Short musings by me.

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[aroconnor]

Rolling the dice can sometimes pay off.

Wow, I haven’t written a blog post in a very long time. Well, in the meantime, I’m very lucky to say side my last update I’ve been living the dream. Back in May of last year I graduated college after four long and hard years of study. The start of the global financial crisis was a tough time to decide to enter college but I’ve never been one to shy away from a tough decision and those tough decisions became frequent as state funding for third level education was cut across the board. However difficult the road the commitment to enter college once again was one that changed the course of my life for the better in many ways.

I rolled the dice once more when I left college and moved to Dublin. Having seen that so many tech jobs were now opening Irish offices in the city I knew I’d have a much better chance of getting the type of employment I had trained for if based here. To walk away from my hometown Cork, a city I love dearly, as well as my Family and Friends was probably the hardest thing I have ever done and something I could previously had not have considered being an option. Yet I had grown so much over the last few years this now seemed positively natural to me, when all is said and done the move wasn’t a difficult one.

That dice roll paid off because just over a month later I was offered my job at Squarespace becoming a founder member of the Irish office. Since that day quite a few people have asked me what the secret was to getting a job so soon after leaving college generally I answer with one word “luck” but perhaps that’s selling myself a little short. I like to think that the dedication I show to the job, my past experience and just being a nice guy helped land me a position in that first eight too.

So maybe I should change the story as I tell it when next asked to give tips on how to "Land That Job”.

1, No amount of academic experience can prepare you for every job out there. You need to have a base knowledge of the working world and your chosen field before you start. If you don’t have this experience yet don’t worry. You may not immediately be the vice president of the company but you can certainly move upwards, you need to be humble and learn the ropes. If you have enough drive, determination and the ability to do your job well you’ll also do well in the working world.

2, Likewise you may not have any academic experience and have worked in the field but perhaps the experience you have isn’t an exact match. After all if you’ve worked in a shop most of your life you can’t immediately become a doctor. I’m being flippant there but this applies just as much to any other field. You’ll need to train long and hard but you can achieve your goals once you are truly dedicated.

3, If you’ve passed the first two hurdles you need to be a nice hard working person who the interviewer could imagine working side by side with in order to get that job and most importantly this needs to show during the interview. Things are a little different nowadays but I’ve seen so many people who aren’t actually interested in doing the job they are interviewing for. I can't comprehend why you would even attend an interview if you aren’t interested in doing the job you’ve applied for? Personally, If I choose to apply for a job I can certainly see myself giving my all should I be lucky enough to be hired.

Sometimes you can have all those qualities and still not get the job and in these cases I urge people not to be disheartened. My own nephew has recently made a much larger move than mine going to Australia to seek work despite trying for quite some time to get something.. anything, here in Ireland. It’s a brave move and one I admire him greatly for.

With so many factors at play it’s no wonder I say "luck" got me the job because the truth is so very much of this was completely beyond my control. In the here and now, one thing I am very thankful for however is that I am the right fit for Squarespace and likewise it's the right fit for me.

[aroconnor]

Birth and rebirth.

For nine long months I’ve carried something inside me. Last Wednesday in a long and painful process it sprang to life and finally yesterday in a flurry of emotion, blood, sweat and tears our family and friends came to christen “Doing Time”.

Back in October when an ambitious idea to tell the story of a day in the life of a fictional prisoner, Ruairi Murphy, first entered my head it was very different to the project you see today but then our children are not always what we expect them to be. The Gaol project, as it would come to be known, transformed into something it’s creators Robin, Carrie and I can be proud to put our names to. Our baby is a stylish piece of technical, physical and visual engineering that has achieved high praise from all that visited it during it’s first days.

Yes there’d be tantrums, setbacks and moments along the way that the effort of going on would be just too hard to bear. Sometimes those we would look to for guidance doubted or ability to transform our complex vision to reality but the agony we went through to give life to this story was more than worthwhile.

So what’s next? A rebirth of sorts for myself, as I type this I’m on a bus bound for a new life in Dublin. There I hope to find work, a new circle of friends and a new beginning. With a visit to the Wandesford Quay gallery at the end of the month “Doing Time” will live on under our watchful eye and, when the time comes, in early June we’ll say our goodbyes to our creation. 

There’ll be other teams, other projects and many other creations from each of the people who came together to make “Doing Time” what it is today but each of us will hold a special place in our hearts for this project. Perhaps it’s because your first baby is always the hardest.

For more information on "Doing Time" and it's creation visit www.aroconnor.com or www.robinscreech.com

[aroconnor]

Stunning Artwork of Cork

Beautiful artwork from artist Simone Walsh (her site seems to be down at the moment) who’s artwork you can buy at www.kilkennyshop.com/

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Type map of Ireland (in slate here, but also available in green) by English designers, Bold & Noble. Available from their website for GBP 43.00 + postage.

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Beautiful design, it's the kind of picture I could study all day. It might help my Irish geography too.

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Avant Garde in Digital Media: Social Yoga Mats presented at TEI 12

This week's paper is one that is very close to my heart for two reasons. In the second semester of last year I worked on a project called MAPR where we designed series of games for the Xbox Kinect which aided the rehabilitation of stroke survivors, there I saw first hand that the vast majority of senior citizens want to keep active and have fun at the same time. Our focus group subverted our somewhat limited assumption that people over 60 who had not had previous contact with gaming devices wouldn't choose to be introduced to exercise through gaming. The games were a great success and some of our most interested participants over the age of 60. The second reason is because I myself actively practice yoga on a regular basis and have, in the past, attended classes. 

The accompanying video deals with two men in their 30s but the focus group for this particular paper was women between the ages of 65 and 86. The project shows avatars of participants growing and the earning of differently coloured lights as a reward mechanism but the true impetus behind the project was the encouragement of socialising yoga, generally a solitary affair.

The process of sharing photos not referred to in the research paper but a central part of the video is a the point of interest for me and I feel the authors would certainly have benefited by showing this functionality to their focus group. I can certainly imagine this product being sold commercially with the central idea being communication with your yoga partner being non verbal and instead through your pictures.

As always the word cloud of this weeks paper is very telling. This project is a design centred one encouraging social interaction in yoga participants regardless of age. An extended paper from the authors Arun Nagarogoje, Karl Maybach and Tomas Sokoler written for LLVL can be found here with more information on their respective websites.

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Avant Garde in Digital Media: Extracting References to Interface Elements in Online Documentation presented at CHI 2012

As a student I read a lot of online tutorials and with the vast majority of them I find one overriding problem, the standard of writing by the author means there is too much unimportant information presented. So upon reading the abstract behind this project my interest was peaked. Building on the work of Ekstrand et al, the authors developed an algorithm that could judge which words were part of a program's interface and which were merely descriptive words.

The examples provided by the authors of image, copy, desaturate and layer illustrate just how difficult it is for an algorithm to judge the context of a word since many words have multiple meanings in a program’s interface. With an impressive 93.7% recognition rating in test cases across three different applications it's a vast improvement over previous attempts at a similar concept.

However the limitations of the algorithm are clear, when an author uses a synonym for the official name of a section of the interface (for example “Ok” instead of “Confirm”) the algorithm at present cannot correct the difference as effortlessly as the human brain could. A rigorous and well-rounded testing process was described well within the confines of the paper but I felt more visual examples of how the algorithm would have benefited the casual reader. Overall I’m quite excited about the project and can see many commercial uses the research can be put to.

More information on the project can be found on the webpages of the authors Adam Fourney, Ben Lafreniere, Richard Mann and Michael Terry or at the page of the University of Waterloo Canada's Human computer interaction lab. More information on the prior work of Ekstrand et al for Autodesk research can be found here.

Tellingly this week's word cloud of phrases used in the paper is quite descriptive. Many of the previous papers I've covered seemed to focus on the concept rather than what it actually does, this paper was a breath of fresh air and a joy to read. 

