Car Free Day

Today is Car Free Day in Dublin as part of European Mobility Week the goal of which is "an awareness raising campaign aiming at sensibilising citizens to the use of PUBLIC TRANSPORT, CYCLING, WALKING and at encouraging European cities to promote these modes of transport and to invest in the new necessary infrastructures."

Unfortunately they happened to pick a pretty awful wet day in Dublin so traffic was actually heavier this morning. To add to the traffic problems this morning South William St, Drury St and Fade St are closed until 11pm to accommodate Living Streets as part of Car Free Day. The rain is easing off now and there are blue skies on the horizon so if you haven't already taken your car into the city center perhaps you could consider taking public transport instead?

Open House 2010 Bookings

I just read on Twitter that bookings for Open House Dublin 2010 start today. Open House is an annual event (held this year on October 7th-10th) where tours are held of many buildings normally closed to the public. Why would you be interested in this you may ask? Have you ever wondered what the view from the top of Liberty Hall is like, or what the inside of the Leinster House is really like? This is your opportunity to visit these buildings and be taken on a guided tour admire the architecture and see a different view of the Dublin skyline.

While most of the buildings are opened on a first come first served basis some, such as Leinster House, require pre-bookings. Bookings start at 10am this morning so if you want to see what goes on behind the scenes at some of the most iconic buildings in Dublin you should make sure to check out their website this morning and put your name down.

Riders in the Sky

How far can airlines push passengers before people decide it's better to spent a few more euros extra and be treated like a human being? Here we have a wonderful example of how things have gone too far, the SkyRider. Who in their right mind would contemplate spending a testicle crushing 3 hour flight strapped to a mini horse saddle while some air hostess who spends most of her time selling scratch cards and posing for airline girly calenders attempts to land the plane.

I flew on many Ryanair flights over the last year and felt I was being pushed just to breaking point, with the cramped uncomfortable seats, the scramble/race/fight to get onto the plane and the god awful music telling me that Ryanair had landed on time (as if doing what they were paid to do deserved a round of applause and a song). If O'Leary introduces these saddle seats then he's officially jumped the shark and the era of budget is god in the airline industry will hopefully come to an end.

[via Gizmodo]

Beacon Rainbow

I was visiting someone in Beacon Hospital and took a walk over to a nearby shopping market. On the way while I was sheltering from a shower a rainbow in between the apartment blocks so it was a good opportunity to play with hipstamatic on the iPhone4. It's becoming a firm favorite app for me.

Newfoundland Nets

It has been a busy few weeks since I got back from Newfoundland but I've finally managed to go through the last of the photos from the vacation and especially the ones from Trinity. I love that little town, have to go back there again next year. This photo of some fishing nets left on the dock of an old abandoned shipyard. Trinity proper is almost a little too perfect, all nicely preserved for the tourism market so it was nice to find this shipyard and take some photos there.

iPhone 4

As I mentioned already I picked up an iPhone 4 and I have to say I'm quite impressed. OK so the OS is identical to the one on my 3Gs but the redesigned case is excellent. Not that I didn't like the old 3Gs case but it was plastic and that did tell after a while. The new glass and metal of the iPhone 4 is nice and sturdy. The few buttons on the device have a more solid click to them and remember my 3GS was only a month old so it's not like its buttons had worn. The only structural problem I had with the original case design was a crack on my older 3G where the USB connector plugs in. The plastic developed a hairline crack about a centimeter long, it never grew or got worse but it was there and it did make the case feel cheaper. The new connector is surrounded by metal so hopefully that wont happen again. The home button on the 3G had started to go as well, it didn't always click properly. I suspect some dirt or fluff was wedged under there but I couldnt get it out. I'll have to wait and see if the 4 develops a similar problem in a year or so but with the home button being so important for multi-tasking I hope Apple took special care with the design this time.

The retina display is, well, it's an iPhone display. Sure, it's nicer and smoother, less pixelated when I hold it up to my eye but it is solving a problem I didn't know I had with a solution I cant really notice. It's nice to see Apple moving the technology along but I wouldn't have bought a new phone just for that.

The camera is a big improvement, especially for video. Pictures and video are cleaner and more usable. It might be the best camera phone around but I wont be taking my SLR out of it's bag, or even my point and click. The point and click might get used less but I still like having the extra controls and shutter button. The iPhone camera flash might make a useful torch when I drop my keys but I have yet to use it with a photo so I don't know how well it performs as a camera flash.

All in all I'm happy but my fiancée is happier because she got the 1 month old 3GS to replace her first gen iPhone.

Peoples Photography

Had a great weekend at Peoples Photography 2010. I sold 16 prints, sold them pretty cheap but I covered all my costs for the event and brought home everything I didn't sell. Photos of Dublin landmarks were the clear favourites and sold to the tourist market.

While there I had some quiet moments and was able to play with the camera on my iPhone 3GS (which has just been replaced with an iPhone 4 but thats another post) and I downloaded the Hipstamatic app. It wouldn't be my preferred way to take photographs but for the price it's a cool way to turn dull iPhone pictures into interesting snaps.

NCT results

Darran over at A Langers Blog put up a graph to show the pass and fail rates of cars taking the National Car Test (NCT) in Ireland. The percentages are freely available online but it was only when I saw them in the graph that I realised something smells funny about the NCT.

The goal of the NCT was to remove unsafe cars from the road and as part of this they have introduced more and more things that cars can fail on and pulled more cars into the NCT net, yet the percentages for pass and fail stay the same.

Year	Pass First time	Pass Retest
2010	51.9% (483.466)	90.3% (396,130)
2009	51.5% (444,935)	90.8% (367,404)
2008	51.9% (433,677)	90.8% (349,225)
2007	51.8% (355,708)	90.8% (285,556)

The level of defects in cars seems to stay stunningly consistent? This leads me to wonder, could the NCT be working off a quota system for passes and fails or is the published data just wrong?

This plane is crashing, no its not

Having recently returned from Newfoundland and the numerous work flights over the last year I can well imagine the panic that would have take place when the automated crash warning played on a British Airways flight from London to Hong Kong.

Mistakes do happen so I dont really blame British Airways but I do wonder why planes need an automated "we are about to crash into the sea" warning. Does it happen so often they decided it would be less work to hire a voice actor put them in a recording studio and then copy the warning onto all the planes. If I'm about to die I'd rather have a member of the crew tell me than some recording. Then again if I'm about to die then they are probably about to die as well so the plane is probably on full auto and they are hitting the drinks trolley. I wonder if Ryanair has a recording and does it try to sell you something?

Peoples Photography 2010

I’m almost ready for Peoples Photography 2010. Good thing too considering it’s on this weekend. The last batch of prints arrived back from the printers today and over the weekend I settled on the technique I will use to hang the photos. I decided to go with a hopefully quicker approach, pre-hanging the mounted photos on black “webbing”. Then I can fold up the display the night before and each morning just unfold it, hang it on the railings and secure the bottom tightly. I’ve seen similar work well for other exhibitors on other years so fingers crossed it works for me.

Tonight the mounting process starts and while time consuming is at least achievable with effort. Then I will select the final 20 to display and the backups to keep in the box in case I get bored of what I have on display. Ok, so maybe I’m not as ready as I could have been if I’d started earlier but I’ll get there before Saturday, fingers crossed.