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Recommended Accommodation in Gardiner Street Dublin:
The Town House Hotel and Globetrotters Hostel Dublin Welcome©
47- 48 Lower Gardiner Street, Dublin 1, Ireland.
Telephone: +353 1 8788808 Fax: + 353 1 8788787
Irish (Gaelic) Fáilte, Tá fáilte romhat (sg) / romhaibh (pl), Fáilte romhat isteach! (Welcome here!), Cead míle fáilte (hundred thousand welcomes) The Town House Hotel and Globetrotters Hostel Dublin
Hello and Welcome to the Town House Hotel Dublin and Globetrotters Tourist Hostel, Lower Gardiner Street, Dublin.
Established in 1978 The Town House Hotel has a long standing commitment to the comfort of our guests. The Town House Hotel offers you a unique range of bed and breakfast accommodation in a relaxing, comfortable and friendly atmosphere. The Townhouse Hotel is structurally linked with the internationally recognised Globetrotters Tourist Hostel. Wi-Fi is freely available and a modern comfortable area has been set aside for those guests who wish to browse the web. We also have an enclosed garden retreat for anyone wishing to enjoy breakfast in the open air or simply to sit quietly with a coffee and good book.
The Town House Hotel is located in the heart of historic Dublin City, a short walk from the world renowned Trinity College Dublin, the second oldest university in Europe and home to the Book of Kells, fashionable shopping streets such as Henry Street, O'Connell Street and Grafton Street, the internationally renowned cultural capital of Ireland Temple Bar, the International Financial Services Centre, the O2 Arena, National Conference Centre, Croke Park home of the GAA, Aviva Stadium home to international rugby, museums, art galleries and a myriad of pubs and restaurants.
At the Town House we want to make your stay in Dublin as enjoyable as possible and for this reason we have compiled some information that we hope will help guide you to some of Dublin's best loved Historical, Cultural, Architectural and Traditional venues and sites. Also see Our Walking Tour Guide, all of which begins at the bottom of Gardiner Street with the Custom House, this is a beautiful walk and costs nothing, a nice easy walk before breakfast, after lunch or a romantic evening stroll.
Dublin can be expensive, and so in our tradition of providing quality service and value for money, we are going to point you in the direction of some places, events and activities that are FREE to view and do. Before leaving the Town House Hotel or Globetrotters Hostel, check the location of the venues described in our tour guide, at Our Tourist Information Check-point, established for your convenience.
The Town House is a Dublin Bed and Breakfast based in the heart of Dublin; The Town House is a short walk from Temple Bar. Temple Bar is without question the pulsating heartbeat of Dublin's traditional and cultural heritage. Temple Bar (Barra an Teampaill) is an historical area on the south bank of the famous River Liffey in the heart of Dublin the capital city of Ireland. Temple Bar is steeped in history and it has preserved its medieval street pattern, with a maze of narrow cobbled streets that are inter-linked. One does not exaggerate to say that Temple Bar is the pulsating heartbeat of Dublin's culture and tradition, from lunch time each day many of the traditional Irish pubs in Temple Bar echo to the sound of live traditional Irish music. Traditional Irish stew sits easily alongside international cuisine in the many fine pubs, restaurants and hotels. The Bad Ass Café is highly recommended.
While Temple Bar has an official permanent residency of approximately 3,000 citizens, its adopted international globe-trotting lovers of life (tourists) number many hundreds of thousands each year. People travel from the four corners of the earth each year to enjoy the hospitality and the craic (fun) in Temple Bar, watch as people of all nationalities sit or walk along the cobbled streets enjoying the music, the history and the culture of Ireland.
The area is the location of many Irish cultural institutions, including the Irish Photography Centre (incorporating the Dublin Institute of Photography, the National Photographic Archives and the Gallery of Photography), the Ark Children's Cultural Centre, the Irish Film Institute, incorporating the Irish Film Archive, the Temple Bar Music Centre, the Arthouse Multimedia Centre, Temple Bar Gallery and Studio, the Project Arts Centre, the Gaiety School of Acting, as well as the Irish Stock Exchange and the Central Bank of Ireland.
Two squares have been renovated in recent years — Meetinghouse Square and the central Temple Bar Square. The Temple Bar Book Market is held on Saturdays and Sundays in Temple Bar Square. Meetinghouse Square, which takes its name from the nearby Quaker Meeting House, is used for outdoor film screenings in the summer months. Since summer 2004, Meetinghouse Square is also home to the Speaker's Square project (an area of Public speaking) and to the Temple Bar Food Market every Saturday. The Cow's Lane Market is a fashion and design market which takes place on Cow's Lane every Saturday. These events are FREE.
O'Connell Street is Dublin's main Street and is home to internationally recognised houses of fashion and high street shopping. O'Connell Street is dotted with café/bars, eating houses and fine Irish pubs. Cinemas, theatres, bookshops and the world famous market stalls of Moore Street are all at hand.
The famous Irish Statesman Charles Stewart Parnell is timelessly sculptured in bronze and mounted on granite in Parnell Square at the top of O'Connell Street, a few yards up from the Parnell statue is the beautifully maintained Garden of Remembrance (entry FREE). The Garden of Remembrance was built in memory of those Irish men and women who sacrificed their lives in the name of Irish freedom in the 1916 Irish Rising. In June 2011 the British Monarch, Queen Elizabeth made an historic visit to the Garden of Remembrance and paid tribute to the new relationship that now exists between Ireland and England.
