Will Knott

I can only assume that the Tayto cheese and onion crisp chocolate bar is a childhood dream come true for someone. In the days when mixing your snacks together (probably with fizzy orange and birthday cake in the mix) was a good idea, you would try it.

It tastes exactly like what you would expect crisps (potato chips for the Americans) and chocolate to taste like. Mouth feel is chocolate and crisped rice (there is rice in the ingredients). The combination does not work.

Part of this is that the childhood version would have been Tayto and +Cadbury UK Dairy Milk. Rumour has it that Butler's chocolate was used. Every chocolate maker has a slightly different taste, this mix was tweaked the wrong way.

Glad I tried it. But no. Until the Smokey Bacon Tayto Crisp and Chocolate Bar that is.

"I still believe in Bewley's"… I think that's the only line you would need to change to do a version of this in any Irish town or city. I still believe in Sir Henry's, I still believe in King John's, I still believe in Eyre Square…

So take a walk through very late night Dublin City, with salty (NSFW) language and a fundamental truth, "there are ten good reasons to go, but a thousand tiny ones not to, and you can't tell which is which anymore."

It seems like months ago that a US based TV crew came to film a Coder Dojo session and interview a few of the participants.

Well folks the video is up and it shows sessions in the NCS Cork and the Science Gallery in Dublin.

There are Coder Dojos all around the world now, we really need to see if Coder Dodo Antarctica is possible (I suspect a "R" workshop would be best there).

And yes that is me, looking terrible as usual, in the clip. But its also some amazing minds coding, modding and creating.

CoderDojo.com for details of your nearest Dojo.
Above all, be cool…

I don't know if I'm able to get on the list yet, but Coder Dojo is going to be running a session in Leinster House on Wednesday July 18.

For the non-Irish on the feed, Leinster House is the Irish Houses of Parliament building (housing the Dáil and the Senate). Needless to say its a big deal; I'll have to wear a clean hoodie.

Coder Dojo is less than a year old, I'll have to check my diary later, but it started towards the end of August 2011 with the first class in the National Software Centre in Mahon, Cork. Technically I was too old to go, but I came along and tried out learning simple HTML with the kids that the classes were intended for. (I learned about the Marquee tag, and vowed never to use it outside of demos and jest). Shortly afterwards I started mentoring to active coding minds from age 8 to 16 mostly (no I didn't ask the young lady her age, but the junior certificate hit this year). There are now 41 dojos in Ireland and 104 across the globe.

The dojos have no money. Its all volunteers and donated time, places, some equipment and usually a BYOD (bring your own device) setup. And while we have a minor Minecraft addiction, its also a Minecraft server build and machinima project, so it sort of works out. The lack of a government having to pay means that they like it.

The fact that its a group who said "sod it I'm going to do it myself" is something a government might want to be worried about. Imagine what a bunch of 9 year olds could have done with the old voting machines about to be scrapped.

Exciting times.

Reshared post from +Siliconrepublic

Irish Government to host CoderDojo at Leinster House on 18 July

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Irish Government to host CoderDojo at Leinster House on 18 July
In a fitting way to mark the first anniversary of the founding in Ireland of a revolutionary and international movement aimed at fostering crucial coding skills in kids as young as seven, the Governme…

“Dance, Its all I want to do” — Kylie Minogue “All The Lovers”

All me to introduce you to a very special Cork woman; Joanne O’Riordan.

She is a young woman, born without limbs, who uses technology everyday, much like us all, to have an average life. I didn’t say “normal”, mainly because I’m not sure what normal is. She has effectively changed government directions already, and she isn’t even past starting yet.

She has put up a challenge to the technologies communities around the world to build her a robot.
I’m not sure she is actually after a robot, a robot being an autonomous artificial form. I suspect that a limb she can control is a but closer to what she is after.

But its a challenge.

