DeathStick.org

[The Print] UNESCO accepts Palestine; United States pulls funding

2011-11-29T04:09:00.001-08:00

This originally appeared in The Print, Volume 3, Issue 4.

Palestine wants to talk. They have said on several
occasions they are willing to enter into peace
talks with Israel. The US and the international
community want them to talk. Preventing this is
the fact that Israel is continuing to build houses on
occupied land which is illegal under international
law. They are in full control of entering the Gaza
strip and activists wishing to visit it have to lie at the
airport and pretend to be pilgrims.

The Gaza Strip has been described as the largest
open air prison in the world. Egypt has recently
loosened controls on the boarder into the Gaza
strip which is helping. The west bank has similar
problems, as well as east Jerusalem.

The state of Palestine is recognized by some
countries including Ireland, but it is not recognized
by the UN.

UNESCO, or the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization voted to accept
Palestine as a state. This proved very controversial,
as it meant the USA has withdrawn funding from
UNESCO, which was around 20& of it’s total
funding.

Obama has said they cannot support it until there
is a peace agreement with Israel. This is funny for
many reasons, the main one is that Israel hasn’t
left UNESCO. The Law which Obama used as a
justification for this action doesn’t explicitly ban
UNESCO from recognizing the current Palestinian
state, and he would be legally free to continue this
funding.

Palestine is attempting to be recognized by the
UN security council, however America has said it
will veto this move.

Presidential Youth Debate SpunOut.ie #YouthRising #aras11

2011-10-21T15:48:00.000-07:00

Can everyone please watch and share this video, let's have an informed discussion on the presidential election

I am Troy Davis

2011-09-22T05:25:00.000-07:00

Before he died, Troy Davis sent the following message to his supporters:

"The struggle for justice doesn't end with me. This struggle is for all the Troy Davises who came before me and all the ones who will come after me. I'm in good spirits and I'm prayerful and at peace."

Today is a sad day for anyone who believes in justice. R.I.P Troy Davis. We will not forget.

[TED Tuesday] Geoffrey West: The surprising math of cities and corporations

2011-08-16T02:52:00.000-07:00

Little Brother Review

2011-08-15T03:47:00.000-07:00

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Little Brother is 1984 for the Internet age, written as a young adult book, but something that everyone should read. It covers issues of terrorism, freedom, government spying and the role of technology. The fact that nearly everything in the book is technically viable now means that it's a chilling political statement of how important it is that we keep what our government does in check.

View all my reviews

[TED Tuesday] Bruce Schneier: The security mirage

2011-07-13T15:17:00.000-07:00

Bruce Schneier is one of the leading security experts in the world, everyone should listen to this talk, really puts security into perspective. It takes 20 minutes, but is very worthwhile.

My comments in support of the flotilla movement

2011-07-10T06:30:00.000-07:00

On a post in thejournal.ie about Israel deporting activists

"Hi Seamus,

Sadly the only misinformed person in this conversation is you.

I comprehend very well that it isn't a black and white situation. I understand that Israel is suffering from rocket attacks and that Hamas is a problem. But denying the population their rights, engaging in collective punishment (international committee of the Red Cross) and attempted ethnic cleansing isn't going to fix this problem. The siege of Gaza and the continued splitting of the west bank into smaller pieces by Israeli only roads is only pushing people into extremism.

Let me be very clear about this, the only thing I am against is Israeli government policy. I support a full boycott sanctions and divestment campaign with a full economic, cultural and academic boycott, and when Israel complies with international law and enters negotiations fully, then these sanctions should be fully lifted.

Calling me anti-Semitic is a Reductio ad Hitlerum. I am only against the government policy. I think it is very sad that Jewish people suffered so much in WWII and now they are treating the Palestinian people so badly.

As to the attack on the Flotilla, first of all using the IMF to force Greece to hold up most of the ships was shameful both for Israel and the IMF. The sabatash on the Irish ship could have killed all on board. There was a time that such an action would have caused outrage. After all, what is the point of the Irish flag, if we let attacks on our ships go unanswered. This is fundamentally disrespectful to Irish sovereignty. We did basically nothing when Mossad agents abused Irish passports.

I'm glad you mentioned the IRA, as there are a lot of similarities to Palestine and NI. Initial ocupation of a country: Check. Government arming citizens against a group in society, check. State sponsored terrorism against the oppressed group, check. Oppressed group turning to violence as a last resort: check. I hope it has a similar peaceful resolution as the Good Friday agreement. "

On the UK Huffington Post launched.

2011-07-06T14:49:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

I know there is a lot of controversy about this, getting people to write for free, but I don't think it's much of a big deal. If you choose to contribute something to a media source, without pay, and get to promote either your blog or upcoming book, then that's your choice, if you want to be paid then don't contribute. Perhaps not surprisingly, The Guardian has given the HuffPo a cool reception, as it thinks the AOL subsidiary is going to be a source of competition.

The problem I have with the HuffPo is that it is so big. There are hundreds of posts per day, so keeping on top of it was to hard and I unsubscribed to the American version. I'll be keeping an eye on the UK version, but It really should have more options in it's feeds. I'm in a situation that my Google Reader has 1000+ unread for probably the last year.

As a political hack, and member of Labour, I'm excited to see that Alastair Campbell is contributing. There are also some Irish bloggers, so I look forward to seeing how this develops.

Check it out

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments.

[TED Tuesday] Matt Cutts: Try something new for 30 days

2011-07-05T09:34:00.000-07:00

So I haven't been blogging for a while, but I watched this video, and it has inspired me. I'm aiming to publish a Blog post every day for 30 days.

#Cheltenham, day 2

2011-03-16T03:55:00.000-07:00

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

My new addiction is horse racing. After the first day of Cheltenham I'm in the black. Had some winners including Hurricane Fly and a few each ways which came in 3rd. So here's what I'm thinking on day 2. I'm no expert, follow this advice at your own risk.

The website I'm getting these odds from is PaddyPower.ie. I must complement them for having a very usable, well designed website.

First up is the 1:30 National Hunt Chase
Alfa Beat 7/2 odds, think this horse is everyone's favourite, I'll be betting this to win and thinking of putting Arabella Boy each way

Next is the 2:05 Neptune Novices' Hurdle
With Ruby Walsh on a winning streak, I'd say So Young will get the win, thinking of Oscars Well and Rock On Ruby for each way bets. First Lieutenant could surprise us as well, might put a bit on him too.

And at 2:40, we have the RSA Chase
Not really sure here, Time For Rupert is the favourite, Think I'll put something each way on Mikael Dhaguenet, we'll see if Ruby's winning streak continues. The Guardian are tipping each way on Wayward Prince, might do that as well

3:20 Queen Mother Champion Chase
Big Zeb 3/1 and Master Minded 7/2
Between these 2, I'm going to put money on Master Mind to win, we'll see how the Ruby Factor is holding up
Golden Silver is in with a shot, might go each way

4:00 Coral Cup Handicap Hurdle
Aegean Dawn and Call The Police have the same odds of 11/2, Aegean Dawn had better form, but Call The Police is riden by Ruby Walsh. Haven't Decided which to back yet, will see how well Ruby is doing over the day.

4:40 Fred Winter Juvenile H'cap Hurdle
Don't know either, Plan A and Tenor Nivernais are pritty even,

5:15 Champion Bumper
No idea, will pick one at random

So that's what I think, we'll see how much money I make, might do another one tomorrow.

Blue Shirts admit their true nature! #ge11

2011-02-19T16:24:00.000-08:00

I don't know how this happened, or what they were thinking, but it really is true! Don't vote for this right wing party. FG really don't know how to use the internet, from their websites being hacked to the pathetic valentines day stunt to this.

For those of you who can't see the above, it is a picture of a youtube search for conservative propaganda with a sponsored result from FG, which means that FG paid for the add to be served with either or both of these search results.

boy racer song [Funniest Video Ever]

2010-12-19T04:43:00.000-08:00

From Phreeze Reaction we have a funny song about boy racers. From the youtube bio: "i am a ledgend my motto is : Try to be unique! Everything changes and evolves. Breaking started in the streets and B-Boys should enjoy the freedom of expression."

Freshers Week [Maynooth SU]

2010-09-15T05:38:00.000-07:00

So, the Freshers Week line-up is out, don't forget this Thursday, Snub Mary and a free bar ex on in the Su tonight.

