Archbishop Desmond Tutu is in Ireland for a major conference on AIDS this week. There’s been a huge increase in the number of cases in Russia and elsewhere in Europe and Asia and delegates from 55 countries are meeting to discuss this.
Desmond Tutu was just interviewed by Marian Finucane this morning and it’s the first time I’ve heard him interviewed at length. Wow. What an eloquent speaker! He’s had a varied life, and the interview was a reminder of the the horror of Apartheid. The contrast between South Africa and Europe couldn’t be greater, he recounted his experiences in London, where Bobbies on the beat called him and his wife, “Sir”, and “Madam”, and Cape Town where a curfu for blacks meant he couldn’t walk on the street at night!
Stuff that caught my eye today..
I’m reading “Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them)” by Al Franken (thank you Mark for the lend of the book!), and while it’s a good read, Al is a little too glib for my liking. That’s why I went searching and found, this which I’m certain I’ll be told is a right-wing nutcase website, but just goes to show that neither side of the Republican/Democratic battle are to be trusted!(In Al’s defence, I’m really enjoying his book, but he’s preaching to the converted here..)
Very, very silly discussion about which is better: 3MP or 5MP cameras. The author of a linked article suggests that there’s no appreciable difference between both types of sensors. I just wonder if he’s ever tried to print out either in a large format..
This thread proved enlightening. There’s a small symbol at the bottom-right of the Sony F717 camera that wasn’t explained in the manual. It’s simply to show the user that he can use the jog dial to change camera settings.. Sony manuals do need more work from their authors. Here’s more on the same and other manual stuff.
CSS Playground and Well-Designed Weblogs: An Introduction are on my reading list tomorrow. Thank you delicious for pointing me there.
Interesting explanation of MVC here and although based in a JSP world it’s simple and to the point. Then again, maybe MVC isn’t right for PHP development. (I certainly don’t agree, most of my new projects at work use MVC now and it’s a God-send for keeping file size down and organising code!)
Oh yeah, look for me on Orkut.. I’m the only donncha on there! 🙂
b2++ – 0.8
Finally, a new release of b2++! This is a minor release, putting the features we’ve been using here on blogs.linux.ie into a release for wider distribution!
New in this release:
- Comment Moderation: Every comment, pingback and trackback must now be validated before they’re displayed. Bye bye comment spam!
- Referer Blacklisting: You can add any referer in your backend to a blacklist. The next time someone visits from that site the referer doesn’t show up on your site.
- Minor bugs with the smilies in b2edit.
- Added Pirate Speak plugin by Dougal Campbell.
If you’re upgrading from b2++ 0.7, then download the upgrade package and copy the src/ directory into your b2++ install and run the upgrade script. That’ll update your database tables properly.
New users should of course download the full b2++ package.
New users: b2++ 0.8 tar.gz | zip
Existing users: b2++ 0.7 -> 0.8 upgrade tar.gz | zip
Horrific Accident in Dublin
Almost exactly a month since I reported that 5 people were killed on Irish roads, 5 people were killed, and 17 injured in Dublin when a bus toppled over into people waiting at a bus stop on Wellington Quay in Dublin. Now it appears that CIÉ were warned two weeks ago of how dangerous the location was. What does it take for a large bureaucratic organisation to fix things?
When in Cork..
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Found Portraits
Short but interesting article on taking portraits “on the street”. There’s a fine line between this and street photography. Is this photo I took in Chicago a Found Portrait?
Not Street Photography. Not Documentary.
Certainly Not Formal Portraits.
Certainly Not Formal Portraits.
The Crow's Nest, Victoria Cross, Cork.. gone!
From our roving reporter, John, at the scene, comes the news that the Crow’s Nest Bar and Restaurant burnt down this morning! I passed there around 9:30 and the place was fine. 🙁
I couldn’t find any photos online, but here’s a review of the place from the SBPost.
That Friday Feeling..
That Friday Feeling has been around since 1929! Thank Crunchie It’s Friday!
(Blame pron for that!)
Sun Stuff
APOD has an amazing picture and story today about a huge star that exploded 170,000 years ago. The gases produced are seen expanding out at huge velocities and temperatures!
Then there’s a picture of a solar eclipse on photosig. I’m jealous, because for some reason, *every* time there’s such an event over Ireland the sky is cloudy. Every single time. *grrr*
Couple o' stories for the feens!
The People’s Republic of Cork have a couple of new articles online.. I read the feminist one in the Echo this evening and as I was nodding my head I thought it’d be good to bring to the attention of my dear readers here..
- Corkonian’s Guide to Abroad – covers such exotic locations beyond the borders of the Republic such as Ireland, London and America!
- Inside the Mind of a Cork Woman.. is not a pretty sight, but that’s not fair, I’m sure it applies equally to the rest of yer wans around the place!
- Gettin’ Flahed: Adventures in Speed Dating.. this one had me laughing out loud within shouting distance of the start! hehe.
So there you go, the combined intelligence and social engineering skills of the average Corkonian is imbued in the above writing. Read ’em and weep, err laugh, guys!