Words and Magic

Bag Review: Huckberry X Mystery Ranch 2DAP

Wed, 12 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been a big fan of Huckberry for a few years - I don’t buy much as I’m not based in the US, but when I saw this Huckberry-exclusive Mystery Ranch collaboration, I had to have it. I managed to pick one up and I’ve been using it solidly for a year now so I have a quick review.

The bag is an exclusive camo pattern called “Desert Tracks” and comes with a couple of co-branded patches which are nice. I swapped them out immediately but kept them for my patch wall. Areas of the bag that don’t have the camo pattern are black and I really like that colour combination. The pattern is lighter than it looks in the promo pictures but along with the black makes for a nice design. That and the AquaGuard-style zippers really ties it all together. This bag is not subtle though - it does stand out in the office.

My Year in Movies - 2024

Mon, 10 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

So it turns out 2023 was not an anomaly in terms of movies - even though I thought 68 was a lot for 2023, in 2024 I watched 67. 2024 saw a new entrant to my top 5 movies of all time in Dune: Part Two. The year also saw my eldest child become old enough to really enjoy cinema trips for appropriate movies so movies like the third installments of both Paddington and Sonic were cinema trips instead of on the TV.

My Year in Movies - 2023

Wed, 20 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I watched 68(!) movies this year - which seems like a lot but at the start of the year our youngest was going through a sleep regression which meant pretty early mornings. So, needing some easy watching I actually started the year by watching the Marvel movies in chronological order. There were some pretty great movies in that endgame arc, so this was pretty enjoyable run of movies.

The Batman was one that I had held out on watching but it was surprisingly good when I actually got around to it - A different direction but solid. Pretty enjoyable.

A quick review of the Kailh Box Navy Switches

Wed, 02 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

My first mechanical keyboard was a blue switch clicky keyboard. And over the years I’ve used a couple of Chinese branded keyboards with nice enough clicky switches. But since getting more into the hobby, I’ve been focused on linear switches - yellows, reds, and blacks. I wanted to try a good set of clicky switches though on a new keyboard build I was doing with the hot swap capable CIY X77. I’d read about the Kailh box navies as the king of clicky switches, so I picked up a couple of sets to try.

Filco Minila Modified

Tue, 01 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

When I posted my review of the Minila back in April this year, I was really enjoying the Filco board - the only reason I moved off it as my daily driver in work was sound profile was making me stand out a little in the open plan office. However, since it was no longer my daily driver, I decided to try a couple of mods out on it to see if I could get a more muted sound from the board. One that might compete with my new Vortex Cypher with cherry silent red switches.

A review of Vortex's Cypher mechanical keyboard

Wed, 19 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I have been trying to find the perfect mechanical keyboard for work for a little while. I started out the Logitech G413 but that lacked the customisation that I really wanted, and I was slowly moving on from my love of frameless designs. I had been intrigued by smaller form factors and managed to pick up a 60% Mini One 2 from Ducky with Cherry Silent Red switches.

The silent reds were perfect for the office, but increasingly I was feeling limited by the form factor and the lack of arrow keys in particular. Next came the Filco Majestouch Minila seemed like the perfect combination of form factor/layout magic (60% with arrows!), but its Cherry Black switches were starting to get comments from the people around me when I was in the office on busy days.

Something Interesting No.2

Tue, 18 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In what can only be described as the return of a short lived blog series that literally no-one asked for, here we are again with Something Interesting. I know it’s been 4 years, but there was a lot going on! Anyway, these are the things that I’ve found interesting recently: Craig Mod, The Last Kingdom, Writing one sentence per line, and The Grug Brained Developer.

Craig Mod

I have fallen completely in love with Craig Mod’s writing and photography. The first time I remember coming across Craig Mod’s writing was in Wired Magazine and was instantly hooked. Craig Mod lives in Japan and travels around on these amazing trips, with sometimes some pretty weird goals. And yet, his photos and writing, and his willingness to talk to people - sometimes he reminds me of Paul Theroux’s travel books in this way - are infectious. I find myself adding tiny bakeries and restaurants in Japan to my “want to go” list on google maps. He puts together these special pop up email newsletters for each of these trips, and they are always a joy to behold. They will often be daily, but I’ll save them up to read in a long session on a Saturday morning.

