Teknovis

There was a lot of discussion last week about using homeless people as mobile hotspots at SXSW, as described in Use of Homeless as Internet Hot Spots Backfires on Marketer.

I think that it was a good idea, but badly executed :o It was good to employ homeless people, but they should have been paid a better wage, and they should not have been objectified by their t-shirts.

I love the message that was posted on the homepage of The Pirate Bay over the weekend!

The Promo Bay (Copyright George Barnett)

Brilliant messaging!

Tags: The Pirate Bay

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day everybody!

Given the day it is, I thought that I would write about a very Irish themed Google Doodle! No, not the slightly bland St. Patrick’s Day doodle that is being used today.

Instead, the doodle created by Irish student Patrick Horan, as described in Ireland’s winning Google Doodle graces homepage today.

Patrick Horan's Google Doodle (Copyright Google)

I really like the steampunk look of it!

Tags: Google

If anybody is wondering why Ireland needs to borrow so much money, then there is a good clue in Keep your pension pot away from the sharks:

THESE ARE good times for more than 7,000 public servants who have just retired on pensions that many in the private sector would die for. Many of the 7,700 public sector (ex) workers have now cleared their mortgages, reared their children and are still relatively young. And as if all that wasn’t good enough, they have also just received six-figure lump sums as part of their pension deals.

Honestly, I think it would be better for Ireland if we could no longer borrow money until we stop spending it so foolishly!

Tags: Ireland

The decline of Irish universities continues, and there are no longer any in the global top 100, according to No Irish universities make top 100 list. (I wrote about this most recently in Irish Universities Fall Further.)

However, I disagree with one issue in the article:

Today’s list will raise renewed questions about a long-term funding base for higher education. Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn has signalled that the student contribution fee, currently €2,250, will rise to €3,000 within three years.

But university presidents say even this will not be enough as their budgets are only about 60 per cent of those available to comparable colleges in the UK and the rest of the EU.

I am not convinced that the fall can be attributed solely to revenues! I also think that we radically need to restructure the costs (particularly the staff costs) within education.

In my experience the abilities and calibre of Irish students must also be a factor, and these appear to be in free fall :(

I read Teen charged over Facebook post this evening, and frankly I am amazed at the stupidity of this charge! (It is a very short article, so I will include it here.)

A teenager has been charged after making comments on Facebook about the deaths of six British soldiers in Afghanistan last week.

Azhar Ahmed (19), posted the comments on his profile page and has been charged with a racially aggravated public order offence, according to West Yorkshire Police.

A police spokesman said Mr Ahmed, of Fir Avenue, Ravensthorpe, West Yorkshire, was bemoaning the level of attention the British soldiers who died in a bomb blast last week received compared to Afghan civilians who have died in the war.

Mr Ahmed will appear at Dewsbury Magistrates’ court on March 20th.

Making prosecutions against teenagers based upon Facebook comments seems extremely petty to me! Teenagers make stupid comments (it is part of being a teen), and any adult with a bit of sense would just ignore them! Crime must really be low in the UK if this is what the police spend time investigating!

Secondly, without seeing his original comments, his reported comments do not appear racist to me!

Tags: Facebook, UK

I recently read an article about Irish politicians wanting to censor the Internet – Senators want online abuse images blocked.

They are calling for Minister for Justice Alan Shatter to introduce systems to block access to websites containing child abuse material.

It always amuses me to hear politicians pontificating on subject matter that they do not understand :)

Tags: Censorship, Ireland

I read an interesting article about the differences between mobile wallets and digital wallets today – Mobile Payments: Life Is More Secure In The Cloud. I was not aware of the distinction!

There was one argument that I did not agree with:

Look at it this way: if your phone gets stolen and all your financial information is on the device, and the thief began making transactions, it would almost be impossible to tell if it was really you. With the cloud approach your account is constantly being monitored. So, for example, if a transaction is made by you in San Francisco on your desktop computer, then 10 minutes later one is made in Paris on your phone, it will immediately be clear that something’s wrong.

The author argues that the digital wallet is more secure, because it is easy to detect the fraudulent transaction being made in diverse locations. I would argue that such fraudulent transaction are inherently impossible with a mobile wallet.

Alcatel-Lucent is hoping to commercialise on its patent portfolio through licensing, according to Alcatel-Lucent patents ‘could make millions’.

I wondering are we moving closer to a time when companies generate patents (which are not necessarily the same as good ideas) rather than products!

Tags: Alcatel-Lucent

During the week I read Latest memorandum reveals more austerity ahead in Budget 2013. I agree with the thrust of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), because we all know (except the Government) that you cannot keep spending money that you do not have:

The latest Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Troika and the government has confirmed that “at least €3.5 billion” will be taken out of the economy in the next budget through tax increases and reductions in spending on social welfare and capital projects.

However, I was disgusted when I read the following:

Revenue raising measures amounting to €1.25 billion will include a broadening of the personal income tax base which could mean either raising taxes or lowering the bands on the amount at which people are taxed.

There will be further restructuring of motor taxation, increases in excise duty and other indirect tax measures. A reduction in general tax expenditures is also proposed – meaning a potential cut in tax credits.

Honestly, I do not understand why the Government is determined to take more and more money from the fewer and fewer people who are working in order to fund a bloated public service and social welfare system!

The document also outlines where €2.25 billion in savings will be made including reducing expenditure on social welfare, cutting the total bill for pay and pensions in the public sector and reductions in capital expenditure – all areas where the government has previously implemented cuts.

I would love to believe that this will happen, and I would be happier accepting increased taxes if I saw that our public service rates (not numbers) and social welfare payments were decreasing towards European averages.

Indeed, Colm McCarthy recently highlighted these two groups of people as “silent winners” of the economic downturn in Ireland’s squeezed middle:

The silent winners are, however, quite numerous. Social welfare rates of payment have been cut and scheme rules tightened, but not across the board. State and public service pensioners have been spared the cutbacks. Even high-income pensioners have had free medical cards restored. But pensioners reliant on funded occupational schemes are not so lucky: most schemes are underfunded and benefits are under threat – a situation exacerbated by a government levy on funded schemes.

The winners are those far-sighted enough to choose careers with employers who do not pre-fund for retirement, which means the public service.

All this is happening at an interesting time for me, because I may have the opportunity to continue my current work in another country with far more favourable tax rates. It really is starting to look attractive!

Tags: Ireland