“I don’t think they meant to be unfair, but I certainly do not think they were fair.”
Note: This has been sitting in my drafts for awhile and given that Ryan is supposed to make an announcement today I thought I’ll post it as is and then see how wrong I end up being shown to be :)
Damien Mulley does a great job digging various things up with his FOI requests and as usual, his latest one is interesting reading. Read that post for the main thrust of what this request brought out. My post is mainly a whining rant, partially related to that post, on some other bits I noticed in the returned document.
It never occurred to me before that you could possibly lose creativity. I understood that it could be stunted, for example when one experiences ‘writer’s block’. However I didn’t think it was permanent. I’ve come to the realisation that I may have permanently lost a portion of my creative abilities. It seems a strange notion, you’re used to the fact that ageing will result in certain mental faculties diminishing; memory, speed of the thought process and so on. However, losing the seemingly abstract faculty of creativity is just weird and very unexpected. What has brought this on is having realised over the space of around 1 to 2 years, or more, that I seem unable to come up with anything in visual/graphic design anymore. Going back a couple of years and merely thinking about the content of a website would have rich visualisations flitting around my head. Not so anymore. Wonder if anyone else has experienced this?
It’s always interesting to see the stupid things people can do with a car. Thought this was quite inspired; blocking the pavement for pedestrians and the entrance/exit of Supermacs. The car was there for at least 10 minutes, several people went out on the road around and another car pulled up behind it. People clambered out of Supermacs past it.
Haven’t seen the smile vanish off a cashiers face quite as quickly as when this came up on the register:
Inspired by Jazz Biscuit’s analysis of Lisbon Treaty posters, I thought I’d work on narrowing the 8% gap.
(nicked the twitter image from @damienmulley’s background)
This has the potential to be a major rant but I’ll do my best just to be happy with my latest purchase:
As I say in the video, the iPod Touch 32GB cost CAD$469 with 5% GST, which comes in a little over €305 which is a little under €30 more than what the 8GB version costs back in Ireland or around €150 less than the same model in Ireland. Now there’s the key comparison, that’s a difference that can’t be explained away with hand waving arguments of higher shipping costs and VAT. So let’s do a comparison:
I was standing looking out the office window the other day (before it started snowing):
Started to wonder, ‘why am I not feeling panicked?’. It was strange to be looking down a great distance and not feel any sense of panic or fear of the height. In contrast I can feel that panic if I stand out on the open balcony at my hotel (about the same height as the office). So here’s what I’m wondering; that sense of fear is a very basic and instinctive reaction, where and why does it get switched off? Nothing profound, it just made me wonder.
Apparently the weather is unseasonable, it’s actually not as cold out as you would expect. The ice floating on the river is a bit of surprise though!
I think the line of green traffic lights is neat …
I’ve been pretty pleased with myself for not losing a phone for several months, so pleased in fact that I rewarded myself with a new phone. Safe, hopefully, in the knowledge that I’ll hang onto it now that the curse has been broken! After hearing so many people on Twitter talk so much about the N95 I decided I really had to take a look and seeing the 5 megapixel camera, WiFi and GPS it wasn’t long before it hit my ‘must have’ list (not a difficult list for any gadget to get on, it should be said though). Was somewhat caught between an older version and the 8GB version until I spotted a new unlocked 8GB on eBay at a rather decent price. Conor’s blog post on it, the day after I ordered from eBay also set my mind at ease as I shelled out a good wedge of cash. Alas, I had to wait a little longer than I should’ve for it to arrive because An Post were playing silly buggers in Galway after the Easter break. Still though, it was fun to finally get it in hand. Sports Tracker is the killer app for me, currently. As someone not into exercise that much but a big fan of gadgets this is a superb motivator. Being able to review a trip on the bike after to see things like times, speeds and heights adds an incentive to try out new routes and work harder on the bike. It rounds out the whole experience for me as I’m not sure if the buzz from cycling will last with me. I’m looking forward to seeing more applications which make use of GPS like this especially for when I’m travelling. I take travelling very casually now because I do so much but it would be nice to have a record of trips; where you’ve been and how you got there presented on something like Google Maps and tying in media like photos and videos from the trip. Add in things like music tracks you were listening to (I listen to music on an iPod rather than the N95 so this idea doesn’t apply to me) when in certain places or around photos you took and I think you would have an interesting ‘view’ on your travel life.