After the ISOC Ireland executive meeting last night, I happened to meet up with some of the boards.ie cabal. As you may know, boards.ie is one of the biggest websites in Ireland, with close on 3 million page accesses/month and more members than you can shake a stick at, and is run on a completely voluntary basis.
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Political Psychology, the theory and the practice
Political psychology, looking at the way people make decisions about voting, and how politicians can manipulate them is a fascinating subject. This is an essay I wrote on the subject which gives some idea of the theory and practice of the discipline. It’s a little long (5000 words) but I like to think it’s well worth the trouble.
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Opening the veil on the IE Domain Registry
University College, Dublin is the body responsible for operating the IE Domain Registry. However, the registry is run in a very untransparent fashion.
I wanted to break the veil of secrecy, so I put in a request under Ireland’s Freedom of Information Act to see files relating to the IE Domain Registry. Despite a lot of objections from UCD and the Registry, I’ve just received this ruling from the Information Commissioner confirming that I am entitled to see these files.
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Authentication through blogs
One of the really annoying things about the Internet is authenticating yourself – that is, having to remember lots of different userids and passwords. Why can’t there be some way of just logging on once, having one userid and password that will work just about anywhere?
In a recent discussion on Joi’s webblog, I suggested a way that it might be done, using the same principles that have made weblogs so straightforward and so great.
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Avoiding the Issue on Drugs
Fianna Fail’s latest press release about the heroin problem, from the hand of Eoin Ryan (right) highlights once again why it takes us so long to deal with any problem here in Ireland – we don’t face up to our problems and we try to waffle our way out of actually taking any meaningful action -.
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A Burning Man for Europe
I was just thinking about that great counter-culture meeting of minds that happens in the Nevada desert every year, the Burning Man Festival. I think that we should have something similar, a celebration of European alternative culture in Ireland. Of course, it would have to have a unique Irish twist.
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Nua Internet Surveys liberated by Jupiter Media
Nua Internet Surveys was taken over by Jupiter Media yesterday. The final remaining Nua server will be switched off soon. It is a bit like the final nail in the coffin of an era. Things will never be the same again.
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Dublin academic embroiled in Chernobyl sex sensation
According to the New Scientist, an Irish researcher, Carmel Mothersill was part of a research team which found that the effects of radiation has had a major effect on sexual habits in the irradiated area.
Welcoming the Soldiers into Baghdad
According to a New York Times article on the CNN site, the American troops got a great welcome in Baghdad. They should enjoy it while it lasts. The Northern Ireland experience shows that no one likes having foreign troops marching around their home town, even if they were sent over to defend your interests.
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Iraq – at least they’re rich
Iraq is said to produce 2.8m barrels of oil per day. If they can make USD20/barrel, that’s about 20 billion dollars a year clear. Plenty there to do an awful lot of construction.
Iraq doesn’t need foreign aid, at least in the financial sense. They are loaded with a readily convertible commodity.
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