Archive for the ‘irishblogs’ Category

Just Society – Crooked Timber on Declan Costello

Tuesday, August 1st, 2006

Crooked Timber mentions the Irish Times coverage of Declan Costello. Not being big into politics since the current generation are uninspiring and having not done Irish history in school, I never read about this very interesting man. It seems he was a great inspiration and who actually managed to change society and engage with the younger generations. Some contract to the lot we have today. It must have been great to live in those times when politics was exciting. When was the last time politics was actually exciting, the birth of the PDs? Mark Waters also points to the CT piece.

New blogs on the block – Suggestions?

Tuesday, August 1st, 2006

There’s been a huge amount of new blogs in the Blog O’Sphere the past while and I would like to use the dusty Blog Awards website to do some profiles on them and maybe ask them a few questions and get them noticed by the wider community. I think the same goes for existing blogs who have bloggers with small voices but fantastic opinions which you think deserve to be heard a bit more.

If you know of any blogs that fit these criteria then leave links to them in the comments.

Permission – Gay Marriage Ad

Tuesday, August 1st, 2006

Via the Conservative pro-Republican Independent Gay Forum

Update: Suzy has it up a while. D’OH. Still worth sharing.

His Dark Materials Daemon Name Generator

Tuesday, August 1st, 2006

Generate your Daemon name here. Mine is Asolialarus. His Dark Materials is out next year.

Digital Rights Ireland – Legal fun(d)?

Sunday, July 30th, 2006

With DRI suing the state I presume there’ll be some kind of legal fund where the public can put money into? Bernard has suggested we all tell 5 people and spread it that way but I’m sure we would also like to contribute financially as well.

I’d also suggest they make it more viral than “tell 5 people.” How about a form on the DRI site allowing people to email a note to 5 people they know explaining what DRI are doing? Or even if they’re worried about spam, create a simple non-jargony paragraph or two about what they are doing so that people can copy and paste it into an email. People are lazy and might not want to summarise the far too long post on the DRI site.

Nooked profiled in Business 2.0

Sunday, July 30th, 2006

Nooked Logo

Maybe I’m late on this but Loic Le Meur points to a Business 2.0 article on Web2.0 European startups and Nooked is profiled along with other European companies. Well done everyone in Nooked.

Wanted: Coder for quick project – Worth €50

Saturday, July 29th, 2006

I’m looking to get a script made that’ll scan for certain words in a document pasted into a form on a webpage. There’ll be a few dictionaries to choose from that’ll be used to scan for certain words and if found they’ll be logged and then passed through another script which I’ll discuss in private with you.

The results of this second script will then be outputed to another webpage for the submitter to see. I’d also like to have an option of emailing the results to whoever submitted the information.

I don’t care what it’s written in but it must be fast and able to handle largish texts. Eventually I’d like the option of including URLs to scan as well and possibly even document uploads. They can be in future versions.

Your name and website url will be displayed on the bottom of the results page so you’ll get credit. The understanding though is that you will not replicate the same idea or create the same script for someone else to replicate the website idea. Give me an email if interested.

Digital Rights Ireland to sue the State

Saturday, July 29th, 2006

Examiner Front Page: Digital Rights Ireland to sue over Data Retention Laws. EDIT: Digital Rights Ireland on front page of Irish Times too and DRI also in the Irish Indpendent.

In a landmark case, lobby group Digital Rights Ireland (DRI) says it is preparing to challenge the constitutionality of a law that obliges telecommunication companies to retain the details of all electronic traffic.

Well done guys.

Full DRI press release:

DIGITAL RIGHTS IRELAND CHALLENGES MASS SURVEILLANCE

For Immediate Release.

Digital Rights Ireland ltd (DRI) has written to the Minister for
Justice, the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources
and to the Garda Commissioner calling on them to cease the collection,
storing and accessing of personal private data on every citizen using
a mobile or fixed line phone.

Such data collection is a breach of the Irish citizens’ statutory,
constitutional and human rights to privacy, as set out in the European
Convention on Human Rights and endorsed in Irish courts, in the
European Court of Justice and in the European Court of Human Rights.

This data includes a record of the physical location of everyone with
a mobile phone in Ireland, as well as every number called, the time of
the call and its duration.
Undertakings Sought

An undertaking has been sought from the Minister for Communications,
Marine and Natural Resources to withdraw a direction to
telecommunications providers to store this data. An undertaking has
been sought from the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform
that he will not, and he will ensure that Ireland will not, withdraw
or otherwise not prosecute the challenge under Article 230 to EU
directive 2006/24/EC, which purports to mandate such interference with
citizens’ privacy on a Europe-wide basis.

The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform is also called upon
to give an undertaking that Ireland will not in any circumstances
transpose or commence the process of transposition of Directive
2006/24/EC into national law.

The Garda Commissioner is called upon for an undertaking to withdraw
any and all requests made to telecommunications providers to store
this data, whether made under the Criminal Justice (Terrorist
Offences) Act 2005 or the Ministerial Direction of 25th April 2002.
Legal Proceedings Authorised

TJ McIntyre, DRI chairman and lecturer in law in University College
Dublin says “This mass surveillance by the state is a breach of our
right to privacy, as set out in our constitution and in the European
Convention on Human Rights which has been incorporated into Irish law.

The undertakings we have sought from the Ministers for Justice and
Communications and the Garda Commissioner are urgently required if the
ongoing breach of citizens’ rights is to stop. If they are not
forthcoming we have informed all the parties that our legal team have
instructions to commence legal proceedings.”

Filming of the new Sony Bravia ad

Friday, July 28th, 2006

Paintballing a block of flats?

Barr Tribunal Report – Web version

Friday, July 28th, 2006

I put a Web version of the Barr Tribunal Report online. I split the PDF that arrived on CD today and converted each chapter and appendix into a web page so it can be read in most browsers. Antoin also has the PDF of it online. Hope people find this useful.

Barr Tribunal Report Index
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 1 – Introduction
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 2 – Terms of Reference and Interpretation
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 3 – John Carthy – Background
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 4 – The Events of 19th and 20th April 2000
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 5 – The Final Minutes — John Carthy’s Exit from the House and Subsequent Fatal Shooting
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 6 – The Management of the Incident at Abbeylara — Siege Management Principles
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 7 – The Aftermath — Post-Mortem, Forensic and Ballistic Examination
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 8 – Conclusions
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 9 – The Media
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 10 – Rank and Structure in the Garda Siochana and the Role of the Emergency Response Unit
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 11 – Less Lethal Weapons
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 12 – Police Practice in Other Jurisdictions
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 13 – Gun licensing Law and related matters
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 14 – Victim Provoked Police Shooting — ‘‘Suicide by Cop’’
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 15 – Recommendations
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 16 – Costs
Barr Tribunal Report Appendix 1
Barr Tribunal Report Appendix 2
Barr Tribunal Report Appendix 3
Barr Tribunal Report Appendix 4
Barr Tribunal Report Appendix 7

All the webpages are also in a 800kb zip file here.