(kudos to Barry Hurley!)

_______

Béibhinn Irish Cummins and Tommy Collison caught up with DCU’s President Brian Mac Craith in what he told us was his first ever interview after com- ing into office during the first week of CTYI: Session 2.

Over the precious 15 minutes afforded to us, we grilled the President on such issues such as his opinions on CTYI (his son’s a TA!), his thoughts on DCU and what the future holds.

We began by asking the obvious question – “what do you think of CTYI?”.

“It’s fantastic!” he laughs, telling us how it gives the kids a chance to develop a broad range of skills and also serves as introduction to college life (something some students had already picked up on). “Cliff Bernstein” he tells us, in what is almost a conspiratorial whisper, referring to the famed manager of Metallica, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and an AWESOME beard, “is a big fan of the program”.

When asked to describe an average day as President of DCU, he tells us how he starts his day at 8 (later than us — no fair!) and spends his day in meetings, “making connections and alliances”.
We then brought him on to the subject of DCU – “it’s the best” he
jokes, smiling. “We’re punching above our weight” he tells us, now serious. “Nobody works closer with the industry and enterprise sectors”. He goes on to explain how DCU is a modern and dynamic university and shall continue to be.

Oddly, the President refused to voice his opinion on college fees – an area his predecessor was quite outspoken about. He offered this comment: “we’re saying to the government: ‘the cuts have to stop’.”
“What challenges does DCU face?” we asked. He stopped to think about this one, before continuing “well, they’re [challenges faced] are not unique to us [DCU]. There’s the resource problem as well as the fact that the jobs we’ll have in 2015 don’t exist at the moment”, he went onto say, echoing California-based technology investor Paul Graham’s thoughts, that “…there are other jobs you can’t learn about, because no one is doing them yet. Most of the work I’ve done in the last ten years didn’t exist when I was in high school.”

To finish on a light note, we asked the President about his inauguration, specifically the music which received much acclaim. “I thoroughly enjoyed it” he told us brightly. Our time was then up. We took a few photographs and shook hands once again as he left us with this promise:

“We will continue to support CTYI”

I think we speak on behalf of all students that CTYIziens* everywhere will be hold-ing Professor McCraith to that promise.

_______

* CTYIziens — Affectionate title CTYI attendees give themselves, modeled on the word ‘citizen’.

Niall Harbison and Pat Phelan, two bloggers who I have huge respect for, recently blogged their opinions on location-based software. They focused on FourSquare, the popular location game which involves ‘checking-in’ to restuarants, LUAS stops and shops to gain points, ‘badges’ and special offers, should the venue provide them.

They focused on FourSquare because there’s nothing else on the market that does the same thing (I know about Facebook Places, but I’ll get to that in a second). It’s currently got the market share: they’ve got 2.2 million users worldwide. Of which, 250,000 of those are in Europe. I tried to get Ireland statistics but was told by their press office that they’re unable to give country-specific numbers.

The fact that they own the lion’s share of the location market counts for a lot; or does it? The truth is that location is about as far from public consciousness as it’s possible to be. I reckon that 95% of people who read “Surfing back to school” last Sunday hadn’t heard of FourSquare. To me, FourSquare are leaders in a field that nobody knows about yet, let alone cares about enough to use.

Why? That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?

At the end of the day, there isn’t enough interest; like I said. People don’t get enough out of these location apps to use them in their daily lives like they use, say, Facebook (700 billion minutes collectively spent on it each month, anyone? (source).

So what do we have to do to make people use location stuff? Well, that’s the billion-dollar question.

Any developer can cook up an app that allows you to ‘check in’ to venues and so on, but it’ll take someone and something very clever to then make that app mainstream.

What do they have to do?

1. Make using this app worth my while.

All these location apps boast that I can see where my friends are so I can meet up with them. The problem is that not enough of my friends use the service for this point to apply to me – I’ve watched my friends from school get Facebook and then tentatively set up a Twitter account; it’s going to be a while before they get into Location. It’s also a chicken-and-egg problem to an extent: people don’t use the app enough to warrent me to set up an account. The cycle continues.

How do we break that? I’m working on it the only way I can imagine: by using it despite not really getting anything out of it.

2. Make a damned good app

The current FourSquare app is fine. We passed using ‘fine’ apps way back – the app store deserves great apps. I’m not talking exclusively about asthetics (unfortunately) either. Whatever about pretty apps, iPhone/iPad users deserve apps that don’t crash regularly.

