Archive for October, 2007

As you read this blog post, i’m currently in Dublin, probably shopping or let me re-phrase that, probably following my girlfriend around shopping.

Yeah ok, that’s nothing to be envious about. I’ll probably act all grumpy, she’ll then be mad at me for being grumpy and it will escalate into a cold war where neither of us speaks and neither of us are happy – that’s the way our shopping trips tend to go

HOWEVER, you will be envious of the gorgeous hotels we’re staying in. It’s a great feeling to check in to a hotel, run up to your bedroom door with excitement and swipe that credit card through the lock/handle, exploding with anticipation…

“How big is it?”, “Does it have a mini-bar?”, “Does it have a jacuzzi bath?”, “Does it have a plasma TV”, “What’s the view like?”….

And guess what? I get that feeling not once, but twice as i’m staying in two hotels

So i hope you guys have a good bank holiday weekend, i know i will

P.S. – Don’t expect much activity on this blog over the next few days, the lights may be on, but nobody’s home

I’ve always wondered how many words i’ve gathered up over my time in blogging on this blog. My blog posts tend to be very long compared to other bloggers, and given the fact i blog about twice daily and have over 600 posts in about a year, i thought it would be very intersting to see the stats.

So when i stumbled upon a little sitewide word count plugin yesterday, i couldn’t resist installing. I have it displaying in the footer on my blog:

Get ready, total words add up to a whopping 143,074 (excluding this post)

To put that insome sort of context:

• there’s 181,253 words in the New Testament in the Bible
• a total of 774,746 in the Bible Altogether
• 198,227 words in the latest Harry Potter Book

On average i used to fit about 250 words on an a4 page (handwritten, about 20 lines with 12 words per line). Had i handwritten my blog posts, excluding images and video’s etc.., i would have gone through 570 A4 pages

Pretty staggering stuff.. 570 pages i’ve ‘written’ in less than a year. That’s an average of over 1.5 handwritten pages per day! And i’m not even being forced to do it by teachers My english teacher would be so proud

How do you guys compare with that?

This cropped up in comments recently and i thought to myself i have to blog about it as i haven’t really done so before.

A blog is a diary. It’s personal, unique, customized and of course it’s open and public for the world to read. That’s the beauty of it all… you get to read people’s personal thoughts on things – uncensored in a lot of cases. Unlike journalists in newspapers, there’s no holding back, no neutrality in most cases.

The title of this blog is ‘Smemon – Irish Internet Entrepreneur’. It has been since day one. So let’s break it down further.. word by word. What is the theme of this blog, what is my general ‘topic of discussion’?

Irish: Well obviously i’m Irish and proud of it. You hear me talking about Irish soccer, Irish Driving, my trips to Dublin and the likes.. i also mention the weather the odd time, that’s how you can tell a person is Irish – if they can hold a conversation about the weather. Irish people are made to be bloggers. We’re whiny, outspoken, love to hate people but won’t actually confront them face to face in most cases

Internet: Well, this is one clear cut. I often blog about different websites i come across, and as i’m online basically 7 days a week at college and at home, almost every one of my blog posts has some sort of outgoing link to an article/video/website etc.. I try to give as much information/help as i can to people through my posts and like to put my own spin on things.

Entrepreneur: Well, i suppose i’m over rating myself with the word entrepreneur. But by definition i feel i am. I’m constantly thinking, getting ideas, dreaming of making it with them. Actually going through with them is another matter, but it’s early days yet. This is the reason i’m going to college – to build links and gain knowledge which can assist me in business down the line. So i’m a baby entrepreneur, a wannabe – i’ll admit that. But having seen me knocking about the blogosphere for almost a year, and having seen me churn out over 600 posts on a consistent basis, try telling me it’s all in vain and that i’m going nowhere

I also have 3 categories – Work, Play and Paid Reviews. That’s deliberate, just to keep things simple and in black and white. If i was a google/technorati whore i’d add in all sorts of categories for better SEO.

So in general, all of my posts are kept on topic. But by the sheer nature of blogs, of course i’m going to veer off topic once in a while, maybe in to personal stuff or things going on that are important in my life, but might not be much of a read for you guys So this post is perhaps unnecessary or obvious, but at the same time it’s important for me to differentiate my blog from others and tell you guys what general topics of discussion you can expect.

Whilst i may take a bit of stick from you guys, or Google, or anyone else out there, i ain’t goin anywhere in the foreseeable future, i’m addicted

As most of you will know, like all Irishmen, i have a fixation with Irish driving and roads and an ability to get very angry about it all

I’ve blogged about loopholes in our system before. But for those who don’t know (to my international readers), we can sit a test in Ireland, fail it, and legally drive away from the test center on our own. That’s a joke of a situation. Just 6 months ago i was a learner, and had i not passed my test, today’s news would have me very worried…

Futher more, we can get in to a car without ever having driven in our lives, and again, legally, and be allowed to drive on our own around towns/cities up and down the country (just not motorways). Now you see why i’m highly critical of our driving and our system/laws.

Today, all of that nonsense has ended. The RSA, from Oct 30th are getting rid of the above loopholes for learner drivers. From Oct 30th, you can now be fined up to €1000 for driving on your own (previously, there was no punishment given if you were caught driving on your own).

But look at that date… Oct 30th. That’s less than a week away. I find it remarkable something like this can just come in to effect like that. Surely it needs to be publicised more and give learner drivers time to apply for tests/arrange alternative transport to work/college etc.. it’s a pretty huge rule change which will effect a lot of people.

Whether or not this will be enforced is another matter I doubt it. This is something like i would propose. A no-nonsense, just do it and shut up and get on with it attitude… take the law in next week and clamp down from day one. A huge garda presence on the roads for the first few days to scare people into taking the rule seriously.

Well fair play to the RSA, they’ve done exactly that – taken in this rule just like that, almost overnight. I doubt we’ll see the garda presence though. We don’t have that iron fist mentality to enforce laws. So although this is a huge rule change, i doubt it will stop many learner drivers from driving by themselves.

As part of a sort of self-learning process, i was interviewed today to talk about what sort of learner i am (Based on Kolb’s Theory).

Anyway, i filled out a little ‘test’ and discovered i fall into the ‘reflective observation’ / ‘active experimentation’ category. So basically, i like to sit back, watch and listen , then attempt something after that myself. That’s my learning style.

Rather than just diving straight in to something without any knowledge of it. That’s a fairly accurate description of how i learn imo. I learn by doing, but also by thinking.

Anyway, the most productive time of day for me is probably night time. Anytime from 9pm on to 1am. That’s when i probably do most of my ‘thinking’. During the day it’s a case of getting information, not really doing anything with it. Then at night time i tend to think more and really study it. Classic example are my blog posts – most of them are created at night.

I remember we had a debate about this with teachers in secondary school, asking them if most young people aren’t alert/awake/thinking at 9am in the morning, why does school start at that time?

Why not start at 12pm when we’re all alive and more productive? I think most people like to get in and get out as early as possible. I’m like that. But actually getting up every morning is a chore and if i could wake naturally, THEN go to school/college, i feel i would be much more ‘switched on’.

I guess it’s different strokes for different folks but it’s interesting. Independant learning is the way forward and with the internet constantly developing, are we far from the day when classes will be recorded and put up on the net, to be viewed at any time during the day?

How about this. 24 hours in a day. Classes total 6 hours a day. We must view all classes and logs are kept to see if we switch off (kind of like a countdown stopwatch). You can spend any 6 hours of the day viewing those videos. You also have the option of physically attending the classes at a set time each day.

Would, could that work?

Theoretically it’s a fine idea. You’re taking into account every has different ‘peak times’ in terms of learning. So for example, i could start classes at 6pm and finish at mid-night, all from the comfort of my bed/bedroom.. i know i would leanr much easier that way, but then i think i’m in the minority.

Most students have to be ‘pushed’ into learning things, and giving them that freedom is dangerous. But still, it’s an idea. And if it helps one or two people out of a class, then surely it’s worth it.