sinéad's lifestream

Thanks to the Internet I came across a new product called Sugru a mouldable silicone that helps you hack and repair your stuff to make it work better and last longer. Its stops you from having to buy new things when they break and glue just won’t do it justice (when does it ever?).

It’s self-adhesive (sticking to practically everything), dishwasher-proof, waterproof, resistant from -60C to 180C and yet it cures (hardens into silicon) at room temperature. It was created by an Irish woman called Jane Ni Dhulchaointigh and there’s a great set of videos on Fora.tv where she discusses the product in tons of detail, from its development to its applications. The Sugru blog was also a finalist in the Irish Blog Awards 2010, where you can find ideas on what to do with your Sugru.

We’ve been used to living in a world where we throw things out when they get broken, but with less money in our pockets we should now be turning to versatile and practical solutions such as Sugru. It’s also so much better for the environment. It doesn’t just fix things though, it can improve the usability of your crappy mass produced consumer products. People have already done some clever things with theirs and that’s what I’m planning on doing with mine.

Sugru iPhone Stand

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… My extensive background in Psychology gives me an insight into human behaviour, in particular online, which will be of great use to me during my work at RedFly, which I am very much looking forward to starting.

I just published my first blog post on the Redfly Marketing Blog.

I’m over the moon to have moved into an industry I can be proud to be apart of and a company I know has a fantastic future ahead of it.

I was quite literally speechless on Saturday night when I heard I was a joint winner for Best Technology Blog at the Irish Blog Awards. I grabbed the fantastic Made In Hollywood “winner” tombstone (celebrating the death of blogging of course) as I was happier to prance away with that and let 3 time nominee, first time winner, Pat Phelan take the trophy home – a really well deserved winner. Though admittedly I’m looking forward to my own trophy making its way home.

In the past year my blog has transitioned from being considered a personal blog to a technology blog, but honestly I don’t think I could ever really separate the two. Since a really young age technology has been an integral part of my daily life and this blog has been my outlet for my passion for all things technology related, especially in the last year what with the publication of my blogging research,  subsequent end of my college course on Cyberpsychology and search for related employment.

I’m completely unable to express my passion for technology during my current full time job and if it wasn’t for blogging I imagine that passion might have wavered. I’m extremely thankful for blogging because of this and also because it has brought me to incredible events like the Irish Blog Awards and allowed me meet so many wonderful people, like the gorgeous ladies in the photo below.

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The Irish Blog Awards finalists list was published last night and I’m delighted to see so many familiar and deserving blogs and bloggers having made it to the final judging round. Next weekend in Galway is going to a lot of fun. I’m pleased to report that my own blog made it to the finals, in the “Best Technology Blog/Blogger” category. The full list of finalists in this category are below, as you’ll see the competition is incredibly tough and I’m proud to be put along side these amazing blogs/bloggers. Thanks to Bitbuzz who are sponsoring the category and thanks to Damien Mulley for organising another piss up awards.

Best Technology Blog/Blogger

– Sponsored by Bitbuzz

• The Gaming Liberty
• Pat Phelan
• Matt Johnston
• Sinead Cochrane
• Web2Ireland

Thanks to Steph for the graphic/badge.

A big thank you to Damien Mulley,  Willie White from the Project Arts Centre and Alexia Golez for the hours of fun we had participating in and winning the Dublin Tweasurehunt on Saturday.

Team “Invasion of the Booty Snatchers” was a combination of old friends and new ones led by the lovely Dena. Though we were exhausted by the very end, it was worth every heart pounding second, taking us all over Dublin 1 to places I’d certainly like to revisit (possibly at my own pace though!). Overall a great bit of exercise and loads of fun. Check out the #tweasure hash tag on Twitter to read all the buzz about it and check out the brilliant video below.

Dublin Tweasure Hunt from Jentertainment on Vimeo.

Christmas was very good to me.

