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We've all heard of the research showing that London taxi drivers have one part of their brain enlarged by their work.

More recently, research shows that this comes at the cost of reducing their memory for other things:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sciencetoday/2011/0609/1224298636027.html

Becoming a super-specialist in a very narrow field, such as a Scrabble master, might have the same effect.

Mandatory data retention is a current issue in Europe, too. There's a EU directive that requires member countries to implement data retention laws. It's one the biggest public issues in German telecommunication politics (way bigger than net neutrality, for example) and one of the biggest public issues in the overall field of privacy.

More info if anybody is interested: http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/46/42/lang,en/

And an article from the Irish Times titled "German evidence shows no justification for data retention": http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2011/0617/1224299068085.html

Also, contrast the life of the average Frenchman to ours. They live longer, have more free time, have medical and JOBS.

Not so sure about jobs, French unemploment rate is at 9.7% which is about average for the Euro zone with 9.4% (pdf). Europe as a whole is just as screwed as the US, some countries like Germany are doing okay (6.1%) while others like Spain (20.7%) are completely screwed.

Anyway, I've found unemployment rates to lie quite a lot. Look at the US data, sure, compared to last year the unemployment rate is down from 9.6% to 9.1% but the participation rate is also down from 64.9% to 64.2%. So in reality less people work today (58.4%) compared to a year ago (58.7%), even though unemployment has "dropped". Of course there can be slight demographic changes too but the majority of those are people that have completely dropped out of the job market. The real number of people who'd like to work is probably a lot higher.

cheap consumer-level goods that places like China and Vietnam are currently specializing in

Nothing Apple makes is 'cheap.'

Your understanding of the situation is badly out of date. China is forging the components of engines and drive trains and refining the ore to feed those activities. They're burning more coal than the US and that energy is going into HEAVY industry. The heaviest industries on Earth.

GM is selling more cars in China than it is in the US. In case you really are as out of touch as you appear to be, GM is NOT filling container ships on the west coast of the US with new cars and shipping them to China. The cars are built IN CHINA. The Chinese won't tolerate any other arrangement.

The Chinese consume most of the finished vehicles produced (18+ million in 2010), but components (engines, transmissions, etc.) are exported by the container ship full and many major auto manufactures are building heavy components there. The strikes that occurred in early 2010 were at Toyota, Honda and Ford subsidiary component plants, among others.

They're also building airliners, nuclear reactors, earth moving equipment, ships, advanced warplanes and semiconductor foundries. The mines, forges, refineries and furnaces that make it all possible are Chinese as well.

The US is where GE, GM, Caterpillar and Westinghouse executives keep their wives; a legacy industrial nation with lots of legacy capacity and negligible new development. And no, it isn't sustainable; we've got 2-4 years before the creditors put an end to the US debt circus, then we'll pull this.

It was a bit tricky but I found one. I recall that this study was discussed widely in the media in 2008, for obvious reasons.

Of course, that's a journalist's dumbed-down version. "Experimental Economics", "irrational" and "bubble" are obvious keywords to try. Good luck finding a source that isn't paywalled. That's as far as I care to go with it...

The Irish Times and The Irish Independent both claim 50,000.

Ireland is not going tits up it has gone tits up. This was due to poor fiscal management by the Government which relied on taxes from the sale of houseing units. They encouraged and approved the property bubble which seen house prices rise in 10 years from 40 K to almost 400k. This was unsustainable and while a low corporation tax does encourage companies to come here the amount of direct corporate tax is extremely small. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2010/1025/1224281951684.html It is the taxes paid by well paid employees that make up the bulk of were the money comes from. Ireland is a small country with a small tax base yet we insisted on having a huge public sector whose wage bill actually amounts to the income tax take of the country. The Government lied to the public and decried sceptics who suggested that this was unsustainable long term, with the prime minister actually suggesting that these sceptics should go and kill themselves http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfjGSfuSQpA . By the way the current prime minister of ireland is paid more that Sarkosy, Merkel and Obama combined. It is due to inept politicians that we find ourselves having to take money from the IMF/EU. By tying the banks to the Irish state with the worst decision to guarantee the banks in 2008 we were left with no choice but to keep the lying bankers, who squandered and gambled this countries money away, propped up until finally Europe said enough is enough. The public sector complained in early 2000's that they were not getting their part of the Celtic tiger and the Govt. agreed to allow benchmarking of salaries with the private sector. Pandering to the whims of the unions this allowed the people who would benefit most from benchmarking to set what the salaries should be. No account of the fact that a public sector job is a job for life was taken into account or the low prsi they pay or the pensions that are linked to current salaries. This would make the calculations to difficult we were told. So now we wait for the EMF and the EU to tell us what way to run our fiscal policies. The only way this country can ever repay the monies owed is if corporation tax remains as it is otherwise there will be no one earning any money to pay this bill back.

There are quite a few restaurants that have a policy of making people leave if that happens.

Heres a story about one of them.
http://www.wect.com/Global/story.asp?S=13107715

It seems that it's happening in other countries too.
http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/pricewatch/2008/07/31/crying-babies-not-welcome/

However, I would note there there is a slight difference between a child crying and some jerk blasting their radio. This is like the early 80's and the boom boxes thing all over again.

I saw this story covered at BoingBoing earlier and I have to say -- has anyone actually read this article?

This is not a major victory. This is a temporary set-back for the record labels who wish for overreaching legal powers to stop the unstoppable.

Here are some very meaningful excerpts from the same story covered by the Irish Times:

"...the judge said laws were not in place in Ireland to enforce disconnections over illegal downloads... this gap in legislation meant Ireland was not complying with European law."

"The judge made it very clear that an injunction would be morally justified but that the Irish legislature had failed in its obligation to confer on the courts the right to grant such injunctions, unlike other EU states."

"Irish Recorded Music Association director-general Dick Doyle said his office would pressure the Government to reform the law in favour of record labels."

RTFA

Test flights have resulted in relatively worrying problems. Those were not computer models. Airspace closures have been enacted on the "better safe than sorry" principal, but would you really want to be the official to stand up to the press if a commercial airliner came down because of this? The airspace closures were absolutely _not_ entirely based on computer models, there is lots of clear evidence there is volcanic ash in the atmosphere over much of northern Europe at the moment.

I'm all for calling the goverment out for nannying when they are, but I'm not sure they are now. Unless you know something no one else in the world does - ie. the extent and density of the volcanic ash, you've got no real basis for assertions of fearmongering.

Yeah heard that, these people had to buy bikes in order to board a ferry in france
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0418/breaking15.html?via=mr

There is one thing people from other countries--especially the US--really need to understand about Ireland.

In Ireland, we do not really have laws. What we have are more like customs.

Now, it's customary for the Dail (Parliment) to pass the odd few reasonable laws, and its customary for the population to--more or less--abide by them. It's also customary at times, for the sake of appearances or to placate foreign interests, for the Dail to pass unreasonable, unpopular or at times ludicrous laws (e.g. blasphemy). On such occasions, it's customary for the population(and indeed the State) to completely ignore the laws as they are passed.

If you want an example of this, there's a story in the same newspaper about Ireland's oldest gay bar, which opened while homosexuality was still actually illegal in the country. While it may have been illegal, no one was actually going to waste their time dealing with it.

Despite this however, I imagine that internet censorship will eventually be implemented in Ireland as it has been in the UK and Australia, and in Saudi Arabia and China. The technologies developed by the west to oppress those in other countries are being turned back on its own apathetic populations. We've only ourselves to blame.

Antibacterial soaps and solutions will never create super-germs because they are the equivalent of a nuclear bomb to germs.
Current research would disagree with that point of view, see Disinfectant could increase antibiotic resistance of bug. Also remember there is a big difference between a consumer grade "sanitizer" and a Hospital Grade Disinfectant, on an otherwise clean hard surface 1 cm^2 contaminated with 1M "germs" the consumer grade sanitizer kills 99.9% of the germs leaving 1000 on the surface, the hospital grade kills 99.999% leaving only 10, both require a minimum 10 minutes of contact time; when is the last time you've seen anybody allowing 10 minutes of contact time. For grins and giggles try washing your hands for the recommended 30 seconds, as measure by a clock, 10 seconds will seem like a long time.

Strange, I swear that this link worked when I previewed the post!

When did real terrorist ever issue a bomb threat (and had a real bomb)? They simply blow things up. They don't want people to be able to react. "Dear unbelievers, we spent months planning a dangerous and tricky plot to smuggle a bomb on an airplane. Now that we've succeeded, here's how you can find and disarm it before anything happens: [...]"?

Link Link Link Link

Given that there's at least some chance that a bomb threat involves an actual bomb, does this affect your opinion at all?

He was not detained at the airport. He went all the way home with explosives in his bag. They were so well hidden that he did not find them and the Slovakian authorities only contacted the Irish authorities three days later. Then the guy's house was raided and he was arrested (thankfully later released). The mind boggles.

They planted eight pieces of contraband, one of which (the one that got through) was a high-grade explosive. They don't mention what the other seven pieces were

According to this, they were all high-grade plastic explosives.

Slovak authorities apologise as hidden explosives enter Dublin

The 96 grammes of high-grade plastic explosives was one of eight batches concealed by the Slovakian security services in the luggage of passengers departing Poprad-Tatry airport in eastern Slovakia on Saturday.

...

