Cyclists need insurance?

Wait! Cyclists have to have insurance? I never knew that.

"Close to 200,000 bikes have been bought under the Bike-to-Work scheme since it was launched in 2009, but those who have not joined a recognised cycling club or become a member of Cycling Ireland are leaving themselves wide open to a financial hit in the event of being injured or causing an accident."

I'm not sure how there is a unique financial hit if you're injured riding a bike as opposed, say, to getting hurt while walking down the street. But, if you do need insurance to ride a bike then who exactly is picking up the bill if the "financial hit" is caused by or suffered by someone on one of the Dublin Bikes?

If the seas are rising why are we building along the seafront?

Electric cars, massive windfarms, carbon taxes - the government has dedicated a lot of our resources to "doing our bit" in the fight against climate change. I happen to be fairly skeptical that any of that money is well spent, but if you're a believer in the destructive effects of climate change - and I presume all the main parties are because they keep spending our money on this stuff - then wouldn't it make sense NOT to spend our money on any project along the seafront? I mean, aren't the seas going to rise or are my carbon taxes going to prevent that?

Again, I'm skeptical that the latter could be true.

So let's assume the doomsayers are right and we're in for a fairly significant rise in sea levels. Soooo, why are we okaying the redevelopment of the Dun Laoghaire baths? Why not just leave them derelict and let the sea take over? Or tear them down and wait for the sea to roll in over the site?

To me there's a huge disconnect when a government spends so much of our money to fight climate change and rising sea levels, but gives a big "OK" stamp to a major development project right at sea level.

Facebook is clever ... and really creepy

There are times when Facebook gives me the creeps with the people it suggests I add as a friend. No reflection on the people themselves, what worries me is how Facebook knows to put them in front of my eyes.

For the last few days Facebook has been suggesting that I 'friend' a woman I know. She's a friend of my wife. Yet, how does Facebook know that I know her?

My wife doesn't have a Facebook account and none of my Facebook friends is friends with this woman. So how does Facebook know to connect me to her?

However they have managed to connect me with her is ingenious, but in that clever, stalker-ish way.

Every time I see her face on my screen I feel certain that Facebook has somehow acquired information about me that I have not given them permission to have and that really bothers me.