I first saw this a few years ago but it is still hilarious. The dog seems to think his own leg is another dog trying to steal his bone. There is no end to the fun you can find on YouTube.
Friday 28 September 2007
Thursday 27 September 2007
More Flickr Woes
I, like many of my friend, have recently joined facebook. Unlike Flickr it has drawn in a lot of people who are not normally of the technical persuasion. They think it is great to upload pictures usually of some drunken night where the participants look a little worse for wear. I recently noted to a friend that I like the tutu she was wore out one night. The only problem was I wasn't there and I saw the picture from a non-mutual friend that tagged the image on her facebook wall. She was a little surprised and didn't know that people could do that, but in this case it was innocent enough.
Like the early days of e-mail, i.e. when regular punters started using it (not the techie weirdos that usually play nice when it comes to computers) there were many stories of people hitting reply all instead of reply and the embarrassment that ensued from some off colour humour reaching the wrong person or persons. Over time the netiquette of e-mail has settled down and there are now less of these reply-all stories as people have learned either the hard way or some horror story.
The new netiquette comes to taking and posting photograph of other people to the internet. The examples are beginning to rack up. Just this week Virgin mobile in Australia have found themselves sued by a Texas family after their 16 year daughter, Alison Chang, was featured in a ad campaign. Virgin used an image that was uploaded Alison's youth counselor that was released under creative commons. As a result of her image being they are seeking damages :
However while Virgin might find themselves on the wrong end of this one and will hopefully learn from it. I think the blame also reside with the person who uploaded the photograph, the youth counselor, Justin Wong. Blinding uploading pictures of other people without their permission is going to cause a lot of problems. Just because you don't mind having your life laid bare on the internet for all the world to see doesn't mean every body else feels that way.
As a result of cases like this and other emergent problems, I have been trying to educate friends and show them when and how they are leaking information that probably wouldn't prefer. Also as a Flickr pro user I have marked all pictures containing people as visible to family and friend only, it is a shame that only flickr users can only be marked as family or friend.
It is a shame that Alison picture was used in that way by Virgin, I don't think it was with malice just as a bit of a laugh and I hope that when she matures a bit she'll find out that there are plenty of worse things in life. She may even be able to ride out the noterity, maybe she should take some notes from Britney Spears defender Chris Crocker, who went from been slagged off one day for his over the top YouTube video to been given his own MTV reality TV show.
Like the early days of e-mail, i.e. when regular punters started using it (not the techie weirdos that usually play nice when it comes to computers) there were many stories of people hitting reply all instead of reply and the embarrassment that ensued from some off colour humour reaching the wrong person or persons. Over time the netiquette of e-mail has settled down and there are now less of these reply-all stories as people have learned either the hard way or some horror story.
The new netiquette comes to taking and posting photograph of other people to the internet. The examples are beginning to rack up. Just this week Virgin mobile in Australia have found themselves sued by a Texas family after their 16 year daughter, Alison Chang, was featured in a ad campaign. Virgin used an image that was uploaded Alison's youth counselor that was released under creative commons. As a result of her image being they are seeking damages :
Claiming it caused their teenage daughter grief and humiliation by plastering her photo on billboards and website advertisements without consentThe technical legal details are abound. They correctly used the image under creative commons however they did not have a model release for for the feature participant. In the past it was usually the photographer that took care of this, but he/she was also a professional who living was selling of said photographs.
However while Virgin might find themselves on the wrong end of this one and will hopefully learn from it. I think the blame also reside with the person who uploaded the photograph, the youth counselor, Justin Wong. Blinding uploading pictures of other people without their permission is going to cause a lot of problems. Just because you don't mind having your life laid bare on the internet for all the world to see doesn't mean every body else feels that way.
As a result of cases like this and other emergent problems, I have been trying to educate friends and show them when and how they are leaking information that probably wouldn't prefer. Also as a Flickr pro user I have marked all pictures containing people as visible to family and friend only, it is a shame that only flickr users can only be marked as family or friend.
It is a shame that Alison picture was used in that way by Virgin, I don't think it was with malice just as a bit of a laugh and I hope that when she matures a bit she'll find out that there are plenty of worse things in life. She may even be able to ride out the noterity, maybe she should take some notes from Britney Spears defender Chris Crocker, who went from been slagged off one day for his over the top YouTube video to been given his own MTV reality TV show.
I love living in Bondi - now with even more bikinis!
I live pretty close to Bondi Beach. Any morning that I cycle into work I usually take a leisurely cycle down the promenade. A week doesn't go by when there is some thing mad going on. Yesterday morning I was treated to the Guinness record attempt at the largest bikini shoot.
It is still a bit early in the year for the beach but it was quite a sight seeing hundreds of girls running around in their bikinis. Credit goes to who ever arranged this, I know how long it takes to get one girl ready, can you imagine how hard it is to co-ordinate and get 1100 of them ready? There was an extra level of High Maintenance in the air on Bondi Beach and fake tan. However it certainly beats getting up on an September morning in Dublin and putting on your wets to cycle to work.
Check out the aquabumps web site for a few more up close and personal pictures.
It is still a bit early in the year for the beach but it was quite a sight seeing hundreds of girls running around in their bikinis. Credit goes to who ever arranged this, I know how long it takes to get one girl ready, can you imagine how hard it is to co-ordinate and get 1100 of them ready? There was an extra level of High Maintenance in the air on Bondi Beach and fake tan. However it certainly beats getting up on an September morning in Dublin and putting on your wets to cycle to work.
Check out the aquabumps web site for a few more up close and personal pictures.
Saturday 15 September 2007
wey-hey I got the new iPod nano but ...
I was quite surprised to find the new iPod nano 3G along with the rename iPod classic was available in Australia 2 days after Steve Jobs announced it (it was Wednesday in San Fran, but Thursday in Oz). I through pure power of will alone resisted the temptation to buy it then and there, my facade broke by Tuesday and like the iPod whore I am I ordered one online and it arrived yesterday, which was Friday.
First off it looks great and I have shown it to a good few cynical engineers that are known of their skepticism for geeky gadgets, but even they were impressed.
However I have already ran into two problems. Firstly after I loaded up my default playlists and then disconnected from the computer the nano would freeze. It appeared to be some thing to do with the new cover flow application trying to arrange the images. After a few resets of the nano it started to play ball. However any time I disconnected from the PC it would start freezing again. Then this morning when I connected to iTunes it informed me that there is a 1.01 firmware upgrade (bare in mind this device was only release 9 days earlier ) after I updated the firmware the problem seems to have gone away. I have done a search on a 1.01 firmware for the apple nano 3G and can't get any details on what was fixed so I can only assume that the cover flow issue I was seeing.
Problem number 2, I hate iTunes, I've run it on I don't know how many machines and I find it clunky, buggy and I have successfully crashed many times. I especially don't like the way it doesn't dynamically track a folder that has been added to a library. It should be removing files that are no longer present and adding new files (which is usually just me moving files around as I catalog them) which it doesn't. Winamp I find is a lot better for this and I have been using it for my iPod video for a while. However when I plugged in the new nano, winamp recognised the nano alright, and I copied over playlists. However when I ejected the nano and started trying to browse the music, nothing. I found that strange and didn't think too much about it.
Then I find the internet alive this morning with the linux community finding the same problem, "iPods reengineered to block synching with Linux", I'm guessing this is the same problem I'm seeing in winamp. This is a surprise. After Steve Jobs writes his magical letter coming out against DRM to find that they are employing DRM tatic to stop 3rd party apps from downloading to new iPods. Hopefully people can find a way to circumvent this. Apparently the DRM tactic uses SHA-1 hashes to maintain it's database tables, SHA-1 has been proven to be breakable and maybe that can be exploited (though currently to achieve a successful collision is considered within reach of massive distributed Internet search).
With all that said, I can't wait to see the iPod touch once it comes out at the end of the month.
First off it looks great and I have shown it to a good few cynical engineers that are known of their skepticism for geeky gadgets, but even they were impressed.
However I have already ran into two problems. Firstly after I loaded up my default playlists and then disconnected from the computer the nano would freeze. It appeared to be some thing to do with the new cover flow application trying to arrange the images. After a few resets of the nano it started to play ball. However any time I disconnected from the PC it would start freezing again. Then this morning when I connected to iTunes it informed me that there is a 1.01 firmware upgrade (bare in mind this device was only release 9 days earlier ) after I updated the firmware the problem seems to have gone away. I have done a search on a 1.01 firmware for the apple nano 3G and can't get any details on what was fixed so I can only assume that the cover flow issue I was seeing.
