80% Of Irish People Do Not Understand Lisbon Treaty
April 28, 2008 (4 Responses)
A SURVEY released by the Referendum Commission today shows that – shockingly – approximately 80% of people surveyed do not yet understand what the Lisbon Treaty is about.
This is one of the most important treaties that Ireland has had to consider thus far in relation to European influence over our economic and military affairs, it’s due to go to a referendum in just under seven weeks… and yet most Irish people haven’t got a clue what it’s about yet.
It seems that just 5 per cent said they understood the treaty, while 15 per cent answered that they understood it to some extent. A total of 30 per cent did not know the name or subject of the referendum. I suspect, given recent polling on the topic, that the referendum is going to be one of the closest in living memory, considering the current difference between the Yes and No camps is only a few percentage points, and it’s pretty certain that this situation is only continue to change as the voting day looms ever closer. Read more
Site Redesign Update
April 25, 2008 (One Response)
THIS IS JUST A QUICK UPDATE on the state of things in respect of the site migation and redesign. I have a cool new theme in the works with some funky new features and a completely redesigned front page almost ready to roll.
I have rethought the categories and content layout completely and am in the progress of mapping this onto the new design. I know there are still some bugs and issues with the current version of Wordpress, so I am going to try to sync my site migration to a new hoster and the updating of the presentation layer with the release of the patched version of WP, which I understand is a couple of weeks away.
Sorry for the mess folks, it has taken a lot of work behind the scenes to deal with the issues and work on a compeltely new look and feel, but I think you will love it once it is up and running. More as it happens…
New Security Camera Can Basically Undress You
April 16, 2008 (6 Responses)
It used to be X-RAY Specs and Laser Vision, but actually technology has finally caught up with the sci-fi predictions. Enter the ThruVision T5000 Camera, a technological marvel that is being deployed in UK Airports to help in the fight against terrorism by essentially looking ‘through’ your clothing to see what you might be hiding underneath.
You read that right… the camera has the ability to basically undress you in real time and see what lurks beneath.
The camera is based on Terahertz radiation, commonly called T Rays. T Ray is a very high frequency radiation, more than a hundred times higher than micro-wave, T Rays easily permeate fabric, paper, wood, plastic and smoke with the exception of metal or water. This allows it to go through the clothes people are wearing and detect any weapons or even narcotics carried by the person. T Rays, unlike X Rays present no health risks for human beings.
The camera is also equipped with a normal video surveillance camera to allow security personnel compare images to determine what objects peaople are concealing. The camera is already in use in London’s Canary Wharf financial area and in London’s busy Piccadilly Circus, and of course the potential to roll it out to airports is obvious, although the range is limited enough currently at 25m.
I guess it won’t be long before we’re in a situation where these types of cameras are deployed all over the place.
Site Fixed But Redesign & Migration In Progress…
April 11, 2008 (One Response)
I’M DELIGHTED to be able to report that the site issues of late (notably the inability to see pages displayed correctly as a result of a Wordpress ugrade) have all been fixed. At least I think they have been, but if you notice anything out of whack please do let me know.
Regardless, I’ve decided to forge ahead with the new site design and migration to a Linux hosted environment. I expect I’ll have it all done in the next couple of weeks or so, and will do an update at the appropriate time.
If you have any suggestions for imprroving things around here then please do let me know and I’ll take them into consideration as part of the redesign.
Decision Made, Redesign & Migration Underway
April 5, 2008 (One Response)
OK. I’M OFFICIALLY PISSED OFF with the issues I’ve encountered since trying to update my site to the latest revision of Wordpress and I’m overdue a site redesign anyway so I’ve taken the decision to move my hosting and site to a new hoster, under a Linux hosting plan, and at the same time I’m doing a complete site redesign and content reorganisation.
To put it simply I’m ripping the shit outta things here and will have it all up and running sometime soon under a completely new design with better categories, tagging, navigation and options. It’s going to be a lot of work, but I hope it will be worth it in the long run.
Right now my site pages are not displaying correctly (in Wordpress terms these are the static pages versus the dynamic posts), so most of my navigation links to things like the privacy statement or my disclaimer etc. don’t work because of a bug in the upgrade.
I’m reworking all my categories, links, URLS and content from the ground up on this site first, then I intend to migrate all the content to the new setup, so please be patient while I screw with things at this end for a few days until it’s right. Then I guess I will either migrate to the new site first, get it all up and running then then upgrade the design of Avalon5, or else I’ll do the design first and then migrate into it.
Oh well – it’s never dull around here is it? 
