Softday Bacterial Ensemble

The 18th of April 2009, the Softday Bacterial Ensemble performed the live music and multimedia Nobody Leaves 'till the Daphnia Sing. The performance with both humans and Daphnia Magna was a once off, but the INFECTIOUS exhibition and our installation with the Daphnia runs until the 17th of July 2009.

Nobody Leaves Until the Daphnia Sings

A new Softday project


Finally Sean and I got the NLUTDS installation finished at the INFECTIOUS exhibition in the Science Gallery in Dublin.




The installation has four stations, each with a Petri-dish with a few Daphnia swimming around, veiwed by a web-cam connected to an Apple iMac (Thanks to Apple for support!), with a PD/GEM-patch making vocalizations depending on the movement of the Daphnia. The voices of the stations are Bass, Tenor, Alto and Soprano.





We are also growing Daphnia on site....


The exhibition runs from the 17th of April 2009 to the 17th of July 2009

The New Bootleggin Band

The Bootlegin Band is being reincarnated, now with the addition of a sax and a trumpet. We rehearsed today (which is extraordinary by Bootlegin standards) and it sounded really good. I felt this was REALLY fun and it sounded the way I would lke the band to sound.
The band will be playing this Friday, the 6th of March, in Hurlers Pub in Castletroy in Limerick. I hope you can join us.

DULL computers

From my perspective, as a lecturer and researcher at UL, Dell represents yesterday's computing needs. For the last few years, all the new laboratories I have specified, together with colleagues in the Computer Science and Information Systems department at UL, have been filled with Apple computers, and lots and lots of software tools and peripherals. That is the technological platform we needed to create the graduates for today, and perhaps more important, tomorrow. 

In our research, we've been working on Ubiquitous Computing since the late 90s and we have published extensively in internationally recognized scientific journals. Many of our research projects have been financed by the EU. We are currently looking at what will happen after the Internet, as we now know it. What I would like to indicate is that while it is very sad to see Dell and many, many subcontractors and suppliers winding down, we have a fantastic opportunity to pick and choose among new technologies that have been created here, to help to get tomorrow's technology off the ground, facilitate real people's needs, make organizations more efficient, enable more people to participate in an ever-increasing web of ideas and possibilities.

Zeitgeist addendum

World financial crisis

The reasons for the current global financial crisis are easier to understand if you read Leo Huberman's Man's Worldly Goods. We'll al be paying for George W. Bush's unjust (criminal) acts of war. These acts were committed for the sake of greed. Unfortunately for GWB, his creditors (Arab countries producing oil and China producing most material goods for the US) didn't accept the flaky security of US banks (property) hence won't sell anymore. Reult: system grinds to a halt and they need everybody else to pay.
This is unacceptable.

The Changing Sound of Limerick

I'm just home after yet another evening's excellent experiences. The TWEAK festival has had a very positive impact on the city, with the addition of tonight's SOUNDINGS event. Still, tomorow I need to go and see the TWEAK exhibition in City Hall...