One Good Thing - Jurassic World Dominion

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

When I read the Jurassic Park books as a teenager, I had already seen the first Jurassic Park movie a couple of years earlier. I really enjoyed those books, and they made an big impact on me - I read everything I could get my hands on from Michael Crichton. But the movie was bigger. It still looms in my memory as a huge event in my childhood. I remember the cinema (the Savoy), the plastic dinosaur set we bought, and the fast food afterwards. I loved the movie - I was probably around the perfect age for it - even though I was a bit young to appreciate some of the weirder Jeff Goldblum stuff. The characters, the story, the dinosaurs!

Filco Majestouch MiniLa Mechanical Keyboard Quick Review

Tue, 26 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The Filco Majestouch MINILA is the MINI LAyout (see what they did there?) version of their Majestouch keyboards. It’s a 68 Key compact 60% layout keyboard, but to get that many keys, including arrow keys, Filco had to make the layout a little strange. But by far the biggest difference is the split space/fn that really makes it stand out from other keyboards. Overall, the layout is taking me a little while to get used to so far!

Lockdown Watchlist Review - January Movies

Sat, 06 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Well, it’s been a while. Longest writing break I’ve ever taken. I’m going to try and pick it up again more regularly. But, for now, we’re in lockdown 3 and in January I decided to try and knock off as many movies from my watchlist as I could. I use Letterboxd to track the movies I watch and want to watch - my profile is here.

I watched 21 movies in January, so let’s kick this off with the worst - let’s get them out of the way.

Articles

Thu, 26 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Huawei P20 Pro Review

Fri, 27 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

After a year with the OnePlus 5, I was close to the end of my contract with Vodafone. I wasn’t over the moon with my experience with them so decided to make the move to Three. Three had a deal with the Huawei P20 Pro, with a free set of wireless headphones - the Bose QC35 II (which I still haven’t received), so I decided to make the move. I’ve been using the phone as my primary device for 2 weeks now.

Something Interesting No.1

Sun, 01 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This week the things I found most interesting: Adam Buxton’s excellent podcast. Kevin Rose spent more than 200 dollars on a blanket. Of course, climate change is affecting the trees. I want to live in a warehouse. Fast cars and muscle-bound men in a movie series.

Ramble Chat: Of course, I’m late to Adam Buxton’s great podcast. I’ve been listening to it almost non-stop. I loved ep.61 with Romesh Ranganathan, ep.67 with Aisling Bea, and Simon Amstell’s episode (ep.55). The one that really stood out though was ep.57 - Hassan Akkad. What an amazing story. Really worth a listen. The Adam Buxton Podcast

Aukey Mechanical Keyboard KM-G8 Review

Tue, 27 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

So it didn’t take long for me to convert to loving mechanical keyboards. It is, after all, only 4 or 5 months since I picked up the Logitech G413 which I reviewed here Logitech G413 Review. So I decided I had to track down a keyboard for use at home too. I had a couple of requirements: 1. It couldn’t be as expensive as the G413 as I wouldn’t be using it all day and 2. It had to have replaceable keycaps as customization would be nice in my home setup. So after a brief search, I came across the Aukey KM-G8.

Nokia Steel Review

Thu, 11 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve spent a couple of weeks with the Nokia Steel now and its a nice little device. It pairs with Nokia’s Health Mate application on my phone. I have some thoughts about the watch in general, and some specific issues. Those issue are minor but exist especially around the software.

I’ve only just started wearing a watch again last year after a gap of about 15 years. I was wearing a simple analogue watch that I bought after I got married. Not wanting to go full smartwatch - I mean, who really needs another thing to charge every night? - I figured I get something a little smart, but that still looked decent.

Amazon Echo vs Google Home in Ireland

Thu, 16 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Quick disclaimer: neither of these devices is officially available in Ireland so comparing them now for Irish users is probably doing both Amazon and Google a disservice. But, because both devices are interesting to Irish people they are simple enough to get here. I’ve been playing around with both Amazon’s Echo Dot and Google’s Home Mini for some time now, so here’s how they seem to compare to each other for the Irish market.

