films, photo shoots in the advertising industry etc. Which kind of undermines the whole 'its just art, stupid' claims - they are just a bunch of money grubbing cynics after all.
This is wrong on so many levels. For a start, anything that is classed as art is open to criticism, good, bad, constructive, dammning or otherwise - art is a two-edged blade. Second, what about the children? They have no choice in all of this. Who knows what kind of freak gets his kicks from seeing upset children - you could just as easily argue that they are facilitating niche pornography as you could argue that the images are 'art'. NOt that I think for a minute that there is an iota of an intention to objectify these children - sexually that is...
The bottom line is that exploiting children is just plain wrong - portraits are one thing, but what Jill is doing is fundamentally different.
Even worse is that fact that Jill and her husband, and presumably any supporters she has, have started contacting Thomas' employers in an attempt to get him sacked, claiming he is mentally unbalanced, with severe emotional problems and that he doesnt know anything about children (Thomas has four children).
They have even threatened libel proceedings and thrown in reference to U.S. first amendment rights, conveniently overlooking the fact that their attack on response to Thomas is an attempt to infringe his First amendment rights.
Think about that for a minute - because these people don't like the criticism levelled at them, they want the critic to shut up and are apparently stopping at nothing to make that happen.
To try and throw some light relief (or maybe heavy sarcasm) on the whole affair I have some suggestions for some 'art' that can be photographed and hung on walls
- punch old people - to highlight the helplessness and lonliness of old people in our society
- burn homeless peoples cardboard box shelters - to highlight the division between the rich and the poor
- loot, pillage and rape an entire rural village - to highlight the co-opting of rural communities by commuting urbanites
Best of all, its all worth it no matter what the cost because someone, somewhere will be touched by what you do and understand the world a little bit better - just like you do.
* note: the images are not sexual in any way
Posted by dottie at 1:52 PM | Comments (0)
June 24, 2006
Ring of Steele
A poster from an upcoming melodrama ;)
Congratulations to Dave and Jean on their wedding!
Posted by dottie at 9:05 PM | Comments (0)
Flying Rats
Posted by dottie at 7:40 PM | Comments (0)
U.S. soldiers in the wild
What to do when you encounter a group of uniformed soldiers wandering down a country lane
The report describes a young man putting a group of six U.S. soldiers under citizens arrest.
The reason? They were walking down the road.
Sounds innocuous doesn't it? Yet he was completely right.
We are a neutral nation. Our neutrality is compromised if we allow soldiers of a belligerent nation to wander our streets. All these soldiers were in uniform - they may or may not have been armed, that is not the point.
It may seem that the reporter was being pedantic and overeacting but we have to put the foot down somewhere. If we allowed U.S. troops to desport themselves whenever and wherever they wished in Ireland then we will have completely undermined out position as a neutral nation.
Already we have the situation where prisoners are being transported through Shannon airport - rendition - from law-abiding nations to nations where torture is common place. The Irish Government has let us down on this front, accepting the word of the most mendacious U.S. Government ever - even Nixon looks good compared to Bush and his cronies.
The end of the report mentioned above puts a lovely little Irish spin onto it all. The person who had lawfully placed the U.S. soldiers under arrest had been ridiculed by the Gardai.
When he finally got them to take him seriously he was confronted by a belligerent female Gardai who had removed her identification numbers (a crime...) only to be joined by a second, unidentifiable Gardai and two plain clothes officers.
That showed him - those poor, defencless U.S. troops are now safe from concerened Irish citizens hell-bent on preserving what little claim we still have on neutrality.
Comments
Justin
I absolutely do not understand what the issue is with troops walking around in Ireland. Could someone please clarify the reasoning behind this? I've been searching a couple of websites trying to track down an explanation for this, but none of them clearly explain what crime these soldiers were in the process of comitting.
As I read it, this news item is just infuriating. Whoever this asshole is is lucky that he tried this crap with a bunch of female soldiers, because if he had done this to some male Marines he would have gotten his teeth knocked out.
Mark Lennox
Hi Justin,
You said:
I absolutely do not understand what the issue is with troops walking around in Ireland. Could someone please clarify the reasoning behind this?
I thought I had. But to facilitate you the quote here should explain the crux of the situation
"Belligerents are forbidden to move troops or convoys of either munitions of war or supplies across the territory of a neutral Power."
from this article:
http://faculty.ed.umuc.edu/~nstanton/Ch9.htm
The point then being that the gentleman who arrested the soldiers was quite right as the soldiers by their presence a) threatened our neutrality b) threatened a diplomatic incident as strictly speaking we had been 'invaded' by belligerent troops.
