RANDOM IMAGES USING A NEW SONY LENS [SONY FE F2.8 70-200 GM OSS]

I walked outside and took a series of random photographs so you cannot really make any quality judgements based on the images that I have published to date.

I ordered this lens at the beginning of August but it did not arrive until today [21 October 2016]. According to my dealer only 11 have been allocated to Ireland and the UK and not many more to the rest of Europe [that may be true and then again it may not be true]. He also said that they are now taking pre-orders for delivery in twelve weeks. Because of the long wait I got a discount of Euro 200.

I have been advised that it is necessary to update the camera firmware in order to  use this GM lens but unfortunately all attempts to upgrade have failed. So the images may not be as good as they should be. Also it should be noted that the available light was poor.

The lens is very heavy and in may be claimed that this defeats the point of purchasing a mirrorless camera and to an extent this claim is valid. To be honest the weight does present me with a problem but I will not discuss this in detail here.

Autofocus is as fast as anything that I have seen to date and the lens is a pleasure to use.

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LAND AHOY! [CLAREMOUNT BEACH IN HOWTH - PHOTOGRAPHED USING A SIGMA DP2 CAMERA]

Even in Howth many people do not know the name of this beach.

Claremont Beach is a small cove-like beach situated close to the harbour in Howth. It is a popular beach all year round and there are a number of pubs and restaurants located along the Harbour Road and in the village of Howth.

 

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IMAAL ROAD OFF CABRA ROAD [HEELS WHILE YOU WAIT]

Until today I did not know that there is a dog breed known as the ‘Glen Of Imaal Terrier’.

I assume that this road is named after the ‘Glen Of Imaal’ a remote glen in the western Wicklow Mountains in Ireland. It is ringed by the Lugnaquilla massif and its foothills, including Table mountain and Keadeen. Much of the Glen is used by the Irish Army as an artillery firing range, and the many hill walkers who use the Glen are well advised to observe the times of firing practice and to refrain from picking up strange objects.

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AVONDALE AVENUE PHIBSBORO [DUBLIN 7]

This was my first time to visit this area of Phibsborough.

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SHAKU ATRE PRESENTED THE ART OF DATA STORY TELLING [DUBLIN INSPIRE 2016 AT THE RDS]

“Inspiring women to be financially independent”

Shaku Atre is an exceptional speaker, with the reputation of capturing the attention of audiences and maintaining their interest while guiding her listeners painlessly through sophisticated material. Ms. Atre is the President of Atre Group Inc. which is a leading consulting, training, and publishing company specializing in Business Intelligence (BI), Data Warehouses and Big Data.

Before heading her present company, Ms. Atre was a Partner with Price Waterhouse Coopers. She also has fourteen years of experience in various fields with IBM. Ms. Atre completed Masters of Science, Suma cum Laude, in Statistics, University of Poona, India; Scholarship to University of Heidelberg, Germany, Applied Mathematics, Thesis on Astronomy. She is an acknowledged expert in the Data Warehousing and database field.

She has extensive practical experience in database projects, has helped a number of clients in establishing successful Data Warehouses and client/server installations, and has taught at IBM’s prestigious Systems Research Institute.

She has lectured on the subject to professional organizations in the USA and Canada, as well as in more than 35 countries around the world. Ms. Atre is frequently quoted in reputable publications such as Computerworld and Information Week. She has written an award-winning outstanding book on database management systems that has become a classic on the subject: Database: Structured Techniques for Design, Performance and Management, published by John Wiley and Sons, New York. The book has sold over 250,000 copies (not including its Spanish and Russian translations) and has been selected by several book clubs and leading universities including Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, MIT, New York University, Stanford, and U.C. Berkeley as well as by the Moscow University. Her book Information Center: Strategies and Case Studies published by Atre International Consultants Inc., has also been very well received by the industry. Database Management Systems is another successful book authored by Ms. Atre. Her fourth book, Distributed Databases, Cooperative Processing & Networking was published by McGraw-Hill.

She has also authored a very well received book: Atre’s Roadmap for Data Warehouse/Data Mart Implementations published by Gartner Group, and is co-author of her latest BI book Business Intelligence Roadmap: The Complete Project Lifecycle for Decision-Support Applications published by Addison Wesley.



BOOKS BY SHAKU ATRE

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INTERESTING CARS INCLUDING A DeLOREAN DMC-12

On the 4th & 5th October 2016, leading international thinkers in the areas of Data, Predictive Models, Technology and Decision making gathered at the RDS, Dublin, for Predict 2016. The speakers, many of whom I managed to photograph, discussed the latest progress in Predictive Modelling and its future – from Data to Software and Hardware technology, plus Predictive Modelling methods and the best examples of Data-driven Decision-making.

The organisers kindly invited me to the Predict event at the RDS but as I arrived a bit early I took few backstage or behind the scenes shots. In case your are interested I used a Sony A7RM2 coupled with a Sony 29-135 full frame lens. The lens does attract a lot of attention which does allow me to to have interesting people … volunteers, students from Brazil, photographers etc. Of course my lens did not attract as mush attention as the two cars [especially the DeLorean DMC-12. DMC-12s were primarily intended for the American market. All production models were therefore left-hand drive. Evidence survives from as early as April 1981, however, which indicates that the DeLorean Motor Company was aware of the need to produce a right-hand drive version to supply to world markets such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, India, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. My contacts in Belfast claim that 16 right-hand drive factory-authorised DeLoreans were produced.

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BIG DATA IN PRACTICE BY BERNARD MARR [PREDICT AT THE RDS OCTOBER 2016]

Bernard Marr is a bestselling author, keynote speaker, strategic performance consultant, and analytics, KPI & Big Data guru.

He helps companies to better manage, measure, report and analyse performance. His leading-edge work with major companies, organisations and governments across the globe makes him an acclaimed and award-winning keynote speaker, researcher, consultant and teacher. Bernard is acknowledged by the CEO Journal as one of today's leading business brains.

He has written a number of seminal books and over 200 high profile reports and articles on enterprise performance. This includes the best-sellers 'Key Performance Indicators', 'The Intelligent Company', 'More with Less', 'Managing and Delivering Performance' and 'Strategic Performance Management', a number of Gartner Reports and the world's largest research studies on the topic. His expert comments regularly feature in high-profile publications including The Times, The Financial Times, Financial Management, the CFO Magazine and the Wall Street Journal.

He has worked with and advised many of the world's best-known organisations including Accenture, Astra Zeneca, Bank of England, Barclays, BP, DHL, Fujitsu, Gartner, HSBC, Mars, Ministry of Defence, Microsoft, Oracle, The Home Office, NHS, Orange, Tetley, T-Mobile, Toyota, Royal Air Force, SAP and Shell, among many others.

He currently focuses on helping clients to:
- create strategic performance frameworks
- develop relevant and meaningful KPIs and metrics
- develop business analytics and 'big data' strategies
- develop management dashboards and reporting solutions
- train and coach teams to become 'high performance organisations'
- align people management practices with strategic performance objectives
- understand the emerging trends of big data analytics

His engagements range from executive awareness and training sessions to the design and implementation of corporate performance management and reporting approaches. Bernard can be contacted at bernard.marr@ap-institute.com

BOOKS BY BERNARD MARR 

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VIEW FROM THE CONVENTION CENTRE DUBLIN - GUILD STREET IS WHAT YOU SEE IN THIS IMAGE

Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella [Shares His Vision At The Microsoft Ireland Tech Gathering]

Sorry about the quality of the photographs … I was far from the stage and the hall was dark.

Satya Narayana Nadella (born August 19, 1967) is an Indian-born American business executive. He is the current chief executive officer (CEO) of Microsoft. He was appointed as CEO on 4 February 2014, succeeding Steve Ballmer. Before becoming CEO of Microsoft, he was Executive Vice President of Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise group, responsible for building and running the company's Computing Platforms, Developer Tools and Cloud Computing Services.

Nadella worked with Sun Microsystems as a member of its technology staff prior to joining Microsoft in 1992.

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MICROSOFT IRELAND TECH GATHERING [THE CONVENTION CENTRE DUBLIN]

Last year I attended technology events at a rate of about one per week but this year I decided to limit myself to two or three per year as most of the events are of little interest to people who who are not involved with the sectors in question. I decided to attend the Microsoft Ireland Tech Gathering because  Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, was scheduled to share his vision on the future of technology.

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BRESLIN AND KERNAN MEMORIAL [RATOATH ROAD CABRA]

During my walking tour of Cabra I came across this memorial which I had never noticed before.

It could be best be described as stone plaque surmounted by a Celtic cross, built into a red brick wall. The wall may be more recent than the memorial which looks as if had been relocated and damaged as a result.

The memorial relates to the Irish Civil War and unfortunately the inscription is faded and not easy to read.

I nDil Cuiṁne ar

Christóir Ó Breasláin

(Christopher Breslin)

Taiġ de oir Complaċt A

an cead caṫ

Briogáid Aṫa Cliaṫ

d’Arm na Poblaċta

agus ar

Seosaṁ Ó Cearnaċáin

(Kernan)

A ounin ar buiġeaḋ

An 3u La Abreain 1923

R.I.P.