Having relaxed and enjoyed the tranquillity and history of the Garden of Remembrance you may wish to visit the Hugh Lane Gallery, Parnell Square North, that is only a step away from the Garden of Remembrance (entry FREE). The Hugh Lane Gallery has many wonderful exhibitions and is a cultural delight. The exhibitions change regularly and so inquiries may be made at the reception desk where staff are always eager to assist.
Next to the Hugh Lane Gallery is the Writers Museum (entry, approx. 7.50 Euro), while this is rather expensive it is a treasure trove of artefacts and writings of some of Ireland's most famous writers. Did you know, for example, that Oscar Wilde was a promising pugilist (boxer) during his days at Trinity College, and that Samuel Beckett, had he not turned out to be one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, would also have made a name for himself in the TCD cricket first eleven ?
Now you may think this a strange thing to say, but one of the most fascinating and FREE places to visit in Dublin, is Glasnevin Cemetery. Glasnevin is a twenty-minute walk from Parnell Square and those interned there include the leaders of the 1916 Irish Rising. The Glasnevin Trust has recently opened a Museum and coffee shop at the cemetery and the information contained here is fascinating, including a life size model of grave robbers at work in the days when bodies were robbed for medical science.
If you make your way back to O'Connell Street and walk to O'Connell Bridge, you can enjoy the board walk along the Liffey, small coffee vending stalls and some seating are provided. You may prefer to walk onwards to Trinity College and enjoy its cobbled court yard and historical architecture, a wonderful place just to sit about and think of its history and scholarly achievements. While at Trinity you may wish to view the world famous Book of Kells, however, entry to view the Book of Kells is approximately 9 Euro.
Having relaxed and soaked up the scholarly atmosphere at Trinity you may wish to walk up Grafton Street and enjoy the traditional busking by musicians, magic men, jugglers and street actors, not forgetting to have your picture taken with Molloy Malone and her famous wheel-borrow. At the top of Grafton Street you will find Stephen's Green (entry FREE), Stephen's Green is an Oasis in the heart of a desert of commercialisation, its beautifully designed garden including ponds, band-stands and floral array are second to none in the world. Walk at your leisure through this landscape of manicured greenery and colour exploding tapestry of cascading floral delights.
Having enjoyed a meal and a couple of drinks in Temple Bar you may wish to retire to your Gardiner Street accommodation for a short break. Later in the evening you may wish to enjoy a movie at one of the local cinemas, a play at the theatre or simply a few drinks, great craic and traditional Irish music in any of the array of traditional Irish pubs in Dublin. If you are looking for some late night Clubbing there is plenty to choose from, however, if you are going out at night, please be safe, stay in the company of friends and never travel alone. Dublin has a population of over 2 million people and is no different from any other capital city in the world.
The Iveagh Gardens, Clonmel Street, Dublin 2, are less well known than Stephen's Green yet are every bit as much an artistic landscape to be enjoyed (entry FREE). The Iveagh Gardens were designed in 1865 by Ninian Niven as an intermediate design between the 'French Formal' and the 'English Landscape' styles. The Iveagh Gardens include a unique collection of landscape features which include Rustic Grottos and cascade, sunken formal panels of lawn with Fountain Centre pieces, wilderness, wood-lands, Maze, Rosarium, American Garden, Archery Grounds, Rockeries and Rooteries. The recently restored Cascade and exotic tree ferns all help to create a sense of wonder in the 'Secret Garden'. The pre 1860s rose varieties add an extra dimension to the Victorian Rosarium.
RHA Gallery, 15 Ely Place, Dublin 2, (admission, FREE) is an artist based and artist orientated institution dedicated to developing, affirming and challenging the public's appreciation and understanding of traditional and innovative approaches to the visual arts.
Government Buildings, Upper Merrion Street, Dublin 2, (entry, FREE) guided tours only, up to 20 people will be given a guided tour FREE of charge, FREE tickets must be collected on the day from the National Gallery of Ireland, Merrion Square West, Dublin 2 from 10:00hr.
National Museum of Ireland-Natural History, Merrion Street, Dublin 2 (entry, FREE), the exhibitions have changed very little in over a century. The ground floor is dedicated to Irish animals, featuring giant deer skeletons and a variety of mammals, birds and fish. The upper floors of the building were laid out in the 19th Century in a scientific arrangement showing animals by taxonomic group. This scheme demonstrated the diversity of animal life in an evolutionary sequence. The first floor can now be accessed from the original grand stone staircase which has been recently restored. New facilities include the Discovery Zone where visitors can handle taxidermy and open drawers to see what is lurking inside, the Reading Area at first floor level which is a great place to rest and settle down with a good book, and the ground floor is now suitable for wheelchair access.
National Museum of Ireland-Archaeology, Kildare Street, Dublin 2 (entry, FREE), opened in 1890, the displays contain artefacts dating from 7000 BC to the 20th Century. Kingship and sacrifice is a fascinating exhibition centred on a number of recently discovered bog-bodies of the Iron-Age.
