lrzip : ‘Lrzip uses an extended version of rzip which does a first pass long distance redundancy reduction. The lrzip modifications make it scale according to memory size. [...] The unique feature of lrzip is that it tries to make the most of the available ram in your system at all times for maximum benefit. It does this by default, choosing the largest sized window possible without running out of memory.’
(tags: zip compression via:dakami gzip bzip2 archiving benchmarks)

Vladimir Lenin and the ‘Rathmines accent’ : this is brilliant. Turns out Lenin spoke English with what would now be called a “D4″ accent, roysh!
(tags: accents ireland dublin lenin history rathmines)

_Intellectual property rights and innovation: Evidence from the human genome_ (PDF) : ‘Do intellectual property (IP) rights on existing technologies hinder subsequent innovation? Using newly-collected data on the sequencing of the human genome by the public Human Genome Project and the private rm Celera, this paper estimates the impact of Celera’s gene-level IP on subsequent scientic research and product development. Genes initially sequenced by Celera were held with IP for up to two years, but moved into the public domain once re-sequenced by the public eort. Across a range of empirical specications, I nd evidence that Celera’s IP led to reductions in subsequent scientic research and product development on the order of 20 to 30 percent. Taken together, these results suggest that Celera’s short-term IP had persistent negative eects on subsequent innovation relative to a counterfactual of Celera genes having always been in the public domain.’ (via Tony Finch)
(tags: via:fanf genetics ip copyright open-source celera patents papers pdf)

Politics.ie – Labour Senator takes to twitter to defend comments, insults all around him : In which Ben Walsh memorably takes on racist/right-wing comments from a Labour senator, and gets told to “go back to D4″. ho ho
(tags: twitter funny ireland politics)

Éire Trea May Be the World’s First Irish-Eritrean Food Truck – SFoodie : Brilliant. ‘The menu lists dishes like battered sausages, Irish curry with chips — Irish curry tastes similar to Japanese curry, Hyland says — and shepherd’s pie alongside chicken doro-wat or vegetable stew served over injera bread. They’ve attempted a couple of fusion experiments, such as shiro (ground-chickpea stew) nachos, and have a few more ideas they’re playing around with, but it’s still early days.’ (via Ben)
(tags: curry irish eritrean food battered-sausages food-trucks)

The best “why estimation is hard” parable I’ve read this week : ‘A tense silence falls between us. The phone call goes unmade. I’ll call tomorrow once my comrade regains his senses and is willing to commit to something reasonable.’
(tags: agile development management programming teams estimation tasks software)

Neil Young on piracy : ‘I look at the internet as the new radio. I look at the radio as gone. [...] Piracy is the new radio. That’s how music gets around.’
(tags: internet filesharing piracy copyright neil-young music)

Why should we stop online piracy? – opinion – 19 January 2012 – New Scientist : ‘There’s no evidence that the US is currently suffering from an excessive amount of online piracy, and there is ample reason to believe that a non-zero level of copyright infringement is socially beneficial. Online piracy is like fouling in basketball. You want to penalise it to prevent it from getting out of control, but any effort to actually eliminate it would be a cure much worse than the disease.’ Good description of ‘dead weight loss’ and the consumer pressure on the industry that illegal competition poses
(tags: piracy new-scientist slate sopa filesharing dead-weight-loss economics music movies)

Does Online Piracy Hurt The Economy? A Look At The Numbers – Forbes : ‘The data simply doesn’t suggest that piracy is causing any serious economic harm to the US economy or the entertainment industry. Heavy-handed approaches to preventing piracy are wrong-headed and reveal a dangerous level of short-term thinking on the part of both lawmakers and industry leaders. Worse, the impetus to crack down on piracy is based largely on industry data that wildly inflates the problem.’
(tags: piracy forbes filesharing politics sopa economics law)

Adrian Weckler confims that “Ireland’s SOPA” will be vague and open-ended : ‘The clear implication from [Adrian's] interview with Sean Sherlock is that the proposed measures will be lacking in any real detail, leaving it entirely up to the judges as to what types of blocking might emerge. (Possibly going beyond web blocking to also target hosting and other services.) This ambiguity — as well as jeopardising fundamental rights — will create intolerable uncertainty for businesses such as Google who might find themselves at risk of business threatening and unpredictable injunctions and will certainly deter others from setting up in Ireland.’ — this is much, much worse than I thought, particularly given the level of technical knowledge among Ireland’s judges (if Mr. Justice Charleton’s performance in EMI v. UPC is anything to go by).
(tags: sopa ireland law filesharing piracy internet filtering blocking)

The Captain of the Costa Concordia is Totally Screwed [OP/ED] : ‘For the most senior officer on board, the one who had been entrusted with the care and safety of this magnificent ship, his job was far from over. In fact the Captain had just added a new job title to his resume, that of ON SCENE COMMANDER. But apparently he didn’t realize it because he took off in a lifeboat, leaving this giant steaming pile to be picked up by the Italian police and Coast Guard who are continuing to search for survivors, and prevent looters from gaining access. The Captain didn’t just take off in a lifeboat, he left the entire scene completely.’ oh dear. (via Tony Finch)
(tags: via:fanf disaster ineptitude maritime boats tourism giglio sea sinking liners safety)

Ultra Slow Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush : 36 minutes long. Actually BRILLIANT
(tags: kate-bush music sloooow 1978 youtube video via:rosco)

Freeman on the land – RationalWiki : fantastically encyclopedic description of the “freeman on the land” pseudolegal gibberish, now being employed in an attempt to evade unpleasant taxes or fees — this stuff is on the rise in post-economic-collapse Ireland, unsurprisingly
(tags: debt legal freemen freeman law taxes ireland recession)

Project HGG: FAQ : Hackerspace Global Grid — ‘We want to understand, build and make available satellite based communication for the hackerspace community and all of mankind.’ Space is the place!
(tags: space ccc satellite communication internet hackerspace)