November 2006 – Something Odd!

The IT@Cork 2006 Conference

I attended the 2006 it@cork National Technology & Business Conference yesterday and took many photos of the speakers. As to be expected with a line-up that included Eddie Hobbs it was very business orientated but Tony Kenny spoke at length about the challenges that faced him when he introduced Linux into Beaumont Hospital and Marc Canter proved to be a very passionate speaker about APIs and openness. Knock down those walled gardens! I could go on and on about the speakers but I wouldn’t do them justice. Watch out for the podcasts on the IT@Cork website.

I enjoyed the day very much, and thank you to Tom Raftery and everyone at IT@Cork for organising a well run and professional event.

Update – Michele loved Tony’s approach to using open source – mix it with proprietary software if you have to. Tom Raftery thought, “yesterday’s event was a tremendous success” and I agree, while Tom Corcoran has a short but thorough review of the day. He did forget to mention the delicious dessert after lunch. Oh wow! Yum!

Haydn was at the conference too and blogged about Marc Canter and Jeff Nolan. Read his post because he has something interesting to say about the cost of blogging. I remember him scribbling furiously throughout while I grappled with iPhoto and uploaded images to my blog! (Nice to meet you finally Haydn!)

Check the voting register before December 9th

The deadline to check if you’re on the voting register has been extended to December 9th so if you haven’t checked, you have a few more days to do so. Type your name and address into the form on Checktheregister.ie to find out if you’re one of the 300,000 voters knocked off the list! This is especially important if nobody has called to your house with a voting form. Even though you may have been on the register for years, some councils have been overly enthusiastic about deleting voters.

It’s a little fiddly doing the check, but not too painful. When you visit the site above you’ll have to click through to the council managing your area. I checked the Cork County Council site and had to click another link which opens a new maximized window with the form. On a large wide screen that looks really silly! All it needs is 600 pixels.

Ray & Jenny, Pat, and Pamela – thanks!

Yesterday’s announcement, the fiasco on the Late Late Show on Friday night and now Pamela Anderson’s divorce drove a lot of traffic yesterday. (People started looking for her video again!) As you can see from the Google Analytics graph, soon after 8am in the morning the flood started after Ian Dempsey mentioned the birth.

I took the opportunity to move In Photos to a new Xen server on Xen Planet for a short test period. If you see posts there without the comments form you’re looking at the old site and your DNS hasn’t updated yet. It should be complete in a few hours. The new site is a 64MB xen server and it’s holding up well. I’m toying with the idea of using Lighttpd, especially as a lot of thumbnails will be served from that host but I won’t have time to work on that until the weekend. Every night this week is already booked up with one thing or another.

In other news, moving a WordPress site to a new host is fairly painless!

Running to catch up with the world's fittest man

I still haven’t read the couch to 5k plan I linked to over two years ago, but someone else did take turning 30 seriously: Dean Karnazes. At the age of 30 on a night out with the lads he decided to run 30 miles. He had no special training, but he says, “and I just got this feeling. When the clock struck midnight I told them I was going to run 30 miles. I guess I was having an early midlife crisis.”

Dean hasn’t stopped since, he runs 70-80 miles a week and at the age of 43 has just completed 50 marathons in 50 days! Read about his story written by a gasping Jeremy Taylor who struggled to keep up with him on his 23rd race.

I turn 31 in a few days time, I think I might manage walking home from Blarney village a mile away, with a following wind.

Congrats to Ray and Jenny!

This is the last of the baby posts, for a while. Only a day after Mairead announced she was pregnant, Jenny gave birth to baby Kate on Saturday evening around 8pm. Ray D’Arcy was on the radio this morning beaming and full of the joys of the world. Great to hear that on a Monday morning!

What do I really do with my SSIA?

Tom Raftery interviewed Eddie Hobbs two weeks ago as part of the IT@Cork pre conference podcast. He covers a range of subjects including investment in IT and residential vs commercial property investments. I’m downloading it now and will listen to it shortly!

There are also interviews with other Conference speakers, including Salim Ismail and Hugh MacLeod. The IT@Cork Business Without Boundaries Conference is looking like a good event to attend. I’ll be there with my camera so expect some photos on my photoblog shortly afterwards!

Really I need a mugger who can file my Vat returns

Comedian Dara O Briain is interviewed by Rose Costello in the Sunday Times “Fame and Fortune” column this week. If you’ve never seen him on tv or perform live then check out the clips at the end of this post!

As a self employed person I took to heart his recommendation that, “Oh yeah, and if you’re self-employed, get an offset mortgage.” You pay tax once a year, all that dosh is building up in your current account, doing what? You might as well get it working and paying off the mortgage. As soon as my fixed rate loan period is up …

How much money do you normally have in your wallet and do you carry anything unusual or sentimental in it?

I never have cash in my wallet at any time — so take that, you brigands and banditos, you’ll get nothing from me. Instead I carry around months and months of receipts. Really I need a mugger who can file my Vat returns.

York Model Railway Station

Update! Dara was on Podge & Rodge’s show the other night! Here’s the obligatory Youtube video: (via)

How to make cocaine

Cocaine use is ruining many lives, the social side effects of paying for an expensive addictive habit ruins society but it’s also disgusting all the crap they use to make cocaine. As it’s an illegal drug you have to take what you get: petrol, cement, calcium oxide, ammonia, H2SO4 and of course coca leaves. This video takes you through the process of from picking the leaves, chopping them, spraying them wth the above chemicals and filtering. Ugh. Everyone should see this video. It might stop someone experimenting with it in the first place.

The Swearing Lady has been reading about Cocaine use in Ireland and the UK. It’s being cut with carcinogenic chemicals to increase yields so on top of the chemicals above drug users are really f*cked. (via and I’d swear Damien linked to the movie a few days ago too)

Edit: the video that was here is long gone, but here’s a text description of how to make cocaine. Reminded me of Breaking Bad reading that.

Pat Kenny's bust up on the The Late Late Show

It seems that Pat Kenny was confronted on the Late Late Show last night and the video has already made it onto YouTube! I heard on the radio this morning that the man is in custody. Well done to Pat for coming back from the ad break composed and ready to carry on the show. I didn’t see the show myself, I was channel surfing elsewhere (Escape From Alcatraz was on which was interesting since I’d been there!)

For those not familiar with The Late Late Show, think of the host of the most popular chat show in your country being confronted by a drunken man shouting obscenities!

Thanks Donal for posting the video, that _was_ quick!

Update – The man who caused the controversy is Paul Stokes who has patented a system that uses GPS as a road safety aid. It helps stop cars crashing by tracking every vehicle on the roads and Mr. Stokes asserts the RTE and the Irish media are censoring him.

Today FM's Mairead Farrell is Pregnant

News hot off the radio is that Mairead Farrell of the Ray D’Arcy’s show on Today FM is five months pregnant. I don’t know what it is but everyone seems to be either pregnant or just after having a baby. What’s in the water?

Back on July 24th, Ray and Jenny announced that Jenny was pregnant, and she’s now on maternity leave. The baby should be popping out any time now. I’m surprised the birth hasn’t happened already! We’re now waiting on an announcement from the recently married Will Hanafin and I wonder who will replace the lovely Mairead when she’s out on leave?

It’s almost a year since the US book was launched! I was there, and got some great photos of Ray, Jenny and Mairead. Such a lot has happened in the last year!

For your viewing pleasure, here’s the team doing the Ok Go dance, before anyone was pregnant!

And, oh my God, if you want cringe worthy tv, here’s Rodge and Podge interviewing Ray..