A procedural drama might be easy, but there are a few catches. Only a few squads work throughout Ireland, homicide naturally is one of them, but most murders probably won’t attract a lot of tourists. Actually that isn’t true, deaths, even fake ones attract crowds, but would they spend?
Instead, let’s look at romance. Supernatural romance. Vampires are very popular when it comes to romance at the moment. Look at True Blood or the Twilight series for proof. However, the vampire area crowded. So let me think of a different set of supernatural lovers.
Fae.
Fae, Bean Sí, leprechauns, the fairies. Those stories that lasted a long time in Ireland, and in the Irish legends they were mostly human adult sized and frequently mistaken for beautiful men and women (there are a few children sized ones too). Eoin Colfer is still writing about them in his Artemis Fowl series. His is a coming of age story for a master teenage criminal who keeps crossing paths with the fairy police force responsible for covering up the existence of the mystical folk, the L.E.P. Recon squad. I think this story should be about someone human discovering that the tales of the Bean Sí and the changelings aren’t fairy tales.
Fae Play. Cute name. The building works on the Hill of Tara that came about through the M3 should be a nice starting ground. What would happen if the people in the fairy tales, from Tír na nÓg, from the Fenian Cycle, from the stories of the Tuatha Dé Danann showed up. Them or, more sensibly, their descendants (the really odd thing about the ancient Irish gods was that they could grow old and die. Eventually, even if it takes 300 or 900 years, so descendants it is).
The series would be set in modern day Ireland, and with creatures across the land and tied to nature, they would naturally be set in places able to show off some of the country’s beauty. I can almost see selkies surfing in the North West. A kelpie in Killarney. A kiss in the moonscape of the Burren.
Could it work? Goodness knows, but given that “supernatural romance” now has its own section in book shops, it worth knocking together something to make in to a web series at least.
As we all know, the future was supposed to be full of flying cars, and that simply didn’t happen.
Maybe they were too busy thinking “jet cars” to think “sail boats that fly”.
Industrial designer Damien Grossemydesigned a hypoththetical flying electric vehicle for Renault that is simply beautiful. The “Zep’lin” has a mostly vertical structure, a large part of which can be covered with solar panels, that resembles the offspring of a seed pod and a sail boat. Its actually possible to imagine that this is a genetically engineered type of maple until you see the elegant rudder / engine combination. True, I don’t see this doing a tight turning circle, and I’m not too sure how it would perform in a high wind take off to work, but it needs no dedicated infrastructure to land.
To park might be another matter.
And I wanna try it out.
It sails rather than powers from one location to another. The promotional video implies a potential around the world Zep’lin race for rich playboys. Which, if the design works, is not as infeasible as an around the world yacht race. So he has his early adopters identified, and can use their attention seeking antics to market the thing while their payments pay for the development of a commuter model.
And they look beautiful.
You may need to click through to see the embedded video.
Apparently the solar panels can tilt toward the sun, but looking at more of the designs I think its the solar equivalent of tacking, getting power in the sail from one angle, while traveling in another.
Renault spent 2 months designing a scale model, and we’ll see if it eventually becomes a working design.
You’re a Doer.
You are very quick at getting tasks done. You believe the outcome is the most important part of a task and the faster you can reach that outcome the better. After all, time is money.
–Will here. The alternative to a doer is the planner. I will plan but sometimes a prototype is needed to make sure that you are doing the right thing. Personally I’d do after I make sure the requirements are in place. And that’s just the prototype that’s willing to be changed. I suspect I’m right on the edge of the two states in this case.
You like coding at a Low level.
You’re from the old school of programming and believe that you should have an intimate relationship with the computer. You don’t mind juggling registers around and spending hours getting a 5% performance increase in an algorithm.
– I’m comfortable with high level coding and scripting but that last 5% is a bit on the mark. There is an old quote which goes “Art is never finished, its just abandoned”. The same is almost true of software. The almost is because software has a “next version”. Getting something working out there is one if the basics of rapid prototyping. Technology changes, requirements change. Having said that, there is a point when a new feature shouldn’t go in, but become a new tool. Keep an eye on that.
You work best in a Team.
A good group is better than the sum of it’s parts. The only thing better than a genius programmer is a cohesive group of genius programmers.
– I like working with people. Solo works for me when I’m deep in a function, doing that 5%. The rest of the time I like to be able to bounce ideas. Software needn’t be lonely.
Besides, I do believe in code reviews. You tend to be too close to the code to see something is missing or wrong based on the reqs. Other eyes make sense. That way you can ensure the comments match the code if nothing else, see below.
You are a liBeral programmer.
Programming is a complex task and you should use white space and comments as freely as possible to help simplify the task. We’re not writing on paper anymore so we can take up as much room as we need.
– This is a mix of a learned and an acquired taste. Write a piece of un-commented code. Leave it alone for six months (or six days). Then come back and look at it. Unless you’ve written very accurate function names and variable names, the code will take a while to sink in. Its better explaining in the code (as comments) what you want it to do, in case someone else thinks its meant to do different, and how it works. Its the team programming thing mixed with the big bus theory (which roughly goes as “Splat! Oh noes, that’s the only one who can fix the code”.) And remember to change the description if you change the functionality of the code.
Its also that if you are indispensable, you can’t be promoted.
Lets get the cynical bit out of the way first. Studios and cinemas love 3D as its impossible to do the “camera in the theatre” pirating trick with them. Just try watching a movie without the polarising glasses and you’ll see what I mean.
At the moment there are no movies that are greatly improved by the use of 3D. Just as the Jazz Singer was a gimmick where there was only 5 minutes of sound tacked in to a silent movie in 1927.
Try to imagine a modern movie done as a silent now? How much dialogue could be removed to work with those cards with the few lines? Exposition would need to be simpler in order to cope… etc.
Sound, widescreen and colour were all gimmicks once.
The entire production in photography would have to change in order to make the most of 3d. Since all movies have to be capable of being displayed on a 2d screen (DVD sales, Sales for tv broadcast, legal download) there isn’t going to be much use made of 3d, just as there isn’t much use made of IMAX.
So keeping that part of the market in mind, what is needed for 3d to take off?
The first big leap will be 3d home displays or 3D computer monitors. Then 3d still digital photography displayed on these home screens, and 3D games and interfaces on computers and consoles.
The still experiments will be what teaches the photographic and lighting requirements to the DPs (remember that lighting a black and white movie is a completely different technique to lighting a colour one. Something taken for granted today, but hard learned when it came in). The gaming and interface side will show what can be avoided an what people do and don’t notice.
Just place your bets on a 3D chess game being an early release… slow rendering is possible as most of the pieces can be pre-rendered. A slow moving game like this, well slow moving when compared to a first person shooter should be fairly easy… at most 2 pieces move at once. Then things can get faster.
Then, live action 3D comes to play… (at the moment it is limited to CG and stop motion animation).
Suddenly 3d editing becomes a desirable (and probably new found skill). Set budgets will soar (as the limited field of view is killed, as will be digital matt painting, unless they go 3d too.
Expect “AR” style commentaries on home released by that time too.
At the moment there are competing standards for home 3d, just as there were competing standards for sound in the 30s. And technicolor fought with de luxe for years. Give it time, and remember that the technical best does not always beat the good enough.
Tony points out that HD is still not ubiquitous. Well, the HD argument is flawed because of “good enough”. Few broadcasters use it, and its coming out at a time when the low definition YouTube channel is the most successful one at the moment. In other words its not being used. It may look great, but its not being used.
However, would one second of 3d and one second of HD have the same bandwidth/spectrum cost? The HD broadcast protocols might just be useful yet.
I will admit that the idea hit me while watching the video below. Disney has its Disney Princesses line. Well what about those little girls and boys not interested in being kind and nice (and trust me, its a lot of people). Those girls will eventually grow out (mostly at least) of their princess stage. Boys grow out of their Power Ranger phase (says the guy still in his Transformers phase from childhood). Can we have the Disney Bad Girls.
Think about it. Some girls want more spice with their sugar.
Some RSS readers will not display the video. If you can’t see it, either click on the last link, of click through to the post.
Essentially a sub set of the Disney Villains grouping (rarely used as a group). Name-checking Queen Grimhilde (the Queen in Snow White), Anastasia Tremaine (the kinder of the Ugly Sisters from Cinderella in the video), Maleficent (the wicked fairy godmother in Sleeping Beauty), Ursula (the Sea Witch in The Little Mermaid), Cruella de Vil (from The Hundred and One Dalmatians) and Madame Medusa (from The Rescuers).
The main problem with the female villains in the Disney movies is that they are almost all fully grown women. Compare this to the young princesses or the fairies. Is it hard for little girls to cast themselves as fully grown? Probably not. Admittedly in the case of stepmothers (the Queen or Lady Tremaine) it makes sense, Cruella is a well known character, and Maleficent is a major character in the Disney parades. But small changes can be made, just as happened with the princesses.
A shape changing Ursula could look like the queen she is in a black gown (with 6 frills or pleats on the way down the black dress to hide the fact that she is actually an octopus). Come to think of it, octopi can change shape themselves, as does the character. The major change for the character would be to have her walking out of water. Madame Medusa could easily be changed (she isn’t that well known) but a more flattering dress and stockings is all that’s needed. As for the Ugly Sister, she is already the same age as Cinderella if not a bit younger.
I’m sure that most of the princess stock could be adapted to the colour scheme of the “bad girls”, and Grimhilde or Maleficent would be good halloween costumes. Imagine a Ursula duvet cover or bedspread available with matching tentacle beanbags. And given the span of time-lines available (medieval witch queens and other magic users (yes, young Miss Tremaine gets a wand at some point) jumping to the 1930s and 1960s) there are more options available.
Unlike the princesses (who never really seem to acknowledge each other) have the bad girls working together. Maybe in a modern setting. Yes its a little bit Fables, but being bad can be just as much fun in the now, as well as in the past.
Decisions for Heroes is a project that Robin Blandford has been working on for a while. And talking about it. In fact I assumed that the product has been launched a few months back. I was wrong; today is launch day.
And he’s built something amazing – technology that will help rescue teams save more lives. Its essentially a project management tool combined with an incident reporting mechanism that’s able to monitor team histories and readiness and raise alarms for expiration or under manning conditions.
What makes it different is that it is designed for a particular niche; rescue teams. Are the exercises and training reflecting the actual calls? Or the actually locations? Are there enough cliff climbers on-call this weekend? Are there certifications that are about to run out? This kind of thing actually saves lives. Its been studied, over 1,800 rescuers from Ireland, UK, USA, Greece, and Australia helped to trial and shape the development of the software. But one stands out. Robin is a volunteer member of the Irish Coast Guard (a cliff rescue climber to be precise) so he has seen first hand what is needed, and what is the most useful way to get that information across.
I’m sure that the basis of D4H can be used in more business-like settings, or indeed in logistic based industries.
And from saving lives, we move to a performance management technology that may cost the careers of a few politicians.
Created by John HandelaarKildare Street is, almost simply a database. A database of what is being said in both Houses of the Oireachtas, by whom, when, how often and the complete text of what they say so it can be parsed for content. Based off the UK project, theyworkforyou.com, you can keep an eye on your favourite politician, or all the politicians in a constituency, or even when a particular word or phrase is spoken in the Dáil or Seanad Éireann debates or in written answers or questions to the Dáil.
There are a few bugs still in the system (it is a beta and since Irish addresses are vague it can misidentify a constituency, particularly when one side of a road is in one constituency, and the other side is in another constituency. It happens), and there is up to a 24 hour delay between the speech in the chambers and the text of the speech hitting the system (not a fault with the system but with the source; debates.oireachtas.ie.
Its useful to find out which TD or Senator has stayed quite all along (the records go back to 2004), and finding out how they actually voted on subjects of concern to you. Then you can challenge them when they call around asking for your vote.
Do challenge them. Right now, I’m wondering if there is a version for the MEPs.
Two people who should be praised for being heroes and making a difference.
Every so often you discover that some programmers are cool.
I don’t mean in the really skilled (can write a million euro application in 10 lines of code) but actually cool.
For example Luis be Bethencourt Guimerá one of the presenters at OSSBarcamp. No only is he a talented coder and software designer (who worked on the forthcoming Ubuntu release), but he also wrote his own VJ software (being released in the Jaunty Jackalope release of Ubuntu Studio) and digital DJ software, complete with intuitive interface, to help his gigging around the world.
That is cool! I’ll cover more on this later.
This OSS Barcamp was less like most other Barcamps I’ve been to in that the schedule was locked down in advance. It made an interesting change, but it didn’t stave off everyone’s technical difficulties.
OSS Barcamp has its worthy side too. Éibhear Ó hAnluain took the opportunity of a number of skilled and focused minds to look at “How to present a political party’s FLOSS-friendly IT policy to the electorate” or rather, what are the benefits to the country for using free and open source software. What I loved about this talk was actually Enrico Zini and the impact that open source software had on the Italian political scene and its civil service.
The lightening talks were fun, I missed part of James Larkin’s “Intro to CSS Frameworks”, but there should be a video of his talk (and I’m sure he’ll release his slides). One other thing which stood out is the effort to translate or localize Ubuntu to Irish. If you are a native speaker, talk to them.
I’m also fascinated by the formation of TÓG, hackerspaces in Dublin. In the same way that co-working has benefits, I can see similar benefits with co-hacking. And folks, this is the old style of hacking as in making things work, work beter, or creating something new out of other products. Not cracking which is breaking in to things. Think more of an organised “voiding your warranty”.
Due to the lighting talks I ended up missing David Coallier’s “Get Ready for web 3.0 talk”
Now, back to Luis.
First off watch this video.
Some RSS readers may need to click through to see the video
Looks pretty good. Not too fancy and suits the song.
Oddly for me, women have had a lot to do with my personal computing history.
I grew up with the low level grown and high pitched squeal of arcade machines. Computer games. So when the chance came to learn how to program a game on the old Commodore 64 I leapt at the chance.
The teacher in the classroom teaching Commodore basic, was a woman (whose name I simply cannot remember. Kineally or Keneally. Back then every teacher was either “Miss” or “Sir”). At this point I’m not going to name names unless she blogs, or at least tweets.
Later on, I watched the “video” games review TV show (or rather several, but all) hosted by Aleks Krotoski who still has a hand in the games world and quite possibly will never leave technology in particular how it impacts on people.
Later on came college (if the class wasn’t an odd number 50% of the class would have been women) and work in general.
Indirectly I worked under Padmasree Warrior, and female programmers were no different to the male programmers in the eyes of the code in Motorola.
Later the world of social media introduced me to Ellybabes, the first person I met at the first Irish Barcamp in Cork. To the coding evangelist (which might actually be part of her job title) that is Martha Rotter. To first Irish podcaster of either sex I met, and business guru Krishna De. To the promotional expert that is Maryrose Lyons. And to the best, and probably most fun, web designer; Sabrina Dent. To women who actually get thing done, like Laura Czajkowski and Alexia Golez.
So why isn’t there equality among the sexes for a job that normally requires communication, concentration and heavy thinking? It could be fictional role models and expectations as Naomi Alderton suggests.
Maybe.
But if you have a daughter, let her know that computers aren’t just for the boys. And if you are involved in technology yourself, take a look at the Geek Girl Dinners.
From the fevered brain of Rick O’Shea, comes the story of a boy, a blog and an open grave.
no that’s wrong. Its Rick’s fault, he had an idea. A group pop culture blog, and he asked a few people to join in.
And for some unknown reason, he asked me.
I’ll admit that I have a shed load of tracks to review and put up there, but I’m also going to be posting about the impacts of technology on culture, and the impacts of culture on technology.
I need to thank a few people to get this going. So Thanks to to AJ, Rick, Darren, Sinead and Pedro for doing all the heavy lifting in getting the systems running. And a lot of the early posts (oops).
Once, back when I was a child, St. Patrick’s Day wasn’t that special. True it was a little reprieve from Lent (which seems to be 46 days this year if I’ve counted correctly), but not much. The parade would be a few freshly frozen marching bands (all those shivering majorettes in short skirts being gently caressed by the Irish hailstones remain a memory).
Maybe it was confidence. Maybe it was cash. But thanks to the lesser spotted Celtic Tiger, the parades got bigger, brighter and better. Its a week long festival and no longer a single day. Now the photographs are worth taking.
Which brings me to Pix.ie. They have been working with the organisers of the Irish St Patrick’s Festival on a huge photo sharing project to help document this year’s festival in photos from the perspective of those attending.
That means anyone in the country with a camera as far as I’m concerned. But they mean any of the events (or the un-events) of the popper festival.
Anyone who brings their camera to this year’s events to can contribute their photos to the official St Patrick’s Festival group so that the experience can be shared with people from all over the world.
And to bribe you / make it worth your while… there are prizes.
Three lucky winners whose photos capture the spirit of the festival. Canon have offered prizes with a total value of just under €1,800.
And it doesn’t stop there! You see the pix.ie community and the Irish Blogging community (some are still recovering the the Irish Blog Awards) at large gets some love for the parade. (Not to be confused with the “Love Parade”)
20 bloggers and photobloggers will be invited to watch the St Patrick’s Festival parade from a vetted viewing area. Each will be given an official wristband to gain access to this exclusive VIP area.
4 bloggers and photobloggers will be invited to watch the parade from the Festival Grandstand.
2 photobloggers will be invited to join the world media and take photos of the parade from the elevated position from the official open topped Media Bus which is positioned on the parade route.
2 Pixie users will chosen (subject to a security check) and given a Golden Pass which provides exclusive access to the parade route on the day. Only 12 Golden Passes will be issued this year to the international media and this is the first time photographers outside of the national and international media have been invited on into the parade route.
Which I think you’ll join me in saying “these are bloody bloody good prizes”. Then throw in the party at the Guinness Storehouse, and it may be a weekend that you need the photographs to remember.
Even without the competition, this is a great way to share your experience of the festival and let the world see Ireland at its best.
See the Pixie blog for more details and follow @stpatricksfest and @pixie on Twitter for ongoing information and news about what is going on. (Hashtag for St Patricks’s Festival is #spf09)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=b0b93e1c-af2e-4589-8c30-01e867884eb8)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=e35d1687-2b3a-4e61-ace7-f0149be3e5f9)
