Planet Nonado

Yesterday, I joined some of my colleagues on a cave walk. Having previously experienced Ailwee Cave in the Burren, I was expecting a leisurely walk through some beautiful geological features. In retrospect, the name of the cave–Hölloch, or Hell Hole–should perhaps have provided a clue.

Switzerland’s wonderful public transport got us easily to Muotathal, where the cave is situated. Four-minute connections between Swiss trains are a solid guarantee that you’ll get there on time – unlike Ireland, where they’d be a pretty good guarantee that you’ll miss your connecting journey and have to re-route via the furthest point on the island.

The first clue should perhaps have been when we got to the caving center, and they asked for name, address and phone number – specifying that they didn’t want our mobile numbers, but a number that could be used in case of emergency Next clue, had I been watching, might have been the welly boots, full suit overalls, heavy gardening gloves, and good solid helmets. But I wasn’t watching, and once we were all suited up, we headed off happily up the mountain to the cave entrance.

We crossed a few small bridges on the way up the mountain, which I found a bit terrifying – but I pressed on, assuming that once we got to the cave, all would be well. Our guide stopped for a moment along the way, and asked if anyone had asthma, was afraid of heights, or narrow spaces. Thinking back to the last time I was asked that latter question, in Newgrange, I thought “well, yeah, I am petrified of truly narrow spaces, but the spaces in Newgrange weren’t so bad, so maybe this will be fine.”

I am, I will readily admit, an idiot.

So, we walked in to the cave, it’s not nearly as beautiful as Ailwee (and we’re all on headlamps – no artistically arranged electric lighting here!), but that’s ok, we’re only at the entrance. Next up, the guide warns us, is a little bit of scrambling. I’m mostly ok with that – I’m afraid of real climbing, and heights, but this is more just low ceilings and craggy floors.

Mild terror sets in when we come to a bit where you have to lie down and wiggle through the crack, but it’s a very short stretch, and I can see that it opens up to standing-room on the other side, so it’s fine. We all get through, and the guide takes a photo of us from way above, down through a fairly narrow gap. He had gone around the other way, and I’m assuming we all now go back the way we came, and on the way he had gone. But no. Now we’re meant to climb up there!?

With a bit of a boost to get me up as far as the first foothold, and plenty of encouragement from those who’ve done it, I manage to get up. Argh! Scary!, but I’ve made it. We get everyone out, and start walking down further into the cave. As we walk along, I’m thinking “y’know, he asked about heights and claustrophobia, but he never asked about fear of the dark. It’s pretty dark in here. I’m kinda scared”. I try not to be a scaredy-cat, but heights, narrow spaces, climbing, and the dark are all things that will set me off.

Next stop, whaddaya know, it’s time to turn the lights off. There is no place darker than a cave with all the lights off, unless it’s a few hundred meters into the cave, and several hundred meters down, and even if there were cracks to the air above, they’re all filled in with an alpine winter’s worth of snow… And now he wants us to walk along like this!?

I put my left hand on the shoulder of the guy in front, and the guy behind me puts his left hand on my shoulder. Right hands are on the rock face, and off we go. The guy in front races ahead, and I’ve lost him within seconds – the guy behind keeps gently pushing me forward. I didn’t scream, but only because my breathing was far too panicked to get enough power into my lungs. I’m sure we can’t have gone too far, but it was horrific.

We spent about 3hrs exploring the cave, and I’d estimate less than half an hour of that was in spaces where I could stand straight. We climbed and crawled across sharp rocks, wedged ourselves into spaces to keep from slipping back on sandy spots, and at one stage traversed a two-foot-deep pool across a space that can’t have been more than 3′6″ before the water came. I was crying by the time I made it across – and I would never have made it at all if it weren’t for a colleague holding my hand, coaching me, telling me to breathe, keeping my balance right! Thank you Matthias!!

Two-thirds of the way through, we stopped for a rest, and an optional side tour. Stephen, Pierre and I opted out, and sat down on the rocks. Then, it started to get cold. So Steve and I found the one spot where we could stand mostly-upright, and broke into the Charleston With a bit of encouragement, he even managed to do a swing-out, although I had to be careful where I stepped, as we had a “slot” just wide enough for one foot at a time between the rocks!

The break, and the dancing, did me good. When the guide returned with the others, he suggested that I stick straight behind him – keeping the whole group at the pace of the slowest member. I would have felt bad at doing so earlier, but I was getting tired and sore, and I was glad of his help. With lots of grit, and plenty of help from my friends, I made it through to the last hurdle.

“There’s a ladder”, he said. “You should go last, so I can help you”, he said. We got to the spot, a ravine with a ladder stretched over it. Hard to see what was on the other side. The guide went over, then the first of our gang. Across the ladder, and then somehow “up”. Rocks in the way, no way to know what happened next. Sitting beside the chasm, petrified of the ladder. Everyone else goes across. The guide tells the other person who’s afraid of heights “just look at me, don’t look down”.

I can do that. I have to, to get out of the cave. I crawl across to the ladder, fix my eyes on the flame of the guide’s lamp, and slowly make my way across. Hang on, it’s a dead end. Where now? Up!?

The way out of the cave is a 50m climb, straight up. Through a narrow crack. In the dark.

I can’t even get my foot to the first foothold. I climb up on the guide’s knee, and make it from there. I have never been so afraid. There are metal rungs sticking out of the rock. Some of them, I can get. Most of them are a few inches too high. Sometimes, the guide can push my foot up, and I make it. Other times, I just have to wedge my back against the wall behind me and make that leap of faith. It was, without exaggeration, the scariest thing I’ve ever done. It seemed to go on forever. Towards the end, the rungs turn into a ladder. There’s more space, but there’s also a ladder in the way And it’s offset, a couple of feet to the left of the rungs I’ve been relying on.

I’ve screamed a couple of times along the way, and cried once. But it’s nothing to this ascent, which is punctuated by a stream of terrified invective against the cave, the ladder, and my slippery wellingtons! By the time I make it to the top, I’m barely breathing, and shaking from head to toe.

In the finest Swiss tradition, we finish with an Apéro. Beautiful plates of cold cuts are laid out, with fresh bread, and delicious wine. I go straight for the bottle of water, fill my cup, pass it on, take it back to refill my cup, and repeat until I’m almost calm. I’m still shaking, but the food helps a little. My lungs are full of cave dust – it’s a solid eighteen hours before I can breathe properly again. We head out of the cave, and back down the valley, where the wonderful Swiss transport system conveys us safely home.

Yesterday, every muscle in my body was jelly. I could barely stand (although I did an almost-convincing Charleston a couple of times on railway platforms to keep warm!). Every movement felt like fire. My legs were constantly threatening to cramp.

And yet, amazingly, today, I’m generally alright. By some miracle, I can move, I can walk, I’m not a solid mass of stiffness. My right shoulder is oh-so-sore, and my neck is beyond painful. My knees are skinned, and bruised to halfway down my shins. My back is blue and purple, my left forearm is yellow and blue, my right upperarm is just solid purple. But overall, I’m just thrilled that I made it out alive!

Lessons learned:

• When someone suggests an offsite, do some research before signing up.
• When someone suggests an offsite outdoors, be doubly careful.
• When someone suggests an offsite in a cave, just say no.
• When in doubt, Charleston! It’ll keep you warm if you’re cold, take your mind off the cave if you’re panicked, loosen your muscles if they’re threatening to get stiff (A swing-out is an acceptable alternative, but requires slightly more space, and should perhaps be avoided on busy train platforms.)

Does anyone have some arnica?

Last month, an experienced whale trainer at SeaWorld was killed when the orca she was working with dragged her into its tank. Wait no, it was a killer whale. Hang on, those are exactly the same thing, its just that when the media are reviewing Free Willy they use “orca” and when they are creating unnecessary hysteria they use “killer whale”.

Naturally some charming christian fundamentalist groups are calling for the whale to be executed. Oh wait, only a person can be executed, animals are slaughtered. In some ways, I can understand this perspective. The whale in question has “attacked” 2 previous trainers in the last 20 years, so it could be considered a threat to human life. But here is where we insert a great big “however”.

However.

