Ordo Ab Chao

Well look no further (literally perhaps) then the Seizure Robots site.Killer japanese seizure robots with cheesy 70s soundtrack, wow!. Just what the doctor ordered first thing on a monday morning...

Ever wanted to make your own potentially humorous and possibly blasphemous church sign. Well you can do it here.. Isn't the web wonderful (or something)

Ever find yourself eyeing up someone near you in a nightclub. Most time you get away with it as nobody notices and there's no photographic evidence to prove otherwise. Not if your mates are keen photographers who take a digital camera with them everywhere they go. Thanks for this one Jen, it's dead funny and catches me at my best/worst... hahaha


Jen's a budding amateur photographer and her online photo album is located at iwokeupdeadtoday.com. Check it out, some great shots there.

Still can't decide whether this is awful or funny? I'll put it to the gallery..

Two fonts walk into a bar and the bartender says, "We don't serve your type here."

So the two fonts went and called the SERIF.

So, the fonts returned SANS SERIF, but they brought with them DEPUTY VETTICA. The deputy started to heavily quiz the bartender, and the fonts yelled, "Give 'em HELVETICA!"

The serif was finally located. He was around the BLOCK, reading the TIMES.

Now you may think the deputy's name sounds Czech, but actually it is ITALIC.

Very funny and profane humour from Illwillpress.com. An particular favourite of mine is the tech support one. Like much of the best satire there's serious social commentary here masquerading as comedy like the remark about the indian tech support getting $20 a week (about the same as their outsourced US counterparts used to get an hour). If ground-breaking US-satirist Bill Hicks was alive today I reckon he'd sound very much like Germaine on iwillpress.

Macromedia's Flash is one of the single most powerful tools for web development. The combination of DHTML and Flash have created the all-singing, all-dancing web that we know and love (especially if we have nice fat broadband connections). Monkeyhub is a site dedicated to the power of flash as an animation tool. Check out their Radiohead "Creep" video and the hilarious "Microsoft Pants" sketch. I love the bit about IE being debugged by moles who live at the centre of the earth. I always suspected as much. Monkeyhub also have a collection of work-in-progres animations and websites for the various companies that have contracted their web design skills. These include RapidCare (contact lens cleaning system) and Ralph Lauren. The results are stunning.

SUN's marketing department are cooking up funky cartoon promos for their s/w and h/w nowadays. Here's the latest for Solaris 10. I'm not sure it altogether works (definitely a bit too earnest and not as irreverent as the MS smarty-pants toon). Still, Scott McNealy speaking Klingon at a trade conference is funny/tragic. Thanks to Kieran for the link. His place in the SUN is guaranteed. Contain your happiness Kieran ;-)

Couldn't resist the title. It turns out that an italian who sent a girl an unsolicited compliment over SMS has been fined.

"A judge in the northern Italian town of Padua on Monday found a man who sent an unsolicited compliment by SMS guilty of harassment and fined him 300 euros ($391), Italian news agency Ansa reported."

Realistically, why should textual communication be treated any differently from making a phonecall or sending an email/letter?
Feel free to comment...

Murphy's law is alive, well and stalking me at the moment. So I've been reading some geeky humour to cheer me up. Found this on madbean.com.
You know you are a nerd when...

(True story.)

** bph is now available
bph: ACK?
mlq: ACK. ACK?
bph: ack

Thanks to Kieran for throwing this one my way. The comments are even better or worse depending on your point of view. ciao 4 now...

Read more about Managerium here. Very funny read and quite true :D

Some wags in Trinity College Dublin have hacked up a humorous front end for the google.ie search engine. It's called Doogle Search. Searches are broken up into categories from the hit Irish TV show Father Ted such as drink, feck, girls & arse. Words are mysteriously appended onto your search from a list of all things Oirish e.g Connemara, shite & Guinness.

