Raiméis

Another plane crash, this time in Indonesia. Most of the 117 on board died as well as a further 30 or so on the ground.

Just had to post it:

Following letter is from Fidelma Ní Ghallchobhair, Foras na Gaeilge, announcing the release of the Irish language pack for MS Office 2003.

A chairde,

Daoibh siúd a bhfuil Office 2003 ar bhur ríomhairí cheana féin tá an leagan Gaeilge ar fáil (le híoslódáil saor in aisce) anois ag an nasc seo:

Pacáiste Comhéadain Office 2003 Gaeilge (Éire)

(Mura bhfuil Office 2003 ar an ríomhaire cheana is baolach go gcaithfear é a cheannach chun go n-oibreoidh an leagan Gaeilge.)

Is gá, áfach, go mbeidh an leagan Gaeilge de Windows XP suiteáilte agaibh cheana féin chun go n-oibreoidh sé seo ach deirtear liom gur féidir fáil réidh leis an leagan Gaeilge de Windows ansin, má roghnaítear é sin a dhéanamh, agus an leagan Gaeilge de Office a choinneáil, agus gur féidir babhtáil idir an leagan Gaeilge agus an leagan Béarla (rud nach féidir a dhéanamh le Windows).

Is in Office a gheofar Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook etc. Tabharfar faoi deara go bhfuil rudaí áirithe fágtha sa Bhéarla ach ní hiad na haistritheoirí is cúis leis seo, mar bhí míreanna áirithe faoi ghlas agus dúradh nach bhféadfaí iad a aistriú. Dúradh linn gur 85% den chomhéadan úsáideora a bhí le haistriú.

Tá sonraí breise ar fáil sa cheangaltán (nach bhfuil aistrithe go fóill). Beidh an táirge á fhógairt don saol mór Dé Máirt seo chugainn. Bíodh is go ndearnadh tréaniarracht an t-ábhar a aistriú go cruinn tharlódh go bhfuil roinnt lúbanna ar lár thall is abhus agus tá súil againn nithe mar sin a leasú sa chéad eagrán eile. Cuirfear fáilte roimh aiseolas ag an seoladh gaeilge@microsoft.com.

Le dea-mhéin,
Fidelma

Via Slashdot, an important one to watch for some bloggers: Aaron Wall, who runs a SEO blog, is being sued by Traffic-Power.com for statements posted in the comments section of his blog. Under US federal law he may normally be safe enough as blogs should fall under the same laws which protect discussion board & mailing list owners, however in this case Traffic-Power.com could be seen as a competitor to his own site. One to watch.

Christ almighty what a humongous beast! In Cuas an Bhodaigh, Co.Kerry yesterday they hauled a giant leatherback turtle out of the water after it became caught in nets. This reptile is truly a giant, it weighs well over 70 stone (445kg), is 7ft long and 6ft wide and is estimated to be up to 100 years old. What a magnificent creature.
The turtle will be released today after being fitted with a satellite tracking device.

With all this talk of Big Brother and the Farm I started thinking, isn’t it about time we came up with a proper reality show, one which is fun to watch and actually benefits us all? Here’s my proposal, Political Survivor, I even have the first few seasons mapped out.

Season 1: 20 politicians on a remote island with only a hungry Mary Harney. Whichever one is eaten last is the winner.

Season 2: 20 politicians in the middle of the Sahara. Whichever one makes it furthest before dying of thirst is the winner.

Season 3: 20 politicians in the ocean off Australia, the one to be eaten by the biggest shark is the winner.

Season 4 is still under wraps.

The Mighty Celt is a new Pearse Elliott flick based in Northern Ireland. What caught my attention is that Scully (Gillian Anderson, X-Files) stars in it, and must imitate the Belfast brogue. (Robert Carlyle is there too btw)
This leads me to a segment I like to call “Actors who impersonate an Irish accent and deserve to be forced to wear barbed wire knickers”.

Here are the nominees for “Actors who impersonate an Irish accent and deserve to be forced to wear barbed wire knickers”

- Tom Cruise & Nicole Kidman in “Far and Away”
- Brad Pitt in The Devil’s Own
- Brad Pitt in Snatch
- Val Kilmer in The Ghost and the Darkness
- Richard Gere in The Jackal
- Julia Roberts in Michael Collins
- Sean Bean in Patriot Games
- Daniel Day Lewis in In the Name of the Father
- Sean Connery in The Untouchables
- Colin Farrell in anything

And the winner is … …

Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in “[as] Far and Away [as fucking possible]” *applause*
Who can forget this heart warming tale of Joseph Donnelly (Cruise), a poor Irish farmer seeking revenge after his father’s death, moving to Ameri-kay and falling in love with landlords daughter Shannon (Kidman). This one rated highest on the vomit scale for the accents alone!
Injeye yer nickurs Surr an’ next time yiz butcher our aksent oil get Twaynty ontopov ye.

Honourable mention goes to Brad Pitt in Snatch for doing the best job of the lot.

As of yesterday Microsoft now owns small VoIP services/software provider Teleo. They plan to integrate Teleo into their MSN services infrastructure “with plans to ultimately deliver new VoIP consumer applications in future releases of MSN services, such as MSN Messenger.”
Skype are the big name in VoIP at the moment but now Microsoft, Google and Yahoo are all in on the act. I hope we don’t end up with a “voip war” with everyone using different systems and no-one communicating!

Katrina is raging away as you know, it’s quite a storm. Nasa has some deadly images of the hurricane, worth checking out.

Repeat after me … perkele! Yes, i’ll admit I did get caught up in a couple of seasons of big brother, mainly the one where the queer Irish lad won it. But it’s still one of the worst things on TV, even with all the editing. Have you watched the fully live BB? Dreadful. Anyway, yesterday saw the launch of the first Finnish Big Brother. Now there’ll be no avoiding the shite as the missus will be glued to it every night.
Only good thing is that there’s already some naked pictures online!