The busy roads around the apartment were sealed off for an hour, and nearby apartments and business premises were evacuated. The area was declared safe by gardaí and the Army’s bomb disposal experts at 12.05pm. The explosives are stable at room temperature but volatile when stored below minus four degrees. The quantity exceeded the 80 grammes carried by a man who tried to blow up a plane to Detroit last month.

including one man arrested and held upon arriving at a Dublin airport

He was arrested in his flat, not in the airport. From TFA:

He was arrested on Tuesday morning ... Slovakian police alerted their Irish counterparts on Tuesday morning, and the man's flat near the city centre was cordoned off while bomb disposal experts removed the explosives for further examination.

From this article:

He unpacked his bag but the explosives had been concealed so well that he did not find them. The Slovakian authorities only realised yesterday that one batch of explosives was missing. They established the Dublin-bound passenger had not been detected.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0106/1224261733594.html

From TFA:
Explosives found in Dublin flat
CONOR LALLY, Crime Correspondent

A Garda investigation is under way after a Slovakian man unwittingly carried explosives on a commercial flight to Ireland as part of an airport security check that went wrong.
The 49-year-old was one of eight people who had plastic explosives planted in their luggage last Saturday morning at Bratislava airport by the Slovakian security services.
The covert planting of the material in the passengers' bags was done to test the airport's security screening.
Security checks at the airport uncovered seven of the concealments. However, the man flying to Dublin was not detected.

Read the rest here.

We've invested in basic research here in Ireland, and the government is being criticised for it (link to Irish Times opinion piece).

Certainly there is a problem here in Ireland that there are a lack of opportunities for those who've acheived a PhD qualification through basic research. Already a lot of even ordinary degree graduates in science and technology have emigrated from Ireland, and the number of entrants into such undergraduate courses is dropping year by year.

However, possibly there's nothing inherently wrong with investing so much in basic research and the issues arise merely from the ineptitude of those running this country and the blind voting that such a section of the populance do for the current ruling party - who've throughout Ireland's history acheived lots of public support but attempted to ruin the country at various stages (starting with the Civil War, continuing with the economic war with the UK in the 1930s, going crazy in the 1970s even abolishing car tax to win votes as the country went bankrupt, deliberately facilitating a property bubble after the dot-com crash, attempting to have the taxpayers continue to pay into the Ponzi scheme with a unique Irish version of the bad bank - i.e. pay speculative amounts to banks for bad loans and attempt to keep prices up until a new bubble is created).

Its owned by Australian investment bank Babcock Brown, soon to change hands most likely. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2008/1030/1225303611201.html

What Jason Walsh writes is incorrect. The bill's amendment concerning blasphemy does not "seek to shield religious belief from criticism". The amendment to the Defamation Bill defines what the constitution does not, and so clarifies the law. It describes blasphemous matter as .. matter "that is *grossly abusive* or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion; *and he or she intends*, by the publication of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage." (emphasis mine)

(source: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2009/0429/1224245599892.html)

Other countries have similar laws to protect ethnic minorities from unwarranted contempt. The above definition is actually narrower, as it specifically pertains to

- grossly abusive attacks,
- to what is held to be sacred by a religious group, such as religious items,
- and where the purpose is to cause outrage.

This does not include criticizing a doctrine, the actions of a bishop or the pope, nor the text from ecclesiastical literature. Perhaps we need to remember that criticism seeks as its objective some form of correction. While outrage may be a response of those criticized, the former is not the objective of criticism.

Freedom of speech should not include grossly abusive speech that would take away from other people their own freedom to hold beliefs without anxiety about arbitrary gross insults. Engaging in healthy criticism and the debate that ensues is one thing, and is welcome. There is a meeting of minds and a clash of ideas. It is an entirely different thing to grossly abuse the beliefs of a group of people concerning what they hold to be sacred matter simply for the sake of insulting them.

It would be nice if governments didn't need to legislate such things, and for the citizenry to exercise common decency and engage instead in honest criticism whose objective is to right wrongs in the context of dialogue. Unfortunately, we have many published celebrities today who instead exercise their ego and vile contempt for those whom they disagree with, and copycats aplenty with blogs, YouTube accounts and art degrees at their disposal.

Has anybody pointed out that this is in fact not yet law in Ireland? It has passed both the Dail (lower house) and Seanad (Senate) but the President who signs bills into law has had a "hang on a sec" moment. She has convened a Council of State (bit like the Jedis) to see if both bills are to be referred to the Supreme Court to challenge their constitutionality.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0717/breaking34.html
"Both the Defamation Bill and the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill were passed by the Dáil last week and sent to the President for her signature.
She has the authority, after consultation with the Council of State, to refer a Bill to the Supreme Court to test its constitutionality. The court is allowed up to 60 days to consider the matter."
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0718/1224250903398.html
"The Constitution does provide that blasphemy is a crime to be punished "in accordance with law". However, the Law Reform Commission has stated that there is no place for a law of blasphemy in a modern Constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech."

