Cost neutral, In reality the Eu should be funding such projects as a safety net in the event that eu agri policy and Gm practice has got it all wrong. It would be to late by the time they find out that mutations in sheep could lead to them having asses were their mouths should be. Any excess crop produce could be utilized at bio-fuel or compost.
Interesting article in the Indo today on the subject of this thread
Nice to see that someone reads certain threads on P.ieThe green economy is just a pipe dream if we remain broadband laggards, says Magnet chief.
Some very good stuff hereThe story lends credence to the aspirations of a nation that sees alternative energy such as wind and wave power tied in with sophisticated abilities such as exporting this energy via an interconnect with the rest of the world as our potential economic salvation.
'There can be no green economy if we don't sort out our broadband problems first' - Technology, Business - Independent.ie
Regards, Pat Gill
From the linked article:
After all the years of broken promises and spin, this is one thing that completely baffles me still: why the Government has singularly failed to take meaningful steps on broadband provision despite being told by just about everyone who knows anything at all on the subject how important the matter is.He also believes that, at a political level, there is a lack of understanding of digital economic opportunity...
Is it that they genuinely can't grasp the matter - some kind of imaginative failure? Or is it some kind of philosophical position (I know, I know - we're talking about FF, so maybe "philosophy" is the wrong word)? Is it just that they haven't been able to think of a way to skim some money off the process for themselves?
It baffles me.
Last edited by Mitsui2; 12th February 2010 at 02:07 PM. Reason: sp.
It's mainly an age thing. They are all dinosaurs of a fading age.
They're used to patriarchal, hierarchical top-down systems of command and control. They're used to the gombeen system of dependancy on State largesse, where the electorate are passive apathetic consumers of whatever their "betters" deign to provide them.
The possibilities and ethos of the Interwoogie age - free information, do-it-yourself, one guy operating out of his bedroom building a viable online business with no State supports whatsoever, no need to grease palms, no need for "who you know" Golden Circle contacts to get "permission" to operate, fast moving, constantly changing, slightly anarchic, nobody in control, spontaneous self-assembling networks of people to accomplish tasks, information that can't be made secret and access restricted....
And you wonder why our politicians don't get it?
That last sentence above seems to be it in a nutshell. Tax breaks to build apartments in Dublin city centre where there has always been huge demand and which would have been built anyway. Tax breaks to build houses in the middle of nowhere which nobody wants. But where were the tax breaks for broadband infrastructure or indeed for broadband usage ?Originally Posted by Mitsui2
Last edited by fionnmccool; 12th February 2010 at 01:14 PM.
Janey, Sidey, so am I! But age is no excuse. It's gone 25 years since I first got a chance to play with a PC and I'm as gobsmacked by the possibilities of it all today as I was then...especially when I go abroad and see what real broadband is like!
Well yeah, I sort of thought it might be that, FF being FF. I remember back when Micheál Martin was made Minister for Education and used to blather about how every primary school child would have their own email address in the classroom. A decade+ later, my son's leaving school next year and back in his old primary school they're still using the same pcs and the classroom's ate with damp, but even the email addresses haven't materialised!
they have been awful quiet on the computers for schools since this announcement
€150m computers scheme unveiled - The Irish Times - Mon, Nov 16, 2009
Yeah, but yer one of the few of the older generations that have demonstrated shall we say a certain openness of mind
The likes of Clowen, Coughlan, O'Dea, D Ahern etc etc etc are all Old School Ireland in mentality - keep the head down, respect your betters, do what you are told, don't ask questions, accept what you are given and be grateful for it, or you'll get a good clip round the ear. The priest/teacher/bank manager/TD knows best, don't question Authority, don't even think because we'll know if you are having Bad Thoughts. Believe what we tell you to, accept your place, and be content with the life you were born to.
It's a very antiquated, feudal, peasant mentality, it's at least 200 years out of date now. But that's the mindset and worldview almost all our TDs are drawn from. It's no real wonder they don't understand - and fear - the possibilities and promise of creative freedom of the modern technological world.
A few months ago i was talking to a Councillor (FF but don't think thats relevant), of a dynasty line and only 36 years old, and i mentioned Myspace and he actually asked me what it was - 100% genuinely! Says it all for me really.
"We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity.... Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late." "Martin Luther King
Actually I generally agree with you here. That was the general lesson that Holy Catholic Ireland (and I use the phrase as a historical one, without an especially religious connotation) tried very hard to instil in its young. Do all those things and you'd eventually achieve that thing they held out as the ultimate in goals - you'd "get on", begob.
However even in the late '60s, when I was in primary school myself, there were plenty who knew this was all horsesh1t. What I find really depressing is the younger politicians (and by now more and more of them look "younger" to me) who clearly still inhabit that strange 1940s universe in their minds. Politics is one area in which it still seems to hold sway - even among many voters who are otherwise living in at least the 20th century - come election time their minds go soggy and they vote FF/FG/whatever: they vote for the past, and in Ireland voting for the past is a peculiarly masochistic thing for the electorate to do.
As regards education I don't think Irish politicians "get" education at all. Especially FF. Their founding father, De Valera, is on record as having thought Irish people should be educated so as to fit them for their "station" in life - i.e. don't go educating people to think if the only use you'll have for them is shovelling sh1t (now that's a part of its proud heritage you don't hear FF folk talking much about). Yet if Ireland ever does properly enter the 21st century, it'll probably have his fellow-FFer Donagh O'Malley to thank. Mind you it's said by many that O'Malley came up with the whole free education lark while pissed, which would make a kind of sense - certainly it eventually undid much of Dev's good work in preserving the Good Old Days.
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With Quote