The judge had the kind of face for which the word ‘patrician’ was coined, calm, patient, a hint of kindness in his eyes, but also an unmistakable steel. He was well nourished but not over fed, with a healthy complexion and bright eyes which scanned the courtroom when not focused on the paperwork in front… Continue reading »
Feb
27
Feb
26
Top-Down Attitude
Jason Roe is a web developer, who while trying to avoid the credit card surcharges from Ryanair came across a bug on the airline’s website which caused it to price its flights at zero. The responses to the post included one calling him “an idiot and a liar”, one claiming to have hacked his website… Continue reading »
Feb
24
Rain Cloud
Cloud computing took a hit today. Gmail, the free (to most) online email service from Google, suffered a two hour outage today, just after 930am GMT. Some used were also locked out of Google Apps, which required a Gmail password to access. As of the time of writing, Google still has not said what caused… Continue reading »
Feb
23
Pay The Piper
Last month, Eircom reached an agreement with the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) to disconnect internet customers who continued to download copyrighted music after three warnings. In a joint statement, both sides said they agreed on the three strikes approach to end ‘the abuse of the internet by P2P (peer to peer) copyright infringers.’ This… Continue reading »
Feb
20
Information Of A Written Character
Sean Quinn placed bets on which way Anglo Irish stock would go. A lot of bets. Trouble is, Sean backed the wrong horse. Soon, he was looking at €1 billion in losses on 25% of Anglo Irish Bank stock. So Sean cut his losses, and ended up owning 15% of the bank. That left 10%.… Continue reading »
Feb
18
Word’s Worth
These words are free. That is, it costs you nothing to read them, and unfortunately, I don’t get paid to write them. But these words are not completely free. They are intellectual property. I own these words. I choose where they appear, if at all, and no one else has the right to publish them… Continue reading »
Feb
17
…As Long As It’s Black
Day two of my mission to find a Windows free laptop in Ireland fared no better than day one. This time, wary of wasting more time crawling through often poorly designed websites, I took a direct approach. I phoned around. I got through a list of most computer suppliers in the Pale within an hour… Continue reading »
Feb
16
Any Colour You Want…
I’m in the market for a new computer. Maybe. It depends on whether my laptop can be repaired economically. I’ve spent the last few days shopping around, and it’s been an education. My requirements are relatively modest, a midrange laptop, big enough to handle my everyday workload, small enough to lug around on the road.… Continue reading »
Feb
13
Dead Weight
The voting machines just won’t go away. The useless machines are stored by local councils under contracts which commit them to pay millions for up to a quarter century. So far, the electronic paperweights have cost €54 million, and the clock up another €200000 a year. The thing is, according to EU law as enshrined… Continue reading »
Feb
13
The Cost Of Lying
The Comptroller and Auditor General’s report into the cost of public tribunals makes interesting reading. The CAG calculates that the three largest tribunals, Moriarty, Mahon and Morris, will end up costing taxpayers over €400 million. The Morris tribunal, which has cost €46 million to date, will come in at around €80 million in total, the… Continue reading »