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I’ve just realised, in all the Skycon ‘09 bustle, I never said thank you to anyone. So, here goes.

First off I’d like to thank my committee, without them it would have all been a scattered mess. They are Eoghan O’Brien, Gavin Fitzgerald, John Flanagan, Mark Brennan, and Mark Kohls. Each had their own jobs which they pulled off incredibly well, and I’m very glad to have worked with them as a team.

I’d like to say a big thank you to all our speakers, who made the weekend what it was. They are Alan J. Guinane, Christian van den Bosch, Ciarán Maher, David Malone, Eoin McLoughlin, Evert Bopp, Jeff Gough, John Lunney, Lorraine Morgan, Martha Rotter, Mel Gorman, Neil Fahey, and Randall Munroe.

Next up are the various groups who sponsored Skycon ‘09. Without their support there is no way we could have done it. The groups are, AIB, Microsoft, The University of Limerick Computer Science and Information Systems Department, and The University of Limerick Sports and Arts Fund.

I’d like to thank the people who worked behind the scenes to make sure everything flowed smoothly; Paul Lee for his assistance, patience and motivation, Annette McElligott for offering us the use of the CSIS building, the staff in the Kilmurry Lodge Hotel, who accommodated us perfectly, ULTV for recording the two tracks, and John the CSIS porter.

I’d like to thank everyone who helped publicise Skycon ‘09; Gareth Eason and Joe Johnson who wrote blog posts promoting the event, Niall Campbell who managed our Facebook group, and all the people who twittered about skycon.

A special thanks to Sarah Ní Riain for her awesome xkcd cake. Sarah, you rock.

Thank you to everyone for coming, particularly those who travelled to Limerick for the event. It was great to catch up with some old friends and make news one too.

All in all the day was alot of fun, to both organise and attend, and I look forward to the next Skycon.

P.S. colmmac has some great photos up on flickr.

P.P.S. I’ve posted the Table Quiz that accompanied the meal.

Christmas was a sleepless affair this year (thanks lenny).

I left home shortly after 03:00 to catch a 03:30 bus. Hugh arrived in the airport shortly after I did, wondering if security would accept a boarding pass scribbled on the back of an exam paper (the printer was out of paper and ink). The flight flew by, mainly due to my comatose state.

The hostel we’re staying in (Heart of Gold Hostel – Berlin, in reference to The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy) is superb; the staff are friendly, movies on a projector, beds for €15 a night, beer on tap all night. How bad?

We called around to the BCC late in the afternoon to pick up tickets early, to avoid tomorrows queues. We met Mitch and went for dinner in a great, cheap Thai place, which had buckets of vegetarian options.

I’ve made a point of talking very little about the people I’ve met at previous conferences, out of respect for their privacy.

I remember one of the press rules at Defcon was that should a human want to attend anonymously then they should be free to do so. Defcon will not take your name or ask for ID. All participants are asked to respect all other participants, nobody should capture any other humans attribute without that humans express permission. So, no photos unless you get permission from everyone in the frame, no audio/video recordings unless every human recorded has given permission to be recorded. A quiet room is provided for recordings. Speakers are generally excluded from this privacy amnesty, they’ll generally already be associated with the con due to being a speaker. Just don’t harass the speakers.

I remember hearing stories from old Defcons where if a flash went off people would come over to you and insist the photo was deleted/film destroyed.

Despite the cons tagline being “nothing to hide” these people are very serious about the security of personal information relating to them and privacy too. With good reason

Looking back, nothing remarkable happened on the Week of the 21st. I worked a lot. That’s about it. I settled into a groove. Got frustrated with a tourist (he was taking way too long to order… over 20 seconds *grin*) and gave some more directions.

On the Weekend of the 25th artemis’ brother came down to NY again. On the Friday night we hit the Mars Bar (which ended with me sleeping on the couch again) and on Saturday we went to a very expensive nightclub, Marquee. It was the first time I’ve seen a $9,000 bottle of champagne on sale.