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QUARRY ROAD IN CABRA [MY FIRST WALKING TOUR OF THE AREA]

The Cabra Grand Cinema once hosted a concert by US punk legends the Ramones and Siouxsie and the Banshees played the same venue soon afterwards in 1980.

On 17 April 1949, the Cabra Grand Cinema on Quarry Road had its official opening. John Breen,Lord Mayor of Dublin, opened the 1,600 seat cinema by cutting a ribbon with a pair of gold scissors.

The cinema was designed by Samuel Lyons and it was “equipped with the latest RCA sound system”, to give cinema goers a top class experience.

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12th May 2015:FF campaigns for the protection of two old Dublin cinemas:

The Fianna Fáil Councillors on Dublin City Council are calling on all city councillors to support proposals for the protection of two old cinemas in Cabra and Whitehall.

The City Council will tonight vote on including the Cabra Grand Cinema and Whitehall Cinema on Collins Avenue in the Record of Protected Structures.  This would ensure that the buildings’ façade, the entrance, main lobby and ticket desk would be protected as sites of local significance.

Fianna Fáil Councillor for Cabra Cllr. David Costello explained, “Preserving elements of our recent architectural and social history is important in maintaining the character of our suburbs.

“The Cabra Grand is an iconic building to many Dubliners and has served the community well through-out the years. The building is still an important part of local life and a great social outlet for the many bingo goers on Dublin’s Northside. I will be supporting the protection of these two buildings at the council meeting on the 11th of May,” the local Councillor said.

These proposals were voted on at the December meeting of the North West Area of Dublin City Council. An order was issued by the committee which stated that it “Agreed to recommend to City Council the addition of the Cabra Grand, 58-62 Quarry Road, Cabra, Dublin 7 to the Record of Protected Structures in accordance with Section 54 and 55 of the Planning and Development Act, 2000.”  This will tonight be put before all councillors at a meeting of the city council.”

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WELCOME TO CABRA

Cabra (Irish: An Chabrach, meaning "the poor land") is a suburb on the Northside of Dublin. It is approximately 2 kilometres northwest of the city centre, in the administrative area of Dublin City Council. It was commonly known as Cabragh until the early 20th century. Cabra is also a parish in the Fingal South West deanery of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin. It is served by the Church of Christ the King.

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LA TOUCHE BRIDGE ACROSS THE GRAND CANAL [PORTOBELLO AREA OF DUBLIN]

Portobello describes the stretch of the Grand Canal leading from Robert Emmet Bridge (Clanbrassil Street) to the bridge from South Richmond Street to Rathmines. Although usually referred to as Portobello Bridge, the correct name is La Touche Bridge (named after William Digges La Touche (1747–1803), scion of a prominent Dublin business family and a director of the Grand Canal Company). Like the Portobello Road of London, Dublin's Portobello was named for the capture by Admiral Edward Vernon in 1739 of Portobelo, Colón on Panama's Caribbean Coast, during the conflict between the United Kingdom and Spain known as the War of Jenkins' Ear.

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Institute of Technology, Bolton Street, Dublin [Bolton Street College]

This large building in red brick and Mountcharles Sandstone was designed by Charles J. McCarthy and was built between 1909-12. McCarthy was the son of leading Victorian gothic architect J.J. McCarthy (1817-82) who was responsible for many churches in Dublin and several Roman-catholic Cathedrals around Ireland.

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Dublin Street Art (New) - Ormond Place

Dublin Street Art (New) - Ormond Place, a photo by infomatique on Flickr.

Beckett Bridge Under Construction (view in original size if possible)

         

The Samuel Beckett Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge currently under construction in Dublin, Ireland, and is expected to join Macken Street on the south-side of the River Liffey, to Guild Street and North Wall Quay in the Docklands area.


The architect is Santiago Calatrava, a designer of a number of innovative bridges and buildings. This will be the second bridge in the area designed by Calatrava, the first being the James Joyce Bridge, which is further upstream.


Constructed by the "Graham Hollandia Joint Venture", the main span of the Samuel Beckett Bridge is supported by 31 cable stays from a doubly back-stayed single forward arc tubular tapered spar, with decking provided for four traffic and two pedestrian lanes. The shape of the spar and its cables is said to evoke an image of a harp lying on its edge. (The harp is a secular icon for Ireland and things Irish.)


The steel structure of the bridge was constructed in Rotterdam by Hollandia, a Dutch company also responsible for the steel fabrication of the London Eye. The steel span of the bridge was transferred from the Hollandia wharf in Krimpen a/d IJssel on May 3rd, 2009, with support from specialist transport company ALE Heavylift.


The bridge is expected to open in late 2009 or early 2010.

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