Today R & I officially became a CWBB. What the hell is that I hear you ask? Well it's a Couple With BroadBand. I've noticed this as an emerging and ever increasing trend amongst my Irish friends. CWBB's generally have

• A high degree of shared computer literacy


• Demanding jobs where one or both often work from home


• A love of textual communication be it SMS, IM or email


• laptop computers which are dragged throughout the house so they can surf whenever and wherever


• A strong and growing appreciation of the joys of constant digital connectedness


• A quirky yet often healthy tendency to communicate complex thoughts and emotions with eachother using web based communication such as blogs/IM/email... (even when they're in the same house/room)

As all keen followers of this blog will note, I've recently become part of a CWBB. My CWWBB-heart (relax R) and I have engaged in all manner of CWWB-ish behavior over the past few weeks so I've decided to come up with a top 10 list of CWBB-ish activities. Not saying I've been a partner in cyber-crime in all of these but we're certainly very CWBB'd up...
Anyway here's the list! Feel free to comment and to post anecdotes (sad, witty & most likely both) about your own CWBB-dom:

1. video-conferencing with your signifigant other while sitting on the same couch


2. Having IM conversations using smilies that nobody else knows


3. Having IM conversations consisting entirely of smilies


4. Creating custom MSN winkies to send to each other as tokens of your undying affection and chronic addiction to IM


5. Sending emails to one another while sitting at the same table


6. Instant Messaging while sitting at the same table


7. Leaving messages for eachother on eachothers weblogs


8. Telling your friends you're part of a CWBB using your blog :-P


9. Telling your friends you're part of a CWBB


10. Having lengthy discussions about how you've both been liberated by wireless networking and laptops while bashing your keyboards inside on a sunny day

Just read about my mate Bernie's travails at the hands of the Gardai Siochana near Pearse St in Dublin. I guess there's a general perception that the gardai in Ireland deliberately flirt traffic regulations merely because they can rather than in the legitimate pursuit of police duty.

A cross over of a different kind with this humorous pic of me and my bestest most dreadlocked friend, Jen. It's taken from Jen's online photogallery at iwokeupdeadtoday.com.

All honey has some level of the antibacterial chemical hydrogen peroxide, which is produced by enzymes in the honey. These enzymes are easily destroyed by exposure to heat and light and also by contact with body fluids. It is now understood that some rare honeys have an antibacterial action that is separate to the peroxide effect, resulting in a much more persistent and stable antibacterial action. Such valuable honeys are resistant to losing their antibacterial activity when used in wound treatment and even have strong activity when heavily diluted by body fluids in a wound dressing. Furthermore, such honeys are now known to have a synergistic antibacterial effect with the hydrogen peroxide activity, producing a very powerful weapon against bacterial conditions.

• It promotes a hydrated healing environment
• It rapidly clears bacteria from colonised and infected wounds
• It has been observed to be effective against antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria
• It creates a protective barrier to prevent cross-infection of wounds
• It removes malodour from wounds
• It has an anti-inflammatory action resulting in reduced oedema and improved blood flow along with a reduction in pain
• It prevents scarring leading to good cosmetic results
• Treatment cost is reduced due to the honey's affordability and speed of action
• Honey does not stick to wound tissue, preventing tearing of newly formed tissue in the wound site when dressings are changed
• Honey residue is easily rinsed from the wound with water
It enables patients to handle their own on-going wound care due to the elimination of the need for debriding

Very funny ping-pong spoof of the Matrix. I'm sure we'll all get tired of matrix-alikes with bullet-time effects but this monkey isn't through swinging yet :-D. This clip was forwarded on to me by my good friend Kristian.

Following on from the huge number of responses I got when I announced that I was selling my XDA-2 I'm flogging yet more technological goodies that have been obseleted. I've recently invested in a Pioneer Bluetooth Stereo with iPod controller for my truck. (and it most definitely IS a truck). Therefore I'm replacing the standard Nissan CD/RDS/EON unit that came with it. If any of the 5 readers who mail me with opinions on everything want to buy this then let me know ASAP.

Yesterday, R & I went to see the tall ships race in Waterford harbour in South east of Ireland, where I live. One of our competitors created the website for the waterford leg of the race and credit where credit's due, it's very nice indeed. I used my phone to grab the shot below from the crow's nest of the indonesian ship. There was a surreal party atmosphere on board this boat and I can strongly recommend anybody attending to competition to check out their easy mix of live song and dance, indonesian beer. In our litigious age it was great fun to be allowed to climb up the rigging with R. A word of warning however. The crewmen were dimunitive in stature and my size 13s found it a little bit difficult to find footholds in the rigging. This led to a few hairy moments 60 foot over the River Suir.

