5,000 years ago in Ireland

There's a place in Ireland called "Newgrange". A tomb complex in County Meath, built around 3100BC around the time of the Egyptian empire! It's an impressive construction and it's open to the public. And it's over 5,000 years old, making it older than Stonehenge and older than the Great Pyramid at Giza.

Fooo Kmee that's ancient!

Saint Brendan (or St Brandan) (484–577)

Irish abbot and traveller. Born in Tralee, now in County Kerry, he is traditionally regarded as the founder of the monastery of Clonfert in County Galway (561), as well as other monasteries in Ireland and Scotland. The 8th-century Irish epic Voyage of St Brendan recounts his legendary journey across the Atlantic to a ‘land of saints’. His feast day is 16 May. St Brendan is believed to have studied under the abbess St Ita in Limerick and abbot St Jarlath in Tuam. His first appointment as abbot was at Ardfert.

The location of the land to which St Brendan is supposed to have voyaged is unclear. Some authorities place it far to the north (the Hebrides, the Northern Isles, or even Iceland), while others have speculated that it may have been the Canary Islands. Some ancient maps show ‘St Brendan's country’ lying west of the Cape Verde Islands.

I have read several translated accounts of his journeys, suffering great hardships and surviving on faith, fishing, even eating the seagulls that went after his fish! These boats carried up to 60 people at a time. Lots of material on the internet if you are interested. I read that he got as far as Newfoundland and discovered ancient Nordic burial sites which possibly pre date Christ.

See - The ancients were just as intelligent and with fewer resources at their hands. Proves that we are not as smart as we think we are with our technology!

:-)

What are iTunes doing?

An update on the earlier moan about iTunes pricing...

Today is worse folks. I went into iTunes Store this morning. Not 79p but 99p a track at iTunes store. Check it out. Most of the top songs have gone up another 20p. (WAS 99c in the USA = 59p) but today it's also gone up to $1.29 a track - at today's rate that's 79p folks (not the 99p we Brits pay). 

The Brits are almost paying 20 percent more for the same downloads. Face it, we are losers. We get shafted on petrol prices, music, tobacco, booze, car pricing, everything is begga bucks in the UK compared to many countries. Who do we think we are? Switzerland? Yeah we have the overheads but not the standards. We just lie down and take it. Suckers. Someone, somewhere is making a mint out of us. The Americans wouldn't take it. Why do we?    _| :-)   <--- my attempt at "loser".

Music industry shooting themselves in the foot.

In iTunes, hidden at the very bottom right there's a union jack flag. Click on it and you can choose your country. I chose USA hee hee. iTunes USA charge 99c per music track. Converted at today's rate that's 59p a track. They charge us 79p for the same track. Uh? What's the extra 20p (or 34 percent) for??? Because we are stupid and don't complain like the American public? No wonder they are talking about the demise of the CD. I remember in the late 1980's I bought CDs in LA and they were about £5 each whilst in the UK at the time they were £13.99.

Now 20 years later they are saving the manufacturing and distribution costs of CD's by placing them on-line for us to download. A huge saving for them, but not much of an incentive for us. We are told we can keep one back-up copy (at our own expense) No colour booklets unless we print them out (at our own expense). And they are still charging £8 for an album that has cost them hardly anything to market. May they all suffer from free downloads. Theivin b'stas are whingeing that they are not making any money due to free download sites. They would love to shut them down so they can greedily grab the entire global market for themseves.

It's not as though the artists get much out of the deal themselves either, it's the fat cats that run the entire music machinery that drive their rollers etc... moan moan 'kin moan. :-0 x

Flat screen monitors

Saw a preview of an exhibition in Germany showing the new LED (not LCD) flat screen monitors on the market. For Computers, laptops and televisions. Some of these screens are only 3mm thick. (Yes three millimetres!) Foo Kmee. Why? Because they can? I am sure they will find many uses eventually but its just a very attractive, must-have gimmick. Like the iPhone was... but I now have one...  and I would never, ever give it back. I look at my wife's Nokia and it reminds me of the 1980's MS DOS operating system. It's so... computery in it's logic. 

I remember getting an iPod MP3 player, soon after there were dozens of clones on the market. Even the giant Sony had to clone it. None of them were a substitute for the real thing. They are products for people who cannot afford a real iPod. Although I think iTunes is a great store – it's far too expensive at 79p a track ! C'mon Apple. You're way ahead! Downloads should be 50p a track. Also Apple - we need a 40 inch touch screen monitor to do our graphics on. Death to the mouse and keyboard!

Apple Mac OS - Snow Leopard

Despite some bad reviews and rumours I am quietly optimistic about Apple's new operating system: Snow Leopard.

I upgraded the G5pro and the MacBook to Snow Leopard (£25 quid upgrade for up to 5 computers). Still not found fault with Snow Leopard, apart from it not letting me use my own Helvetica Neue. It says it has its own and needs it for the system fonts.
So I let it, and it seems to work OK although if I open an old file using Helvetica Neue it says the fonts are missing. I just have to go through the routine of replacing Helvetica Neue with Helvetica Neue.

UPDATE >> It does not recognise drivers to scanner or printers, except an old HP LaserJet machine which is the only one that works. I downloaded all the latest drivers, also checked the Snow Leopard Install disk. Then gave up and attached the scanner to another G5 with regular Leopard installed. Perfect. So don't be hasty buying it folks until someone sorts the driver disaster out.(Bo-ring). 

Other than that it has lots of cool new features.  

BT 21st Century - why, thank you...

Just found out that I was migrated to BTs new "21st Century Network" about 4 weeks ago. My service has been going downhill since the third week in July. (3 weeks ago).

I am now offline for the 8th consecutive day. I phoned BT twice last week and they DENIED there is anything wrong with my line!!! The "support person" was adamant there is NO FAULT and she told me she will close the job ticket. BT are keeping quiet about this fopar obviously. I have spent into 3 figures updating modem/router, cabling, filters etc etc. Had IT technicians on their knees in my office (ooh matron). I can't do any more. :-(( <--- long chin). Check out these links: http://www.btplc.com/21cn/
http://www.switchedonuk.org/home/how/serviceInterruptions/
Oink. Oink... I'm a guinea pig. Warwick
PS I can now get on line as an extremely good friend ran an ethernet cable up to my office from his office downstairs and I am sharing his broadband. Cool huh? Owe you a pint Hugh (or a huge pint).

Melvyn Warren-Smith Exhibition

Melvyn's exhibition was a huge success in May this year. Here's a little video to celebrate it.

Warwick...