In a strong vote of confidence for the Irish economy the World Bank has rated Ireland seventh out of 181 economies in terms of "ease of doing business".

One simple way to move Ireland even higher is to get rid of commercial stamp duty as we rank a woeful 82nd out of 181 for "registering a property".

Apparently industry is outraged at the falling maths and science results in today's leaving cert. Actually, it doesn't really matter.

Ireland is an open economy in a globalised world and is a member of the EU benefiting from the free movement of labour and capital.

Universities in Ireland can recruit students for their Maths, Science and Engineering courses from all over the world. Companies in Ireland can recruit talented staff without any limitations from 29 EU and EAA Member States. That's a labour market of more than 490 Million people. Ireland is only a small, small country.

Ireland has to strive to create a world class environment in which technology companies can thrive. This includes providing world class third level education and research organisations to provide skilled staff. If we can do this, we will have no shortage of excellent scientists and engineers in our country. The fact that they did not come through the Irish education system doesn't matter one bit.

£34 sterling is the fixed rate taxi fare for a 10 minute taxi ride from Heathrow Airport to Egham (7 miles). Makes Dublin taxis look like bargain.


View Larger Map

According to the Big Bang theory, the universe is around 13.73 billion years old. That is, the whole Universe was generated from the Big Bank to what exists today in that time.

Think about this now for a minute: Anglo Irish Bank will hit the Irish tax payers with a bill of around half that number of Euro (up to 7.5 Billion Euro).

Truly a frightening number when you put in context of the Universe's existence.

Need to:

Reduce stress?

Restore a state of relaxation?

Improves blood circulation?

Increases energy levels?

Speed healing?

Relieve pain?

Increase blood circulation?

Improve posture?

Prevent insomnia?

All or any of the above?

If so, and you are in the Dublin, Ireland area I can highly recommend Prishela Row.

Apple's market capitalisation matched Google's at around 160 BN dollars this week.

It is interesting to compare the performance of Apple, Microsoft, IBM and Google since Google's IPO on the 19th of August 2004.

Apple has by far outperformed the others and Microsoft has been particularly poor with a negative return. How long before Apple and Google both have a larger market capitalisation than Microsoft? If things continue as they are, I would say in around 3-5 years.

I just got back from San Francisco. It was cloudy in the city all the time but not in Marin County. I took this picture of the Golden Gate Bridge.

I use Gmail and I just accidentally clicked on one of their sponsored links. These are the links which are positioned on the right hand side of the page. As I clicked on the link - Google launched the sponsoring company's website on a new page.

So what? you ask. Well having clicked on their add - the company that sponsored that link will now have to pay Google for my click as if I actually was interested in their service.

I searched for a simple mechanism to inform Google that I the click I made was accidental - but I didn't find one. Do you know of a way of doing this?

Maybe I should just contact the company who has paid for the click and tell them?