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Avant Garde in Digital Media: Characterizing Patient-Friendly “Micro-Explanations” of Medical Events presented at CHI 2011

What is a Micro Explanation of a Medical Event? Put simply it's good bedside manner. At different stages in our life we've all met doctors that spouted enough medical jargon at us to make a first year med student recoil and quite often this results in us trusting the doctor knows best and living in ignorance of the true meaning of the procedures we are going under.

A you can see in the above video cutting out a lot of the explanation results in the patient getting the information they need to know without any extraneous information. In the long term this results in a better experience for both the patient and the doctor by the patient not being frightened by online medical dictionaries and the doctor not being forced to answer a lot of technical questions from a worried patient. 

I choose this paper, deviating slightly from my previous focus on HCI, because the information on what procedure the patient is undergoing is parsed from consumer faced web pages. One aspect of HCI that really interests me personally is the fact I believe people are slowly being expected to know an ever growing array of technical terms outside their knowledge base and, should they not already be educated on the matter, invariably turn to a web search which either gives them too much irrelevant information or bombards them with more technical jargon to decipher.

The concept is a sound one and used by many doctors in the field however a huge amount of faith must be placed in the fact these Micro Explanations will give the patient all the relevant data. Addressing this in the paper the authors gave the 6 characteristics of a good Micro Explanation and the feedback from patients and doctors alike seemed to be good however trusting my understanding of the procedures I am going under in a hospital to a selection of algorithms is something, at least for the moment, I am unwilling to do.

Unsurprisingly this week's word cloud revolves around explanations both for patients and physicians and the authors Lauren Wilcox, Dan Morris, Desney Tan, Eric Horvitz (with the exception of Justin Gatewood) all have websites showcasing their work as well as links to the paper hosted by one of it's funding bodies Microsoft Research.

[aroconnor]

The life and death of the Harlem Shake

A classic example of how the world can come together through the Internet is the recent success of the Harlem Shake meme. For those that have been living under a rock for the last few weeks the Harlem Shake swept through the pages of Facebook and YouTube prompting us all to ask the questions “Why?” and seconds later… “Actually, why not?”

The meme (above) started on February 2nd when 5 teenagers from Queensland Australia made a video, which soon became the textbook definition of a Viral. Picked up by a Vlogger named Filthy Frank the meme grew to 44,000 videos in twelve days with a combined jaw-dropping total of 175 million views. From Cork to Kosovo, Riga to Reno every major city in the western world has at least one Harlem Shake video to its name. With the number of videos posted only reaching it’s peak now the inevitable backlash has begun and the world quickly moves on.

However the celebration of lunacy that was the Harlem Shake won’t be forgotten so quickly. Perhaps in ten years time we’ll all look back to February 2013 as that great time the world went a little nuts and danced like nobody was watching.

[aroconnor]

Avant Garde in Digital Media: Touché, Enhancing Touch Interaction on Humans, Liquids, and Everyday Objects presented at CHI 2012

Touché uses a novel Swept Frequency Capacitive Sensing technique that can detect a touch event and simultaneously recognize complex configurations of the human hands and body during touch interaction with objects or even the human body itself. This can significantly augment touch interaction in a broad range of applications, from enhancing conventional touchscreens to designing interaction scenarios for unique use, contexts and materials.

In the examples contained within the paper the researchers added complex touch and gesture sensitivity not only to computing devices and everyday objects, but also to the human body and liquids. Importantly, enhancing these everyday objects and materials with touch sensitivity is extremely straightforward in fact a single wire is sufficient to make objects and environments touch and gesture sensitive.

The paper itself is excellent and it is unsurprising that Touché had the award for best paper at ACM CHI 2012 awarded to it. Well researched, with an abundance of testing data practical applications for body sensing, touchcsreen and interaction with water as well as everyday objects such as as doorknob let the reader know the applications for Touché are far reaching. 

Diagrams of how the process works simple and to the point and frequently peppered throughout the paper my only criticism being to the reader without a background in electronic engineering some of the more technical detail of this aspect of the project will require a great deal of prior learning to fully comprehend exactly how the piece works. Though as this is only a small section in an otherwise well written paper it doesn't take away from the piece in any way.

Above you will find a word cloud of the keywords most frequently used in the paper and more information on Touché including the paper itself can be found at the Disney Research project page or the personal project webpages of the author's Munehiko Sato, Ivan Poupyrev and Chris Harrison.

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Avant Garde in Digital Media: TAP & PLAY: An End-User Toolkit for Authoring Interactive Pen and Paper Language Activities presented at CHI 2012

The work of the team behind tap and play focuses mainly on applications in the field of learning aids for children. I should be remembered that applications outside this are also possible but for the focus of this paper focusing on this area was the most practical course of action. With that in mind the section that deals with the testing on adults seems pointless. The data gained from these tests adds very little to the paper and would be better suited to a paper dealing with the uses for adults. 

The the video above doesn't deal directly with the uses of the device both in and out of classrooms for children the video explains the basic principals behind the project. It must be remembered that unlike other papers I have reviewed over the last few weeks and intend to review in the future the research into applications for the tap and play system is still listed as ongoing on the website of one of the authors Nadir Weibel and the tap and play as we see it now should not be treated as a finished product but one that is constantly being redeveloped and prototyped.

The authors make the point of stressing this on many occasions throughout the paper by reminding the reader they are creating the toolkit for authoring activities not the activities themselves. For the purposes of the paper though I would have preferred to see more of a balance between showing the activities and their  testing and the toolkit itself and how that is programmed.

Above is a word could of keywords used in the paper. More information on Tap & Play can be found on the author's websites Anne Marie Piper, Nadir Weibel and James D. Hollan. 

[aroconnor]

Avant Garde in Digital Media: Review of "The HAPTICTOUCH Toolkit" presented at TEI 2012

Building on the work of the Haptic Tabletop Puck, the creative of which two of the paper's authors were members, the HAPTICTOUCH Toolkit was designed to make programming for Haptic devices faster to prototype and more intuitive for the novice by incorporating a graphical user interface and removing the need for large amounts of code. That’s not to say that the toolkit was developed to be a replacement for the current system of code, on the contrary, much like the Arduino project the impetus was to open up the world of producing haptic content for devices such as the Microsoft Surface available to the general population.

Using the Haptic Tabletop Puck (HTP) as a bi-directional haptic device the user is able to feel haptic information presented to them through the puck but crucially is also able to send information back through the puck affecting the image on screen. In the video above this is shown by two users remotely agreeing on a seating plan, taking ownership of a decision to place the table in one area by applying more pressure to the device than their counterpart this has the effect of reducing the chance of a misunderstanding occurring and eliminates the need for verbal clarification. With this in mind the HAPTICTOUCH Toolkit is made up of three layers that the user can program for the Raw Layer, the Behavior Layer and the Graphical Haptic Layer.

One of the things I'd like to have seen more in the paper would have been plain english examples. The paper itself goes into extreme detail on many aspects of the project the different layers could be better described with the use of an example. The Graphical Layer has many everyday uses take for instance the act of buying something online. With the use of haptic buttons and their three different states (inactive, hover and pressed) a user can add something to their cart and proceed to the checkout page but when the Confirm Order button is pressed they can be asked to apply more pressure to this final click to make their purchase eliminating the annoying notice “Are you sure you want to purchase these items” which has become commonplace in the digital age.

  Overall the goals behind the HAPTICTOUCH Toolkit are sound and their testing suggests that people adapt well to making haptic applications with the kit very quickly with little or no experience of the field. However the three examples of users work shown below seem to rely heavily on Haptic information supplementing the Graphical information on screen.

I'd like to see someone use the system to program an application that changes the graphics on screen to complement the haptic feedback coming from the user, this in my opinion could yield some innovative and abstract results.

Above is a word cloud of the keywords featured in the HAPTICTOUCH project's paper. More information on the HAPTICTOUCH Toolkit can be found on the website of one of it's developer's Sebastian Boring or by reading the paper submitted to the TEI 2012 conference which is presented here by the University of Calgary. The paper for the Haptic Tabletop Puck can be found here. 

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Like this to save the world.

I’ve noticed a startling online trend lately. You could call it a form of Digital Activism in the loosest sense but one thing that can’t be argued is its Digital Activism in its laziest form, I call it the “Petition Like”.

In the modern world, people want to feel like they’re making a difference and working to somehow change the daily barrage of bad news stories they are exposed to in ever growing media. Giving to charity out of guilt is well documented, we’ve all been confronted in the street by Charity Muggers aka “Chuggers” and paid our Street Tax to “Share”, “Concern” or one of the countless other charities on the streets in return for a sticker that immunises us from shame when buying presents at Christmastime but saving the world has in the last few years has transformed to incorporate millennial sensibilities. 

Pink water bottles donating money to breast cancer, nappies that donate packs to overseas hospitals or orphanages for every pack you buy and even one of the mainstays of Irish life, computers for schools vouchers picked up at the checkout in your local supermarket are all targeted marketing tactics devised with one purpose in mind, to make you spend more money. These businesses have calculated that they can drastically increase their revenue by adding new customers to their base when they align themselves with a charity by donating a small percentage of their profits to it.

It’s from this mindset comes the “Charity Like”. Petitioning Coca- Cola to create a breast cancer awareness can if a status gets two million likes or telling Justin Bieber he “has to” visit a cancer patient fan if the arbitrary figure of ten thousand likes can be reached can only be tracked back to one thing “Self Publicising”. Much like the companies or pop stars these people are petitioning these people are pushing their own brand. They attract new customers in the guise of Friends or Subscribers and project the idea they can have an influence over the world if you join them that is just not possible. Its my belief the Facebook / Twitter fad of created celebrities has become so out of control it’s finally begun to eat itself and attack the cult of branding it has so eagerly tried to emulate. 

I leave you by citing a study in the July 2011 Journal of Consumer Psychology it showed that consumers who buy charity branded products end up giving less money to a social cause or charity. This will probably come as no surprise to most but it goes on to say this can also decrease consumer happiness. "Consumers appear to realize that participating in cause marketing is inherently more selfish than direct charitable donation, reducing their subsequent happiness (versus a direct donation)," said Aradhna Krishna, the Dwight F. Benton Professor of Marketing. "Unfortunately, this doesn't prevent them from substituting it for charitable giving, which reduces the overall charitable donation." If we take this principal and apply it to the similar “Petition Like” any person knows that simply liking a status isn’t in fact doing any good. In fact all it’s doing is satisfying a short-term guilt you have about not being altruistic enough. The truth of the matter is you’d feel a lot better about yourself if you got up off your ass and gave a real charity your money or time but since that requires real effort not many of us will ever go to that extreme.

[aroconnor]

Once more unto the breach

Nobody ever said that going to college would be easy, after all we’ve all made sacrifices to be here. For some the financial burden amid a sea of economic pressure and governmental cuts has been a tough one, for others relationships with family and friends have suffered as a seemingly never ending cycle of exams, projects and assessments all too often became almost too much to bear.

We’ve been tested to the fullest extent possible and are now asked to endure it all one more time. Some of us may see it as a lap of honour, others as the straw that very well break the camel’s back but one thing we all agree on is that we’re much stronger by virtue of the support of those around us both inside and outside the college.

We first came to CIT three years ago fresh faced and full of optimism. Slowly but surely we bonded as a class finding our cliques and eventually our place within the larger group. Classmates left us along the way some not suited to the course others shunning the pressures of college life. As is natural over four years we’ve also been touched by personal problems and bereavements of our own, yet we persevered striving to get the best results we could at a time when college work would be the last thing on our minds. What little help we got from government grants or assistance would quickly be spent and need to be supplemented when possible to merely survive the college year. The constant threat of these being taken away or an increase in fees has been a burden to many families across the country and for us it was no different. With bleak job prospects and high taxation to contend with many of us won’t continue living in Ireland after graduation and will pack our bags for pastures new on the promise of work in our chosen field.

