Sea Lions at Pier 39:

“Note the way they are calling this a “Feta” not a Beta version – it’s part of the overall fun, easy going feel of the site.”

The “Feta” pun is perhaps slightly lame, but it ties in with loads of internet in-jokes scattered around the place that TechCrunch readers would pick up on, ranging from slightly cheesy to very funny: “It’s your turn to mash up” or “I baked you a cookie. But I eated it.”. I actually laughed out loud at some of the testimonial quotes:

Maybe this is a sign that I’ve been spending too much time staring at this monitor, immersed in the world of web 2.0, but this site was genuinely a joy to use. Check out the sign-up form, for example:

I hope there are some web application designers reading who can appreciate this as much as I do. The beauty of the tomato to indicate the required fields. The prompt to enter password again “with feeling”. I have not gone insane, but after the nightmare of Irish-Roots and TV Licence sites, it is so refreshing to come across a project that has been thoroughly thought out. And crucially it doesn’t fall flat by trying to be cute or too clever.

Kudos to the developers Isotoma, it looks like they really know what they’re doing. The design is decent, and I like the company blog, they even list their To Do list and tick off the items as they complete them. If it sounds like I’m gushing with praise, I haven’t even started on the site’s cool features. Best thing is to try it out yourself and let me know how it goes. The only problem for me is that I have no recipes of my own to add so I’m waiting for my neighbour (in the Last.fm sense of the word) to appear so that I can benefit from the service. All the Gastonom.ie folks and Conor, I hope ye sign up and share your knowledge. Which makes me wonder, why isn’t there a hRecipe microformat?

One concern for me is that the pure convenience of an aggregator like this might discourage new people from joining the conversation. I originally signed up to Twitter to follow breaking news and tap into the information that is out there (e.g., Blacknight downtime over Christmas). By actually immersing myself into the stream of consciousness, joining Twitter, adding all of these people that I “kind of” knew, the system came to life and suddenly it all made sense.

Irish Pulse is like reading an IRC log without actually being in the channel, a bunch of uninteresting one-liners from faceless people with stupid names, with the occasional nugget of value here and there. Irish Pulse collapses Twitterspace, flattening it into the log of an IRC channel during a netsplit (a lot of the participants can’t really see each other). People who hate Twitter are not going to change their minds. People who aren’t familiar with Twitter, or are considering creating an account might feel that this meets their needs, and miss out on Twitter’s extra dimensions.

I like Irish Pulse, and I recommend that everyone does what Justin suggests: “read it: bookmark and take a look now and again.” It gives you an opportunity to step out of the crowd for a moment and take a look around from the balcony. But if you haven’t yet created a Twitter account and seen it from the inside, then I would advise you not to rely on Irish Pulse as anything more than another buzz aggregator.

I can’t believe a product could be released that is so obviously broken. I’ve seen lots of dodgy firmware versions for routers in the past that will choke up due to syn floods or viruses or whatever, but out here on a quiet private network in the middle of the country side there is no excuse for keeling over, straight out of the box. Got to say though, this has been rock solid since upgrading.

• Register a premium phone number, one of those super expensive ones where you set the price – €99 per minute or however high the phone company allows you to go
• Print the number onto a “How am I driving?” sticker and stick it on the back of your white van/SUV/small truck.
• Drive like a lunatic for a few days – undertaking people in the hard shoulder, driving 30mph in the fast lane, randomly slamming on the breaks, etc.
• Record all phone calls and make a compilation CD in time for Christmas

To really leverage the power of the network of Irish bloggers, there are much more valuable questions that you can ask. For example, “How can we bring science teaching into the 21st Century?” or “How can we rid ourselves of the growing apathy among Irish people towards science and technology?”

Naturally, it begins in the class room. The most exciting science experiment I ever did in Ireland was dabbing a drop of iodine on a potato and watching it turn black. “WOW that means it has starch in it!”, I exclaimed. But, like the sudden cold, harsh taste of hydrochloric acid in your throat when you accidentally sip for too long on the pipette, my enthusiasm was jarred by cruel nostalgia, as I was reminded of the positive, hands-on approach to science in school in America, and all the things I learned and have never forgotten since.

Consider these experiments that I did in sixth grade in Massachusetts (just a few examples):

Ancient Egypt
“The Pyramid Pull”: studying the pyramids, we spent some time brainstorming how they got these huge 2-ton blocks up to the the sides of the pyramids. Is it really possible that they built ramps and had 20 guys dragging these things up with ropes? To prove the concept, the teacher brought in a huge wooden box, put half the class inside it while the other half, at the end of the rope, pulled the box up a 25 degree ramp. With a bit of maths, we worked out what it must have taken in Egypt.

We also built sundials and obelisks that could tell the time, and loads of other stuff.

Architecture:
“The Skyscraper Challenge”: split into small groups and build the tallest standing structure you can out of newspaper sheets rolled tightly into beams. Some people copped onto the fact that you need some triangles in there for extra strength.

Horticulture:
Dug a garden in the school courtyard, planted vegetables, watched them grow.
Figured out the conditions necessary for germination and growth by carrying out a load of concurrent experiments. e.g., I put a seed in a paper towel and it germinated.
Loads of other stuff too.

Bee-keeping:
Got a bee-hive for the class room (with a tunnel through the wall so the bees could go out into the courtyard). Fed and managed the hive, marked the queen, clipped her wings, harvested the honey.

Fish:
Got a saltwater fish tank. Figured out how to fill it. Went down to the beach for a day and caught (with our hands) ~12 species of fish and a couple of crabs and put them into the tank. Watched them fight it out among themselves for a few months. My pipefish didn’t last long.

In sixth class in Ireland, I don’t think we even did science.

I agree with Alexia, there is so much more that can be done to improve “the cold, heartless trudge through tomes of science”. I would still encourage you to get involved in the Science Week competitions. Even though they are not addressing the root cause of apathy among Irish people towards science and technology, it is a positive and entertaining theme springing up around the place, and any bit of a buzz is better than none at all.