Selling software (especially websites and eCommerce products) to businesses is fascinating. Many businesses dismiss you straight away with "that's not how it's done here" or "we do that in-house". The really fascinating thing is examining the nature and quality of what they do in house and how limited it often is. It can be nearly impossible to explain to a business that...

• their own IT personnel are disinterested, useless or both


• their website is poor


• they know little about IT but are too afraid to admit it


• they're convinced that their business model won't have to adapt to take new technologies & trends into account

I've invented a new buzzzword (renamed an existing one). "Blaqgging" is weblogging to counteract the effects of jet lag. Having spent all but 2 of the past 29 hours awake I can't vouch for the quality. To provide some context here I'm currently safely ensconced in the Hampton Inn, Logan Airport, Boston where I'm staying the night. For the 2nd time ever I decided to chance getting a ticket in an airport and it couldn't have been a worse move. My shannon-boston flight that was supposed to arrive at 6:30 was 25 minutes late in landing. Add in over an hour of delays for luggage reclaim and a missing (no shit!, 40 minutes late) ternimal shuttle bus & I was never going to get outta there last night. However, for all you regular US visitors I can sincerely recommend the prompt service and low cost of AirTran airways. They found me a direct flight 1st thing this morning from Logan to Virginia at less than a 3rd the cost of the US Airways equivalent. What's more amazing is that it was at 10:30 last night yet the cost was just over a hundred dollars.
So here's my top 5 tips to avoid Air travel frustration:

1. Inform your longhaul airline (mine was Aerlingus) well in advance if you require a specially prepared meal. Coeliacs like me may have to explain to them what a coeliac is and why they can't eat lasagne
2. Book your connecting flights if you're arriving in the airport after 3:00pm and don't want to be stranded overnight.
3. Check out the AirTran and JetBlue sites for connecting flights in the US. They're both very cheap and provide good service. Especially AirTran.
4. Don't puke on or near the staff no matter how nauseous you feel
5. Don't confuse the European idea of reserving/holding a ticket with the American concept. It could just have been tiredness of the part of both the staff and I but I ended up with a round-the-world-to-get-next-door itinerary from US Airways that they assured me was exactly what I was looking for. One call to AirTran convinced me this wasn't the case.

Having spent around 100 minutes on the phone trying to get eircom to arrange a broadband line for our new business premises in a reasonable time I'm angry as hell. We've waited around 6 weeks for the telephone line to appear & they now can't switch on the line for another 2 weeks. This seemingly artificial schedule is going to cost us yet more money. Customers can rest assured that we have backup broadband connections and that our servers are safely ensconsed in data centres but still...
What's bugging me here is that the eircom representatives and support that I've spoken to over the phone:

• don't understand the technology but adhere rigidly to an ordering process


• don't appear able to pass a customer onto someone more knowledgable


• can't maintain call context when they refer you to someone else, a basic call center activity

Thanks to Damien Mulley for his suggestion. I've complained to ComReg in the past but it doesn't seem to do any good. However, I've managed to find a helpful person higher up the eircom organisational tree to smooth over some of our difficulties and get our line installed. It's a shame that this process can't be easier & faster.

With apologies to taint.org. I picked up the following from the Irishblogs aggregator. I've often thought there was a requirement for a sig removal tool which scours emails for phrases like "[Dd]isclaimer", "[Tt]he information contained","[Uu]nauthori[sz]ed use", etc. and strips the offending lines and surrounding paragraphs from the emails while updating spamhaus with the offending address. A spot of tarpitting might also be a necessary component of such a solution. Ok, I'm kidding & would never condone such an action but many sigs such as these are essentially spam anyway. Just because I'm engaged in communication with an employee of a large Scottish financial institution doesn't mean that I wish to participate in an email marketing campaign for their services.

The cost for calling eircom.net technical support is....
1.75 euro/minute. How long can this nefarious organisation be permitted to rob the citizens of Ireland with exorbitant rates? ComReg, our wallets are in your hands...

