I hope all you Xbox Live gamers had a whale of a time celebrating it’s 5th birthday yesterday. Did you get a chance to download a complimentary copy of Carcassonne yet? It’s free for a limited time only. Congrats to gamers who’ve been with Xbox Live since the beginning. You guys got 500 Microsoft points.
The WGA Strike may have killed the churning of scripts for Hollywood’s TV shows, but it hasn’t killed video satire. Check out the Daily Show’s writers reporting large from the picket lines.
Damien wins best Technology Journalist at Net Visionary awards. Warm congrats. I would have liked to see him win the Social Contribution award too, but he was cruelly knocked off before the shortlist. Bah. It would have been nice if organisers would have actually allowed all of the winners to make speeches. Are they afraid of something? And don’t throw the ’speeches would make the show too long’ excuse at me.
Jango, the social radio site is out of beta, and hot dang, I love it. It’s a social network onto itself. Bring you friends along and you can share songs with them, peek at their radio playlists and even tune in if you fancy. Sound quality is decent and the first song it picked for me was Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas”. Love it. Although that slim cach? of exclusivity is gone now that every Tom, Dick and Harry can get in. Yes, now even one-eyed Harry can get in.
My new favourite Facebook group, Random Acts of Kindness. One doen’t need to join to do them, but it’s nice to keep the idea fresh in the FB collective.
Jim finds us another gem. The Most Serene Republic ‘The Men Who Live Upstairs’.
This baby hit the wires a little too soon - oops.
David Berlind reflects on MashupCamp 5. Via Martha.
The Visual C++ team has finished some work on improving the performance of Intellisense, project file processing and CPU cycling. Great news. The tweaks will be native to the upcoming release of Visual Studio 2008 and also available as a patch for downloading to Visual Studio 2005.
Bernie poses some interesting questions about the West’s addiction to cheap goods and proposed Green Taxes.
Ensemble ‘Disown Delete’ with Cat Power’s velvet tones giving the tune an extra sombre note.
Congrats to Jezlyn for picking the name ‘Molly’. A Wispa is going to Cheryl. My Acer looks and acts like a Molly, too. Thanks to everyone that entered the competition.
I see that there’s a squeeze over in Mulley’s gaff to push categories into the 2008 Blog awards. Virtually all of the comments making suggestions so far have been made solely on the grounds of self-interest. “Please, please - have a category for my blog… I want to the link love and eyeball time”. You can almost taste the metallic taint of blood, as bodies are clambered and climbed over. It’s almost as bad as bloggers who beg for votes for awards. I’m *so* looking forward to that silly season in the Spring.
For the most part, blogging is an ego exercise. Anyone who disagrees is telling lies. People publish to be read. If one wanted to write a piece purely for the writing, it would stay on their hard drives. Yes, me included. I like to write and read. Mostly a GIGO diet - garbage in, garbage out.
And Mulley is the ringleader. For the second time in just a few days, he’s holding a show that appeals to the greed of bloggers. All I’m asking for, is that bloggers sit back and think about why they blog. Ego yes - but that can’t be the whole reason. And Damien - stop appealing to the base instincts of your readership.
It’s sad to see that ScienceWeek needs the carrot approach to bait bloggers to talk about their favourite inventions. Yes, it builds a bit of buzz. But just because the word Wii is floating about as fingers hit keyboards. As a nation are we really that allergic to science, technology and engineering? So what happens next week? Back to the usual bitching..
Yeah, there’s some events being held around the country this week. Shouldn’t science be soft-sold every day to students instead of a flash in the pan week? Will science be out on the back burner again until it is pushed out in a wheelchair for next year’s event wrapped in PR buzz? Something has to change.
Teaching needs to come into the 21st Century. The cold, heartless trudge through tomes of science formulae has come to a place where closer engagement with researchers and practical real-world engineering is a reality. Would I trade this approach for a piece of plastic? Nope. Science is for life. It’s discovery and enlightenment, not a subject to just survive through.
Some MashupCamp tech. Check out the Dapper Dapp demo - learn how to turn a web page into feed with the content you want represented in it.
Bock couldn’t care less about the Dublin Bus strike and he’s got a point.
The New Yorker looks back on the life of the late Norman Mailer.
Let’s be realistic. Who doesn’t see an economic readjustment coming around the corner? It’s here already. Apparently TCD’s Dr. Sean Barrett doesn’t. Looking into the crystal ball?at a centenary of Irish Statehood, he sees a country with the highest GDP per head in the world. C’mon. Pull the other one..
Day three of today’s MashupCamp is done and dusted. My favourite part of the today was the speed-geeking. I was paired with Damian Bannon and Will Knott. I like to ask questions, so this was the perfect opportunity for me to get around and ask folks about their mashup wares.
Out of all of the mashups on show, I was particularly impressed with John Herren’s Indeed.com job search mashup and Dennis Deery’s farm field mashup. Incidently, they came first and second in the Best Mashup contest. Congratulations to all of the prize winners.
Thanks to David Berlind, Doug Gold and the rest of the MashupCamp team for organising the event. Thanks to the sponsors for supplementing our attendance, to presenters for being patient and answering every query, to Mulley for getting the word out and to the attendees for turning up and making it a good weekend.
I’d like to see this event grow and grow into the future. It needs more university presence, more local devs, more designers, more hobbyists. More. MashupCamp is coming back to Dublin next year. Let’s make it more.
Some takeaways from day two: