Shamrog Island

A new property web site pulled a hoax on the people of Dublin by putting up a web site advertising a new property development in Dublin Bay called Dublin Coastal Development and Shamrog Island.

3 man made islands with a surface area of over 12 square kilometers, constructed by the Wasaki Global Corporation. Connected by a motorway and a new Luas line out in in the bay. There would be space for 42,000 apartments, a commercial district, and a giraffe zoo (yes, a giraffe zoo).

It only takes a couple of seconds to realise it's a hoax. The web site is a little too computer generated and the planned development looks more like a scene from Star Wars than Dublin. But to up the ante they posted planning permission notices around the bay and the nimbys were up in arms saying they would oppose the development.

It must have cost the company a fair chunk of their start-up capital just to get the video made but it got them plenty of free advertising, with coverage in papers and on RTE news. The website url (funda.ie) didn't get a mention on the news but is shown at the end of the video on the website.

The only downside of all todays publicity for the company involved is that the website currently just says "This website will be launched in the week of 25th September" and asks people to enter their email address. Perhaps it all came to a head a couple of days too early. It's also a shame that it has been outed as a hoax. I would love to see the nimbys bursting blood vessels and organising protests, looking for archeological sites underwater and finding rare sea slugs to stall the development.

American Golfers

Once again America got its ass kicked in the Ryder Cup. This is starting to get to embarrassing for the poor chaps, or at least it would be if they cared. One cant help but suspect they don't care at all despite protests to the contrary, Americans win the majors, Europeans win the Ryder Cup.

On Newstalk tonight it was mentioned that 3 of the American team had to get passports before coming over to play in the Ryder Cup. If that is true then it shows just how much they really care about international competitions, they have never even left the USA.

iTrips in Ireland

The O2 store in Dundrum is selling iTrips. They are a nifty little gadget that allows the people to broadcast their music from the iPod to a nearby FM radio, perfect for use in cars. They were (are?) technically illegal in Ireland but the Government has said they are going to lift the ban before the end of the year so they are on sale now.

The sales assistant in the shop told me they had been made legal in the last few weeks but I wasn't too sure since the Dail is still off on their summer holidays so couldn't have amended the relevant bills to allow transmitters with a short range.

Then again maybe some regulator had the power to amended a list of banned items themselves. After all if we had to wait for the Dail to not be on holidays in order get anything changed there would still a committee discussing whether to legalise flint tools or keep the old wooden sticks.

One week to go

One week until my holiday. I started packing some stuff into my backpack. It looks awfully small to live out of for 3 months yet awfully big to be carrying around for 3 months. I realise it's probably the right size and I can leave some of the stuff behind so it will be fine. If I need anything I left behind I can just buy it in Australia and it'll probably be alot cheaper there than here.

Last night I had dinner with some friends and one of them recommended a sun lotion, her logic being on their recent holiday her boyfriend used it and didn't burn so it should work for me since we both have that Irish perma-white skin. He was a little embarrassed at the discussion of his skin colouring but I decided it was probably the best recommendation I would get so I bought some today.

So that's pretty much it then. I have to ring the bank and the mobile phone company to get some things changed and then it's just a case of one week in work and then off for the longest holiday since I left college. God, it's going to be a long week :-).

Bin Laden joke

The reports of Osama Bin Ladens death are unconfirmed but the jokes have started already.

Bush at Prayer: "Dear God I'll trade the USA getting hammered in the golf if You just kill Bin Laden before the Midterms"

God: "It's a deal George!"

Gold Bra

Spotted this on Gizmodo, no need to guess what caught my attention. This is a solid gold bra worth 1.89 million US dollars, and the model is probably an optional extra. For the woman who has everything, including, it would appear on close examination of the item in question, a tolerance for pain. Or for the man with a Princess Leia fetish.

[via Gizmodo, photos from hankooki.com]

No Ryder Cup coverage online?