Problem number 2, I hate iTunes, I've run it on I don't know how many machines and I find it clunky, buggy and I have successfully crashed many times. I especially don't like the way it doesn't dynamically track a folder that has been added to a library. It should be removing files that are no longer present and adding new files (which is usually just me moving files around as I catalog them) which it doesn't. Winamp I find is a lot better for this and I have been using it for my iPod video for a while. However when I plugged in the new nano, winamp recognised the nano alright, and I copied over playlists. However when I ejected the nano and started trying to browse the music, nothing. I found that strange and didn't think too much about it.
Then I find the internet alive this morning with the linux community finding the same problem, "iPods reengineered to block synching with Linux", I'm guessing this is the same problem I'm seeing in winamp. This is a surprise. After Steve Jobs writes his magical letter coming out against DRM to find that they are employing DRM tatic to stop 3rd party apps from downloading to new iPods. Hopefully people can find a way to circumvent this. Apparently the DRM tactic uses SHA-1 hashes to maintain it's database tables, SHA-1 has been proven to be breakable and maybe that can be exploited (though currently to achieve a successful collision is considered within reach of massive distributed Internet search).
With all that said, I can't wait to see the iPod touch once it comes out at the end of the month.
Thursday 13 September 2007
D'Officials - No Hoodies!
In Ireland there are two constructs, "The Man" and "A boy", that are used by parents to corral their kids in. "A boy" is usually a person that got himself injured doing something stupid and is used as a warning to other kids, "A boy broke his legs climbing over those rocks", or "A boy almost had his finger cut off climbing in that window". (There is a window in the primary school of Dungeagan in Ballinskelligs, Co Kerry and I was that boy that people get warned about).
"The Man" however is the marginally empowered person that flexed it when ever he can. You meet them all the time when you go through metal detectors in airports and they take away nail clippers, or the security guards that tell you you can't take pictures of a building. The comedian's John Kenny and Pat Shortt, also know as D'Unbelievables, capture the phenomenon excellently at the start of the performance on D'Video :
I was reminded of "The Man" while reading Bruce Schneier blog, where in the UK a four year old girl was asked to remove her hoodie for vague "security" reasons:
"The Man" however is the marginally empowered person that flexed it when ever he can. You meet them all the time when you go through metal detectors in airports and they take away nail clippers, or the security guards that tell you you can't take pictures of a building. The comedian's John Kenny and Pat Shortt, also know as D'Unbelievables, capture the phenomenon excellently at the start of the performance on D'Video :
I was reminded of "The Man" while reading Bruce Schneier blog, where in the UK a four year old girl was asked to remove her hoodie for vague "security" reasons:
"She had her hood up on her cardigan, a young lad came across and asked her to take her hood down because of security."
When Ms Lewis learned what had happened, she spoke to the worker. She said: "He said 'It's policy, they don't allow any hoodies in there.'"
While it would be great in society to slap these upside the head and tell them to stop acting the maggot that usually doesn't help so we'll always be stuck with them. Here's another example of "The Man" from Father Ted :
Sunday 9 September 2007
Irish Racism? or just culture.
I don't get too topical or political most of the time but my interest has been piqued by the recent view of Kevin Myers on immigration and racism in Ireland into Ireland over the past 5 years Ireland is experiencing huge immigration with new cultures living side by side with the existing one. Some people don't like this and it not uncommon for names to be thrown about. However the call of racism may not be entirely accurate. Long before Ireland became a country people wanted to immigrate into it was pretty much full of just Irish people, there were some exceptions, God Bless Phil Lynott usually credited as Ireland first black man.
