Inside View from Ireland: Friday filings

UNDERWAY -- I am carrying several Friday broadsheets with me aboard Irish Rail while sitting beside a Garmin Etrex GPS receiver that needs a clear view of the sky. I know we are somewhere along the 7°30 West longitude line but I need two satellite signals to determine accuracy within 30 metres. Without two satellites, I am literally off the rails shown on the screen. So it's into the papers for a quick look at things that have also been discussed on Irishblogs.

Rural isolation. The Rural Options Development Partnership wants the Government to expand the Rural Transport Initiative.¹ The elderly need bus services. This fact of life should be considered by couples when building their one-off rural homes. As it stands, the tax man may pay to subsidise travel for homes that could have been built an easy walk away from town centres.

Hello, IRMA. We're pissed off. John McCormac spotted how Jamie Smyth flipped through www.boards.ie and printed some of the defiant messages from music consumers, highlighting the Irish Recorded Music Association's wrong-footed foray into the consumer lifestyles of Irish music collectors.² Like other music industry spokespeople, IRMA is doing the legal thing while ignoring the pliable nature of file sharing and without acknowledging that it would be smarter to row in behind emerging online sales channels for music tracks.

See the feeling. Danny O'Brien writes about affective computing and concentrates on learning responses from a webcam view of a respondent's pupils.³ I have an easier method. Ask the people on the other end of a webcam session to pull the camera back so you can see posture because that is more revealing. Record the audible track and open the file with a sound editor. You can actually see "eureka moments" and "collaborative tension" by glancing at the oscilloscopic traces.

¹Noel Baker -- "Rural dwellers lose out on services" in the Irish Examiner, April 22, 2005.
²Jamie Smyth -- "Irma strikes warning note to music file sharers" in The Irish Times Technology section, April 22, 2005.
³Danny O'Brien -- "PCs could pick up on your range of feelings" in The Irish Times