Didn’t get to the first talks as I was at a Jason Byrne gig but Skycon was worth the early-morning drive.

The first talk I attended was by Ciarán Maher of daft.ie who explained the evolution of the site and the supporting architecture. Interesting use of Amazon S3 services and now there is a API – check out http://api.daft.ie

Christian van den Bosch then presented OpenStreetMap which I’d heard a lot of before but I’ll be sure to ask him about issues I’ve had editing maps.

Got caught up talking with friends and missed a lot of AIB’s presentation on their corporate desktop system but it looks like Java is being used a lot, all the desktops have software pushed to them in a tree-type structure, everything is run from a browser window and even though the programmers might like everything done with forms, the staff demand office productivity software like OpenOffice to manually edit letters etc.

Evert Bopp gave a talk on wireless one of my fields of expertise but the history of WiFi didn’t exactly set my world on fire, sorry Evert. I was also expecting a more passionate case for WiMax which didn’t materialise.

The star speaker was of course, Randall Munroe (xkcd). The crowd was giddy at his mere presence and anything he said resulted in laughter. There were plenty of questions, a few live sketches (loved those btw) and a few nervous silences.  Look below for a custom cartoon for Skycon ‘09

Dinner in the Kilmurray Lodge was nice. I got to bore Tommy of TrustTommy fame for a while over soup and an RF engineer from Analog in the bar afterwards. Also caught up with Jeff Gough who had given a talk on Formica robots (pictured). I had intended on getting to Kerry that night but before I knew it, people were heading downstairs to the nightclub. The Lodge a.k.a. the Slodge is a favourite haunt of UL students with a fairly easy-going dresscode and that night there was a freaks and geeks party so we fitted right in. Ended up a house party then and a couch in Kilmurray Village. Those couches are getting harder and harder every time they are replaced.

The next day we even had a very sociable lunch in O’Mahony’s on Thomas St. and over then to Aubar’s for the last of the Ireland V Italy match.

Some other people’s views on Skycon:
tyrion, master of skycon, says thanks

froodie – responsible for the yummy X-Cake-CD
Terran looking after the guests
TrustTommy’s summary
Alexia has videos of Randall’s talk and the giggling crowd
Martha Rotter’s recap
Randall also mentioned that he was coming

PS: this was a victory for the can-do thinkers as summarized by spluge’s comment on Randall’s blog :

the nicest part was afterwards when a guy from Dublin was pwned. I’ll paraphrase the conversation:
Dublinguy “how come you didn’t come to Dublin?”
Randall “Because you fuckers didn’t invite me”
Marvelous. Well done to UL Skynet, and burn every other Irish person in the comments section whinging about Randall not coming to Dublin/Cork/Ballygobackwards.

GET READY FOR PLASSEY 10K !

The Annual Plassey 10K Charity Run in conjunction with the 2nd Yr Sports Science class will take place on Saturday 21st March. Start time for this event is at 11 am. For more information please visit plassey10k.skynet.ie

So go on and get out there, get fit and take part in this fun-filled race on Ireland’s Sporting Campus!

Sports Department

University Arena

Installed ActiveTcl 8.5.6 on Vista and downloaded RamDebugger but got a error (shown at the end). I used Tcl previously but never with anything as fancy as package mangers so I was delighted to learn that you can simply enter into the command prompt (running as administrator under Vista):
C:\Tcl\bin\teacup install autoscroll
and then the sha1 package was also needed:
C:\Tcl\bin\teacup install sha1

and bingo, RamDebugger was happy and so was I. I’d be happier if I knew why the Tklib didn’t install properly…

Error message:
can’t find package autoscroll
while executing
“package require autoscroll”
(file “C:/…/RamDebugger6.2/./addons/fulltktree/fulltktree.tcl” line 5)
invoked from within
“source C:/…/RamDebugger6.2/./addons/fulltktree/fulltktree.tcl”
(“package ifneeded fulltktree 1.0″ script)
invoked from within
“package require fulltktree”
(procedure “RamDebugger::InitGUI” line 70)
invoked from within
“RamDebugger::InitGUI .gui $geometry $ViewOnlyTextOrAll $topleveluse”
invoked from within
“if { ![info exists SkipRamDebuggerInit] } {
if { [info command master] != “” } {
set registerasremote 0
} else { set registerasremote 1 }
…”
(file “RamDebugger.tcl” line 8482)

I had a surprise recently – a last-minute trip to London

It was Sept. 2007 that I was there last and I loved it last time so I was looking forward to going back. After arranging a ’secret hotel’ booking and Aer Lingus flight we were on our way. My sister had never been, so I knew we were on for a full weekend of sightseeing with a few drinks thrown in.