First – It’s a fucking whale. It’s not a dog, or a cat, or a domesticated creature. how the bloody hell were you expecting it to behave? The fact that there have been only three incidents so far is the truly surprising part. Humans have taken this creature out of the wild, held it as captive entertainment for 20 years, and taught it to do tricks for its supper, a situation which in itself raises many moral questions. But its a damn whale, the things weigh up to ten tons and their natural habitat is sea water. How the hell could anyone expect a ten ton water dwelling animal to understand or care that it is hurting a human?

Second – That someone has died through accident or chance is always a sad thing. But that trainer not only knew she was dealing with a huge dangerous wild animal, she knew it was one that had been aggressive or dangerous to individuals on 2 previous occasions. she knew the risks, and she did the job anyway. If it was for the fame or the cash then she took a gamble and lost. If it was for the love of the job (which by all media accounts it probably was), then I very much doubt she’d want her pet condemned to death.

One tabloid has actually quoted a christian group as claiming they want the whale stoned to death. Em, what? Am I the only one who wants to know how they actually intend to go about this? Seriously, if that request were granted right now, how exactly would they implement it? Stand beside his tank and roll boulders in? somehow drag the whale out of said tank and throw rocks at it? I won’t even go into the part about the biblical quote condemning the owners of the whale to death too for not having it killed the first time. Frankly, this sounds like blatant journalist bullshit to me, because I do not think even rabid christian fundamentalist groups are stupid enough to propose this, and I think they are pretty damn stupid.

Only self-aware conscious life forms can bear responsibility. If the whale is one, then keeping it in captivity has been a serious crime. If it is not one, then the death was not its fault, and furthermore there is no reason to believe that any whale would not repeat these actions – in fact to the contrary, many whales have. Waiting until it happens to say “oh, this whale must be dangerous” is like waiting until someone falls into the tiger enclosure to conclude that this particular tiger is dangerous. Either this is accepted as a peril of the showing of wild creatures, or organisations like Seaworld are simply no longer allowed to operate. Frankly, I think I am in favour of the latter.

...disk has corrupted. that would explain its inability to run backups for some time. Thanks Apple for such useful error messages ("Failed!") - helpful. *sigh*
Fortunately it's only my backup that's corrupted, and hopefully a 'Disk Utility' repair will put that back in a working state.

Never buy anything because it is cheap, never buy anything because it is expensive. Obvious? In theory yes, in practice, we use these as subconscious metrics far too often.

Everyone has heard “A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs, a woman will pay $1 for a $2 item she doesn’t need” – A neat little phrase which nonetheless fails to include my roommate’s mother, who will spend $30 on 100 x $1 items that we will eventually use up at some point, because they were on sale at Costco. Too often imagined value is a real problem, the hunt for a bargain is sufficiently compelling to encourage us to buy things we wouldn’t bother owning otherwise, and we end up with a three foot stack of paper cups. No really, we do. There is one beside my fridge. I have bought items of clothing I have thrown out a year later having never worn, simply because I could get three of them for a fiver. But as I become a grown-up and continue doing my real job in the big bad world I have slowly kicked this habit, and discovered a whole new way of being fiscally stupid.

Cartographer once asked me why people buy designer handbags. The cause of the question was a particular designer handbag which aside from its maker being Chanel entirely failed to be in any way noteworthy, and was being sold secondhand by someone in her place of employ. The only answer I could give her as to why anyone would want this unremarkable piece of leather was that it was – to anyone who cares to know about these things – Chanel couture. Theoretically meaning it is a classic and timeless accessory, suitable for use at all occasions and times of life, actually meaning it cannot have cost less than a thousand dollars as couture items never go on sale. Grasping this with her usual intelligence, candour and utter disregard for things that make no sense, she posed the question of whether this was then only a slightly more subtle way of pinning hundred dollar bills to your hat, and I had to admit she was irrefutably correct.

I have no objection to paying large quantities of money for beautiful things. I myself have something of a weakness for designer shoes*. I can see the value in a rare or difficult design, or in a perfectly cut suit, or a distinctive dress. As I gradually earn more I find my objection to paying a lot for something I want dissipating somewhat, but thats not a reason to assume something that costs less is inferior.

There is an innate tendency in the human mind to conform to an accepted concept of value. The aphorism that something is worth what people are willing to pay for it is not entirely accurate when thus phrased, what we should be saying is that something is worth to you what you would be willing to pay for it. To me, some things are just not worth it no matter what the rest of the world thinks. Which is why I will never own a Dior handbag, an antique desk, or a house in Dublin city, though I certainly wouldn’t mind owning all 3. Unless of course I become a millionaire, at which point I imagine my interpretation of value will change.

The real problem arises when you let other people’s judgments of value become your own. That handbag is worth two thousand dollars, this house is worth six hundred thousand, or the most ludicrous of all – that diamond is worth five grand (I could rant about the stupidity of diamonds for days). Know what you really want, and never let anyone else tell you the value of anything.

*It has been my considered decision that spending $500 on something because I really like it is perfectly justifiable as long as it is my $500. In fact I can imagine few better reasons.

I was recently given an excellent book by Ben Goldacre called “Bad Science” (by cheese, who is consistently awesome and sometimes gives me things just because I might like them). I am only about 100 pages through it so far, and I already wish to give the man some sort of award for universal competence. Perhaps my opinion will change when I reach the end of the book, but he has already touched on several of my favourite things to despise and mock, so even if the remainder of the book is a let-down I suspect my overall impression will still be favourable.

“Bad Science” does not seek to champion reforms in scientific methods so much as attempt to give the layperson an understanding of what makes a method or a study scientifically good or bad (good or bad meaning reliable and relevant results versus meaningless noise). People accept a shocking amount of tripe purely on the basis of  “a study” without understanding anything about that study or how it was conducted. A close friend of mine pursuing a career in medical lab science is constantly ranting about the complete ludicrousness of journalistic spins on studies, complete lack of background, and an immediate adherence to the most dramatic possible interpretation of results.

I have ranted before on this blog about the astonishing willingness of individuals to accept blatantly ridiculous facts as gospel (“we eat spiders in our sleep” being my favourite example). Sometimes I think we accept these things because they are so damn stupid, not in spite of it. The logic runs something like: “Science proves amazing and unbelievable things all the time, like that the earth revolves around the sun or we are all made of tiny atoms or that energy is equal to mass times the speed of light squared. Therefore, amazing and unbelievable facts which I hear must have been scientifically proven by someone, or no-one would ever believe them. Yey, spiders!”. Yeah. Right.

What Bad Science attempts to disclose is not what to think, but how to think. How to logically evaluate the conclusions that have been drawn from a given set of facts, and to reach not only your own independent conclusion, but an understanding of why another conclusion might be lacking or indeed superior. While I am all for expressing my opinion and hammering it home with a blunt instrument if necessary, this book definitely goes one better.

One of the most worrying trends in the modern world is the easy acceptance of unsubstantiated conclusions as scientific facts because of buzzwords on a par with the flux capacitor, and the assumption that all studies are done with the same level of professionalism and rational thought.  So please,  don’t be one of the people who think somebody once conducted a scientific study on nocturnal spider consumption. Display some motherfucking ability to reason. Read this book if you are not sure how.

...or at least not annoy those attempting to respond to it.
For whatever reason, I've been asked to complete an unusually large number of surveys recently. I get customer surveys from suppliers I deal with at work and as a student I frequently get asked to participate in questionnaires to assist other students in their research. If I feel a survey is reasonable I'll happily respond to it - but I find myself getting annoyed with surveys for the same reasons over and over again. Some surveys have been so annoying I've abandoned them half way through, wasting my time and probably not providing any feedback to the surveyor.
Remember that most people who fill in surveys are giving of their limited free time to provide you with some useful feedback. Respect their time and good will and try to make things easy for them. Here, for reference of anyone who would like me to respond to their survey, are my top tips for making your survey more likely to be completed and returned:

1. Be up front and open about what information you are trying to gather and why you are trying to gather it. While multiple-choice answers are unlikely to change depending on the reason for the questionnaire, free-form text answers are likely to be quite different. I'll except those doing psychological research from this rule, since they typically have their own reasons for asking certain things in certain ways.
2. Be honest about how long it will take. Give an estimate at the start so people can decide if (a) they want to devote that much time and (b) if they have that much time available in one block now, or should wait until later to start. Estimate on the high side. Ask three friends of yours to take the survey and time them - see how long it takes them to fill it in and use that as a gauge. If it's a multi-page survey, provide a progress bar. Make sure the progress bar is honest and realistic about progress at every page.
3. Use less pages, particularly on web surveys. Remember that ever time I have to click next wastes time as my browser has to download a new page, render it, etc., etc. In particular, stop the foolishness of asking one question per page. If I wanted to click next all day, I'd install Windows software for a living.
4. Don't make questions compulsory. Allow me to progress without answering a question. It might be that I don't have an answer, don't want to give an answer, or that I want to come back to it later.
5. Don't ask for personal details, in particular things like date of birth. If there is a genuine reason you need such information, state why you need it and don't make it compulsory. Any survey I get asking me for date of birth is ignored. If you are building up a statistical model that requires the person's age, ask them that - or ask them their year of birth, or even the month and year. If you need such information, explain why and detail how you are going to protect such personal information from abuse (e.g. By only storing anonymised data, or similar.)
6. Get someone else to check your questions. For preference, get someone who does not intimately understand your research or line of work to check your questions. See if they can understand all your questions, and indeed that their understanding is the same as yours.
7. Make it clear whether you expect one or multiple answers to each question. For online surveys, radio buttons should be used to allow selection of a single option, and check boxes allow selection of multiple options.
8. Do not make free-form text answers compulsory, ever. By all means allow free-form text answers or extra 'any other comments' style questions at the end, but do not make them compulsory. In particular, do not echo one recent survey which asked "What made you pick option X?" after each question - and forced some answer to be given before proceeding. This is a classic example of how to erode any good will the survey respondent feels towards you.
9. Thank the respondents and most importantly, tell them what's going to happen to the information and how it will help you. A poor survey will thank the respondent for answering their questions and leave them wondering what, if anything, will happen next. Consider offering to collect an e-mail address and send them a copy of your research when it's ready for publication. If you're a commercial company, offer to provide an update in a reasonable time frame on the results of the survey and what improvements customers can expect because of it. If the respondent declines to give an e-mail address or contact details, consider giving them a URL where they can find more information about what will happen with the information they've just given you. People like feeling useful - make your survey respondents feel useful!

These tips are not all encompassing - far from it. They do capture some of the most irritating and repeated failures I've seen in a sequence of recent surveys. For some more general tips on writing good surveys check here, here or use the power of your favourite internet search engine to find innumerable other resources on the subject. Consider reading a book, made of paper on the topic; there are many. Stick to the guidelines above though and you're at least likely to get a prompt response to your survey from me.
Happy surveying!

Just a note of congratulations to Phillips who appear to provide electronic copies of their product manuals online. I'm torn though between pointing out how this is a good thing(tm) and berating them for the fact that it is not at all obvious how to remove the dust collecting cylinder of their FC 8738 Animal Care vacuum cleaner.
As an aside, despite the label 'Animal Care' neither Puppy nor Kitten are too enamoured by the scary noisy machine. Perhaps they read 'care' in a more Al Pacino sense of the word. (Completely justified in Puppy's case as everyone knows vacuum cleaners are canine specific interdimensional portals.)

I saw this poem today, made the day a little brighter!

Ah, Juliet, tis the sun!

Never thought we'd see another one.

We feigned our death this day.

We fooled them all

And ran away.

Harvey R Wasserman

Bórd Scannán na hÉireann in association with Monster Animation and Design present this short film about transport within Dublin. As someone who uses public transport in Dublin almost every day of the week, I regret to say I largely agree that their title - "Not There Yet" - expresses the state of play pretty accurately.

My little sister, probably the coolest person I know, laughed down the phone at me this morning, when I told her that universal suffrage did not exist in Switzerland, at the cantonal level, until 1991. The year before she started at school, the women of Appenzell Innerrhoden got the right to vote. Now, Rosie’s not wrong to be shocked. She’s a talented singer and a hardworking medical student, but she’s really not that old, and she had been halfway around the world by the time the country where her big sis is living got around to universal suffrage.

Women’s lib isn’t our usual go-to topic of conversation. But what got us onto it, and what brings it into sharp relief for me, is the thornier topic of reproductive rights. This weekend, I discovered that the contraceptive implant on which I have relied for the last two years had broken. Wikipedia describes Implanon as the most effective form of birth control currently available. But mine is currently in two parts, inside my arm, and I’m pretty sure that’s not the way it’s meant to be. I don’t know for sure that it’s non-functional in this state, but I’ve had a pretty awful withdrawal bleed, so I’m just guessin’…

I’ve been lucky with the timing of this failure. I’m pretty confident that I’m not at risk of an unexpected pregnancy. But that’s sheer luck on my part – and it’s just lucky that I noticed it when I did, too. I’m happy in my career, I love to travel, I’ve just taken up dancing. I don’t want a kid right now. I’m married to a wonderful man, who has medical problems that mean his sleep is extremely precious. He doesn’t want a kid right now. We’re not reckless teenagers – I’ve always been careful about contraception, and a large part of the reason I chose the implant was because of the combination of reliability and ease-of-use that it offers. It works very well, and it’s hard to get wrong.

But “hard to get wrong” is not the same as “impossible to get wrong”. I’m in a fortunate position – I know a pretty good amount about contraception, at least for a layperson. I’m reasonably familiar with the menstrual cycle, I’m bright, I’m numerate. I can remember when I last felt the implant intact, and it’s not all that long ago. I can do the math, and I know when I was last sexually active, and I’m confident that this will all be fine. And despite that confidence, I’m stressed and freaked because I made a choice about my reproductive organs, and the method I used to enact that choice has failed.

I can’t say what I would or wouldn’t do in different circumstances. When it came down to it, I hope that I would choose not to have an abortion – but I’d sure as hell want it to be my decision! It’s my body, it’s my future, it’s my career, it’s my family, it’s my life. Ultimately, this is one decision that’s not about you, it’s about me. And I believe that every woman should have the right to make that decision for herself.

So let’s back up to my shocked little sister. She wasn’t even two years old when Ireland elected a woman to the highest office in the land. And yet she still lives in a country where, were she to need or want an abortion for any reason – personal, social or medical – she would have to get on a boat, or a plane, and leave the island where she has lived her whole life, in order to make that decision. She’s every bit as lucky as I am – she has a supportive family, a big sis in Switzerland, and the brains to work out what she needs and how to get it. (She’s also very familiar with the world outside her island, make no mistake!) No matter which way I look at it, that just seems wrong to me.

Having reproductive choices taken away from you, for any reason, is horrible and scary. Forcing you to go to another country to make those choices is cruel and twisted. And this, dear friends, is why I’m pro-choice.

Or “It seemed like a good idea at the time!”

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve made several new friendships, and spent time with old friends, among my Google colleagues. It seemed like half the engineers formerly-known-as Sysops were in Mountain View, and I had already stayed up til 6AM with Tiarnan more than once before last weekend.

Last weekend, however, truly set the bar for future great nights out, or indeed whole weekends The previous bar was hazy: depending on how you measured, it could have been any of many nights at CTYI, one of a few nights in Munich, or a particularly memorable night during the offsite-residential part of one of my courses while I was studying in Munich, when we stayed up til dawn singing (including some awesome German on-the-spot rapping, a citronella candle full of bugs, and swimming in Chiemsee).

Looking back, the following seem to be common threads in any great night:

• Staying up far later than is reasonable…
• With people who are generally insensibly bright, and experts in their chosen field…
• But who still manage to be socially stimulating…
• Listening to good music, particularly if it’s of a genre I’m not especially familiar with…
• Telling stories, sharing jokes, having a laugh…
• And trying things I wouldn’t normally do, or that I haven’t tried before, or that are generally inadvisable (in the sort of “but why would you want to set a styrofoam cup on fire?” “Just to see what happens?” way)…

Last weekend involved all of these, and more!

Friday/Saturday

It started out on Friday evening, with a reasonably sedate dinner at a delicious Vietnamese place. Present were Dim, my flatmate in the corporate apartment; Gordon, a Sysops manager; Liam, another Irish EngProd exile visiting from Zürich; Tiarnan, whose official function is not yet clear to me, but appears to be some kind of anti-productivity mission; and I, your humble narrator.