Chester Beatty Library, Dublin Castle, Dublin 2 (entry, FREE), described by the Lonely Planet as not just the best museum in Ireland, but one of the best in Europe, the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin is an art museum and library which houses the great collection of manuscripts, miniature paintings, prints, drawings, rare books and some decorative arts assembled by Sir Alfred Chester Beatty (1875-1968). The Library's exhibitions open a window on the artistic treasures of the great cultures and religions of the world. Its rich collection from countries across Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and Europe offers visitors a visual feast. Chester Beatty Library was named Irish Museum of the year in 2000 and was awarded the title European Museum of the Year in 2002. Egyptian papyrus texts, beautifully illuminated copies of the Qur'an, the Bible, European medieval and renaissance manuscripts are among the highlights of the collection. In its diversity, the collection captures much of the richness of human creative expression from about 2700 BC to the present day.
Dublin Castle, Dame Street, Dublin, (All sites under the management of the Office of Public Works are FREE on the first Wednesday of every month, this will be reviewed so please check) since its foundation in 1204 Dublin Castle has been at the heart of the history and evolution of the city. Today, spanning an area of over 44,000 square meters (11 acres), the site contains 2 museums, 2 cafés, an international conference centre, 2 gardens, Government Buildings and the State Apartments which are the most important state rooms in the country. The grounds of the site are free to explore, as is the Chapel Royal, the Chester Beatty Library, the Garda Museum and the Revenue Museum. Access to the State Apartments is by guided tour only and tickets may be purchased from the Apartments in the Upper Castle Yard.
National Museum of Ireland – Decorative Arts and History, Collins Barracks, Benburb Street, Dublin 7 (entry, FREE), on display you will find fine examples of silver, ceramics, glassware, weaponry, furniture, folk-life, clothing, jewellery, coins and medals.
Phoenix Park, Parkgate Street, Dublin 7 (entry, FREE) the Phoenix Park at 707 hectares (1752 acres), is a historic landscape of international importance and one of the largest designed landscapes in any European city. It was originally established as a Royal deer park in the 17th century. The Phoenix Park is open 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week, all year round. The main gates of the Park at Parkgate Street and Castleknock Gate are open 24 hours. The side gates to the Park are open from 7am until 11pm.
War Memorial Gardens, Islandbridge, Dublin 8 (entry, FREE), these gardens are one of the most famous memorial gardens in Europe. They are dedicated to the memory of 49,400 Irish soldiers who died in the 1914-1918 war. The names of all the soldiers are contained in the beautifully illustrated Harry Clarke manuscripts in the granite book-rooms in the gardens. These gardens are not only a place of remembrance but are also of great architectural interest and beauty. They are one of four gardens in this country designed by the famous architect Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944). The others are Heywood Gardens, Lambay Island and those in Howth Castle.


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This cummerbund provides a three-row MOLLE mounting platform, which allows the AVS to be configured with more components. It features Crye Precision's patented Skeletal cummerbund design.
Introducing the Crye Precision's AVS (Adaptice Vest System) – a revolutionary system that quickly configures as anything from a low-vis rig to a fully armored load-bearing vest... and everything in between. Changing calibers? Simply switch out your front mag panels. Switching load-outs? Quickly slide off your modular pouches without unweaving them. Shifting threats? Just add or remove armor panels without having to modify your gear load out. Varying missions? Configure it as a load bearing vest for recce work and switch right back to a fully-armored configuration with ease. Attach packs, zip-on rear panels, StKSS load supports, and many other accessories – the options are infinite.
The replica AVS is faithfully templated from the actual design, making the fit and feel exact. Built from military-grade material and hardware, and utilizing proper stitching and construction techniques, the replica AVS is ready for hard use. Featuring complete modularity from the harness system, compatible with optional front flaps, zip on back panels and cummerbund, users can configure the replica AVS any way that suits their weekend warrior needs.
Manufactured exclusively to the weekend warrior enthusiasts, the officially licensed Crye Precision Tactical Gear and Clothing product line features replicas of the signature "Crye Licensed" ribbon, as well as clearly marked product identification tags, so that there is no confusion about the piece of gear in your hands.
Official Licensed Crye Precision Tactical Gear and Clothing line from ZShot Inc. are NOT US Made and not for sale to military, law enforcement, government or real-world users.
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subset: commoncrawl


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A few months ago Darwin Wiggett and Samantha Crysanthou Published an e-book called Essential and Advanced Filters for Creative and Outdoor Photography. You may think that with digital photography the need for filters is over and you would be mistaken in thinking this.
Certain filters like the polarizing filter are essential and at the time of this writing, the effect of this filter (which stays on my lens 95% of the time that I shoot outdoors in the day) is best achieved with an actual filter on the lens. Although I have seen digital-effect polarizing filters that you apply when post-processing an image, they suck when compared to the real thing. Darwin and Samantha provide awesomely clear images and explanations as to why this filter is essential, how and when to use it creatively and when not to use it. This filter is so important that a good 20% of the book is devoted to it. This section alone is worth the 10 dollars that they are charging for the e-book.
Two other kinds of essential filters that Darwin and Samantha talk about a great deal are graduated neutral density filters and neutral density filters. The purpose of graduated neutral density filters is to reduce the contrast in a scene (like a clipped sky) because when a scene is too contrasty the camera can not record all the tones even though our eye may see them. The filters are normally made of glass or plastic and are usually shaded at one end and clear at the other end. Neutral density filters are solid coloured and are mainly used to make shutter speeds longer to achieve creative blurring effects. This section of the book also has awesome (filtered and non-filtered for comparison) images and crystal clear explanations on how to use these filters.