Monday:
Outdoor Fair 11amDJ from Midday in The Bar...
Manic Mondays' Late Bar
...Pump Up the Jam (free admission before 11pm, e5 after)

Tuesday:
Inflatables from 11am outside Student Union
DJ and Karaoke from Midday in The Bar
Fight Like Apes, with special guests Cast of Cheers and Futures Apart, 8:30pm in The Venue, admission e5

Wednesday:
Freshers' Ball, 8:30pm in The Venue, admission e10 for Maynooth students, featuring 3D disco and Fourplay DJs

Thursday:
Arthur's Day, live music from 3pm in the Bar and Venue
Open Mic night from 9pm in The Bar
The Hardy Bucks in The Venue from 9pm

#latelate Blare wrap-up

2010-09-04T15:06:00.000-07:00

Image by fluterirl via Flickr

So Blare gave his first live interview on Irish TV last night. A really bad start for this season of The Late Late Show. Tubs is out of his depth, although jedward had him out of his depth as well, so I don't know what that was about. He kept asking Blare stupid simple questions like "Did you prey with Bush" or "Are you a war criminal" and kept interrupting him throughout the interview. And if that wasn't a bad enough circus, jedward just caused chaos. It was fun to make fun of the whole thing on Twitter.

Oddly enough, there were two jedward supporters for every anti-war protester outside RTE. Here's the photo one of them took of jedward with Blare.

Image via CrunchBase

And then the anti-war movement had a protest outside Eason's this morning, started at 11, I was still in bed. I understand protesting, but there was no need to scuffle with the Gards. They are only doing t heir job. There's a good post over at Never Felt Better about the violent protesters. I don't see the point of doing a citizens arrest, the Guards are obviously not going to act on it.

I feel rather apathetic about Blare. There's no point in arguing about Iraq now, it's done. He made the decision based on intelligence which he was given, so the blame lies with America.

[TED Tuesday] Global Gender Equality

2010-08-31T14:21:00.000-07:00

TED.com is a great resource, and every Tuesday I'm going to highlight an interesting talk.

Gender Equality is something you hear a lot about, but you start to ignore it, not realising the scale of the problem.

This really opens it up. I don't know a lot about development aid, but I think more can be done.

Guardian interview

Evernote rant

2010-08-29T12:16:00.000-07:00

Rant alert. Today I decided to try Evernote, a note taking application. I didn't get very far because the tool didn't work with my ZoomText, my magnification software. For that reason I was unable to use it at all. It was a bad sign when it auto-played a video as soon as I opened it.

It is extremely frustrating to think that this company didn't bother making their product accessible. Why would anyone exclude customers.

Is Obama a Muslim? Examine the Evidence!

2010-08-28T17:37:00.000-07:00

Leader of the free world, LOL JK, America!

2010-08-27T14:46:00.000-07:00

So a man who spend the days after Hurricane Katrina rescuing people was arrested for being a terrorist and denied basic human right for months. The sad thing is I'm not at all surprised this happened.

Ground Zero Mosque

2010-08-23T15:33:00.000-07:00

Was going to write about the 9/11 mosque and all the stupidity going on over in America, but I think this post from Roger Ebert summarises it very well, my favourite quote:

2. The First Amendment comes down to this: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." It does not come down to: "The First Amendment gives me the right to repeat the N-word 11 times on the radio to an inoffensive black woman, and when you attack me for saying it, you are in violation of my First Amendment rights."

Full Post

[Breaking News] Google Closing Google Wave by end of year

2010-08-04T14:21:00.000-07:00

Announced on the official Google Blog: Google will shut down Google Wave. I knew it wasn't going well, but I didn't expect them to shut it down. I never really got into it, perhaps that's why. They did add the real time colaberation to google docs though. Who knows, more on this soon,

[Urgent] Iran must release family of missing lawyer

2010-07-29T02:33:00.000-07:00

The whereabouts of Iranian human rights lawyer Mohammas Mostafaei, who is defending a woman at risk of being stoned to death, are currently unknown.
...
Intent on silencing
"The Iranian authorities appear intent on silencing anyone who speaks out against stoning or other issues where Iran’s international human rights obligations are clearly being violated," said Malcolm Smart.

"Mohammad Mostafaei should be allowed to get on with his job as a lawyer rather than face arrest himself for trying to defend victims of human rights abuses.

"If Fereshteh and Farhad Halimi are held solely because they are related to Mohammad Mostafaei, or in order to place pressure on him, they are prisoners of conscience and must be immediately released."

This is the last in a long list of human rights violations from Iran, Everyone take action.

[Funniest Video Ever] Jane Austen's Fight Club

2010-07-27T13:57:00.000-07:00

(via Mashable!)

Books like Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters are getting more popular, it was inevitable someone would make it into a film.

Facebook, Friend or Foe?

2010-07-16T14:34:00.000-07:00

My contribution to the latest issue of the Left Tribune, Labour Youth’s magazine:

Facebook is the most searched brand in America. It has 400,000,000 users world wide (compared to twitter which only has 100,000,000) and is expanding to other sites with Facebook Connect and the newly released Graph API. Although the company‘s record on user privacy is poor, Facebook is a very important platform.

I think a Facebook presence is essential for a Branch of Labour Youth or nearly any other group. The main LY page has been very effective; in that it has relevant information, is frequently updated, and has a nice mix of content.

A lot of branches are using Facebook, but some of them may not be using it effectively. The first big no-no is setting up a person profile for a group. It
looks very unprofessional, it probably violates the terms of service which could get your page shut down, you have to approve every member, and it looks very amateur.

Groups were the first option for organisations on Facebook. They have the benefit of being able to send emails and event invites to all members. Once you join a group it shows up in your friends‘ news feed. The disadvantage is that the group doesn‘t have status updates. It has a wall which anyone can write on, but you have to visit the page to see it.

In the beginning, Facebook events were designed to make it easy for college students to meet up and drink (not much has changed really). Events are very useful. It is easy to invite people to them and they show up in your friends news feed when you RSVP to one. They are a great way of promoting an event, and of reminding people that an event is on. You can send an all attendee email and emails are sent out when the date/time/ venue is changed.

Next there comes the fan pages. A fan page lets you put status updates in the fans news feeds. When someone shares a link or video, they have an option to leave it as via your fan page. This helps get more fans. Fan pages also have analytics about page usage which groups and pages don‘t have. They can be very useful.

A disadvantage of fan pages is that you can‘t email all members or invite all members to an event, but I feel this is a small price to pay for a way to get content into peoples news feeds.

So, how should a branch use Facebook more effectively? First of all, Facebook isn‘t the be-all and end-all of the web. There are some people, who (shock horror) don‘t have a Facebook account (we‘re building re-education camps as we speak), so in the mean time you should have a website for your branch. Unless you‘re a hardcore XHTML nerd in your parent‘s basement with nothing better to do with your time than hand code a site, use Blogger or Wordpress. The advantages and disadvantages of these are enough to possibly write my next article, but they are both free and really easy to use, so pick one.
Keep this site up-to-date.

You should make a Facebook fan page for your branch, then share links to the posts from your site. Don‘t post too much, and don‘t post a load of things at the same time. Also try and keep the content varied.

Post a video from the Party‘s YouTube channel with a few questions in the text area. Post links to relevant news articles, and post stuff about what your branch or LY are doing.

Groups aren‘t as useful. One thing you might do is create a group for a campaign. Then you can email the members and invite them to events. The Tallagh IT bus shelter campaign is an example of such a group.

Labour Youth also has some effective groups including the campaign for a 3-Way TV Debates between Party Leaders.

I‘ve written about how you can use Facebook to promote your Branch but I feel I should also say something about Facebook privacy in a personal level. While useful, it has become clear that without massive pressure, Facebook doesn‘t care about user privacy as it doesn‘t fit with their emerging business model.

So what‘s the problem with Facebook? Well from the site youropenbook.com you can search for things like .Hate my job. or .cheat on my boyfriend/girlfriend., and you can see posts either from people who are really stupid, or who don‘t realise their posts are public.

This happened because Facebook changed their privacy settings and made everyone review them. However, they put a lot of settings (like everything you post to your wall) to public by default. Most people just skipped over this without reading it, so their posts are now public.

A more recent change means that everything you list as interests, favourite books and films are now public. Again you were shown information about this but most people just clicked through it. Basically everything you specified as an interest is now linked to a fan page, and publicly accessible. Something else you mightn‘t realise is that membership of pages is usually public.

And then you have instant personalisation which gives 3rd party sites you visit while logged into Facebook default access to information in your account.

So what should you do? Well a few internet celebrities have quit Facebook very publicly, but I don‘t think this will make a difference, and Facebook is so integrated into everything already that stopping using it seems a bit silly.