However it’s not fair to paint it as being all doom and gloom because it in spite of all the drawbacks it never has been. The times we’ve had in CIT have been ones we will look back on with fondness, we’ve made friendships that will last lifetimes and by learning these skills have changed the course of all our lives for the better. For now though we look forward to the year ahead of us with a sense of trepidation; Will we be as good as those that came before us, Will our peers outshine us in their work, Will we even be able to come up with an idea for our final exhibition? Who knows, for now the final and most important leg of our journey lies ahead.

[aroconnor]

Shandon, calling me back home

I love Shandon. It might sound cliched for a Corkman to love his city and its default symbol so much. I’m sure Tommy Tiernan would have plenty to say on the subject and I admit there is a degree of that at play here too but recently the realisation has dawned on me that maybe its something more than that. As a child I lived on Cathedral Road, there weren't parks, shops or pretty much anything per than houses and traffic nearby so when I got to take a trip into the City Centre with my parents the quick walk down Shandon street was one of the main arteries of the city and the only route to take. Back then, through the eyes of a child, it seemed like every second shop was a butchers or cake shop but O'Driscolls toy shop at the top of this hilly street was certainly a treat. A family run shop, they didn't have brand names like Mattel or Hasbro they had old fashioned toys, sure they weren't the kind of toys I wanted back then but it was great to look in as you passed and know that inside that window crammed to the brim were toys all all sizes shapes and descriptions and Mrs O'Driscoll knew everything about each and every one.

But the wonder I felt looking at this paled in comparison to Shandon, in all it's glory, which would tower over it. Known as the four faced liar because each of the four clocks that surround it had a different time you could hear Shandon’s the bells for miles and it was every child's ambition to ring them. One wet day when I was seven or eight I got to do just that. I'm not prone to immodesty however I distinctly remember doing quite a good job on "Three Blind Mice" but wasn't so great at "Don't cry for me Argentina", a strange choice for inclusion at best.

As years passed I would always look to Shandon from across the city, never to tell the time but as a symbol of home. Home wasn't there anymore, my parents moved to Parklands and I as an adult had many addresses across the length and breath of the city. That is until I moved house in November of last year, this house was huge, cheap and quite nice but best of all, the deciding factor for me, it was right next to Shandon. Yes I have to listen to abysmal bell ringing by tourists but looking up at that tower every morning through my window is like an elastic band springing me back to my childhood and suddenly I'm the one playing "Three Blind Mice" again. The Shandon area has changed drastically over the years, the immigrant population have made it the multicultural centre of the city and breathed new life into it's streets but for all its changed it's spirit remains the same. The community of Shandon, O'Driscolls toy shop and the tower itself a beacon to Cork men and women all over the world remain a constant reminder to me... Remember where you came from because it's the place you hold most dearly in your heart.

[aroconnor]

Sharing is.... Caring?

Below is the CIT "Explicit" version of the "Housemates" article.

As many first time college students are now, no doubt, contemplating. Having housemates is a weird thing. You eat, sleep and... Well, do other things, within feet of people you hardly know.

They’re undeniably part of your life and you theirs for better for worse for richer or poorer all thrown together by fate, circumstance or these days finances. Your house becomes a model UN when decisions need to be made. Debating point and counter point of the draft resolution that is "the cleaning rota" and the eventual democratic voting process can be annoying but nonetheless necessary.  Over time some can become close friends and the relationship with others can be somewhat acrimonious however something I’ve noticed recently is that the relationship between housemates is like that of siblings, you might get on each others nerves but you are always there for them when really needed.

Getting to know a new housemate is going to be a daunting prospect, although strangely enough if you're a first year student it's an easier process. As First years your world changes dramatically over a small period of time and getting out there and making friends out of housemates can be as easy as a few nights out, visits to the takeaway after the club and the hungover mornings that follow.

