The Limerick Blogger: latest Limerick news and Limerick events

February-Banner-Entry-Cianb-currachase

Originally uploaded by limerickblogger

The first of three entries by CianB for the banner contest. This is of Currachase, County Limerick

The experinment I carried out last week appears to have been successful. That experinment being the addition of subtitling to our video.

It is my intention to add subtitling to videos of events I record for the site from now on.

To do this I will need help. Subtitling a video can take a long time. In order to have the subtitles on the video in a timely manner I will need assistance.

The desired person should have enough time on their hands to be able to dedicate, say an hour, to add subtitles to an assigned part of a video.

The person should have good spelling skills, I am not looking for text speak experts.

I will be using the Dot Sub service to add the titles to the videos. Therefore, those interested would need to create a dot sub account. the website can be found at www.dotsub.com

Here is how it will work

I will upload the video onto the dot sub service.
portions of the video will be assigned to subtitlers. The video will be divided into the number of people availible to caption the video.

Example

If four people are on hand to caption a 20 minute video, person one will caption from 00:00 to 04)59, person two will caption 05:00 to 09:59 and so on.

Once the caption is complete, the video will be added to this site, and the captioners will be credited with their work,

It is my intention to have captions in place at the very latest, 24 hours after the video is uploaded.

The commitment is not that big, I only upload at most two videos a month, and they and they are a maximum of 20 mins long each. There may be a call to caption a longer video, but these are rare. The last video longer than 20 mins uploaded here was the Shannon rally, and that was back in October.

If you are interested, send us an e-mail with your dot sub username so that you can be given access to the videos when they are uploaded.

From Tuborg on ARchiseek:

The above is what is to be built on the site of the Dan Ryan’s filling station accross the Balinacurra Road from Punches Hotel. The building is going to contain an anchor tennant, most likely a grocery, a restaurant, and offices.as well as almost 500 parking spaces.

Construction is due to begin soon.

Limerick born Leslie Anne Halvey (pictured) and Black Daisy had a narrow escape in tonight’s elimination round of You’re a Star after they were one of the three acts who received the lowest votes.

The band who performed Gwen Stefani’s What You Waiting For were required to sing for survival along side Peter Karpienia, who performed Billy Joel’s Piano Man.

In the end, all three judges decided that it was Black Daisy they wanted to hear again.

Limerick’s second remaining hopeful, Leanne Moore,(pictured) was not required to sing for survival as she was one of the highest recipients of votes.

Earlier in the show, Conan Lindsay from Tallaught, in Dublin City was unceremoniously booted off for having the fewest number of votes.

Video of the show should be on the RTE website by tomorrow.

Spring is in the air and its fast approaching, thankfully we are seeing the end of the Winter Season at last, It is a luxury to have a weekend of fine weather without the rain, which allows for so many families to venture out together as I witnessed today at The Westfields Wetlands. The Westfields Wetlands have been recognized as one of the few urban wetlands in Europe, it is situated on the North Side of Limerick City close to the Shannon Bridge and the Condell Road.

There are suggestions that a huge development may take place in or around the Wetlands is upsetting to say the least .This is an area which is very popular to so many families, walkers, birdwatchers, conservationists. This unique area needs all the protection it can get…particularly at a time of rampant (and often indiscriminate) expansion. There is a degree of neglect which I have seen recently here ,the paths would need to be upgraded as it is extremely mucky in places and not very user friendly to families or wheelchair users, granted there have been improvements with a viewing platform but a lot more could be done. I would be calling on the local representatives and the City Council to take note, let’s not allow it to deteriorate into neglect!

It’s Time to play Ball and they have 11!

Let’s hope common sense prevails to allow the Westfield Wetlands to survive for future generations.

Please click on the Video of The Westfield Wetlands below

www.birdwatchireland.ie

The Limerick Branch of Birdwatch Ireland will hold their next local outing in Lough Gur 10.30 am on March the 3rd 2008.

Property prices: The average house price in Limerick is falling much slower than other parts of the country. According to a survey carried out by the Sunday Times, prices in Limerick fell by a mere five percent. This compares to parts of Dublin where prices fell by 27 percent.

Lisbon Treaty: An information night on the Lisbon Treaty, the EU constitution that isn’t a constitution, at Jury’s Inn tonight at 1930hrs. The event is being organised by South MEP Kathy Synott.

Overnight fires: Gardai are investigating a series of fires in the city which occurred overnight. At 0315, fire services attended a house fire at Byrne Avenue in Prospect. The house was unoccupied at the time of the fire and a technical examination of the scene is set to take place today. At 0550 hrs the fire brigade were called out again for two car fires on Botherkyle on the Ballysimon Road. Gardai at Roxboro are dealing with this investigation.

Jewellery theft: A city centre jewellersshop was relieved of thousands of euro worth of stock after it became the victim of a robbery. A man believed to be in his late teens or early twenties entered the shop at 1730 hrs yesterday claiming he was looking to buy his girlfriend an engagement ring. He then made off with a tray of rings worth thousands of Euro. Gardai are calling on the thief to hand himself in as they believe it is only a mater of time before he is eventually caught.

The only conclusion I can draw from the response from the Limerick Regeneration Committees is that, they don’t know the answer to the question I posted to them. It looks to me as though they came out with the statement that “those who do not have a clearance certificate from either the Gardai or the City Council will not be given a new house” and then neglected to think about what they were going to do with these newly displaced people.

Limerick City Council acknowledged my question and forwarded it on to someone who might be able to answer my question.

From the Limerick Regeneration response

While the overall plans for the implementation of this requirement have not been drawn up, the Regeneration Agencies do not foresee that individuals/families engaged in anti-social behaviour will be relocated to other parts of Limerick City.

It is not really what I asked. I asked where would those who cannot get a Garda or City Council clearance certificate go, or how they would be dealt with. But it is re-assuring that the regeneration committees will not re-house anti-social individuals in other areas. But will the council re-house them, will the HSE pay rent allowance for them?

Over the next number of months, the various relevant agencies associated with dealing with issues relating to anti-social behaviour, ie. The Gardai, Limerick City Council and the Health Services Executive will be engaged in meetings and consulted on these matters.

The main aim of the Regeneration Agencies is to ensure that strong enforcement of rules, regulations and the law are carried out by all the relevant agencies and to help this issue further, a new contract of accommodation, replacing the current tenancy agreement, will be introduced.

The requirement for a ‘certificate of eligibility’ will further strengthened the Regeneration Agencies hand in dealing with the issues of serious anti-social behaviour on these estates.

And here is the kicker…

The above issues will require further deliberation and thought by our Agencies before becoming part of our overall Master Plan which will be completed by the end of June 2008.

Does that answer the question? I don’t think it answers it for me anyway.

This committee put this claim that anti social elements would not get Garda Clearance certificates, but judging by the statement, it would seem that not much thought went into this part of the plan. If they were hoping to implement this, then they should have discussed these matters with the relevant agencies before these vision documents were released, not after.

If this is going to be the way things are done then prepare yourselves for the biggest wast of money since the LUAS overran it’s budget.

Acoustra, who were featured on this site before when they participated in a fundraiser for Milford Hospice, are taking part in yet another charity event.

The blurb:

The Irish Society of Azerbaijan have been an organization in existence for 10 years now consisting of a group of Tipperary people who moved to Azerbaijan 15 to 20 years ago and made a living for themselves and settled there. They saw the poverty that is rampant over there in the capital Baku and set up this organization to help the helpless. Since their establishment they have fought relentlessly for the deprived and homeless children of Baku. They raise money all year every year to make a better home for these children who are born with incredible deformities and some who just try to live a normal life. The Irish Society has also opened schools in Baku to teach English to their own children as well as locals. These schools have been awarded for their excellence and professionalism.

Every year on St. Patrick’s Week the Irish Society fly out Musicians to Azerbaijan to perform music in the city of Baku. We play at a big Gala night on Paddy’s night and perform to 500 people at a dinner ball where all monies go to the Orphanage. Money is raised on the night and we continue to raise money while we are there. In the lead up to our departure we play gigs or
perform on street to help raise money to bring with us. Last year we raised 10,000 Euro and brought that with us and added it to the 43,000 that was already raised over there. That money put an elevator in the Orphanage and the 4 floors were connected. Some of the children never saw the other floors until the lift was installed and it opened up a whole new world to some of
them, as well as new friends.

We continue to strive to make life better for some of these poor children and all help is welcome. I assure you that all money is placed where it should be and the Irish Society has a burning passion to continue this work for as long as they still have a breath. Every contribution helps and all help is appreciated.

Remember folks, while the concert is free, they would appreciate if you could donate to their Baku fund.

I will post a reminder some time in February of this.

Oki doki then, where to begin.

A few days ago lette mentioned that she was considering video blogging using sign language. She mentioned that she might use captioning to allow people to read what she was saying in sign.

In the course of the discussion on her blog, I asked for, and was directed to a site which allows you do to captioning on videos you upload to the internet.

So I gave it a go. Here is the result.

I chose this video because the speakers were clear and easy to hear, well most of the time.(outdoor conversation was hard to decipher) This is the Deaf Community Centre launch from last September. You will have to forgive any cockups in the timing as this is my first time.

To view the subtitles, click the up arrow on the bottom right hand corner of the video panel.

This also creates another hairy brained idea for me.

What if I were to upload any video I record onto this dot net website at the same time I upload them to google video, would I be able to find individuals willing to caption them? It took me several days to do this one alone, I imagine it would take forever and a day to do the likes of the Save Our Slots video, which lasts an hour.

Edit: I notice these videos are in stereo whereas google video is in mono