Housing, Europe and AirBnB

A while back, Irish and other news outlets reported that Irish efforts to tackle the housing crisis by restricting short-lets such as AIrBnB ran into an EU roadblock. You can read a typical report on the story here. So I decided to send a request to the EU Commission under the Aarhus convention access to… Continue reading Housing, Europe and AirBnB

Caledonia

Edinburgh Castle. Photo by Jörg Angeli on Unsplash

The thing about independence movements is they lead to single-issue parties. All other differences are put aside as everyone agrees on the One Big Issue. This is why a war of independence is often followed by a civil war as all those differences resurface. Scotland is having one of those moments where the One Big… Continue reading Caledonia

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Chill Out

I’ve been thinking again about the Mastodon experience for journalists. Mastodon isn’t Twitter. You’re not the main character over there. And the moderators actually moderate. Don’t be the guy walking into a quiet pub demanding they turn on the TV News at full volume. You’ll get barred. Sit first. Listen. Learn. Twitter trains people to… Continue reading Chill Out

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New Media Rules

Like many others, I’ve spent the weekend finding my way around on Mastodon, as Twitter goes from being a hellsite to a place you suspect may soon literally burn to the ground because they fired the guy whose job it was to stop the servers overheating. If you’re interested, you can find me at https://mastodon.ie/@faduda.… Continue reading New Media Rules

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Martian Robots

Journalists and radio producers love a talking head. No matter what the issue is, it feels good to be able to identify the person at the head of the group who has a strong opinion about it, either for or against. This is why an organisation like Martian Robots can get ahead. All it takes… Continue reading Martian Robots

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Fanboys

It is often said of sports journalists that they are sports fans. This, the argument goes, makes them reluctant to criticise and challenge. I think anyone who said that doesn’t know many fans. Fans often engage critically. On the other hand, fanboys (and girls) are uncritical – and often defensive. But the real trouble is,… Continue reading Fanboys

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On Ukraine

[Notes from a Twitter thread, 28FEB] Everyone keeps writing takes about how rapidly Europe reacted to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but I never see one about what I think is the most significant reason why change came so fast: EU soft power. The EU spent seventy years patiently building interconnected webs since ECSE in… Continue reading On Ukraine

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NaNoWriMo

I wrote a story in November. NaNoWritMo is the national novel writing month, the aim being to “win” by writing 50,000 words. In the end, I produced just short of 60,000 words. It’s got a beginning, middle and end, mostly in that order. But it’s very definitely a zero draft of a story, not a… Continue reading NaNoWriMo

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Elephant in the Room

It’s weird how invisible the pandemic is in TV. It’s there in the background, reduced crowd scenes, fewer extras, more outdoor action, but mostly unacknowledged. I’m told that references to current events date a show very quickly, but I’m not sure that stands up. Compare to how pop culture dealt with the 2016 US election… Continue reading Elephant in the Room

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Notes from 7.11.21

Wikipage suggestion: Notable stories removed from Google search. Though as I understand it, it’s only when personal names are searched for that RTBF kicks in, so something like “€100k wedding cake” might still get a page hit? The bigger issue here of course is the wisdom of allowing a private company like Alphabet/Google make these… Continue reading Notes from 7.11.21

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