M50 @ 60km/h

Traffic planners must be kidding. The speed limits on M50 between N3 Blanchardstown and N2 Ballymun are set to 60km/h. To be fair, this is too much during the rush hours, when the maximum you can drive is 40km/h, but during the weekend... I did it myself today - drive at 60Km, and I was almost pushed out to the hard-shoulder! Literally nobody drives there at 60Km/h.

If the authorities really want drivers to keep their speed at 60, they should do something more efficient, or change the limits to something more realistic.

The Ryanair's Game

Cheap flights around the world are becoming more and more popular nowadays. In Europe, there are some companies really competitive, and they are capable of doing anything to beat the prices of their competitors. They put their prices as down as €0,00 (zero euros, which may be different than US$0,00 - zero dollars) to catch customer's attention, but then they come with a lot of hidden fees, which the customer has to be careful. They are all there, in the so awfully called Terms and Conditions. I call this The Ryanair's Game, because to my own healthy and well being, Particularly regarding to Ryanair, which is one of most aggressive in terms of prices and one of the worst - not to say the worst - in terms of customer services.

Starting from the check-in process which can only be made by internet. If you don't have internet access and have to call their ticket desk, your ticket flight will aggregate an extra "ticket desk" fee. If you are not european, there in the terms and conditions is stated that you will need an extra stamp in your online boardind pass. For what? For nothing, as other non-budget companies don't have this rule. It's there just to catch the ones who don't have the habit of reading the tiny letters. The same with the "40 minutes before departing check-in closing rule", which only Ryanair (maybe other low-budget companies) has. Flying Aerlingus to the USA, for instance, I was directed to the plane mere 20 minutes before departing! By Ryanair, in other hands, I missed a flight in London Stansted Airport because I call the check-in desk 37 minutes before the departure. The boarding area was only 5 minutes walking fromn the security, so I was plenty of time to get the plane, but they are strictly irreducible: No boarding within 40 minutes to depart!

So, you have two options: pay more to fly a proper airline and be treated as an human being, or play the game of slyness.

An Eye on Brazil

Brazil has weathered the recent global economic downturn better than many other countries. In fact, leading analyst firm IDC, predicts the IT market in Brazil will reach $32 billion USD this year alone, and grow nearly 10 percent through 2013. Much of this opportunity is found in faster growing industries such as telecommunications, financial services, healthcare and energy.

To help foster technology and skills growth in the region, IBM launched a Portuguese language version of IBM developerWorks, the world's largest online technical skills resource and community for developers, to support Brazil's growing ecosystem of 300,000 IT professionals. IBM also announced it is making developer instances of its Lotus software available at no-charge to accredited colleges and universities in IBM's Academic Initiative program across Latin America.

The IBM Innovation Center in Sao Paulo, Brazil, is part of a network of 43 centers in 30 countries globally, providing entrepreneurs, business partners, venture capitalists and academics with access to training, consulting services, a broad technical infrastructure, and hands-on assistance to help bring new technologies to market.

In 2008, more than 22,000 business partners attended workshops, seminars and architecture consultations to build their skills on IBM technologies, and over 7,000 new applications were enabled on IBM open standards-based technology at IBM Innovation Centers.

By cultivating and enabling the entire ecosystem -- from student to seasoned professional - we’re helping IBM Business Partners succeed and ensure the innovation of tomorrow.

It sounds like an exciting time for IBM in Brazil!

Borders' Shutdown

The only branch of the UK's bookstore Borders has shutdown this weekend. The Blanchardstown branch started to sale everything 50% off 3 weekas ago. Last week they've dropped the prices even more, to 75% off, and last weekend - just before shutdown - every and any item was only 1 euro! The store was quite out of options, I tell you, but even that was not a problem to me to spend 91 euros there! It means 91 items (1 "Instant Russian" CD and 90 books!) more to keep...

NAMA Banana

The squandering took place, the powerful and the richest people of this country have played their cards - and the governement is their partner: ordinary people have to pay the bill once again. But this time, the governement wants a blank check, because they don't even know the amount they have to bite yet!

Pixo

Focusing on the life of the ex-"pichador" (person who writes or paints on public walls, often illegally) Djana Ivson, the photographer of the Folha de São Paulo newspaper, João Wainer and his brother Roberto Oliveira produced "Pixo", a documentary about "pichadores" in São Paulo city.

The documentary discusses wether graffiti is an artistic expression or a crime against property. The production records of different actions pichadores and unveils some of the codes of conduct of this tribe.

Watch an excerpt of Pixo here:

an extensive one here.

an Aoine

I had my third Irish class and I could say I'm doing VERY WELL! And just 'cause today is friday - an Aoine! - and my daily email "irish word of the day" was domhan, meaning Planet Earth - Tá muid uilig inár gcónaí ar an domhan, or We all live on Earth - I offer this video with from Playing for Change featuring Granpa Elliot: "God Bless America", home of the most of the Irish people in the world!