There were three great demos:

• Decisions for Heros: a shiny web app designed for rescue teams by Robin Blandford, who is on the shortlist for seedcamp. There are a number of directions that this project could go, so it will be interesting to see what Rob decides. Will be watching this.
• SnapScribe: the latest offering from Walter Higgins & Sxoop Technologies (powerful web-based software for “photo books made easy”). I had heard bits and pieces about it on Twitter and elsewhere over the past few weeks, and am amazed to see how advanced it is already.
• Tweet Tweet: a Wordpress plugin by Donncha O’Caoimh:
  

  “Tweet Tweet is a plugin for WordPress that polls Twitter and archives your tweets and the tweets of those you follow so those insightful conversations you have at 1am are never lost.”

  It also supports SMS notification with Meteor and Vodafone. I have it installed on this blog now… very nice indeed. If you are a Twitter user and a Wordpress user, you should definitely install this to keep track of your conversations.

There is definitely a good web 2.0/tech buzz in Cork at the moment. There has been some great stuff cropping up locally this year, like SnapScribe, Teamwork PM (a project management site along the lines of Basecamp), Twitterfone (which launched v2 recently), LouderVoice (which is always evolving), and I know there is loads happening behind the scenes that has not made it to a press release yet. Not least at Glandore Systems where it has been a busy few months – we’ll be looking for some beta testers soon enough!

It was this creative buzz that inspired a few of us to put our heads together and do something productive with the web in our spare time, to experiment with new technologies and hopefully launch some useful applications. The big news last week was Tweetrush, an implementation of the Rush Hour analytics engine. We got some great coverage, on TechCrunch, The Irish Times, and elsewhere. “Tweetrush” was even the hottest word on Twitter for awhile (screenshot). AJ has chronicled the launch nicely on his blog.

Tweetrush was intended primarily as a sneak preview of Rush Hour, but it revealed statistics that could not be found anywhere else (except maybe at Twitter HQ), including the total number of active users within a given time frame, or the total number of public tweets. It is great to see that so many people were able to find their own uses for the service, and even ask the question Tweetrush for Enterprise?.

There has been a lot of interest since in Rush Hour Analytics, but this is still in closed beta, so stay tuned to Gogoza for more information on that.

Currently, I’m on season 4, and just watched this episode, “Watching Too Much Television”, where Tony and Ralphie devise a “HUD” scam (Housing and Urban Development). Basically, the gangsters buy up some low cost property in a disadvantaged part of Newark, get someone to value them at a high valuation, and then sell them to the government at the inflated price to be included as part of a low-income housing scheme. Tony makes a lot of money out of it.

Fast forward about 12 hours to a discussion I had with my brother yesterday, telling me about this thread on an Irish property website called The Property Pin.

Cork City council has purchased 96 apartments for social housing in a development at Atkins Hall, Lee Road, Cork City for a fee of €25,365,000. This apartment development has been on the market for 7 or 8 years but has had poor sales because it is located in a former mental institution and my fellow Corkonians being a somewhat superstitious lot were none too keen to move into the building. Step forward Cork city council to bail out the developers by buying up all their unsold stock at an average cost of €264,218.75 per apartment.

Apparently Cork City Council’s plan is to house elderly residents in the former mental institution that most Cork people like Rymus wouldn’t live in if they were offered with a free car and a cheque for €300k. And it’s also on a steep hill outside the city with no buses or essential services in the area.

So the council swoops in and pays above the odds for 96(!) apartments that were having a hard time selling. I’m not an expert in the property market, but if I were buying an apartment which has been sitting on the market for years, I would try bargaining to bring the price down a bit. If for some reason I wanted to buy 96 of these apartments, then I would be reasonably confident in my ability to haggle a few grand off the price tag, wouldn’t you? Somebody should tell Cork City Council that usually when you buy in bulk you’re supposed to save money.

Piecing together what I’m reading on the rest of this thread, what we have effectively is this: a developer buys this entire place from the government in the 90s for £900,000. They do up the apartments, sell a bunch of them to private buyers, and then flog the rest of them back to the government for nearly €26 million. You can be sure there’s some crooked valuer in there signing off on the hefty valuations too, and a couple of fat cats lapping it up.

As far as I can see, the only difference between this scam in Cork, and the Sopranos in Newark was that Tony Soprano was dealing on a much smaller scale (haggling over $7,000), and the HUD scheme actually made sense for the residents. Or maybe I’m just watching too much television?

