techno-culture

Right now: ‘thaw’ — ‘melt’ — ‘rain’. At the moment, with 95% of the snow and ice gone (and there was considerably more than that pic below by Saturday night!), I think the pavements are actually more dangerous — as overnight the walkway slush turned into flat platters of thin and lumpy ice. Walking the [...]

Tags: ireland, weather

Amazon UK stopped shipping electronics to Ireland three years ago in a dispute over the WEEE recycling charge — very annoying. Now (as of last week), they are sending items here again. That’s great news, as often their prices are excellent. I guess in this downturn, when every customer should count (well, that should always be the [...]

Tags: Amazon, ireland, WEEE

I’ve posted my story on this leaked bill below, but if anyone is interested in some light reading, Digital Rights Ireland has posted the full bill. Meanwhile, yesterday the European Court of Justice upheld data retention… sort of. It wasn’t really deciding on the substantive issue of retention but rather responding to a challenge as to how the EU [...]

Tags: data retention, Digital Rights Ireland, ireland, privacy

From the front page of the Irish Times today. This is a truly appalling bill designed as a sop to privacy and business concerns while actually providing no safeguards at all. Another cynical approach to data retention legislation by the Department of Justice. New Bill will allow data obtained outside legal guidelines to be used [...]

Tags: data retention, ireland, Ivana Bacik, privacy

And to prove it (setting aside the song and the difficulty of finding a rhyme for Obama), his ancestral town of Moneygall, Co Offaly (pop: 298) has come up with a celebratory barmbrack (that’s a loaf of bread full of raisins and other goodies, for those unfamiliar with buttery slabs of the toasted delicacy washed down with lashings of milky [...]

Tags: inauguration, ireland, Moneygall, Obama