The final section of the book is dedicated to additional filters that can add pop to your images as well as talking about technical considerations like colour casts and noise reduction.
This e-book is fab and well worth the ten dollars. The only thing I might debate in this book is calling the neutral grad filters essential. I feel they are essential only in certain very important cases. They are essential if you want to spend less time in front of your computer post-processing your images, because your images will already have the contrast control built into the exposure. If you are already excellent at the HDR technique, (taking multiple frames of the identical image with different exposures and then blending them in software) then these filters are not essential because you can achieve a similar goal using HDR. That said, even if you know the HDR technique well, graduated neutral density filters are still useful (perhaps even essential) when the scene is contrasty and involves movement.
It may come as no surprise that I highly recommend this 65 page e-book. Darwin and Samantha are veteran photographers and teachers, write super-clearly and their pics really illustrate the creative effect these filters have. This is an easy read with an easy on the eyes design. It's a great e-book to have with you on your smartphone or tablet for creative inspiration while in the field. It's also a fab resource when you are thinking about which of these filters to buy.
This book can be purchased directly from Darwin and Sam's site.


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Back when I revealed the Twitter Monkey I had a dark secret… I got the Perl script to work, but just barely, and I really didn't grok exactly how the code worked. I was just thankful MCQN Ltd. published the Alertuino code for me to get started.
I'm happy to say that I've made some good progress in getting Perl and the Arduino to talk to each other, and if you keep reading, you'll see what I've got so far.
I'll be using a ShiftBrite from macetech for this example. You can buy direct for $4.99, get them from Adafruit for $5.00 or use your #freeday money to get one from Sparkfun.
To connect the ShiftBrite, you just run it's GND to the GND on the Arduino, the V+ to the 5V on the Arduino, and the run DI, LI, CI, EI to digital pins 10, 11, 12, 13 respectively, on the Arduino. Just 6 wires… pretty simple.
Once again, I stand on the shoulders of others… a hacker named Ashley Hughes wrote a post titled ShiftBrites and the Arduino and provided a library named shiftbritehughesyarduino. Grab it and drop it in your Arduino/libraries folder before we get started.
The library makes it pretty easy to send a color to the ShiftBrite using a command like this:
Where the colors are in R,G,B value. Though the scale is not 0-255, or 0-100, but 0-1023. I'm not great at math, so I'm going to use the 0-100 scale and just multiply by 10. So for the line above we'd be sending a RED value of 200, a GREEN value of 400, and a BLUE value of 600.
Here's the code for the Arduino:
/* * ShiftBrite.pde */ #include "HughesyShiftBrite.h"; HughesyShiftBrite sb; void setup() { sb = HughesyShiftBrite(10,11,12,13); sb.sendColour(10,10,10); Serial.begin(9600); } void loop() { int input = Serial.read(); switch (input) { case 48: sb.sendColour(0,0,100); break; case 49: sb.sendColour(0,0,200); break; case 50: sb.sendColour(0,0,400); break; case 51: sb.sendColour(0,0,600); break; case 52: sb.sendColour(0,400,0); break; case 53: sb.sendColour(0,600,0); break; case 54: sb.sendColour(0,800,0); break; case 55: sb.sendColour(600,0,0); break; case 56: sb.sendColour(800,0,0); break; case 57: sb.sendColour(1000,0,0); break; } delay(5); }
See all those "case" commands followed by numbers? They are looking for the ASCII code being sent from the serial port. Don't have an ASCII chart handy? Look at this simple one and you'll see that the decimal value for 0 is 48, for 1 is 49, etc. So our case statements are looking for anything between 0 and 9, which is a nice scale to use.
OK, if you've uploaded the code, you should see the ShiftBrite lit up, since the initialization sent this:
The code on the Arduino is now listening to the serial port waiting for some input. The input should be a number between 0 and 9. We should probably send it some numbers… that's where Perl comes in:
#!/usr/bin/perl # # sendserial.pl # use Device::SerialPort; my $port = Device::SerialPort->new("/dev/tty.usbmodem1d21"); $port->databits(8); $port->baudrate(9600); $port->parity("none"); $port->stopbits(1); sleep(3); for ($i = 0; $i <= 9; $i++) { print $i . "\n"; $port->write("$i"); sleep(1); } exit;
This is the shortest, simplest example I've got. You'll obviously need the Device::SerialPort module installed. If you've written anything in Perl (or other languages) this should make some sense. We're connecting to the serial port (/dev/tty.usbmodem1d21) and sending characters (0 through 9) to it, as well as printing them to the console so you can see them.
When you run the Perl script you should see the ShiftBrite light up and change about once per second, cycling through various levels of blue, green, and red.
Note: We got the port /dev/tty.usbmodem1d21 from the Arduino IDE (though I'll show you another way to get it) and the sleep command is in there to give things time to initialize. I've found that without it, the serial port communication may miss the first commands.
Gotchas: The serial port may change. Mine is '/dev/tty.usbmodem1d21′ but it will be different on different machines, and may even change after a reboot. We'll have a fix for that next time. The other gotcha is that when the Perl script is running, it's using the serial port, so if you try to upload a new sketch to the Arduino, you will get an error. Since this script only runs for about 13 seconds, you probably won't hit that problem here… for scripts that loop, you probably will.
I hope that wasn't too complex. In theory, you could write the Perl part using Ruby, Python, or any scripting language that can do serial communications. In the future I'd like to try to use seriality to see if I can do it via HTML/JavaScript.
In a future installment I'll have a complete project using all the bits we just covered…. stay tuned!
See Also: Arduino + ShiftBrite Light Organ


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Photo Credit: Evan Lowenstein
ARTwalk is a unique outdoor museum in Rochester, NY. ARTwalk is an urban art trail connecting museums, galleries, shops, and public spaces throughout the Rochester Neighborhood of the Arts District. The neighborhood features many great cultural amenities such as the Strasenburgh Planetarium , Rochester Historical Society , Memorial Art Gallery , Visual Studies Workshop , School of the Arts , George Eastman House and the International Museum of Photography and Film .
The idea for ARTwalk originated from citizens and community leaders in an effort to revitalize the area of Rochester along University Ave. When planning began to redesign University Ave. citizens expressed their desire to take advantage of the existing cultural attractions by connecting and enhancing them. The resulting ARTwalk is a place for neighbors and tourists to mingle among the public art.
ARTwalk includes public art and decorative sidewalks along the way. Some of the public art was funded with TE funds but other art has been funded through private donations, community efforts, or other funding sources. The project used $234,000 in Federal TE funds and $110,000 in local match funds. The total of $343,000 built benches, art, decorative sidewalks, and bus shelters.
A truly collaborative museum, ARTwalk does not own any of the right of way in which it functions so it must consult with city, county, and state officials in order to follow regulations. The museum believes the art should appeal to a broad range of people since it is in the right of way. When art pieces are planned, open calls for art are advertised in the community and a jury selects and commissions the work to be made. Another example of the collaborative nature of ARTwalk is the Light pole Artistic Mosaic Project (LAMP). The goal of this project was to decorate light poles along University Ave. with mosaic tiles which any member of the community could help place.
The success of ARTwalk was clear through the economic revitalization of the surrounding arts district. The project was so successful that an extension is now under construction. Construction of the ARTwalk extension began in the summer of 2011 and will be completed in summer of 2012 using $3.8 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds. The extension will include decorative sidewalks, art in the sidewalks, interactive plazas with private art, and many more amenities.
ARTwalkNYNewNew YorlRochesterYorlartpublicstreetscape
The National Transportation Alternatives Clearinghouse provides information on the Transportation Alternatives Program funded by FHWA. To be eligible for TA funds, a project must relate to surface transportation and be one of the 10 TA Activities. For more information about the TA program see trade.railstotrails.org. For our licensing policy see our guidelines.
Transportation Alternatives Data Exchange
@ the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy
2121 Ward Court, NW, 5th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20037-1213


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A 110-core chip has been developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology as it looks for power-efficient ways to boost performance in mobile devices, PCs and servers.
The processor, called the Execution Migration Machine, tries to determine ways to reduce traffic inside chips, which enables faster and more power-efficient computing, said Mieszko Lis, a postgraduate student and Ph.D. candidate at MIT, during a presentation at the Hot Chips conference in California.
The chip is a general purpose processor and not an accelerator like a graphics processor, Lis said, adding that it was an experimental chip.
"It's not the kind of thing you buy for Christmas," Lis said.
Typically a lot of data migration takes place between cores and cache, and the 110-core chip has replaced the cache with a shared memory pool, which reduces the data transfer channels. The chip is also able to predict data movement trends, which reduces the number of cycles required to transfer and process data.
The benefits of power-efficient data transfers could apply to mobile devices and databases, Lis said on the sidelines of the conference.
For example, data-traffic reduction will help mobile devices efficiently process applications like video, while saving power. It could also help reduce the amount of data sent by a mobile device over a network.
Fewer threads and predictive data behavior could help speed up databases. It could also free up shared resources for other tasks, Lis said.
The researchers have seen up to 14 times the reduction in on-chip traffic, which significantly reduces power dissipation. According to internal benchmarks, the performance was 25 percent better compared to other processors, Lis said. Lis did not specify the competitive processors used for benchmarks.
The chip has a mesh architecture with the 110 cores interconnected in a square design. It is based on custom architecture designed to deal with large data sets and to make data migration easier, Lis said. The code was also written specially to work with the processor.
Top chip makers have moved away from adding cores, topping out at between 12 and 16 cores in processors. But the MIT researchers crammed 110 cores in the 10 millimeter by 10 millimeter size of the chip, Lis said. The chip was made using the 45-nanometer process.
The mesh architecture is also used in chips from Tilera, which can scale up to 100 cores. But Lis said the 110-core chip is not based on Tilera's architecture, nor is it a successor.
Updated at 9:40 a.m. PT to correct the name of the processor.


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Silicon Knights Ordered To Destroy Unsold Unreal Engine Games
The court battle between Epic Games and Silicon Knights isn't over quite yet. A new filing yesterday has ordered Silicon Knights to destroy all game code using Unreal Engine, which includes Too Human and X-Men Destiny, and unreleased projects The Box/Ritualyst, The Sandman, and Siren the Maelstrom.
