Archive for July, 2005
Thursday, July 28th, 2005
A rather strange article in last Saturday's Irish Times relayed a statement by Education Minister Mary Hanafin which condemned both foreign holidays by school students and the fact that many students own cars.
While I'm not one for advocating higher rates of car ownership, this is simply a particularly blatant example ...
Posted in Society and culture | Comments Off on Irish minister doesn’t think students should take holidays
Thursday, July 28th, 2005
The BCI has announced a number of decisions in relation to future commercial radio licensing in Ireland. Most are relatively unspectacular, but note the religious radio announcement at the end:A range of regional youth-driven services will be advertised. The number of these services and the specific make-up of the ...
Posted in Alternative Media, Freedom of the press, Media regulation, Radio, Society and culture | Comments Off on National religious radio station for Ireland
Thursday, July 28th, 2005
I've spent most of the past week or two travelling and entertaining visitors, so I've fallen a little behind in posting various items that I would generally try to cover on this blog, so it's time for a bumper compendium:The website for Radio Research Ireland, a new network of individuals ...
Posted in Alternative Media, Computing Technology, Freedom of the press, International Affairs, Labour issues, Media regulation, Political activism, Prisons and crime, Radio | Comments Off on Omnibus edition
Friday, July 15th, 2005
I've posted a number of pieces in recent months about the proposals for data retention in the EU, focusing on the fact that the Irish government was one of those proposing that retention be for up to three years, and also on the duplicitous nature of the government's representation of ...
Posted in Citizenship, migration, race, and ethnicity | Comments Off on On data, identity and security
Thursday, July 14th, 2005
Tomorrow's Irish Times has an intriguing front page article about a government plan to convert many private beds in public hospitals to public use. (For those not familiar with the Irish health system, it is as complex and convoluted as it sounds.) The plan is to sell land on the ...
Posted in Income and poverty | Comments Off on Funding the health service in Ireland
Wednesday, July 13th, 2005
I've just finished reading Seizing the Airwaves, which charts the state of free or pirate radio in the United States. The book was published in 1998 so some of it is a little out of date - the LPFM has come on line since then, for instance - but much ...
Posted in Alternative Media, Media regulation, Online communication, Radio | Comments Off on Two models of community radio
Wednesday, July 13th, 2005
RTÉ reports claims by the NUJ's General Secretary, Seamus Dooley, that some broadcast oulets have sent letters threatening staff if they joined the union. He was speaking to an Oireachtas committee which is hearing submissions on the Broadcasting Bill.
[As a minor aside, the very useful Oireachtas site doesn't have any ...
Posted in Media regulation | Comments Off on Possible new regulatory environment for Irish broadcasting?
Saturday, July 9th, 2005
There's a reason I avoid watching cable news channels.
Posted in Corporate media | Comments Off on Fox television’s callous attitude
Friday, July 8th, 2005
We're in the middle of rowing season by now and the events are multiplying. Last week my sister Méadhbh, racing with Aberdeen, got to the final four at Henley, ultimately losing to Leander. This week my other sister Heather is racing at the World Cup regatta in Lucerne where she ...
Posted in Personal, Rowing | Comments Off on Rowing updates
Friday, July 8th, 2005
Sascha has produced a good analysis of the costs of a wireless network along the lines of that being developed by the CUWiN project. I'd like to comment on - and hopefully improve - the estimates for bandwidth costs and the number of nodes required.
Sascha estimates bandwidth costs at $600 ...
Posted in Computing Technology | Comments Off on Costing a wireless network