It's crazy that Ireland is hosting the Ryder Cup and I cant get coverage of the event online. I don't want TV coverage, just radio. The BBC is streaming the event but that's UK only. RTE are broadcasting it on medium wave but not FM, and are not allowed to broadcast radio coverage online. That's just nuts, you would think for the sake of availability they could cut some deal with the BBC to allow Ireland to get the UK only feed and the organisers could cut a deal as well, after all as things stand they don't get any money from a non existent Internet stream in Ireland.

Update: DUH, now I feel stupid. After going through the media websites it never occurred to me to go to rydercup.com where they have a free online feed themselves.

Storm Damage

Bloody hell. We are getting the tail end of hurricane Gordon and we are experiencing some storm force winds. As I walked home this evening and entered the estate I live in I noticed a flash and the street lights went out. I didn't think much about it until I got to my door and found half a tree lying 5 feet from my door.

There used to be a big tree outside that had grown in two branches from close to the bottom. Half of it had blown over, knocking out a street light and probably causing the street lights black out. 60 seconds later I would have been walking under it.

Schmapped

Three of my photos from Flickr have been added to the Schmap guide for Galway. This morning I got a message from the Schmap people this morning telling me that they had included the photos. They hadn't asked in advance but all of my photographs on Flickr are licensed under Creative Commons and they include plenty of photo credits with the guide so I didn't mind.

Schmap is a freeware application that you download and install on your machine, you then download travel guides for cities around the world. I suppose it's a good idea but the fact that you have to download the application and files is possibly their biggest flaw. I can see their logic, if you are travelling with your laptop it's useful to have the guide offline, but it should be an option as more people are likely to travel without their laptop and an online version would be more useful. I wonder if people will take to the idea. It would also be handy to have a PDA version available but they say it's not possible. I must play around with it and see if I can put it onto a USB keyring, so at least it's somewhat mobile.

Each city guide contains information about the city that covers the things you see in most travel guide books. What to see, where to stay, where to eat, tours, maps of the city and useful links. Included in the information on different locations are thumbnail photographs of the location, which is where Flickr comes in. The thumbnails link to the original Flickr photograph and the photographer is clearly credited.

Downloading more city guides just requires the user to select the city from a list displayed at startup. The application and guides are free. I don't know how they make their money, maybe they plan on inserting adverts or maybe there is some form of sponsorship going on.

If you are travelling and want to read a city guide before you leave (or are bringing a laptop) then it's worth a look, after all it's free. I don't know if Schmap will be the future of travel guides, but this is certainly something companies like the Lonely Planet should consider buying or reproducing. The Lonely Planet guide to Australia is great but it's a hefty size to carry for anyone backpacking.

The camera never lies

"The camera never lies", a statement that was never completely true. From the moment people started posing and photographers entered the darkroom photographs lied. Sure the subject may have had to pose in a misleading way, or the photographer had to alter the photographs exposure but in general the camera itself just took an honest shot, as it saw it. Light in, negative out. What happened before or after was never really the cameras fault.

Now as time went by it became easier to make a photograph lie. Type the name of any famous actress into your favourite search engine and you'll get back a host of images of them in various compromising poses that will clearly demonstrate how convincingly a photograph can be made to lie. Any of us can now be inserted into holiday snaps of the worlds landmarks, or if a family member misses a wedding just slot them in at the back of the shot and in a few years no one will remember who was actually there. 10 minutes in Photoshop and I can be playing golf on the surface of the moon with Tiger Woods and Kate Beckinsale.

I guess it was inevitable but the camera itself has finally given in and can now tell the odd fib or in this particular case a dishonesty for the sake of peace. HPs newest digital camera can now tell the worlds most common lie. "No honey, you bum does not look big in that..." They now come equipped with "slimming effect" to make people in photographs look thinner. I'm sure it will lead to happier holiday memories for many people but it's a sad day to see the camera abandon its morals and join the rest of us. Where will it all end? If my new camera was just a couple of years more advanced maybe I could have had Kate automatically inserted into my Australia photographs to make my friends back home jealous. Soon we'll never know what the truth was.

[via Boing Boing]