Motor Tax changes

There seems to be a lot of confusion regarding the new motor taxation system being introduced in Ireland at the start of July 2008, so I did a little research of my own to see what impact, if any, this will have on me (and my family). I found the answers to most of my questions on the Citizens Information website and for me, it basically boils down to this:

  1. Cars registered before 1 January 2008 will continue to pay motor tax on the basis of engine size.
  2. New cars registered from 1 July 2008 will pay motor tax charges on the basis of seven CO2 emissions.
  3. The CO2 emissions are measured in terms of grammes of Carbon Dioxide emitted per kilometer travelled, or gCO2/km.
  4. There are 7 different bands of emissions, ranging in price from €100 to €2,00.

So for me (and most others I know) nothing changes in the short term and we will continue to pay motor tax based on the older system of engine size, which ironically increased its rates in January 2008. Only when we trade up to a car newer than July 2008 will these changes affect us.

Special Effects Legend dies at 62

I was saddened to learn today of the untimely death earlier this week of the special effects pioneer Stan Winston, at the tender age of just 62. Stan was responsible for the ground breaking effects in movies such as Alien, Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Jurassic Park to name but a few. When I think about each of these movies, I can recall being totally blown away by them and never realised that the same person was responsible for them all.

As we say in Ireland, “Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam” which translates to, “May his soul be on God’s right side”.

Source: Underwire

World’s Longest Domain Name

On a recent visit to Wales, Joe Cashin took a great photograph of a Volvo Car Sales showroom in the town with the longest name in Britain

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

Whilst I had heard of this town before, I did not realise that it holds the record for the longest Internet domain name in the world, which is:

http://www.llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogochuchaf.co.uk

Upon visiting this site I learned that the longest domain name supported by the Internet (excluding the suffix) is 63 characters and amazingly the above domain name has exactly this many letters. However, if you look closely you will see that the domain name above actually contains and additional 5 letters (uchaf). This is because the domain represents the upper/older part of the village and “uchaf” is the Welsh for “higher” or “upper”.

It’s just a shame that they didn’t put a little more effort into the website.

Christie Hennessy R.I.P.

I was shocked and saddened to read about the death of the Irish singer-songwriter Christie Hennessy this week. I wouldn’t claim to be one of his biggest fans musically but I do believe that he was a man of enormous talent, both musically and personally. I have never seen him without a huge smile on his face and it always cheered me up to see how much he enjoyed his own work, singing and playing the guitar.

Christie died from Asbestosis earlier this week, apparently from years of working in harsh conditions in the construction industry in England. He was just 62 years of age.

May he rest in peace.

Source: RTE News

It’s Just a Game

Incredibly, another Chinese man has died from playing computer games. Apparently, he was attending some sort of online gaming marathon in an Internet cafe and fainted from exhaustion after 3 days playing non-stop. I knew there were some serious gamers out there but didn’t think they would actually risk their health and, more importantly, their life for the sake of it.

Source: TheStar.com

Life after Research and careers in research

I heard an interesting discussion on Irish Radio last week (The Last Word on Today FM) about what it means to have a career in research in Ireland. It featured Dr. Tim Yeomans (Post Doctoral Researcher at Trinity College, Dublin) and Professor Michael Ryan (Professor of Computing at Dublin City University).

The discussion centered around the career prospects (job security, career structure) for Irish researchers and whether or not we have missed the boat in terms of the Knowledge Economy. They also talked about why very few private sector companies are willing to invest in Research & Development at present.

Click here to listen to a PodCast of the show (the article starts at around 5 minutes, 45 seconds in). I didn’t catch the entire piece but the bits I did hear were quite interesting.

Also recently published (with the same theme) was an article entitled The Post-Doctoral Research Experience in Ireland (in a recent edition of EmbarkReview, a publication by the Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology).

Welcome Adam Mernin

I’m delighted to announce the arrival of Adam Mernin to the world. He is the second son of my brother, John and his wife Julie. He arrived 2 weeks early at 9pm on Thursday, September 28th 2006 at Waterford Regional Hospital, Ireland and weighed in at 6lbs 6ozs.

Yet again, it is just utterly amazing that, there I was sitting at home, and hey presto, I was able to look at a picture of my new nephew on a device that is countless times smaller than he is, literally within minutes of his birth. I mean, did my parents ever dream that such a thing would be possible in their lifetime? I can’t help wondering where technology will be when it is Adams turn to announce the arrival of someone close to him.

Congratulations and well done Julie!

Conor Quinlan

Congratulations to my mate Gavan and his wife Michelle who are the proud parents of baby Conor, born last week in Dublin. It’s been a long time coming I’m sure but looking at the pictures of mother and baby, it looks like it was well worth the wait. Of course he’s already taking after his father, knocking back large bottles and falling asleep within 10 minutes!!!

He’s a very lucky lad to have such great parents and I’m sure they will make wonderful parents…