The fundamental rule for the future is assume everything you put on Facebook could be made public by a mistake or by a discrete change in settings. I‘ve set all my contact information as friends only. It‘s your own choice. Leaving your email public will probably result in a lot of phishing attacks and spam, and you really don‘t want the whole internet to have your phone number, so look at these carefully. Under no circumstances should you set your birthdate to public, as such information is widely used in identity theft scams.

When people first joined Facebook, it was a place to talk to friends privately. Services like Twitter are a lot more open, designed to broadcast things we want the entire internet to see. But Facebook wants some of the Twitter action, and it is using methods such as changing settings and terms of service to make things more public. To fix this problem, Facebook needs to switch everything back to private. It needs to be private by default, and it can never change this. I doubt it will do this though, as it seems the only people who care are a few bloggers.

“The fundamental rule for the future is assume everything you put on Facebook could be made public by a mistake or by a discrete change in settings. “

Defenestration

2010-07-15T10:35:00.000-07:00

Defenestration is the act of throwing someone or something out a window. It happened a lot, From Wikipedia

As recorded in the book of Kings II in the Bible, Jezebel was defenestrated at Jezreel by her own servants at the urging of Jehu. (2 Kings 9: 33)
It has been suggested by several chronicles (notably the Annals of Westhide Abbey) that King John killed his nephew, Arthur of Brittany, by throwing him from a window in the castle at Rouen, France, in 1203.
In 1378 the crafts and their leader Wouter van der Leyden occupied the Leuven city hall. They took over the Leuven government. Most of the patricians left the city and fled to Aarschot. After negotiations between the parties, they agreed to share the government. The patricians did not accept this easily, as they lost their absolute power. Trying to turn the tide, they had Wouter van der Leyden assassinated in Brussels. The crafts wanted revenge. They handed over the patrician to a furious crowd. The crowd stormed the city hall and threw the patricians out of the window. At least 15 patricians were killed during this defenestration of Leuven.
In 1383, Bishop Dom Martinho was defenestrated by the citizens of Lisbon, having been suspected of conspiring with the enemy when Lisbon was besieged by the Castilians.
In 1452, King James II of Scotland murdered William Douglas, 8th Earl of Douglas, with his own hands and threw him out the window at Stirling Castle.
On April 26, 1478, after the failure of the "Pazzi conspiracy" to murder the ruler of Florence, Lorenzo de' Medici, Jacopo de' Pazzi was defenestrated.
In 1572, French King Charles IX's friend, the Huguenot leader Gaspard de Coligny, was killed in accordance with the wishes of Charles' mother, Catherine de' Medici. Charles had allegedly said "then kill them all that no man be left to reproach me." Thousands of Protestants were killed in the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre after soldiers attacked Coligny in his house, stabbed him, and threw him out the window.
On the morning of December 1, 1640 in Lisbon, a group of supporters of the Duke of Braganza party found Miguel de Vasconcelos, the hated Portuguese Secretary of State of the Habsburg Philip III, hidden in a closet, killed him and defenestrated him. His corpse was left to the public outrage.
During the Polish January 1863 Uprising, Russian troops threw Frédéric Chopin's piano out of a second-story apartment. The incident was famously memorialized in Polish poet Cyprian Norwid's poem, "Chopin's Piano." The composer had left Warsaw and Poland forever shortly before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising.
On June 11, 1903, a group of Serbian army officers murdered and defenestrated King Alexander and Queen Draga.
In 1922, Italian politician and writer Gabriele d'Annunzio was temporarily crippled after being pushed out a window by an unknown assailant.
In 1941, Murder, Inc informant Abe "Kid Twist" Reles fell to his death from a window on the sixth floor of the Half Moon Hotel on Coney Island, on the eve of his scheduled testimony. The angle of trajectory suggests that he was defenestrated rather than trying to flee.^{[citation needed]}
On March 10, 1948 the Czechoslovakian minister of foreign affairs Jan Masaryk was found dead, dressed in his pajamas, in the courtyard of the Foreign Ministry below his bathroom window. The initial investigation stated that he committed suicide by jumping out of the window, although some believe that he was murdered by the ascendant Communists (see Czech coup). The newest criminal investigation deduced from the trajectory of Masaryk's fall that he was thrown out of the window.
In 1968, the son of China's former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, Deng Pufang, was thrown from a window by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.
Shortly before midnight on December 15, 1969, the Italian anarchist Giuseppe Pinelli was seen falling to his death from a fourth floor window of the Milan police station.
In 2007, the actor Mark Blanco, who was celebrating having been appointed to a starring role in the play 'The Accidental Death of an Anarchist'—about the Pinelli affair—was killed after falling from the balcony of a first floor window at a party attended by Pete Doherty with whom he is said to have had an altercation shortly before his death.^[4]
On February 2, 1970, Time magazine reported that Odie R. Seagraves, the "big-time wheeler-dealer" Texan businessman, had died aged 83 by "defenestration from an eighth floor hotel room, in Dallas." At the time of his death, it is said that he was completely broke having made and lost $20 million in natural gas speculation.^[5]
In 1984, RCMP officer Patrick Kelly was convicted of throwing his wife, Jeanette, over their 17th floor balcony in Etobicoke - a charge he denies to this day.^[6]
The 2000 Ramallah lynching included throwing the (already-dead) body of either Vadim Nurzhitz or Yossi Avrahami out of a second-floor window, after those two Israeli soldiers had been lynched.
On March 2, 2007 Russian investigative journalist Ivan Safronov, who was researching the Kremlin's covert arms deals, fell to his death from a fifth floor window. Friends and colleagues discount suicide as a reason and an investigation was opened looking into possible "incitement to suicide".^[7]
In 2007 in Gaza, Hamas killed two Fatah supporters by defenestration.^[8]

Fine Gael health proposals, no thanks

2010-07-07T13:44:00.000-07:00

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Just read the TASC post about Fine Gael health proposals. It's worrying that they want to bring an american style system to Ireland, Labours policies are a lot fairer.

Fine Gael’s policies resemble-market based and neoliberal responses to reforming the Irish health care system. They are not about ‘fairness’, because most people will have to buy health insurance privately. There is no mention about what happens if people can’t afford private health insurance. Instead, this is dressed up as a ‘fair’ universal health insurance system. They are attempting to sell these policies to the population through the promise of free GP care. However, it is not free if people have to purchase health insurance to cover the cost. In many respects, Fine Gael’s policy document, while doing a good job explaining the problems in the health system, is extremely duplicitous and dishonest in the solutions it provides. In this regard, it would be a shame if ordinary people were fooled by their promises.

Review of Look Left, the Labour Party news letter for July 2010

2010-07-06T13:02:00.000-07:00

It's a really exciting time for Labour:
Gilmore re-asserts his commitment to a 3 way leaders TV debate, and talks about how Labour is the 3rd option for government.
Ruairi Quinn talks about why the Euro is a good idea, and why national transparency in budgets is important.

Image by neiljs via Flickr

Neil Ward talks about his experience in London during #ge2010.
There's a lot more in it including Labour's tourism policy so have a look.

Don't Get Caught in a Bad Hotel

2010-07-06T12:03:00.000-07:00

I've never imagined this day would come, when two of my favourite things, Lady Gaga and left wing politics could be incorporated in one YouTube video, but here it is:

"A flashmob infiltrates the Westin St. Francis hotel in San Francisco and performs an adaptation of Lady Gaga's song "Bad Romance." The event was organized to draw attention to a boycott called by the workers of the hotel who are fighting to win a fair contract and affordable healthcare. Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer activists put the song and dance together as a creative way to tell the hundreds of thousands of LGBTQ people from all over the country coming to San Francsico in June for Pride to stay out of the boycotted hotels. "

#tj10 this weekend.

2010-07-02T03:37:00.000-07:00

This weekend I'm going to The Tom Johnson Summer School in Kilkenny. It's a Labour Youth event where we discuss policy. I'll be tweeting on #tj10 over the weekend.

[Breaking News] Ivana Bacik abstains on #staggate

2010-06-30T14:50:00.000-07:00

Something else to add to staggate:

Have abstained on stag hunting bill. Couldn't oppose ban on principle, but think it was the price of NAMA - FF paid to keep Greens onside.less than a minute ago via webIvana Bacik
ivanabacik

Where's Tony? It's a bloke called Clinton.

2010-06-28T03:27:00.000-07:00

Red this in the Guardian story Trimdon Labour Club to close:

...the following year customers were startled when a barmaid answered the phone and shouted: 'Where's Tony? It's a bloke called Clinton.'

Enda Kenny: While I remain leader of FG we have no chance of leading the government #fgheave

2010-06-25T02:51:00.000-07:00

So true:

(Via Maman Poulet)

In Defense of Contemporary Art

2010-06-18T01:19:00.000-07:00

This park looks really interesting. I'd love to visit it.

