Month: August 2025

Article in the Guardian about it. I kind of like the flat Paul Henry style of some of the backgrounds.

gregtimo proposed in comments some while back the idea of a Culture Thread.

It’s a great idea. Currently culture is a bit strange, but people read, listen to music, watch television and film and so on – spread the net wide, sports, activities, interests, all relevant – and any pointers are always welcome. And it’s not just those areas but many more. Suggestions as to new or old things, events that might have been missed, literally anything.

Good event with a broad range of speakers and poetry and a bit of song too. Very well attended given the atrocious weather. The point made about our flag, the tricolour, in the following (along with photos) is spot on.

“Powerful display of solidarity and community today as over 200 people gathered at Fairview Park to send out a strong message –

“Stop Racist Attacks / End violence Against Women”.

The vigil was called after well publicised recent incidents involving a racist attack on an Indian man, an unprovoked assault on a local woman out running and other threats and anti social actions. The event was initiated by residents from the areas adjacent to Fairview Park, who all stressed what an amazing and vibrant amenity space the park is, and that there is only a small minority engaged in this negative activity.

The speakers were Shashank R. Chakerwarti, Paula Kearney and Daniel Ennis who were all articulate in addressing various aspects of the problem – the increase in racist messaging and resultant violence, the threat against women which is unfortunately carried out by men of many nationalities and backgrounds and also how do we promote positive attitudes among younger members of the community through sport, social and cultural engagements. The overall message today was of unity, solidarity and rejecting of violence and division.

ALL the speakers were working class, all heavily involved with positive activism in their own areas and understand the issues and difficulties our communities face. Racism and discrimination have nothing positive to offer us.

The Irish tri-colour was flown proudly at the event, and it’s importance as a symbol of unity, anti-sectarianism and overcoming division was stressed theoughout. It is not something to be abused as a symbol of superiority or hate as some have attempted to do recently.

Two local performers added to the occasion –

Anto Seery recited from “Heugenot”, written by Santry born Philip Chevron (of The Pogues), with the opening line of “Welcome here you dark skinned stranger”.

Maria Fumaroni recited from her poem “The Immigrants Utopia” which concludes with the line

“There in a Green Land

Where all of us live in peace”.

Well done to all involved, great turnout despite the dreadful weather and great effort by those who helped publicise the event.

Powerful message of Solidarity and Support.

This is our community, this is our Dublin and we are at our best when we stand United.

All examples welcome.

From this morning in the Sunday Independent. Apparently if you’re a great patriot you have to run for the Presidency!

As far back as December 2023, Mary Lou McDonald said she didn’t think Adams “has any intention whatsoever” of running for the Áras. Last November, she told the Irish Independent: “I don’t think he has the remotest interest in being the president of Ireland.”

Unless designed to lull opponents into a false sense of security, those are strange phrases to describe a man who sees himself as a great ­patriot. Why would he have no ­interest in the top symbolic position within the Irish state?

This from the Examiner seems exaggerated:

The prospect of Jim Gavin running for the presidency has lit a rocket under the posterior of the election campaign. As I write, it has just been confirmed that his name has gone forward for the Fianna Fáil nomination, a scenario that is in keeping with a GAA management tradition of naming the team just before throw in. 

As does this from the Irish Times:

Idealists are not naive by definition but, when they are, they are ripe for exploitation as propaganda stooges. Connolly must acknowledge she erred in joining that trip to Syria and she must unhitch Daly and Wallace from her campaign wagon. Otherwise, the appalling vista voters need to consider is that this pair could end up on the Council of State advising Uachtarán na hÉireann as her constitutional nominees.

The Council of State no less! Seems unlikely.

And here’s a question for the ages.

I sometimes wonder how Taylor Swift will cope the moment she ceases to be the most famous women in the world. 

This is, in its own odd way, kind of genius:

Nick Gillard has made the Pico Mac Nano, a tiny replica of the original Macintosh. Measuring just under 2.5 inches tall (that’s 62 millimeters, or about half the height of a Coke can), with a 2-inch TFT panel for the display, an SD Card slot (though sadly not in the front where the floppy was), and a single USB-C port. A custom splitter cable supplies power to the Pico Mac Nano along with an extra USB-A port for connecting a keyboard or mouse.

It runs a 128k emulator. And all for less than £80.

Except Apple has stepped in to ‘question’ the assembled variants. Oddly:

The case-and-desist only applies to the fully assembled Pico Mac Nano. 1-bit rainbow is still selling the individual parts of the device that the customer can use to assemble their own PIco Mac Nano. Read the complete story behind the Pico Mac Nano.

Suspect I’m one of a small enough minority on this site who play video games (hallo there ColmB, YC and NFB!), but this site here is kind of interesting. It’s a companion to Rate Your Music, which I find invaluable in terms of getting reviews of music and outlining the connections between and within groups. Glitchwave promises to do much the same for games. It states it is in Beta form, not sure what that means functionally, perhaps that there’s not a lot of user interaction on it at present but found it really handy to discover about various genres of video games that I like.

As noted on this site before I really like open world games, your Cyberpunk2077’s and GTA’s, Red Dead Redemptions and WatchDogs, and I was amazed at how many I hadn’t heard of. Granted most of those probably wouldn’t be worth following up, but useful to know. Oddly they don’t list Open World as a category under ‘genres’ but it is listed elsewhere complete with its own ‘chart’.

What’s clear is how horror/zombie and mythological/fantasy open world games have predominated in recent times at the expense of those rooted in the present day or a less fantastical future. GTA VI drops next year, supposedly, and I suppose there’s a hesitation for others to launch games in the face of that.

Noticeable how Call of Duty and other games have wrapped open world elements into them – to greater or lesser effect. Lesser in my view to judge from Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. So clearly there’s an appetite for them, but not much in the way of new titles dropping (and stuff like Mafia – the Old Country, while interesting, seems like a return to faux-open worlds). Anyhow, that’s a discussion for another time.

This from Bandcamp during the week:

Hello,

Significant changes are coming to global tariffs (import taxes imposed by a government) that may impact how packages enter the United States.

In practice, this means fees may be applied to some types of merchandise on US-bound shipments, and some Bandcamp sellers may choose to temporarily pause shipments to the US.

Also, several international postal carriers are temporarily suspending delivery to the US. These restrictions do not come from the artists or labels but from global carriers. If you have questions about how an artist or label is handling this for your order, you can contact them directly by clicking the “Contact” link on the right side of their page.

Remember, that while some artists and labels may suspend shipments to the US, you can always support them directly by purchasing digital music.

For more information, head to our help center.

 

Given how bands live and die often within the margin of live performances and merch this is clearly bad news for many of them.