Fergus Cassidy

SUNDAY 31 OCTOBER 2004 23.35 (GMT)
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:::: THE OTHER KITTSER...
The Dublin Legal Workshop, in association with the System Administrators' Guild of Ireland, is holding a talk by Professor Steve Hedley of UCC's Law department entitled 'What can the law do about spam?' Tom Kitt, the new minister for e, will open the talk.

It's on this Tuesday (2 Nov) at 8pm. The venue is the Davis Lecture Theatre (Room 2043) in the Arts building.


TUESDAY 19 OCTOBER 2004 23.55 (GMT)
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:::: LIP SYNC...
I rarely miss reading Irish journalist John Naughton's regular column 'The Networker' in the Observer.

Now John has added an audio version of the column in MP3 format and last Sunday's is available here.


THURSDAY 7 OCTOBER 2004 20.55 (GMT)
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:::: PUBLIC MEETING ON PRIVACY..
Simon Davies, from Privacy International, will be giving a talk next Monday in Dublin.

The topic has the wonderfully provocative title of 'Giving guns to psychopaths: Why e-government will bring an end to privacy'.

The meeting is being organised by The Dublin Legal Workshop in association with The Irish Council for Civil Liberties.

It's on Monday 11 October at 8pm in the Joly Lecture Theatre, Hamilton Building, Trinity College, Dublin.


SUNDAY 21 NOVEMBER 2004 21.55 (GMT)
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:::: FORESIGHT...
If you are in front of a computer screen for long periods, it is crucial that you get your eyes tested regularly.

Researchers at the Toho University in Japan tested 10,000 workers with an average age of 43 and found that just over 5% had "visual field abnormalities" and identified a link with heavy computer use. A further third of these had suspected glaucoma.

Glaucoma causes a very gradual deterioration of vision and has been nicknamed "the thief of sight". It is also hereditary. My father was diagnosed just in time in his mid-60s but some deterioration had already taken place.

Whether or not there is a proven link with heavy computer usage is not something I'm prepared to take a chance on, and I get my eyes checked regularly and specifically for glaucoma.


SATURDAY 4 DECEMBER 2004 23.55 (GMT)
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:::: NET NUMBERS...
"Each day this system [DNS] supports an estimated 20 billion resolutions, more than six times the number of phone calls in North America per day. There are about 64.5 million domain name registrations globally.

"The Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) and ICANN have allocated approximately 388 million IPv4 addresses since 1999. Each day more than 700 million users use the internet."
-- Paul Twomey, ICANN president, 30 September 2004