3. Most importantly, appeal to the technophobes

I’m not getting down the ‘iPad: the computer for our grandmothers’ route, but the iPhone (and its big brother) wasn’t a success because all the geeks (like me *cough*) bought it – it’s because the technophobes bought it. Early adopters only account for a small part of the market – 13.5%, while the late adopters weigh in at 16%. (source)

When I’m writing for the Sunday Business Post on something technical, I’m given the advice to ‘pretend you’re writing for somebody’s mother’. This advice rings true for these sorts of apps. They get blinded by their ‘target audience’ and forget that there’s a whole other generation that could be using their app.

My mum, an avid blogger and twitter-er, tried out FourSquare and stopped. Why? Because she ‘couldn’t see the point of it all’.

I’ll tell you what the point should be. I haven’t been to Belfast in a couple of years. I’ve been up there once or twice visiting a surgeon. If I went up there now, I’d probably go without my folks, because I’m taking responsibility for all things medical now. When I was finished in the hospital, I’d want something to eat. I’d like to be able to fire up an app, and enter the search phrase ‘pizza’, because I’m always in a pizza mood after medical stuff. I’d like the app to return some results on a map, based on which was closer to me. I’d like a little bubble to appear: “Phil recommends the Hawaiian pizza in ABC Restaurant, which is 0.8 miles away, but XYZ restaurant (1.2 miles away) is doing a lunchtime special on pepperoni pizzas”

If something like that existed, with enough user tips and enough venues providing info on specials (not just ‘free drink for the mayor’, just letting the app know about deals they’re doing), the creator would make a killing.

So, if a location-based app or software comes along and ticks all these boxes, be it Twitter, Facebook*, FourSquare (if they pull their act together) or a completely new player to the field, they stand to benefit massively from it.

* The only thing about Facebook is their privacy settings. I think that they’re hobbling themselves with their complete lack of concern for people’s privacy. Facebook “Places”, a direct competitor to FourSquare, launched Stateside last week, but users were automatically opted into sharing their location and had to manually, which caused some ruffled feathers among users.

I’m trying to balance writing this quickly to make sure I don’t forget anything important with making sure I’ve thought this post through to make sure that everything is correct.

I suppose we’ll start with a brief explanation of CTYI – it’s a 3 week residential (commuting is an option) course. You stay in the Larkfield Apartments, made up of two bedrooms, a kitchenette (no cooking appliances supplied save for a toaster and a kettle) and a bathroom. You take meals in the DCU canteen beside the Henry Grattan building and do activities in either the nearby buildings or the park adjacent to the sports building.

7.30 – Morning Call, must be awake at this time.
8.15 – Breakfast.
9.00 – Classes begin.
10:30 – 15 minute break. Brought to Spar nearby before returning to class.
12.00 – Lunch in the canteen.
13.00 – Classes resume.
15.00 – Classes finish. Go to quad and sign up for activity.
17.00 – Activities finish. Have RA (Residential Assistant) meeting and dinner. Free time otherwise.
18.30 – Study period.
20.30 – Study finishes, social time begins.
22:00 – Social time finishes. Must be in rooms.
22:30 – Lights out.

As you can see, it’s pretty regimental without much free time. Now, one could observe that the course is responsible for 200-odd teens and that strict discipline is required to keep everything running smoothly (which it did, well done) and you’d be correct, in my opinion. That’s why I fully co-operated with it all the time. Away from everyone though, I found myself despising my lack of independence and choice. There were times when I just wanted to drop everything and sit and read or chat with friends, something CTYI just couldn’t afford. I knew this and understood this controlling atmosphere, but that doesn’t stop me disliking it. It’s not that CTYI is a prison camp or Big Brother, it’s just that coming from the level of independence I enjoy in life into CTYI is a big difference and a big shock.

Of course, CTYI had its amazing moments: the course I did -Journalism- was phenomenal. Andrew Payne, who works as a communications consultant, taught the class and brought the 16 of us through all major aspects of journalism. From memory, we covered:

• Differences between tabloids and broadsheets.
• How headlines change an article.
• How the internet is affecting traditional journalism.
• Interviewing techniques and famous examples of same.
• Different types of features and how they differed from main articles.
• How the editing process works.
• Investigative reporting.
• The ethics of journalism.
• Tabloid methods of reporting (phone-tapping, the Fake Sheik etc.)
• Waiting to report out of respect versus being the first with a story.
• The line between the public’s right to be informed and a private individual’s right to privacy. We debated its existence to an extent.

