WHY am I still using this bank?

Bank of Ireland once again loses customer data (Irish Times story on the same topic). Note this fine contradiction in the Times article:

The full name, account numbers, first line of address and contact numbers for 894 customers from different parts of the country are held on the memory key.

vs.

In a statement the bank said "no financial information in relation to customers' accounts was on the device"

(shades of Bill Clinton's defence there...)

I'm also disappointed in the Data Commissioner's response (and I'm sure others are regarding it as "business as usual"):

[Billy Hawkes, Data Commissioner] said that while the best of security systems could be in place human error could still occur. (RTÉ article)

[Gary Davis, deputy Data Protection Commissioner, said that w]hile the loss of the data was a concern he said the likelihood of a fraud was "relatively remote". (Irish Times)

The former shows a pretty cavalier attitude to the obligations under the data protection act, for which there are, you know, laws and fines and what not; the latter shows a really poor understanding of how easy it is to commit fraud with very little information - as shown by Jeremy Clarkson earlier this year.

witness the truly awesome power of a fully-operational waider

Ok, so not fully operational, and certainly not pushing flat out, but 5k in 22:34, dammit.

Sometimes, when the wind, the gradient, and my pacing is just right, I hit this sort of loose-legged long stride that feels serene. Happened me twice this evening, once coming down Hyde Park Road, and once on Sandycove Road, and there was just a hint of it as I wound up at my front door. I like that. I wish I could hit it more often, and without running.

memories

There's something weird about the things I remember, and the things that trigger recollections of those things. Case in point: standing in the kitchen with a girlfriend, trying to open a bag of cashew nuts by pulling apart the seam at the top (as indicated, I might note, on the bag itself). Realising that it's one of those all-too-common bags where the alleged perforation/weak point is in fact stronger than the rest of the bag, I mutter, "this is going to end in tears", and she giggles at that. Now I find myself pretty much reliving that moment any time I'm opening any sort of similar bag in the kitchen. Weird thing to remember, and to remember in such detail no less.

(The bag, incidentally, did not give way showering cashews all over the kitchen, and thus there were no tears.)