Mikael Fernstrom

>We all knew it. The cuppa of cyber-espresso the morning after is essential for our health. I just browsed a paper by Jimmy Everhart that he presented at the Digestive Disease conference in new Orleans the day before yesterday. Caffeine blocks some of the harmful stuff in alcohol; hence the Olde Cuppa is pure health food. I wonder if you can have a few cups of coffee before going for a drink. Will it help?

OTH, this is the ultimate proof that Irish Coffee is absolutely harmless. The only additive is the cream and sugar. So, if any body dies from drinking Irish Coffee, it’s probably due to the additives. There’s a somewhat similar and traditional drink in Sweden that the old guys used to enjoy when I was a child – Kaffe Gök (transl. Cuckoo Coffee). The recipe is as follows:

1. Put a coin in your cup.

2. Pour coffee in your cup until you can’t see the coin anymore.

3. Pour vodka in the cup until you see the coin again.

SKÅL

>I went out for a walk down the field the other evening. In the ditch, or as some call it – hedgerow, I snapped the image below. I call it Freedom.

So why is it called Freedom? Well, in my mind it can represent what the US government is doing in Iraq, what the Israeli government are doing to the Palestinians, and what many governments around this strange planet called Earth are doing to the people who happen to be living there. As the tree grows, year by year, minute by minute, nobody knows if and when the barbed wire will break, or if the wire eventually will strangulate the tree. But, if the latter happens, the wire will also fall flat to the ground and be left to rust, sink and disintegrate.

>It’s 03:10 in the morning. I’m working on my PhD. Everybody else is sleeping. No phonecalls. No TV. No students. Just me and, as always, the radio. One thing bothers me right now: RTE are re-sending the same programs at night as they originally broadcast in the morning… I’ve already heard this stuff once (or perhaps it’s all recorded. There’s never anything new, just re-broadcasts – no sorry that’s CNN). I’ve also noticed that they’re probably running completely on tape. Quite often their news run into the next program and NOBODY seems to care. Interesting cacaphony though. We won’t make it tonight, though. It’ll take another few good nights of work to get this thesis (and all the friggin code that goes with it!) to work.

>So, what’s broadband then. Here, in Ireland today (where Intel invests billions of Euro, or perhaps dollars) we hear on the radio, see on the telly and the web that we should get it. Here in Ireland we surf to Eircom, IOL, EsatBT, and others, but eventually we’re stuck with… (you should hear a drum roll here) Eircom. And what’s the response? Well, normally you only get to listen to recordings on a computer “Press 1 to pay your bill; Press 2 to go to hell” (sorry, I might have misheard that one). If you eventually get through to a human being, or, find the right web page, you’re told that YOUR particular line cannot be used for broadband and there are NO PLANS for YOUR area to get it. And if you ask them where to move to get this, they don’t know. If, by any chance, you dare to try somebody else’s phone number (who lives 50 meters from the telephone switch) you’re offered a 128k ISDN line. That’s not broadband. I want megabits! At no cost! They should be honoured I even try to use their lines! They should send me a bottle of free wine for every gigabyte I download or upload. Hey, that’s the next problem. I normally upload more than I download. They can’t handle that. And I’d like to resuscitate an old PC as my house gateway (you know, they say Internet – always-on connection) so that I can be in my office and pick up a file by FTP from home – no, they can’t do that. Perhaps they don’t know what FTP is… F***k Telecom Providers, perhaps.

>Where I live, in Lisnagry, County Limerick, Ireland we’re having a lot of problems with illegal dumping of rubbish. You’d expect the environmental section of the local county council to do something about it. I have phoned in and emailed, numerous times, but still, I have seen no action.

At present, the situation along the little road leading down to the Pumphouse, off Mountshannon Road in Lisnagry, is absolutely horrible! If you’d like to see the rubbish, try this

>OK, I’ve said for quite some time that I should start blogging. As I often have strong opinions about a lot of things I might as well put them on-line this away instead of waiting for a rainy day to do it properly.