We also watched All The President’s Men, Frost/Nixon, Sicko, Out-foxed, State of Play and Shattered Glass. All deal with journalists at work and I thoroughly enjoyed all of them.

The social aspect of the course was phenomenal too – I mean, not only do you have a group of youths of similar maturity and intelligence in DCU together, but don’t forget 15 other people are also interested in journalism so hanging out with them was also a blast. That is where CTYI really excels — why people love it so much and miss it and call coming there ‘going home’. I think the maturity is truly shown in how the students interact with the RAs (Residential Assistants – college students who act as big-brother/sister figures and make sure you’re enjoying yourself) – students found themselves talking just as easily to the RAs as the students.

I think the problems I had with CTYI (even calling them problems is unfair, though – these were definitely ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ issues). I’m fiercely independent who enjoys being able to make his own decisions and navigate his own life – CTYI just wasn’t my thing, is all.

Why not?

I was late to the party. The lovers of CTYI all share similar circumstances – they all started around age 13-14 and have been doing it for three/four/five years. For CTYI to rock your world, you need that. You can’t just do it for one year and expect to be as emotionally attached to the place as the ‘five year freaks’ :)

Is CTYI fantastic? Hell yes. Colm O’Reilly and the staff have created a unique phenomenal atmosphere which is fantastic. I found myself getting closer to the people I was already close to and getting close to entirely new people.

CTYI is a great course that I’d have no reservations sending my kids though – just send early to get maximum benefit.

Turns out, the functionality required for the app I wanted (Last.FM background scrobbling) isn’t supported under Apple API, so I’d have to jailbreak (again) if I wanted that functionality. Having had a jailbroken iPhone as well as a non-jailbroken phone, I can honestly say that the amount of hassle caused by it is not proportional to gain, and I bricked my iPhone (saved it though, only just!) on more than one occasion.

The iPhone was already a revolutionary device – but its potential was horrendously limited by the inability to run apps in the background. Skype, MSN and radio applications like 2 FM all worked, but what if you got a call or a text you needed to respond to? Everything stopped, unfortunately.

That is iOS 4′s greatest feature. I can Skype in the background while texting, I can stay signed into MSN as I double check figures in an email and I can use WunderRadio no different to the iPod.

WunderRadio (Link — will open in iTunes on a computer or, awesomely, the App Store if you’re on your iPhone at the moment) is an internet radio application. At €5.49, it’s on the higher end of the scale for iPhone apps but wholly worth it. I’m currently listening to KUWL (cool?), a jazz-only radio station operated by the University of Wyoming.

An example of the type of stuff played:

Link:

I’m not one for “words to live by” or whatever, I don’t think that life can be lived by a certain phrase or couple of words: it’s too diverse and complicated and full of intricate little twists and turns.

If one were to come close, however…

Some people suck. Some people just fail.

On the other hand, there are people who are so mind-blowingly awesome that it’s almost like an eighth wonder of a world.

Through life, one should just give up on the suckers and not waste time on them – sure, that’s sometimes easier said than done, but really, some folks put so much effort into hating and being petty and whatnot that it consumes them, which is sad.

Life is awesome. Focus on the epic people.

There was a direct train from Limerick Junction to Rosslare Europort, which is where all the ferries go out of, and is within walking distance of my friend’s house, which makes it fantastically convenient. There was a special offer on in the Limerick Station which meant that my one way ticket (I’d decided to come back via Dublin because the return journey left Rosslare Harbour at some ungodly hour) cost me all of €6 to Waterford. The guy told me I’d change at Waterford and buy another ticket there, but that wouldn’t be expensive.

I got on the train to Wexford at Limerick Junction, and an announcement came over the intercom that this was the 15:10 train to Rosslare Europort, stopping at….. Hang on there misses! I double checked with the ticket collector and may have come across a bit mad: “This is for Rosslare Europort? Directly? No Change? So I just sit here and I’ll be at Rosslare?”

Anyway, I sat down at the end of the carriage, across from two men in suits. One had some badge of some sort on their shirt and I assumed he was and Irish Rail employee. I looked at it again. He was from the Church of Latter Day Saints. I resolutely put in earphones and started reading (Driven to Distraction by Jeremy Clarkson).