Some highlights:
Standing on the Greenwich Meridian – from which all other points on earth are measured plus a free introduction to the observatory at 12:00

discovering Camden Market and the very funky Cyberdog store with lots of “radical fluoro clubwear,” a dancer in a cage and some cool beats.

Kensington, the area around Harrods is also pretty stunning and full of flash cars and Hyde Park is just a few mins away.

Catching up with my friend from my time working in Erlangen, Bavaria (just over 5 years ago now) in a music store called Rough Trade where we got to see a live gig by Swedish group “The Deer Tracks” whose music is “electronic, dreamy and experimental (but in a ‘friendly to the ear’ kind of way)” with “wonderful melodies” and “hushed, almost fragile vocals.” They also seemed to play also sorts of weird instruments and they had a go at playing the guitar with a violin bow…Rough Trade have plenty of free gigs and it’s a pretty trendy place so pop by the next time you’re in London.

Brick Lane is still top of the list of places to go for an Indian but remember to keep discipline within the group of diners. My posse got sidetracked by a ‘Guardian review’ and were convinced to go into a particular Indian place. The food was awesome but to say we were a little rushed would be a gross understatement.

The tube is also a wonder of engineering and efficiency during the day, even with a few closed lines. If you haven’t seen it though, I hope you get this tune stuck in your head

Skycon is a computer society conference that punches well above its weight. In just two weeks, Skycon ‘09 will take place so book your train tickets now!

Speakers include Randall Munroe, ex-NASA contractor and creator of the famous xkcd comic, and David Malone, who works on IPv6 and Wireless Networking in the FreeBSD operating system.

Other speakers will include representatives of Microsoft’s XNA division (Martha Rotter), AIB’s Enterprise Systems & Technology division (Alan J. Guinane) and the Computer Science and Information Systems Faculty at the University of Limerick (Loraine Morgan). Irish companies represented at the event include Havok, creators of the physics engine used in games such as Sky Wars, and Daft.ie, one of the most popular websites in Ireland (Ciarán Maher).

There will also be talks by Evert Bopp (Open Coffee Club), John Lunney (C64 Demoscene), Christian van den Bosch (OpenStreetMap) and Mel Gorman (Linux Kernel). Click here for Skycon ‘09 timetable.

Check out the Skycon ‘09 site or add them as a friend on twitter for updates – http://twitter.com/Skycon. You can also email: skycon [at] skynet.ie. There is even a facebook event

Some logistics – there will be dinner on Saturday evening in the Kilmurray Lodge Hotel and there happens to be a nightclub downstairs. Tickets for the talks (which will be on in the UL CSIS building) cost €5 and dinner will cost €20. Pre-booking for both will be available on the site in the next few days.

***UPDATE***
Timetable addition: Jeff Gough from the University of Southampton will be talking on “Formica: Build your own swarm of robot overlords” (via twitter)

I arrived at Tara St Station to see a commuter train waiting at the platform (16:00) and hopped on to get to Dun Laoghaire. As the train left, the guy in the seat across from me asked if the train would stop at Lansdowne Road and I directed him to the map above the door as I didn’t know.

I figured that the commuter train would stop at the stations marked with a white dot on the blue (commuter) line. So I suggested that my fellow passenger would be fine. We stopped at Pearse but then we sailed past Grand Canal Dock, Lansdown Rd and Sandymount and the next stop turned out to be Sydney Parade! Why? I’ve no idea because it doesn’t even look like a commuter train stop on the map above.

There was another woman in the same carriage who was in the same position (wanted to get to Lansdowne Rd) and both of them and whoever else was caught out faced the prospect of walking back, buying another ticket or pleading their case with Irish Rail during one of the busiest times on a Friday.

It turns out that commuter trains have quite a unique timetable. Instead of looking at a map, you must instead consult a timetable like this:

Couldn’t be simpler, could it? Note that each station has it’s own unique timetable due to the trains stopping at random destinations and leaving at irregular intervals so to know how to get anywhere, you need to be prepared! You could print/pick up a copy of each timetable for each station that you might use (online list of timetables here) but who carries around 4 or 5 timetables that fold out like those giant maps?

I will say that the text service is good for information.

Customers from any mobile phone on any network can just text DART followed by their station name (e.g. DART PEARSE) to the DARTXT number – 53700 – and DARTXT will reply with the times of the next DARTs in both directions

This is a service that doesn’t seem to exist if you were to look at the Irish Rail/Dart website and it costs 30c every time you use it. It’s up to you to know if the DART will stop where you want to go!

I had a friend ask me to fix their computer, which is a regular occurrence as I’m a computer engineer and I know how to fix everything of course.

