Whykay's happenings

For all you creme egg lovers!

It's in my head! It's in my head! Waaaah!

Parking meters replace E-Cards with Octopus smart cards

Obviously not here! This is all happening in HK.

Although smart cards are all the rage. I am not surprised. I love the cards, so handy going around HK, seeing the sites. HK already implemented parking meters that accept smart cards. They will be replacing E-Park cards with the Octopus Smart card. And public are urged to donate what is left in theri e-cards to charity in a campaign running from Oct 1st to Dec 31st.

And most people here in Ireland are still stuck with paper tickets on day-to-day basis.

Other info:
* Government Press Release

Compo nation still around for awhile

Some girl got hurt working in a takeaway and sued successfully, and what happened to my aunt was worse. But she owns a takeaway, and accidents do happen. She was cleaning the side of the fryer... and her hand slipped... . She did not go to the doctor or hospital, as it was busy and she continued on working (what, ya think she was going to sue herself! It's her livelihood). Work hard and retire when times come, and save money. That is always our way of thinking. (We were all giving out to her for not going, but what can we do.). But these things happen, working in the catering business, you are bound to be burnt, I see many cooks (and my mom) with plenty of scars from cooking in the restauarant/takeaway. And the government are wondering why we find it hard to hire local folks to work in the kitchen, that is the reason, they mess you about by blackmailing you, when there are not enough people working (i.e. payrise), possibilty of being sued (i.e. cut from preparing food, slip after they mop the floor etc).

This compo nation attitude is not going to change for awhile, from criminals trying to get compo from government about slop-outs to parents of primary school kids suing the school just because their kids fell in the playground. My work collegue mentioned that he was at a school meeting, and was told not to leave the children at the playground when dropping them to school as they cannot afford the insurance.

It's lunacy.

Some nice comments about Sun Bloggers

OSNews.com - Sun Opens Up with Blogging; Solaris Tidbits shows that peeps out there do appreciate some openess of corporate companies. At least it is good to know that Sun bloggers are accepted now.

Back at home in Limerick

Recycling! Yup, Saturday just gone (wish I read it sooner) the Limerick Count Council availed of free recycling facilities to the public. (Still wished I read that sooner)

And when I go home this weekend, I can at least set aside old pcs for Dell's free recycle day on the 25th September. Following are accepted:
monitors, printers, scanners, keyboards, computer mice and laptops
and the following are not:
televisions, stereo equipment, mobile phones and white goods, such as fridges, cookers and other appliances.

Today is a wierd day...

..and it's only morning! Eircom engineer is dropping by down in Limerick, comfirmation SMS about it from my brother. My moz browser for Solaris keeps crashing when I was replying to one of my friends, and hangs on a work folder! Then I needed to find out more about the cause of Dub bus termini hooha yesterday and I think it's great, much more central to get on the bus. And does not make a difference to me in the mornings... still get off at Bachelor's Walk. Then I found out that a part of the project I am on is pushed out yet again. It's pretty much like the weather, it's sunny and it's terribly windy.

It's true so...

... computers make you sick", well ok, if you are not provided with proper equipment (or your manager just don't give a toss, and I have given up asking for a proper monitor ). So much for following the ergonomic policy of this damn place.

UPDATE
More on this from Techdirt

If only I knew...

..to play classical music outloud to keep the next-door neighbour's hyperactive dog quiet.

Shuttle ready to go

Yay! My little shuttle is ready to go. I had to go out and purchase a cheapo graphics card (around €60) and Debian picked it up. My BF added the ATI drivers, and other tweaks here and there, and now it's ready to rock and roll. We'll test run the firewall/router/fileserver for a week here before I bring it down to Limerick.

Nearly there...!

Boy, the shuttle looks really cute. Everything is so squished inside, heh, a snug fit. But just one thing is missing... the graphics card. The PCI card fits, but of course, it's fried... so was pulling one from one of our unused linux/windoze boxes. But that one did not fit, the card was a bit old. Feeling annoyed that we may need to get a new graphics card after all, then my BF was getting excited... our other unused desktops! Maybe we can scavenge those. So the result, it works! Yay!
Now, see now picky I am on the rez of this ancient card... hey, I'm not knocking it, it's going to be a dumb Linux terminal at home down in Limerick anyway!

My little baby!

My Shuttle arrived! Gonna be busy putting it together this weekend! It's my first form factor pc, and I'm a newbie, but I have my BF by my side showing me the ropes. It's gonna be a sinch. Nowadays, everything is colour-coded.

Crazy @ work

What a humdinger of a week... my machines won't work, no recognition for contributing to the internal Irish site re-design. What was worse, I was told, you should benefit your own organisation with your contribution from your spare time! What, with my spare time, I do whatever I want, and I chose at the particular time to contribute to our own Irish site. Just once, I want it to do something for the whole site compared to just my organisation which is part of the site. Our old site director acknowledged us, fully supported us, but the new one... he's too busy for the little folk. He thinks what our little temporary team did for the site was a waste of time. No resources, did not eat into our daily duties... and that's the thanks we get. I am going crazy here.... just need to get a project under my belt.. then I am out of here...

Being a renter..

...I'll have to remember this when I get a new lease. Don't pay new registration fee, tenants advised (free registration to read). But the gist of it, the the Residential Tenancies Act 2004 is coming into force today, and tenants might be asked to pay upward to €180 upfront by landlords. If this is the case, Threshold has advised tenants not to pay this fee on top of the deposit, and also seek legal advice. Landlords cannot get away from this as there will be a fine of €3,000 or six months in prison or both will be imposed on landlords who do not lodge a fee.