I find though that I can’t properly concentrate when music is playing too loud so I turned it down and took out one earphone, fearing the repercussions. As I was charging my iPhone off my laptop, I heard a voice from behind me..

“That’s a lot of technology!”

This is how it starts.

“Uh.. yeah!” I laughed nervously.

We talk a bit. They seemed to think that I was in college (do I have one of those faces?) and we chatted. To make the journey a bit pleasanter, I said that I was a Roman Catholic who went to Mass and appreciated the comfort of someone to confide in. I’m an atheist but don’t hold a House MD-style ‘religious-people-are-idiots’ belief - it honestly is no concern of mine and I couldn’t care less. They asked if I’d ever heard of the Latter-Day-Saints..

House needs 18 as a control for an unconventional test to be done on a woman’s liver – downing shots of tequila. The patient is in competition to become an astronaut and will not allow any invasive procedures that might leave scars or records.

18 balks at going against his beliefs, but House eventually convinces him to do the test by quoting scripture and asking if 18 would pull an ass out of a pit on the Sabbath. That sneaky House.

As the two throw back shots with the patient, House wonders why 18’s religious beliefs were suddenly less important than the dreams of the patient.

“LDS doesn’t try to dictate every detail of our lives,” he says. “When a situation isn’t clear we’re encouraged to make our own decisions.” Plus, he says, House made a good argument.

A stunned House notes that, “Rational argument doesn’t usually work on religious people. Otherwise there would be no religious people.”

Yes, yes I have :)

I didn’t say that – I mentioned a (fictional) project in school done about them and they told me about the extra scripture they had and such. It was my first proper brush with religious people in over 2 years and they got off at Waterford and I felt no different about religious – the same old indifference stuck.

Unrelatedly, I had some free time between my train arriving from Wexford into Dublin and my train home to Limerick leaving, so I met up with App/Mac Developer Steven Troughton-Smith. I’m still not taller than him, damnit. He very generously let me play with his iPhone 4 (WANT) and gave me a promo code for Speed, the only app of his I hadn’t played with yet – which I demo’d on the train home and included a screenshot here.

Quote Source

Yesterday, I went to what was really my first ever concert. Long-time readers of the blog might remember that I’m not a big fan of concerts. I had a ton of friends going and had liked Green Day for years so I decided to dive in and go for it.

I booked tickets over the phone after seeing that there was a special needs number. At this point, the second ticket I was booking was for my dad. So when the TicketMaster woman asked me if the second ticket I was booking was for my carer, I said “yes” because, well, he is!

“Oh yeah; his ticket is free”. I knew there was a good reason for ringing the number.

Fast forward to Mid-May. I was telling my Dad about how practically everyone I knew was going. He then said “Well, you know I don’t have to go if you’d like to go with someone else” (isn’t my Dad awesome?) After making sure that he didn’t mind, I realized that one of my best friends was finishing her Junior Cert. that morning and that I’d missed her birthday back in March (I’m absolutely terrible with birthdays, one of my highly embarrassing flaws), so I rang her up and asked her if she wanted to go. Another really good mutual friend of ours was going so it looked like it was going to be great fun.

Fast forward again to Tuesday night. I’m staying at the mutual friend’s house when their mum comes in, looking to organize how we’re getting home after the concert. I can’t remember specifically what she said about tickets, only the sinking feeling when I realized I hadn’t brought them with me –  they were where they’d been since they’d arrived in the post: on top of the mantle piece in the kitchen.

“Shit” I murmured, and turned to my computer. A lot of Twitter and Facebooking later (and emailing the special needs director of the show, who’d previously been in touch about special needs parking) I had a plan: I’d ring TicketMaster in the morning (this was almost 10pm on Tuesday night) and try and arrange duplicates. I had my order number and the credit card details of the card that I’d booked the tickets with, so it should have been no problem. My alternative was that Francis, a good friend of mine from school, was coming up to Green Day from Limerick, so if I could get Mum to drop the tickets to his house about 10 minutes away, I could somehow find him at Marlay Park and get the tickets off him. The latter didn’t seem like a wholly attractive proposition because A) I didn’t expect to be able to find Fran easily among the 100,000 capacity Marlay Park before the show started and B) Although not my intention, I knew he intended to try and get into the mosh pit up the front, which would require him to be there quite early, and waiting for me to arrive would hinder these plans.

