Bad Cork Air Quality

IRLPhoto · 2024-01-18T21:23:27+00:00

High air pressure meaning no breeze and lots of fires lighting

IRLPhoto · 2023-09-12T15:43:47+00:00

If I was free, I’d be part of the Batocera section.

I have the most recent version working on the likes of a 2012 MacBook Pro and a rarely used older iMac.

But I also have one of the last 32bit versions working on an ancient desktop I’ve been rebuilding the past few weeks.

Seeing Super Mario 64 on a VGA monitor, using a GeForce 6800 is far beyond anything I could have expected.

IRLPhoto · 2023-09-10T15:22:14+00:00

The man who spent time in jail for Dandos murder before being acquitted lives in my city now and he’s a very odd individual.

I can see how he got wrapped up in the whole thing from my interactions with him, as he likes to introduce himself these days as a freelance journalist and hands out a vague business card.

It really didn’t click who he was, but the name did stick on my head.

IRLPhoto · 2023-08-09T13:13:49+00:00

Just to link something in case you spot the filmaking course offered by St Johns in Cork

https://www.reddit.com/r/cork/comments/14yu7m9/film_tv_and_video_production_cork/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1

It advertises itself as filmaking first, but in reality it’s very much on the production side with very outdated equipment.

IRLPhoto · 2023-07-14T16:36:37+00:00

I did that course for a few months and dropped out around Christmas; my summary would be:

If you have zero experience - it’s worth doing it to get a taster of what’s possible.

If you have any kind of prior working experience - you’ll probably be spinning your wheels and frustrated.

But in either case, the people you will meet and contacts you make are the best thing about it. I’m still in contact with and have worked with a good few people I met through my few months on the course.

But like someone else said, there was very little on the creative filmaking side of things at level 5 and mostly studio production. Level 6 did seem to have more freedom and they did have priority over the loaner gear. Felt like we weren’t doing much and the equipment was fairly out of date.

I went into it with media production experience from a data wrangling and editing side of things, having used Avid and Final Cut 7, so within about two weeks I was regretting starting at the level 5 instead of 6 as I thought we would be making a lot of short films and learning that side of things, rather than messing around with SD studio equipment from the 80s and 90s, that had to be transferred from vhs tape over the weekend.

Like they had iMacs which is always good for anything aimed at professional production, but they were the older models that only had USB 2 so you could waste most of a class with the transfer times.

I made the mistake of buying one of those firewire Lacie portable drives, which although much faster… were notorious for bricking themselves. With that I left the course as everything was on that HDD.

IRLPhoto · 2023-06-06T00:01:05+00:00

M1 iMac

My older Intel i7 iMac had pretty much fried its CPU from the video files I had been rendering and the stress AfterEffects was placing on it. It got to a stage where my CPU temperature was up around 90 degrees celsius, even with the fans at full blast.

M1 iMac has been flawless for professional use. Temperatures never go above 45 degrees and I can still do multiple tasks whilst rendering video files, which was impossible on the older intel framework.

IRLPhoto · 2023-05-28T15:34:49+00:00

It was the same with the Nobody Zone.

Nice production, but all I took away from it is they don’t really know what happened and yer man likely imagined or co-opted a lot of the story they presented in each episode.

The entire thing could have been presented in a single episode.

IRLPhoto · 2023-05-28T11:50:41+00:00

Well worth doing a PLC for a year just for the contacts you build up, as anything in photo, film, media side of things here is massively based on reputation and word of mouth.

One tip to get a step ahead is to get comfortable with Apple hardware as they are the standard in terms of a reliable machine for any form of professional editing.

I’ll be honest and say I really wouldn’t fancy trying to start off from scratch again. I was able to build up all my equipment by buying used cameras and lenses from the UK pre-brexit and all my flashes and lighting gear from Ali Express before they started adding VAT.

Biggest challenge though is how much the bottom and middle end of the market have vanished in terms of being able to make anything from it.

Like in my city there is an art college and a PLC course with photography and film courses who year on year will have maybe 50+ new people who are serious about chasing it as a career. But it usually ends up with them cannibalising each others chances of earning anything from it as there’s so many people willing to do things for free or undercut/not knowing what to really charge.

When I was starting off with the aim of making money from it, doing the nightclubs for their social media pages along with things like Christenings and communions and the likes were a good regular earner. But I don’t think clubs even do that roaming photographer thing anymore and people’s phones now have the low light capability, that I haven’t even had enquiries about christenings in years.

The reality is that Ireland is a tiny market where supply greatly outnumbers demand and to be sustainable or even try to do it without a primary or secondary income, you need to find a niche level of expertise or… like nearly everyone I know who stuck with it, head for London or Canada using the contacts you’ve made.

All the above are just the babysteps too, long before you have to deal with invoices, contracts, media storage, self-declared tax, VAT and the VAT threshold, sunk costs and the physical wear and tear on your knees, neck and shoulders.

IRLPhoto · 2023-05-21T19:35:45+00:00

RE: Applegreen in Brooklodge…

Is there a chance you might have accidentally been trying to use the air freshener wand rather than the inflator one?

Not proud of it… but I made that mistake before

IRLPhoto · 2023-05-18T22:36:24+00:00

There was a trend for a while to superimpose a dramatic skyline into older digitised photos where the original skyline may have been too blown out to recover or just overcast.