This request was special though in that the symptom was that as soon as this person tried to stream from RTE, the Internet connection dropped! The problem only arose when they changed from Eircom to NTL. It even worked with Irish Broadband previously.

Got to the house and sure enough, trying to connect with her Dell laptop caused the WiFi connection to drop. Connecting with my Dell laptop caused no problem and it worked perfectly…

Changing Real Player for Real Alternative Lite and even the same version of Real Player that I had -> no improvement…

Then I noticed that the connection between the laptop and WiFi router hadn’t just dropped, but the router was actually restarting every time. So I figured that the WiFi driver on her specific Dell laptop and the Netgear WGR614 weren’t playing well together.

Tried changing back to Dell WiFi connection manager and also WiFi settings…no good.

The workaround that I found that does work is to disable SPI on the router. I found it on this thread on the Netgear forum. SPI is Stateful Packet Inspection and why exactly one laptop using practically the same software as the other would fail was confusing (both XP btw). Now she is happily streaming again and I got a nice dinner, chat and a new playlist. Have a listen to it on Last.fm (unsorted)

We had a visitor from San Francisco via couchsurfing.com and I offered to do a little tour of Limerick. I was pleasantly surprised, but also disappointed. In short, Limerick has a few attractions that I have never heard of, but they are only open weekdays or by appointment!

The tourist office sells tourist maps for €1.50 but I found the map from the Limerick Civic Trust to be more informative (and free) which lists

• King John’s Castle; 10.30-4.30 (Nov-Mar), 9.30-5.30 (Apr-Oct)
• The Hunt Museum; Mon-Sat 10-5 and (currently) free on Sundays 2-5
• St. Mary’s Cathedral; Mon-Sat 9.30-4.30 (May-Nov), Sat 9-1 (Dec-May)
• The Georgian House & Garden; Mon-Fri 9-4.30, weekends by appointment
• The Bishop’s Palace; Mon-Fri10-1 and 2-4.30
• Limerick Masonic Centre by appointment
• Limerick City Museum; free Tue-Sat 10-1 and 2.15-5
• Limerick City Gallery of Art; Mon to Fri 10-6, Thu 10-7, Sat 10-1, Sun 2-5
• St. John’s Cathedral; 8-6.30
• The Belltable Arts Centre;9.30-5.30

left out of that leaflet are things such as

• The Treaty Stone
• Bunratty Castle (in Clare)

I was also surprised to be greeted by Street Ambassadors as we left King John’s Castle, who provided us with a list of concerts that were on as part of the MBNA Shannon International Music Festival.

Maybe Limerick has more culture than I first thought.

I read RTE this morning and was delighted to see the headline “Hi-tech cable to link US with Ireland” but incredulous when they stated that it was the first transatlantic telecommunications cable to directly link Ireland with the US. I got over it until I saw an even bolder claim in the Metro paper – “Faster Broadband expected in 2010.” Where was this coming from…well the Dept. of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources press office of course – “Ireland’s first direct telecommunications link with USA“. Now apart from the obvious fact that there was a transatlantic telegraph cable between Valentia in Kerry and Newfoundland, Canada way back around 1866, I figured that we already had one.

To cut a long story short, there is a link from Dublin to North America provided by Hibernia Atlantic (formerly 360 Networks until they went bankrupt) which landed in Dublin in 2000 and they have a 2nd cable that goes around NI and lands in the UK. All this project is doing (Project Kelvin) is adding a link from that 2nd line to NI for approx. €30 million. The RTE page has since been updated to be a little more precise i.e. specify that it’s only the first direct link to NI and added the map from Hibernia Atlantic.

In some lovely PR work the department states that they awarded “a €30 million contract to construct a new direct telecommunications link to North America” and you’d assume that we were getting a full cable, wouldn’t you? They go on to list the benefits of direct connectivity (connectivity that already exists without state aid) stating that “Communications between Ireland and North America will be routed directly without having to use external networks e.g. through London. Amongst the benefits will be faster response times at lower cost for high capacity broadband.” This is only true if you are talking about Northern Ireland and granted, if you live in Letterkenny or Monaghan, there might be some benefits. In the approval from the EU approval for state aid, it quite clearly states “There is one submarine cable which connects the Republic of Ireland directly to North America from Dublin” which is information that would have been provided by the department presumably.

And what about redundancy? There are nine submarine cables providing international connectivity for the Republic of Ireland, eight of which connect via Great Britain (according to the EU state aid document). Back in 2003, there was even one in Cork, but that cable PTAT-1, has since been shut down as it was no longer considered financially viable by Cable & Wireless.