Raging Grannies on the BP oil spill

2010-06-12T07:06:00.000-07:00

(via Mashable!)

Lady Gaga + BP oil spill

2010-06-12T07:03:00.000-07:00

[Funniest Video Ever] Mitchell & Webb - BabyBerry

2010-06-01T07:28:00.000-07:00

Really funny! I want one :D

[Funniest Video Ever] Lady Gaga Telephone Parody

2010-05-10T02:31:00.000-07:00

Hung Parliament In 3 Minutes #ge2010

2010-05-08T10:12:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't know anything about the hung parliament I'd recommend this video.

Breaking News: New Labour Member in Donegal

2010-05-06T03:28:00.000-07:00

Breaking News:

We have another new recruit - Jimmy Harte in Donegal !less than a minute ago via txtDominic Hannigan
Domhannigan

Also, new embedable tweet!

Galactic Empire State of Mind

2010-05-06T02:53:00.000-07:00

First we had THE NEW DORK - Entrepreneur State of Mind (Jay-Z ft Alicia Keys Spoof)

Then College Humor did this:
Galactic Empire State of Mind

There both way better than the original song! :D

Good Man Gordon

2010-05-04T06:37:00.000-07:00

Really good speech, pity it came so late, not sure how effective it will be.

[Funniest Video Ever] Telephone Remake

2010-05-03T13:08:00.000-07:00

My Gaga obsession continues with this amazing remake of the telephone video.

Breaking News: Kate's party is a fake!

2010-05-02T12:28:00.000-07:00

It turns out it was a prank:

But the joke may in fact be on the gatecrashers as the entire meme - and Miller herself - has now been revealed to be the brainchild of Adelaide-based serial online prankster David Thorne.

Ah well, it's still funny!

Kate's Party gatecrashed by 60,000 Facebook users

Funny article from the UK #election

2010-05-02T10:32:00.001-07:00

Funny article from the guardian about what foreign journalists think of the election.

And of course, it helped that people in Spain actually knew who he was. "Whereas Gordon Brown…" Suárez sighs. "Gordon Brown is dour and boring, nobody cares about him. He is a very bad figure for foreign correspondents. You can't do anything with him. He gets on well with the Spanish prime minister but this is because they are both in a terrible position – politically, economically – they are like two drunks who are holding on to each other in the street to stop themselves falling over."

General election 2010: How the eyes of the world see a very British contest

Grant cut protest @theusi

2010-04-29T03:35:00.000-07:00

Next year, mature students on back to education allowance will no longer be able to get the grant. They need the grant to support families and get the chance to go to college. If we want a knowledge economy, we need graduates! This cut is yet another example of FF not caring about the effect their policies have. Everyone needs to get behind this campaign. We need to stop this. Let's build a fairer country, let's give everyone a chance at higher education. Here's video of the protest, and I was interviewed. I look forward to working on this campaign in the future.

Country cover of Lady Gaga!

2010-04-27T04:27:00.000-07:00

Lady Gaga Telephone, Country version! Win!

Spammers be ware, Yoda is on your case!

2010-04-21T05:27:00.001-07:00

My Political Compasses

2010-04-20T09:17:00.000-07:00

My Political Views
I am a left social libertarian
Left: 6.43, Libertarian: 5.7

Political Spectrum Quiz

Final Union Council of the Year

2010-04-20T07:56:00.000-07:00

Just back from a 2 hour union council, the final one of the year.

It was going to be a long one as every member of the exec made a report. I think in general the quality of the reports was high, and I am really happy with the work the exec did this year, and look forward to building on it next year.

Some very significant motions were debated. First the Union will withdraw funding from night line if they refuse to provide anonymous usage statistics. The Union spends 4k on funding this and we need to be sure the money is being spent appropriately.

Second, Maynooth SU will form a charity to raise money for students in difficulty. The existing funding is inadequate for students needs. Two motions were passes unanimously, one for Liz to investigate the possibility of setting up the charity and the second was to vest the incoming exec with the power to decide to go ahead with it or not in the summer so it can be up and running for the next academic year. I am really happy with this decision and feel it is a very good move, well done Liz.

Rob proposed an emergency motion about the new website. The proposed company was charging too much, would have taken too long, and had nothing in their portfolio like the SU website. The whole process was odd, as the requirements document and other quotes were not made available.

Micheal D Higgins TD addresses #lp10

2010-04-20T02:56:00.000-07:00

What can I say, It was amazing.

So, let us hear answers from all of the political Parties to these basic questions- do they accept or reject that speculative form of the economy, divorced from any social responsibility, which has failed or do they seek to revive it? Do they or do they not believe in the achievement of an inclusive citizenship, with a new form of social economy, and universal access to the requirements of citizenship? At this conference, as the Party that offers a real alternative, Labour appeals to the public to join with us in building for a radical new departure, one that is truly different in the version of society, economy and politics it offers. It is understandable that the public is angry. To deliver a change, however, they must be engaged with the political decisions made in their name. We in Labour invite the public to be with us in making this new politics - building a real republican citizenship.

I think the most important point of the speech.

Full text here.

Apple are fascists!

2010-04-20T02:33:00.000-07:00

Apple blocks Pulitzer-winning political cartoonist from iStore for "ridiculing public figures":

Laura sez, 'Mark Fiore just won a Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning for his animated works appearing on SFGate.com. I spoke with Fiore about what's next for him, and he said he'd like to take his freelance shop mobile. Only problem: Apple denied his iPhone app because it 'ridicules public figures,' a violation of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement. If he can get his app past the Apple satire police, he should be good to go.

This is not apple preventing spyware from getting on the iPhone. This is not apple protecting users personal information. This is apple blocking something for political reasons. This is an attack on the freedom of the press. This is why I will never buy an iPhone.

The Murder of Toyosi Shittabey and Racial Tension in Dublin

2010-04-19T08:01:00.000-07:00

The Murder of Toyosi Shittabey and Racial Tension in Dublin: "

Some weeks ago (on Good Friday, in fact) a 15-year old boy was killed in Tyrellstown, Co Dublin. Toyoshi Shittabey was walking home from the swimming pool when, it is reported, he and a friend were subjected to a racist verbal assault. It has been reported that while Shittabey and his friend walked away from the scene, the assailants went to a house, acquired a knife, followed the youngsters to their car, and stabbed Shittabey in the heart. The Gardaí have charged one young man with manslaughter.

If this account is true then on no planet could it be considered manslaughter. However I will wait till the Gardaí finish their investigation. I was at the march in town and it was really positive.

The DeathStick was on TV. Right behind Ireland's next Taoiseach! #lp10

2010-04-19T07:45:00.000-07:00

Conference was a great experience. I'll be posting bits and pieces over the week, but first and most importantly watch this video! Being in the hall for this speech was amazing!

Also, a tweet that never made it,
"I'm on TV LOL"

Google, Topeka formally trade names, and more fun from 1st April

2010-04-03T10:06:00.000-07:00

Google, Topeka formally trade names: "

Meet your new search engine.

We didn't reach this decision lightly; after all, we had a fair amount of brand equity tied up in our old name. But the more we surfed around (the former) Topeka's municipal website, the more kinship we felt with this fine city at the edge of the Great Plains.

For 150 years, its fortuitous location at the confluence of the Kansas River and the Oregon Trail has made the city formerly known as Topeka a key jumping-off point to the new world of the West, just as for 150 months the company formerly known as Google has been a key jumping-off point to the new world of the web. When in 1858 a crucial bridge built across the Kansas River was destroyed by flooding mere months later, it was promptly rebuilt -- and we too are accustomed to releasing 2.0 versions of software after stormy feedback on our 'beta' releases. And just as the town's nickname is 'Top City,' and the word 'topeka' itself derives from a term used by the Kansa and Ioway tribes to refer to 'a good place to dig for potatoes,' we'd like to think that our website is one of the web's top places to dig for information.

"

I think this is my favourite April fools joke. Here's the run-down of the web on April 1st.

This is my late start to Blog Everyday This April.

[Funniest Video Ever] Looks like someone had a mad St Patrick's day!

2010-03-18T10:43:00.000-07:00

Via Boing Boing

Telephone

2010-03-17T09:54:00.000-07:00

19 million views, 9 minutes, AMAZING!

Here's the making of video, and from Mashable an indi-pop cover:

Blogger In Draft new Template Editer = WIN!

2010-03-13T05:44:00.000-08:00

This is great! You can choose a new background image from iStockPhoto, you can have loads of different configurations of columns, and more cool stuff I forgot about, just play with it for a bit it's addictive. So what do you think of my new template?