Has anybody pointed out that this is in fact not yet law in Ireland? It has passed both the Dail (lower house) and Seanad (Senate) but the President who signs bills into law has had a "hang on a sec" moment. She has convened a Council of State (bit like the Jedis) to see if both bills are to be referred to the Supreme Court to challenge their constitutionality.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0717/breaking34.html
"Both the Defamation Bill and the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill were passed by the Dáil last week and sent to the President for her signature.
She has the authority, after consultation with the Council of State, to refer a Bill to the Supreme Court to test its constitutionality. The court is allowed up to 60 days to consider the matter."
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0718/1224250903398.html
"The Constitution does provide that blasphemy is a crime to be punished "in accordance with law". However, the Law Reform Commission has stated that there is no place for a law of blasphemy in a modern Constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech."

Go look at Canada's laws. It's pretty much against the law to say anything bad about homosexuality up there, from what I understand from some Canadian friends that I have.

That sounds like a slight misinterpretation to me. According to Seciton 319 of the Criminal Code:

Every one who, by communicating statements in any public place, incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace is guilty of

(a) an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years; or

(b) an offence punishable on summary conviction.

In other words (as far as I understand it) "God condemns homosexuality", or even "I hate queers" likely won't get you prosecuted, but "We should be stoning fags" would. The key parts are that the statements must be public and be likely to disturb the peace.

The new Irish law targets blasphemy, which (according to the Irish Times) is defined as

...matter "that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion; and he or she intends, by the publication of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage."

So the Canadian law is about attempting to incite action against any identifiable group, the Irish blasphemy law is criminalizing saying things religious organizations find offensive. I think this is a significant difference, both in terms of what is illegal (an attempt to incite harm versus "outraging" someone) and in terms of who is protected (any identifiable group versus religious organizations.)

Did you see the Jameson Liquor Add next to your referenced article? Haha, the Irish Times.

Except when it does.

Hillebrandt is not the only one claiming to have invented SMS. Another contender is Finnish Matti Makkonen

In other news, Irish police, working on the theory that such a well-travelled criminal may have been been provided with transport by an accomplice, have apparently identified her driver:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2009/0219/1224241418104.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7899171.stm

"Eircom is pleased with the settlement as it does not have to add software to its network, which could interfere with the broadband service. It also doesnâ(TM)t run the risk of running foul of privacy laws by having to provide details of its subscribers to the music industry."

"As part of the settlement, the record companies will supply Eircom with the IP addresses of all persons who they detect illegally uploading or downloading copyright works."

"Other ISPs contacted by The Irish Times last night could not confirm if they would implement the system. A spokeswoman for 3 Ireland, which has 130,000 mobile broadband customers, said it would be âoehappy to look into the matterâ."

The main problem here is that eircom has the local loop and provides the connectivity for all the land line based ISPs in Eire. How will this interfere with the other ISPs?

As for commodore64_love's advice of using dial-up, there are fewer dial-up ISPs here than broadband and once again there's the problem of going via shitty old eircom.

Keeping the personal information of those who choose to come to the US is bad enough, I'm pissed off that my country's government has agreed to a deal which means "exchanging data, including DNA and fingerprint records, and in some cases details of individuals' political and religious beliefs and sexual orientation - even on people not planning to travel to the US".

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2008/1118/1226961467105.html

It seems that other countries have agreed to it too.

I realise their justification is primarily to facilitate business travellers but I wish they would just show some courage and for once say no to the US government's demands, they have no right to this data.

They might find it fairly hard to get work.

Both Eire and Poland are in the EU, free movement of people is guaranteed.

Free movement of goods, money and companies is guaranteed. Free movement of people is certainly not.

You're right!

For centuries everyone knew what "marriage" meant, and what it didn't mean.
For centuries everyone knew marriage was simply a union between 2 people.

Then bigots twisted the meaning of the word to prevent people who love each other from getting married!

http://www.drizzle.com/~slmndr/salamandir/pubs/irishtimes/opt3.htm

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/1998/0811/98081100088.html

Look to history! The church used to give their blessing to gays!

Now to point out that this is way way way off topic and we should both be modded down to get this drivel off the page.

What did THE SOFTWARE run on ? The OS is supposed to prevent amok SOFTWARE from interfering with other processes on the same OS ...

"Any even if you use Linux you still need to do the updates and update the software"

You don't ever update a live system, don't believe me, ask the LSE ...

They lost all the details of their prisioners.
"The British government has admitted that a contractor lost a memory device containing information on every prison inmate in England and Wales.

The Home Office said a contractor lost the memory stick, containing the names and dates of birth of 84,000 inmates - England and Wales' entire prison population."

Interestingly: Medical crisis grows as female GPs avoid full-time posts

My local county council is installing charging points on the streets for electric vehicles.