After dinner, Dim, Liam, Tiarnan & I had planned to go to Bourbon & Branch, possibly my favourite bar in San Francisco. Our plans were sadly foiled by the fact that Liam’s passport was back in Mountain View, and they were being especially strict about the types of ID they would accept (which they had failed to relay to me in either the phone call or the e-mail I had received that afternoon, confirming our reservation ). Not to be put off by such a piffling defeat, your intrepid party carried on to an almost-equally-fine establishment nearby, which was immeasurably improved by the presence of a pool table down the back, which had lots of free space around it.

(At this point, I must refer back to my foursquare feed to be quite sure of what that establishment was called It was Rye.)

I was disappointed to learn that a strawberry daiquiri was out of the question, but found myself suitably consoled by their Hemingway. We stayed at Rye until well after midnight, at which point we attempted to relocate to Swig. Unfortunately, they were being just as fussy about ID as B&B had been, so we retired to the corporate apartment that Dim & I were sharing.

We happily polished off a bottle of the delicious Judd’s Hill “Magic”. As I went to explain the story behind the wine, Tiarnan idly remarked that the magic was that it erased memories, and pointed out that we’d shared a bottle of the same stuff previously

Liam left us sometime about 02:00, and Dim retired closer to 03:00, leaving Tiarnan and I to sort out a bottle of the eminently drinkable “Hess Collection Mount Veeder 19 Block Cuvée“. We did our best, and Tiarnan gladly educated me on the talents of several artists I’d never before heard of, including the truly fabulous Jewel, using the magic pixies behind Grooveshark! I also had my first taste of swing dancing, and was utterly confused by what now seems like a relatively simple triple-step

Shortly before 06:00, we continued on our way, and finding the Muni just about to pull out as we got to Brannan, we hopped onboard! Happily, we were on the right line, as we headed towards Carl & Cole on the N Judah. Our luck wasn’t entirely to last, as we missed our stop and ended up walking back a ways. We stopped in to an early-morning cafe, where they took one look at us and pointed us straight down the street to Kezar Bar & Grill. We missed the kickoff, but caught most of the Ireland-Italy match, interrupted only briefly by a reasonably authentic full Irish.

The England-Wales match saw us sharing our second-breakfast, a plate of French toast deep-fried in sugar. It kept us awake until Liam arrived to rejoin us, and once the match was over, some bright spark suggested we head to Dottie’s. Unfortunately, some time between leaving for dinner the night before, and leaving the pub after the second match, a flaming ball of nuclear energy had appeared in the sky. We were none too pleased with this development, but soon found ourselves queuing up for a third breakfast.

In front of us in the queue were a teacher with her 5mo old baby, and her cousin Stacey. The teacher was in San Francisco for a conference, and Stacey had come to help with the baby. We chatted away, laughed at each other’s jokes, and generally shared good cheer as we waited for yet more food (preferably tiramisu), deep-fried in sugar. At some point, Stacey gave me not only a phone number and an e-mail address, but also directions, in case I should ever find myself lost or bored in Dunsmuir, all charmingly scrawled on a sheet of beautiful flower notepaper

Saturday/Sunday

By the time we had eaten breakfast, Tiarnan & I were thoroughly broken, and Liam had to return to Mountain View. For those of you keeping score, I had been up for >30hrs by that time, and Tiarnan was only an hour or two behind. We headed back to the hotel for a brief kip, and woke again conscious, if not refreshed, some time around 18:30. Tiarnan was planning to go out dancing, and just as I was about to head home, foolishly extended an invitation for me to join him

But before we could dance, it was time for fourth breakfast dinner. Dim rejoined us for a delicious Indian, and Tiarnan & I made plans to be at The Rent Party in time for their drop-in Swing class at 21:30. We got there at 21:00, only to find out that the class had started at 20:30. Tiarnan graciously offered a crash-course, during which I learnt the aforementioned triple-step, and succeeded in tying myself in rather impressive knots every time he tried to swing me out

It wasn’t long before his friends (henceforth, the Sacremento posse) arrived, and our lesson was interrupted. Tiarnan’s friends, it should be pointed out, are overwhelmingly female. This worked out famously for me, coming from the typical Google world, where I can tell that it’s a writing-team meeting if the proportion of women tips above 10%. The Sacremento posse in particular are people who know him from the dancing world. For the record, Tiarnan has been dancing for many years, and is, to put it mildly, accomplished. This became relevant sooner than I had expected.

Tiarnan graciously shared the first dance with me, and I think I acquitted myself reasonably. This may have been because he confined his dancing to the two steps he had taught me so far, but we won’t speculate too far on that. I was about to sit down when one of the Sacremento posse invited me to dance. Knowing full-well that there’s only one polite reply to such an invitation, I acquiesced gladly. This dance went about as badly as the previous one had gone well. It improved somewhat, about halfway through, when the lead stopped for a moment, looked at me, and said, as politely as I’m sure he could, “you don’t know East Coast, do you?”. I explained that no, we hadn’t been introduced, and in fact, I had only started dancing in the prior half hour, which he took with great grace. He proceeded to teach me the basic East Coast step, which I promptly forgot.

My third dance, in which I learned the value of a good lead (or the additional difficultly that a poor lead presents to a new follow ). Nonetheless, I had fun, but now I needed a break, and some time to shove my rapidly-melting brain back in to my ears. I found the water coolers, wrote my name on a cup (not much contention for “Noirin”, really!), and tried to process.

The rest of the night went swimmingly. I managed about a dozen dances, with no fewer than eight leads. I mostly survived, and the leads were all very gracious. I may have broken one of them just a smidge, when I proceeded to hijack the dance slightly, and teach him the triple-step, but overall I think all involved had fun. I enjoyed watching some stunning dancers, particularly in the Blues room, and suffered only a minor shock on returning to the Lindy room from the Blues room and discovering that the music was approximately twelve times faster

Tiarnan having warned me that he planned to leave before midnight, I was not entirely surprised when we ended up closing the joint, and the magic of the internets (and the cars of the Sacramento posse) got us to Grubstake. I wasn’t really ready for their delicious chips, but did enjoy the gallon of ice-cream that I was served in the guise of a milkshake.

I managed to remain conscious long enough to get out of the diner and into a taxi. We headed back to the hotel, and rounded three sides of it before we found an open door, and crashed into bed. It was about this time that Tiarnan sent the following tweet, and yes, noirins was well and truly broken, although I would point out in my defence that it wasn’t so much the 30 hours that killed me, as the night of dancing that followed.

Sunday, I’m almost sure…

We were woken at some truly unmerciful hour, it can’t have been much past noon, the next day (for those of you who’ve lost track, the narrative has now made it to Sunday, at least in some universe), by the hotel fire alarm. I was perfectly content to die in the fire, as long as it didn’t involve moving anything below my hips. Tiarnan, on the other hand, insisted that we evacuate, a decision that was happily overruled by the lady on the intercom assuring us that the alarm was under investigation and we would be informed if there were any further developments. It wasn’t long before she returned to tell us that it was a false alarm, but by then we were awake.

For full disclosure, we had woken to the sound of Tiarnan’s alarm shortly before 07:00. Happily, he had been unable to stream the Scotland-France match over the internet fumes that the hotel provided, so we had rapidly returned to the embrace of Morpheus.

Anyway, once the fire alarm had woken us for real, I conducted a thorough study of the ceiling while Tiarnan conversed with no fewer than a dozen people via at least three media. We got up and found the most hip of San Francisco’s many hipster cafes. I had a swig of his mocha, and was surprisingly impressed. Tiarnan had thus introduced me to Swing and coffee in one weekend, a combination I feel confident will reoccur at some point.

At this point, I had planned to go home, get changed, and head to a Superbowl ad-watching party. Not the most dreadful state, but one from which I was rescued by yet another invitation to join Tiarnan’s friends. Given that the ad party was being held in the Internet Archive’s location, I figured I’d find a more fun gender-balance with his mates, and the decision was made. San Francisco being truly, wonderfully San Francisco, it was no problem for me to run out, get clean socks and a t-shirt, even in the twenty minutes I had before we were due to leave. For the record, if you’ve been wearing the same clothes for two days straight, and can only change one thing, make it your socks. OMG, that felt good!

Who dat!?

After possibly the wildest taxi ride of my life, including both San Francisco hills and driving down the street on the sidewalk, we found the party, and I settled in between the wonderful N’Awlins Helena and a dancer called Dana. Helena provided illegally delicious BBQ shrimp, with a sauce you could just drink. Dana, not to be outdone, explained the rules of American football as only a woman can, and we proceeded to transmit as much sound energy as possible directly back through the screen to the Saints.

I will readily admit to a certain fondness for New Orleans, and was only too happy to support the Saints. The football was, surprisingly, more entertaining than the ads, although I will give full props to Dove for possibly-unintentional comedy value, and to Google for a very well-received Parisian Love. (The football may also have been made more fun by the fact that Dana had placed a small bet, and we were therefore screaming for specific scores at both half- and full-time, not just for a single winner )

Once the game was over, and the victory celebrated, the weekend seemed almost complete. But no! What of the ad-watching party!? We headed back towards the Tenderloin to meet up with Tom, and find out how the party had been. Sadly, Tom’s companion had just been turned away from Swig, because her ID didn’t meet their exacting standards So we retired to the hotel bar for a bevvy (and no, I still hadn’t gotten my strawberry daiquiri!). Tom & Pam left us after one, and since both Tiarnan & I were in possession of the magic harp-stamped documents, we returned to Swig just one more time.

The lack of strawberry daiquiris at Swig rapidly became moot, as we shook our booty to a rousing chorus of “Oh when the Saints” from the live band. It was almost as fun as Hallowe’en in New Orleans, and possibly better since it involved slightly more manageable crowds. I had my first taste of Blues dancing, and any preference for Lindy that I might have expressed on Saturday was rapidly forgotten as I fell in love with yet another new dance.

The end of the night was marred by a drunken Irish idiot, who didn’t understand the basics of “no”, but Tiarnan did an absolutely impeccable job of looking after me, and really, the whole affair should not be mixed up with the absolutely fabulous weekend I enjoyed.

And thus you have the tale of possibly the best weekend I’ve ever had. I made new friends, I got in more girl-talk than I’ve had in the last very-long-time, I fell in love with two new dances (and I’m already signed-up for Lindy classes when I get home!), I got to talk all night long, for several nights in a row, I discovered new music (listen to Jewel & Sarah McLachlan’s “Water is Wide”!), I had, in short, an absolute blast.

Unfortunately, I have now returned to work, where I am trying to write concise, informative documentation, on a shockingly short deadline. I would have made this post more brief, but I just didn’t have time. If you made it this far, my apologies for the length. Remind me the next time we’re in the same city, and I’ll buy you a pint

I'm going to try making a small project in Ruby on Rails, so first I need to install the development environment on my laptop. More for my own future reference than anyone else's benefit, here's what I did:

sudo aptitude update (because it's just a good idea)
sudo aptitude install ruby-full build-essential (This installs emacs. wtf?!? Oh well...)
wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/60718/rubygems-1.3.5.tgz (Find the latest RubyGems package from rubyforge.org)
tar xzvf rubygems-1.3.5.tgz
cd rubygems-1.3.5
sudo ruby setup.rb (It appears to hang for a while with no output but eventually works and returns you to a prompt. So far so good...)
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/gem1.8 /usr/bin/gem
sudo gem update --system (Should say nothing to update if you've pulled down the latest version)

sudo gem install rails (Install rails)

All done and nothing remaining but to check that MySQL is up and running and start developing actual code.

I took this pic last summer at my parents' house. My brother had had a party the night before, and clearly decided to be responsible about the recycling. Or else there's a better story. Any ideas?

I used to have a rule about never owning anything I couldn’t carry. Ostensibly this was to do with my immense portability, love of freedom, ability to pick up and move on short notice as the whim takes me, etc. In reality it was a little more to do with the fact that not only do I want to be able to do these things, I want to be able to do them by myself. However moving to NY necessitated the purchase of furniture, which I justify by assuming if I really needed to I could just take it apart and lift it myself, because you know, flatpacks can be carried. Hah.

Which goes part of the way to explaining why I ended up stuck at the bottom of the approximately 7 steps up to my apartment, completely incapable of transporting the large flat-packed bookcase I had in my possession as far as the apartment door. You could get the rest of the way toward said explanation by taking into account the fact that I have quite probably never in my life looked at anything that fits indoors and thought “nah, I can’t lift that”.

Now, I know I am not Batman, but I have always been able to figure out a way of moving heavy things. Whether by shuffling them along the ground, dragging them,  rolling them, lifting them a few inches at a time, or whatever else presents itself as a potential solution. I have flown with 3 suitcases and a bag despite having only 2 hands, I have re-arranged large items of furniture like beds and wardrobes many times. So I assumed, despite barely being able to maneuver this thing onto the trolley at IKEA, that I would figure it out somehow.

Em, no.

First off, the damn thing was 7’ long and fucking heavy. I tried lifting and dragging, no dice. So I managed to get it upright, and then laid it horizontally on the stairs, where the top came about one and a half  steps short of the highest point. So with a mighty effort and looking ridiculous, I crouched down and pushed from the bottom and it gradually crawled upwards. Theoretically, this would have been a perfectly rational if rather foolish looking method of getting it up the stairs. Except that just as I thought I had it, everything stuck. There was a lip on the top of the stairs over which it would not go. Letting go to run up and pull it that fateful inch over was unthinkable because it would slide back down, pushing it from below was impossible. I collapsed in a mildly amused but desperately frustrated heap, and wondered what the fuck I was going to do if I could not get the damn thing out of the hall.

I would like at this point to say that desperation is the mother of invention, and that I devised an ingenious and McGuyver-worthy way of getting the damn thing into my flat. But that would be a giant lie, because what actually happened was that I realized my neighbor was at home, and feeling rather silly I enlisted his assistance in the moving of said heavy thing.

I may have set back the feminist movement by 20 years.

Back in early 2008 myself and Eoghan O’Brien ran RagRadio. The setup consisted of a PC for playing music, two CD decks, 3 stage mics and a mixing desk. We took the mixer output and ran it into a laptop which encoded it, shipped it off to Icecast and broadcast our little radio station to the Internet. It was during Rag week and we interviewed a few bands who were floating around; Fred, The Saw Doctor’s and Messiah J.

We peaked at about 24 concurrent listeners and averaged 6 if memory serves.

I fell in love, ian – The Internet Audio Network was founded. That summer I went to the US on a J1. Armed with my iRiver and a borrowed SM-57 I took off on an interview hunt. With the ian domain registered and a stack of business cards I attended HOPE and DEFCON, as a member of the press. Through sheer brass neck I landed a few interviews, including the only press interview at DEFCON that year with the team captain of the winning capture the flag team.

When I came back to Limerick I bought a Zoom H4 for ian. I traveled to 25c3 and FOSDEM ‘09 on a determined content hunt. The game was on.

Last summer the semblance of a website came together and a podcast started: ITFreely. It was recorded over Skype with Gareth, Joe and Patrick. We had no idea what we were doing but had one rule: keep it under half an hour. The first two shows were an amazing shambles, they’re not going public (maybe for a year anniversary or Christmas Special bonus show).

While all this tech oriented content chasing was going on a second itch presented itself to me – the music business. I set out to find musicians to interview.

My interest here was in the future of the music industry, how piracy is really affecting music, and what an upcoming artist should brace themselves for. I got into the VIP area of Oxegen, was at the debut single launch of an Irish pop band, traveled to London to interview an Israeli outfit in the Ministry of Sound, and had a smattering of back-stage chat’s. Neck and business cards.

As I was coming to NUIG in September I contacted the local campus radio station – FlirtFM. I secured two half hour FM shows, off the back of the content I had put online. ITFreely ported from a collection of bedroom’s to a modern studio broadcast over the FM (at 12:30pm on Wednesdays, just so you know). Joe took a work related sabbatical and Gareth started a night course in Law, so myself and Patrick were joined by Shane Tuohy, Niall Campbell and Andy Regan.

Niall joins me on the second show to talk about rights, lawsuits and piracy from a Music point of view, we call the show Talk Like A Pirate. Unfortunately as we include copy-righted music in the show we can’t freely distribute it online, or Podcast it, but you can tune into the web-stream live (Tuesdays at 12:30pm).

In the last few week’s we’ve really started to settle into a groove with ITFreely. We’ve tried to concentrate less on opinion and comment, and more on original research. We’ve had Lecturers on the show, representatives from companies and organisation’s, started to do live streaming of the pre-record sessions, set up IRC channels for live feedback during the show, got onto iTunes, and set up a Facebook group and Twitter feed to keep in contact with you. We even got some intro music.

We’re learning production values the hard way, through trial and error. We’re getting there, but we’re a long way off before ITFreely become’s the show it could be. We want to bring you a though provoking and interesting weekly show about some aspect of Irish or Global Tech.

This is where we need your help. We need you to let us know when the show is dull and what just isn’t working. We’ll post a laptop sticker to anyone who give us some feedback, leaves us a comment or sends us a mail (any good economist will tell you that humans are incentive driven).

So check out our back catalogue, sign up to the mailing list, and most importantly, let us know what you think.

We’re out of our public Alpha. We’re entering our public Beta. Hop on board.

The Apache HTTP Server team recently released 1.3.42, the final release of the hugely-popular 1.3 codebase. I wrote a bit about our reasoning, and where we’re going next, in response to some questions from El Reg. A lot of people have been asking about the decision to stop support for 1.3, so I thought I’d republish what I wrote.

Overview

In June 1999, the Apache Software Foundation was incorporated in Delaware.

A year previously, Apache HTTP Server 1.3.0 had been released, and it was rapidly becoming the most popular web server on the planet.

Not known for resting on their laurels, it was barely nine months later that the Apache HTTP Server team released the first alpha of Version 2.0. This was a significant rewrite of much of the original code, focused on improving modularization and portability. It made general release in April 2002, and remained best-of-breed until Version 2.2.0 came out in December 2005.

More than ten years and forty revisions later, Apache HTTP Server 1.3 has reached end-of-life status. Version 2.2 has been available for more than four years, and is widely deployed across the internet. Although critical security fixes may be released as patches for Version 1.3, there will be no further releases or support from the Apache HTTP Server team. We encourage all users of Version 1.3 to upgrade to Version 2.2 as soon as possible.

If you’ve been reading closely, you might be wondering what happened to 2.1, and what the developers were doing between April 2002 and December 2005? Since the advent of Version 2.0, the Apache HTTP Server team have reserved even-numbered minor versions for stable versions of the software. The odd-numbered minor versions are made public as alpha and beta releases, allowing developers to try out the bleeding edge of new features, and giving module authors a chance to prepare their software for the next release.

For anyone working on code that integrates with the Apache HTTP Server, these odd-numbered revisions are your best opportunity to request changes in the API, before it is released as stable!

The current best-of-breed stable version of Apache HTTP Server is Version 2.2.14, released in September 2009. But if you’re already itching to take Version 2.4 for a test drive, you can get a headstart by installing the alpha Version 2.3.5, released just last month. This version includes significant improvements to caching and proxying behaviour, and will eventually be released as Version 2.4.

Why will the 1.3 code no longer be supported or updated?

As I previously mentioned, Apache HTTP Server 1.3.0 was originally released in June 1998. To put that in perspective, it would be another three weeks before Microsoft Windows 98 became available, a product which, despite significant commercial support, reached end-of-life four years ago. The first production 1GHz processors didn’t ship for another two years; today, if you want to buy a 1GHz processor, you’re probably in the market for a new phone!

Version 2 is a significant improvement over 1.3. The API has been rewritten to prevent many of the problems with module ordering and priority. Better support exists for non-Unix platforms, and smart filtering is now available. Version 2.0 includes support for IPv6 and multiple protocols, while Version 2.2 adds LFS, enabling you to serve files over 2GB in size. The core modules for authentication and authorisation have been greatly improved, as well as subsystems from caching to proxying.

In short, technology and the Internet have come a long way in the last twelve years, and Version 1.3 is simply no longer the best-of-breed solution it once was.

What has happened to 2.0? What should 1.3/2.0 users do now?

Version 2.0 continues to enjoy bugfix releases, but does not see active development.

We encourage all users to upgrade to Apache HTTP Server 2.2.14.

What’s the planned features roadmap and release schedule for the next version?

The Apache HTTP Server team release software when it’s ready – we prefer to ensure that our releases represent the best software available, rather than worrying about shipping deadlines. Features currently under development include further updates to auth modules, as well as state-of-the-art cache and proxy modules. If you’re impatient to try these things, you can check out Version 2.3.5 (alpha). Or, if you’d prefer a more academic look at the subject, you might enjoy Roy Fielding’s presentation, “Apache 3.0 (A Tall Tale)”.

Key facts

• Apache HTTP Server Version 1.3 has now reached end-of-life status.
• The current best-of-breed stable version of the Apache HTTP Server is Version 2.2.14 – we encourage all users to upgrade to this version as soon as possible.
• For those who prefer to try out new features as soon as they become available, Version 2.3.5 provides an alpha preview of what will become stable Version 2.4.
• The latest version of the Apache HTTP Server is always available from our download page.

I upgraded my Blackberry 9500 (Storm 1) to OS5 this week from OS4.7. There are a few new features this brings that I like, and a drawback or two.

Pro’s:

• Major speed improvements. The OS is no longer sluggish, without removing any applications or data.
• gTalk, BBM and AIM status updates are shown when viewing a contact.
• Ability to Flag E-Mail’s for follow up.
• Bedside mode can be restricted to only activate within certain hours.
• Threaded bubble SMS interface, akin to the iPhone.
• Saner Keyboard layout in Landscape mode.
• New Font BBAlpha Sans Condensed allowing more characters on screen while keeping readability, a major UI boost.
• Macro shooting mode for camera.
• Radio is no longer disabled when battery is low. This was a real pain.

Con’s:

• Links between gTalk and the Contacts application break frequently, I haven’t been able to pin-point a cause.
• Still no useful E-Mail folders or filters. I can flag a mail for follow up, but I can’t see a list of just the mail’s i need to follow up, or a list of drafts.
• gTalk requires two lines per user. Before you could view 15odd users at a time, now it’s more like 6.

The kitchen appliances in the new house were very much at the end of their life and causing us high electricity bills.

As usual I shopped around went to DID near Liffey Valley,very small shop not too much choice,went to expert electricial in Naas,their staff are friendly but it is expensive there and the discount they were offering was pretty low.I had a look at powercity.ie then rang them and emailed them my list asking for a best price.
I had seen the fridge and the freezer that I intended to order from here before and tbh once m washing maching and drier could take at least 6/7 kilos and were good and good good reviews I didn't care what they looked like!!
I managed to get about 11% discount,excellent service and free delivery.
I can't compare exact appliances only ones that did the exact same so not exactly comparing like with like but there was about 600 euro between the cheapest and most expensive quotes.

Recently I tried to purchase a dvd boxset from both thehut.co.uk and zavvi.The order went through fine but the next day I got this email -

Hello Rachael Holt,

Thanks for placing your order with zavvi, order number : 10764419

Please do not reply to us at this e-mail address as we will not receive your message. This is an automated response.

A customer service advisor has sent you the following message:

Thank you for placing your order with us.

Unfortunately we are unable to ship The Wire - Complete [24-Disc Boxset] [DVD] outside of the UK. We apologise for any inconvenience caused, no money has been taken from your card.

Should you have any further questions please contact us through your online account message centre or on 0844 264 0702 and we will be able to help you further.

Kind Regards,

zavvi Team

The email from both is the same so I reckon they are probably the same company now.They had charged for postage and I had paid the charge.

I have bought items from both before christmas no problem!!

Someone described me like that today and I found it physically impossible to go a whole day without repeating it somehow, because its brilliant.

The theme of today’s post is essentially “bugger this for a game of soldiers”. Today I found out how long a green card takes to get. No wait, sorry, I should clarify that. Today I found how long a green card takes to get if you are not married to an american, related to an american or winning the green card lottery. In other words today I found out how long it takes to get permission to work long-term in america based solely on what you would actually be working at in america. Just so you know, it takes considerably longer this way than any of the above, which appears to me to fly in the face of all logic and good sense.

I asked for this from my employer about 8 months ago. I wanted them to start the green card process, because I wanted to have some sort of fallback should the arse fall out of the job market again and I find myself not only without employment but without a right to reside at my address anymore. It is one thing to abruptly lose your job and another to abruptly lose residence of a country 3000 miles from your native one. It would be not only disgustingly inconvenient but frightfully expensive to rectify. So the request seemed like a sensible one.

At the time the process was described to me it seemed a tad lengthy but potentially very worthwhile. 6 months of PERM (aka: the can-we-replace-you-with-a-citizen test), a year of waiting for PERM certification, another year to process the application for a green card along with an adjustment of status in order to extend my visa. So at best, this process takes 2-3 years. What escaped me at the time is that this is merely the timescale involved in _applying_. The backlog of people waiting for the aforementioned verdant immigration card is a minimum of FIVE FUCKING YEARS. So that means, as of right now, it will take a good 7 years for me to actually get one of these. If during that time I am let go or change jobs, the whole process crashes and burns and has to start all over again.

My current state of mind can be summarised in 3 words. Fuck. That . Shit.

Or “Turning Twenty-Five in the San Francisco Bay Area”

As the quarter-century creeps steadily up on me, I’ve been having a blast seeing the sights and meeting friends old and new. I can’t help thinking back to all the things I’ve enjoyed (and suffered through!) along the way. I’ve been incredibly lucky, and I hope that the next 25 years are as fun as the past 25 have been!

The following are just a few of the things that have set me off down memory lane

• Winetasting in Napa made me reminisce about collecting Michelin stars with the Ellerays when all we (the kids!) wanted to do was see who could grow the biggest, coolest, oldest Tamagotchi.
• A going-away party for the coolest kernel hacker around reminded me of the weekend I spent with Natasha, trying to create a working Linux boot floppy for a hand-me-down machine that didn’t have a bootable CD drive.
• Hot-tubbing with engineers, dancers, and a girl who “does circus” was fun – but when we jumped in the (relatively) freezing pool, I was brought straight back to Ennareilly and our “punch, punch, punch-punch-punch” strategy for surviving the cold!
• Paddling in the Pacific, well, I’ve done that before – on the other side! Remember Caloundra, and the pelicans?
• Of course, the hour-long commute (in a very well-kitted-out bus) puts me more in mind of the camper van. Remember the ginger beer all over the camper? The flies all over the rest stop? The sugar-cane we begged for and then never got through?
• Wandering around San Francisco, taking the cable-car to Ghirardelli Square, puts me in mind of our wanderings in Zurich, and all the wonderful times you’ve come to see me. I guess this year it’s my turn to come to you!
• On the other hand, getting settled in the corporate apartment, checking out the farmers’ market for lunch, looking for the laundry room, and settling in to a glass of wine and a home-made dinner is more like Munich. That spag bol was great, although I’m glad to have graduated to a slightly bigger kitchen!
• When Steve destroyed my new top in the laundry, how could I help but remember that beautiful white Susst top? And how could I help but be grateful for the thousands of loads of laundry you’ve done for me? Thanks mum!
• Of course, the trip to Liz Claiborne afterwards? Let’s just say there are still things in your wardrobe I wish I could borrow

I haven’t found anything as good as your bread yet, and I miss our long, evening dinners catching up. I hope your year on the island is as fulfilling as all our childhood expeditions were – from the Giant’s Causeway to the Wicklow lighthouse, from Kilmainham to the Cliffs of Moher.

Thank you, mum and dad, for twenty-five wonderful years. (And Eoin & Rosie, for almost 45 between you )

I have a few personal rules about New Years Eve. Some of them are obvious, and based on logistics, like “never go somewhere you can’t get back from on foot unless you are in a country with real public transport”, “never go to a niteclub”, “make sure you have bought enough to drink and give away” and so on and so forth. I find it requires more careful planning than your average night out, mostly due to the fact that everyone is an exuberantly drunk moron. Not that this is necessarily a problem until one throws up on your shoes.

But my most rigidly adhered to rule in recent years is to never make a New Year’s resolution. Firstly, it’s a completely arbitrary day, and so I refuse to conform to such a ludicrous convention, mostly out of sheer contrariness. Secondly, any resolution not important enough to be made as soon as you thought of it is clearly not going to be adhered to and is a damn waste of time and effort by definition.

So I hereby declare some January 19^th resolutions which I have just thought of and decided were important. Ahem.

• I will save some fucking money. I have a habit of spending everything I earn in a great big happy flow of joy and whatever-I-feel-like-ness. This is not a long term plan.
• I will fly less than I did last year. This would be really easy for most people. But I think even I can keep it under  50,000 miles in 12 months

Not exactly lofty aspirations, and admittedly rather vague, but the more specific versions that contain actual numbers are in my head. Of course these are just the new ones, there are perpetually ongoing resolutions like “try to drink a little less”, “go to the gym more” and the ever popular “stop being so chubby”. But essentially, these are the plan.

I will be interested to see how this progresses. Oh, and happy fucking new year everyone. Ain’t life just grand?

Or at least this seems to be the Polynesian view on language. My hotel was called the Waikiki Kaiulani (pronounced as spelled in case you wondered) for fuck sake.

I’m not really partial to sun holidays. I have only been on the classic package holiday once at the age of 16, and that was with my family and therefore by definition of limited adventurousness. Since then I have always taken an approach to holidays that crams in the most places I have never been, things I have never done or seen, or friends I enjoy hanging out with as possible, ideally a combination of all of the above. However I realized that this time around, I was quite likely to need a bit of a post-excitement break, and as it turns out that was a pretty good call.

I spent all of my London time trying to meet everyone I know, all of my HK time trying to simultaneously do cool stuff and refrain from losing in my lunch in one of two unpleasant ways, and all of my Japan time trying to do cool stuff while somehow figuring out how to read signs entirely written in Hiragana. Basically what I am trying to say here is that I was pretty damn busy. So when the last leg of the holiday arrived I was eminently relieved and delighted that I had chosen to spend it in Hawaii.

You go through several phases when you get to Hawaii. The first goes something like – “whoa, this is stunning, I want to live a beautiful carefree life of freedom and sunshine here and leave the rest of the world behind forever”. Phase 2 consists of the dreamy daze in which you plan your future life of surfing and hiking and a crappy job you don’t have to care about because all you need is food and a place to sleep.  Phase 2 lasts until about a day before you leave, at which point you move to Phase 3, which goes a little like “if this were possible, everyone would do it. Actually I don’t really like being poor. There are no real jobs here, everyone is a damn scuba instructor or a hotel receptionist, and even if I could work remotely this bloody place is in the most inconvenient time zone imaginable. Damn”. This is followed closely (in my case) by the logic that I shall simple have to become rich enough to go to places like Hawaii frequently. It can probably safely be said that everything I want in life boils down to “I’ll be needing some more money for that”. On the plus side, at least my goals are straightforward.

On the whole, I loved the place. It is completely, stunningly, unswervingly beautiful. Ok, the scenery is perforated by the occasional large mall or highway, but fewer than you might expect. Honolulu is fairly populated, but the only other Island I was on (The Big Island – what a great name) has a few small towns and a whole lot of empty space. Though this may be something to do with the active volcano. Which brings me to another salient point – it has fucking volcanoes. Volcanoes! Nothing more need be said on the matter.

So I have covered the scenery, which is most definitely worth looking at for hours on end. The weather is perfect, and varies very little from season to season. The food is your standard American tourist fare, tastes good, doesn’t cost much, and comes piled so high it might fall off the plate if you look at it too hard. You have some obvious additions like fresh seafood, and the local beer is also pretty decent.

The entertainment varies from snorkeling, to parasailing, to watching the smoke pour from a live volcano to firing automatic weapons, and those are just the healthy activities. Personally I spent a lot of my time just enjoying being somewhere beautiful where I could swim and lie in the sun (by which I mean lying in the shade but being warm anyway – my skin is so pale it practically glows in the dark). I did manage to fit some activity into my relaxation though, parasailing, snorkeling and volcano-gazing being the highlights. I would go back in a second for an indefinite period if I had the chance, which hopefully I will again some time. This place goes firmly on the list titled “reasons to live in the US”

Hawaii appears to have changed my thinking forever about holidays that involve a beach, and I am grateful to it for opening my mind. And for having really nice trees.

Those of you who know me may have noticed that I don’t often respond to solicitations for charitable donations. Whether it’s a sponsored walk or a collection for malaria, I’m just not into “impulse buying”.

Those of you who know me better might know why this is. It’s not because I’m mean, honest I’ve maxed out corporate Gift Matching programs with the employers who’ve had them (even when I was just an intern), and I hope to continue to do so. But I prefer to give in a “concentrated” fashion – rather than sprinkling my charitable donations across the vast spectrum of worthy causes, I choose a few each year that I really believe in, and do my best not to feel guilty that I can’t do everything!

When I lived in Ireland, particularly while I was still in college, I tried to “give global, act local”. I volunteered with various groups, from a local literacy program to the St John Ambulance. I even indulged in retail therapy for the St Vincent de Paul, both groceries and Christmas presents

Living in Switzerland, however, I’ve found that the attitude towards volunteer work is very different. Add my frequent travels (particularly in 2010) into the mix, and it’s just not a model that’s working for me any more. But my employment situation and the local tax regime mean that I have room to expand my financial giving – yay!

But I’m not sure where to put my money. We’re not talking millions, but I still think it’s worth spending time making sure it goes to something I believe in. That way, when I do have millions, I’ve already done the tough part And this is where you come in.

Where do you think I should put my charity bucks?

To give you some background, I think if my giving had a “theme”, it would be this: Knowledge is Power.

I’m interested in improving access to knowledge, information, education. So one of my favourite charities is Literacy Bridge, which began with the idea “that the most effective approach towards ending global poverty requires empowering people with better access to knowledge”.

I’m also interested in preserving knowledge for future generations. Last year, for example, I sponsored the restoration and preservation of a collection of James Lind manuscripts, in celebration of dad’s birthday.

In general, I’m interested in charities serving those with the greatest need (not necessarily those who are easiest to reach), and I’m not looking for advocacy groups for one particular idea or cause.

What am I looking for?

• Charities that understand the importance of inspiration. If I lived anywhere on the West Coast of the US, I’d already be a Friend of the California Academy of Sciences (and heck, I’m still considering it!). They understand that an interesting, engaging story is key to getting people to care. And whether the knowledge you want to impart is in science, the arts, or just basic literacy and numeracy, if you can’t get people to care about it, you’ll have a hard time achieving anything lasting.
• Charities that engage in a personal connection. I prefer to share my donations among a smaller group of charities, which means each gets a larger share of the pot. In return, I’d like to hear what each charity is doing, and connect with more than just bank slips.
• Charities that promote access to information over one particular message. Learning about family planning may be key to helping women in the developing world steer their fate, but if all you do is hand out contraceptives, they’re not going to learn how to run a small business that could give them a real degree of independence. Building people up, giving them the tools they need, is vital to sustainability.

Do you know a charity that fits the bill? Leave me a comment, or drop me an e-mail. Thanks!

Yoga last night, and a walk on the beach today (along with a slight improvement in the sleeping) have helped. And I haven't ticked much off the list, but I have done some of it :) We're all alright.

And now, it's time to shoot some zombies.

With the wealth of information available on the internet, I find I'm using it more and more to learn about new things, to remind me about things I have failed to retain or indeed to discover those new subject areas that I should gain some understanding of.

Unfortunately (for me), more and more material is being presented in video format, particularly with the increasing ease with which one may create and upload something to YouTube and similar sites. This is good - with both visual and auditory stimulation information tends to be better retained. However, I am currently limited to 3G bandwidth (as in HSDPA from a mobile provider, not 3Gbit/s - which would be lovely ;-) ) and I'm finding that this pretty much precludes me from using video. It's no longer reasonable to have to wait 8 times the length of a video clip to download it.

Interestingly, given the Irish governments recent underwriting of 'broadband expansion' within the country through the medium of HSDPA coverage, their own website defines broadband as (from broadband.gov.ie):

"Broadband is an always-on Internet connection that gives you high-speed access and downloads for a flat rate monthly charge.
Everything works faster, from downloading emails and files (such as pictures & mp3's) or streaming movies and radio."

I'm not sure where they've run tests from, but in real world testing where I'm situated more than a few metres from the transmission mast / basestation, and there is more than just me as a subscriber in the area, video just does not work. Neither does VoIP / Skype or a number of other things that depend on reasonable, consistent latency - particularly on the uplink. I was amused to notice, in fairness, that the Broadband Technologies page on the same site does not list HSDPA/HSUPA as a broadband technology (rightly, in my personal opinion.)

I await the delivery of actual broadband to my house, so I may enjoy the occasional video from the internet once more...

You know those montages in silly Hollywood movies where one character lets themselves go completely and sits around watching daytime tv and eating cereal and wearing pyjamas/tracksuits all day with messy hair and an ever-expanding waistline? That's me. For the past four and a half months, since my contract wasn't renewed at the place were I worked and loved it, I've been a Hollywood stereotype. And yes, I'm listening to Rachmaninov's second piano concerto at the moment too. And looking off into space while I try to figure out why I haven't done a single thing on my to-do list for the day.

I write in English and Irish reasonably frequently, with an occasional sojourn into German and French too. Of course, there is also a requirement that I be able to correctly punctuate and accent the names of colleagues with non-Anglicised names too - so that leaves me with some fairly extensive requirements for keyboard layouts. My operating system of choice is Ubuntu Linux and I consider myself fortunate that the international flavour of the developers appears to have rubbed off on its multi-lingual configuration.

If you want one language and layout, simply choose System | Preferences | Keyboard and choose the Layouts tab. There you can add or remove layouts at will - I prefer the Ireland UnicodeExpert layout as it allows me to type English, Irish, German and French (and probably other languages too) without changing layout at all. Note that if you want to add this layout 'by language' it's under English, rather than Irish or Gaeilge/Gaelic.

Once you have selected this keyboard layout you can, of course, type in English as normal. Note that it's a 'UK' keyboard layout rather than American (i.e. the quotation marks are above the number 2 and the @-sign is above the single quote character. Also, the hash is next to the Enter key and the monetary pound sign is above the 3.) To get letters with fadas on them, as required for Irish, simply use (usually) AltGr + vowel. AltGr + o produces ó for example. This makes typing as Gaeilge go han-shimplí ar fad. Níl a lán rudaí níos éasca ar chor ar bith.

As well as this feature - the ability to get fadas (or French acute accents) with a single key-combo, things like umlauts are not too difficult: a simple AltGr + : (colon) followed by a vowel will give an umlaut over the letter. AltGr + : followed by 'e' gives ë - easy-peasy. Note that AltGr + ; (semi-colon) will do - it 'implies' the Shift key, saving you from having to be a concert pianist or an emacs user to key the keystrokes right. AltGr + ^ (the 6 key) and an appropriate letter puts a hat over the letter. AltGr + ~ (tilde) puts a tilde over letters like 'n' for Spanish (I think...) There are lots more characters and languages supported without changing keyboard layout.

A short while ago, someone popped into the PEAR irc channel on efnet and asked about installing Statusnet – which is a “open source micro messaging platform that helps you share and connect in real-time within your own domain.” It’s what powers identi.ca and similar micro-blogging services.

Specifically, this person wanted advice on installing the six or so PEAR packages on which this software depends; eight if you include the optional ones.

Foreseeing a number of people wanting similar help, I thought it would be best to create a metapackage to bundle these PEAR packages together – at the least it would mean only one “pear install” command would be required and it would reduce the number of potential mistakes that could be made.

Following my own instructions in the “Dependency Tracking (Meta Packages) with PEAR” section in the PEAR documentation, I quickly came up with Statusnet_Statusnet-0.1.1.tgz.

Install it via “$pear install http://short.ie/statusnettgz” for the moment – as the location of where it’s being hosted may change during the week.

I own a Blackberry Storm (9500) and my dad has a Curve (8900). Both phones allow you to turn off data when roaming (Manage Connections -> Mobile Network Options -> Data Services), so that you don’t rack up expensive data charges (useful, I’m told, in places like Switzerland). However, this means you don’t get your e-mail.

The Curve has 802.11 b/g (Wi-Fi), but we were having trouble connecting to AP’s. It turns out that by turning off data for the Cell part of the phone, you turn off data for the whole device, meaning that the phone will never get an IP address, even with DHCP off (and manually assigning a valid static IP).

So, to get your Email (and other data apps that support Wi-Fi) working abroad follow these steps:

1. Turn OFF data, go to another country
2. When you want to check your mail, turn OFF the Mobile network
3. Turn ON Wifi
4. Turn ON Data
5. Scan for a Wi-Fi network and associate with it
6. Get your mail
7. Turn OFF Data
8. Turn OFF Wi-Fi
9. Turn ON Mobile network

The “Data Services” option should only turn off data transmissions over the Mobile network, not disable the IP stack (which I think it may be doing). Hopefully this bug is fixed in OS 5, I’ve not tried it yet.