I bought a new toy today, although I’ll only get to play with it for a couple of days. My parents, both approaching seventy, decided they want to check out the internet, so for Christmas I bought them an Asus Eeebox. The minidesktop comes with a 1.6 GHz Atom processor, 160 Gb disk, a gigabyte …
Monthly Archive: December 2008
Dec 19
Bank Woes
Twenty four hours ago, I posted the early details of the evolving Anglo Irish Bank story, the resignation of chairman Sean Fitzpatrick and brief details of loan movements which led to his decision. Since last night, chief executive David Drumm has also resigned, as has non-executive director Lar Bradshaw. Gavin’s Blog asks some questions about …
Dec 19
Money Talks
Sean Fitzpatrick today resigned his position as chairman of Anglo-Irish Bank. ‘My decision to tender my resignation has been prompted by the fact that at the 30th September, 2008, I had fully secured loans, on normal commercial terms, with the Bank totalling €87 million which will be included in the annual report for 2008 in …
Dec 17
Lost in Cyberspace
Microsoft just isn’t having a good year. The dubious Mojave experiment. A strange series of advertisements with Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates. The botched Yahoo! takeover. Net books promoting Linux to the masses. The refusal of XP to die. And now, yet another emergency patch to fix a critical flaw in Explorer. The patch itself …
Dec 17
Joe The non-Plumber
It’s one of those memes that’s crept into public discourse in the last year or two. It’s not enough for a politician to say how tough it is for a typical married couple, they have to give a concrete example, something the electorate can relate to. Take James Reilly, Fine Gael health spokesman: ‘The guard …
Dec 15
Septic Tiger
‘The Government has decided either through the National Pensions Reserve Fund or otherwise and subject to terms and conditions, to support, alongside existing [bank] shareholders and private investors, a recapitalisation programme for credit institutions in Ireland of up to €10 billion.’ ‘The State’s investment may take the form of preference shares and/or ordinary shares and …
Dec 13
What’s Up Doc?
As of yesterday, Google Chrome is out of beta. I know this should be a big deal, but somehow, I just can’t bring myself to care. Chrome, in case you haven’t heard, is the new browser from Google, designed apparently to move the operating system into the clouds. Faster, stronger and more secure, it was …
Dec 12
The Count
So there it is. Lisbon II is all set to go ahead next October. Probably. Provided the British don’t lose their bottle in the face of falling poll numbers. And provided José Manuel Barrosso doesn’t extend the commission’s term of office until say, the end of 2009. And provided the Czechs don’t throw a spanner …
Dec 11
By My Oath
According to legend, actor Colm Meaney managed to sneak the word ‘bollocks’ past American television network censors during an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine because they didn’t know what it meant. Maybe that’s true. Or maybe they knew (Google is only a click away after all) but considered it too mild an expletive …
Dec 09
Pork Barrel Politics
The EU member States agreed in principle when negotiating in 2000 ‘to reduce the size of the Commission once the Union reached 27 countries. This was in recognition of the reality that there would be insufficient portfolios to go around.’ But now, Commission president Manuel Barroso now says that he would personally support holding on …