Author Archives: Donncha

Hey The Cork News! Give to charity?

The other night my wife showed me a local paper pointing at a picture of Ray D’Arcy and Jenny Kelly that sat next to a report about their recent engagement. Great! We’re fans of the show, they’re nice people, lovely!

Only thing is, that photo looked familiar. I searched and found it in my US Book Launch Party post from way back in 2005. I’m used to websites borrowing stealing my photos but it saddens me when commercial newspapers like The Cork News do it too. I found their Twitter account too and guess what? I’m not the only photographer who’s had a problem with them.

So… @TheCorkNews- can you address this? MT @ElishaClarke Don’t appreciate my photo being used without my permission. http://t.co/tCqnTTKk

@TheCorkNews did reply positively which is good.

@DeclanMadsen Sure, we’ll be in touch with the photographer.

But the fact remains that they used another photo without permission, my photo. Leaves a really bad taste in my mouth.

The Cork News, I don’t want payment for the photo, or reimbursement for the 100 Euro train fare to Dublin, or the 40 Euro it cost to stay in a local hotel that night. If you want to make this good, please make a donation to Matt’s charity water campaign for his birthday. Thank you.

The Joy of Books

This video reminds me of that feeling walking into Waterstones or other book shop of the worlds waiting to be discovered on the bookshelves lining the walls and in the “3 for 2” piles of books displayed near the door.

I love reading, but I’ve hardly read a paperback in over 18 months. When you’ve found a great book it doesn’t matter what format the story is in. I do miss the book shop ritual though.

From one of the comments on that video:

I read, share, discuss, donate, gift and love my ebooks. So should you. Don’t hate only the latest incarnation of? books. I imagine scroll-fetishists thought that bound folios were the work of the devil. Sigh.

(via Kathy Foley)

Welcome Home Xeer2000!

My gaming blog, Xeer2000 has found a new home. You’ve guessed it, here!

Yesterday I imported all the entries from there into the xeer2000 tag here. I converted status messages on my old blog into Asides which look well. I did have to edit a huge 5MB xml file but thankfully it imported without a hitch. (Tip: always import into a test blog first, and make a backup!)

Why? I used to post on that blog every day but lately that hasn’t been the case, and since I have really failed to keep updating this blog on a regular basis I thought it was time to merge them together. This is after all my personal website. If you came here for WordPress goodies check out the WordPress section!

Following in the grand tradition of asides as used by Matt and others I’ll be making smaller posts and snippets more often. I used to do this all the time years ago. Some things I’d fire off to Twitter without a thought will get pushed here instead. Half the time I retweet something it’s to have some record of a witty or interesting article. I’ll invariably never go look for those RTs ever again (such is the fleeting nature of Twitter) but if they’re here I like to think I’ll stumble across them again and enjoy once more. I can reference them a lot easier here too! So is this a Twitter vs Blog thing? Not really. I just want ownership of my thoughts.

I actually hesitated to bring everything over here. I mean, a grown man playing computer games? Aren’t they for kids? Well, apparently I’m part of a growing demographic.

Most striking is the ESA’s claim that the average gamer is now 37 years old. This theoretical person has been playing games for 12 years and there is a pretty solid chance that he might actually be a she.

I’ve no idea where the ESA pulled those figures, but it’s not hard to believe. Most of the guys I play online with are in their 30s or 40s with only a couple of exceptions!

If you’re a regular reader thank you for hanging around even though this site wasn’t updated very often. Feed readers are great aren’t they? Hopefully you’ll continue to enjoy what I post here in the future. If not, well, thanks for stopping by!

Boqueria mini review

We had a most delicious meal in Boqueria, Bridge St. Cork this evening. It’s a tapas, wine and cocktail bar that serves delicious food and I’m sure the alcohol tastes nice too but I only had a sip of my wife’s white wine. Staff are super friendly too and even though they squash people in there you should try it out. Recommended!

Futureproof on Newstalk

This morning there was a compilation of interviews from the science radio show Futureproof on Newstalk. It’s a show that broadcasts at 6pm on a Sunday evening and so I’ve hardly ever listened to it. No more, I subscribed to the show podcasts. Hard enough finding the xml feed. You have to listen to a show and in the Flash interface click on the XML link!

Good interview with Richard Dawkins during the year too.

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