The developer also must cease producing or distributing any games using Unreal Engine and must recall and destroy any unsold games at its own expense. Additionally, Epic Games' original $4.45 million award has been doubled to $9 million. Silicon Knights has until December 21 and again on February 21, 2013 to notify the court and Epic Games concerning its compliance of the injections.
"Epic Games appreciates the court's careful consideration of the motions and is gratified by the order," the company said in a statement. Silicon Knights declined to offer comment on the order.


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BBC Worldwide Channels have announced today that new Doctor Who episodes will air just one day after its UK debut in both Poland and South Africa. The second part of Series Seven will air on UK screens on 30th March 2013 and will transmit the following day, 31st March, on BBC Entertainment in South Africa at 19:00 and in Poland on BBC Entertainment in at 18:00.
Both BBC America (USA) and SPACE (Canada) have announced they will air just hours after the UK transmission. Visit the Blogtor Who Guide to Doctor Who Series 7 Part HERE for pics, clips and news.


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Step back in time and enjoy some spectacular British castles and palaces in our pick of the bunch from Make The Most Of Your Time In Britain...
However, the castle is also home to what one British newspaper has dubbed the scariest tourist attraction in the country. The castle dungeon, where senior Royalists were detained during the English Civil War, now has a Black Death theme, complete with strikingly realistic decaying bodies, torture chamber and medieval medical equipment, not to mention crowds of leeches, creepy chanting monks and gallons of (fake) blood. It is all brought to life by a devilish cast of actors, who take obvious delight in creating a gloomy and ghoulish atmosphere.
Warwick Castle, Warwick www.warwick-castle.co.uk.
Ask any five-year-old to draw you a castle and you'll probably end up with a version of Bodiam Castle in East Sussex. With its fairy-tale battlements, arrow slits, portcullis and moat, it is the very image of a forbidding medieval fortress and undoubtedly one of England's most evocative, especially in the early morning mist with the caws of crows rasping in the air. Yet while it certainly looks the part, Bodiam may be, whisper it, something of a fraud.
Historians, you see, can be a tad sniffy about Bodiam, claiming it's little more than a beefed-up manor house rather than a "proper" castle. For starters the moat, seemingly a tricky barrier for the assumed French invaders, could have been drained in a few hours by a man with a shovel. Then there are the thin walls, the vulnerable large windows and the lack of a proper drawbridge. Yet gripes like these rather miss the point. Its owner, local bigwig Sir Edward Dallingridge, had little intention of holing up inside and pouring boiling oil through the murder holes when the castle was completed in 1385. For him Bodiam was about impressing the neighbours and displaying the new-found wealth he had obtained by plundering French villages.
What really sets Bodiam apart, though, is its unspoilt exterior and the sweeping views from its battlements. It's a location manager's dream (it played a key role in Monty Python and the Holy Grail) and just a few hours here will set your imagination into overdrive - you half expect toothless peasants to be tilling the fields or to see a dragon swoop overhead. For the kids, there are plenty of ye olde activities to take part in, from dressing up in medieval garb to archery and falconry displays.
Bodiam Castle, near Robertsbridge, East Sussex, www.nationaltrust.org.uk/bodiamcastle.
Sitting in lush Shropshire countryside, all dense hedgerows and patchwork arable land, Stokesay is comprised of a harmonious cluster of buildings: the original honey-coloured and crenellated fortifications, topped with a weathered slate roof; an Elizabethan half-timbered gatehouse decorated with carvings of Adam and Eve; and a little country church with canopied pews. Edward I granted the licence to fortify, but it's likely the steep castle walls were designed with aesthetics in mind, rather than to keep marauding Welshmen at bay; the castle was built during a lull in the border battles.
And it is the domestic rather than military nature of Stokesay that gives it its particular charm, and enables it to sit so very prettily in this verdant landscape. The great hall, which dates from Lawrence's time, is spanned by a massive timber-framed roof, and still has its original interior staircase. Instead of a fireplace, there's an octagonal hearth in the centre of the room. Elsewhere, the north tower has its original tiled floor, and the gatehouse features seventeenth-century wall paintings; until the time of Charles I, Lawrence's descendants were responsible for the attractive development of the castle.
After this point, Stokesay was used as base for the king during the Civil War, and was then handed to the parliamentarians without any significant fighting taking place. Having survived its long history conflict-free, this overwhelmingly attractive and eccentric collection of buildings was thus preserved for future visitors.
Stokesay is 7 miles northwest of Ludlow, Shropshire www.english-heritage.org.uk.
Perched on a jagged outcrop of granite, and framed by heather-smothered hills, Stirling Castle looks like the classical impregnable fortress, its bleak, stolid walls witness to a long history of murder and mayhem. Thanks to Braveheart, almost everyone in the world knows about William Wallace and the Battle of Stirling Bridge where he trounced the English in that memorable (and bloody) battle scene. Disappointingly for Wallace fans, little remains of the castle he took in 1297; after another hero, Robert Bruce, decisively beat the English again at Bannockburn in 1314, the castle was effectively destroyed and then rebuilt. The oldest surviving part of the castle today is the stern North Gate, built in 1381 during the reign of Robert II.