Gigabyte Aero 15 Review

Mon, 13 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

The Gigabyte Aero 15 a thin but powerful laptop. It features an almost bezel-less 15.6 display, 7th gen Intel Core i7 (7700HQ) and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 with 6GB of GDDR5 memory. The version I picked up has a 512GB SSD and 16GB of RAM, though both of these are upgradable. The laptop has a nice selection of ports, including mini-DP, USB 3 (Type A) and Thunderbolt 3. It’s available in three colours: black, green, and orange. I went for the orange version. Gigabyte Aero 15 Available from Amazon here. (Affiliate link)

End to End Game Reviews - Ghost Recon Wildlands

Wed, 11 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Open world games often offer a tonne of playability. Games like GTA or Far Cry often allow you to play on ignoring the story completely, or after completing it, allow you to free roam doing whatever you want. GTA, for instance, sucked a lot of hours from me. The main storylines, though, often didn’t encourage a lot of replay-ability. You play through the storyline and do whatever you want after that. You could start all over again but I doubt many people did. For whatever reason, Ghost Recon Wildlands for me was different – I played through the main storyline three times in a row.

Logitech G413 Review

Wed, 04 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Although I’ve worked in tech for around 15 years now, I’d never owned a mechanical keyboard. When I worked for IBM, there were a couple of older, long-haired, Linux admins who still rocked some classic beige mechanical keyboards but I never saw the appeal. They were loud and that meant they were pretty annoying for most of the people around us. Still, though, the idea stuck - why did they love them so much?

Can't install RMagick 2.16.0. Can't find MagickWand.h.

Fri, 01 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I was running a build of my site when I hit the following error: “Can’t install RMagick 2.16.0. Can’t find MagickWand.h.”

I had the following logs (I’ve abbreviated them for space):

Build started.
Pulling image jekyll/jekyll:3.4
Creating image started.
Sending build context to Docker daemon  2.048kB

Step 1/10 : FROM jekyll/jekyll:3.4
 ---> 131e7647f128
Step 2/10 : RUN apk add --no-cache imagemagick
 ---> Running in 459d10b95ee4
fetch http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.6/main/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz
fetch http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.6/community/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz
.
.
.
(20/20) Installing imagemagick (7.0.5.10-r0)
Step 3/10 : RUN apk add --no-cache imagemagick-dev
 ---> Running in edee017fe6d3
fetch http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.6/main/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz
fetch http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.6/community/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz
(1/2) Installing imagemagick-c++ (7.0.5.10-r0)
(2/2) Installing imagemagick-dev (7.0.5.10-r0)
.
.
.
Step 7/10 : RUN gem install rmagick
 ---> Running in a2c976ea58ce
Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
ERROR:  Error installing rmagick:
	ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

    current directory: /usr/local/bundle/gems/rmagick-2.16.0/ext/RMagick
/usr/local/bin/ruby -r ./siteconf20170831-7-nke7aj.rb extconf.rb
checking for gcc... yes
checking for Magick-config... no
checking for pkg-config... yes
checking for outdated ImageMagick version (<= 6.4.9)... no
checking for presence of MagickWand API (ImageMagick version >= 6.9.0)... no
checking for Ruby version >= 1.8.5... yes
checking for stdint.h... yes
checking for sys/types.h... yes
checking for wand/MagickWand.h... no

Can't install RMagick 2.16.0. Can't find MagickWand.h.
*** extconf.rb failed ***
Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of necessary
libraries and/or headers.  Check the mkmf.log file for more details.  You may
need configuration options.
.
.
.
The command '/bin/sh -c gem install rmagick' returned a non-zero code: 1
Build failed !!!.

After quite a bit of Google it turns out that RMagick 2.16.0 is not compatible with the newest version of ImageMagick (Version 7), but it looks like its only on older versions of Ruby.

End to End Game Reviews - The Witcher 3

Mon, 28 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Based on Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski’s set of fantasy books, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is CD Projekt RED’s third installment in it’s Witcher Series of games. The games follow the story of Geralt, a monster hunter on various quests and this third installment revolves mostly the Wild Hunt and its quest to capture Geralt’s adopted daughter Ciri. I feel like that plot synopsis doesn’t do this game justice as its much bigger than that. The scale of this game is absolutely enormous, with huge locations and an almost never ending set of stories. It might just be the best game I’ve ever played, if not the greatest role playing game of all time.

