The Cowen Paintings

Wow, what a cofuffle the above paintings caused last week.

There are some great posts here about it and I haven't too much to add. I just want to post one of the painting of the 3rd best paid leader in the world.

Two reasons why Tesco suck!

Food shopping in Ireland can be a frustrating and expensive business.

The big 3, Tesco, Dunnes and Superquinn, have all taken big hits recently as consumers cut back, switch to the discounters (Lidl & Aldi) or go North. The solution has been typically Irish - bambozel everyone with marketing. Here are two choice examples;

Make it confusing
Pretend you have discounted

I am still trying to decide which I find more offensive, the above or Dunnes Stores "the Difference is ... we're Irish" strategy.

Goodbye, No More Mr Nice guy

Sad, but old news, one of my favourite bloggers No More Mr Nice Guy has stopped blogging. You can read his last post here.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Let it Die

Interesting article here (and follow up here) saying the current economic model is flawed, seriously flawed.

Speculators aren’t buying homes in which to live—they are buying houses to flip. Speculators aren’t buying corn to eat or oil to burn, but bushels to hoard and tankers to park off shore until prices rise. The fact that the speculative economy for cash and commodities accounts for over 95% of economic transactions, while people actually using money and consuming commodities constitute less than 5% tells us something important. Real supply and demand have almost nothing to do with prices. We do not live in an economy, we live in a Ponzi scheme.

and

Using future tax dollars to fund government job programs is one thing. Using future tax dollars to give banks more money to lend out at interest is robbing from the poor to pay the rich to rob from the poor.

It's all very interesting, the transition would be nightmarish however.

Ireland recently embarked on the biggest social welfare scheme in it's history by handing over around €7 Billion to the Irish banks, with no guarantee it will even be enough!

Meanwhile talk of regulation grows more muted, the corporate take over seems almost complete...

Busy Busy

I've been very busy lately as so have barely had the time to browse the web much less post any links.

Of course there has been loads of ridiculous things happening here and the world over so I must try to rant more..

Ireland Win 6 Nations 2009

Wonderful! Really really wonderful

What is a capacitor?

Nice little video explains it all;


MAKE presents: The Capacitor from make magazine on Vimeo.