As you (hopefully) read that article you will see that the Irish Nation is in a conundrum, we allow the transport of U.S. troops through Shannon while they are en route to Iraq which is strictly forbidden if we are to claim neutrality.
The Irish Government (and I guess we the people, as there are no protests against this..) try to claim neutrality still as they say the airport is open to all troops from all nations - a nod toward the need to take neither one side nor the other in a war. Also there is a lot of hand waving and vague explanations that certain areas of Shannon have been designated non-national territory (all marines etc. are kept segregated in areas that have no access to the greater public)
You said:
As I read it, this news item is just infuriating.
I'm sorry for your troubles Justin. This is a serious and complex matter and requires some objectivity.
You said:
Whoever this asshole is is lucky that he tried this crap with a bunch of female soldiers, because if he had done this to some male Marines he would have gotten his teeth knocked out.
Let's tackle the subjects you raised their one at a time.
First - the chap in question seems level headed and informed to me.
Second - I'm sure if you spoke this sentence to a mixed group of female and male marines you would find yourself beating a hasty retreat. The female members of the marines fight just as hard and are just as tough as their male counterparts. To insult and denigrate them in this off-handed fashion is disgusting. I take it that you are a U.S. citizen? These marines, both female and male, are dying for your rights. Have some respect!!
Third - if the hypothetical male marines had knocked his teeth out they would, in a just world, have been court-martialed. Hardly a fitting end to what I would hope was a worthy career.
I hope this clears up any misunderstandings you still have on the subject.
Justin
I still don't quite understand. If they entered the country, they must have been, at some point, given permission to enter. If the Irish government decided to let them in, then the responsibility for that decision should be on their shoulders. There is no reason to harass individual soldiers over a decision the government made.
As for the police, I can understand them mocking this guy, not only for the reason above but also that I'm certain there must be real crimes (like theft or murder) going on someplace that could use some attention.
And I'd like to again applaud this guy's courage because most Americans have no idea what citizen's arrest even is. If I was walking down the street minding my own business and some local suddenly tried to accost me like this, I would feel very threatened. This could have been a very ugly confrontation (hence my comment about the Marines)
Mark Lennox
Justin said:
I still don't quite understand. If they entered the country, they must have been, at some point, given permission to enter. If the Irish government decided to let them in, then the responsibility for that decision should be on their shoulders. There is no reason to harass individual soldiers over a decision the government made.
The issue of our neutrality is a serious matter for some people in this country at the moment. There are those of us who feel that our government has already comprimised our neutrality by allowing U.S. troops passage through Shannon.
Strictly speaking the soldiers should not have been in uniform inside or outside of the airport. We have had to swallow the goverments assertion that our neutrality is preserved by segregating the soldiers in Shannon airport.
The individual who made the report is an active anti-war protester and was quite right in his actions against uniformed members of a belligerent army in Ireland. Strictly speaking they shouldnt be there, they shouldnt even be in Shannon if we wish to claim neutrality.
Our Government shirks every responsibility it can with regard to policies like this leaving the policing of policies up to ad-hoc actions by the Gardai or private individuals and not passing laws until sufficient public outcry is raised (sufficient outcry means a threat to them getting voted in again..)
The Gardai (police) in this country are a joke. They come down in force on individuals and are nowehere to be seen when real crimes are happening. What the Gardai excel at - bullying, intimidation, drinking tea, breaking the law, avoiding their duties.
All Gardai are required to display their numbers on their shoulders as identification - these are more and more often removed as a means of initimidation. The fact that the Gardai involved found it necessary to arrive in force, all either plain clothes (different from uniformed guards with no numbers) and others without their numbers shows that they were out to intimidate the reporter involved.
If the Gardai had been acting lawfully then why would it have been necessary to remove their numbers?
Citizens arrest basically gives a citizen the right to detain someone who has committed a crime until an officer of the law can be found to properly detain them. It allows for use of sufficient force if the citizen believes that the criminal will flee before the officer arrives.
Posted by dottie at 12:55 PM | Comments (4)
June 19, 2006
Rainbow
Up above the streets and houses, rainbow climbing high!
