The Internet is a big old scary place, full of dark corners, strange protocols, dodgy individuals, unscrupulous corporations and cynical state-level actors. The tools we use to access the Internet, though often very powerful, remain badly-designed. This is true not only in terms of the User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI), but also in … Read more
The Lancet’s recent editorial, ‘Austerity in Spain: time to loosen the grip’, argues that low government expenditure was ‘undermining the principle of universal coverage’ in that country. They point to pensioners devoting a substantial proportion of their incomes to medicines, and warn of excessive delays in elective surgeries being carried out. Detrimental effects are particularly … Read more
‘Blade Runner 2049’ is a sci-fi follow up to the 1982 cult classic starring Harrison Ford and Sean Young. Our future hero is Ryan Gosling who navigates a lonely, desolate world amid general dystopian bleakness. The viewer is told that by 2049 all ecosystems have collapsed, leaving a sterile planet, allowing humans to survive only … Read more
This article was triggered by events that took place at the Community Garden located on Oliver Bond Street, Dublin 8 before Christmas 2017. Our petition and a background story can be found here. The average person living in a city centre has very little interaction with actual soil: city dwellers spend most of their time … Read more
In Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy (1320) we encounter a forlorn Ulysses (Greek, Odysseus) in the Inferno, punished to eternal torments for deceitful stratagems in the Trojan war, and beyond. Dante adds a layer to the Classical myth, where the aged warrior returns to his native Ithaca only to find: not sweetness of a son, … Read more
In the beginning in order to count we used, as we still do, our fingers, and sometimes our toes. Not only are they conveniently arranged according to the prime divisors of their sum (2 and 5 multiplied make 10, and no other primes less than 10 divide evenly therein), but we can also fold them … Read more
Bitcoin and the Blockchain are perhaps the most hyped technology today, rivalling even Artificial Intelligence for extreme predictions and outrageous claims. We need to talk about the ecology. Bitcoin is a cryptographically-backed, anonymous, pseudo-currency invented by the otherwise unknown Satoshi Nakamoto. It has a dollar value because it is traded on the market, as can … Read more
We are currently seeing relatively intense media focus on veganism, but I am worried this is another false dawn. All social movements go through peaks and troughs, and today’s coverage reminds me of what happened in the 1980s and 1990s. It is quite possible we are seeing the beginnings of a repeat cycle. If we … Read more
The Irish-based Go Vegan World is the largest vegan education campaign worldwide. Its sophisticated advertising campaign has got under the skin of the animal exploitation industries, who have attempted, unsuccessfully, to shut it down. In this article founder Sandra Higgins explains the ethical considerations that animate her grassroots movement. Most people imagine themselves to be … Read more