This week Google’s share price hit a record high this week, reaching $584.39 a pop (according to this impartial source), giving the “do no evil” outfit a market capitalization of 182.41 billion, roughly 9 times that of General Motors.The thing is, along with Google, the site I probably most visit is Wikipedia, the exemplar of [...]
The Monkey's Typewriter
The Monkey's Typewriter was a regular blog column for TMO, published from 2004 to 2008, by Shane Barry.
Randomish Musings
Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007The Golden Boot
Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007In the wake of Ireland’s
Spot the Difference
Friday, September 28th, 2007From Reuters: “President Bush thanked Minister Yang for China’s assistance in facilitating United Nations Special Envoy (Ibrahim) Gambari’s visit to Burma,” Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said.”It’s encouraging–China’s leadership is facing up the responsibilities concomitant with its emerging superpower status. It’s helping to put pressure on a corrupt autocratic regime [...]
It’s Just Been Raining On My Face
Thursday, September 27th, 2007When a friend recommended the HBO series Flight of the Conchords (currently showing on BBC4) by claiming it featured “comedy songs that are actually funny” I was sceptical. I had visions of whimsical ditties fresh from an airing at the Edinburgh Festival, where alcohol and the slight hysteria of a live show commingle to extract [...]
It’s Just Not Fun When You Make It This Easy
Wednesday, September 26th, 2007From the ABC news blog: “Bush’s UN Speech Full of Fone-eh-tick Pronunciations for World Leaders””[This] year, a glimpse of how the President sees his speeches was accidentally placed on the UN website along with the speechwriters’ cell phone numbers.Pronunciations for President Bush’s friend French President Sarkozy “[sar-KOzee]” appeared in draft #20 on the UN website. [...]
Polar and Bare-Faced
Friday, September 21st, 2007According to F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”If we keep Fitzgerald’s definition in mind, the comment from a judge (another one?) at the interminable Mahon tribunal that Bertie Ahern’s explanations about [...]
Ms Kennedy, Tear Down This Wall!
Thursday, September 20th, 2007It’s good to see that The New York Times has abandoned the irritating TimesSelect model, which required the web audience to pay a subscription to read columns from op-ed contributors such as Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman (check out Krugman’s interesting new blog here). Now the paper has moved to an ad-supported approach, not only [...]
We Care A Lot
Tuesday, September 18th, 2007One of the more invidious preemptive strategies of the big players in particular industries is to fund “front” organizations supposedly charged with educating us about the messy side-effects caused by the very products its patrons churn out. It’s called being a “good corporate citizen.” So we have the drinkaware.ie website, which is developed by the [...]
Greedy? Us?
Monday, September 17th, 2007The controversial speech made by Germany’s ambassador to Ireland, Christian Pauls, demonstrates that you don’t have to be a diplomat to head an embassy. Offering a bleak overview of his host country, Herr Pauls apparently told his audience –a group of 80 German industrialists gathered at Clontarf Castle–that Ireland was a “coarse” place where the [...]