More info: Blogger Buzz,

Why facebook won't add a dislike button.

2010-01-13T14:09:00.000-08:00

Because the like button isn't a button to say I like this post. It is a button to say email me any comments on this post, and push this post up in the news feed. The like button first appeared in FriendFeed which facebook recently bought.

They probably should rename it to something like ping. Instead of liking posts you could ping them. This wouldn't suggest either a positive reaction.

Google to stop censorship in China #GoogleCN

2010-01-13T03:50:00.000-08:00

I saw #GoogleCN trending this morning, and found out why; Google are stopping censorship in China! This is big news, as China is perceived to be the an important developing market.

First, let me say I am not at all rasist against China. I have huge respect for the challenges faced by the Chinese people and mean the following remarks only as a critisism of the government. COMMUNISM DOESN'T WORK! For any form of government to work, people need to be free. They need to be able to express their religion, sexuality and opinions without fear of reprisal from government. This clearly doesn't happen in China.

More recently a British citizen was executed without the chance to present information about his mental health. The reason is that the defendant has to present this information. This is disgraceful, as if someone has a mental health issue they may not be able to defend themselves clearly.

But back to today. Google are claiming it was a security breach aimed at Chinese activists Gmail accounts. From the blog post you get the impression they are accusing the government of being behind the attacks.

I have huge respect for google for doing this, it's a major step forward for human rights!

Check out the BBC and Guardian stories as well

[Funniest Video Ever] Office 2010, the movie + a rant

2010-01-12T12:13:00.000-08:00

Next in my series of the funniest videos ever, Boing Boing posted a funny video of a movie trailer for Office 2010 The Movie!

Now for the rant! Why the hell are they releasing another version of office? As if the previous one wasn't bad enough with the stupid menu toolbar mutant style of navigation and messing up everyone, and terrible backwards comparability. How can it get any worse! Bring back office 2003!

FlashForward

2010-01-11T16:32:00.000-08:00

Just watched the first two episodes of FlashForward on the RTE player. From the summery:

The series opens on a seemingly ordinary day, which soon becomes extraordinary as everyone in Los Angeles blacks out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds. The blackouts were worldwide, and were accompanied by a flash-forward where each person saw what might be his or her life roughly six months into the future.

I LOVE this show, it's really good, it's got drama, suspense, romance, but more importantly big explosions. It's like a less intense version of 24, like lost but it makes sense. With this and Glee, TV is starting to look good this year.

Interestingly this is the first drama series which I am interested in and can legally watch online. Thus the RTE player doesn't have a lot of adds, but sometimes it has a pre-role one. Maybe when it looses the beta tag it will start addign more.

Anyway, check it out here. Hurry as they take the episode offline a month after it airs. Will probably edit this later, but I'm tired so I'll just post it now.

Shiny new Twitter profile background

2010-01-11T10:08:00.000-08:00

Just started to follow @Dublins98Dave, and noticed his nice background from Twilk.com so I tried it out for myself on my Twitter Page. It is made up of people I follow who follow me.

[Funniest Video Ever] I Gotta Feeling Parody from CollegeHumor

2010-01-10T12:09:00.000-08:00

I've decided to do a new series of the webs funniest videos. The first is a CollegeHumor parody of the Black Eyed Peas song I've Tot A Feeling.

Unfortunately they've disabled embedding, so check it out here!

If you have any suggestions for more funny videos, post them in the comments or tweet me.

The day I found Google Gravity

2010-01-09T14:13:00.000-08:00

Was looking at google trends when I foundd this! Google Gravity. I checked it out and it crashed my browser on the first attempt, but I think that's due to some crazy firefox extension. The second time around it did this:

It looks like he's a designer. When you go to mrdoob.com you see a page with moving blobs. It's quite confusing, but then you go to his blog and it says he's a freelanser. well done Mr Doob, well done. I'll look through his blog later, no doubt I'll find something interesting.

If anyone has any more info, leave it in a comment, or @reply me on twitter.

Edit: It would help if I gave the post a title!

Lady GaGa Mashup

2010-01-09T13:25:00.000-08:00

Read about this on Mashable a while ago, it's a really good mashup and the guy has loads of good videos.

Lady GaGa Remixed by Latest YouTube Sensations [VIDEO] from Mashable

Google Nexus One = Incremental improvement on the iPhone but nothing game changing

2010-01-05T12:22:00.000-08:00

Faster phone, shiny apps and voice to text input. A few smaller things, but mainly it's nothing special. Google are calling the Nexus One a super phone. When asked they said this meant a smart phone which was faster and more open.

Some features I was slightly impressed with were 5 home screens instead of 3, widget development open to 3rd party developers and moving and interactive backgrounds.

They had some fancy photo album, and started talking about 3d, then they showed a port of Google earth to the android.

The thing I was most excited about were a voice to text feature. It composed an entire email, and they said the conversion was done on the Google servers. So the feature goes out the window when the phone is disconnected?

Cian from ViewFromTheQuad.com has this to say:

"@dagda I was left almost totally bored by the announcement of the Google phone. The only "new" thing it does is the voice text field thing."

In summery, I think the phone is better than an iPhone but not by much. Nothing game changing.

Perhaps more interesting is the fact that Google are opening an online store to sell the phone, $529 unlocked and $179 on a contract in the US, also shipping to the UK and coming to the rest of Europe, maybe to Vodafoen, soon. They said this store would be open to other devices from other manufacturers too, but it told me today the Nexus was unavailable in my country.

Thanks to @Scobleizer for streaming over youstream.

Will you be buying the Nexus? Let me know what you think in the comments?

Musings on the X-Factor

2009-12-12T12:13:00.000-08:00

Currently, Olly and Stacy are trending, could be bad news for Joe, since he isn't?

Also "x-factor" and "X Factor" are trending, not #xfactor. Looks like all the normal people are on twitter. I think on average about half the trends are hash tags.

And Joe FTW!

#xfactor judge threatens to quit over Jedward, Jedward fans try to pull an Obama, and a Jedward rumen.

2009-11-13T13:02:00.000-08:00

So the X Factor saga continues. Dannii has said she’ll quit if Stacy is eliminated by Jedward, according to herald.ie. I’m not a big fan of Stacy, but at least she can sing.

There’s a problem with X Factor. People come to it expecting a talent show, and are surprised when a talented act like Lucie Jones gets knocked out when the twins stay in. Some people are saying they are going to boycott the show, although I find this unlikely. A more practical solution I saw on twitter was not to vote any more. I think this makes sense. The X Factor must make millions from voting each week.

Jedward fans have apparently hijacked the hype generated by Obama, *pauses to vomit in conveniently placed bucket*, with the slogan ‘jed we can’. Not sure if this is legitimate or not, but can’t be bothered looking it up.

And in more amusing news, Jedward were rushed to hospital! Probably a rumor, but we can hope!

#xfactor fail

2009-11-08T13:41:00.001-08:00

Last week I started watching X factor. I heard a lot about it of course, mainly about twins from Ireland who were a complete embarrassment. I decided to look at it to see just how bad they were, and followed #xfactor on twitter in the process.

They can’t actually sing! They try to rap, but it comes off as stupid. Here’s an example of the terrible twins in action.
======
In response to this, someone started a Facebook group calling for the twins to represent Ireland in the Eurovision. Let it be clear, this shows Irelands disdain for the Eurovision rather than thinking Jedward are actually talented.

This is one of the use cases where Twitter shines. Events like this are really interesting when you can brows a stream of other people’s musings about the event you are watching. My first experience of this was with Facebook on the Obama inauguration and I also followed the last budget in the back of a lecture. But this post isn’t necessarily about Twitter.

Tonight, Lucie and Jedward were in the bottom 2! ‘Thank god’ I thought, after that Robby Williams travesty, there’s no way the judges could vote to keep the terrible twins in. Lucie performed very well, so there was no way I could have predicted what happened next!

Louie obviously went for the twins since he was their mentor, but commented that Lucie shouldn’t have been in the bottom 2. Danny and Cheryl both voted for Lucie. Then Simon. I thought there was no way he would let the twins stay in, but he started spouting on about how neither of them could win, which is complete bull as next to Joe, Lucie was the best singer there. Then he decided to send it to the public vote.

Now for some reason there’s a sad pathetic deranged group in society who think the twins antics somehow passes for talent, and voted for them. Lucie lost and was sent home.

Already the backlash on twitter is severe with loads of users threatening to boycott x factor as they think it’s a fix. Others seemed to think the twins stayed because they would make more money. Either way it’s an insult to the really talented singers like Lucie who are sidelined for people who make a fool of themselves on public and call it talent like the twins.

This post is a bit of a rant, so I might clean it up later.

Interview with Microsoft tomorrow

2009-11-01T15:26:00.001-08:00

Long time no blog. Tomorrow I have an interview with Microsoft for my work placement in February. Just chilling, listening to Julie Ann on RAW. I’ll return to a regular blogging schedule soon, so subscribe to the RSS feed, or come back soon when I will answer the ultimate question. What is twitter?

Live from Malta

2009-08-29T13:25:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! Excuse the spelling, but I have no magnification, and am writing this on IE6. Malta is AMAZING!!!!! IE6 is not! :D Anyway, There is a massive fireworks display going on now. It's not that good although I got a picture of some of them. We went on bus toors of teh Island, and went areoudn the capitle. We went to teh Church the Order of Malta used when they occupied the island. Anyway, I'm going to check Twitter, so I'll spell check this wehn I get home, and update the pictures and videos I've taken. Hoep everyone is enjoying the rain back in Ireland!

Lego Les Miserables

2009-08-05T07:21:00.000-07:00

Video: Iglu and Harly- In This City, acoustic with a Ucayali!

2009-07-30T04:36:00.000-07:00

Title says it all really, not sure what the instrument on the left is though. The wider videos are messing up my template! II need to go around playing with the CSS this weekend. Fun...

Wallis Bird - To My Bones

2009-07-28T07:57:00.000-07:00

I first saw her on the Late Late Show and then I heard her on 2fm. I really like the song!

lady GaGa does an acoustic version of poker face #music

2009-07-14T04:43:00.000-07:00

ITN - [ HD ] LADY GAGA 'Poker Face' PAUL O'GRADY SHOW 'Just Dance' 2009 Lily Allen The Fear Elton John1 on MUZU.

and here's an interview. She is actually a really good singer and piano player!

ITN - Lady GaGa Interview on The Paul O'Grady Show (20.04.09) on MUZU.

Quick firefox tip

2009-07-05T03:48:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

t the control key and the number of the tab and firefox will go to it. so hit Control and 1 to go to the first tab. Really cool!

Student fees being reintroduced

2009-07-05T03:21:00.000-07:00

Despite thousands of students marching to doe Dáil and evidence that it will have a detrimental effect on the education system, The minister of education is introducing a lone system like Australia. More to come soon!

Gilded, six story pyramid house

2009-07-04T12:47:00.000-07:00

From BoingBoing, here's an EPIC house! I want one!

WOW Hord flag meets the DeathStick

2009-06-23T13:31:00.001-07:00

Here’s a WOW Hord flag on the death stick!

View Full Album

New MGMT kids video, disturbing!

2009-06-11T05:21:00.000-07:00

And here's a link to the full version which I can't embed.

Via ECTOPLASMOSIS!

What if Microsoft designed the iPod box?

2009-06-09T02:37:00.000-07:00

via Steve Clayton

DecTech | Backup

2009-04-21T04:51:00.000-07:00

We’ve all heard the horror stories, a laptop dying and all your data being lost right before an essay deadline or exams.

Why does it happen?

A hard drive is made up of a spinning disk with the data on it and a head reading data off it. The distance between the disk and the head is the size of one smoke particle. If the head crashes into the disc, your data can be lost. This can happen if something hits your hard drive, or someone (who loves pies) drops it. Viruses can cause data to be lost, or can lock you out of your own files. And of course there’s the kid who gets at your computer, starts playing with the keyboard and ends up formatting your hard drive. Formatting the disc prepares it for new data, wiping everything, so don’t try this at home unless you know what you are doing.

How to prevent loosing files

To avoid loosing your files, you need to do a few things. First, keep everything organized in folders. Know where everything is. Then, every week, copy them to a disk, online service or another computer.

The easiest way to back up files is with a flash drive. With storage of usually 1 or 2 GB, they are really cheap and sometimes even free. You can put a lot of documents on them, but if you start storing photos and music, they can start to fill up.

An external hard drive usually has more space. These come in sizes from 320 GB up to 1 Terabyte 1000 GB, and are priced accordingly. Be careful though! A flash drive has no moving parts, so you can carry it around with you and give it SOME abuse and it will be ok. The external hard drive on the other hand, has moving parts, and if someone drops it, YOU WILL LOOSE YOUR DATA! So an external hard drive should be left at home, somewhere safe where it won’t be moved.

If you can’t afford flash drives or external drives, GMail gives you 6GB of FREE online storage. Just make a new zip folder, copy your files into it and attach it in an email to yourself. There is an upload limit, so maybe you will need to upload a few files.

If you are a minds member, you get 2GB storage space as well. Just login to minds.nuim.ie, click on file storage and upload your files.

Yet another option is to use Windows Live SkyDrive. This service gives you an amazing 25GB of free online space. If you are on MSN, then you already have a live ID, and if not then just register for one. Go to www.live.com/skydrive to use the service.

In SkyDrive documents are organized into folders. When creating a folder you can make it private, open to all your friends, open to specific people or public. So not only can you use SkyDrive to backup your files, but you can use it to share files for projects.

How much can 1 GB hold?

1GB(gigabyte) will store about 50 high quality photos or anything up to 1500 lower quality photos. It could hold 250 music files. Documents are usually smaller, unless they have pictures, about a tenth of the size of pictures. It is really hard to work this out as files vary in size, especially documents. To see how big a file or folder is, in Windows, either click view à details, or right click on a file or folder go to properties.

However having a back-up plan is pointless if you don’t use it! Back up EVERY week!

Backup day is Thursday the 23^rd. Keep an eye out for Facebook and bebo announcements and posters.

Don’t forget to join the bebo and Facebook groups, read past DecTechs at www.deathstick.org and email me questions at declan.p.meenagh@nuim.ie.

Happy Back-up Day!

Two of the funniest videos ever!

2009-04-13T17:40:00.001-07:00

Huge URL!

2009-04-13T17:23:00.001-07:00

This had to be blogged, I couldn’t tweet it!

hugeurl.com takes a URL and makes it huge! Prank your friends! Give them this link and say it’s the only way to get to my blog!

