Randomoid stuff from the tubes of the Intarweb

Magnifier and weird stuffed animals

While I realize that this is little more than incoherent link propagation (unlike my normally focussed prose-o-wonderment), hopefully pulling some of this fluff from the mighty tubes that connect us all will help clarify our various connections and communications.

A couple that our amazing progeny sent my way:

I’m not sure where I got this pointer from, but Bruce Schneier is exhorting people to “Steal This Wi-Fi” over on Wired. In a world where people expend tons of energy securing their wireless networks (and ISPs often require it of their customers), one of our major security experts chooses to keep his home wireless open. “To me, it’s basic politeness. Providing internet access to guests is kind of like providing heat and electricity, or a hot cup of tea.”

And in a vaguely related piece on security, a post from John Naughton on the dangers of publishing your bank details. Jeremy Clarkson, arch-conservative, petrol head, and (much to my dismay) highly amusing Top Gear presenter decided that the woo-haa was way overblown regarding the recent loss by British government officials of financial details of millions of people. So he published his bank details in his Sun column. According to the BBC, however, “Clarkson admitted he was ‘wrong’ after he discovered a reader had used the details to create a £500 direct debit to the charity Diabetes UK.” Oops.

Well, my tubes are definitely clearer. Thanks for the Q-tip.

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Off to Dublin soon

Ha'penny Bridge, Dublin by Del Amitri
Tuesday morning (4 Dec 07) I set off from our happy home for a few days in Dublin. To quote myself (how pathetic is that?)

At the kind invitation of Michael O’Neill, I am going to the University of Dublin to give a talk in early December, which will be lots of fun. I’ve been to Ireland once before, to give a talk at the University of Limerick, and really enjoyed it. I’ve never been to Dublin, though, so I’m quite excited. Dublin Tourism has a very cool set of free podcast walking tours (smart people, them) which I’ve been listening to as a way of figuring out where I want to visit in my limited tourism time.

Giovanni (my office mate) pointed out the helpfully obvious today, namely that I could probably get a tour guide to Dublin from our city library. Duh. I’d looked at some in shops, but spending £10 for a book seemed a bit daft when I’ll only have one solid day of touring to do. Checking one out from the library, however…

I’m hoping for some nice weather so I can spend a lot of time just walking around and taking photographs. The aforementioned walking tours are really nice and have me quite pumped. We are talking December in Ireland, however, so I’m not holding my breath. Happily, there are lots of cool indoor things that I also want to visit. Chief among these is Trinity College Library, as they have many wondrous things including the magnificent Book of Kells.

I’ll also be flying Ryanair for the first time. The flight is incredibly cheap, to the point that it seems fundamentally wrong. The true cost (including pollution and other environmental impacts) just has to be more than the £40 or so I’m paying round trip.

Thanks to Del Amitri for the cool photo, which I discovered using Flickr’s nifty “Places” feature. Being able to quickly sift through some very cool photos of Dublin has both given me some ideas of things I’d like to see and photograph, while also pointing out some clichéd shots I may want to try to avoid. (I’ll probably fail, since I’m a total sucker for a pretty cliché shot, but I can try.)

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