However I’m offering a sincere possible counter challenge. Learn how to build one yourself.
I’m a mentor at CoderDojo in Cork. I’d also like to learn and teach how to make a robot. A controlled limb. A walking bi, quad or hexapedal creature.

But be adventurous, why build a limb to pick things up, when you could create a being to dance. Change expectations, challenge what others think is the norm.

Create something, something designed to cause wonder.

Build something, learn how to build something, teach others how to build something.

So, care to take up the invitation? (And I’m looking for an excuse to use a few books)

This is a Loose Bloggers Consortium post, and I’m playing catch up,  on the themes of  “Dance”, “Dominion and stewardship” (robot is based on the Czech word for slave), “Sincerity”, “Change” and “Invitations”…
To find out that the others in the consortium think, check out, …
Delirious, Maria/Gaelikaa, Maria SilverFox OCD writer, Padmum, Paul, Ramana, The Old Fossil, Grannymar.

Small conversations on Twitter can sometimes lead to other things. What came up from George was this video of the opening credits of Hawaii Five 0.

Then Conor O’Neill pointed out that the TV show probably caused a huge increase in tourist numbers to Hawaii. So I got to wondering if it is possible to crowd source a script for a television series to show off Ireland at its finest.

A procedural drama might be easy, but there are a few catches. Only a few squads work throughout Ireland, homicide naturally is one of them, but most murders probably won’t attract a lot of tourists. Actually that isn’t true, deaths, even fake ones attract crowds, but would they spend?

Instead, let’s look at romance. Supernatural romance. Vampires are very popular when it comes to romance at the moment. Look at True Blood or the Twilight series for proof. However, the vampire area crowded. So let me think of a different set of supernatural lovers.

Fae.

Fae, Bean Sí, leprechauns, the fairies. Those stories that lasted a long time in Ireland, and in the Irish legends they were mostly human adult sized and frequently mistaken for beautiful men and women (there are a few children sized ones too). Eoin Colfer is still writing about them in his Artemis Fowl series. His is a coming of age story for a master teenage criminal who keeps crossing paths with the fairy police force responsible for covering up the existence of the mystical folk, the L.E.P. Recon squad. I think this story should be about someone human discovering that the tales of the Bean Sí and the changelings aren’t fairy tales.

Fae Play. Cute name. The building works on the Hill of Tara that came about through the M3 should be a nice starting ground. What would happen if the people in the fairy tales, from Tír na nÓg, from the Fenian Cycle, from the stories of the Tuatha Dé Danann showed up. Them or, more sensibly, their descendants (the really odd thing about the ancient Irish gods was that they could grow old and die. Eventually, even if it takes 300 or 900 years, so descendants it is).

The series would be set in modern day Ireland, and with creatures across the land and tied to nature, they would naturally be set in places able to show off some of the country’s beauty. I can almost see selkies surfing in the North West.  A kelpie in Killarney. A kiss in the moonscape of the Burren.

Could it work? Goodness knows, but given that “supernatural romance” now has its own section in book shops, it worth knocking together something to make in to a web series at least.

Cork’s Saint Patrick’s Parade was today. I still have to go through all the photographs but on a spot at the parade’s end I’ve managed to catch a few shots.

The theme was supposed to be about maritime history, but most of the floats went for the pirates theme. Sometime it works and sometimes,

its a little stilted

Given the day that’s in it. Just remember to vote.

Photo taken on the Cork City Photowalk in September

Jason Roe is doing it again.

I mentioned one of his BTW (Blogger, Tweet-up, Whatever) events before, and I think this s his fourth.

The idea is that us lot shouldn’t only communicate behind screens, since Ireland isn’t that big a place. So meet up and actually hold someones hand. Or at least give a real wave rather than a “*wave*”

The new BTW is going to be in the Kudos bar is the Clarion Hotel in the ISFC, Dublin on September 3rd at 7pm. That’s room for 150 people.

Register on his site, then come over and say “hello” in person.

