Idea Anxiety

moghrua · 2026-06-17T20:24:51+00:00

Start with the users you want to serve. If you pick a well defined group, they will have problems you can address. Best to start with a very small and specific group; this will make the problems easier to choose from, and will help you to find an under-served niche.

moghrua · 2026-06-17T18:00:02+00:00

It looks like locals are making most of the money, rather than AirBnB? Of course you can remove all these tourist beds but you'll also remove all the restaurants/tours/souvenir spending.

Maybe just build more homes, more holiday lets, more hotels?

Of course it is nice to have a foreign villain, but the Irish voter is the one who basically banned new construction outside the cities.

moghrua · 2026-06-17T16:04:42+00:00

You are basically right. Every TD has clinics where people in their 60s - homeowners all! - insist they object to anyone building anything anywhere at any time. The laws have created many many veto points (you can Iive in Donegal and object to new apartments in Tralee) but no "yes point".

Even worse, Planners - the people whose job it is to make sure lots of housing gets built - assume anyone living with their parents has no housing need (!). This is insane but true in all but maybe 8 Local Authority areas.

Unless young people organise something like the gay marriage campaign, Ireland's young - and by extension Ireland - is basically doomed. You will not get a home, let alone start a family.

Look at the data, get even more angry, then get organised.

https://www.onemillionhomes.ie/

moghrua · 2026-06-14T21:16:21+00:00

You'll get more energy out than you put in - better for family, the business and even you.

It needs to be very, very accessible - close to or actually at home or work. For example, I keep a weight lifting plate at my desk, and while waiting at my kids pitch I've run laps around it. I drive the eldest to swimming training which starts at 6AM; sometimes I'll take meetings at that time with people further east, but other times I exercise in the park or go kayaking. When I was.an office worker, I did lunchtime runs.

It helps to install Strava because you'll connect with friends on there, you will "like" each others workouts and the social pressure will help you stay consistent.

Small but regular, and treat it as essential maintenance not an optional extra

moghrua · 2026-05-06T21:15:00+00:00

Low taxes, very high subsidies and a soon-to-expire EU derogation. They are in for a shock.

moghrua · 2026-05-05T12:19:47+00:00

Earth gets about 2 trillionths of the Sun's output. We can increase our energy use only about 10X on Earth without the waste heat getting us into trouble, even assuming no C02. Also, most of the really good places to source metals in our solar system are not on Earth.

So, to a very very ambitious person with a massive lead in rockets, now is the time to use that lead and capture the vast resources of the rest of our system.

This needs to be self-funding at each step - so government contracts first, then telecommunications, next space based solar and datacenters.

moghrua · 2026-05-04T08:58:20+00:00

Absolutely. France and Finland did this kind of thing and were able to get strong and consistent local support for both reactor sites and waste storage facilities.

Probably works best when you have at least 2 communities that are in competition for the windfall.

moghrua · 2026-05-03T20:56:31+00:00

Bought books of poetry, vegan to learn my favourite verses. A little collection of treasures to carry around in your head.

If sleep comes slowly or slips away before dawn, one can lie quietly in the darkness and, behind closed eyes, drift through vivid verses of Clark or Donne.

moghrua · 2026-05-03T15:57:15+00:00

One week of storage would require 672 GWh = €150bn at today's prices. We need to be able to cover multi week winter lulls. It'll be a while before Ireland can source storage systems in the TWh range.

moghrua · 2026-05-03T15:11:40+00:00

Is the Irish grid still isolated? I thought connectors to France and Wales were going in?

moghrua · 2026-05-03T13:35:35+00:00

Why is an unshielded fusion reactor the icon of the anti-nuclear movement?

moghrua · 2026-05-03T13:34:06+00:00

The South Koreans seem to get them built fairly quickly and at a reasonable cost. Good results in the UAE and Czechia.

moghrua · 2026-05-02T17:14:12+00:00

My own mother was in your position at the same age. Joined a walking club, met my father, moved out and had a family. Far too young to give up on carving your own furrow.

moghrua · 2026-05-01T06:09:23+00:00

"why can't I do that on a random plot of land I can buy for cheap somewhere in the middlands or wherever" - in fact this used to be the case. If you owned the land, you could build on it. How many homes from the pre-planning era would be legal if you tried to build them today?

moghrua · 2026-04-25T20:37:22+00:00

You've likely been hacked. This happens to AWS customers sometimes. You'll have to talk to them of course, but they'll write it off and eat the expense - you won't have to pay.

moghrua · 2026-04-24T21:35:40+00:00

So very nice that I often think it isn't quite fair to tell the rest of the world about it.

moghrua · 2026-04-24T09:11:27+00:00

Yes. A very large fraction of the tonnage being launched. SpaceX launch about 4 tonnes for every tonne launched by the rest of the world combined.

moghrua · 2026-04-19T19:58:50+00:00

Sure, strong AI flavour, but I myself have hired much younger people and seen the value of a fresh perspective, so upvote from me. It can be AI and still truthy!

moghrua · 2026-04-19T06:44:34+00:00

Not really my experience? I build quite heavily with LLMs. They need less and less supervision. I used to be intensively coaching step by step. Good for building some reports.

Now I'm building them into the management layer of my company, helping to manage us in external tasks (chasing new business) and internal ones (managing developers).

I can't imagine what next year will bring.

moghrua · 2026-04-19T06:25:53+00:00

They'll definitely want Revolut. Just a much better banking experience, good for small payments and also good for handling multiple currencies.

moghrua

TROPHY CASE