Jekyll, Grunt, and Buddy

Sun, 27 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

So after years playing with Wordpress, I moved to flat file html, using various systems to build this site. Recently I’ve been using Jekyll for that with Grunt for some nice pre and post processing. This was a great setup for a little while. But it had one fairly annoying limitation - at least for me anyway - I was tied to doing everything on one machine. Being a systems administrator this single point of failure was annoying.

Quick ways to increase your pagespeed score

Thu, 20 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Instead of doing actual real work yesterday, I procrastinated and decided to take a look at my Google Pagespeed score again. I’ve always kind of cheated and run it against my index page - Dan O’Neill - which is basically just some links and some text. Even then my score wasn’t great - around the 74 mark. But I decided to run it on one of my more beefy posts yesterday (Six of the very best space pictures) and was amazed when I got a score of 4. 4/100. Woeful. So decided to take a look and see what I could do and in the end got my score to 97/100.

Six of the very best space pictures

Wed, 12 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been obsessed with space for as long as I can remember. So much so, I made my wife and I detour as far as Kennedy Space Centre on part of our honeymoon in Florida. Recently I saw Thomas Pesquet’s photo of the Cygnus spacecraft from the ISS again and it reminded me that I really needed to throw together a list of my favourite space photographs.

This is that photo and one of the more recent photographs in this list. It was featured all over the place recently and for good reason - it’s a pretty stunning photograph. Taken by Thomas Pesquet, Expedition 51 Flight Engineer, it shows the Cygnus spacecraft on its way to the ISS with a truly epic backdrop behind. Credit: Thomas Pesquet and NASA/ESA

Jupiter Approaching

Wed, 24 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Video Composition & Copyright: Peter Rosén et al.; Music: The Awakening by Clemens Ruh

The video itself is not what I expected it to be - I’ll let APOD explain:

… a team of 91 amateur astrophotographers took over 1,000 pictures of Jupiter from the Earth with the resulting images aligned and digitally merged into the featured time-lapse video.

The Honeymoon - St Lucia

Tue, 07 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Arriving into St Lucia by plane might be one of the more memorable window seats I’ve ever had. A beautiful green island with some spectacular geography sticking out of the perfect blue ocean. Flying from Miami to St Lucia was a quick flight to what might be my new favourite island on the planet.

So it was the second part of our honeymoon - the first being in Orlando - and we wanted to head to somewhere special. Some of our friends and family had been to St Lucia before and it came highly recommended, they stayed at the north of the island at the Body Holiday resort. We fancied somewhere a little different and our travel agent in trailfinders recommended The Capella at Marigot Bay. We were glad they did because it was amazing.

The Honeymoon - A Day at Kennedy Space Centre

Sat, 28 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Kennedy Space Centre was one of the places I’d most wanted to go since I was a child, so I managed to squeeze in a trip there on my honeymoon. I booked transport to and from KSC with GrayLine, after buying tickets online directly from KSC Visitor Centre.

The day started very early, with a 20 min walk from our hotel to the closest pickup point at a nearby hotel. We met our driver for the trip and started our journey out to the Cape which is about an hour from International Drive. Our driver gave us all some nice tips and a bit of personal history. It was not a busy day so we arrived and were able to walk straight in after some photos of the NASA meatball and the JFK water feature.

The Honeymoon - Universal's Harry Potter Wonderland

Sat, 21 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

On the Monday we left on a hotel shuttle to the Universal theme parks. The hotel is nicely positioned, and we were there in 20 mins. There was a quick security checkpoint and a walk down to the “city walk” area. We bypassed everything here and went straight into the Studios section of the park, then a quick queue with our pre-purchased tickets, and into the park. Couple of maps picked up and we walked to the north east of the park.

The Honeymoon - Orlando's Parc Soleil, The Hard Sell

Sat, 14 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

The first leg of my honeymoon took us to Orlando - primarily to go to Universal because of my new wife and her life long love of everything Harry Potter. This also gave me a chance to go somewhere I’d always wanted to go - Kennedy Space Centre. Neither disappointed. The hotel though?

After a quick flight over to Manchester from Dublin, we took the million mile walk between terminals to board a Virgin Atlantic flight to Orlando. This was my first Virgin flight and it was superb. From now on, if I can help it I’ll always fly transatlantic with them - great service, food, entertainment systems, everything.

