The Dublin Community Blog

 

If you are wondering what is on the picture the answer is very Dublinish: Guinness!!

Michael Davidson of Florida University makes beer photos using microscope. What to say more? Check his beer website. 

While reading some headlines on BreakingNews.ie I came across a story about 50 major infrastructural projects that have been proposed under a new fast-track process designed to bypass the normal planning system. Included in the story is the sentence

One company has also reportedly put forward plants (sic) for a cable-car service in Dublin city.

I was curious so I googled “Cable Car Dublin” and came across the following on irish-architecture.com from February 2006

A private consortium is proposing to develop a cable car service along the Liffey Quays in Dublin, running between Heuston Station and Docklands. The cable cars would transport sightseers at heights approaching 80 metres (264ft) above the river from the Guinness Brewery near Heuston to a terminal located near the planned national conference centre at Spencer Dock

Yes the picture makes it look as bad as I imagined. It reminds me of a tacky cable car ride I took in Disney World several years ago. This is not a major infrastructural project, it’s a tourist trap created by some private company, so I don’t understand why it would be fast tracked through the planning process. I can see the instant appeal where people will go “Oh cool” but I can imagine the novelty would wear off pretty quickly.

Half a million computers will get chucked out in Ireland over the next 5 years.  500,000 CPUs, monitors and keyboards will get thrown away and WEEEd on, if you’ll excuse the pun. Mice too, the ones that aren’t sold for scientific experimentation.

But in this age of green bins, composting and Diarmuid Gavin’s desireable arse (?) no computer should go to waste. Thankfully, they don’t have to.

Camara is a Dublin-based NGO that refurbishes computers and sends them out to where they’re needed most. They collect the computers until there’s enough to fill a container, and they they’re shipped out to sub-Saharan Africa.

So if you or your organisation are thinking of chucking that computer, and want to dispose of it in a way that enriches the lives of others, instead of becoming landfill, then get in touch with them and they’ll come and collect it.

Camara’s workers are out in Ethiopia at the moment, working with the Harambee Teacher Training College, and their blog is here.

 (A disclosure: Back in a previous life, before I scribbled to make ends meet, I studied Development studies in UCD, and Cormac, who runs Camara, was one of the good people I met on the course.  So I can personally vouch for this one, it’s run by a great guy.)

Every now and then you stumble upon a relatively simple, yet wholly amazing idea, that both blows you away, and really frustrates the hell out of you because you didn’t think of it yourself.

I bring you one such idea…Darren’s flickr Walking Tours an idea so simple, yet so brilliant, that it’s going to go a long, long way I reckon.

The concept is simple, to take a blurb from the flickr group itself:

The Idea
Each tour will allow you to walk around a location as if brought by a knowledgeable tour guide.

Each photo will be a single location on the tour. Flickr notes with links to adjacent locations act as hyper-links allowing you to follow your tour guide around the path of the walking tour.

Text on other notes and in the descriptions is the “voice” of the tour guide.

If you want to ask a question, post it in a comment and the guide will reply.

You don’t need to actually be at the location you’re walking around. You will most likely be sitting at a PC somewhere. However, I imagine (fanaticise?) that you could use these tours as a self-guided walking tour in a wireless world. 

FANTASTIC! There’s already a full walking tour of Dublin’s St Stephens Green which illustrates the idea perfectly. Darren is welcoming submissions to the flickr group for other walking tours, which I will be keeping a close eye out for. If I can find the time, it’s something I would love to contribute toward too.

In the Ireland of 2006 I can’t be the first person to ask this question and I hope someone out there has an answer and a definitive list. Where do you go when you are in Dublin city center and want cheap (free?) Wi-Fi access? The internet is full of lists, all of which seem to be out of date.

Now I’m not talking about standing outside Apt 123 on 456 Capel Street and sponging off their unsecured Wi-Fi, nor am I on for paying €5 euros for 30 minutes access in a pub with a Wi-Fi logo on the door and a barman who thinks Wi-Fi is some new D4 slang for wine from Fiji. No, instead I’m talking about civilized wireless internet access from the developed world. The type you get in other countries that have embraced the new millennium. I’d like to go into a coffee shop, order a cup of coffee, preferably from an espresso machine, and get say 20 minutes free Wi-Fi. All I’m planning on doing is uploading a blog entry or two, maybe read a couple of RSS feeds, nothing complex as I am using a Wi-Fi enabled PDA.

Or am I deluded and doomed to remain disconnected in the Rip-off Republic?

Update 26 April 2006: I found a cafe chain, Cafe Java have a sign up in one of their shops saying they have free Wi-Fi in all their restraunts. The shop was closed when I got there and the wi-fi was open, but too weak for my PDA to connect to.