Category: Commentary

Talks

”How to start your own WISP from scratch” by Martin List-Petersen
Martin was a smart guy filled with enthusiasm and had a lot of interesting things to say. It inspired me to start looking at mesh networking again though, as Martin says, with mesh you lose 30% of your bandwidth.

“Multi-platform video content” by Mairin Murray
Mairin showed considerable enthusiasm for her subject, highlighting her experience with delivery of video content and the change from corporate content to user-content and talked about the future – the development of platforms for content delivery.

“Distributed content – how it is changing the world of training, education and working with clients or trying to promote ideas that go viral.” – E. Alana James
I missed the point of this talk. There were some points, like how it’s easier to use a mobile in Africa than it is to get clean water and good food. I didn’t see much relevance.

“Energy?” – Phoebe Bright
This was interesting from the statistics on energy conversion (though I’d like to see their figures). It really made me think that I should be rigging up an exercise bike to a battery. We’re heading towards an energy crisis.

”GlobalDMX – a Global Digital Media Exchange” by Michael Walsh
This one made me think the most as it covered the serious problems with digital content distribution networks and the fear that the ‘analog’ content owners have with them. Some things are broken.

“Zimbie demo/talk” – Sean Lyons
RSS feeds being fed into Instant Messenger. Not really inspired. I want it the other way round. A presence bot online which will feed all content I receive into an RSS feed for later consumption. Yes, I’m time-shifting my conversations. Nothing wrong with that.

The Raffle
I threw a tenner at the Raffle and we ended up winning two Raffle prizes – a copy of Microsoft Office for Mac (which is funny) and the hamper from Spicendipity (which there’s going to be a fight over). Bonus!

“Dragons Den” competition
There were a couple of presentations that were Dragon’s Den quality. There was an elevator pitch about a specialised bag for Hurling gear. There were two American women who were pitching something that I couldn’t quite grasp – something about education and the other was custom hand-made furniture. The fourth pitch was WeddingDates.ie which was a pretty good pitch though I think her optimism in the organisation of wedding venues (who tend to use paper ledgers) in relaying booking information was seriously misled. The last pitch was for a software-configurable radio system – pitched at totally the wrong level and containing only information relevant to tech-heads – none of whom were judges. The winner was the affable bloke with the Hurling Gear bag.

21:30
Due to the cold and the lack of red wine, the Belfast contingent decided to repair to the Derg Inn for beers and pudding.

00:00
We’re heading back to the cottage. It’s only 23:44 right now – but that’s the plan. I’m tired and we’ve an early start ahead of us.

Would you believe it’s 14 miles from Terryglass, the location of OCC BBQ to the nearest source of cash? This is odd because every hole in a hedge up north has cash machine facilities.

18:30
After arriving at the cottage (which is lovely), we ventured into Terryglass and had a sit-down meal in the Derg Inn (while Evert worked on his WiFi provision). A short walk later and we were down at the Terryglass Quay admiring the boats and reminding myself to join a yacht club – though that’s something for next year. Why would I want to join a club like that – I think it’s important to cultivate some pre-technological skills and the ability to handle a boat is one of them. I’m fine with oars – but have no experience with sails and, you never know when it might come in handy.

On the technology side, I’m finding Push email to be a frustration more than a benefit. This is mainly because I only have Push available for my .Mac/me.com email address and not for my other accounts. I want to be receiving updates from quayperformance.com more often and, frankly, couldn’t give a toss about the mailing list stuff I receive on my me.com account. So, looking at that when I get back will become a priority and it may mean moving quayperformance.com to host.io as it’s a bazillion times more flexible there.

07:40
At about 01:10 I gave up the ghost while the others stayed up. Much wine, cheese and beer was consumed which probably led to some nightmares during the night but this morning everyone seems pretty chipper (those of us who are actually awake). As I mentioned, the cottage is lovely but some of the amenities, like the shower, would frankly wake the dead.

Though we’ve not actually attended the event itself yet, I’m really glad I organised this little trip. Even just between the five of us there’s a surprising number of ideas and inspiration and it’ll be interesting to see what’s going on down here in Ireland.

08:38
Today is the main event itself and we’re getting ready in our own ways. There’s some ambient music in the background and every ow and then a few cheers from a group of children (from an iPhone game being actively developed here).

I’ve spent a little while this morning reading over some Cocoa code and trying to work out where the code needs to go to make things work. I’m going to have to make a more formal effort with learning the code if I’m going to achieve anything.

I’m guessing that around 10 am we’ll start to see some movement towards the main event. There’s a few people I’m really wanting to talk to – but all will become clear as time goes on.