Was also at Ignite NYC on the 29th where I met up with Gus again. Unfortunately it was held in a club and so artemis was turned away for not having ID. The worthwhile talks were:

• Jessica Bruder (author, journalist-at-large) – How to be an Undercover Hooker (reprising her talk on taking an NYPD course)
• Rose White (Yarnivore) – Weird and wonderful knitting — graffiti and science and art combined!
• Audacia Ray (Village Voice’s Naked City) – Porn as a front runner in technology innovations
• Natalie Jeremijenko (NYU XDesign) – A bomb shelter for the climate crisis
• Dustyn Roberts (NYU’s ITP, Honeybee Robotics) – Flying High with Engineers Without Borders (on building a Kite Aerial Photography rig for mapping in Kenya)
• Limor Fried (ladyada) & Phillip Torrone (Make & Citizen Engineer) – Open source hardware, hacking SIM cards, modding a payphone for fun and for profit.
• Nick Bilton (NY Times, NYC Resistor) – The Future of News

I took a trip up to Toronto to visit sith on the 1st of August. I went up the CN tower with its scary glass floor, explored the brewery region, had two very nice meals and saw the Farmers Market. I also had lunch a few weeks later with sith in the Wild Onion on his trip around Ireland.

The following week I prepared myself for a trip to Las Vegas for DEFCON 16. I had an awesome time at DEFCON, met loads of interesting people and had a great time. If I had to choose between DEFCON and H.O.P.E. I’d pick DEFCON. While H.O.P.E. may have had better talks/speakers, DEFCON was amazing socially. The parties were awesome and the after parties back in hotel rooms were full of the most interesting conversations I’ve had in years. I also went to see Penn&Teller and The Blue Man Group.

Billy arrived in NY the week after DEFCON. The same week my family had their passports stolen in Spain, within hours of landing in the country. They were in my Dads Laptop bag, his laptop, my sisters phone and camera and all the families passports were stolen from the rental car at a motorway service station while they were inside getting something to eat. They eventually got temporary single use passports from a consulate and were able to get home.

I went to see Regina Spektor in McCarren Pool, supported by Albert Hammond Junior. There are several videos of the Gig up on Youtube. I heard a bunch of new songs and songs I hadn’t heard before. The highlight for me were Poor Little Rich Boy, Ghost of Corporate Future and a beatbox version of Hotel Song.

I came back to Limerick the following week. Overall I feel that my time in New York was very worthwhile. With 24hour public transport and food available almost as regularly the city feels like an extension of a college campus. As a knock on effect it is possible that offices don’t have closing times, and so often all-nighters were pulled as deadlines approached. People in New York live so they can work, not work so they can live.

I helped polarice pack Skynet flyers into Orientation packs. I showed three groups around the college durring Orientation week, Woodwork, Law & Accounting and Ethnochoreology students. All groups were great and I wish them the best of luck in UL.

My update frequency has gone down in the last few weeks, mostly because I’ve been busy working and doing real life stuff.

I travelled to Washington, DC on the weekend of the 11^th. I discovered the hard way that if you show up 20 minutes before a train is about to leave in the US, you’ll pay $400 for a return ticket.

Washington is a nice city to see. It some great free museums, a clean Subway and a few nifty landmarks. Despite this it’s still hotter than NYC and will cause dehydration if you stay outside for any length of time.

I visited The White House, The Lincon Memorial, The Smithsonian Institute (which contained a Jim Henson exhibit) and the National Air and Space Museum. Fun was had in all places and I’d like to spend more time in the Air&Space Museum.

On Saturday evening I witnessed my first baseball game. I wasn’t particularly impressed. The Astros (2nd worst team) played the Nationals (the worst team) in the poorer of the two leagues. It seemed that the crowd had to be engaged at every possible moment, if things dulled down on the pitch the crowd were instructed to clap, cheer, “root“, stand, sing, dance or make general fools of themselves. Hannah explained that the US has ADD, and with such entertainment being a constant climax of stimulation it’s not hard to see why or how.

On Monday I visited a nice French restaurant for Agnès’ birthday & a Bastille Day celebration. After I left I went back to the office for a few more beers with my bosses. Around 2am we left and went to find food/beer. We wound up in an Irish Pub called Muldoons. It turned out that I knew the barman, he was the guy who invited us back to the recording studio/loft a few weeks back. We stayed until we got kicked out.

Nothing interesting happened on Tuesday or Wednesday, that I can remember.

On Thursday night, at Midnight, I went to see the new Batman Movie, along with the two Chris’, Edgar and Sven. It was pretty damn good.

Friday Morning I wandered off to the H.O.P.E. conference (Hackers on Planet Earth) run by the 2600 people. I’ve read the 2600 magazine as often as I can for over 5 years now and I’ve been listening to Off the Hook and Off the Wall weekly for over a year. Out of all the tech based media outlets available 2600 provides (in my opinion) the greatest mixes of tech, political and privacy issues; blended with a great sense of humour. It may not be as technically in-depth as others, but it more than makes up for it, due to the fun attitude that goes along with the articles/discussions/talks.

I met a bunch of cool people at the confrence, everyone from speakers to vendors, organisers to security guards, press people to attendees; and everyone inbetween. I learnt some useful skills, got some free stuff, discovered some things I never knew existed and had alot of fun.

Despite the conference, Friday night consisted of another trip to the Mars Bar, and on Saturday Night we celebrated Agnès’ birthday again, in a nice trendy bar called Tribe. The music was OK (a bit loud) and the place was small, but there was nothing obnoxious about it that would turn me away. A fun night was had by all.

I saw one cockroach this last 12 days on Wall St (outside the Exhange).

Work has been hectic the last two weeks, I’ve been working 12+ hour days to get a CMS finished for a client, but thankfully it’s all done and finished now (let’s just hope there are no fatal bugs, like uploading a GIF will DROP a table or something else weird).

Agnès arrived in NY on Tuesday. Herself and artemis dropped up to the office and we sat around chatting for a few hours. I also met up with Agnès on Saturday afternoon for Lunch.

I’ve noticed a bizzarity in social event attendance etiquette. I’m not sure if it’s a New York thing or an American thing (I’m told it’s a New York thing) but saying you’ll attend x social event and actually attending it mean two completely different things.

On each of social outings I’ve had with American folk only 0-25% of them have shown up. Even for a co-workers birthday (which was joined with a going away party, as we weren’t going to she her for a few months) only about a quarter of the people who said they’d show up actually came. I suppose it’s something I’m just not used to, if you say you’ll be somewhere, you’d better have a good reason for not showing. Sure, you may be late, that’s almost expected, but to not show up, with no excuse? To not even call or text to say that you cant make it after you’ve made a commitment seems very aloof.

Also, there is a certain amount of suspicion and second guessing of ones motives in social encounters. A lady in a Subway station a few weeks back asked if a certain line stopped at a particular station. I told her that I didn’t know. I then tried to make small talk by saying that I’d just arrived, that the city was new to me and the I had only really taken one of the lines. I was glared at, as it to say “I only asked you for directions, nothing more. How dare you try and talk to me”.

Anyway, I went to see Infected Mushroom on Saturday in Webster Hall. It’s a really cool venue. There was Rap/Hip-Hop playing in the basement, trance/house on the ground floor, the band were playing on the Ballroom (which has a balcony for VIPs) and there was some Minimal Techno in an Upstairs room. There was also an EBM DJ playing before and after Infected Mushroom in the Ballroom. Infected Mushroom are a band who I’ve been into for about a year and I’m quite glad I saw them, considering I missed a free Coldplay gig and a Freezepop concert. I hope to get a few more gig’s in before I head home; I have my eye on Regina Skeptor, Bloc Party and Foo Fighters.

On Monday I wandered over to artemis’ to watch Dexter. I’ve also been watch a bit of Curb your Enthusiasm with my flatmates, Greg and Nanda. Both shows are pretty good and this has been the first time I’ve seen either.

I got a new phone on Saturday, a Nokia N70 (Music Edition). It’s a small step up from the 6680, but it’s got a better camera, more RAM and an Active Standby screen (which Vodafone decided the 6680 didn’t need, so they stripped it out). All my apps from the 6680 also just worked straight away when I pop’d my old card into the new phone, which was really handy. I also picked up a BL-6C (at last) and a Bluetooth Keyboard. Here’s a great list of S60 handsets (maintained by Steve Litchfield) which I’ve used for reference since I’ve owned an N-Gage.

I went to my first Movie Premier/screener on Wednesday. Some of the nice people in Media at Large gave us tickets. It’s called The Rocker and is basically a story about Pete Best. In a hilarious coincidence it actually contains Pete Best, playing a cameo role. There was one line I found amusing where a bland hippstr type is referred to as “[...] like Abercrombie are making people”.

I’ve just watched Once twice, the second time with the commentary. It’s been the first time in years that I’ve liked a film enough to watch it a second time, with the commentary. It’s a film everyone should watch.

I saw one more cockroach in the basement. I don’t consider two in a month to be an infestation but apparently the germphobic upstairs thinks otherwise and has asked the landlord to get the building fumigated. Germphobia is another big thing I’ve noticed over here, but I’ll leave my comments on that till another day.

I wasn’t around for Oxegen this year so I went to Rock Werchter in Belgium instead.

I have to say, it was true to its name and rocked! The following is a little table of the Pros and Cons of Oxegen and Rock Werchter. Keep in mind, what I think were Pros other may see as Cons and vice versa.

A quick breakdown of the bands I saw, how well I knew them and how much they rocked.

Overall I think it was a quality gig and would very seriously consider coming back next year, even though I’ll have to fly over.

• All that project work started catching up with me. I haven’t missed a deadline yet and it looks like it’ll all be fine but there were a few close calls.
• I went to Dublin to visit sith on Saturday. Possibly the lightest I’ve ever traveled, which made up for how sick I got when reilly Alcohol Poisoned me. I met Liv for the fist time and a bunch of cool Firefly People in the Longstone.
• I’ve been listening to Regina Spektor, alot. I saw this ad on TV a few times and really liked the soundtrack, so I looked up the lyrics, found Ms. Spektor and went and got a copy of “Begin to Hope“, which has some great songs.
• The Skynet Game started and finished. I’d like to thank everyone who played, the Skynet Committee and Paul Lee for making it a superb event. I’d also like to pay special thanks to Gareth Eason (bigbro). I first discussed this with Gar almost a year ago (infact, it was the day I first joined #nonado) and ever since Gar has been beyond helpful. Next years event is alreay being though up.
• I had a 20^th party in Thomond. Thank you to cheez, zoney, davisc, tayto, bigbro, moonbeam, reilly, m1, sammi, chimaera, sonia and froodie for coming along. Oh, and Meg.
• I set up a QDB to log some of my quotes from throughout the years. I must dig up some of my pre-Skynet IRC quotes.
• My Co-Op came through. I just booked the flights today. I’ll be working for Vekoma in the Netherlands. This Rocks! Supremely!

I’ve got My Muse ticket (standing). Now I have to get to know more than 3 of their songs.
Can’t wait for V for Vendetta to come out on DVD. Hopefully the 2-Disc Special edition will have a Region 2 version too (Yes, I got this and this when they came out).
Myself and Megan have started watching all of Scrubs, so far we’re up to Series 1 Episode 13 (in 3 days) which makes us 11% through it.

Arrived up around 4 Friday evening, queued for around half an hour and set up Camp between A5 and A6. Knocked back a few cans and shots of Vodka, *shudder* , then went to see what the craic was in Campsite B.

Saw some randomer in the Campsite B stage then went off to watch some of The Two Towers on one of the big campsite Screens. Also took a look around the amusements.

Next morning woke and took a tour around the Arena while The Marshels were playing. Saw the Dance arena, the Green Room and the Ticket stage, and this was the only time was ever in the Dance Arena or the Green Room. Saw about five minuets of Breaks Co-op and saw The Weepies set up.

Then we headed for the Pit at the main stage.

Was about 20 rows back for Sandi Thom (quite Country, also had most of the crowd saying “Play that one song we know” and “Prawn Cracker!” between all of her songs).

Wormed our way up to about 10 rows back for Republic Of Loose (Saw them in UL at the Rag week). They played well, got a good cheer and all that.

Was close enough to the front for Damien Dempsey who I didn’t know at all. He seems to be a bit of a mix between the Wolfe Tones and Christy Moore. Again, crows seemed to like him.

Magic Numbers were up next and by this stage we were at the front row directly in front of the Lead singer. These guys were amazing, better live than on CD. They also played a few new tracks and thankfully they’ve kept their great style in these Tracks. They had a great jam at the end too which received much applause.

Next up were Hard-Fi, my least favorite band of the entire weekend. If these guys are playing again it will be a contributing factor to me not going again. They were arrogant, Clearly out of it on drugs, superior, giving their stage managers serious stick and just generally being prats. They’ve put the following statement on their site, cunningly only embedded in the Flash version so one cant directly link to it. Anyway, here it is:

9/7/06
Yesterday at the oxegen festival in Ireland, Hard-Fi and a massive line up of bands, struggled to keep afloat as the weather turned nasty! After being in Rome for a couple of days, we got so used to the sunshine, that none of us even thought to bring a jacket. Don’t get me wrong, we’re not scared of a bit of rain, but this was hard work. All of us had problems on stage, with the wind and rain making everything a battle. Apparantly electrical devices don’t like getting wet much. A member of the Strokes crew was sent to hospital after a lighting stack fell over on top of him. We had a nightmare at the start of our set when basically nothing worked!
We appreciate everyone baring with us while we got it all going. Even with the shit weather and problems, the irish were up for it, and sung all the way through our set. With more rain expected for T in the park today, let’s not let the weather get us down. Make some fucking noise!!!

Bull-Shit! They’re a pack of gutless ares-bandits who deserved the abuse! They were boo’d at the end of two songs by myself and those around me.

Right, rant over. Next were the Artic Monkies who were truly awesome. They palyed a great set and had us singing to the songs and listening reverently to the ones we didn’t know (only because they hadn’t been released yet). Plus kudos for the drinking of Bulmers onstage.

The Strokes Rocked. They had the best Lighting rig all weekend. They played really well and had loads of crowd interaction. Julian Casablancas came down to the crowd and leant over the railings like Chris Cornell Last year. Unfortunately last year Chris was about twenty people to my left but Julian lent in 4/5 times, once about two feet away from us. We got to “Stroke” his hair which was unreal. He also splashed around in the mud in front of us which I got pics of. I must develop them actually.

Next were The Who. It was great to see them but unfortunately I didn’t know very many of their songs, My Generation and Pinball Wizard were about it. I discovered later that the fan requesting Magic Bus (In the Manner of Homer Simpson) was in fact one of my Ex-Girlfriends current Boyfriends.

Had to move back for James Brown as after 8+ hours of standing and 6+ hours of getting squashed at the front we needed a rest. He was nuts. Way too much energy for a 73 year old who was up after midnight. It was the only act which had a cymbal solo. I was a completely different experience and again, although I didn’t know many of the songs I was glad I went.

I wanted to see Feeder but The Strokes were on at the same time and we had a great spot. Meg also wanted to see Jose Gonzalez and the Eels but due to clashes with better bands we had the same issue.

After a long day I went back to the tent and slept like a log.

Sushi went well last night; I’ve discovered wasabi, which is like a mixture of horseradish and strong English mustard, really just to cover up the taste of raw fish in my opinion. I tried tuna and Salmon but what really made me gag was the seaweed used to wrap some of the pieces up in, nasty stuff!

Up early this morning to head to Harvard, from the lack of students we saw on campus we assumed they were on spring break. We saw a notice for a one bedroom student flat near the campus going for a grand a month, nothing special, the same kind of thing that would probably go for about 400 a month near UL.

After that we did a bit of shopping, Americans aren’t kidding when they say malls are huge. Again if anyone wants me to get them anything there are still plenty of shopping slots on the itinerary. We were in an electronics / Music / Games store which was unreal, there were several areas with plasma TVs and leather couches where the public could come in and play some Xbox 360 (which is rare and in much demand over here) or watch a DVD from your pick of any in the store, just to “test the equipment”.

After shopping on the tube ride home Cian decided he had left a bag on the tube after we were all off and leapt back on. To his dismay the bag was actually inside the bag he was carrying.

We rested up a bit and got a tube ride to TGI Fridays only to discover that even though they were still giving the menu for the Boston branch online the store had infact, after 28 years of business, closed only weeks ago. Still, the steak with jalapeno butter hit the spot in the next restaurant down.

Gareth, Colm and Dan (Nagle) are giving presentations in MIT tomorrow and, as usual, they were left till the last minute. Some of us were tired ad went to sleep but myself, Steve, Ivan, Pili (Ivan’s girlfriend) and Dan went to see Underworld: Evolution which was middling. Its the first time in a while since I’ve been to the Cinema and so I saw trailers for three movies I have to see, V for Vendetta, UltraViolet and Silent Hill.

After we came back Gareth informed us we had to be in the lobby ready to head at eight in the morning which is about seven hours time.