Letters from the idiot
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RSS FEED IDEMS: Letters from the idiot
- Bare Cheek FacedI shaved. This sound silly until you realise that I grew the beard in case I needed to step in and take over a role myself.
It's not needed and so it goes.
Also weapons, costumes and equipment is now arriving, lots of it... I don't know if the people read the last entry, or if I peaked too soon.
The rehearsals are now better too. So much so that I'm moving closer to the micromanagement of getting a fine tuned performance rather than trying to stabilise a show to just put it on.
48 hours and a good dinner makes a world of difference.
The bird should fly on the 13th.
take care,
Will
tags :
play Birds, They Still Fly costume costume drama drama Crusades 12th Century Cork Cork Arts Theatre theatre theater Cork One Act Drama Festival opening night all right on the night
Fri, 09 Feb 2007 13:47:00 +0000 - It will be all right on the night...... is a load of bollix.
Its 6 days to opening night of "Birds, They Still Fly" (13th and 15th February 2007) and things are falling around my ears a bit.
The play is a costume drama (end of the Crusades, almost 13th Century and part of the Cork Arts Theatre's Cork One Act Drama Festival and contest.
Access to the venue before opening night is a problem...
Contacts with costumes and equipment have fallen through...
I'm off to buy fabric to sew the costumes right now (and trying not to succumb to the fumes of the "chain mail") and see if I can get the weaponry needed for the production in time.
The actors are a good bunch, but there is too much prompting with only 6 days to go...
The only reason things are all right on the night is because a lot hard work in done before the night.
It's like being back at the code face...
take care,
Will
tags : play Birds, They Still Fly costume costume drama drama Crusades 12th Century Cork Cork Arts Theatre theatre theater Cork One Act Drama Festival opening night all right on the night
Wed, 07 Feb 2007 11:29:00 +0000 - We are the webMichael Wesch the Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology of the Digital Ethnography working group at Kansas State University put this 4.5 minute description of Web 2.0 together.
Boy is he good...
Any chance of getting he at the next Barcamp Cork? Or indeed the next Irish BarCamp, BarCamp Galway? Or at least have Bernie get him over for the Tipp Institute.
Will
tags : Michael Wesch Cultural Anthropology Digital Ethnography Kansas State University YouTube Barcamp Cork Barcamp Ireland 3 Barcamp Galway
Tue, 06 Feb 2007 16:05:00 +0000 - Not watchingI got a comment from my (very quick) post about a TV inspector visit.
Actually two. Grannymar and another who said...
"You have to love the way that just assume that everyone has a TV"
The thing is... EVERYONE assumes I have a TV. And when they find out I don't the first thing I'm asked is, how do you do without?
Well there are a few things. How much TV do you sit down and watch. Frequently people come in and turn the television on in order to have background noise.
Then there are the grazers (as opposed to the grazrs) who sit down like good couch potatoes and let the rays wash over them.
How many programmes do you sit down and watch. Appointment TV?
With the exception of news, very few.
I'll take news first. The TV news will be repeated on the radio and written about enough to be seen on web so that I'm fairly up to date with news. Podcasts are another matter. I have jumped ahead to listen to "how the Vista DRM allowing hardware to be shutdown at the behest of the RIAA and MPAA is a risk" on the Security Now podcast but I'm only on January 18... so some news podcasts are simply being skipped.
Then we have appointment TV. Well, I'm a Sci-Fi buff. I can rely on getting updates on plot on the web (Wikipedia should have a spoiler warning slapped on it). And the DVD box sets come out eventually.
But there are things that have to be watched. That is where, as Piaras Kelly put it, the Water Cooler Effect 2007 kicks in. To quote Piaras, "In the past co-workers used to huddle round the water cooler to discuss the highlights of last night’s TV viewing. But now "..."if you missed it on TV though and the clip was worth watching, it’s safe to say that it will end up on YouTube."
Thanks to the net I've seen inmates seeing the impact of her bullying on the UK and world political scene. I've seen the bits that are talked about...
At the moment I'm the odd man out.
Somehow I don't think I'm going to be the only one.
take care,
Will
tags : TV television background noise grazer grazr couch potato appointment TV podcast Security Now Piaras Kelly Water Cooler Effect 2007
Sun, 04 Feb 2007 21:32:00 +0000 - Authenticity and sexWhile at Barcamp SouthEast Ireland I mentioned to Conn Ó Muinneacháin that I had a backlog of podcasts to listen to. He recommended that I delete them, but I'm glad I didn't.
On the player when leaving the conference I heard the January 5 New Scientist Live podcast where Sherry Turkle talked about what the next 50 years will bring for life sciences and the interaction of society with technology at the New York Academy of Sciences.