The BBC got it right and Irish Times got it more right than RTE on their first attempt.

I might have mentioned that I was in Barcelona before and now I’m going to elaborate a bit. My sister always thought I’d love BCN and she was right. It’s up there with Berlin as my all-time favourite cities and that’s saying a lot if you know how much I like Germany! The pick-pockets are terrible but that’s easy to get over when you consider the stuff it has to offer. I’ve also been to Oslo, Hannover, Brussels and Rome this year and I’d go back to BCN first.

After a terrible summer in Ireland, Barcelona in late September could still reach 31 degrees Celsius! I checked into Equity Point hostel in Passeig de Gracia and I can strongly recommend it. It’s in a classy part of town a short stroll from La Rambla and there is a train to the beach if you are really hungover!

Not only are there trains from there to the beach, but also to FC Barcelona’s New Camp (L1), Montmelo (Circuit de Catalunya – F1/DTM circuit) and Sitges where there is a lovely long beach with the sun-chairs for hire. I thought that was so quaint and retro. After the 15th of September though, the place is really quiet and serene. Strolling around there can be so relaxing and they really do close the shops during the afternoon for their siesta, sometimes till 6 or 8pm!

Barcelona is cheap, even compared to Berlin. You can get a beer served to you for €1.60 and there are buffet dinners there from €9 to €14 for succulent pork and beef roasting on a grill. That would be “Free Way” on Carrer de Mallorca. Just look at the plate of fish that was freshly cooked for me. These are just the shells and there were 4 salmon steaks on top of it!

The old Roman part of town is well worth a look, the Rambla del Mar is popular but I didn’t think it was that special. Maz pointed me in the direction of Margarita Blue and I wasn’t disappointed by the cocktails or the ambience!

People get a surprise when I tell them that I went on my own to Barcelona. But if you’re willing to talk, you’ll make friends in the hostel, tapas bars and other random spots. I met one guy, Rafael, who was French and hoping to work on the Sagrada Familia. As you can see it’s a construction site, a piece of history in the making. We started chatting in German as his English was almost as bad as my French and quickly we spotted some Austrian girls bemused by this comic interaction but I was quick to bring them into the conversation too.

That was in a Tapa’s bar called El Paso, the kind of place that wasn’t very clean but the waitress was friendly and Rafael is intent on going back to improve his Catalan.

One of the things I learned is to take notes! A photo can be great, but taking notes of what you see around you is far more discreet and it also allows you to really notice things and exercise your mind.

On one occasion, I had just come back from the Circuit de Catalunya, where the German Touring Car Championship (DTM) was being held and I stopped in the village of Montmeló. I found a lovely café on the Plaça de la Quintana. The square was full of local people going about their business, kids playing football, cycling around. Parents were sitting on benches waiting for their kids to come out of the music school with instruments in tow. At the table next to me, a woman in a group of 3 or so started breastfeeding. After the intense heat of the day, a cold breeze and looming navy clouds signalled an impending thunder-shower and I relocated inside. Other people weren’t so observant and there was much scurrying into the cafe and under a canopy in the square when the heavens opened.

For the next hour or so, rain was teeming down and those stranded outside and inside had to stay put or be soaked to the skin within seconds after leaving cover. This didn’t seem to be bothering some of the kids though who were running in and out. The people running the café seemed to be related or friends with half the people in there. Minding the kids became a communal affair and everyone was watching the 1yr old girl who would make a break for freedom every so often like the older kids. However, a 1yr old thankfully doesn’t have the strength to push hard on doors. I’m guessing 1 cos she could walk but she still had a soother. Cafeteria Granja was the name I think. Nothing like Mira in Berlin…our favourite proprietor of coffee and cakes (if you’re lucky) who communicates in a series of grunts and smokes like a trooper.

The nice thing about Barcelona too is that it’s very centralised. All the parties are in the city and the cultural life isn’t as fractured and disparate as Berlin. When I was there, there was a festival (La Merce, held in honour of Mare de Deu de la Merce, the Patron Saint of Barcelona) and it wasn’t even targeting tourists. They had information stands, bands and local performers on stage, in the streets and all over Barcelona. Even at night, bands were roaming through the city picking up fans along the way.

La Merce band in Barcelona

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On a sidenote, before I even left Irish soil, I had my first encounter with American troops in Shannon. I was surprised by how quiet and subdued they all were. Mostly, they wanted to phone home, check emails, surf the net, sleep and have a beer or two. I worked up the courage to talk to some of them and discovered that they were a mix of air force and marines. Many of them didn’t actually fly, but provided support services, which was good because one guy really didn’t like the turbulence. Thanks to Cathal for the lift to Shannon btw!