Since arriving in India my days have been extremely busy to say the least. My typical day has been:

• Wake Up
• Eat Breakfast
• Go to sound studio and work until late evening
• Return to hotel
• Eat dinner
• Work in hotel room on prepping next days work
• Sleep

That’s pretty much been it. I’m looking forward to being finished and finally getting a chance to look around a bit – fingers crossed I might post a little more often on here as well.

I have to head off to the sound studio to sort out the deliverables for this film, but I thought I’d share a video which demonstrates fairly accurately what Indian driving is like. I first saw this video a few years ago and it seemed insane to me at the time. Now that I’ve been here for a couple of weeks it seems quite normal…

Ever wanted to know what the first web page ever created looked like?

The World Wide Web project

Thanks to SixRevisions for sharing this and a huge amount more information in their article, The History of the Internet in a Nutshell, a really fascinating look back over the way this remarkable technology has developed.

A priceless video replete with examples of rap at its best.

Apart from the rap, another favourite part of mine is the sax-player that mimes along to a part of the song where there is no saxophone (there might not actually be a saxophone in any part of the song, not even a synth one, but I’m not sure I can watch it again to check), along with the piano player with the fixed grin staring at the camera and not at the piano.

Thanks to Graham Linehan for sharing. By the way, the video ends around 3.13, but plays a black screen to 5 minutes.

Am I stressed? Yes.

Remaining time to complete film

Timer courtesy of countdown.onlineclock.net

What happens when there’s a terrorist in your child’s drawing?

I’m not exactly sure whether this is originally by House of Grindlebone, or not, but it’s a great image.

Thanks to Jonas Nockert for sharing this one. The instant I saw it, the image struck a chord, both introspectively and as a commentary on broader society today.

Below I have reproduced the most recent cover of the New Yorker, posted by Design Milk, which says a lot about today’s society. Something of which I know I’m guilty -  my face constantly being lit up by a screen of some sort. It is also something which I’ve seen in action at the last stadium concert I attended – the view from the stand seats being one of a sea of camera phones held up to capture the moment, either calling friends during famous songs, or camera-phoning the event.

November Cover of New Yorker

This humorous new cover for the November 2, 2009 issue of The New Yorker says a lot more than it appears to at first glance. For a closer look in case it’s difficult to see, read more.

via Design Milk – The New Yorker Cover by Chris Ware.

This cover also made me think of one of the best articles I’ve read on TechCrunch in a long time – NSFW: Weezer, plane crashes and everything else that’s worrying about the real-time web – which I recommend reading, and captures a lot of my own thoughts and concerns about the all-encompassing, always-on, realistically unsocial (at least in the traditional sense) internet world into which we’re drifting.

Am I guilty of a lot of these things – hell yes. My world is now driven by internet-based communication and social networking tools, I’m as bad as anyone. Still, I want to keep it in check and make some changes that result in me having a bit more physical world interaction over the coming years. I think travelling to India and Cambodia will help with this. Maybe I’m wrong and it’s just a natural evolution, but I still think I need to keep it in mind.

Anyway, great cover – wanted to share it out there (I recognise the somewhat ironic nature of using the medium I am slightly knocking to deliver this message).

Visit the New Yorker

Image by robo7 on Flickr

A bleary set of eyes I find upon me this morning, but my brain is alive and kicking, and in fact, has been alive and kicking all night long. My increased levels of brain agitation are probably part of the reason for the bleariness of my eyes.

Anyway, part of this brain agitation lead to me dreaming about two good friends of mine and their newly published book, a beautiful embossed hardcover in a powder red colour. The only problem is that it doesn’t exist, that is, outside the realm of my dreams – unless there’s something  S and D haven’t been telling us.

Unless they have kept it under wraps, it belongs purely in Lucien’s library¹, and I truly hope that Unkie Dave and his Very Understanding Girlfriend steal it out of there and get writing.

I know I’d love to read it.

(Unfortunately I cannot remember what it was about nor what the title of the book was, which is probably not a huge amount of help)

Thanks to Bernie Goldbach for reporting this. Obviously we don’t need the CEO of Google to point such things out, but it’s nice to see an important figure from the web lend his weight to the argument for a better broadband infrastructure. Living in Longford and Leitrim over the past four years I am all too painfully aware of the extremely poor communications infrastructure in Ireland.

ERIC SCHMIDT, CEO OF GOOGLE, visited Killarney last week, and suggested Ireland invest more in communications infrastructure. Schmidt believes broadband capability is a precondition for economic growth in the next 10 years. But not the kind of over-the-air sprinkling that the Irish government currently endorses.

“The right thing to do is to light up Ireland with fibre, and to do that systematically over a 10-year period.”

via Inside View: What Eric Schmidt Thinks Ireland Needs.

The government talks about decentralising but if it really wants to do that it needs to sort out a proper broadband infrastructure. Of course it goes beyond decentralisation – it’s a pure economic fact now – Ireland needs hyper-connectivity at hyper-speed to stay competitive, attractive to investors and businesses considering locating here, and, well, so many things.

The National Broadband Scheme is a complete joke. I’m personally in a situation where I am strongly considering taking my ass out of the back of beyond and to somewhere where I might get reasonable and reliable connectivity. It’s a horrible thought that it might come to that, and doesn’t exactly help small rural communities develop at all.

I’ve fought with shit internet connections ever since I moved out of Dublin, going from dial-up, to capped broadband, to unbelievably shit wireless, to semi-decent wireless which turned shit (they assure us it will get better next week). All of this time I’ve struggled to beat my 1mbps connection which I first experienced in Toronto in 2001. That’s 8 years ago. What’s the story?!

The below image shows ping times on our connection – the slower the ping, the slower the connection. How shit is that.

Smoke Ping results - Last 10 days

The next image shows our inexorable decline in decent connection since May of this year. Nice to have paid €90 per month for such a wonderful service – oh and don’t even say 3G to me, I wouldn’t go near that if you paid me.

Smoke Ping results - Past 12 months

I’m just getting annoyed now. I’m going to stop thinking about this and get back to work. Just needed a little rant. Sure, soon I’ll be in India and Cambodia. Maybe they’ll have the infrastructure sorted out when I get back (I doubt it).

Warren Daly has just done up a lovely new ambient mix set for free download over on Invisible Agent – grab the download now!

I forecast this will get some repeated playing on my part (being a bit of an ambient junky) – great work Warren!

The latest AgentCast from Warren Daly is a smooth blend of minimal electronic textures and floating ambient soundscapes.

It includes delicate trickles and singing reverberations from Arovane, Japanese composer Hirohito Ihara (a.k.a Radicalfashion), Pete Namlock and Robert Rich to name just a few.

Warren generally concentrates on mixing Electro and Techno but in this instance he covers many distinctive and elegant styles of Electronica and awakens a multitude of emotions, highlighting his diverse and innovative abilities.

via Warren Daly – DJ Mix / AgentCast – Ambient, Downtempo, Electronica – Invisible Agent.

I’m really happy to hear this news. Whilst the body is saying that it’s not compulsory for manufacturers to sign up to this system, I really hope that all mobile phone manufacturers will. Sony Ericsson have announced they’ll launch the universal charger in the first half of 2010.

I remember when Nokia launched their new phone charger – suddenly I had a phone for which the countless old chargers I had were redundant. It really seems incredibly pointless. In fact, I think I ended up buying a new charger for the first time just because I had left my only charger at home.

With the new universal charger there is a situation where, if widely adopted, you won’t have to worry about visiting a friend and not being able to charge your phone, buying a new phone won’t write off your old chargers, and in theory we’ll see a lot less electronic waste.

Industry body the GSMA says that 51,000 tonnes of redundant chargers are generated each year.

Currently most chargers are product or brand specific, so people tend to change them when they upgrade to a new phone.

However, the new energy-efficient chargers can be kept for much longer.

The GSMA also estimates that they will reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by 13.6m tonnes.

via BBC NEWS – Universal phone charger approved.

I just hope that the new charger, with its energy efficiency, will not actually draw power when it’s plugged in with no phone attached – something that irks me about current chargers.

ITU Press Release