It's fascinating to read about the kansas school board's decision to include greater criticim of the theory of evolution in its school science standards. This has given rise to some harsh criticism from the scientific community and some extremely humorous parodies of Intelligent Design including the compelling theory of Flying Spaghetti Monsterism (FSM). FSM is the theory that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created us in HIS infinite wisdom and can alter all scientific experiments and measurements to make it appear that he doesn't exist using "his noodly appendage". Like all good religions it's got a great merchandising department with t-shirts, mugs etc.
What's really interesting here is that Intelligent Design is being dismissed as "religion" when it probably should correctly be embraced as another valid scientific movement concerned with understanding the deeper questions of origin science. The manner of its inclusion in any school curriculum should be limited as it requires greater scientific study but it's unfair to say that criticism of evolution shouldn't be allowed. However, just to upset things further it's entirely possible that evolution and intelligent design are complimentary theories where evolution is a set of processes initiated by a focussed organism for some as yet unknown purpose. . It's just a theory, like FSM-ism :-)

Many of ID's proponents are religious but it does seem reasonable to explore the possibility of intelligent direction in the creation or evolution of life on this or any other planet. It seems like a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The political tensions in the US between conservatives and moderates, republican and democrat are creating an environment where it is near impossible to engage in a rational and objective discussion of any deeper moral or philisophical issue without being pigeon-holed as right-wing religious zealot or a leftie atheist.

I was reading the insightful qwghlm (because all the other domain names were taken) recently. I'm a private sudoko fan, I do a puzzle here and there under the covers when R isn't looking. Seriously though, I liked the idea that something like Sudoko is a much more tractable problem to a computerised solution than crossword puzzles. However, I must take issue with Chris Booth's comments.

I love The Independent's "Get the picture" for that reason. But the best example of this class of puzzle (often done for charity) are those where the clues are initial letters and lengths of the key words in a phrase (e.g. "The T----- D--- of C--------"). What fascinates me about them is that there doesn't seem to be any analytical process one can go through to solve them, but the answers are almost always universally accepted as right. And they can pop into my head at any time.

While watching the last in the series of Rip-off Ireland a thought occured to me about the industry that I know best, Information Technology. I've paid plumbers and electricians around 60 euro/hour to fix problems during normal working hours. Assuming a dilligent independent electrician working at these rates for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 42 weeks a year (holidays are vital to recharge the batteries) we get yearly earnings of over 100,000 euro. However, I never checked to see that the electrician who came around wasn't an apprentice charging a a steep rate while remaining on a relatively modest salary. I just wanted my wires uncrossed :-). I must admit though, I did feel slightly ripped-off. As a software developer and web designer I meet the same customers who pay over 80 euro an hour to the plumber to come in and fix a leak late at night. However, the big difference is that they think they have some appreciation for what the plumber or electrician does whereas IT is a mystery. Even in this rip-off republic IT is often available for FREE!!! If that sounds too good to be true it's because it is.

Thanks to Whak for the site ref. I had a little fun with it

The funniest thing about this is that it's almost entirely true. Thanks to Kieran for this link.