She said....
"In our culture of simulation, the notion of authenticity is for us that sex was to the Victorians; threat and obsession, taboo and fascination"
-- Sherry Turkle quoting her own words from Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet
So it sort of qualifies as an overheard.
She wrote those words over 10 years ago (the paperback came out in 1995, and goodness knows the first publishing date, so it could be 20 years old) and while she was talking about the interaction of robots and people, the same applies to all tech and culture today.
We value blogs because they are written without a filter.... it's real.
Documentary makers are currently in the running for this years Oscars.
Bloody Big Brother and all the reality TV that bombards us.
We crave reality. We place a value on authenticity far above that of a parable.
Think about the reaction to the business blogs not written (obviously) by a person, but by a press release polished piece of drone. They are the abhorrent.
I have so got to start work on the "Carney Girls" series of fiction blogs.
Expect to see bits on Feb 15.
tags : authenticity and sex authenticity sex Barcamp SouthEast Ireland Barcamp imeall Conn Ó Muinneacháin Conn O Muinneachain podcast new scientist Sherry Turkle simulation Victorian threat obsession taboo fascination Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet overheard blogs reality Carney Girls
Fri, 02 Feb 2007 01:28:00 +0000 - We're all individualised personas"It's a Dell... you're allowed to drop it" -- handhelds going crash in the room.
Laurence Veale's personas and scenarios. Laurence who works for iQ Content came next in my attended talks at Barcamp SouthEast Ireland.
The details of his talk are in the links above.
The ideas is think about the users of your site. Not as a type. Get fairly specific.
Work out the goals of the user, what does he or she want from your site (e.g. check the search logs to see what is actually looked for). The idea isn't that different from the marketing profiles used for products. I'm not talking about ABC1 type profiles but the more detailed profiles used in the tribe splitting of a market.
Sensible idea, however I've just never considered using it in designing for the tribes.
take care,
Will
tags : Dell Laurence Veale personas iQ Content web design marketing profiles tribes overheard Barcamp Barcamp SouthEast Ireland BarcampSouthEastIreland
Thu, 25 Jan 2007 01:19:00 +0000 - The Axe and the CurtainI picked the wrong time to power down my machine, turn off the mobile and do something.
When I did hear, it was from theRTE radio news and not from friends of mine being hit.
Sorry guys. I'll be around during the week if you want to talk about life outside.
take care,
Will
I'll say this for RTÉ, they were the first off the mark.
tags : news jobs motorola Cork redundancy RTE closure
Mon, 29 Jan 2007 16:48:00 +0000 - Sorry EllyI knew I forgot something...
Elly's talk on Dealing with Death & Divorce in today's Digital World.
The reason I missed it is because there was nothnig in my notes. The talk raised lots of questions but no answers. And a few jokes about talking about divorce while planing a wedding.
Barcamp Dublin (the link won't work, but I half expect it to be that one) will have to get Simon McGarr to cover it.
take care,
Will
tags :
ellybabes tuppenceworth Simon McGarr Death & Divorce overheard Barcamp Barcamp SouthEast Ireland BarcampSouthEastIreland
Thu, 25 Jan 2007 02:37:00 +0000 - After the show is overAfter the BarCamp it is traditional at an Irish tech conference to head for the Bar.
Geoffs Bar and restaurant got the attendees. And the food was good, However the conversation was better.
Things which came up..
Laura and Damien on Nitpickers
and
The main difference between an Irtish talk and an US one. At the Irish conference you talk to a small puddle of faces. At an American conference you a talk to a large sea of laptops.
take care,
and I have a follow on for the morning
Will
overheard Barcamp Barcamp SouthEast Ireland BarcampSouthEastIreland
Thu, 25 Jan 2007 02:34:00 +0000 - Baby typeLooking at someone having difficulty balancing a laptop in one hand while typing it with the other..
"Has anyone thought of doing a baby carrier type thing for your laptop"
"That would be so sad." / "That would be so cool!"
-- differing simultaneous opinions
overheard Barcamp Barcamp SouthEast Ireland BarcampSouthEastIreland
Thu, 25 Jan 2007 02:32:00 +0000 - Salted bookmarks"You have your opinion and I have mine, We disagreed last Barcamp... on camera too" -- small disagremment during the Pecha Kucha.
The last item on the timetable of Barcamp SouthEast Ireland was the Pecha Kucha (which no one can pronounce). The idea is that you have 20 slides for 20 seconds each... and you have to talk about it.
