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Photos of Kenmare

Always interesting to find a headstone with one’s family name on it.

Headstone

Or this holy well beside the beach, with trinkets and beads tied to the holly bush above it. One note put there with a 2p piece on it had a wish from children asking St Finian if they could fly someday. Maybe I should have put a wish to win €112 million in the Lotto.

St Finian's Well

More photos of Kenmare here.

Japan plans mind-boggling number-cruncher

Now will this computer one day sit on my desktop?

Japan has revealed plans to build a supercomputer so staggeringly powerful that it will be five times swifter than the 500 fastest systems on the planet today – combined.

The supercomputer will boast a peak performance of 10 petaflops and should be completed in 2011, officials from Japan’s ministry for Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology announced on Monday. This means it will be able to perform 10 x 1015 mathematical calculations – better known as floating-point operations (or flops) – every second. A desktop computer, for perspective, has a maximum performance of roughly one billion flops per second.

A comment from a source

Given the recent controversy one of my ‘sources’, has asked to put his views on here.

Speaking as one of the “sourcesâ€? for some of Gavin’s stories from London and in particular from the London Underground (LUL) side of things I take exception to the remarks made by fmk.

I could go on all day, however I will just point out that for those of you who weren’t in London on the day in question, the rumours were rife right from the first moment that the shooting took place especially for those of us who work on LUL. I however do not tend to react to rumour and immediately contacted colleagues working on the Northern line to find out details from those in the vicinity. Unfortunately as we in London have found out recently, whenever these attacks or apparent attacks take place the mobile phone system is shut down by the powers that be and consequently I was unable to speak to some of those I would have liked to.

However I did manage to speak to a friend of mine who relayed to me the comments made by the first passengers leaving the station after the shooting. Hence the “bomb beltâ€? line. This line of thought was also relayed to me eventually by several staff who were working in the vicinity at the time. The point should also be made that Sir Ian Blair said on national and international television that the shooting was “directly linked to the bombingsâ€?.

It should also be pointed out, as Gavin has already stated he was publishing the information about the detonators exploding but not the main charges long (hours) before anyone in the media, if that doesn’t come from a reliable source then I don’t what a reliable source is!

On sources and rumours

In light of FMK’s much commented upon remarks I guess I should respond, given that my blog has been implicated, and complained about. I guess I should quote the remarks, but as Colm noted, none of these complaints are personal. Here is the Yahoo Groups comment:

Yesterday, Gavin informed his readers that “sources” had reliably
informed him that the man shot dead in Stockwell tube station was
definitely wearing a bomb belt. Today, the police are embarassed to
have to admit that the shooting was one monumental cock-up. Does this
sort of reporting of rumour as fact, dressing gossip up with words
like sources (which could be anything from Pop Bitch to the PM)
really help? Does it make the blogosphere look like the heir to the
Fourth Estate that so many bloggers claim it is, or does it make the
blogosphere look like one of the more cheap and tawdry tabloids, with
no real interest in fact and only interested in sensationalism and
being the first with the story?

And then on the Sigla Blog

Did the blogosphere handle yesteday’s shooting on the London Underground appropriately, or did posts like Gavin’s claim that “sourcesâ€? had confirmed to him that the shot man was wearing a bomb belt feel to you more and more like the lowest-common-denominator tabloid reporting of the likes of Sky News, reporting from the sort of news outlets that are happier to be first with the story rather than right? What “sourcesâ€? were Slugger and Gavin relying on? Pop Bitch?

I think before moving onto the substantive issue at question I should ask my readers the following: does the post in question warrant the description given? To the point the post was described as :

Gavin informed his readers that “sources” had reliably informed him that the man shot dead in Stockwell tube station was definitely wearing a bomb belt…claim that “sourcesâ€? had confirmed to him that the shot man was wearing a bomb belt…

‘Reliably’, ‘definately’ and ‘confirmed’ are the crux words here I would guess. If my post is considered to be any of those, could readers let me know, perhaps I am not qualifiying my posts enough. I would have thought that…

We shall have to wait for confirmation.

…would have covered my ass. Or if you thought the above qualification did not cover my ass sufficiently, then maybe my ass is too big. And if big media is fact-checking their asses, then the Irish Times frontpage, a story by Frank Millar on the following day could be looked at:

The Metropolitan Police say the man shot dead by officers at Stockwell tube station in London yesterday was “directly linked” to their ongoing and expanding anti-terrorist operation. Frank Millar, London Editor, reports.

However, amid conflicting reports last night, it was not clear whether the Asian man, who had been under surveillance, was one of the four suspects in Thursday’s unsuccessful attempt to bomb London’s transport network.

As police released CCTV images of the four men wanted for questioning about the attempt to cause explosions on three Underground trains and a bus, Muslim leaders expressed concern about a possible “shoot-to-kill” policy.

Gosh. And I wrote my post at 6pm on Friday, that’s the front page of the IT on Saturday morning.

As for my sources, they remain anonymous as long as they choose. And if you don’t like that, read a different blog, like Sigla’s Blog. Where there will definately be no speculation, rumour, conjecture, or anything besides considered thoughts on events. And that’s fair enough, whatever floats your boat. I choose to do different stuff, if readers like it then they do, if they don’t then, well, they don’t.

I don’t believe I have ever been up to “peddling rumour as fact”, but if you think I have drop me a line. Leave a comment. At least blogs allow people to do that.

On a side note, my sources were reliable in relation to earlier events, for example finding out that the explosions were only the detonators, and the actual bombs had failed to go off, and I posted that at 2.00pm, only 35 minutes after I heard the first reports of explosions on the News at One. In fact I had it direct from multiple sources, either at the scene, or indirectly from witnesses. I guess I could say that it helps when you know hacks in London, and people who work on the Underground. But even with all that I didn’t play it up, I just said it’s more than likely just the detonators. So if that is peddling rumours then I’m guilty.

More on the substantive issue of the reason blogs exist later.

Windows Vista

So Microsoft have finally named the long, long, long awaited follow up to Windows XP. It is to be called Windows Vista. I think it’s a crap name to be honest, but then what do you expect from Microsoft?

They also had a little PR/hack do for the Xbox 360 in Dublin yesterday. The reports I watched were all journos getting hardons over a new fangled-game-thingy. I was livid – it was more like a free ad for Microsoft than a balanced view on new consoles. This ties in nicely with the current debate on the Irishblogs Yahoo Group about tech journos!

Hark if I only I could play all my games on an Apple, then my switch would be guaranteed.

Update:

El Reg seem to agree.


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