Holy Shmoly! » Ireland

Batman Says No

Donncha O Caoimh — Wed, 16 May 2012 09:40:40 +0000

The Fiscal Treaty approaches. Batman will vote NO and fight on against all odds.

Favourite part? Gilmore as Two Face, or the explanation for the Joker’s name. (via)

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Harness racing on Cork’s roads

Donncha O Caoimh — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:42:25 +0000

Two harness racers on the Cork to Mallow road defying Garda attempts to stop them and driving against traffic on a very busy road. Crazy guys, crazy.

The Stability Treaty: How are you voting?

Donncha O Caoimh — Sun, 06 May 2012 20:05:31 +0000

Like all the other European treaties the Irish public is being threatened with doomsday scenarios by both sides of The ~~Fiscal~~ Stability Treaty. Reddit user cianomahony posted the photo above in response.

The Government says that the country won’t have access to any money if we vote no, but the Sunday Times asked the IMF and the Department of Finance if that was the case and they both said the country could apply to the IMF regardless of the outcome of the Treaty. It’s just the ESM we won’t have access to. Today’s Sunday Times goes on to say that Ireland will have to pay 1.27bn Euro into that fund if the Treaty is ratified. Where the hell does that money come from? We’ll get a loan ..

Campaigning has been going on for only a week so far, I haven’t listened to much of what the No side say but right now I want to vote No. I wonder if the Government will rerun the Referendum if we vote No the first time? Fianna Fail and the Greens did it twice, time for Fine Gael and Labour to do likewise?

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Irish Household Charge SEO

Donncha O Caoimh — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 16:29:41 +0000

The Government’s householdcharge.ie website could probably do with some SEO love. When I search for irish household charge the first page of results are news websites, a political party and a property website’s blog.

Maybe they need to open a blog there talking up the household charge and, oh I don’t know, making us feel better about introducing a new tax.

I’m obviously not the only one looking either. They don’t even make it easy to give them money.. Not that I or any of the other householders want to either.

BTW – today’s the last day if you want to set up a direct debit. There, that’s the Public Service bit out of the way. Now, where’s my credit card?

So, if you own a house in Ireland, what do you think will happen if you don’t pay this charge?

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Government plans to sell Cork to stabilise economy

Donncha O Caoimh — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 17:38:58 +0000

So long guys! (via RTed by troopstorm)

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Three Days in Dungarvan

Donncha O Caoimh — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 21:42:51 +0000

I spent the last few days in Dungarvan, staying in the Park Hotel with my family. It’s a really nice town, small enough that you can walk around it in half an hour but plenty of places to eat and drink.

I took my camera of course and almost always shot in b/w mode with my Canon f1.8 50mm lens. I cheated a little as I used RAW+Jpeg mode but I’m happy with the results. RAW lets me recover the colour information while the Jpeg records a useful b/w image I can check against during post processing.

I love that 50mm lens but rarely use it so a whole holiday was a challenge. With such a short depth of field it’s really important getting the focus point right. I usually used the center point or a side point rather than trust the matrix to pick out the right one!

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Witchcraft in Ireland

Donncha O Caoimh — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 13:58:19 +0000

Here’s a 39 minute podcast about Witchcraft (mp3) from the RTÉ Documentary on One series. It was first broadcast in 1976. The first half of the documentary is enlightening, explaining what and how witches worship, but the discussion on black magic is disturbing. The guy who was confident he had killed people with magic was really creepy.

The comments from the Catholic priest at the end are comical, saying witchcraft is incompatible with “true religion” as they don’t worship “all mighty god”. Ah yes. I bet she would have something to say about that!

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FidoNet Lives On

Donncha O Caoimh — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:36:35 +0000

I’m amazed that FidoNet is still going. I’m embarrassed to say I don’t remember my FidoNet address and my BBS isn’t listed anywhere. Must look harder I guess. Meanwhile, if you had a modem in the 90′s (in Ireland) you’ll recognise the names here!

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Sherlock and Smith and copyright images

Donncha O Caoimh — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:21:01 +0000

Remember how Lamar Smith, sponsor of SOPA, used a copyrighted image for his website’s background image without permission? Sean Sherlock, the junior minister preparing Ireland’s SOPA did something similar on his website (which is currently down).

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Stop Ireland’s SOPA

Donncha O Caoimh — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:21:49 +0000

Before the end of this month the Irish Government will introduce a very vague copyright protection law. It won’t be debated in the Dáil as it will be enacted by a ministerial order. Protection of copyright is a laudable endeavour but when so little is known about the amendment or how it’s implemented it’s impossible to figure out how it will affect us. Once IRMA get a whiff of any more power or influence you just know they’re going to abuse it! Remember the infamous “3 strikes” rule?

Before I go any further, here’s how you can help. Sign this petition or use this contact form or this list to contact your local TD to express your misgivings and anger at this law being pushed through so quickly.

From the stopsopireland.com website:

SOPA is the name of a piece of US legislation, the Stop Online Piracy Act, recently proposed in the US. It caused an Internet-wide outcry due to its far-reaching implications; way beyond simply closing access to outlaw file sharing websites, it would have enabled law enforcement to block access to entire internet domains due to infringing material posted on a single blog or webpage.

A similar proposal is about to become law in Ireland. And while 7 million Americans contacted their representatives to say No to SOPA in the US, Irish citizens will not get that chance because the new law in Ireland is not being voted on in the Oireachtas.

Instead, the law is being enacted by ministerial order. This new law will give music and movie companies the legal leverage to force Irish ISPs like UPC, Eircom and mobile networks to block access to sites suspected of having copyrighted material on them. It also means judges can order ISPs to block access to sites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter where an individual user from anywhere in the world has shared infringing material.

As I mentioned in my Wikipedia post, this law might already be illegal:

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered a landmark case for protecting free speech in the fight against online piracy. In a decision issued today on the Scarlet Extended SA v SABAM case, the Court stated that web filtering systems used to prevent illegal downloading on peer-to-peer networks was incompatible with fundamental human rights.

Minister Sean Sherlock will be on drivetime (RTE Radio 1) after 6pm this evening to talk about this law. I hope he comes to his senses.

Oh, it is very easy to bypass any spying the music and movie industries force on Irish ISPs. All you need is an encrypted tunnel to a remote host outside the country. If Irish ISPs ban users from using tools like that then you can say goodbye to a huge number of IT jobs. I rely on these tools every single day of the week to do my work.