Jayz, life is never boring. R was on television yesterday. She was invited to be on the David McWilliams hosted Big Bite on RTE 1. I must confess that I haven't watched this current affairs show much but it's generally quite a serious panel debate, armchairs being the sole concession to daytime television fluffiness. McWilliams is always quite watchable and after his spell on TV3's agenda the show has the credibility to attract heavyweight panellists, in all senses of the word. R & I (sounds like a musical doesn't it) carefully boned up on news & current affairs from Ireland and around the world. We honed & polished her comments about her experience of cute hoorism and political corruption while working as an environmental activist and campaigning on environmental issues. I admit I got a little bit carried away as readers of my blog would suspect. Our shared 15 warholian minutes to save the world. The other panelists included journalistic bear Sam Smyth, political editor Chris Glennan (quite the raconteur) and the irrepressible Michael Healey-Rae (I hope hyphons have made it to Kerry!, only kidding). The omens weren't good when I overheard R being told the segment was light and fluffy. She was less than impressed and brandished her notes with classic female chagrin. Sam Smyth was underwhelmed. I can't help but think this was a last minute decision but who am I alledge political interference ;-) Anyway, what transpired was at times cringeworthy, at times brilliant and admittedly great television. Sam sat there with all the comfort and ease of a stern disapproving patriarch minding the kids while mommy was away. Poor Sam was out of his depth here but couldn't supress a giggle here and there . R was brilliant however, someday I may even forgive her for saying on live television she'd like to run away with Michael Healey-Rae on account of his kerry charm and cute button eyes. Guffaws from the producer, the couch failed to swallow me up and the camera kept running...
With his bright eyes burning like fire and armed with his trusty cap, this bunny in the headlights was lost for words. Only for about a minute though. Words come easily in the Healey-Rae family, they droppeth like a decentralisation plan for the west from Dail Eireann. Ah sure I almost fell in love with him myself. The affair did have a kids-doing-something-naughty behind the bike sheds feel to it. Great fun!
I lost a biscuit in my tea when R claimed she was a "cute hoor" too. Cute maybe... Being a card carrying environmental and political idealist, the panel was sceptical but the producer was penitent. "Just don't mention any names" she prayed.
It all came into perspective when R & I watched Dallas the next day. The genesis of the celtic tiger economy is found not in the green-tinted financial glass house of the IFSC but in the golden fields of texas. We love JR so much, we created a taoiseach in his likeness.

Honestly, this actually happened last week. The professional web designer is going to be extinct in this country if current trends continue.

me:Hi this is Shane Dempsey from Gaisan Technologies.
X: (indian accent) Hi, my name is X, I have a project that we're interested in your company working on. We got your number from your website. We like your website.
me: Thanks. Are you based in Ireland?
X: Yes, yes, I live in Cork.
me: OK, that's fine. Could you describe the project please?
X: I need to create an auction site... I want it to be like eBay only much simpler. It must handle credit cards and paypal and be able to take huge volumes.
me: Great, we've completed several sites like that. Before we discuss the site further, how much did you expect to pay for this site?
X: I only have 350 euro. I was told I could get a Romanian company to create the site for 200 euro.
me: Are you aware you'll have to pay additional costs for credit card processing etc.?
X: how much?
me: probably more than 400 euro if you want an Internet merchant a/c with an Irish bank but cheaper with PayPal realistically.
X: I didn't know that. Can you do the website for less than 200 euro. It's only a few hours work.
me: We'll have to pass on this project I'm afraid. Sorry.
X: goodbye...

So why is this a bad thing? Simply put, nobody in this country will be interested in IT degrees and training if rates drop below minimum wage. Equally, many large foreign IT companies are using Ireland to process profits while bringing about minimal IT employment. This doesn't happen in the trades because they are provided locally and certification is required to work. Also, there's no way to ensure standards are high and expectations are being met. Irish web designers and IT workers are crying out for country-wide accreditation and certification to ensure that standards remain high, customers' needs are met and fees are realistic.

He must. Otherwise, how the hell could he dare to lecture on US foreign policy when his passport is out-of-date. "I know we're doing it all wrong, I've saw it on CNN." only kidding....

"Job satisfaction is what you get after you have enough money to survive in the present, enough money not to worry about the future & enough money not to care about whether your job is satisfying or not." - Me

A few years ago an Irish comedia called Tommy Tiernan performed a controversial sketch on the most convervative and traditional of Irish television shows, The Late Late show. The sketch depicted Jesus Christ's (the one from Nazareth circa 30AD) last moments on the cross. It was certainly irreverent, probably blasphemous and left a large portion of the show's studio audience stunned. Hundreds (not thousands or millions) of calls were received by the RTE switchboard condemning the joke for its tastelessness and blasphemy. Then something strange happened. We quickly got over it. Yes, a country renowned for its staunch catholicism revealed to the world that it had grown up and could accept religious criticism and humour. So just to summarise what happened for those less enlightened than our good selves. To the best of my knowledge:

• There were no marches in the streets


• Nobody was killed for expressing their opinion


• No buildings or cars were set alight


• No children bearing terrorist slogans were put in front of the world media so their parents' outrage could be recorded


• No death threats were issued


• No beatings resulted


• People within the media were not fired for expressing coherently argued and above-all, peaceful, beliefs


• No foreign contracts with Irish companies were lost


• Nobody needed to be evacuated from our embassies


• No protests, peaceful or otherwise, were staged


• There was no incitement to kill those who insulted a prophet


• There was no cry for a holy war or divine retribution


• No scripture was cited to justify violent and threatening actions


• Freedom of speech was not curtailed


• The world did not look on in horror.

