It is a while since I got meme’d, but Paddy K hit me twice. The first one was in May, the other more recent. Being the lazy sort that I am (and having had my hands full keeping my wife alive while she has her hands full keeping the baby alive) I haven’t had a chance to respond yet. But better late than never. So…

List 10 things that make your day
1. Listening to the rain. I just love to hear a good dump of rain coming down on a roof or tent, while I am warm and dry inside.
2. Having a frozen morning – going out early on a frosty day, or just after a snow fall, with clear blue skies, sub-zero temperatures and the sharp air biting into your mucus membranes as it clears the cobwebs of mediocrity from the brain.
3. Laura’s smile – then I know I done good.

4. Roquefort cheese – Totally with Paddy on this one. Some fresh roquefort spread on a piece of bread torn from a fresh baguette. There is no better experience. *droool*
5. An idea that makes me think – you never know where they might come from, someone on the radio, a blog, a book. But I love that sensation of sitting back and going, “hmmm, that is interesting, I hadn’t thought of that before”. Last time it happened to me – yesterday thinking that if Sarah Palin or her kind got elected in the US their isolationist policies would resemble those enacted by the Ming Dynasty in China which contributed to its 500 year decline.
6. Sunrise in the mountains. Never more alive.

7. A pint with friends and talking shite for hours. Just taking it easy. BTW, that pint is not Guinness as I hate the black stuff.
8. Computer game payoff – that moment in a computer game when something you have been planning and working on for a while comes together. The wonder is built, the city falls, the battle is won, the alliance forged. Satisfaction from the job achieved. It’s why shooters, racers, and console games in general will never hold a candle to a PC strategy game for me.
9. Cup of tea and a scone – Rule 32 Enjoy the little things. The scone should be big, and not heated with a moderate amount of unmelted butter on it. Away with yer cream ya.
10. Rosemary – a new one. But she is the thing that makes my day these days. Her smile, gurgle, but most of all the look of curiosity as she tries to figure out the world, and the two certifiable lunatics the lottery of life gave her as parents!

Me, taking a break from cooking dinner to play (and rescue my telly adict daughter who was engrossed in the athletics).

Although I am living in Austria, I remain an Irish taxpayer, so I have been following the budget discussions going on back home. Over the weekend there was a report about Social Welfare, Education and Health to take the biggest cuts in the upcoming budget. I didn’t see reaction pieces, but I am sure the opposition wheeled out their usual condemnations of attacks on the most vulnerable, blah blah blah.

I like to base my opinions on data myself, so I have been taking to time to go through the Department of Finance’s own figures. I started with the Estimates of Receipts and Expenditure, and I am in the process of working through the much larger Book of Estimates.

I am still crunching all the numbers, but I thought I would share what I have found so far. First up, receipts and expenditures:

As you can see we are planning to spend around €50Bn this year, but will only take in about €35Bn. And that is before capital spending. So there is a massive hole to be filled there. The targeted cuts for next year are €3Bn which will still leave a huge gap. Next question, where is the money going?

This is a breakdown by government department/organisation. Most people can probably guess who the big spenders are, but did you know what proportion of the overall spending that represents?

Just 4 things account for 74% of all government spending. Personally I didn’t realise how big a chunk of the pie debt funding is (9%). If you look at the other 26% there are some big areas like the Garda Síochana €1.5Bn, Enterprise Trade and Employment €1.1Bn or Contribution to the EU €1.5Bn, but each of them is only 2-3% of the overall budget. Everyone loves beating up the residents of the Dáil for their spending, but the Oireachtas Commission’s budget is €118m or 0.23% of the overall state. If they were working for free the savings wouldn’t make a dent in the €15Bn shortfall.

Having had a first look at the size of the hole to be plugged, and where the money goes today, is it any wonder that “Social welfare, education and health to take biggest hit in Budget”?

Hopefully I will get part 2 of this analysis up in the next few days. I want to break out at a lower level where the money goes and split it into 4 categories:

• Salaries & Pensions – how much goes on civil servants, doctors, teachers, nurses etc.
• Administration – the cost of running all the organs of the state.
• Direct Payments – how much is given to citizens directly as cheques.
• Providing Services – the cost of running schools, hospitals, prisons etc.

I want to see this breakdown, because I am keen to see how much money theoretically could be saved by “efficiency”, versus cutting benefits and government salaries. Watch this space.

For years people have been pushing for funds and resources to be allocated to roll out computers in schools in order to improve education. Quite literally billions have been paid out getting schools wired up. But has that money been well spent?

I have said before that I am not convinced that this is a good idea. For all they hype I had never seen or read any studies that showed putting computers in classrooms actually meant children learned more or better. Back in 2007 my view was:

No one has proven that giving a student a laptop actually helps them to learn. This is the elephant in the room when people come to discuss this stuff. Where are the studies and reports showing that children with laptops have significantly improved results? And they will have to be significantly improved to balance the cost of these devices.

