- Today I did 4 km Run. This took me 0:16:59 h. Watch it at #smartrunner http://bit.ly/diLxGr #
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Blog of Random Thoughts and Pictures
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-21
August 21st, 2010Daniel a little messi in the making
August 14th, 2010The little man Daniel is getting handie with a ball and kitted out in his Barca finest may be hes getting ready for the 2017/18 squad.
New Irish stadium is fantastic, the match not so fantastic
August 11th, 2010So the first roar, the first national anthems, the first boring match for the new Landsdowne Road. This really was all about the stadium and not the match.
I was looking forward to the match between Ireland and Argentina, but this was no competitive international, this was a bore, as Argentina were pure class, and Ireland just had one tactic, to hoff the ball up front. Messi showed some flashes of magic, he was clearly head and shoulders above everyone else, with the only player showing any stature on the Ireland side was John OShea.
But enough about the game, the Stadium was just fantastic, and I could tell that the minute there was any good, cheering, singing it would reverberate around the ground very quickly, on a big match day Id say this would be awesome.
One little gripe, on important instances during the game the big screens would NOT show a replay, just a static screen with the new Irish sponsors logo on it. I know they have to do this, but still no replay, was a pain.
So heres to the new Lansdowne Road Mr. Tayto
a href=http://www.flickr.com/photos/miguelpdl/4887948573/ title=Come on Mister Tayto give us a bag of crisps by miguelpdl, on Flickrimg src=http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4139/4887948573_d9c35e7855.jpg width=374 height=500 alt=Come on Mister Tayto give us a bag of crisps //a
There’s always a first time, “Come on You Boys in Green”
August 8th, 2010I could barely remember my first time to Lansdowne Road to watch Ireland play football, but I recently came across the ticket stub, and as with any physical item it helps bring some of the memories back.
It was the start of the Jackie Charlton era, his second match in charge and with the arrival of a South America team to Ireland (it was Uruguay), Dad took the chance to crank up the blue Fiat 127 and get it to drag us up to Dublin. I must say the sights and sounds are vague in my mind, it was cold day and so I didn’t enjoy it when we had to stop at the Dart gates just outside the ground to let a train pass. We headed for the West Upper Stand, which I’m sure meant we had to walk in under the Dart line again but anyway for me it was just concrete, grey dark cold concrete everywhere until we got into the stand and up, and up into the gods. I remember the overhead roof being quite long, and the seats, so wooden and old and grey.
The match, well Uruguay scored first, don’t remember the goal, but the feeling of deflation around the ground was definitely memorable. The biggest excitement of the day was around the Irish goal for sure, which didn’t come too long after the Uruguay one. A penalty taken by the bearded Gerry Daly, scored with aplomb into the South Terrace goal. The cheer was massive, but then the memory starts to fade again as I try and think about whether there was a rendition of “Come on You Boys in Green” at that point, or not, there might have been but I could be wrong. After that the game must have been quite dull as I don’t remember a thing from it, and the match ended as a 1 -1 draw.
Anyway back to the present day and the reason for the post it’s not just a memory of the Old Landsdowne Road, but this week, I get to bring my Dad to the new Aviva Stadium for the first time, in some ways a return trip. The opponents South America again, but this time the mighty, Argentina, sans Maradonna which is a pity.
I’m definitely looking forward to this game, I believe it’s going to be a full house and with the stadium so compact if there is a rendition of “Come on You Boys in Green” I think it will be a good one.
Finally though I do have one small dilemma. You see many months after that match in ’86, Dad had one comment to make, “That fecker I bring him a 100 miles or more to see Uruguay play and he goes and cheers for Ireland!”. On this return trip I may just make up for that.
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-07
August 7th, 2010- 36 years ago to this very day there was a Twin Towers Tightrope Walk by Phillipe Petit http://youtu.be/6ddpV1GvF7E woww #
- Just finishing a Banana Bread Beer which funnily enough after ever burp gives an after taste of bananas. http://www.bananabreadbeer.co.uk #
- Today I did a 4 km Run. This took me 0:16:36 h. Ah feck I'm going slower. #
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Recent Read: Let the Great World Spin
August 7th, 2010Another book down, but in reading the front cover and back cover for this book Let the Great World Spin: A Novel by Colum McCann I hadn’t a clue what it was going to be about. It was a present, and not something I would have picked out but then in reading the first part “Those who saw him hushed” I thought hey this book is going to be about Philippe Petit, and the events around his tightrope walk between the Twin Towers on August 7th 1974 (wow 36 years ago today). Listen to this part of the book on YouTube it only takes 2 mins.
However, it isn’t about the tightrope walk, the book is a series of four short stories, each one elegant, dark and full of colourful and descriptive language of death, well not all about death but certainly linked to grief, but I wouldn’t take that way from the book it’s not too morbit, and I loved the way all the characters in the stories were connected, and in some cases without them even knowing it.
Anyway I enjoyed it, maybe you will to.
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-07-31
July 31st, 2010- @sdempsey Recent comedy sketch "have you been injured while working on an ad campaign for injury claims? Then we can get money for you" in reply to sdempsey #
- In "That Dublin" for a mini break. #
- @fionahaughney @paulmwatson oops I mean Jaybird site 😉 #
- @fionahaughney @paulmwatson yes I ordered those directly from the Jailbird site in reply to fionahaughney #
- @paulmwatson I've got a pair of http://www.jaybirdgear.com/jb200/ & I'm very happy with them in reply to paulmwatson #
- Enjoying Kilkenny Castle http://tinyurl.com/33octfs picnic is just about to start #
- Today I did 4 km Run. This took me 0:16:05 h. Watch it at #smartrunner http://bit.ly/b9JuMP #
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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-07-24
July 24th, 2010- Today I did 4 km Run. This took me 0:16:04 h. Watch it at #smartrunner http://bit.ly/9DEGme #
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New assignment in scientific and technological cooperation across Europe
July 22nd, 2010I’ve recently returned from beautiful Tallinn where the weather was hot and the city was beautiful. I was in Estonia for two items one was the COST-ICT Annual Progress Conference and the other was the COST-ICT domain committee meeting.
Before getting into the conference and meetings a little info on COST. Set up to run as an intergovernmental framework for European cooperation in science and technology, it allows for the coordination of nationally-funded research on a European level. COST does not fund research itself but provides a platform for European scientists to cooperate on a particular project and exchange expertise. These projects are called “Actions”.
A slide set overview of COST can be seen at this link [pdf].
My most recent experience of a COST action has been throught the ICT Action IC0703 TMA. The purpose of TMA is to host a community of researchers around the area of data traffic monitoring and analysis particularly looking at the theory, techniques, tools and applications for future networks. I have seen this community in full effect when collecting and identifying network traffic trace collections. Also Alan Davy has benefited from participating in a short-term scientific mission (STSM) in October 2009.
Anyway back to the Annual Progress Conference and from it I learned about a much broader community of projects such as
- IC0701 | Formal Verification of Object-Oriented Software
- IC0804 | Energy efficiency in large scale distributed systems
- IC0805 | Open European Network for High Performance Computing on Complex Environments
- IC0806 | Intelligent Monitoring, Control and Security of Critical Infrastructure
It was great to see Irish involvement in these Actions with a particular stand out being IC0804 well I would say this as John McLaughlin (TSSG) is participating in this energy efficiency action.
Now to the second part of this meeting, the COST-ICT domain committee meeting. I’ve played many sports in my time, and I always held out the hope that one day I would get to represent my country, I should have know better. But in the area of ICT well I’ve finally managed it.
I was recently nominated to represent Ireland on the COST ICT domain committee, and during the Estonian meeting that nomination was ratified. It’s a four year term and during that time I’ll get to interact more closely with a very vibrant and forward looking community. There will be responsibilities towards reviewing ongoing actions, new actions and also advising existing actions on their potential progress. This assignment (voluntary) will be a nice complement to my existing role in the TSSG.
I am looking forward to this journey and it couldn’t have started in a nicer place than Tallinn, Estonia.
Advanced networking on the Perimeter
July 19th, 2010
The Perimeter project is heading into its thrid year and is really starting to build up a head a steam. The project is looking to achieve seamless mobility driven by actual user needs rather than simply business considerations. Putting the users at the centre rather than the operator enables them to finely control the way their identity, preferences and credentials are used.
In order to explore this space the project recently released its view on how emergency services could be enhanced with the aid of Perimeter mobility technology. This depiction of the emergency scenario is further explained by the TSSG researchers, Frances, Eileen and Gemma on the Perimeter blog.
In supporting this technological roll out and testing, the TSSG team have procured a FEDERICA slice for use within the project. The slice consists of five virtual nodes, which will be
used to deploy the PERIMETER Support Nodes and will allow for a natural maturation of the of the interconnection from a Layer 3 to a Layer 2 connection between the Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) and the Technische Universitaet Berlin (TUB) testbeds used in PERIMETER. The slice will be used for a variety of purposes within PERIMETER including scalability, performance, network overloading and disruptive testing.
From my perspective this is a significant milestone as not only does it extend our testing capabilities in the TSSG, but goes some way to proving the existence of experimentally-driven research methodology in the area of the Future Internet. In talking to Eileen, Gemma and Frances they have a more precise definition and have added this opinion to the recently publihsed paper by the FIREworks Support Action. As we drive into the third and final year of the project I’m quite sure experience will further refine this experimentally-driven research methodology.