Will

Michael O’Brien, former councillor and Mayor of Wexford(correction May 27) Clonmel attended the RTÉ programme Questions and Answers on 25 May 2009 and, after Minister Noel Dempsey, the sponsoring minister of the Ryan Commission report in to Child Abuse allegations spoke, Mr O’Brien spoke to the minister and to the panel.

I’ve done the transcript of the video clip below mainly because audio indexing does not work that well for video clips. And video clips have a habit of disappearing off the web.
The other reason is that this clip seems to be the turning point for a lot of discussions. And possibly some action.

—

—

—Start of transcript

Mr. Chairman, I’m surprised at the minister there now.

First of all Mr Minister (directed at  Minister Noel Dempsey) you made a bags of it in the beginning by changing the judges. You made a complete bags of it at that time, because I went to the La Foy commission and ye had seven barristers there, questioning me and telling that I was telling lies, when I told them that I got raped of a Saturday, got a merciful beating after it, and then stuffed…

… he came along the following morning and put holy communion in my mouth.

You don’t know what happened there. You haven’t the foggiest, you’re talking through your hat there. And you’re talking to a Fianna Fáil man, a former councilor and former mayor you’re talking to, that worked tooth and nail or you, for the party that you’re talking about now. Ye didn’t do it right, ye got it wrong.

Admit it.

And apologize for doing that. Because you don’t know what I feel inside me. You don’t know the hurt I am.

You said it was non-adversarial.

My God.

Seven barristers.

Throwing questions at us.

Non-stop.

I tri.. attempted to commit suicide, there’s the woman who saved me from committing suicide,  on me way down from Dublin, after spending five days at the commission. Five days I spent at the commission. They brought a man over from Rome, ninety odd years of age, to tell me I was telling lies.

That I wasn’t beaten for an hour, non-stop by two of them.

By two of them.

Non-stop from head to toe without a shred of cloth on my body.

My God minister.

And could I speak to you (comment directed to Leo Varadkar, Fianna Gael), and ask your leader, would you stop making a political football of this.

You hurt this when you do that.

You tear the shreds from inside our body.

For God’s sake, try and give us some peace.

Try to give us some peace and not to continue hurting us.

That woman will tell you how many times I jump out of the bed at night with the sweat pumping out of me. Because I see these fellas at the end of the bed with their fingers doing that (gestures) to me. And pulling me in to the room, to rape me, to bugger me and bate the shite out of me. That’s the way it is.

And you know what?

You know what, sometimes I listen to the leader of Fianna Fáil. I even listened to the apology. T’was mealy mouthed, but at least t’was an apology.

At least t’was an apology.

The Rosminians said in the report, they said they were easy on us. The first day I went to them. The first day to Rosminians in my home which is Ferryhouse in Clonmel, ’cause its the only home I know. He said “you’re in it for the money”.

We didn’t want money.

We didn’t want money. We wanted the pr…  someone to stand up and say “yes, these fellas were buggered, these people were ra…”

Little girls. My daughter, oh sorry, my sister. A month old when she was put in to an institution. Eight of us from the one family, dragged by the ISPCC cruelty man. Put in to two cars, brought to the court in Clonmel. Left standing there without food or anything, and the fella in the long black frock and the white collar came along and he put us in to a van.

Not a van, a scut truck, I don’t know what you call it now. And landed us below with two hundred other boys. Two night later I was raped.

How can anyone…

You’re talking about constitution. These people would gladly say “yes” to a constitution to freeze the funds of the religous orders.

This state, this country of ours, would say “yes” to that constitition if you have to change it.

Don’t say you can’t change it.

You’re the governement of this state. You run this state. So for God’s sake stop mealy mouthing. ‘Cause I’m sick of it.

I’m sick of it.

You’re turning me away from voting Fianna Fáil which I have done from the first day that I could vote. Because. And you know me. You know me Mister Minister. You’ve met me on a number of ocassions. So you know what I’m like.

— End of transcript

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