Yet the castle's later history is wonderfully preserved, offering an alternative to that blood-and-guts image. Mary, Queen of Scots was crowned in the Chapel Royal in 1543, and the Great Hall where she held lavish feasts is still there. It remains a majestic space, with enormous walls, high oriel windows, and a fine oak hammer-beam roof, encrusted with vivid stone carvings. The castle is also painstakingly reproducing the set of 33 gorgeous hand-carved oak medallions that once adorned the ceilings of the Palace. The replicas will eventually return to the ceiling of the King's Presence Hall, while a special gallery is being created for the originals.
Then there are the famous Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries, medieval gems being recreated for the castle by weavers at West Dean College. It remains to be seen if Gibson, or the ghost of William Wallace, will make an appearance at the unveiling in 2014.
Stirling Castle, Castle Wynd, Stirling 01786/450000, www.stirlingcastle.gov.uk.
Ghosts stalk the corridors of Hampton Court Palace: Catherine Howard, dragged back to her rooms after being accused of adultery, not long before her execution at the Tower of London, is apparently seen screaming in the appropriately named Haunted Gallery; while Henry VIII's favourite wife, Jane Seymour, has been spotted walking through Clock Court, carrying a lighted taper. Whether or not you believe in ghosts - or are fortunate enough to see one - there's no denying that the palace is so rich in history that there seems to be more to it than just the many visitors that wander through its rooms.
It was Thomas Wolsey, during the reign of Henry VIII, who transformed what was a large private house - built as a grange for the Knights Hostpitallers in the thirteenth century - into the impressive complex that we see today. The palace was a striking, modern centrepiece for the king's rule, used to impress and entertain foreign dignitaries and, of course, house his various wives in lavish rooms.
Even today, it's impossible not to be enchanted by the architecture and design of the buildings and grounds. Rivalling the ghosts as the palace's most famous attraction is the trapezoidal maze, planted at the end of the seventeenth century as a place for courtiers to lose themselves when needing to escape palace politics.
Hampton Court Palace, Hampton Court, Surrey, www.hrp.org.uk/hamptoncourtpalace.
Top image: Stokesay Castle with garden and guardhouse @ Snaphound Photography/Shutterstock


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Sister Sledge Files Class Action Against Warner Music Over Digital Royalties (Exclusive) - Hollywood Reporter
saw this posted on slashdot. Sounds like they have a legit case. I hope they win It would be great for artistsThe members of the musical group Sister Sledge have banded together with an Oscar-nominated actress and songwriter to file a major class action lawsuit against Warner Music Group alleging they have been cheated out of millions of dollars based on improper calculations of revenue from digital music sales.
Debra Sledge, Joan Sledge, Kathy Sledge Lightfoot, Kim Sledge Allen and Ronee Blakely filed suit in federal court in San Francisco on Thursday claiming that the music giant's method for calcluating digital music purchases as "sales" rather than "licenses" on songs such as the band's chart-topping "We Are Family" cheats artists out of money due to them under recording contracts, many of them signed decades before music was sold digitally via iTunes, Amazon, ringtones and other outlets.
"Rather than paying its recording artists and producers the percentage of net receipts it received--and continues to receive--from digital content providers for 'licenses,' Warner wrongfully treats each digital download as a 'sale' of a physical phonorecord...which are governed by much lower royalty provisions than 'licenses' in Warner's standard recording agreements."
If that claim sounds familiar, it's one of the most hotly-disputed issues in the music business. Songwriters typically make much less money when an album is "sold" than they do when their music is "licensed" (the rationale derives from the costs that used to be associated with the physical production of records). But record labels have taken the position that music sold via such digital stores as iTunes should be counted as "sales" rather than licenses.
The difference in revenue can be significant. The Sister Sledge members claim their record deal promises 25 percent of revenue from licenses but much less from sales. Blakely, who is an Oscar nominated actress (Nashville) as well as songwriter and performer, alleges that her deal with WMG grants her 50 percent of licenses, much more than the rate WMG is paying based on its calculation of sales.
Eminem's publisher brought a nearly identical claim against Universal Music Group and won a fairly important decision at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2010 (the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal). The 9th Circuit ruled that iTunes' contract unambiguously provided that the music was licensed. At the time, UMG downplayed the ruling as specific to Eminem's contract, but music lawyers believe more of these cases are going to be filed by legacy artists (newer contracts have specific language precluding such suits).
And now we have a full-fledged, 35-page class action lawsuit seeking to bring together many artists in one proceeding, calling Warner Music's actions "wide-spread and calculated." Hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue is at stake, the complaint alleges. It should be interesting to see which artists come forward.
Sister Sledge also claims WMG has improperly kept revenue from "reserves," which is money withheld to offset losses related to unsold records. The plaintiffs point out there's no such thing as unsold inventory in a digital universe.
The suit was filed by four firms: Pearson Simon Warshaw & Penny in San Francisco, Hausfeld in Washington DC, and Kiesel Boucher Larson and Johnson & Johnson in Beverly Hills.


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Edith here, also known as Maddie Day, writing madly on my last day of solo retreat on Cape Cod.
As most of you know, I am under contract to write three mysteries a year. I also try to push out a short story or two annually. And this year I'm co-chair of the New England Crime Bake for the second time. Wouldn't you think that would keep me busy enough, seeing as how I also like to watch movies with my sweetie, eat meals, keep in touch with my sons, help my elderly friend, exercise daily, and be active in my spiritual community?