Posted by dottie at 10:38 PM | Comments (0)
Scandanavian Bottle Opener
Apparently is another bottle of beer!
I love that, it means you always have to get another bottle of beer because there's no sense in wasting the last one.
The Irish method of course involves using a cigarette lighter to open the last beer. This was invented because we were always 'knacker' drinking miles from nowehere (usually at the top of a cliff somehwere - how we all didnt fall off in the dark I dont know..) and couldnt afford to go and get more beer anyway.
Posted by dottie at 9:45 PM | Comments (0)
June 18, 2006
Big Fat Hard One
750 Gigs
....!......
Seagate Barracuda 750 GB, 7200 RPM
Posted by dottie at 8:37 AM | Comments (0)
June 17, 2006
Art
This has to be one of my favourite pieces of art
It was completed by my very good friend Emmet in his second year I believe? Leave a comment Emmet and tell the story!
Comments
Emmet
This is one of my earlier pieces completed in 1978 and entitled “Stone Butterfly Waterfall Ship”. It was a composition undertaken at the tender age of 3.5 years and was clearly influenced by colours I had to hand coupled by the brush gauge. It was framed by my father and has been displayed at various locations over the last 3 decade.
My present interpretation of this piece is based on the turmoil of birth, particularly the intense bittersweet emotions evoked in a father at the presence of new life’s arrival.
I am open to offers on this work with a reserve of €1,000,000.
Mark Lennox
By the way - Happy Fathers Day dude!
Posted by dottie at 9:50 PM | Comments (2)
Welcome to Dublin
Posted by dottie at 8:01 PM | Comments (0)
Money Worship
Posted by dottie at 7:58 PM | Comments (0)
Neuvo Graffiti
A lovely piece of official Graffiti - click for a more detailed image
Posted by dottie at 7:55 PM | Comments (0)
Arko
I love these faded, painted-on-the-wall advertisments. This was probably painted in the fifties or sixties.
Its on the little laneway that leads from Abbey Street to the Quays beside Freebird Records.
Posted by dottie at 7:45 PM | Comments (0)
New business...
I'm thinking of starting a business to build quiet, powerful PC's for two niche markets - gamers and musicians.
Gamers - dont care about how noisy their PC's are (well...) they just wan the fastest thing they can get and make it look good too please!
Musicians - They need - fast, quiet, LOTS of storage, stable and low latency audio interface, decent MIDI interface.
I have built both these types of machines and I am signing up to be a wholesaler with some online computer component sites (don't cost me nothing, as long as I am VAT registered, which I am!)
If you want a custom built computer for gaming or for recording music then let me know!
SO now some Google linkage fodder - computer, high spec computer, fats computer, powerful computer, gaming machine, quiet pc, pre-built computer, custom built computers.
Posted by dottie at 5:10 PM | Comments (0)
Lovely old chromatic mouth organ
This lovely old Hohner Chromatic Harmonica belongs to a mate of mine Garrett Ryan. I think he said he inherited it from his Uncle (I was the other side of two bottles of beer and a couple of shots of vodka and Absinthe at that stage...)
It must be from the 40's :)
Amazingly, it sounds as good as it looks!
Sweet - click this last image for a more detailed view...
I love old instruments like this. The detail that goes into anything from before mass-production really kicked in, before such things were designed and sold as instruments first and products second.
The attention to detail on the packaging is great. The quality is obvious as it has stood up to 50+ years of use and delivered the harmonica from the past to our present in near immaculate condition.
Did I mention it sounds great? It is lovely to play too - really solid, comfortable - reassuring that you can play what you want, it begs you to play it.
Oh yeah.
Posted by dottie at 4:40 PM | Comments (0)
Bertie Ahern vows to destroy all records of Charles Haugheys's (alleged) criminal acts
Posted by dottie at 4:25 PM | Comments (0)
June 15, 2006
Call centre subversion - good deeds!
If you have a couple of weeks free go out and do a good deed.
Sign up for a help desk / call centre job. Complete the 'training' (usually an hour or so of reading and some role-playing with a supervisor - although that may be to get better desk space, I don't know, regardless, if they ask you to dress up as a schoolgirl its probably not part of the job description...)
Once on the phones be nice to everyone, do everything they want you to do. Cut off their service with no charges if they require, swicth on full service. Try and last a few days before moving on to the next company call centre.
Then you can say 'have a nice day' and really mean it :)
Posted by dottie at 8:12 PM | Comments (0)