John Collison's blog

Interview with Eureka

john — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 01:23:37 +0000

Last Friday I did an interview for Conn and Bríd’s fantastic weekly radio show Eureka on Raidió na Gaeltachta. The Eureka site has all episodes available for download as podcasts - it’s well worth checking out, especially for students (like me) with an interest in tech who are looking to improve their Irish at the same time. I’ve been listening to Irish radio a lot recently and it does wonders.

Anyway, here’s the clip:

Running in Castletroy

john — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 12:22:02 +0000

(click through for gmap-pedometer page)

Found a great route to run yesterday. Most of the time running in Castletroy isn’t great - you tend to be underwhelmed by scenery and overwhelmed by roundabouts. This route, however, takes you along the banks of the Shannon for three miles - from UL all the way to the bridge at Corbally. From there, you go out the back roads past a Volvo dealer and the abandoned Verbatim factory to come back into UL near the Health and Sciences building.

Anyone else got any nice routes?

All kitted up

john — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 21:45:27 +0000

I stole the Garmin GPS for Dublin on Saturday:

Yes, that is sellotape.

Frisco, redux

john — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 21:46:49 +0000

Coming back to San Francisco makes me think I should never have left it. Stepping out onto the street, I found the city basking in glorious sunshine. You can’t help but be happy here.

After dropping stuff to the hotel, I decided to go to one of the best places to eat ever - Pluto’s. San Francisco is the kind of place where you choose to walk this two miles rather than use the ridiculously good public transport (50c to anywhere!) because it’s just so damn enjoyable. Walking down Van Ness though, I realised that the city didn’t just become eclectic and awesome spontanously. It’s the people who live here who give it this vibe. With this realisation, I decided to contribute however I could. I took out my harmonica and harped away as I strolled towards Lombard. It feels like you’re in a movie as you peddle your blues while leaning against a lamppost, waiting to cross the street.

Went to Starbucks this morning. Americans really are funny with their coffee. Turned up at 8.30 - bad time to come. The guy in front of me ordered a quad venti - a drink with a quadruple shot of espresso. Shouldn’t you need a prescription for that? I then mistakenly took another guy’s drink and ended up with - I’m not joking - a tall non-fat hazelnut soy latte. I’m pretty sure there’s so much crap in there that they don’t bother actually adding any coffee. The lead story on my SF Chronicle was Americans bitching about $4 per gallon for gas. Poor things have obviously never been to Ireland ($7.50/gal) or Britain ($8.50/gal).

Speaking of price comparisons, everything seems so affordable with the current dollar rate. I’m going to encourage Tommy to invest in a house here with his Confirmation money.

Saturday project

john — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 14:17:22 +0000

A few days ago I bought a harmonica for all of 8 euro. Of course, the real way to play it is with the guitar (like this guy). So:

The difference between Bebo and Facebook

john — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 22:21:20 +0000

Just came across this browsing earlier, sums it up brilliantly. In matters relating to tea:

Facebook group:

Bebo group:

Who needs an AppleTV?

john — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 22:27:02 +0000

We got a new (HD!) telly which has a VGA port, so I finally got to hook up my new Linux media server: Of course, I didn’t just leave the various parts strewn around: Nice and neat. Note the special enclosure design to allow maximum airflow: And a closeup: Clever design allows all the parts to fit in the basket. Well-placed Vodafone box stops the power supply’s metal case short circuiting all the twiddly bits on the motherboard. Overall layout: All in all the project was a great success. I envisage many uses:

Media hub
Modern art
Fire hazard
Tux Racer console
Accident waiting to happen

Irish comprehension of the week

john — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 16:52:24 +0000

Here. Patrick has made it big! Some would say I had an unfair advantage in class today.

Plank’s constant

john — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 18:02:26 +0000

Plank’s constant is a constant used to describe the time you must allow for delays when planning. It is the multiple you must use to compensate for people acting the plank and doing things like taking two car keys or posting your runners to Canada.

5th year - one month in

john — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 22:06:34 +0000

Long time, no post. So I’ve pretty much finished working on Auctomatic since August, and gone back to finish my education

Impressions of subjects so far:

English: Much more fun than Junior Cert. Have a ninja teacher. Macbeth is gripping.

Irish: Improved vastly since I got a new teacher.

Maths: Easy and mostly enjoyable. Most interesting occurence so far has been school asking students to get new fancy Casio calculators, which can handle algebra and fractions. This of course means they refuse to give answers as decimals. Result? 7 * root 3 = 7 root 3. 2 pi = 2 pi. Many frustrations ensue.

Spanish: Would be great if they didn’t keep it at a 2nd year level. Why not just throw us in at the deep end and we’ll learn more? Example: the teacher speaks English rather than Spanish to us. I mean come on!

Physics: Currently covering stuff we’ve done to much more depth in Applied Maths, so I doze through most classes. Ask me again in a month.

Chemistry: More learning than I had anticipated. It also turns out JC chemistry told us many, many lies and half-truths. Have concluded giving squirty bottles, fire or acid (or all three) to students of any age is a risky idea.

History: Didn’t think I could enjoy this as much as I am. Course is fascinating (Bismarck ftw!), a four page essay is almost an enjoyable task. I’ve started comparing friends to 19th century diplomats subconsciously.

Applied Maths: The intersection of Maths and Fun. It’s like they took what you knew in maths, and made cool problems for your enjoyment. They of course left out all the ugly, messy stuff like trigonometry. It’s kind of annoying though when you remember that none of your calculations will ever be right because of that prick air resistance.

Design and Communication Graphics (i.e. dressed-up Tech Drawing): New course has 40% for a SolidWorks (CAD) project. SolidWorks is surprisingly easy to pick up and looks great. Most of my computer time I’m not actually working, just rotating my piece and watching the light bounce off it.

All in all, being back at school’s pretty enjoyable. Doing other stuff like student politics, debating, chess etc. on the side. Life is good.