Archive for September, 2006
Borat addresses press about the fallout over his movie
Friday, September 29th, 2006Some men left behind
Friday, September 29th, 2006Haliburton contractors abandoned by military when their convoy gets attacked in Iraq. One contractor survives but sees two others being murdered. Meanwhile their National Guard cover abandons them and lets the rescue choppers come to their aid, 45 mins later. The guy videos it all. Watch as a bullet comes through his windscreen, not too far from his head.
It’s a tribute to the professional military rescuers who at least came back and got him out, but how insane or desperate for money do you have to be to drive in convoys over there?
Global Competitiveness Report 2006-2007 – Ireland 21st, again.
Thursday, September 28th, 2006Ireland has stayed in the same position as last year in the Global Competitiveness Report from the World Economic Forum. Great.
- Switzerland
- Finland
- Sweden
- Denmark
- Singapore
- United States
- Japan
- Germany
- Netherlands
- United Kingdom
- Hong Kong SAR
- Norway
- Taiwan, China
- Iceland
- Israel
- Canada
- Austria
- France
- Australia
- Belgium
- Ireland
- Luxembourg
- New Zealand
- Korea, Rep.
- Estonia
- Malaysia
- Chile
- Spain
- Czech Republic
- Tunisia
- Barbados
Volunteers also wanted for BarCamp on Sat Sept 30th
Thursday, September 28th, 2006Volunteers wanted for blogging conference
Thursday, September 28th, 2006We’re looking for some Santa’s little helpers for the Blogging the Election conference. Interested? Follow the link
Getting out and voting
Thursday, September 28th, 2006It seems that It MySpace will now be encouraging people to register to vote and Walmart are going to be doing something like this too by running an initiative to register all their staff to vote. They have 1.3Million employees. Simon McGarr wrote a guide on how to register to vote which deserves attention.
In one of the afternoon sessions at the Blogging the Election conference, perhaps if there’s interest we’ll discuss how a non-partisan campaign that involves everyone can encourage people to register to vote. Please consider going to this conference. Register here for it. There’s a €15 entrance fee on the door but lunch is free!
If you want to sponsor the event then give me a shout. We need about another 2k in sponsorship by the looks of it!
This and that
Wednesday, September 27th, 2006Congrats to Richard
Wednesday, September 27th, 2006Well done to RW.
BarCamp Ireland – (Not so) Free Parking location
Wednesday, September 27th, 2006Update: Went in there to check. Damn them. It’s now pay and display. Tenner for the day though. Might be worth it.
White Street car park in Cork is (no longer) free on weekends, if you get in there early enough. For those that register early (like 9am) then this car park would be perfect. White Street is in the bottom left of the map. Click the below map to see where it is in relation to BarCamp:
You can also see this on Google maps:
Map of White Street and Webworks.
Alternatively there is a pay car park right next to Webworks.
Thanks to Terry for making the map.
Presentations from the ComReg Broadband Leadership Conference
Wednesday, September 27th, 2006The Broadband Leadership conference was quite enjoyable. Some speakers were totally predictable like Gerry Fahy from TIF, Davis Jesse from EBay and Paul Bradley from HP. A presentation on how to use eBay was quite out of place at a broadband leadership event in my view. The HP Halo room was very disappointing too. It’s videoconferencing with a few more cameras. Nothing ground breaking. Then good ole Gerry who changes his mind everytime eircom management change their philosophy. At least this time his presentation was more aligned to reality. Still some of his figures were quite dubious.
Peter Cochrane was a live wire and tore into telcos and their attitudes towards the future. He wants fibre everywhere and he made everyone from the telcos uneasy by saying “Telecoms companies don’t want you to have broadband”. Very interesting guy. Made mince meat of Gerry Fahy during the Q&A session. Here’s a SiliconRepublic interview with Peter.
Dylan Collins talked about online gaming and the potential revenue it can generate and how his company is working in this area. Demonware are a company to watch.
Brian Coll gave a good presentation on how Sligo IT are using podcasting and videocasting for students and talked about the future of distance learning.
Martin Cronin from Forfas gave a good talk as usual and pointed out how much we have to do to secure jobs and investment. He pointed out that broadband was a key to this. Forfas are a really good organisation. No bullshit or spin from them, just good research and real facts.
Here are all the presentations:
Presentation by Peter Cochrane. 1329 KB PDF file
Presentation by Gerry Fahy from TIF. 332 KB PDF file
Presentation by Paul Bradley from HP. 1096 KB PDF file
Presentation by Dylan Collins from Demonware. 727 KB PDF file
Presentation by Brian Coll from Sligo IT. 1964 KB PDF file
Presentation by Martin Cronin from Forfas. 999 KB PDF file
Presentation by David Jesse from Ebay Ireland. 2018 KB PDF file