Alexia Blogs

Congratulations to all of the winners of gongs in the British Interactive Media Awards held in London last night. Methinks everyone had a super time and heads are a bit tender this morning. The BIMA blog has published the winners list.

Some winners that caught my eye include:

• Channel 4’s 4oD service won the Grand Prix award.
• ArmyJobs for Best Website
• Sony’s ‘This is Living’ for Interactive Craft
• BBC’s Ouch Podcast for Most Outstanding Achievement in Accessibility
• Talk to Frank Bot on MSN for Best Use of Social Software.

Late last night it was announced that Cubic Telecom and Global Roaming would strategically ally on technical know-how and marketing. Pooling their resources is a good move for both of these companies, as it means that they compete more efficiently in even more markets around the world. Congratulations to Pat and the Cubic Telecom management team.

Microsoft Expression Blend SP1 hits the wires. Expression Blend is a User Interface design environment that you can use to create graphics for Window Presentation Foundation (WPF) and Silverlight applications in XAML.

Limerick City grows by 50%, costing E1.2 million. An expensive extension, alright.

Gastronom.ie - a nice new food and drink aggregator blog enters the fray.

More bits from San Francisco. Loving SFist. I like it’s mix of news and happenings.

A part of me felt sorry for Mary Harney last night facing down the opposition in the Dail. Lots of the support there from the Government. Not. FF cohorts were lying low, it seems.

Harney is getting all the flack as she’s the girl in question, now. She’s the Minister for Health. She has the brief. She wanted the job. The Ministry for Health is a poison chalice, yet she stood up and asked Bertie for that job. She knew it would be tough. The PDs were on the ropes following the last general election. Yes, it was a risky strategy. But she stood up and said, give me the toughest job and I’m willing to risk my political future and that of my fledgling party on it. That takes bravery. Bravery that the some Fianna Fail Government members are still looking for, as it seems they couldn’t turn out for a good show in the Dail last night.

This, however, is just a trifle. As what we’re talking about here is life and death. The Health Service has been a runaway train for decades now. Successive governments are culpable, despite their strong attacks on the current Minister. They all played cards with the Devil here. I hope to God that none of my nearest and dearest end up in the care of public hospitals in the near future, as they will quite literally be dicing with death.

Structural changes are needed in the Health Service. Harney kicked off the process by dissolving the old Health Boards and founding the HSE, with the aim of streamlining the adminstration and provision of health care services to the Irish nation. Yet, last week she had problems sourcing information on the 97 women whose cases?needed to be reviewed. The Minister for Health couldn’t get information from the HSE. What does tell you about the structure of the HSE, its comms levels and its answerability to the Minister for Health? It smells of scant regard.

It appears to me that many of the problems of the Health Boards are being replicated by the HSE. The same faces in the same places, making the same decision. I would like to Harney go further and cut out more of the deadwood from the heart of the HSE.

I support her moves to modernise the Irish Health Service. She often gets labelled as a ‘political gladiator’. Someone that smarts for an argument more readily than delivering on her political promises. I don’t believe that. She’s willing to stand out and take risks. She can also stand up in the Dail, withstand a roasting and retaliate without depending on notes. These are attributes that many other Irish politicians would bottle at. I’m hoping she goes further and follows through on her goals. Her political legacy and that of her party depends on it.

These servings may be sporadic this week..

So, MySpace follows LinkedIn in aping Facebook. Call this progression? I call it following the pack. MySpace needs to redefine it’s target audience. It can’t be all things to all people, else it’ll be nothing to anyone. It needs to do things right. And nix the blinky-text syndrome it suffers.

More Facebook. John Naughton on how ABC and Facebook are teaming up for the US elections by pushing ABC content onto Facebook for consumption and discussion by its members. Smart idea, though I wonder how the editoral slant of ABC’s content will wash. How does this change the game? Will politicial affiliations of members become a sore point? Will users really want breadcrumbs linking them to a political stance? Hmm..

Another SF tidbit, Eater’s SF guide. Nice blog covering new restaurants in SF.

The long and complicated history of the human gene and viruses. Fantastic stuff.

Woo, less than a week to go to the kick off the Paddy’s Valley tour and I’m really looking forward. Can’t wait for the foggy, cold air and the smell of creative minds. Thanks to everyone who’s been helping get the tour off the ground. And, yes, the organisers are heroes.

On the way to the ho-hum ‘Lion’s for Lambs’ last night, M and I passed by Santa’s Island in the water feature outside Dundrum Town Centre. I just had to grab a pic on the way home.

Fred Wilson’s Monday post on Techmeme and the strengthening of corporate voices in tech blogging is still with me some days later. I’ve read it a couple of times and it expresses so succinctly a lot of my views on how tech blogging has changed for the worst.

A handful of years ago, I could distinguish real voices behind the keyboard. People with passionate views, letting them all hang out. Nowadays, a lot of these people are working in startups, are investors and part of corporate units. Homogen-voices. Yes, it’s a natural part of the puzzle and demonstrates the buy-in of corporates in blogging, but how has that changed these voices? Instead of opinionated posts from the heart, I read posts tempered by financial interests, cranked out content, axes to grind and egos to inflate.

I’ve for the most part, I’ve stopped reading these blogs of old. Instead, I read blogs written by younger people in tech (ignoring the jockeying voices here too) and more regularly, blogs written by people not in tech - who like to write about their travels, children or politics. Things that matter.

I love technology, but I don’t want to be sold something everytime I open a post. I want real opinion, not a corporate collective. I don’t read Techmeme anymore either.

If six month old babies?are so socially sophisticated, why on earth are some grown-ups complete social wrecks? What happened to them?

Twenty is a cruel, cruel man.. and I love it.. Forget about ‘Yo Mamma’ insults, and replace them with ‘Mary Harney is…’

Liking the?idea of having a Magic 8 Ball?on a team doc server that I can consult when I’m trying to debug..

Going on Paddy’s Valley? Get to Jaiku and join #paddysvalley. Don’t have an invite for Jaiku? Drop me a mail.

Question: Getting some 504 Gateway Errors on Jaiku, lately. Anyone else getting them?

I’m listening to a lot of? jazz music at the moment and?loving Blossom Dearie. Check out this gem. No title, but listen to her voice. Amazing.

A link for the Paddy’s Valley folk, Gridskipper has a pretty nice, if irreverent, guide of San Francisco. You web literate types probably have it bookmarked, but just in case.. Check it out. Lots of gems to be seen.

Anyone remember that Simpson’s episode where Fat Tony sells rat’s milk to the Elementary School. Heather Mills says she’d drink it.

Just catchin up on this now. So, once Facebook has all of us in, there’s no way out?

John sings Happy Birthday to TCP/IP. Happy 30th! It’s all down-hill from here. Your mid-life crisis starts with?IPv6.

Sea Dog ‘Hallowed Be Thy Doom’

Moving these to being afternoon tidbits.