How to Change the World: When Irish Guys Are Smiling

I went to Dublin to speak for the Irish Software Association on the campus of the University College Dublin. The event drew several hundred of the top software executives in Ireland.

I wasn't prepared for the extensive use of green in the country. Here is an example.

The technology in Irish bathrooms is impressive. Here are urinals with covers in the men's room of the Brown Thomas department store. I think they were urinals, anyway--unless they warm dim sum in the men's room in Ireland.

This is a Dyson hand dryer. You stick your hands in it and then pull them out. It's supposed to dry your hands twice as fast. This proves that the British can suck and blow.

Could this be Jerry Yang's backup plan if Microsoft buys Yahoo!?

This contains the heart of Saint Lawrence O'Toole inside Christ Church

Inside this very holy looking building...

is a tourist center selling souvenirs--which is an interesting juxtaposition.

The Irish really know how to name companies.

I appeared on the Pat Kenny radio show. He was one of the best prepared talk show host that I've ever met. Listen to the interview here.

Learning the ropes at Guinness. I blogged about this previously.

There are big fireplaces in Ireland. This one is inside the Radisson Hotel.

This flyer was on...

this Rolls Royce which was parked in front of the Merrion, the finest hotel in Dublin.

Who can resist a good ghost bus tour? Not I.

The bus tour guide said that this was the entrance to an underground chamber of the worst living conditions--aka, the "gates of hell."

This is a lousy photo, but it was cold, rainy, and extremely windy on the Hill of Tara. This is where the High Kings were crowned. Legend has it that stone would scream if the would-be king met a series of challenges.

This is Newgrange. It is one of the most famous prehistoric sites in the world. It's supposed to be 500 years older that the Great Pyramid in Egypt and 1,000 years older than Stonehenge.

This is a Google Map view from above.

That slot above the door is where the sun shines through to the inner chamber a few days a year during the winter solstice. The chamber holds approximately twenty people. You enter a lottery to be in it during the special days.

A sign in the Newgrange museum. Someday people will say this about the Macintosh Division.

The place that impressed me most was the Long Room above the Book of Kells display at Trinity College. Unfortunately, you can't take pictures of the Long Room,but imagine a room sixty-five meters long containing 200,000 leather-bound books from floor to ceiling.

This is a Guinness keg that is the collection box for a new organ inside St. Patrick's Cathedral. God must have a sense of humor.

Richard Boyle, father of Robert Boyle (one of the founders of modern chemistry--for example, Boyle's Law), created this two-story memorial inside St. Patrick's in honor of his second wife. I wonder what his first wife got because his second wife didn't do so bad.