I’ve already flown through the latest Buffy graphic novel (which isn’t that good I’m sad to report) and am half way through “What The Dog Saw” by Malcom Gladwell (bedside reading, one chapter before bed each night, it’s wonderful). But below is the remaining books I have left to both start and finish.

Really looking forward to “And Another Thing…” as I have been re-reading the Hitch-hikers series to set myself up and I’m almost finished now. I’ve really enjoyed my forth read of the trilogy of five, fingers crossed for the sixth.

I’ve made myself a book inbox before, and I was delighted that other people followed suit. Would love to see what’s in your book inbox now.

When I was little I caught a fluffy bumblebee.

I put him in a glass jar and was careful to punch air-holes in the the lid and I left him overnight in the backgarden on the windowsill.

The next day he had died, and I was really sad to see him go. Myself, my brother and the little girl and boy next door decided to give him a proper burial. We dug a little hole in the flowerbed in the next door neighbour’s backgarden and had a funeral for our dearly departed insect friend. In the middle of the ceremony the bee climbed up out of the hole in the ground and scared the bee-jesus out of us. We ran screaming from that garden as the zom-bee flew away never to be seen again.

It’s one of my earliest childhood memories and it still creeps me out a little bit.

What’s your earliest memory?

Inspired by a Twitter conversation with @Burkie.

When I was in Primary School one of the boys in my class had a seizure in the middle of Irish lessons. Being children, we were frightened by how his body seemed to shake unnaturally and though he never had another seizure in class again, there was always a sense of unease around him. Looking back, I realise that his remaining school days could have been far happier, if only his classmates had been properly educated about his epilepsy. Instead words like “fit” and phrases like “foaming at the mouth” were passed from the adults to us.

I never reflected upon this, until Mam had her first seizure.

It was only then that I learned how much misinformation there is about epilepsy, and how much ignorance and unjust prejudice there is. For example, a layman understanding of epilepsy is the photosensitive form which is a reaction to strobe/flashing lights, but only 3-5% of people with epilepsy actually suffer from this.

My first source of information has always been the organisation Brainwave. Thanks to them I was able to educate myself, and in doing so I was able to prepare myself for the next seizure (this is a straightforward and simple guide to first aid for seizures [pdf] that *everyone* should read). In understanding epilepsy, it stopped being scary.

I often wonder if my hysterical reaction to Mam’s first seizure would have differed if I had been taught to understand why it was happening and informed as to what an epileptic seizure looked like. I now know that sometimes during a seizure a person can go blue in the face; but I had no clue about this during her first seizure and went into a total and utter panic. More importantly, if I had known how to recognize a seizure from the start, I would have been better able to report this to the doctors in A&E – who were adamant that the seizure followed her cracking her head open on the tiles of the frozen food aisle. I was certain that it was the opposite way around. But they wouldn’t give her a diagnosis, or run any tests, or treat her… until consecutive seizures followed.

Thanks to Brainwave we learnt how a seizure isn’t a dramatic emergency (unless she had hurt herself, like the first time) and that she could easily recover without the need for doctors or emergency rooms (thank god). Luckily for Mam, once she was medicated she stopped having seizures, except for the occasional nocturnal seizure. More recently she has also managed to be weaned off her medication, after going a couple of years seizure free (yey!).

Not everyone is that lucky though, and without Brainwave there would be a total lack of information and support for sufferers. As you can see from what’s been discussed here already, being educated about epilepsy in Ireland is falling solely to them. Unfortunately Brainwave is not a government run organisation and they rely on donations to continue providing support, information, advice and improving public understanding of epilepsy.

That’s why I’ll be attending their benefit night “The Horse Show Hustle” on August the 7th –  tickets are on sale here. For €33 you can dance the night away  with the satisfaction of knowing the proceeds will be going to an organisation that is greatly needed in Ireland (if you can’t make it to the show you can alternatively make a donation via MyCharity.ie).

I definitely needed them, and in the future, someone close to you might need them too.