Estd. 2002. Politics, tech, startups, media, law, history, philosophy
October 2005:
When you are talking in terms of massive and unprecedented growth, created by this Government, in a €41 billion budget, the level of expenditure of misspent money is relatively very, very small.
Then Minister for Communications Noel Dempsey, speaking about the HSE’s controversial €150 million PPARS computer system.
I bet they are wishing they had that “very, very small” €150m handy now.
Update: The audio is here.
Gizmodo and Engadget are live blogging the event. Let’s see what happens.
Update: Ok, I’m not going to live blog the live bloggers but I will add the most important bits.
Nvidia has been confirmed, the 9400m.
Multi touch glass trackpad.
New MacBook Pro unveiled. Looks nice. Solid state drive option too. Two graphics cards! Removable hard drive. Shipping today. $1999 for lower end, $2499 for higher end.
Next: Macbook Air:
We’re putting the 9400M in the Air, adding a 120GB hard drive, and we’ve got a 128GB SSD as an option — in addition we’re putting in a mini display port
Next: New 24 inch LED display.
Next: MacBook
As expected, same design as the Pro, but smaller.
The new MacBook Pro.
The new MacBook.
The new LED display.
I had a quick look round the tank base in Gori two weeks ago, and posted some photos. Towards the end of my trip to Georgia, I made my way up to the castle in the centre of Gori – it gives commanding views of the town and the surrounding area.
Looking south I took a high resolution image of the tank base, and the hills surrounding it. You can make out about eight destroyed tanks, that had moved from the tank base. To the very left of the tank base you can see one of the tower blocks bombed by the Russians. In the foreground you can see the Stalin museum (tall building, Georgian flag).
How many tanks can you make out? When in Flickr click on “All sizes” on the top left of the picture to see the picture at the full 8 megapixel resolution.
Don’t ask me how I got access.
When I was in Borjormi I managed to get into the grounds of the summer residence of the Georgian president, Mikhail Saakasvhili. The house was formerly occupied by Eduard Shevardnadze, and before Soviet times it was a Dacha of Tsar Nicholas II and the Romanov Dynasty.
The residence was where Saakashvili and his Ukrainian counterpart signed the Borjomi Declaration recently.
No photos of the interior I’m afraid – it was off limits.
Whatever about the ultimate purpose of planes such as this (killing people), they sure are impressive pieces of technology. If only we put the same innovation (and billions) into more constructive endeavours.
Jimmy Dorsey and his Orchestra – Man, That’s Groovy. Something so nice about it. And isn’t Ms O’Connell stunning?
Finally it is confirmed, Apple will unveil new MacBooks and MacBook Pros on October 14.
I can’t say I’m not tempted to upgrade my existing MacBook Pro.
My fellow prisoners…
My post on the Georgian Navy has been dugg… please go digg it if you like it. 🙂
It is being reported that Russian forces are pulling back from their ‘buffer zones’ around Ossetia and Abkhazia.
I took some photos in Karaleti on October 1, between Gori and Tskhvinali. This checkpoint appears now to have been dismantled.
It’s a little hard to make out, but you can see the extent of tracks in the tarmac I talked about before. Some journos packing up and leaving too.