Then…last year my editor at Kensington Publishing asked if I would like to write a Christmas-themed novella for a three-story collection. It's like the collections Barb has written for lately. I've never written a book set at Christmas, and I know they are popular with readers. It's hard to turn down an invitation like that from the senior editor at Kensington. Still, I'd never written that length of story, which is either a really, really long short story or a really, really short book. And I had enough on my plate.
So, naturally, I took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and said Yes. My editor said the title would be Christmas Cocoa Murders and wanted it to include, well, cocoa. My novella was to be by Maddie Day, featuring Robbie Jordan in her Indiana country store. Okay, I could do that. I brainstormed story ideas with the Wickeds last spring, and Jessie had the brilliant idea to include a chocolate lab puppy named Cocoa, who might or might not be involved with the murder.
I'm not quite sure how I squeezed it in, but somehow a window of time opened last summer and I wrote madly away until I had about 27,000 words and a complete story. I learned my two co-authors would be Carlene O'Connor and Alex Erickson, both of whom write successful cozy series.
And now, voila, the collection has a cover, is in production and is up for preorder!
Isn't that fun? The book releases September 24, right smack in many people's shopping window. Because books make the best gifts! My novella is called Christmas Cocoa and a Corpse. Robbie makes Mexican hot chocolate packets to sell in her store. And then…
When local businessman Jed Greenberg is found dead with a chocolate lab whimpering over his body, the police start sniffing around Robbie Jordan's country restaurant for answers. Was it something in Robbie's hot cocoa that killed Jed, or was it Cocoa the dog? As the suspects pile as high as her holiday tree, Robbie attempts to get to the bottom of the sickly-sweet murder . . .
Readers, Do you like Christmas mysteries? How about chocolate labs?


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Architects: Bangkok Project Studio
- Area: 2000 m²
- Year: 2011
Kantana Institute: Film and Animation Undergraduate School
Kantana Institute is a Film and Animation school of undergraduates. The Institute is dedicated to the master of drama in Thailand – Pradit Kaljareuk. It is located in Kantana Movie Town in Kakhonprathom province. It is a one story building which combines perfectly with the beautiful natural environment that surrounds it.
The building has an "Inserted for" with a linear corridor with the north-south axis and the east-west axis. The corridor divides into four blocks with different functions. The Inserted forest to be used as meditation space, so as to remind them to concentrate what they are doing, whether it is making, or moving from place to place.
There are five different areas within the establishment: An administration office, a lecture room, a workshop, a library and a canteen. These areas are all linked by an Inserted forest in the shape of a log pathway. The pathway is made out of grey stone and to walls are made from bricks. The 8 meters high wall is a background of the sun, a tree, and a man when they are connected by each other's shadows.
The administration office is a multi-function space containing a chairperson's office, program office and a general office. They are connected to the courtyard. The sunlight makes this a very pleasant area. The lecture room is a quiet area surrounded with a brick wall and "an Inhabit wall". This the ideal space to relax and unwind in between or after lectures. It is a free standing wall without borderline.
The workshop is a good example of the interior character "darkness" . It creates the feeling of a dream at night time. It helps the students to feel peaceful and to focus while producing their animation projects.The library is a place where the natural sunlight from above, the sound of nature and the darkness the surround the courtyard, come together in unison This room consists of a wall lined.
With book, a meeting room, a Librarian counter, and multimedia area t in the center of the room. The canteen is an open air building. It is at the end of the pathway. To make this a multifunction area for different activities, this space is "non room". In regards to materials used : This building is designed on the "return to basics construction". It is based on natural craftsmanship.
A brick is an everyday material for common cultural heritage of Thai society. The simplified from of the brick is transformed into a universal geometric space. It goes beyond both light and wind which is simple aesthetics sense. It is an easy to understand building where the brick wall does not give the sense of solidity but is gives the surface homogeneous of sunlight.


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I've recently gotten a a few interesting comments on a post from a year ago [well, more than that by now--ed.]. In one of the comments to this post, I quote an ADS-list exchange between you and Ron Butters regarding a semantic distinction between 'on accident' and 'by accident'. What's interesting about the more recent comments, from two Australians and one UK resident, is that 'on accident' seems to be particular to US English. Do you hear 'on accident' from people where you live?
I've chosen this one to reply to because I can answer it in a word: 'no'. I'd call on accident a non-standard Americanism, and I refer you to Neal's discussion and the comments on it for much further rumination on the expression.
But really, I blog tonight in order to accidentally on purpose have the opportunity to thank the readers of this blog for your votes for the Lexiophiles Top Language Blogs 2009--and for all your support over the past few years. I'm absolutely (BrE) gobsmacked to find this blog at the number one spot in the 'Language professionals' category and 14th overall. Wow. I'm hono(u)red to be on the same list as the other nominees. Click on the links to see the full lists.
This blog would be nothin'/nuffink without its loyal readership--whom I've come to think of as a kind of extended family. The kind that are likely to tell you when you look fatter than the last time they saw you and that they liked your old haircut better and to say that they are planning to disown you for the way you voted in the last election (they won't), but who will also take an interest in what you're up to, help out when they can and stand up for you when you need an ally. I'm a couple of posts away from number 300, and was planning on saying something like that when I hit that milestone--but why wait? Thanks for sticking around, reading, commenting and sending me your ideas, observations and anecdotes.
Now, good night!