Inside View

Seen in Cork

On banner paraded proudly by female Munster fans: "Stringer--We want your babies!"

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Nearly Killed

SOMETIMES I'M GLAD I live a few thousand miles from the redneck neighbour with the gun rack in the back window and the Confederate flag fluttering over the BBQ pit. John Walkenbach explains why:

"My neighbor accidentally put a .44 Magnum round though my wall. It missed my head by three inches. It started in his bathroom, went through the mirror, went through the closet on the other side, blew through that closet door, traveled across his hallway, blew through our common wall, ricocheted upward off my computer desk, and lodged in the doorframe."

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See the pictures

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Sushi Etiquette

WE ARE TRYING to learn the inside secrets of sushi, including both its preparation and its etiquette. Here are some tips from Sushi Otaku for those who wish to observe sushi etiquette too.

World's Most Expensive Phone Number

THE REGISTER reports, "The world's most expensive phone number was auctioned for charity yesterday in Qatar. The number, 666 6666, sold for 10m Qatari riyals or £1.5m. The previous record holder was Chinese number 8888 8888, which sold for £270,000. The Cantonese word for eight sounds very similar to the word for rich. It was bought by Sichuan Airlines."

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John Oates -- "World's most expensive phone number is 666 6666"

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Enrique Raftery

WELCOME IRELAND'S youngest blogger: Enrique Raftery Carnicero. He arrived in Cork amid a flurry of blogospheric welcomes and now looks set to appear as a backing vocal for upcoming Podleaders episodes. Welcome, Enrique! Don't be spending all your time hammering away on the keyboard. Use it for what it was designed to do--a jigsaw puzzle that starts with you removing the keys.

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Damien Mulley -- "Congrats."
Google for Enrique Raftery.

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Accepting Your Google Identity

SENDING MAIL from your own domain, especially one whose domain keys validate by others when they clear spam filters, is an important consideration for many people who want to tighten down their grips on the threat of identity theft. Robin Blandford explains as much when considering his hot desk technology. "Outlook Email -> GMail. Gmail is great, my only problem is everyone can see I’m using Gmail and not my own domain (even though the reply-to is set)."

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Robin Blandford -- "Moving to a Hot-Desking Method"

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Reformat Nokia N70

SERIES 60 Nokia phones can be reformatted with a special three-stroke keystroke sequence on power-up. When turning the phone on, press and hold both these three keys: green/talk, 3 and * when powering up the phone. When formatting begins, release the keys.

IP address at birth

DAVID SMITH points out some things being discussed by internet architects in Edinburgh this week druing the 15th International World Wide Web Conference:

• Babies assigned a personal website at birth;
• Companies that store your 'digital assets' like a bank;
• Search engines which find your perfect holiday with undreamt-of precision.

Most successful rugby season ever

THIS IS NOW the most successful season in Irish rugby history with a Triple Crown and a European Cup victory to savour. It's impossible to see all the special moments or to even expect that a "Best Of" collection will grab all the highlights. While flicking through Irish blogs, I spotted some things I missed the first time around.

Chinese watch list

EVEN IF I had the watch words used by the totalitarian Chinese government to monitor internet users, I doubt that the character sets installed on my computer would display them correctly. Nonetheless, I am keen to know which words alert those listening at the great firewall of China. Some of those watchwords have blocked Typepad blogs and they also result in direct action during Skype instant messaging.

Rebecca MacKinnon --"Skype ignores users concerned about China censorship"
Jaanus Kase -- "Comments about Skype chat text filtering in China"

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