Movie Review - Independence Day Resurgence is a really bad movie

Fri, 24 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Independence Day: Resurgence is Roland Emmerich’s follow up to Independence Day which was made way back 1996 and stars Liam Hemsworth, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Jessie Usher, Maika Monroe, Sela Ward and William Fichtner. I have some thoughts on this train wreck of a movie, but the TL;DR is do not waste your money on this tripe.

In no particular order, as I’m writing them off the top of my head. Oh and spoilers abound:

Decoded Day One - From Glitches to Great Talks

Thu, 05 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

The DECODED Open Source Conference is a two-day, four-track conference with a focus on Azure, IoT, and Machine Learning.

First off - the venue. Decoded was held in the O’Reilly building in UCD. This was a strange decision given that there were 4 tracks but only 3 separate rooms in this building. This forced one of the tracks over to another building. I did not bother to go over there even though one or two of the sessions looked really interesting like “How we built an inaccessible accessibility tool (and how you can do better!)” by Sara Spalding. UCD is an awkward enough place to get to for me anyway, from the the north side of the city.

How I found my favourite books

Thu, 03 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

For World Book Day, I thought I’d share a few little stories about how I found my favourite books…

When I was in secondary school, I was pretty much a nerd. I played on the school’s hurling and football teams but I was fairly standard nerd. I read quite a lot, mostly did my homework, was half decent at chess (but have no patience so not that good) so I guess that qualified me as a nerd.

Loving this Firewatch-Themed Desktop & Text Editor combination

Thu, 18 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I’m a massive fan of changing my desktop background on a whim, so I’m always very impressed by people who take the time to really think out their backgrounds, colour schemes, and everything else.

So while on Twitter recently I came across a post linking me to Kevin Clark’s excellent custom ATOM setup and desktop wallpaper combination that I’m really liking. Taking inspiration from a game a lot of people are talking about right now, its a very impressive setup that I of course copied immediately.

My 2015 books so far… Part 2

Thu, 06 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Back in March I wrote a quick update on the books I had planned to read this year. I was a little ahead of schedule then, having read 4 books by then. Now I’m 3 ahead of schedule, having read Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the jackal, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, On the Map by Simon Garfield, John Feinstein’s first book A Season on the Brink, and The Old Patagonian Express by Paul Theroux.

Great Video from AWOLNATION

Fri, 10 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Awolnation just dropped a new video for one of their songs from the album Run. The song is I Am, and you may have heard it recently on the newest Welcome to the World of Red Bull video. I’ve been a massive fan of Awolnation since they exploded onto the scene with Sail - https://youtu.be/tgIqecROs5M.

Bulmers advert 2015

Thu, 21 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Are you currently enjoying the background music to Bulmers new “Not A Moment Too Soon” advert? That’s because its the brilliant Recondite with a tune called Levo. It’s played around once a day here in WAM towers. Lovely.

Jetman Dubai - Young Feathers 4K

Sun, 17 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Gotta thank Digg for finding me this one. What a video!

Always a massive fan of these guys, people willing to do cool things in Jetsuits or wing suits. If you like this, then this other video is one of my favourites. It’s a video for Kill Them With Colour’s remix of an M83 tune - Lower Your Eyelids To Die With The Sun:

The Art of Raphael Lacoste

Sat, 16 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve said it before, there are some games that stick with you for a long time. You know the ones, the ones that you compare other games to like Mass Effect, the games that you look up the soundtrack like the Halo series, the ones where you buy the spin off book series like EVE, or the games that you look up the artists afterwards - exactly what I did in the case of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag.

Why I read, and why I want to create more

Wed, 13 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Having changed job recently, and rejoined the commuting masses, I’ve actually been able to rekindle my reading a little. The break in one routine allowed me to change another. Instead of reading twitter all the way home on the odd day I was in the office, now I reach for a book.

No matter the subject matter, its a great temporary escape. Its the same feeling I get while engrossed in a great movie or game. Books, uniquely, allow you to set your own pace. Books give you the ability to stop and think about what you’re reading - each sentence if you wanted to. The ability to look up a related fact or even to imagine yourself in that situation to think about what you would do.

My 2015 Books so far...