Since no one has any slides prepared, the site delicious.salted.com gets opened up and the speaker types in their username for delicious. Then the last 20 sites they bookmarked in del.icio.us show up for the person to talk about why they bookmarked it.
I did it again this time. I don't have a delicious account... so i typed in a random name (this time the user Will existed) and spoke about the next 20 sites which appeared.
I think I did OK.
However, it's a bit of a dangerous site... I mean I could get ANYTHING. I also can find out the last 20 sites anyone had bookmarked if I know their user name.
Scary?
Will
tags :
Pecha Kucha delicious delicious.salted.com del.icio.us security scary overheard Barcamp Barcamp SouthEast Ireland BarcampSouthEastIreland
Thu, 25 Jan 2007 02:26:00 +0000 - Dictatorships, hard disks and fur"Oh yeah they are getting bigger"
"In the terra and peta"
"As in animal rights"
"Yeah"
"Petabytes does sound like a tech-animal testing group"
-- hard disk talk in case you didn't figure it out
The next talk I wanted to see what James Corbett's "How blogging got me a dictatorship". A few people pointed out that the talk is probably called "How blogging got me a directorship" but I prefer my version, and from the little bit I know Keith Bohanna who manned the whiteboard used for the constantly rescheduling conference, I think he'd like the idea.
It didn't happen. I wanted to see how blogging can be used in taking over a country... unless he meant the The people’s Ard Fheis.
take care,
Will
tags : terra peta harddisk eirepreneur James Corbett dictatorship directorship Keith Bohanna people’s Ard Fheis overheard Barcamp Barcamp SouthEast Ireland BarcampSouthEastIreland
Thu, 25 Jan 2007 02:11:00 +0000 - Podcasting at Barcamp"Radio stations have listeners but podcasters have subscribers" -- Conn Ó Muíneacháin describes the radio causal and the podcast dedicated difference in the two audio types.
Next up at BarCamp SouthEast Ireland I had to decide between seeing Donncha O'Caoimh’s Wordpress talk (thankfully Argolon has videos of this talkso I get to see it and it's podcasted here.) or the podcast session. From the quote you can figure out which one I went to.
Bernie Goldbach is interesting to see in person, but arriving mid talk was a bad idea (the talk also clashed with Laurence's talk). I'm not too sure how it went, however Bernie's podcast Inside View number 49 covers all the details. In fact his talk was putting together the podcast during the talk. And talking about what he would do with the finished podcast. Still recording and then editing the podcast in front of the group is impressive. If you are interested, check the inside view podcast.
Next up was Conn's talk (which is covered in the Inside view 50 podcast ... see you may not have to attend the conference to get the conference).
The crux of Conn's talk is noise versus signal. Get as little noise in the recording at the start because every step of the way puts more noise in to the recording.
He did go through a lot more... which reminds me, Hey 2IGTV guys ... go to gigavox.com, download the Levelator and use the thing on your podcast. Please! Getting good levels on the recording was part of Conn's talk.
Conn and Bernie also talked about good examples of podcasts ... I need to check out insidepr.ca, twistimage.com and Alex Gibson for something I can't read in the hurried notes I took at the talk. Yup, not a laptop user at a tech conference... I go old school pencil and paper.
I also know I have to NOT go to podsafe.com, because if I do I'm going to loose weeks...
take care,
Will
tags : radio stations radio podcast edgecast Conn Ó Muíneacháin Conn O Muineachain Donncha O Caoimh wordpress Bernie Goldbach Inside View podcasting recording gigavox levelator insidepr twistimage the persuaders Alex Gibson podsafe overheard Barcamp Barcamp SouthEast Ireland BarcampSouthEastIreland
Thu, 25 Jan 2007 01:57:00 +0000 - Overheard Free"Microsoft, Powerpoint, Free" -- Tom Doherty describes the most sought for search terms on SeminarBank.com
tags : overheard Barcamp Barcamp SouthEast Ireland BarcampSouthEastIreland
Thu, 25 Jan 2007 01:37:00 +0000 - Stop the press"No Don't put me through to the press department, I rang up to complain!" -- Damien Mulley on the downside of being recognised by the telecoms industry.
I arrived at Barcamp SouthEast Ireland in time to miss most of Damien Mulley's presentation on "Pissing People Off: Experiences from running a lobby group". The secret seem to be avoiding the nit pickers and actually do something rather than considering the next move.
I volunteered some of my time if he wanted it. Bad mouth, no biscuit for you.
take care,
Will
tags :
Ireland Offline Broadband Damien Mulley overheard Barcamp Barcamp SouthEast Ireland BarcampSouthEastIreland
Thu, 25 Jan 2007 01:07:00 +0000