The dog went missing two days ago, a quiet male dog, part spaniel, pictured here:

Please send me an email if you know of anything.

As the seasons passed, the rogue sign makers slowly grew in confidence, knowing that the public would soon forget the former destruction. At last, they have returned, as John Finn presents evidence of more of their handiwork on display, down at the train station. Perhaps they are toying with our Dublin visitors who tend to struggle with their reading even when the spelling is correct. I recommend that you take a look at some of John Finn’s other photos, because he has some some great ones in there.

Adam has thrown down the gauntlet for those of us who know dopefish from blowfish: a geek table quiz. The proposal is just at interest-check stage, so if you think that you have what it takes to be the alpha geek, then leave a comment on Adam’s notablog. I’ll be there if its in Cork.

By now, most people acknowledge that the population figure associated with the city of Cork is very misleading, since the official boundry of the city is too tight. With no room for expansion in the city centre, the inner suburbs have been packed in recent years, and now the CSO acknowledges the same trend slightly further afield. What perks will this glorious new title bring to Cobh, Mallow, and Midleton? I don’t know, but word on the street is that the locals are expecting a shipment of white runners and Nissan Micra body kits.

I have to commiserate with the Déise fans, this team deserves an all-ireland final at the very least, and I would liked to have seen them get a crack at Kilkenny. They had a very strong team today, with John “turkey head” Mullane having been allowed out of the institution for the occasion. Parts of the stand erupted in “gobble gobble gobble” whenever he had the ball, and it looked like he was indeed going to lose his head, towards the end of the match.

Cork City were missing five star players (unfortunately that isn’t an exaggeration), and although it wouldn’t have changed the overall outcome, its a shame that our most creative players were unavailable.

• 2005-2006 player of the year: George O’Callaghan
• Irish international: Joe Gamble
• Defender: Danny Murphy
• Star striker: John O’Flynn
• Captain: Dan Murray

Man of the match tonight was Dave Barry for having to put up with Roddy Collins in studio. Although, as much as I hate to say it, Roddy was right about CCFC’s squad going backwards in the past 12 months. When you consider the quality of the players that went out – Kevin Doyle, Liam Kearney, Greg O’Halloran, Shane Long and now maybe George O’Callaghan, there has been very little done to improve the first team.

I know it stems from the fact that the club is bankrolled by a guy who made his money selling burgers and chips, but I had hoped that after all the success last season that we’d bring in a decent left-winger at least. Now to look forward to Derry City vs Gretna in the UEFA cup.

Cork City drew with the Cypriot champions tonight in Nicosia, and thus they advance to the next qualifying round of the Champions League. For long spells Apollon were a handful, with their star player – the Polish international Łukasz Sosin – looking particularly dangerous. It was he who scored the inevitable goal which had seemingly turned the tie, but Cork City responded by stepping up a gear and attacking continuously, looking the better side in the second half. The decisive goal came from Neale Fenn’s corner which was powerfully headed into the top left corner of the net by the big defender, Dan Murray. A great performance as usual between the posts by Mick Devine (who has proved himself to be a first rate keeper over the past few years), and some top notch defending by the back four.

Next up for the Rebel Army is an encounter with the former superstars Red Star Belgrade, aka Crvena Zvezda from Serbia. This is the team that won the Champions League outright in 1991, and currently have a number of World Cup internationals in the side. The first leg takes place next Wednesday in Turners Cross.

While the Limassol game was a battle of equals, this is clearly a David vs Goliath fixture, and it would be unfair to expect a result for City, but this is one to look forward to nonetheless.

I was sickened going into this match by the loss of John O’Flynn due to injury, but moreso by the loss of George O’Callaghan due to a load of shite between himself and the manager, Damien Richardson. I think its disgraceful that such a situation can escalate to this extent – it is in everyone’s best interest that GOC be available for such important and high profile games. If Georgie’s statement in the examiner had any truth to it then questions need to be asked of Rico’s handling of the situation. A course in basic psychology and people management would do a lot of good for some Irish managers.

The second leg in Cyprus will be a different story altogether. The heat will cripple the pale white Irishmen, while the Cypriots will be reinforced by a traditionally strong home form in Europe which has seem them claim many scalps against top European opposition over the years. 1-0 is not comfortable, but its one step closer to Belgrade.