Inside View from Ireland

Telekenesis 101

DIY TELEKINESIS is easy to learn and since I've mastered the art, I want to pass along the technique.

1. Place your object your trying to move in front of you.

2. Place your thumb near the object, this will allow your aura to extend into its aura.

3. Visualize the object moving, just see it sliding over the table. Try adding some more feeling to it by adding sound to the visualization.

4. If you still cannot move it, try again.

Tip: If you are tired, stop with the session. Lie down for a bit, try later.

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Hat tip to Wikihow.

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Facebook Perils

EVERY FOUR MONTHS, we have the attention of a captive audience of 40 teens, like those at left, who immerse in new media for six hours a day. They are minnows in an online ecosystem, swimming in waters very unfamiliar to their school teachers. When these college-oriented students land on our doorsteps, we share personal stories about the need to be careful online. At a short event a few weeks ago, some of the 15-yr-old students shared tidbits of their experience with Facebook and Bebo. It seemed like a cool thing for several girls to notch up more friends as possible, as though they were in a competition. So they accepted hundreds of people as their online friends--people they do not know. "Would any of these people be your mates?" "No way." In several cases, they input their mobile phone numbers online. Hundreds of other people could see those numbers. These numbers are merely data points in the Facebook matrix. You can guess what happened next--the phones started ringing.

My Nights of Late

PERHAPS CONCERNED about my mental state, or merely passing judgment on my tendency to start microblogging at 3AM on some mornings, James Corbett pointed to Pre-Industrial Sleep, a concept I saw in the Sunday edition of the New York Times and an idea posted by Stowe Boyd. Historians know all about "old sleep" because journals recorded the pattern of life enjoyed by pre-industrial people. It differs markedly from the way we mark out our days from nights today. If I switch on my study before 5AM, at least one neighbour will ask me about my work-life balance sometime during the following week. Yet my morning clocks have always rang in the sunrise, perhaps as a remnant of my Iowa farmer genetic set.

Thankful After Walking the Wild

MY MIDDLE DAUGHTER may go to the land of Chris McCandless for part of next year, a place where lots of life is unrestrained by tarmacadam and telephone lines. Misty doesn't plan to walk off into the country to starve to death but just the thought that she might go into the Arctic Circle makes me think of the life of a drifter. I know that lifestyle because I survived a bad winter of it in the early 90s when you could forage off the supplies left behind by the Soviet Army in the old east German and Slovakia and the Czech Republic. I didn't have to grow my own crops but I had a bow saw and kept warm cutting wood to fuel fireplaces where I squatted. I wrapped up my Cold War sleeping bag after living for seven months on day-old bakery goods and wartime stockpiles of canned food.

Gathering Around the Tube

IN A MASS COMMUNICATIONS course I teach, a timeline of technology shows how times have changed. From years ago, I have a photo of the Irish aunts and uncles gathered around their council Aga stove every evening at dinner. Mary sat on the left and Joseph sat on the right as their five daughters swapped stories heard during the day. Decades after I got that black and white photograph, Ruth and I now gather around the kitchen laptop because many of our stories revolve around email snippets, YouTube clips, podcast fragments or Flickr photostreams. While growing up in Pennsylvania, we endured hours of scratchy audio from local radio. I never wanted to subject my household to that same background noise but now I have found myself thinking that bacground sounds can warm the soul. As long as there is an off switch we should be grand. And while I don't expect visitors to shut up on request, it's somewhat empowering to be able to turn off Matt Cooper or George Hook with a simple point and click of the remote across the kitchen floor.

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David Armano -- "Times have changed."

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Where Do Good Mobile Phones Retire

MY BEST MOBILE PHONES never find their way into the landfills. After serving as primary phones for a few weeks, they often enter my Bihn bag where they get to run one of my back-up SIM cards. They find themselves in the pockets of grateful senior citizens a few years later, with people who can give them another three or four years of useful life. The seniors I know receive more phone calls than they make. They rarely turn off their mobile phones and just use the things as a family texting service. I've started wondering about the new homes that my Nokia N70, a long-serving Nokia 9500 and my Sony Walkman phone will enjoy. Two others will head towards the west coast of the US and operate on American networks with Maxroam. Another will park itself in a purse in County Kildare where it will double as a photo album and podcast player. I wonder what happens to Liam Noonan's trusty Nokia 6310i?

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Liam Noonan -- Retirement of my Nokia 6310i"

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Review of Da Pino Italian Restaurant Dublin

DA PINO, an Italian Restaurant in Parliament Street, Dublin, is a good all-around Italian restaurant. You can find other Italian restaurants in the immediate vicinity but Da Pino feels more authentic and more comfortable than others in the middle of Temple Bar.

Best pasta in Temple Bar.

Rated 4/5 on Nov 21 2007

Vote on Bernard Goldbach's Reviews at LouderVoice

Rotating Art

I HAVE FRIENDS who are full-time artists and I've bought some of their stuff. I have a young daughter who can spend 10-12 minutes at a time looking at art on the wall so I want to buy good art for her to view. Doc Searls writes about a related idea involving a rotating art display.

"So here’s the idea: a Net-native service that provides homes and offices with good art (choose your definition) that can be be replaced from time to time so it doesn’t get stale. The purpose is to promote good art and artists and find homes for the former, rather than just to make money servicing interior designers. Community might be involved. Other higher purposes as well."

I have always wondered if I could sign up as some kind of donor with the Butler Gallery and then get an opportunity to hold a piece of Irish artwork for a month in my home. I'm sure there are others who might like to do the same thing. There's a net dimension needed to take care of the details, similar to the idea we are trying to develop for a Traveling Moleskine Project.

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Doc Searls -- "Art in the Wild"

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InsideView on Irish Web Usage

VIA DAMIEN MULLEY, I'm reading ComScore statistics for September 2007 and the data reveal the top 10 internet properties visited by 2m Irish web users during September 2007. The top five sites are non-Irish sites. Only three of the top 10 sites visited by Irish users are Irish sites.

In the weekend papers

WHEN LOCALS ASK me the same question, it's probably time to follow up on their ideas. Over the past two days, four people in Cashel have asked me when I'm going back to the States. It's a fair question because people travel during the Christmas holidays and we have a little one who wants to see her grandmother in Pennsylvania. Then there is the economic issue about visiting America--every day the euro buys more dollars. It's like visiting a city-wide 50%-off sale now on in NYC. And the weekend papers continue this theme.