But for the rest of us, and I count the rare breed that is the "quiet first year" here too, it's different … Polite conversation at first and making sure everything is clean and tidy, then as time goes on the mask will slip and you really get to know the person underneath. It's at this stage it can all go right or so very very wrong. Dirty dishes or a messy house could be the least of your worries. 4am parties the night before an exam, weird smells and even weirder people arriving in the middle of the night can make the relationship a little sour. If theres one piece of advice I can give from my experience it's invest in some ear plugs. You may be the quiet kind but, and I'm trying to put this as tactfully as I can, the person in the bedroom next door may not be.

I find it funny that you can find information all over the web on how to find a housemate and pick the right one but very little on what to do when he or she moves in. My plan, is the most Irish of plans, a cup of tea, a chat and see how it goes. Shur if that doesn’t work I don’t know what will.

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I’m Gay for Cork.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years its that the people of Cork aren’t a very homophobic sort. I’ve kissed a guy on many streets and had no reaction, I’ve walked in Cork Pride and been cheered on while parents held their kids high to watch the colour and splendor of the parade and I’ve come out to family friends and work colleagues and they’ve never blinked an eye or looked at me any different.

That’s why I was so surprised to hear about the incident in the Old Oak this weekend. The Old Oak is a pub for lads. As well as being probably the best live music venue in Cork it’s a rugby pub which has held events for Guinness’s Area 22 TV show to which I’ve been invited along, the atmosphere there is as straight as any other pub in Cork though admittedly once again with a focus on straight lads but I’ve always felt comfortable there, even to the point I’ve had drinks with gay friends there.

Their Facebook group (closed in reaction to the criticism against them in the wake of two male gay students being thrown out) describes the place as “The best pub in all of Ireland, hot guys, cool girls, boob jobs for 19 pounds, Shakira hips do lie.” In my eyes there’s something very worrying about that, the second half of that sentence shows just how misogynistic their attitudes really are.  There has been a huge backlash on Facebook and twitter to this gay couple not being let do what heterosexual couples do every night of the week in the same place and although I wouldn’t do it myself I protect their right to kiss, shift, maul or however they would like to describe it on the dancefloor of the Old Oak or any other pub in Cork.

Over the last few days I’ve been delighted to see such a huge response from not only the gay and lesbian community but also the straight community on this historically divisive issue. Straight friends have come out in force to support the boycott, Families have rung the local radio talk shows and a wider Cork community galvanizes to defend a group, which is a hidden, but highly offended, minority of its population.

I ask everyone that has not done so already to gather behind the campaign and not stand for homophobia in Cork’s pubs and clubs. I also ask the women who go to the Old Oak and who have no feelings on the matter to look at themselves and ask do they really support a pub which advertises itself under the banner of “boob jobs for 19 pounds, Shakira hips do lie”. The people of Cork are a proud people, extremely proud in fact, of the city that has put us time and time again at the top of lists of cities to visit across the world, I for one would be appalled to think that this is the image of my city that any tourist will take home with them.

[aroconnor]

Housemates

As many first time college students are now, no doubt, contemplating. Having housemates is a funny thing. 

They’re undeniably part of your life and you theirs for better for worse for richer or poorer all thrown together by fate, circumstance or these days finances. Your house becomes a model UN when joint decisions need to be made. Debating point and counter point and the eventual democratic voting process can be annoying but nonetheless necessary.  Over time some can become close friends and the relationship with others can be somewhat acrimonious however something I’ve noticed recently is that the relationship between housemates is like that of siblings, you might get on each others nerves but you are always there for them when really needed.

  All this comes to mind now because we have one of the guys in my house leaving and a new housemate coming in. I’m sure getting to know a new housemate is going to be a daunting process, I can safely say from experience that eight months ago when I was in his position it was for me.

  Its funny how it works…. Polite conversation at first and making sure everything is clean and tidy, then as time goes on the mask will slip and you really get to know the person underneath. I’m looking forward to giving our new housemate the welcome I received and getting to know him as he settles into his new address. I find it curious that you can find information all over the web on how to find a housemate and pick the right one but very little on what to do when he or she moves in. My plan, is the most Irish of plans, a cup of tea and a chat. Shur if that doesn’t work I don’t know what will.