Just upgraded to WordPress 2.7 through Dreamhost’s snappy update feature.
I like the new dashboard interface!

And now for a shameless plug

Follow me at my latest project: TREEconomist

A site for environmental policy, alternative energy and the economics of climate change.

also follow TREEconomist on twitter

Happy Earth Day 2008!

I’ve been up to my ears in alligators lately but I decided to take a bit of a break from my research to meet up with a fellow video blogger from Philadelphia last week and have some great craic . We had fun geeking out about Macs, blogs, and politics.

John Coffey, aka Jimmy CraicHead, and his girlfriend Samantha, aka Demanda Diamond, came to Ireland during Easter and visited Galway and the surrounding area for a few days to experience the real Ireland. John rang me when they got into town and we met at my favorite pub, The King’s Head. Jimmy and Samantha interviewed me about living in Galway and produced a wonderful segment titled Galway Craic and Guinness Beer.

This and Jimmy CraicHead’s other videos are professionally produced and edited and look great for a part time blogger. Galway Craic and Guinness Beer features some great shots of the River Corrib, Galway City, Clifden, and Connemara with Irish trad music in the background. Jimmy and Demanda Diamond (a play on Amanda Congdon) are a perfect video blogging duo, traveling the US and the rest of the world in search of interesting people.

JCHTV is not your average video travel blog and Jimmy and Demanda have put together some great segments. I’ve got loads of video footage from my travels here in Ireland as well, but as Jimmy and I discussed it’s difficult to produce a polished segment. JCHTV makes it look easy! Just don’t laugh at my terrible interview skills. Let me know what you think of the video and check out the others at JCHTV.

Here’s to John and Samantha…may your travels take you far. It was great to meet you and the hangover was worth it. Slainte!

As many of you know, I am a postgrad in economics and appreciate charts and graphs. So, I’ve been chuckling at Jessica Hagy’s, Indexed for a few weeks now thanks to a friend’s suggestion. Jessica has a simple, brilliant concept: take line graphs and Venn diagrams, throw in a bit of controversial social topics, mix together on a lined index card, and you have a new breed of daily web comic. Today’s Indexed takes on the meaty issues of global warming, abortion, taxes, gay marriage, health care, and Iraq. If you ask me, Jessica’s index cards a loads funnier that most newspaper political cartoons.

Not all of her cards are serious or political in nature. This one about high school reunions hits the nail on the head and got me to snicker since I recently went to my own 10 year reunion. There are loads of other great index cards and it’s definitely a blog I read regularly. Her site could use some tweaking and it’s really frustrating that she has urls in the the header that are not linked, but its easy to look past all that with the great content.

Finally, Indexed just got a book deal with Penguin Viking, so I can’t wait to see what else is in store for Jessica Hagy. Congratulations!

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Well…the blog love is thick around here! I’ve gotten a great response since I posted Everyone’s a (blog) critic. I just received a nice shout-out from my fellow American blogger/postgraduate/actress Macoosh today. This is her response to my post about her a while back.

Macoosh is an ultra-prolific blogger living and studying in Dublin. I was scanning through some of her older posts and there’s some pretty deep stuff, some LOST spoilers, and some good laughs with her camera on eyebrows and writing. I can definitely relate to the latter with my gasoline tax research in full swing.

The header image is great with the failte (welcome) sign and the sheep. It really captures some good bits of Ireland. Macoosh’s blog is much like mine in that we both write about our studies abroad in Ireland as postgraduates and everyday things we encounter. Her specialty topic is LOST, as I mentioned. I think she’s addicted to the show. I must say, I’ve recently caught up to be current with the new season and I am really liking it as well. Her writing style is very free-spirited and off-the-cuff. Reflection of a Dream, or as most people refer to it, A chuisle mo chroí… is just that, “the pulse of her heart.” She writes what she feels.

Keep up the great work, Macoosh!

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Are you the type of person that can’t wait to tell your friends about a movie and point out its highs and lows? Do you go out for dinner and analyze the restaurant’s atmosphere, quality of service, or how the toilet was kept? This is a call to my readers be a critic of this blog. I came across this idea from Bryan Baker, a student at Oregon State who got a format suggestion from Wes Mahler and ultimately started, I presume, with David Airey. All are great blogs, by the way. I wonder if this goes back further?

There are several benefits to the budding critic for this little scheme: Fame, fortune, immortality etc… Not only that, the critic will score some major karma points, have exposure to millions* of viewers, and receive a critique of their blog. Don’t you just love The Critic, by the way?

*potentially - results may vary, see below for details

So if you’re up for the challenge, I encourage all of you to please carefully examine my blog and leave a comment below. There are just a few things I ask that you do:

1. Criticisms are suggested to be in the form of Positive, Opportunity, Positive. I also encourage specific suggestions and if you don’t like this format, well that’s too bad! Just kidding, just no flat out bashing please.
2. If you leave a comment and are a blogger yourself, you agree to allow me to critique your site as well.

Here’s the fun part. I would like to start a program to spread this idea around and reward those that take part, similar to what I posted before. To get started write a post in your blog about critiques, much like I did, then copy the text including links where it states start copying here. Add your blog’s name to the top of the list and paste this along with the links into your post. This should result in many excellent suggestions to improve your site as well as the bonus of having incoming links to your blog to increase exposure. Don’t forget to copy the list exactly and add your own site to the top of The Critics list. Finally, don’t forget to critique me in the comments below. I will take all reasonable suggestions to heart.

***start copying here***

The Critics
James Britton
Bryan Baker
Wes Mahler
David Airey

***finish copying here***

If you would like to follow these comments, subscribe to the comment feed and while you’re at it, subscribe to the main feed as well… Let the critiques begin!

How many times have you been out and about town, saw or heard something cool and wanted to tell everyone about it? I just started using twitter, it’s really cool. It’s a text message service where you can “follow” people and receive their texts as they send them to twitter. The service also posts your text messages to your profile page where you can even have them displayed on the public timeline. There could be loads of practical uses exploited here. For instance, I added topgold, of award-winning blog IrishEyes, as a friend and he just said this morning his washing machine can be setup on twitter to text him when the cycle is finished, how cool!

This is such a great way to blog on the run and speak your mind with a virtual diary. My twitter name is [jamesbritton] in case anyone wants to “listen” in on my thoughts. You can also use twitter with IM services and even Google Talk. This is really helpful if you don’t want to rack up the text msg charges. From Ireland twitter uses a UK number, so with Meteor I’m paying €0.12 per text and gotta be careful I don’t lose my shirt in topup charges. Watch out, it’s addictive! C U L8R…

A linkback experiment: So here’s a cool (shameless) way to potentially get loads of linkbacks to your site or blog. This one was sent to me by John Chow. It’s a list of tech sites/blogs that anyone can add to. You reproduce the original list and then add up to five other tech, science or consumer electronics blogs that you enjoy reading. Then let those added blogs know and tell them to do the same thing. Soon, the list will a mile long and you’ll have all kinds of linkbacks. If you want to copy this and “pay it forward” so to speak, just copy the code below and make sure you follow the instructions carefully. Also, don’t forget to add your own site to The Originals list and add me to the paragraph above the “Start copy here.” This list will soon be be miles long and you’ll have loads of linkbacks from subsequent sites. It can’t hurt and will certainly help increase your traffic from search results.

***Start copy here***

1. Write a short paragraph at the beginning of your post and link back to the blog that put you on the list in the paragraph. This isn’t a suggestion. You need to break up the duplicate content string. Someone took the time to add you so the least you can do is give them an extra linkback.
2. Copy the list of originals below COMPLETELY and add it to your blog. If you would like a different keyword for your blog then change it when you do your post and it should pass to most blogs with that keyword.
3. Take the adds from the blog that added you and place them in the “Originals” list.
4. Add no more than 5 new TECH, SCIENCE, or CONSUMER ELECTRONICS blogs to the list in the “My Adds” section.

My Adds:
Greg Mankiw’s Blog
IrishEyes
fleshyorgans
A chuisle mo chroí…
kev/null

The Originals:

britton blog - an american student in galway, ireland
John Chow dot Com
Ted Leung on the Air
Geek is a chic.
you’ve been HACKED
IDIOT TOYS
JMH Techtronics
Web Services
UtterlyGeek
Tech It Like A Man!
Ugh!!’s Greymatter Honeypot
techboyardee
The Tech Inspector
***End Copying Here***

I have been racking my brain trying to figure out what’s been wrong with my internet connection. For the past several days, I have been able to access blogs hosted on Blogger about 5% of the time. I regularly read and comment on Greg Mankiw’s Blog as well as A chuisle mo chroí… and others. Fortunately, thanks to some sleuthing by some geek friends at the CWELUG in St. Louis, we determined it’s not just me and my internet connection.

Blogger has a known issue with a few ISPs in the UK and Ireland, including NTL which is my provider. The ISPs are not configured properly for blogs hosted on blogspot.

Google and NTL, please fix Blogger! Fortunately I have Google Reader to keep my RSS feeds updated, but I’m still not able to comment (sorry Macoosh) on my favorites or discover new blogs that happen to be hosted at blogspot.com.

I was recently invited to the Alexander Hotel in Dublin on March 3 by Bernie Goldbach, a podcaster here in Ireland. I was not aware that it was in fact the 2007 Irish Blog Awards and unfortunately I was unable to make it. I believe this was only the second year for the awards and I must say it’s a GREAT idea! There are so many hidden gems in the blogging community that don’t get enough exposure or readership and these awards are an excellent way of promoting the industry. I want to thank Bernie for the invitation and I hope to see him at next year’s awards. Until then, take some time to browse some great Irish blogs that I’m just starting to read myself:

Best Design: Beaut.ie
Best Music: Nialler9
Best Videocast: Allyn Quigley - Size Matters
Best Podcaster: EdgeCast (Conn O Muineachain)
Best Group Blog: In Fact Ah
Best Specialist: Ice Cream Ireland
Best Blog Post: Conor O’Neill’s vasectomy
Most Humorous: Twenty Major - Countdown to Next Election
Best Podcast Episode: An Lionra - 06 12 06 (MP3)
Best Business Blog: Ice Cream Ireland
Best Arts Blog: Sinead Gleeson
Best Irish Language: Hilary NY
Best Photoblog: Headphoneland
Best News: IrishElection.com
Best Personal Blog: Redmum
Best Technology Blog: Bernie Goldbach
Best Sport and Recreation Blog: Tom’s Sporting Almanac
Best Irish Blogger: Twenty Major