http://www.hugeurl.com/?ZmI2MjQ2YThmOWEwMTMxOGJmMWI2YTUxN2Mw ZmI5ODAmMTUmVm0wd2QyUXlVWGxWV0d4V1YwZDRWMVl3WkRSWFJteFZVMjA1 VjAxV2JETlhhMk0xVmpGYWMySkVUbGhoTWsweFdWZDRTMk14WkhGUmJGWlhZ a2hDVVZacVFtRlpWMDE1VTJ0V1ZXSkhhRzlVVmxaM1ZsWmFkR05GWkZwV01E RTFWVEowVjFaWFNraGhSemxWVmpOT00xcFZXbUZqVmtaMFVteFNUbUY2UlRG V1ZFb3dWakZhV0ZOcmFHaFNlbXhXVm0weGIxSkdXbGRYYlVaclVqRmFTRll5 TVRSVk1rcElaSHBHVjJFeVVYZFpla3BIWXpGT2RWVnRhRk5sYlhoWFZtMXdU MVF3TUhoalJscFlZbFZhY2xWcVFURlNNWEJHVjJ4T1ZXSkdjRlpXYlhSM1Zq SktWVkpZWkZwV1JWcHlWVEJhVDJOc2NFaGpSbEpUVmxoQ1dsWnJXbGRaVjFG NFZHdGtWbUpHV2xSWmJGWmhZMVphZEdSSFJrNVNiRm93V2xWYVQxWlhTbFpY VkVwV1lrWktTRlpxUm1GU2JVbDZXa1prYUdFeGNHOVdha0poVkRKT2RGTnJa RlJpVjNoVVZGY3hiMWRzV1hoYVJGSnBUV3RzTTFSVmFHOVhSMHBJVld4c1dt SkdXbWhaTW5oWFl6RldjbHBHYUdsU00xRjZWakowVTFVeFduSk5XRXBxVWxk NGFGVXdhRU5UUmxweFUydGFiRlpzV2xwWGExcDNWakZLVjJOSWJGZFdSVXBv VmtSS1QyTXlUa1poUjNCVFlrVndWVlp0ZUc5Uk1XUnpWMjVLV0dKSFVtOVVW bHBYVGxaYVdFNVZPV2hpUlhBd1ZsZDRjMWR0U2tkWGJXaGFUVlp3ZWxreWVH dGtSa3AwWlVaa2FWWnJiekZXYlhCS1RWZEZlRmRZWkU1V1ZscFVXVlJHZDFZ eGJISlhhM1JUVW14d2VGVldhRzloTVZwelYycEdWMDF1YUdoWlZXUkdaVWRP UjJKR2FHaE5WbkJ2Vm10U1MxUXlVa2RVYmtwaFVteEtjRlpxVG05WFZscFlZ MFU1YVUxWFVraFdNalZUVkd4T1NGVnVUbFpoYTBwNlZHdGFWbVZYVWtoa1Iy aFhZWHBXU0ZacVNqUlZNV1IwVTJ0b2FGSnNTbGhVVmxwM1YwWnJlRmRyZEdw aVZrcElWbGQ0YTJGV1NuUlBWRTVYVFc1b1dGbHFTa1psUm1SWldrVTFWMVpz Y0ZWWFZsSkhaREZrUjJKSVNtRlNlbXh4V1d0YWQyVkdWWGxrUjBacFVteHdl bFl5ZUhkWFIwVjRZMGhLV2xaWFVrZGFWV1JQVWpKS1IyRkhhRTVXYmtKMlZt MTBVMU14VVhsVmEyUlVZbXR3YUZWdE1XOWpSbHB4VkcwNVYxWnNjRWhYVkU1 dllWVXhjMU51Y0ZkTmFsWlVWa2Q0YTFOR1ZuTlhiRlpYWWtoQ1dWWkhkR0ZY YlZaSVVtdG9VRll5YUhCVmJHaERWMVphY1ZOcVVsWk5WMUl3VlRKMGExZEhT bGhoUjBaVlZteHdNMWxWV25kU2JIQkdUMVU1YVZKWVFYZFhiRlpoVkRKR1Yx UnJXbFJpVlZwWVdWUkdkMkZHYkZoamVrWlhUVmRTZWxsVldsTmhSVEZ6VTI1 b1YxWjZRalJVYTJSSFVqRmFXVnBIYUZOV1ZGWlZWbGN4TkdReVZrZFdXR3hy VWpCYWNGVnRlSGRsYkZWNVpVaGtXR0pHY0ZoWk1HaExWMnhhV0ZWclpHRldW MUpRVlRGa1MxSXhjRWRhUms1WFYwVktNbFp0TVRCVk1VMTRWVmhzVm1FeVVs WlpiWFIzWVVaV2RHVkZkR3BTYkhCNFZrY3dOV0V5U2toVmJuQllZVEZLVkZZ eWVGcGtNa3BGVld4a1RtRnNXbFZYVm1RMFV6RmFjazVXYkZKaVJscFlXV3Rh ZDFkV1draGtSMFpvVFdzMWVsWXlOVk5oTVVwMFlVWlNWVlpYYUVSVWJGcGhV MGRXU0ZKdGNFNVdNVWwzVmxSS01HSXlSa2RUYms1VVlrZG9WbFpzV25kTk1X eFdWMjVrVTJKSVFraFdSM2hUVlRKRmVsRnFWbGRTTTJob1ZrUktSMVl4VG5W VmJFSlhVbFJXV1ZkV1VrZGtNa1pIWWtoR1ZHRXhjSE5XYlhSM1pWWmtjbGR0 T1doV01Ga3lWbTAxYjFZeFdrWlRibHBXVmtWYWVsWnFSbGRqTVdSellVZHNh VlpyY0ZGV2ExcGhXVmRSZVZaclpGZFhSM2h5VldwQ1lXTkdWblJrU0U1T1RW WktlbFp0Tld0V01ERkZVbTVvVm1KWVVuWldha1poVW14a2NtVkdaR2hoTTBK UlZsUkNhMUl4U1hsU2EyaHBVbXMxY0ZsVVFuZE5iRnAwVFZSQ1ZrMVZNVFJX VnpWVFZqSktTRlZzVmxwaVdGSXpXV3BHVjJOV1VuUlBWbVJUWWxob1lWZFVR bUZoTVdSSFYyNU9hbEp0ZUdGVVZWcFdUVlpzVjFaWWFGaFNiRnA1V1ZWYWEx UnRSbk5YYkZaWFlUSlJNRmRXV2twbFJsSjFWV3hDVjJKR2NGbFdSbEpIVXpB MWMxZHJhR3RTTUZwWVdXeGFZVmRXV2xoa1J6bG9UVlZ3TUZaWE5VTldNa3BJ WVVWU1ZrMXVhR2haZWtaM1VsWldjMWRyTlZkaVdHTjRWbXhrTkdJeVRYaFhi azVZWVRGd1ZWbHJaRzlYUm14WVkzcEdhMkpIZUZkV01qRkhZV3hhY21OSWNG aGhNWEIyVm1wS1MyTnNUbkppUm1SWFlsWkZkMVl4V21GWGJWWkhWRzVLV0dK Rk5WaFZiRnBXVGxFOVBRPT0=

Twitter meme #alanshair

2009-03-21T17:07:00.000-07:00

So I was just minding my own business on TweetDeck, which I will blog about later, actually considering it's TweetDeck, minding my own business was the last thing I was doing, anyway, and then all I could see was #alanshair then I started to RT stuff, and then I don't know, and what happened to this sentence, it has too many commas! So basically, another pointless Twitter meme, but it was fun!

If you don't understand any of that, Twitter lets people post messages, sometimes people use # to label messages, so everyone started sending messages with #alanshair in them for no reason.

Best quote:
"RT @Yoghan: guns dont kill people, #alanshair does"

Keep an eye on the post for updates

The history

"RT @KevinC_: @TheJamesFoley #alanshair doesn't use API calls. API calls #alanshair."
"RT @KevinC_: #alanshair can kill two stones with one bird."

DecTech Facebook

2009-03-20T09:44:00.000-07:00

What is Facebook? What’s with the new layout? What are facebook apps? I’ll attempt to answer some of these questions in this DecTech!

Facebook is a way to keep in contact with friends all over the world. You can tell all your friends
what you’re doing, thinking, reading or watching. You can keep Facebook open when you’re online and post random things throughout the day and all your friends can comment on them. Things like groups and events really make Facebook useful.

Go to www.facebook.com and sign up. Then import your email contacts and start adding people. You should add friends to friend lists, this helps you organize people and find information quicker. As you add more friends, Facebook will start suggesting people you may know. I found this really useful.

Once you log in, you will spend most of your time on the homepage. On the left are filters. This
means you only show stuff from specific networks or friend lists or by post type, like people from Ireland or only posts with links, text or videos. I have a Maynooth friend list, so by clicking that I can see posts from all my friends in Maynooth.

Under ‘What’s on your mind’ is the publish box. You can publish text, links, photos and videos. This shows up on your homepage, your profile page and your friends’ homepage.

In the middle of the page is stuff you and your friends published, and commented on. Beside
the comment option is a ‘like’ option. This is a bit like ‘luv’ on Bebo, except you add it to whatever was published rather than a profile and you can like as many things as you want. This area is called your stream.

The highlights section is on the right. This has events, groups and other things your friends
commented on.

Something that stays pretty similar in Bebo and Facebook are applications. An application can do
loads of interesting stuff with information on your profile, or just be a cool and amazingly addictive game like Mafia Wars.

WARNING! Using Mafia Wars will result in extensive periods of looking at your
screen waiting for energy to reboot so you can do the next mission. DecTech and
The Spoke take no responsibility for any loss of girlfriends/boyfriends, friends, family,
jobs, or property damage as a result of playing Mafia Wars.

I’ve set up a group for DecTech, to join click applications on the bar at the bottom of the screen
and search for DecTech. Groups have a wall for members to comment on, and the owner of the group can send a message to everyone who joined. Societies in Maynooth use groups as well.
You also have a profile which is a bit like bebo. The wall lets you leave comments on someone’s
profile. To reply to a comment, click ‘see wall-to-wall’. This shows comments you left for each other, and lets you write a reply comment on their wall.

Another cool feature is events. Once someone creates an event, they can invite people who can
RSVP as Yes, No or Maybe. Their response then shows up in their stream, so their friends can see it. The Drama Society use events to promote upcoming plays.

If you are on the web browser on your phone, using a screen reader or on a slow connection then
try accessing Facebook by m.facebook.com.

Ok, everyone join DecTech on Facebook and www.bebo.com/dectech. I’m putting all previous
DecTech articles on my blog at www.deathstick.org. If you have any questions or comments, write on my wall on Facebook, post a comment on Bebo, or email me at declan.p.meenagh@nuim.ie.

Music I like

2009-03-20T07:06:00.000-07:00

Music Videos on MUZU.

Inauguration 2.0

2009-01-31T13:09:00.001-08:00

I’m not going to talk too much about Bush, but the end of his term is the most positive thing to happen to the world in a long time. I’m disappointed that Obama isn’t supporting criminal charges against telephone companies who illegally spied on the public in America, but that’s what this post is about either.