The few reports I found at the time just said kids were “happier” with computers, and were heavily based on subjective and anecdotal evidence.

Now it looks like we are starting to see the results of real studies of the impact of putting computers in classrooms. This story from the New York Times looks at three recent reports. One was on the impact of giving PCs to children from low-income families in Romania. Another looked at what happened to test scores in North Carolina when broadband arrived into the area, and the final one covered a $21m “Technology Immersion” programme from Texas.

What they found in all cases was that the children’s computer skills improved. But the fundamentals of reading, and maths suffered.

“Students posted significantly lower math test scores after the first broadband service provider showed up in their neighborhood, and significantly lower reading scores as well when the number of broadband providers passed four.”

The impact was most pronounced in lower income households, possibly because without supervision the kids used the machine for playing games and goofing off. But in none of the cases did they see an improvement in the children’s abilities in other areas.

The Texas study said:

“there was no evidence linking technology immersion with student self-directed learning or their general satisfaction with schoolwork.”

The studies are not definitive, but they should give everyone from educators to politicians who are handing out all this money pause for thought. Without some good evidence that computers are a benefit, then these massive roll out programmes need to be subject to some very detailed scrutiny. In cash strapped times there are better things to be spending money on than state subsidies for the likes of Dell and Intel, especially when the impact on children’s education is negative.

Not that this is all surprising. As the man who wrote the NYT article said:

SCHOOL students are champion time-wasters. And the personal computer may be the ultimate time-wasting appliance. Put the two together at home, without hovering supervision, and logic suggests that you won’t witness a miraculous educational transformation.

Rosemary and Seamus.

Everyone says she is the spitting image of me (Laura says she is sure it’s my baby, but can’t be certain it’s her’s, despite giving birth to the girl). What do you think?

The photo was taken at the Alte Donau, an old branch of the Danube which is now cut off forming a lake for hot Viennese to take refuge from the sun and 34°C heat. It’s to continue warm all this week, going up to 36°C (that’s 96.8°F for our American readers) by Thursday and Friday. Time for me to take emergency action and seal myself into one of our airconditioned rooms with a supply of cool drinks, some food and a bucket.

It’s weird though to think that in 6 months the temperature will have flipped the other way by 45-50 degrees.

This is a map (in time and space) of every recorded nuclear weapon detonation from 1945 to 1998. Although the possible Israeli/South African one from the Vela incident is omitted.

All sorts of scary thoughts occur looking at it. Like, wondering about the US fetish for nuking the south west of their country, and is there any part of western Russia that the Soviets didn’t consider nuking?

I had some old photos lying around that I have been meaning to post for ages.

This one of Saturn taken from the Cassini probe is uber cool. If you look at the full size one you can see a little dot embedded in the rings left of the planet. That is home, Earth. As seen from 1.5 BILLION kilometres away.

Far less impressive, but funny, is this shot taken in Nancy Blakes pub in Limerick. On the wall of the bar was a gadget

I am not sure how far up the dial goes to, or how it may affect your success at pulling. But there is no better venue that Nancy’s to find out.

I am overdue to post some baby shots. Hope these keep the punters happy.

This is Rosemary keeping up the yob theme, lounging around in her wifebeater. She is already sponging off the Austrian social welfare system. Get a job you bum!

Work means I don’t get too much time to see Rosemary when she is awake. But I am trying to spend as much time as possible with here so she knows I am someone important (and not just a random stranger who changes her nappies in the middle of the night).

At weekends Rosemary likes to chill in her chair, or sleep, or eat. She isn’t too fussy. In fact in general she is a pretty accommodating baby. I am sure the demands for Princess outfits, ponies, and cars will come later.

Laura and I have made some attempts to take artistic photos (i.e. B&W). Let the record show that I am smiling at my daughter in this one because I love her, and not because I am saying “you little minx” after she got nervous and pooed and peed all over me

I spent Tuesday in Dusseldorf where as you can imagine they had gone football mad, this being before the Spanish knocked them out of the world cup. The pilot on our Air Berlin flight even was promising to get us to Vienna in time for the match. While I was there an Irish colleague who lives in Dusseldorf took me for lunch and I commented on all the German flags. Like an Irish county in the run up to the All-Ireland they were being flown from cars, shops, balconies, office buildings and when I got back to Vienna, from the cockpit window of a Lufthansa plane. Pat told me that this was something that only started with the last world cup. Before that Germans would have been hesitant to fly the flag. For all sorts of reasons they have been uncomfortable with such blatant displays of national pride. I think it is great that they can be more relaxed about it now.

The irony is that we also have the world cup to thank for reclaiming our flag. Before the heady days of the 1988 European championships, or Italia ’90, the tricolor was something flown by government buildings and republicans. Pride in our national team allowed us all to take back the flag and be comfortable waving it in public.

Maybe for this alone I will forgive soccer for being such a lame sport.