mediajunk

For regular readers: sorry there have been so few postings of late. This is due to how busy we have been here at Mediajunk lately.

"Normal service" will resume as soon as things are back to normal.

-- m

It being Friday and all, a "friend" decided to "amuse" me:

All my fears about having a Bert-shaped head have finally been realised...

(This entry was brought to you by the letters F and U. And the number 8.)

I have just launched a site called ChooseIreland.com.

The idea is to fill it with lots of information about holidays in Ireland, on a county by county basis.

The first task was to name all the counties of Ireland! Believe it or not, it took me a long time before I eventually looked them up on the web.

For Irish visitors, see if you can name all 32 counties on the island, before looking at the answers below...

Antrim
Armagh
Carlow
Cavan
Clare
Cork
Derry
Donegal
Down
Dublin
Fermanagh
Galway
Kerry
Kildare
Kilkenny
Laois
Leitrim
Limerick
Longford
Louth
Mayo
Meath
Monaghan
Offaly
Roscommon
Sligo
Tipperary
Tyrone
Waterford
Westmeath
Wexford
Wicklow

I was interviewed by Silicon Republic, for their "Friday Interview" section today. Note: you will need to register (free) to see the article. Since I am a firm believer in shameless self-promotion, here's the opening paragraph: "Michael Heraghty is what you would call a web pioneer. In the early Nineties he published an online version of The Buzz magazine before moving to Vision Consulting where he worked on major web projects. He has also worked for the Halifax Group and for Warner Music Group. In 2002 he set up Mediajunk, of which he is managing director. Based in Galway, Mediajunk is a full-service internet consultancy." Indeed!

From the BBC News website: "A band from Germany has adopted a novel approach to getting their music heard by millions. Super Smart have turned their backs on vinyl and CDs and instead have decided to just release their album as ringtones." A gimmick? Most certainly. But it may just grab the attention of ringtone-obsessed teens here in Europe...

Now you have a *medical* reason for saying "hey, don't touch my stuff!" According to a BBC report, "office workers are exposed to more germs from their phones and keyboards than toilet seats". Scientists' proposed solution: Cleaning with disinfecting wipes will reduce bacterial levels by 99%. My proposed solution: don't share your gadgets.

I'm a relatively early adopter when it comes to new technologies, particularly any that have an "e" prefix. So I'm all for the Irish Government's plan to implement a nationwide e-voting system in June's European and Local elections, right? Wrong. I can't understand why the Government is hell-bent on rolling out this system. Is it to make Ireland look "progressive"; to enhance the country's brand as a "digital hub"; or to save their own faces? The principle argument put forward in favour of electronic voting here is that there is a huge number of deliberately spoiled votes under the current ballot box system, which an electronic system (of standalone machines at polling centres) would prevent. So we're told. But in a letter to yesterday's Irish Times, Barry Doyle writes: "I have acted as a deputy returning officer in a number of general election counts and one of the duties is to rule on spoiled votes. In general, these would be no more than one per cent of the total poll. Most are spoiled by accident. ... Deliberate spoiling occurs in only 2 or 3 per cent of all spoiled votes. This spoiling is usually by way of suggestion to individual candidates or parties or indeed the Queen of England that they attempt an act of self abuse which would require a degree of acrobatic dexterity or imagination which is clearly beyond their competence." Having listened to various politicians trying to justify the introduction of e-voting, I have become convinced that the emperor has, in fact, no clothes. To say our leading politicians are ignorant of the basic fundamentals of the inner workings of any sort of computer is an understatement. Indeed, I heard one minister on Vincent Browne's radio show argue that the system was not computer-based, since these are voting machines, and therefore NOT computers. (Blink, blink. Oookaaaaaay.) The typical debate goes like this: "And what if something goes wrong with these machines?" "It won't." "How do you know?" "Because experts have told us so." "But many independent experts disagree." "Stop being mischievous. You are simply trying to erode public confidence." "Can't we at least implement a system that gives us a printed receipt of our votes?" "No." "Why not?" "Because they don't do that in other countries." "So what?" "Well, anyway, the printers would be less reliable than the comp -- uh, voting machines." Hilarious as these debates are, democracy is the foundation of our society. For most citizens, voting is their only way of directly participating in that democracy. Any changes to our current system should only be made with the approval of Irish citizens. Let's have a referendum -- using paper -- to see if that approval exists. I am not in principle against electronic voting. I just want a system I can trust.

The US Army has hired a software gaming company to build a computer simulation of the entire earth. The "second earth" will help it to help plan future conflicts, according to BBC News: "The detailed simulation will be drawn from a real-world terrain database and will be drawn to the same scale as the original. ... There is planning to model the entire planet at the proper scale so it would be possible to walk across the United States if participants wanted to. However, currently the virtual Earth is almost bare as the only thing modelled in any detail is part of Kuwait City." Does this sound like over-ambitious folly to anyone else?

Picture phones are soooooooooo dated. Haven’t you, like, upgraded to a video phone? Well, maybe not just yet. But mobile phones that can send live video streams, or recorded segments, will be with us in the not-too-distant future. Already, the BBC has been testing just such a phone, says a report today in Cellular News: “Simply using their mobile phones, which are equipped with Philips' multimedia camcorder software, BBC journalists can conveniently and rapidly record video clips, up to 15 minutes in duration, and transmit them instantly to the studio for public television broadcast ... even from difficult or remote locations. Added to this are the considerable savings in equipment and time. The BBC has carried out a number of news broadcasts using video captured and sent with the new mobile technology, including a bulletin from a tugboat maneuvering in harbour.” Meanwhile, the growth of camera phones, and moblogs, continues to accelerate “after a sluggish start,” according to a recent report on (co-incidentally) the BBC news site: “Their popularity has been boosted by more users to send images to and people finding novel uses for them. These include snapping broken plumbing fixtures to send to plumbers and taking pictures of car number plates after hit and run accidents. … Hairdressers have been getting in on the act too by letting customers download shots of possible hairdos to show their friends before going for the chop.” The rapid spread of the phones has given rise to privacy concerns. When posted to moblogs, images become accessible to a worldwide audience within seconds of being taken. “Around the world, gyms, cinemas and offices have banned the use of camera phones after complaints about invasion of privacy.” There you have it: a thoroughly modern excuse to avoid going to the gym!

You never know what the blogosphere's going to throw up. One day it's useful free software. The next it's a photo-diary of two slugs mating.

Wow. (I think.)