Technology.ie Podcast #9: It's Tech, But is it Art?

Julian Gough

Brought to you by Blacknight, it’s The Technology.ie Podcast, Episode 8, with Conn Ó Muíneacháin and Michele Neylon. Our guest this week is novelist and sometime rock star Julian Gough. Julian’s in the tech headlines after he was commisioned to write an ending for the online game Minecraft, but he reveals a tech sensibility which goes much further. In fact, he’s criticised the Irish literary establishment for writing as if electricity had never been invented!

Having a writer on board is a chance for us to get the artists’ view of intellectual property piracy and we discuss the SOPA and ProtectIP legislation currently being debated in the United States. There’s good news here in Ireland with the prospect of 1000 Paypal jobs and the rise of the Coder Dojos. Ireland’s newest app developer sensation is just 12 years old! (And he’s only been coding for 2 months!)

Not only are we growing our own geeks, we’re attracting them also. The founders of the award-winning Profitero hail from Belarus, but they choose to base their startup in Ireland.

But we still can’t use Google music, or Amazon’s MP3 store for that matter. Never mind, we can buy Coder Christmas Cards, and we can get exited about Google’s Realtime Analytics.

Blacknight’s new Cloud Hosting is getting a lot of interest. Check it out at Blacknight.com from €12.99/month ex VAT.

Like the show? Subscribe with RSS or iTunes.

About the Author: Conn Ó Muíneacháin

Conn Ó Muíneacháin works at Blacknight, Ireland's largest provider of domains and hosting. He's an award-winning radio producer, podcaster and blogger. He's an engineer as well (not the award-winning kind). Conn produces video for Blacknight and edits Technology.ie. Labhair Gaeilge leis!

6 Comments

Stewart Curry November 24, 2011 at 5:29 pm - Reply

Hey guys

I’ve Spotify (signed up very early and was grandfathered in) – for listening to new music it’s not as good as Last FM – the tagging is terrible and listening to Artist Radio plays 80% just that artist rather than similar bands. Last FM has the opposite problem – ask for music like the Pixies and you’ll never hear a Pixies song.

But Spotify is great for finding bands you do like, making tracklists etc.
- Michele November 24, 2011 at 9:16 pm - Reply
  
  Stewart
  
  What are you using Spotify with? ie. desktop or mobile? I know that quite a few of my friends got accounts ages ago, but I don’t think I ever did (I’d have to double-check my email!)
  
  Personally I love Last FM, as it helps me to discover new music that fits with my taste. Of course you’re right – you can never get to listen to the exact music you want, but I love exploring other people’s “stations”
  
  Thanks for your comment
  
  Michele
  - Stewart Curry November 24, 2011 at 10:29 pm - Reply
    
    I’m using both – I had to make a UK iTunes account (there’s a hacks way to do it) to get the iPhone app. It means you can download tunes locally. I ‘be also found new music through it, just wish it had some kind of filter so I could say – “yeah I like Band of Horses so give me artists like them” – rather than playing 8 Band of Horses songs in a row followed by a Bon Iver track.
    - Stewart Curry November 25, 2011 at 9:59 am - Reply
      
      sorry for the typos – damn autocorrect..
Éilis November 29, 2011 at 10:18 pm - Reply

Dia Dhaoibh a chairde, táim ag baint an-sult as bhur bpodchraoltaí, agus is breá liom an fháilte chroíúil i nGaeilge a chuireann Conn romhainn gach seachtain. Bím ag éisteacht libh ar mo raidió idirlín Roberts WM201. Tá an gléas seo thar barr ó thaobh caighdeán na fuaime de. Bíonn rogha ceoil agus clár gan teorainn ann agus tá go leor breiseán ar fáil má chláraíonn tú le reciva.com.

Bhí sibh ag rá nach raibh aon rud ar nós Google Music ar fáil in Éirinn fós ach sílim go bhfuil – Mp3Tunes http://www.mp3tunes.com/ – cuireann sé ‘music locker’ sa néal ar fáil duit saor in aisce. Táim in ann rud ar bith a uaslódáil ann agus éisteacht leis ansin ó ghléas ar bith a bhfuil ceangal idirlín aige. Bain triail as.
Bernie Goldbach January 4, 2012 at 10:34 am - Reply

Last.fm is really good at looking into the collections of others who I follow on Twitter. I also like letting Last.fm run playlists from people I’ve never met but who have “super” similarity to my listening patterns. It’s better than radio play.