The Inauguration was all you could hear about on the Internet for several days surrounding the event. I could have watched Sky News or CNN on TV3, but I decided I would watch it all on line.

Twitter was, of course, the foundation to a good online event. I installed the new Mozilla Snowl add-on. They are saying it’s a new way to brows the web, but so far, all I managed to use it for is a Twitter client. I had my Twitter stream in the left sidebar of my web browser.

CNN worked with facebook to produce a webpage with the CNN live video and your friends’ facebook status updates. There was also a tab where you could see updates from everyone watching the stream. I really enjoyed this idea, and had some good conversations with people. It added a new layer of interaction to the event. C.C. Chapman recorded a video talking about it, and he was really excited.

The only problem was that the CNN stream cut off, and it took ages to reload.

Here’s a screen shot of the CNN page. On the left is snowl with twitter updates, in the middle is the CNN video, and on the right is the facebook stream.

When the CNN stream went down, I went over to the official site and watched via a silverlight player. It was perfect. There was no facebook integration, but I had twitter in Snowl. There were some issues with cross platform access but in my opinion Microsoft did a great job, and you won’t here me say that every day!

Hulu and Joost also streamed it, and UStreem also got an iPhone app going, so you could watch it on the move.

Eircom proves they are the worst ISP in the world

2009-01-29T09:39:00.001-08:00

Eircom, Ireland's largest (and worst) ISP, is bringing in the latest piece of stupidity suggested by the music industry.

The three strikes and your out rule means that if you get three unsubstantiated claims of illegal file sharing; your internet connection will be cut off. They are the first ISP in the world to employ this stupid policy!

Who the frack do they think they are? In the 21st century, internet access is a right! It is necessary for work, education, communication and access to government information! Eircom need to cop on and stop supporting the music industry's dead business model and stand up for their customers. The government needs to stand up for citizens of the country and not their rich friends who pay for their re-election. People over profit!

Read more at Boing Boing, Slashdot and join the Facebook group

I'm a Mega-Dorky Nerd King

2009-01-25T17:07:00.000-08:00

iPhone for the blind, is it any good? NO!

2009-01-16T09:53:00.001-08:00

Cian asked me what I thought of the iPhone accessible skin designed by Bruno Fosi, so I decided to write a post about it. First of all, lets just get it out of the way that I don’t like the iPhone, putting it on contract is a bad idea, the app store should be open to all developers and I’m sick and tired of hearing Mac fan-boys talking about how great the latest app is.

Lets look at apple’s other products from the perspective of someone with a visual impairment. Just recently they released an iPod that has accessibility features that work from the box. All Mac computers have assistive technology software built in that can cost thousands of euro on the windows platform.

So I am disappointed that the iPhone and the iPod touch both completely disregard blind users. Out of the box, both of these products are completely useless. As a visually impaired user, I found the iPod touch really hard to use. The lack of a keyboard and small font meant I was unsure what I was touching.

The case idea is good. It allows use of a qwerty keyboard and other icons. The only problem is that the keyboard is in Moon(a less popular Braille alternative). Braille requires a series of dots, so perhaps it was too hard to manufacture. Not a lot of blind users even know Moon.

The case works in conjunction with an application on the phone. Until it is made and in the hands of users, I don’t know how well it will work. For example, my magnification software, ZoomText, doesn’t show the menus in Microsoft Expression Blend. Issues like these are quite common and require workarounds like scripts. These are very expensive requiring special consultants. It is unclear how the app will deal with third party apps, and if they will work at all.

In summery, it has a lot of potential, but apple should have come up with a better solution like the iPhone pro with a fold out keyboard. Even if the skin was produced, I doubt any blind user would buy it. It is a very complicated method of accessing the phone, while solutions like Talks work on most Nokia phones and work with nearly all features.

A few comments on the article:

“We didn’t see that one coming”

Come on! That is an awful pun.

“The case does have several drawbacks, though. For example, taking pictures and surfing the web will still be pretty difficult, if not to say pointless.”

Yes, photos are impossible, but this system could be used to surf the web very easily.

Please leave a comment, I’m going to write up a follow-up post in a week or so with a summery of the reaction.

iFake

2009-01-16T08:57:00.001-08:00

My dad bought this in a pound shop a while ago. A plastic copy of the nano, but it is only a radio.

This is a test post form Windows Live Writer

View Full Album

2009-01-13T10:56:00.000-08:00

Today I tried to study, but didn't get very far. Instead, I played on the internet, joining several new services, yesterday it was FriendFeed(post pending), but today brought blip.fm. I like this service. It is a micro-blogging service with a music track for each post. I decided to try to blip once every day. Follow my Twitter or FriendFeed or go to My blop.fmm page to follow along. I can't seem to find a blip badge for my blog.

2009-01-07T11:49:00.000-08:00

Declan's Podcast 23
Download | Subscribe

2008-12-30T05:35:00.000-08:00

I’ll be away for the New Year, in parts that just recently got electricity, a.k.a. Tyrone, so I decided to write my end of 2008 blog entry today. In 08, I did quite a lot. My blog strategy, of keeping two separate blogs died a quick and painless death, when deathstick.info lost its database, and updating it became too much trouble. And declanmeenagh.com was updated quite irregularly. I still haven’t figured out where the titles of my posts went. I started to use facebook more and am now a very active twitter user.

In college, I one an election, passed my exams with 3 2nds and 1st in Computer Science, and started my year as Students’ Union Equality Officer. This year, I did a lot of work on the Internet. Joomla became my favourite CMS, and now the Amnesty Society and Omega are running on it. I did a summer internship in which I built a Joomla site to explain CS to 2nd level students, so I learnt quite a bit about it.

2009 looks good, I just nominated this blog for the Irish Blog Awards, so hopefully I’ll be asking everyone to vote for me! It will be a very active year for students, as the registration fee was put up to 1500 euro. This will cause people to drop out of college, so we all need to express our outrage to the government so they will make a u-turn on it in the same way they made a u-turn on every other stupid policy in the budget. Keep an eye out for the march in February, we’re marching to Lenster House again and this time we’ll have even more people!

I hope you all had a great Christmas and that 2009 brings everything you hope for.

2008-12-05T05:45:00.000-08:00

Happy Christmas everyone.
More cool Christmas music coming soon.

2008-12-02T11:39:00.000-08:00

It's just great to see that Bebo doesn't give a fuck about blind and visually impaired users. I'm talking about the images of partially obscured text which you have to enter in a text box. I had to do it 4 times before it let me in. I was looking for a photo, and for no reason it threw me into this page. when I finally got it right, it threw me back to the homepage.

When you have as many users as Bebo, it interface shouldn't be this crap. And don't get me started on the app platform, it only works every second Tuesday when its a full moon!

The idea of recognising spam bots by images is stupid. All of them have been cracked. There's even a Firefox plug-in which automatically solves them for blind users.

This rant is a bit incoherent, but anyone following me on facebook or Twitter will know I'm not feeling well.

2008-12-02T06:45:00.000-08:00

Just added a tag cloud to my blog. Here's the instructions, worked perfect for me, but be careful messing around with the HTML template. Make sure you download a copy before you start!

2008-11-29T11:37:00.000-08:00

Just thought I’d let you all know what Gmail labs features I’m using. In no particular order:
-Star mail with different images like a tick, smiley face or exclamation mark.
-Mouse gestures, hold down the right mouse button and move the mouse around. Up takes you out of an email, and side to side flicks through emails. It’s quite useful!
-Signature tweak, puts the signature before quoted replies.
-Old Snake, hit the ‘&’ key, and procrastinate to you’re hearts content with a very basic version of everyone’s favourite retro mobile game snake.
-Right side chat and labels, moves labels and chat to the right of your screen.
-Nav-bar drag and drop, allows you to move modules around the screen.
-Forgotten attachment, reminds you to attach files.
-Custom label colour, lets you choose the colours of labels.
-Marks as read button, puts the button next to delete.
-Google calendar gadget, shows what’s next in your Google Calendar, and lets you add events.
-Google docs gadget, shows you you’re most recent docs.
-Add any gadget by URL, can’t get it working yet.

And if you need yet another reason to love Gmail, I just discovered something. If someone gives you a .docx file, and you don’t have the latest version of office, just email it to yourself with Gmail, and either view it as HTML, or open it with Google Docs and export it as a word file.

2008-11-18T04:47:00.000-08:00

A photo from the Dublin march against fees a few weeks ago. I'm on the far left.

2008-11-06T08:08:00.000-08:00

Creepy Doll with a ukelele