Befitting his title as the Marco Polo of Bunmahon (a small village in west waterford), my friend Kieran or Miles as he's sometimes known has left for the east. We wish him well on his new adventures. It's a real culture shock initially with strange activities such as getting drunk and going to a chinese restaraunt. Not like Ireland at all. BTW, & AFAIK the clear plastic bags for the laptops are to help you carry them visibly throughout the airport for security reasons. Paranoid or what...

Just following the trials and tribulations of Miles away from home. It was looking so promising too :-) One of the things about reading your friend's blogs is that you realise what a perfect vacuum blogging often is. Without feed aggregators and global RSS syndication almost all of our hopes, dreams and disappointments stay within the safe confines of our heads and our friday night drinking buddies. With mass syndication the blog becomes an open digital diary where we frankly reveal our ordeals for all the world to see. The irony of it all isn't lost on me.

The answer to yesterday's brain teaser was NOT douglas adams. Contrary to quite a few emails I received.

While installing a VoIP network for a client today I noticed that the ADSL network wasn't working properly. Yesterday we replaced the Netopia box provided by Eircom with a nice shiny new Linksys WAG54GS box. It's not that we dislike the Netopia boxes but they tend to reboot more often than several other DSL router products we've tested. When you're trying to run VoIP applications over it you take precautions to ensure reliability so it was the least we could do. We configured this box on our own connection which is an Eircom business package which tests tell us provides 384kbps up and 3Mbps down. It worked a treat, it was stonkingly fast and stable. So we moved it the customers site. The customer was running on an home plus ADSL connection and told Eircom to transfer them to a business plus package. For a whole day it worked beautifully and then Eircom changed the ADSL connection. Well, lo and behold they did. The line started to become very unstable, disconnecting every few seconds. I called up Eircom to say that we were experiencing a problem and was told the following
Why did you report a problem on the line if it's an ADSL issue. (I didn't, our client did) We do not support linksys products. Our Netopia router with the latest firmware is capable of handling our super high speed broadband connection, I doubt your linksys box is. I responded by saying I was a telecommunications engineer and I knew this to be simply untrue. The tech support guy became hostile and said I should reinstall the Netopia box, that the problem must be with our unsupported router. He wouldn't confirm any of the router configuration settings like PPPoE, LLC etc. but I informed him I already knew the router worked because I've tested it before on high speed networks and it's actually rated as a very fast ADSLv2+ router. He became increasingly stroppy and told me that I'd slowed the process down by reporting a fault on the line. He even had the cheek to call me "mate" in a sarcastic voice. Fucking hell, bona fide masochists just need to call Eircom tech support when they need a verbal flogging!
Now I must be honest, I got off the phone and thought to myself the following:

• The tech support guy acted like an asshole. He was obnoxious to somebody who was ultimately trying to help an Eircom customer to use their ADSL connection properly


• If the Netopia product was satisfactory I'd still have used it. I wasn't on a crusade to badmouth a product associated with Eircom. However, I was scolded by some eircom underling because I didn't understand their tech support process.


• Would this be behavior tolerated if they weren't a monopoly? I think not

I got a real laugh from Sicilian Notes this morning. Myers is gone and Ireland's favourite right-of-centre blogger Richard Waghorne seems to be offering his candidacy for the job. I wonder which prescient Sir/Madam editor editted this Wikipedia entry? I may have misinterpreted Richard's gist but I'm sure the thought has crossed his mind :). Actually, this isn't a bad idea at all as there's more than a passing similarity tween their styles and ideologies. You saw it here first! If Richard starts opining on the Great War he's a shoe-in for the job.