Started a new site to review stuff - Jackdaw Fool
Using Twitter quite a bit - Twitter
Still writing articles and things - Hummingbird Mentality
Working and doing shows with these guys - Trinity FM

Alive on Bebo, Facebook, and Myspace.

Whats everybody making?

Off to cycle.

This is a momentous week for Irish radio, for two reasons.

One, Phantom FM, everyones favorite career pirates turned Indy music saviors, have finally won their protracted legal case against Bob Geldolf's proposed ZedFM, and hit the Dublin airwaves Monday. I've been listening sporadically throughout today and have been pleasantly surprised. Nay saying prognosticators be damed, there's been far less Frans Ferdinand and Killers style trendiness than was predicted, and far more of Phantoms traditional mix of classic underground hits (think Rock Lobster), break through indy (Sufjan Stephens), and grunge rock staples (Pearl Jam etc) are being played than some predicted.

Two, Trinity FM are once again broadcasting. Check out our time table. If you live between Clontarf and Rathmines you should be able to pick us up. We've done a tonne of work improving the technical side of the station over the past few months, and I'd go as far as to say we are now producing some of the best student radio in the country. I'd particularly recommend Michael Lloyd (10pm - 12pm) on Wednesday, Nick Johnson's Plastic Soul (10pm - 12pm on Thursday), Eimer Crowe's Arts Review (5pm - 6.30pm on Friday), and even my own humble show, (Kick the Kat, 10pm - 12pm, tonight, Tuesday). I've had no prep time on this one, so it'll be seat of the pants, but I'll definitely be playing Joanna Newsom, Mirah, Sigur Ros, a couple of new Damien Rice tracks and some Theivery Corporation. If you're in the mood for a chilled alternative evening tune in.

You can get TFM on 97.3fm in Dublin city, or at Trinityfm.com.

now.

I and a friend are going on a mindbendingly awesome adventure of a lifetime to the US pretty soon..

More detail here.

If anyones interested in meeting up while we're there, we'd be more than happy to have a guide for a day :).

In case you're wondering, I mostly post to here now. I'm gona keep this journal just to read other peoples stuff, and maybe post horrible slander from time to time. But nothing public. You have been warned ;).

This is very thought provoking.

It's also available in full screen via bittorrent - http://thepiratebay.org/details.php?id=3425065.

So I saw Chomsky speak. And do you know..It wasn't that great. I began to notice for the first time how transparently he manipulates his audience - not surprising when you discover his early linguistic theories were the basis for the pseudo scientific (but practically effective) neuro linguistic programming. Both in his speech and writing he uses techniques like open loops - starting to describe and idea, then abandoning it, only to close it later in talk-, selective ambiguity and the assumption of consensus, identification with the audience (e.g.: use of 'we'), use of straw men etc. Of course many of these are common rhetorical devices, and do not necessarily prejudice the truth of his message, much of which I find myself in agreement with - but it still gives pause.

Had a meeting in the Institute of Neuroscience in college - if all goes well, starting next month I should be assisting with some behavioral phenotyping, electrophysiological measurement, and possibly synaptic staining of inbred and gene knockout mice. Yumdidlyumily questionably ethical...

Something Cory Doctorow said in the latest episode of This Week in Tech, made me realise that whats happening in the dispute between the entertainment industry and well..everyone else, is wider than just an argument over ownership. It's a battle about the power institutions have in the lives of individuals. Institutions in the form of unelected corporations, of Quangoic (sic) civil servant regulators, and lobbied and financed government officials. It's a battle to retain the illusion of independence granted by technology. The real question is whether enough people are addicted to the illusion to struggle for the reality.

Man I love media wiki. Doing a live net streaming show next Tuesday (10 - 12GMT) on Trinity FM; so I've set up a wiki page to form the playlist for the night. Check it out here.

Ahoy mateys, international talk like a pirate day has weighed anchor once more. T' day when we can be proud o' our piratical ways, and indulge in boundless piracy, in t' aye and certain knowledge that landlubbers shall walk t' maggot ridden planks, keelhaul under our stiffened timbers, and end up in Davy Jones Locker, yar!

- Black Harry Vane

Why is it so important for life to have meaning? Not merely to seem meaningful to us, providing space for a sense of purpose, fulfillment and growth, but to possess an intrinsic meaning.

We go through agonies of self examination, religious uncertainty and philosophic questioning - all when it seems essentially self evident that our lives don't follow a preordained plan, or lay a neatly cumulative set of challenges in our paths.

Life, I'll posit, lacks all meaning beyond that our genes and wishes impose on it. Perhaps the acknowledgement of this is what certain forms of Buddhism are concerned with; accepting the death of desire in exchange for some possibility of reconciliation with the actual. But in the end isn't that just another philosophy created to cope with this desperate, and futile seeming, need for meaning?

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