Back then, and even now it was not enough to just be Irish. As a Cork/Dublin hybrid I have experienced the Irish life style of the "Eternal Blow In", I'm not bitter mind but it did give me some perspective on the country that loves to make a lot out of people's difference, even if it is just your accent. I have done a fair bit of travelling, a few years in the states and currently residing in Sydney, Australia. In that time I have met many travelling or resident Paddies. Guaranteed, every time, less than 5 minutes into the first introductory conversation with an Irish person the question comes up : "Where are you from?" and it is always to place you, to put you in some county related box, or if your are from the same county what part of it. It is never enough to just be Irish and be done with it. I know/knew an Irish girl that made assumption about you based on how well your county was doing the either the gaelic football or the hurling. After travelling for years my accent has been cleaned up (some times kicking and screaming), I no longer say "Turty Fuhve" after been ribbed too much it has become "Thirty Five" which is even more source for the title of "Eternal Blow-In" any time I return home. Even comedians get great mileage out of making fun of people from different parts of the country, Tommy Tiernans assessment of Cork people while funny isn't too far of the mark as covered in this segment from his Cracked DVD:
I have made the observation amongst friends that you only really become Irish once you leave Ireland until then you better have picked a place to be from. A lot has been made of the Irish being very friendly and a land of a Hundred Thousand welcomes (Céad míle fáilte). While working with a french co-op student in Ireland 8 years ago he pointed out to me that people he worked with were very friendly when out for a few jars in the pub but the next day they would barely talk to him.
So now here we are almost one complete decade into the 21st Century, the Ireland of today is not the one I grew up with 30 years ago. Back then it was the Dubs against the Culchies, north side versus south side, Kerry versus Cork, Munster versus Leinster etc. on and on. Face it, we (the Irish) were just looking for difference so that we could break away into little Travis Bickle tribes and hate "Them" for being different. So now into this incestuous maelstrom walk immigrants that actual are different, they speak different, they look different, they have different religion, different culture. They don't stand a chance against the old guard. They don't have to work hard to find a difference so that they can make fun or, heaven forbid, hate "Them".
To see how far we have come or have yet to go I would direct the reader (any left?) to the first episode of the third season of Father Ted, "Are You Right There, Father Ted" . Part of the hilarity was that there is a Chinatown section on Craggy Island. Now it doesn't seem to too far off base.
Back then, and even now it was not enough to just be Irish. As a Cork/Dublin hybrid I have experienced the Irish life style of the "Eternal Blow In", I'm not bitter mind but it did give me some perspective on the country that loves to make a lot out of people's difference, even if it is just your accent. I have done a fair bit of travelling, a few years in the states and currently residing in Sydney, Australia. In that time I have met many travelling or resident Paddies. Guaranteed, every time, less than 5 minutes into the first introductory conversation with an Irish person the question comes up : "Where are you from?" and it is always to place you, to put you in some county related box, or if your are from the same county what part of it. It is never enough to just be Irish and be done with it. I know/knew an Irish girl that made assumption about you based on how well your county was doing the either the gaelic football or the hurling. After travelling for years my accent has been cleaned up (some times kicking and screaming), I no longer say "Turty Fuhve" after been ribbed too much it has become "Thirty Five" which is even more source for the title of "Eternal Blow-In" any time I return home. Even comedians get great mileage out of making fun of people from different parts of the country, Tommy Tiernans assessment of Cork people while funny isn't too far of the mark as covered in this segment from his Cracked DVD:
I have made the observation amongst friends that you only really become Irish once you leave Ireland until then you better have picked a place to be from. A lot has been made of the Irish being very friendly and a land of a Hundred Thousand welcomes (Céad míle fáilte). While working with a french co-op student in Ireland 8 years ago he pointed out to me that people he worked with were very friendly when out for a few jars in the pub but the next day they would barely talk to him.
So now here we are almost one complete decade into the 21st Century, the Ireland of today is not the one I grew up with 30 years ago. Back then it was the Dubs against the Culchies, north side versus south side, Kerry versus Cork, Munster versus Leinster etc. on and on. Face it, we (the Irish) were just looking for difference so that we could break away into little Travis Bickle tribes and hate "Them" for being different. So now into this incestuous maelstrom walk immigrants that actual are different, they speak different, they look different, they have different religion, different culture. They don't stand a chance against the old guard. They don't have to work hard to find a difference so that they can make fun or, heaven forbid, hate "Them".
To see how far we have come or have yet to go I would direct the reader (any left?) to the first episode of the third season of Father Ted, "Are You Right There, Father Ted" . Part of the hilarity was that there is a Chinatown section on Craggy Island. Now it doesn't seem to too far off base.
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