Monica Gaudio writes how an article she wrote for a cooking website was ‘scooped up’ by cooking magazine without her knowledge or consent. When she wrote to the editor, asking for a printed apology and a $130 donation (which works out to be $0.10 per word of the original article) to be given to the [...]
One of the most resilient rumours online in recent years is that ‘social media’ (an umbrella term that I use in this post to describe blogs, Twitter, Facebook and ‘citizen journalism’ in general) is responsible for the downfall of traditional print media. Before I go further, I’m not targeting specific people or companies with this [...]
As a blogger, I live quite a lot of my life online, or at least in the public sphere. You know I’m in America, you know I have a physical disability, you know when I go to Dublin, and so on. And that’s fine. It’s not a problem because I’m only sharing what I choose [...]
I’m currently reading The Accidental Billionaires, a book about the creation of Facebook. It’s written by Ben Mezrich, who you might remember from writing Bringing down the House, the story about a group of MIT students who used maths to help them win in Vegas and made a fortune. When it inevitably became a movie, [...]
I don’t usually go for the whole rallying people for the cause thing, but I think that this merits an exception. LOVE Write that across your wrists. It’s National Suicide Prevention Week this week and the above is a really easy and effective way of showing your support to raising awareness of something truly horrific. [...]
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 [...]
Arrived home on Friday afternoon from my three weeks at the Centre for Talented Youth (CTYI) in DCU. 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 [...]
Or: In Defense of Irish I was talking with my Dad (through Irish) the other day about how the language has some really beautiful turns-of-phrases. I agreed with him but pointed out how I didn’t think Irish as a subject in school was geared keeping appreciation for the language going and generally keeping the language [...]
I’ve often been talking to people who’ve been talking to me about their problems and don’t think they’re able to change some aspect of themselves. I’ve been sympathetic but lately I can’t help thinking that humans by their nature seem to be very quick to write off things as ‘something you just can’t change about [...]
As I left my last class on Friday, I turned on my phone. I’d just set up Twitter SMS the day before so a handful of texts came in. The top one flashed across my screen first and elicited a puzzled expression from yours truly. …Jokes about Gerry Ryan aren’t funny, at all. He was [...]