Uncontacted Amazonian tribe photographed
May 30, 2008 – 12:59 pmVia Reuters … WOW! A rare uncontacted tribe of Amazon Indians in one of the remotest parts of the rainforest near the border between Brazil and Peru have been photographed from the air. The images released on Thursday showed the tribe’s village and the tribe members painted bright red aiming their bows and arrows at the plane. The pictures are amazing; it’s like looking into the distant past:
Photo (c) survival-international.org
It true what they say about a picture being worth a thousand words; check out these other amazing photos; zoom in on the bottom picture. (URL may change as the site is experiencing serious traffic; i’ll try to catch the change and update).
Can you believe that there are more than 100 uncontacted tribes worldwide?? Over half of these live in Brazil or Peru. This tribe was photographed to prove their existence in an effort to try to save them as many such tribes are “in grave danger of being forced off their land [through logging], killed and decimated by new diseases”.
It’s amazing to think how different we are from these people; how completely and utterly alien our entire existence is to them. And it’s sad to think how little disregard we have for people like this.
Samsung launches first Irish phone
May 29, 2008 – 4:05 pmIt’s true apparently, Samsung are set to launch the first ever mobile phone which will have an Irish user interface. Good stuff! Still wouldn’t buy a Samsung but hopefully in the not too distant future we may see other mobile phone manufacturers follow suit. Press release below.
Samsung launches first Irish phone
The first ever mobile phone with Irish language menus will be available in Ireland in the summer. Samsung Electronics said today the Tocco phone has more than 44,000 words translated into the Irish language. Three translators, all with degrees in Irish, worked on the project, Samsung said. Country manager of Samsung Gary Twohig said the move was “a direct reflection of the increased popularity in Irish”. “While we won’t necessarily be launching this feature with every new phone, we will be adding it as a premium feature for key launches,” he said. It will be available in Ireland on July 1st.
Dermot Reidy
Vodafone.com
The Photoshop Anthology: Free until June 13th
May 21, 2008 – 9:17 amSitepoint are giving away free copies of their book The Photoshop Anthology: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks & Techniques! The book is available for download in pdf format until June 13th so if you have even the slightest bit of interest in Photoshop, especially if you’re into web design, pop over and grap yourself a copy.
Icelandic langer collects langers
May 20, 2008 – 4:15 pmSigurdur Hjartarson has an odd hobby. It’s not exactly the kind of hobby you’d freely discuss over dinner, unless you’re in Iceland apparently, as it would probably create quite a degree of embarrassment.
“What do you do in your free time Sigurdur? Fishing? Cross country skiing?”
“I collect penises.”
“..!”
“Yes, I like a bit of Dickie. I am a phan of the phallus! A master of manginas!”
“… sooo … did you catch the football last night?”
The bauld Mr.Hjartarson started collecting penises in 1974, as a “hobby” if you believe that, and now runs the Icelandic Phallological Museum which displays his collection of 261 one-eyed wonder weasels from 90 different species from mice to elephants and even sperm whale’s 70 kg wrinkle sticks! The museum drew up to 6,000 visitors last summer, 60% of which were dirty minded women gagging for a gander at the gag mallets.
One prominent species missing from the museum, excluding staff, is homo sapien (I struggled to find a way to squeeze homo erectus in there but failed) however 4 members of the public have promised to donate their dribbling dragons to the museum after they die.
In the mean time if you’re no longer in need of your love truncheon you might send it on to:
Sigurdur Hjartarson
Laugavegur 24,
101 Reykjavík
ICELAND
I’m sure he’d appreciate it. Don’t forget to stuff it first. 8===D
Military matters
May 19, 2008 – 4:25 pmTwo military related posts for you today…
• 160 troops of the 97th Infantry Battalion arrived in Chad this morning to begin their peacekeeping mission which brings to 390 the number of Irish personnel now in Chad with a further 150 to be deployed within the next two weeks.
• Something interesting and indeed historic is happening in Croker today … today is the start of a major international conference where delegates from up to 100 countries will be attempting to agree on a treaty banning the production and use of cluster bombs.
Ireland is actually one of a small group of nations leading the campaign to ban the use of these weapons. Negotiations started about a year ago in Norway and should the treaty be agreed in the coming 12 days of discussions a formal signing ceremony will take place back in Norway in December.
The three (of around 34) main producers of these weapons; the US, China & Russia, are obviously against the ban and are not attending. Not that it matters as agreement on a treaty would put serious pressure on these nations who would more than likely adhere to the ban even if they don’t officially sign up for it.
Why the ban on cluster bombs you ask? Because cluster bombs blanket a battle field by scattering up to (depending on the bomb) 2000 bomblets across a kill zone. Many of these bomblets fail to detonate essentially acting like a landmine; exploding only when disturbed usually by civilians weeks, months or years later.
Interesting to see how it turns out…
Firefox 3 RC 1
May 19, 2008 – 12:40 amI’m a few days late with this but tonight I just noticed that Firefox 3 RC1 has been released! I’ve been using Fx 3 Beta 5 for a while at work and have been very impressed with it so would recommend upgrading to FX 3 asap; RC1 should be stable enough for the masses to install though most of your extensions probably won’t work yet.
On windows: as Gaeilge, suomi, en-gb, no sign of welsh yet.
Mac: as Gaeilge, suomi, en-gb.
Linux: as Gaeilge, suomi, en-gb.
p.s. some languages can be installed as language packs allowing you to switch between various languages if needed. Irish isn’t listed here yet but we’ll see if we can get it up there soon enough. Btw, when I say “we” I mean the Mozilla guys & the ‘Firefox in Irish’ team after I whinge so much that they decide to pacify me by adding it to the list.
Upgrading wordpress…
May 12, 2008 – 12:37 am…is a nightmare. I suppose if I haven’t have left it for so long it wouldn’t be so difficult but I did so it is. I was on version 1.52 until I upgraded; and the only reason I upgraded was because of some bug in MySQL which was reversing the order of my posts. The big problem I face now is sorting out problems with the incompatible template. I suppose the easiest solution is just to install a compatible template but then it means time trying to edit that to get the look I want and time is something I have very little of these days.
I didn’t get to test any of the plugins so if you have problems with the maths questions or posting in general I’d appreciate it if you could drop me a line.
EDIT: Bear with me while I try out a few new themes…
What the focal?
May 11, 2008 – 8:18 pmIt’s Get the focal!
It’s not often I’d pay any attention to the ads in gmail but this one just caught my attention. It’s Get the focal, an Irish-English-Irish translator for your mobile phone created by a company called Maithú. It has 10k words and is bound to come in handy when you’re stuck for the odd word.
You can get the application by texting Focal to 53503 (Irish & UK mobiles), visiting m.getthefocal.com on your mobile or just download them to your PC via the following links: English-Irish, Irish-English [both *.jar files].
EDIT: I failed to do my duty before posting about this application, apologies for that dear reader. This application isn’t free as I found out after I posted about it; you need to pay €5 for a 1 year licence for each of the jar files. I bought a licence for the English-Irish dictionary and have tested it; and while it’s handy to have I certainly don’t think it’s worth €5!
So here’s an alternative:
Opera mini for cheap web browsing and an online English-Irish dictionary.
Enda Kenny’s Audition
May 9, 2008 – 12:09 amJust spotted this on YouTube … Enda Kenny’s “audition” for American Idol. Enjoy.