Category Archives: General

Billy Burke, of Killorglin, Co. Kerry has been waiting for a lung transplant for three and a half years. His story has made the headlines here because he was turned down for a transplant in Newcastle as he had an infection in his lungs. However he has been accepted by a hospital in Manchester, but because the Irish Government has an exclusive deal with Newcastle, Billy won’t have access to lungs that become available in the Republic. This is what Billy’s family and others want to change.
Check the site for more info.
(via Owen)

Yup, FRLinux Static-X are good! I want more!! More! More!

Having this server linked directly off Slashdot didn’t hurt us very much this time! The fact the linked page was a static html page helped enormously, but the machine is fairly beefy and the traffic generated not as great as in the past. *phew*

Here’s the fascinating account of the arrest of a 419 spammer in a Dublin Internet cafe. It is a lengthy but good read, and the following thread brings up some interesting points about the legality of listening to Internet traffic.
Later… and it made it on to slashdot! Thankfully the linked page on linux.ie is the static archive page I linked to above. I think we’ll survive the slashdotting!
And we made it on to the Register too!

Colm expresses his slight exasperation with the ILUG over doubts about the new gmail service from Google! heh. I signed up a few days ago.

Finally got the computer connected to the phone line a few days ago! Connection speed is good, even if it’s still only dial-up. No DSL in Blarney yet.
After the first weekend of the smoking ban I have to say it’s great! I was out in Cork on Friday night and it was strange to see so many people outside pubs, but the air inside is so clean and clothes the next day don’t stink to high heaven!
Last night was the first night out in Blarney. Headed to the Muskerry Arms and it’s not a bad pub at all! Again, the lack of smoke in the pub is a huge boon!

Go on and fill out this survey before April 21st! I wonder what do they expect people to answer? “No!” I’d put this in the humour section except that Blarney hasn’t got broadband yet so it’s no joke to me! More on boards.ie and thanks to Stewie @ #linux for the link.
Later… It seems that it’s specifically for wholesale sellers of broadband. It may not help the cause much if they get a lot of replies from the small guys, no matter how strongly we feel on the subject!

While slashdot, the world and his dog have already seen this story I only looked through it this morning. It’s a photo-essay following several journies into the Dead Zone around Chernobyl. Aide Roche publicizes the plight of the people in that area through her charity work here in Cork and elsewhere but to see such personal photographic evidence brings it to another level again.. All the lives ruined and changed and memories left behind. It’s very sad.

This bookmarklet looks interesting. The Passivator is described as, “A passive verb and adverb flagger for Mozilla-derived browsers, Safari, and Opera 7.5, with caveats.”
Running it on my this page shows a disturbing number of blue and yellow boxes, but reading over the highlighted text again is enlightening. (via Simon)

Last update from home in Blackrock! Next update from home will be in Blarney! Woo! Eh, slightly hungover from last night.. 🙂