Thu, 19 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

So, we’re coming to the end of March, and I’ve managed to keep to my schedule of books to read in 2015 - I’m actually a little ahead. So far this year I’ve read “American Gods” by Neil Gaiman, “Raising Steam” by Terry Pratchett, “The Future History of the Arctic” by Charles Emmerson, and Paul Theroux’s “The Great Railway Bazaar”.

I’ll start with my most recent read - American Gods. I had previously never read any Neil Gaiman so I really didn’t know what to expect. The book started well, then seemed to go a bit mental, but managed to hold my attention really well as I tried to understand what was happening. I really enjoyed it once I let story unfold. I’ll definitely try and read more of his work when I can.

Short Film - Wanderers

Tue, 13 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Is there a better voice than Carl Sagan? I’m not sure.

On Vimeo Erik Wernquist talks a bit more about his film:

Wanderers is a vision of humanity’s expansion into the Solar System, based on scientific ideas and concepts of what our future in space might look like, if it ever happens. The locations depicted in the film are digital recreations of actual places in the Solar System, built from real photos and map data where available.

Epic Drone footage

Sat, 10 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Drones with mounted cameras are showing us extraordinary places and events from unfamiliar angles.

The video above is a mixture of drone and other footage from Chernobyl and it’s nearest city - Pripyat. Abandoned after the disaster at the power plant it is now one of the most interesting places on earth. A city being reclaimed by nature.

My 2015 Reading List

Mon, 05 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Last year was the first year I set out a target of books to read - 12 for the year. I failed miserably. I think I got to 5 in the end. I’m clearly no Rick O’Shea (~~97 books in 2014~~ Actually, looks like he finished 100 books by the 31st of Dec).

I’ve set myself a similar target for this year, but I’ve put a little bit more planning into it this time.

Virunga

Fri, 02 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I was on a bit of a Netflix binge when I mentioned on twitter that I really enjoyed the documentary “Blackfish”. Someone I follow on twitter (@diarmuid_r) recommended I check out another documentary that’s currently on Netflix - Virunga. A documentary about the rangers risking their lives guarding mountain gorillas from poachers and armed rebels in Africa’s Virunga National Park.

Diarmuid was absolutely right - it is an amazing film. Powerfully moving, and an insight into something I knew next to nothing about.

Game Review - The Banner Saga

Tue, 02 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I picked up Stoic Games’ turn based RPG The Banner Saga over the weekend for a pretty nice price in the Steam sale. TL;DR If it’s still at that price, I recommend picking it up.

Just a quick note - this review maybe has some spoilers. I’ve been as unspecific as possible but some people might not want to read this, if you’re thinking of playing it later.

I’ve been playing a lot of games recently that don’t really have a story - Games like Civ 5, Sim City, and most recently the puzzle game Mini Metro. So when I came across this in the steam sale I thought I’d take a look at something more story driven. The Banner Saga did not disappoint - there’s a strong focus on story.

Fences debut Arrows from upcoming album Lesser Oceans

Fri, 19 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

[] Fences released a couple of songs from their new album Lesser Oceans (to be released Jan 15 next year). The song above is Arrows, the collaboration with the also Seattle based Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. This is not the first time that the band and Macklemore and Ryan Lewis have gotten together - they’ve collaborated before on songs and most recently on Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s The Heist.

Every job will require some kind of coding

Fri, 12 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I was in the middle of reading all the Indian summer tweets when I came across this from Silicon Replublic:

“Every job will require some kind of coding”

Huh, that’s a bit of a sweeping statement.

When I started writing this piece I was almost just going to write a huge list of jobs that will never involve writing any code. I was just going to embed the tweet, call bullshit, and list 200 jobs. But it turns out, that probably isn’t very constructive.

The trailer for Sea Horses

Mon, 08 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Wait! Don’t watch the video just yet - let me tell you this first… I cannot tell whether the voiceover is some ironic in-joke or just really, really bad. Though the visuals more than make up for it, so go ahead and watch it.

A bit more about the movie from Doug Gardner and Jared Lloyd:

The Rush to Relevance

Fri, 05 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re a long time user of twitter you’re used to how it works - you follow who you want and get the experience you want from it. With the news from a recent Gigaom article however, it looks like that might be changing.

Twitter seems to be suggesting that it’s going to move to a more Facebook style curated feed. And that is not really going down well with experienced twitter users. Twitter’s reasoning? Relevance. From the Wall Street Journal’s piece on the same news, Anthony Noto, Twitter’s chief financial officer said:

Does anyone listen to movie critics any more?

Wed, 30 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The most recent Transformers movie did something that surprised no-one but seemingly upset everyone. It defied endless critical reviews to make a huge amount of money at the box office. So what does a movie have to do to flop? And does anyone listen to movie critics any more?

That last question intrigued me, enough to do a tiny bit of research and put this quick piece together. Just note that I am in no way a statistician, I barely passed my statistics module in college. Take all of this with a pinch of salt as its almost all anecdotal!

The amazing art in No Man's Sky

Mon, 23 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

From a dark cave you emerge to a beautifully lit orange coloured field, and it’s at this point that you realise that this is going to be a different game. No Man’s Sky debuted in December of last year with a beautiful trailer that showed some beautiful gameplay and made some excellent technical promises. For most of you this won’t be the first time you’ve see or heard of this game but if it is the first time you’re hearing about No Man’s Sky - it wont be the last.

Did IKEA just make the best advert for beds ever?

Tue, 10 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I watch quite a lot of youtube videos and came across this ad as a pre-roll on one of them - And it held on to me - I could not click that “skip ad” button. And at the end of the day, isn’t that the greatest judge of an advert? You have the ability to skip it but don’t?

Willem Dafoe set to music? Yes please...

Tue, 03 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

What a great voice Willem Dafoe has… instantly recognisable.

So I had to find this piece from the new History Channel’s TV ad and some creative google searches later - here it is. It’s called Ring and it’s by British duo Mint Royale and it was released a few months back.

Book Review - World War Z

Fri, 25 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Apparently I was late to the World War Z party. First time I’d ever heard of World War Z was a trailer for the movie a couple of years back. Movie looked like it ticked all the boxes for me - apocalypse, zombies, and general action/adventure.

Movie turned out to be good, even after all the trouble with its production.

Every time I spoke to anyone about it, without fail, almost every single person told me to read the book too - which was interesting because I’d never even realised it was a book. Seems like everyone read the book behind my back and never told me about it! Everyone also warned me that it was different from the movie - and boy were they right.

Rebecca Mock's Beautiful Illustrations

Mon, 21 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Rebecca Mock is an illustrator and comic artist from Brooklyn in the US. I came across her subtly animated illustrations on tumblr and immediately loved them. Very similar to cinemagraphs that are popular at the minute but somehow with more life and character.

Rebecca’s other illustration work is just as full of character and life and more importantly available to purchase as beautiful prints.

Book Review - One on One

Tue, 15 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

If you’ve written about 20 sports books, you’re going to have some really interesting stories about writing those books. This is what John Feinstein has done here - a really interesting read about all of the various characters that he’s come across in the various sports he’s written about.

The first John Feinstein book I read was called “Open: Inside the Ropes at Bethpage Black” and I loved it. He had complete behind the scenes access to the event, the people running it, working at it, and taking part in it. The first U.S. Open held at a public course, it was always going to be an interesting story but John Feinstein’s writing really brought you “inside the ropes”.

In Defence of Minecraft

Wed, 12 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Or, why it doesn’t need anyone to defend it.

Over the last number of years I’ve read articles and pieces from both sides of the gaming debate. People will both attack and defend games for their perceived good or ill effects on the world.

It’s great to finally come across a game that doesn’t have any of that back and forth. Minecraft doesn’t need to be defended because it has no real detractors. (Of course, some people don’t like it, for any number of reasons, but that’s not the same.) Minecraft has become one of my go to games. Whenever I have a couple of hours to spare I load up my world - Frank’s Tower II, and find myself randomly building cobblestone skyscrapers (complete with a floor with a forest in it) around my player compound.

Beautifully Shot Hyperlapse from Above the Clouds

Mon, 10 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Stumbled across this blog post from Matthew Vandeputte on why he always chooses the window seat…

He created a beautiful hyperlapse on a recent flight and its well worth a quick watch. Also took some beautiful photographs too that are worth a look in this gallery. That first shot is particularly beautiful.

Eben Moglen - Freedom in The Cloud