Joe’s Blog

I’ve recently discovered A Random Walk - Irish Financial Blog and find it an interesting read on a daily basis, especially considering the US sub-prime mortgages, the worldwide credit crunch, the Irish property bubble and so on.

The ECB has to step in and loan €155.85 billion to banks to save them from a credit crunch.

Goldman Sachs has to plug a hole into one of its hedge funds - at least $2 billion

I think the ECB will raise rates at the next meeting. They used their usual codewords “strong vigilance” but in the meantime the credit crunch hit and the ECB gave out extraordinary loans. BUT the central banks work together and the Norwegian bank gave out a few billion too and still raised rates - Norway Raises Key Rate to Head Off Higher Inflation

Are things okay and returning to normal? The Financial Times doesn’t think so - ECB chief fails to reassure markets

Via Eamon - www.piss-screen.de (safe for work)

Blackle may not help according to the official Google blog

To the contrary, on flat-panel monitors (already estimated to be 75% of the market), displaying black may actually increase energy usage

Photoshop contest: worth1000.com

Whitehat SEO tips for bloggers

Big shout out to Denis in Paris; Ilona Mitrecey - Un Monde Parfait (A perfect world)

While looking for this I came across some good sites for finding past chart hits in Germany - www.charts-surfer.de and Schlager der Woche which shows that young Ilona was beaten by a German/US/British pop group made famous by RTL II called US5

Can you add to this video from Google? - Add your clip to this video

Giant Lego figure appears on beach

Turns out that there is a crypt worth visiting in Dublin - St Michan’s Church & Crypt via Elly and Maryrose

Also via Elly - Nokia Announces Battery Recall

GSpace - a firefox addon (not from Google) worth trying perhaps

Aaaah - the hippies are threatening our jelly babies! Next it will be chocolate…
UPDATE: Feic - the cost of chocolate is shooting up too;

Correct cheese coverage formation - a tip for the shop in UL?

Transport 21 has gone tits-up already - 2yrs delay for Citywest Luas after 18 months. Would Enda have stood for this? It wasn’t announced either - websites were simply updated…

Many other people have posted this but I was there too - John & Patrick Collison of Auctomatic share their experiences of setting up Auctomatic, ycombinator and Silicon Valley.


People were quite excited to be part of an interactive webcast too - we were getting feedback and questions from the people watching the live stream

Some people seem to doubt the whole global warming thing - have a read of this from Mark

And have a read on Wikipedia about the pros and cons of:
The Great Global Warming Swindle
An Inconvenient Truth

The fall of Bloggorah/Gatsby? because of that dog magazine in NY?

Via Barry:

Via Open Source Gardens - The Battle of Kruger which is one of the top youtube videos (10m+ views). Watch to the end or read the BBC Article

The entreprenuers from Limerick that were turned down by EI and raised $400,000 in Silicon Valley at Limerick OpenCoffee on Thursday - Auctomatic

The butter mountain is gone, the Bavarians sound more agricultural than the Irish and milk is becoming a sought-after commodity - a very interesting article: Getting Milked

Via topgold - The New York Times asks is cutting food miles is really beneficial

And what can make Germans cut through bureaucracy and punctuality - beer; Train Halts to Replace Beer Tap

Pencil stuck in brain, mostly removed after 55yrs

Via George/Damien - Forget Transformers: “A Gentleman’s Duel” by Blur Studios
(UPDATE: content removed but google it if you can) or have a look at the teaser http://www.blur.com/gentlemans_duel.html

For those of you considering Vista - it’s pretty but has some…quirks. Have you experienced this? Click for the full comic

I can has ur cheezburger - Mystery Ape Man Snatches Cheeseburgers in Germany

I can has ur Kinder egg - Shoplifting Squirrel Steals ‘Kinder Surprise’ Eggs

Again from Spiegel Online: 7 legs on 1 lamb

And it looks like Fedde Le Grand is going to be in Club Fabric in Tralee on the 10th August and it is the only Irish date listed for him!
Put your hands up for Detroit (NSFW?)

And another Fedde Le Grand song… (maybe I was in too Berlin too long)

They also claim Eric Prydz will be coming soon…

I was up in Dublin last weekend to see some of the family and going-away drinks for a good friend. I’m getting more used to driving in Dublin and decided to park in town to go out on Sat night.
I found basic info about on-street parkin neatly presented on the AA site: On Street Parking for: Dublin

• Maximum parking time is 3 hours
• Payment times:
• Check Pay & Display machines or street signage.
• Usually 7am - 7pm Monday to Saturday
• 2pm to 6pm Sunday (city centre only)

And the map on their page doesn’t seem to work but I found it
at the bottom of this page or try this link: