Whats been bugging me lately is the number of e-mails I am getting from old friends. Not personal ones from them of course, those I would welcome, no these ones are “Join our network” e-mails from old friends using sites attempting to do what friends reunited does, except just for an invite only group of people.

Why does this annoy me? Simply put, not everyone seems to have chosen one service, hi5 and WAYN seem to be the most popular choices but they are by no means the only ones people have helpfully given my e-mail address to. This would mean I would need to sign up to many sites to be in touch with all my old friends via this method.
Why don’t I just fill in the forms that come in my inbox and help my friends, it only takes a few minutes no? Harsh, but true is the reality that I will get spam. Once someone invites me to one of these networks I get monthly reminders asking me to register. This is annoying, in a big way. I didn’t ask to be on a list, and my friends only filled in a form to send me one invite. If I choose to ignore it thats my choice; I should only have got the one. If they are doing this with just my e-mail address can I trust such sites with details like what I am doing now, phone numbers, instant messaging addresses, skype etc.? I very much doubt it.

What about friends who want to keep in touch with me I hear you cry! Well, first off I haven’t yet lost touch with any of my friends who I didn’t want to lose touch with, added to that fact I haven’t changed my e-mail address or my mobile number since I left school, so unless they have lost both they should be able to keep in touch (also they have my e-mail address if they are inviting me to the online network, why not just mail me direct). I also have plenty of opertunities to meet new people here in Leeds so I have no interest in the friend of a friend type concepts that are floated by these online communities. Most importantly though is how good this site (www.kieranoshea.com) is at letting people find me and stay in touch! No one can possibly lose touch with me when all you have to do is type “Kieran O’Shea” into Google, hit “I’m feeling lucky” and you land straight here; contact details, personal profile, old photos from school, new snaps and info about what I’m up to abound.

To anyone who I know (even vaguely) who is trying to get me to join one of these communities, please stop. Ask them to remove my e-mail address, and just drop me a personal e-mail direct from yourself once in a while. I always reply and it would be great to hear from you rather than a spam-bot

After discussing “Geekyness” with Laura last night, I stumbled accross this amusing web page today. I thought Laura and indeed many others would find it funny

A Girls Guide to Geek Guys »

After my annoying encounter with the H Samual shop assitants I came home and checked my e-mail. Laura was online and we had a bit of a chat for the first time in ages due to how busy she has been. She asked me if I was busy as she fancied coming over to Leeds; well cooking for one always sucks and I hadn’t seen her in ages, so I agreed. What seemed like no more than an hour later I got a call, “I’m on the train can you meet me at the station in 20 minutes?”. I guess my code and listening to Jazz Blues Fusion would have to wait

It was a good night though; what with the combination of a rather nice stir fry, bottle of wine, the first Harry Potter film (I hadn’t seen it in so long! Hagrid’s lines rule!), and finally a trip to my favorite jazz club in Leeds - the Wardrobe and a subway sandwich afterwards, it was, in my humble opinion, almost the perfect recipie for a great evening. We must do it again sometime

I was in H Samual yesterday, I wanted to get a new battery for my watch which stopped dead a couple of days ago and nearly made me late. I handed it over, they told me it would be ready in an hour and would cost £5. A little steep I guess, but I needed it doing and I didn’t mind the short wait, so I popped to Starbucks a little way down the road and grabbed a coffee and caught up on a little reading for my course.

Came back to the shop just over an hour later and handed over the card I had been given by the previous assistant. 2 minutes later they returned with my watch and no new battery. Apparently they never had the correct sized battery from the start! And why couldn’t they have told me an hour earlier I might ask? Some people really have no sense of customer service these days do they. Little did they know that I’d do them a downer on my blog though; I guess that makes it pretty much even

I was sent an e-mail today containing a link to an article on sky news about political correctness. (read before reading on here!)
All I can say is this is polictical correctness, and indeed the world really, gone totally and utterly mad. Its all down to parents now; teach your children the right way to sing nursery rhymes. It’s not about the political correctness of the matter, it never has been, its been about entertaining kids.

Don’t tell me kids get ideas about predudice from nursery rhymes; they don’t, its just entertainment. Kids will make up their own mind when they grow up about whats correct or not; don’t take away a wholesome childhood just because the mere mention of a colour throws up racism in your mind. Its utterly insane. Black is a colour, like white is a colour, like blue is a colour. The nursery rhyme should be seen in no more sinister a light than that.

