Irish bogs – from a rich past to no future

The following post tells the story of the once (still?) famous Irish bog country, complementing my 2008 images from Ireland (on Flickr). The images below were taken of sections of the display at the Connemarra National Park visitor’s centre (the centre gives an insight into the park’s flora, fauna and geology as well as showing [...]

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Time machines

Quote: “We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they’re called memories. Some take us forward, they’re called dreams.” — Jeremy Irons

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David Gould on Forgiveness

After having been harassed for 10 weeks by my o’seas family members to upload my holiday photos onto Flickr, I’ve finally started with the first batch on Italy and the first installment on Germany. That kept me away from blogging, but in the meantime my bellissimo friend Jeanie *) emailed this poem, which [...]

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Okkervil River

I had this album for a while, but never made much of an effort listening to the lyrics – i just enjoyed the music which really does Okkervil River’s Sheff’s compositions a disservice. The Stage Names is the band’s first album I have heard so far.
According to Jagjaguwar it was “written on the beds and beat-up [...]

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iTunes 8 released

Yesterday Apple announced and released (in conjunction with new iPods) its latest iTunes (version 8). The main new features are a grid using thumbnails to display your music collection and a feature called the Genius Sidebar.
The new grid (see above) might be superflous for those still at home with designs built around the command line, [...]

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ubiquity commands

• add-to-calendar Adds an event to your calendar.
Currently, only works with Google Calendar, so you’ll need a Google account to use it. Try issuing “add lunch with dan tomorrow”.
• amazon-search Searches Amazon for books matching your words.
• answers-search Searches Answers.com for the given words.
• ask-searchSearches Ask.com for the given words.
• boldIf you’re in a rich-text-edit area, makes the selected text [...]

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Raw Food Diet and Orthorexia Nervosa

[I'm not on the raw or living food diet, but I'm certainly sympathetic to it. People I have met who have been on this diet for many years look healthy and well and some of them are vegans. Since having made those contacts, I have increased the fresh food intake in my own mixed vegetarian [...]

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Block Ads in Google Chrome

One of the biggest reasons most Windows users are sticking with Firefox over Google Chrome is its extensibility—and the most popular Firefox extension by far among Lifehacker readers is Adblock Plus. If annoying web site advertisements are the only thing holding you back from using Chrome, a user at the Geekzone forums explains how to [...]

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The truth about raw chocolate?

After promoting the making of raw chocolate in a recent post but also after having eaten in the meantime quite a few cacao beans (and not having felt good as a result), still being skeptical about the use of coconut fat in the chocolate making process and, in hindsight, a bit about the hype during [...]

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Google Chrome – The new web browser concept

While Firefox is a great application, it still is an old school browser, carrying in its architecture the problems that beset all browsers, like making it still not fast enough, memory hungry, subject to crashes or compromised in terms of security. So when my geek friends mentioned the name Google Chrome glowingly, not only did [...]

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Year 12 English essay metaphor quotes from NSW, Australia

While trying to avoid a comment on either students or teachers or education standards (simply because I don’t know anything about the background of these lists), I would find it hard not to wonder how these kids got into Year 12 if the quotes, could be linked to real students, are an expression of their [...]

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Sarah Palin lied while fighting polar bear protection

Not being familiar with the US political landscape, I had never heard of  Sarah Palin before; now I have: twice. Recently as a result of her nomination to McCain’s running mate, and today after reading that as Governor of Alaska she is opposing the protection of polar bears because she wants instead protect the interests [...]

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