Archive for June, 2008
Cost of redecorating
Imagine you were doing up your living room, or maybe your kitchen. Yes, let's say your kitchen, and you want a new granite worktop, new presses, new tiles, new appliances and sure why not make a snap decision to get yourself a handcrafted table and chairs! Right, your budget, granite worktops don't come cheap but all in all you'd probably get what you wanted for under Eur 30K. Or maybe you don't want to redecorate but want to snap up a small investment property now that the market is dropping, you might get something decent outside of Dublin for about Eur 200K. Now with those kind of figures [...]
It’s official – we’re in recession!
Well it would appear that we are in recession after all the staving off that we tried. Difficult times are certainly ahead and this is a time for much questioning and reflection upon how our country has been managed over the last number of years of unprecedented growth and great times. Unlike the early 80's when recession last hit in a big way, emigration is not an option for so many people who are buried up to their necks in debt; debt that has been accrued due to living in an economy that has skyrocketed out of control due to a saturated housing market, massive increases in the cost of [...]
Play the man not the ball
Via Damien Mulley: Two members of Young Fine Gael were spotted impersonating Gerry Adams and Mary Lou McDonald outside Leinster House. Trying to create a satire and using completely inappropriate, inaccurate and irrelevant references to convince people as to the reasoning behind Sinn Féin's stance on the Lisbon Treaty. Wow! Totally wow! I hope that YFG are very proud of themselves for this. No longer are they just attacking the people with questions about why they should vote yes, they have now gone and turned a completely non-party issue into a major anti-party stunt. Such behaviour [...]
Orwell’s 1984 like you’ve never heard it explained before
Seriously, you'll never have heard it explained this way before. It's even more chilling than reading it.
Lisbon looking more likely to be rejected
After yesterday's poll results were announced, with respect to the opinion of voters on the Lisbon Treaty, the "no" vote has almost doubled since the last opinion poll. Am I surprised? Well frankly no, I'm not. It's like I have said to many people on numerous occasions in the past. Those swinging towards a "no" vote are doing so because of educating themselves by reading the treaty and/or supporting literature that has come from independent sources. God knows with the support for Sinn Féin in this country that it's certainly not because of their efforts. However, since the last opinion poll [...]
D4 on alert
Appearing in today's Times' letters page:"Madam, - My home has so far received the emergency planning booklet four times. Is the Government trying to tell Ballsbridge residents something? - Yours, etc,"Well, yes, I guess that the government is trying to tell us all something. While some people in the country get feck all from the government, our leaders are so afraid of upsetting the Southside Dubliners that they will err up to 3 times in order to make sure that they know they are valued. Even the emergency plans in this country are overly and needlessly centralised, just like the civil [...]
RepRap
Read this on the Reg. It's a 3-D printer made by some clever clogs in Bath. Claimed to be the first machine of its kind because it can print a copy of itself - like how cool is that! Although it would somewhat hamper future sales of the device. Basically the device sprays moulds molten plastic to create 3-D objects that can be whatever you want from phone holders to other bespoke creations. What really intrigues me about this device is that it can seemingly be created for about Eur 380 with parts listed here. Now let's be honest here, who's not thinking of ordering those parts right now?
