return to pearse

According to flickr, I’m now a pro photographer.

Of course, what it doesn’t tell you is that this simply means I’ve paid them €20. Why?

This payment got rid of the maximum number of photos (previously 200), gave unlimited uploads (previously 2GB a month, which I never managed to meet) and unlimited sets (previously limited to 3). Making some more sets and organising my photos there a little better is fast moving up my list of things to do (after the exams).

In related make-me-very-happy news, Nine Lives, a band I took photos of at the skatepark opening are playing a support slot at the Ambassador in Dublin on Saturday night, and asked me to shoot it for them. Having only taken photos at a few gigs in small clubs, this’ll be the biggest venue I’ve ever shot at, and the first one with a pit in front of the crowd to protect photographers from moshing teens.

Roll on Saturday!

P.S. may have some more photos here soon.

This photo won this competition.

Well, sorta. As Caitriona explains here, she had a hard time picking a winner, so she decided to give two prizes (generous her).
Congrats to my fellow winner McAWilliams (I’ve just realised I haven’t added a link to him in the sidebar though I’ve been a viewer/reader(?) of his photoblog for a while now - Soon to be rectified).

Anyway, while trying not to ramble (I haven’t even prepared a speech), I’ll just say:

• Thanks to Caitriona for the competition (and particularly the prize: something I’d been interested in, but hadn’t worked up the nerve to buy.)
• Well done to the other entrants for their beautiful work, and comiserations to redmum, who unfortunately missed the deadline.
• Thanks also to Absolut, who asked Caitriona to run the competition and donated the prizes. (Similar competitions were run on other photoblogs, and they ran a website with entries and stuff)

I’m still not sure if I believe it.

TCAL, the ever-reliable source for Internet time-wasting is no more.

I’m gonna have to work a lot harder to find quality stuff on the net now.

Much mourning and messages of condolences continue on the announcement post.

My contribution:

I didn’t see that one coming.

To be honest, it’s the only way TCAL could have gone, and a great to way to end it.

Now they’ll have to give you the obligatory “end of career better give him an Oscar” type Blog Award.

PC World reports that

Microsoft, Google, [Yahoo, and Vodafone] will develop a code of conduct with a coalition of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to promote freedom of expression and privacy rights.

This seems to be quite related to these companies’ policies relating to censorship and monitoring of internet activities in China and similarly restrictive areas.

It’s good to see large corporations like these seriously considering their moral responsibilities and valuing peoples’ reservations about their conduct, and, as engadget reports, working with some very well supported and respected non-profit groups such as

the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, Business for Social Responsibility, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Human Rights Watch, and Reporters Without Borders.

Doubts have been expressed over how this code will be policed and enforced, but overall it looks like a step in the right direction.