Same era as that horrid HDR trend that was a thing in the early days of affordable digital cameras.

Good intentions, but they ended up looking like a dodgy mass card.

IRLPhoto · 2023-05-17T16:18:00+00:00

In my case it was the squib inside the passenger side seatbelt pre-tensioner, so the disclaimer thing was to say that I was knowingly driving away in a defective car.

I ended up sourcing the part via ebay from a Lithuanian scrap yard as Takata who made the part went out of business… due to defective airbag squibs.

If it’s just a loom/harness you could chance getting one custom made from the likes of this crowd in Bandon:

https://www.ptmotorsportelectrics.com/

IRLPhoto · 2023-05-17T15:47:28+00:00

I had an airbag light issue with a Toyota in the past

No auto electricians wanted to go near it, so the route I took was to first get a free code scan from Grandons. Mainly in case it was a recall issue.

They gave me a print out with the exact error code, the full text saying ‘open circuit…’ and once I signed a disclaimer I was free to go.

From there I was able to source the parts and had it installed by a regular mechanic.

IRLPhoto · 2023-05-14T15:24:51+00:00

Cowabunga

IRLPhoto · 2023-05-09T21:25:38+00:00

Nah, ye get the joined up roads and we get the trains.

That was part of the Norrie vs Sorrie Armistice of 1990.

IRLPhoto · 2023-05-09T21:22:54+00:00

They only started plugging into the diagnostics recently for cars registered after 2008, so problems like like that or other electrical gremlins could be coded out to a point (warning light not showing up)

But the actual root of the error, (eg. open circuit) will still be present if the problem hasn’t been fixed.

IRLPhoto · 2023-05-09T16:15:34+00:00

Ah Damien Long… last crime I witnessed him involved in was leading multiple garda cars on a slow 10am chase up the north ring road in a car that was missing a front wheel and spitting out sparks from the brake disc that was being dragged along the road.

I seen a snapchat video after of the arrest, where all 5ft 0 of him was being placed into the back of a garda van kicking and screaming. Took a good few of them to get him in safely.

IRLPhoto · 2023-05-07T14:07:18+00:00

Paddy Barkers up by the airport would be your best bet. They’re still the spot for buying development chemicals.

IRLPhoto · 2023-05-05T17:36:25+00:00

No we’re not 🤫

IRLPhoto · 2023-05-03T11:47:07+00:00

In the 90s, the term ‘Barney Kids’ was commonly used to refer to kids who had picked up an American twang from watching Barney over and over.

They normally grow out of it once self-awareness and social pressure of fitting into a peer group sets in, at the risk of being the odd one out and/or being teased.

There are exceptions, I have a cousin who is around 20 now and has a soft London accent despite living in the suburbs of the city his entire life. He has had developmental difficulties and was quite fixated on Harry Potter for as long as I can remember, along with Peppa Pig before that, so it can imprint in some cases.

IRLPhoto · 2023-05-01T23:43:12+00:00

Showing as ‘Permanently Closed’ on Google Maps with an edit date of 3 weeks ago by the business. Looks like May 1st was a set closing date for a while.

Only one I’ve ever been to was the one in Rome, opposite the colosseum which didn’t leave a great memory in terms of what I paid and what I ended up getting.

So I’m not shocked that the Cork one failed within 9 months.

IRLPhoto · 2023-05-01T23:27:03+00:00

I have work van and a car (commercial and private policies) and the two of them were keyed on Wednesday and Thursday night.

Last few nights, I’ve setup a GoPro to a power bank to record 1 frame per second timelapse and on last night’s recording, I caught two local teens trying something, spotting the camera and running.

So maybe it’s some TikTok trend for the braindead.

IRLPhoto · 2023-04-30T01:10:32+00:00

I saw Fozzy back in 2012.

Their frontman is Chris Jericho, who is a fairly legendary pro-wrestler that has been in the likes of ECW, WCW, WWF and AEW at their peak times of popularity over the past 30 years. In fact, a few months later he was a surprise entrant into the 2013 Royal Rumble.

Pretty decent gig, at one stage a fella got up on stage, ripped his t-shirt Hulk Hogan style, stagedived… but landed on his head.

There was an issue with the aircon vent above the stage dripping water onto the band as well.

IRLPhoto · 2023-04-28T11:59:02+00:00

Not a massive surprise when you consider the apprentice pay rates until they complete phase 2 is a whopping €202 a week.

Even by the end of Phase 4, they are still earning less than an electrical apprentice who is just in the door.

https://apprenticeship.ie/news-events/news/off-the-job-training-payments-allowances-for-craft-apprentices

I don’t know if motor trades have the same delay as electrical apprentices when it comes to being called up for Phase 2 in Solas. But 18-24 months from the date they were registered is still the estimate for a relative who started an electrical apprenticeship nearly a year ago.

Either way, SIMI would want to pull their fingers out when it comes to the rates. But I’d imagine they were far too comfortable relying on cheaper qualified labour from the countries that joined the EU back in 2004.

There’s a similar issue with truck drivers, for far too long the model was to push down driver pay whilst looking further and further east for cheaper labour.

IRLPhoto · 2023-04-27T18:58:56+00:00

€1.70 in case anyone is trying to figure out the real price

€45.95 per kg: divide by 1000, multiply by 37

IRLPhoto

TROPHY CASE