Inside View from Ireland

Seismic lag

DAYPOP -- More than 24 hours elapsed between the 9.0 earthquake off the coast of northern Sumatra and the first appearance of the Phuket Tsunami on the Daypop Top 40. First information in my household came from Sky News, then from Scoble who monitors Crossroads Dispatches. The quiet omission in my blogroll is an indictment of the western-leaning blogosphere I watch. I have to reconsider the way I click through my incestuous bloglines. First things first: How to Help Earthquake Victims. Then offer your hands to southeast Asia. And after the updates, start reading State of Fear after you look at the totally excellent wikipedia coverage of the Indian Ocean tsunami. Even though it chronicles the devastation, the wikipedia information also gives many reasons to visit Thailand (something I intend to do soon).

Christmas Guests

KILKENNY -- Egged on by claus meyer and encouraged by a family celebration wrapped in the sanctity of the season, I locked my laptop in my study and spent a day away from the internet. The first thing I did was look to see who didn't by unwrapping the clues left behind by my referrer logs.

After Unwrapping

AFTER UNWRAPPING THE Christmas presents, I now need some things to round out the wonderful gifts. I'll start with iPod hoodies from FredFlare.com because three in my extended family now have iPods.

I also need to complement my Kensington Wi-Fi finder and my laptop with a $45 cantenna. Thinkgeek sells $45 cantennas.

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wishlist

Light a candle

KILKENNY -- As I light our Christmas candles in Kilkenny, Joi Ito takes the wraps off Global Voices. It's a covenant that puts candles into the hands of everyone. It recognises that personalcasting ensures that "speech need no longer be controlled by those who own the means of publishing and distribution, or by governments that would restrict thought and communication. Now, anyone can wield the power of the press. Everyone can tell their stories to the world." This is the best promise of blogging--a perpetual cacophony of greetings, stories, and testimonies. In the vision of Global Voices, we need to protect the right to speak and the right to listen. We need to nurture universal access to the tools of speech. The covenant for Global Voices says, "we want to enable everyone who wants to speak to have the means to speak -- and everyone who wants to hear that speech, the means to listen to it."

White Christmas

KILKENNY -- It's a white Christmas all around Ireland as we enjoy a lazy day among friends, snapping photos, exchanging gifts and ringing across the ocean to share the joy of the season. We got the dogs individual Christmas stockings and even found some baubles for the two cats who have adopted us.

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iPod economy

WSJ -- Many shops in Ireland place asterisks on sales receipts next to the names of Irish items you purchase in the shop. My Christmas shopping favours no more than 5% of Irish tradesmen and that bothers me because my tendencies mirror those of many others in this iPod economy. Andy Kessler, author of Running Money, writes about it in a Wall Street Journal article. However, as Eoin quite astutely notes below, Kessler's facts are flawed--as are many free trade fanatics who write in the WSJ.

Script Kiddies Trashed Animal Shelter

IRISH ANIMALS -- Script kiddies with attitude trashed the discussion board at Irish Animals, setting back the relocation of dozens of dogs and cats and sentencing other animals to death as a result. The Inistioge Puppy Rescue was affected by the outage on the discussion board and as a result could not respond to requests for rehoming dogs that were later put down by state-run kennels around Ireland. I doubt the script kids who attacked the discussion board understand the full impact of their actions. There are real harms emanating from messing around in the virtual world. If you're bothered by this tragedy, perhaps you might consider contributing to the current Christmas fundraiser with the volunteers behind Irish Animals.

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Irish Animals -- buy a kerchief for your pet
Karlin Lillington  -- might have lost all the archives
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Guidelines for IT Conversations

IT CONVERSATIONS -- Doug Kaye offers some excellent technical tips inside the guidelines he outlines for content accepted for his audible show.

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Doug Kaye -- "Submission Guidelines"
Stuart Henshall -- "Skype + Podcast Recorder = SkypeCasters"
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Cheaper XLR cables

MACSLASH -- It looks like XLR cables will be cheaper and more plentiful next year. For the moment, these are good hunting grounds for XLR cabling:

• Cables for Less
• Cables to Go
• Colomar including step-by-step illustrated tutorial by Jens Moller on making your own low impedance microphone cabling using one male XLR connector and one female XLR connector..

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Mac Slash--"Apple files suit over ruined suprise" via Karlin Lillington
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Why more Irish fly west

CLONMEL -- Rarely a day passes during the holiday season without hearing how vigilant immigration officers have captured Irish citizens in the States who have overstayed their visas. The procedure is simple--they're identified, handcuffed, starved for 12 hours, denied access to phone calls, and locked down for months pending a hearing. This well-oiled tactic, certain to safeguard America from terrorist and eco-tourists, explains why the westbound Aer Lingus flights are exceptionally busy this year. Now Irish grannies go west to visit their offspring who have overstayed. You can hear who they are in Manhattan, Chicago, and Boston. They might be your taxi driver, day labourer, nanny, or mechanic. Like Irish who have landed before, they work hard, do the weekend labour, show up on time on Mondays and rarely complain. I know this story first-hand because it was told to me by my late grandmother who recalls the sweat and toil of the McKelvey and McAuliffe famliles as they made a life in the New World in the late 1800s. Things are different today. Those kind of long-staying entrepreneurs need not apply for entry to the USA. I don't think the Founding Fathers would have agreed to that philosophy. I know the Statute of Liberty would bear a different inscription if it had been erected within the last two years. Times have changed. Attitudes have warped. The undercurrent that oozes below the check-in counters and immigration way stations isn't part of the society I used to defend in uniformed service of the United States. And the way history is being rewritten in the Post 9/11 era, I wonder if anyone will believe America used to welcome the huddled masses?