These political correctness advocates need their heads banging together - hard.

Still, on a lighter note, if you really must change what in my mind are unchangable names, why not make them future proof. Who knows, maybe rainbow will be offensive someday. Lets make sure that the rhymes are open to interpretation and are not directly related to anything. I say use HEX coding for the colours, so we can keep black sheep, but call it 000000 sheep. Then for the political correct among you it’s just a number. And besides, in a world where the future is computers and technology, can it do our kids any harm to come out of nursery knowing HEX?

Today I’m working at home. Not because I would normally, but because my lecturers are on strike. I normally have 3 lectures on a Tuesday. Its an interesting conundrum though because I was asked yesterday if I supported the strike, and I had to think quite carefully before I could provide an honest answer, and even then, it wasn’t a straight foward one.

I love my course, and lecture attendance is all part of the learning process, so I was a little disapointed to find that students would be missing out; after all, the exam content isn’t going to change, and there aren’t enough empty lecture slots left this term and staff with free time to reschedule all missed lectures today, so unless I learn it by myself I would get behind with respect to the exam.

On the reverse side of the coin however, I value the teaching that my lecturers provide and am very grateful for them imparting their knowledge and experience to me, and so I firmly believed they should be paid well for the job they do. It is clear from what staff have said, and from the statistics available however that staff are not paid as well and as fairly as they should be. Not only that but they are not put on a pay scale that gives new graduates a suitable enough incentive to want to go into teaching in univeristies. This can only be to the detriment of the furtherment of many fields of learning.

Problem is, this isn’t the whole story. In addition to a strike today, there is an assesment boycott starting from tomorow. This means that work I submit will be left sitting there, unmarked and without feedback. While for me this isn’t so bad (most of my work is formative right now), this applies to all work from all students, including the exams of finalists. In the case of those students, it really does mean their graduation or at least the release of their exam scores will be delayed. A pain for many, a huge issue for others who need those grades to go onto further study or research or for those who’s future employers want a certain degree class to accept them.

So what is my position on the whole issue? Well, I’m quite happy to support today’s strike, I believe my lecturers deserve better pay, and there is nothing that a few hours in the library won’t fix when you have missed a few lectures.

As for the assessment boycott, sorry, I don’t back it one bit. If I was graduating this year, I would be worried in a big way. Ok, lecturers pay isn’t as good as it should be, and it’s an issue that has to be urgently addressed, but for people about to graduate, the AUT are potentially delaying the result of 3-4 years worth of very hard work. Is that fair? No ones denying lecturers don’t work hard and deserve better pay, but what about the students who work hard an deserve their degree? Two wrongs don’t make a right I’m afraid; student support on AUT pickets can only help lecturer’s cause, but when degrees don’t come when they should do, I think expecting that support is expecting a little too much.

I was bored today, so as I was glancing around my room for inspiration I noticed my logitech webcam sitting on the shelf, unconnected since I moved in. Well, nuts to that I thought, and hooked it up to my Linux box. An hour or so later I had sorted out drivers, a video feed and an application to create a new image every few seconds on my apache2 webserver, running on Lara. The result is a webcam image in a pop-up window that self-updates every 3 seconds and you can view it right now, simply click the “View Webcam” link in the navigation bar.

All I have to do now is find somewhere to point it that is both interesting, and doesn’t cause me to live in big brother hell. Suggestions on a post card…..

Selected photos from in and around the Clarence dock area of Leeds when I was at the university halls located there

I have just uploaded some photos to the site that I took earlier. The sunshine was just too inviting, and I got some interesting shots of some of the buildings and stretches of canal around Clarence dock.

Photos are here

I have also updated my Radio page at long last with downloads of a few of my shows (hosted on Lara of course) and some photos of me and some of my past guests on air. Enjoy

Yes, the day has come, it’s snowing here in Leeds. Coming down at quite a pace actually, got a nice white coating going on now. Only problem is it appears the fall is heavier over in York and the jazz / funk band that were due to be playing at the basement bar have cancelled, so I won’t be going along with members of the Jazz and Blues society after all.

I am mighty tempted to go back to the wardrobe again though… they have a great horn section going on tonight in the club! I think I’m in jazz heaven