itunes university

I'm currently enjoying listening to lectures from the University of California at Berkeley on my ipod.

I get in the car at 7:30am and start listening. Maybe my mind is clear of clutter but that time works for me and I find it a really good way to use the hour or so that it takes to get to work.

Obviously Ireland is under construction at the moment. The main motorway serving the capital city is a building site but the end is in sight. The main airport is now under construction as part of an expansion. And the road from my house to the largest indoor shopping mall in Europe is closed until next year.

However I no longer care anyhow because I'm listening to great lectures from excellent and entertaining academics.

What a great service. I found out about it from a friend and have been using it for about 2 months now. Check it out here.

be safe, be seen

When I was a lad I remember there was a campaign appealing to people on bikes to stop getting themselves killed.

Loads of people used to cycle around in the dark with no lights, and of course dressed head to toe in dark clothing.

There was a rush on sales of lights, reflectors, and those belts.

Well that will only get you so far.

I mean once you have all that gear you're obviously going to want to have the right eyewear. Right?

Evidently so.

I passed some clown, not an actual clown, but a guy on a bike the other night and it was dark. Not getting dark but actually dark. He had the light, a little thing flashing away on the front of his bike. And a reflective vest. Good so far. And orange wraparound shades.

I mean if they are going to chuck you on a stretcher and ferry you into hospital you need to look cool right. Especially when they are all laughing at you in the hospital after you crashed into a parked car. Because you couldn't see it what with having your orange shades on. In the dark.

<end of rant>

a flurry of activity

haven't had time to post anything lately.

Note I didn't say anything meaningful because I'm not sure any of it is meaningful.

In anyways, as they say around here, here comes a few nuggets of something...

Editorial standards as gaeilge

To start with, for those of you who don't know what 'as gaeilge' means, it means 'in the irish language'.

So I was sitting on the sofa this evening eating a pizza and flicking through the channels on the TV. It was early, maybe 6:30 in the evening, so I was surprised to find South Park showing on the TV.

This is the show that features the routine deaths of Kenny, swearing, violence, and all the rest of it and all in the name of humour of course.

Fair enough once it goes out late enough so that kids don't confuse it with say Dora The Explorer.

Now I am of course very au fait when it comes to children's television and I can assure you that nobody ever gets killed during an episode of Dora The Explorer.

South Park is a different proposition altogether.

So I turned the sound up and sure enough instead of "ay! you piece of crap!" and the usual stream of child-swear, there was a whole load of "póg mo thóin lads, táimse ag dul abhaile".. roughly translated as "screw you guys, I'm going home".

So I'm wondering who in their right mind decided that it would be OK to show South Park at dinner time in Ireland with Irish translation on an Irish-language TV channel.

Maybe the thinking was that because it was as gaeilge nobody would pay much attention. That's possibly true until the anvil/airplane engine/tower falls on Kenny and kills him.

Credit please

I was watching something on the TV at the weekend and at the end of the programme the closing credits rolled past on the screen so fast that it was impossible to read them.

Now normally this would not be a big deal but I was actually trying to find out who was singing the theme tune to this particular show. I thought I recognised his voice and wanted to find out who the singer was.

The credits flashed past, all over in something around 5 seconds.

Now if I was the songwriter or singer in question I'd want people to be able to follow up their interest. Maybe other work could flow as a result. Same goes for all the other people working on the production I imagine.

So when these credits go past so quickly that only someone willing to record the show and play the credits back on slow-mo can find out who the singer, best-boy or key-grip was, there's something not quite right.

I know commercials are annoying but credits are credits. They are there to credit the work of the people who put the thing together.

I know I'd be mad if I worked on something like that and the credits went by so fast that nobody could read them.

Apparently this is becoming more and more common, with some shows having no credits at all. I don't think this makes sense at all.

People in the media are starting to pick up on this. Is it too late though?