I woke up at 08:50 on Wednesday morning and immediately began looking for a number I could call. I found one and it was 09:17 when I put my call through. After a brief conversation I found out that if I presented my order number and a scan of the credit card at the ticket area, they’d provide me with spares. I got working on getting the scan and also making my way into town with the friend I was staying with.

Our plans to get the 2pm into Prosperous didn’t happen so we found ourselves on the 3pm. The email I’d gotten detailed that there’d be a bus leaving from St. George’s Quay that went to Marlay Park, and this is where we headed. We were there for about 45 minutes and they were supposed to arrive every 15-20 minutes, the email going so far as to boast that they were a ‘very frequent service”. My ass. With the bus not arriving (and there were other Green Day fans at the same bus stop, so we doubted if we were wrong), I hailed down a taxi, dreading how expensive it would be, thinking Marlay was on the Northside, for some reason. I yelled at the other Green Day fans at the bus stop, asking if they wanted to share a taxi to the place with us. They awkwardly told us that it was ‘grand’. I was worried that they wouldn’t get to the Park at all, which is why I asked. As someone who enjoys navigating strange cities, I can spot people who hate it a mile off, and these people were examples. With no bus coming, their method of transport was missing and they didn’t look like the sort of people who made or could readily make alternative arrangements. On the other hand, I was worried too about the cost of the taxi (remember: I thought Marley Park was on the northside) so I knew that splitting the taxi fare by 7 would be cheaper than by 4.

We got in, anyway, and started for Marlay Park. I looked at Google Maps and was surprised that we were heading south. I asked the driver about it and soon saw my error. Quite soon, we arrived. I had expected a longer journey and way more traffic (this was about 17:20 with the first act beginning at 18:10). I read the meter: €16.83. What?!

After paying the deceptively low fare (€4.21 each!), we went into Marlay Park where we were soon stopped. I had guessed that my cane might cause a problem as it’s wood and would (heh) make a damned good missile if I was so inclined. No, our bottle caps were the problem and we were forced to surrender them. The people in front of us had their backpacks searched, as did the people behind us, and yet ours weren’t. Once again, people are unsure how to act around disabled people, afraid of looking bad in front of them or offending them or whatever. I see it every time going through airports. Not that I’d anything remotely dangerous in my bag  –  a hoodie and an “Oxford First Dictionary” that I’d borrowed from my friend to hold and protect the credit card scans I had.

I got the replacement tickets easily enough; “what’s your name?” “do you have proof of credit card?” “right, here you go”. They gave us four at the start too, epic mix-up. I’d originally planned to go with my friend to the special-needs area but since we’d a pretty good view and we didn’t want to have to search for each other in the dark after the show, we stuck together, sitting down just off the path.

Joan Jett was quite good, as was Paramore. It was my first time hearing either band and they were quite enjoyable. We sat and chatted and took photographs quite amiably. Green Day came on and the whole area seemed to perk up. We all stood up and the Park filled even more. Green Day are a phenomenal band because they possess an incredible ability to get a crowd alive. I can’t compare them to other bands but after the show I get the feeling that it’ll be quite difficult for a band to match Green Day. The sound quality was excellent and Marlay Park’s a great venue – quite relaxed and it has a great atmosphere. I’d heard stories of Billie Joe Armstrong (the lead vocalist) being egotistical but I didn’t get any such vibes, which was nice.

Overall, it was a fantastic evening and I’m quite definitely seeing again when/if they come back. :)

When one thinks of the South of France, one can’t help but imagine the sunny skies, golden beaches and laid back lifestyle.

We have one of the above. We’re currently in Mausanne-Les-Alpilles, where we stayed over the last couple of years (camping), even though that’s not where we’re strictly ‘based’, for the want of a better word. We’re really staying at a friend’s summer house in nearby Sérignan (about 135 KMs) south-west of here.

Much and all as I enjoy the rain (it’s the blistering sun I’ve a problem with), being in the South of France in the middle of torrential pours does put an, uhm, damper on the holiday.

I’ll get my coat, in both senses of the word.

Oh, crap, it being the South of France, I didn’t bother bringing a coat.

Damn.

The weather here has been rather shocking for June in the South of France – rain provides an almost constant pitter patter soundtrack to our holiday and clouds are like an ever-present companion. That said, the temperatures are usually around the low 20s – as someone who dislikes blisteringly sunny weather, I’m really happy here!

Since we forgot to bring Scrabble with us (a time honoured tradition for Collisons in France), Dad yesterday set about making one, using cardboard and copious amounts of nail varnish: