Silicon Valley
Paddy

This series of short courses is excerpted from OSU’s Master Gardener  online course, allowing you to study specific fundamentals of gardening.  In Basic Botany, you will learn to identify plants and their non-plant  relatives as a fungus, lichen, algae, moss, fern, conifer or seed plant.  Additionally, you will recognize plant parts and their functions, and  learn about photosynthesis, respiration and transpiration in plants.  

The  Architecture of Radio is a data visualization, based on global  open  datasets of cell tower, Wi-Fi and satellite locations. Based on  your  GPS location the app shows a 360 degree visualization of signals  around  you. The dataset includes almost 7 million cell towers, 19 million  Wi-Fi routers and hundreds of satellites. A site specific  version of  the app includes wired communication infrastructure embedded  in the  exhibition space. It's aim is to provide a comprehensive window into the  infosphere.     

Letterwhiz is a massive online literary database of free letter templates and quotes for all occasions.              

Paddy's List, over the years I have compiled the ultimate list of the best things to do here in the bay area. It's basically where to go with the kids when they are wrecking the house on a Sunday.

This is the list I would have liked to have had when I first moved here 18 years ago. Even locals should find some items they were not aware of.

Here is some good sources of modern humor and satire, with the best from the US, UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Japan, Israel and Spain. Anything funny you have ever seen on Facebook probably came from one of these sites, go get it for yourself. They will have you grinning like a necrophiliac in a morgue. 

A list of online resources for everything tech and software development related.

What is going on around the Bay Area. 

Tired of the Main Stream Media, here are some alternatives from across the political spectrum.

Here is my list of Irish Pubs (and wanna be Irish pubs) in the Bay Area. 

Note that the same way that all ships are female, all pubs are by definition Irish so I have included a few non Irish ones.

An ever expanding list of Genealogical sites. 

Here is a list of some of the best online Irish news sources. 

A full list of Irish Tech and Cultural  resources both here in the Bay Area, in Ireland and around the US.

Want to go to college in Ireland or want to study about Ireland? Here is a list of the top Irish Colleges and some US Irish studies programs.

These are bits of Irish and Californian history I have picked up. For example did you know that Menlo Park was named after Menlo in Galway, Ireland or that San Francisco was laid out by an Irish Surveyor Jasper O'Farrell? No neither did I until now.

This is a list of online shopping resources for Irish food or rather where to go when Cost Plus World Market does not have that Irish treat you are looking for.

Every talked to an Irish person and had no idea what they were on about? Well we feel the same ourselves and we were born there. But guess what that is us speaking English, here is a cheat sheet to help you out. We also have our own language Irish or Gaelic.

"Fáilte go Gleann an Sileacan Pádraig", or "Welcome to Silicon Valley Paddy" in Irish.

Dave’s top 15 funniest jokes of the fringe 2017

1. “I’m not a fan of the new pound coin, but then again, I hate all change.” Ken Cheng
   
2. “Trump’s nothing like Hitler. There’s no way he could write a book.” Frankie Boyle
   
3. “I’ve given up asking rhetorical questions. What’s the point?” Alexei Sayle
   
4. “I’m looking for the girl-next-door type. I’m just gonna keep moving house till I find her.” Lew Fitz
   
5. “I like to imagine the guy who invented the umbrella was going to call it the ‘brella’. But he hesitated.” Andy Field
   
6. “Combine Harvesters. And you’ll have a really big restaurant.” Mark Simmons
   
7. “I’m rubbish with names. It’s not my fault, it’s a condition. There’s a name for it …” Jimeoin
   
8. “I have two boys, five and six. We’re no good at naming things in our house.” Ed Byrne
   
9. “I wasn’t particularly close to my dad before he died ... which was lucky, because he trod on a landmine.” Olaf Falafel
   
10. “Whenever someone says, ‘I don’t believe in coincidences’, I say, ‘Oh my God, me neither!’” Alasdair Beckett-King
    
11. “A friend tricked me into going to Wimbledon by telling me it was a men’s singles event.” Angela Barnes
    
12. “As a vegan, I think people who sell meat are disgusting, but apparently people who sell fruit and veg are grocer.” Adele Cliff
    
13. “For me, dying is a lot like going camping. I don’t want to do it.” Phil Wang
    
14. “I wonder how many chameleons snuck on to the Ark.” Adam Hess
    
15. “I went to a Pretenders gig. It was a tribute act.” Tim Vine

How to Irritate An Irish Person

1.  Call "St. Patrick's Day", "St. Patty's Day", no sin is worse to an Irish person.
2. Think that a four leaf clover is a shamrock. Bloody imposter plant trying to pass as Irish.
3. Saying you are Irish when you had a great-great-great grandmother come from Ireland in 1840. You are not really Irish but we will still let you buy us a pint though.
4. Mention Riverdance, it's the most evil thing to happen to Ireland since the Potato Famine.
5. Say "Top of the morning to us", dancing a jig and leprechaun costumes are entirely optional while saying this. 
6. Order any drink that is associated with terrorism or war e.g. Irish Car Bomb or a Black and Tan. Mostly because its a sacrilegious waste of a good pint of Guinness. 
7. Imitate our accent, remember in our ears you are the guys with the accent.
8. Mention our pot of gold or lucky charms, prepare for a slap in the face.
9. Assume Ireland is part of Britain, well only a bit of it is. Lets not go there.
10. Ask us to say anything with a "th" in it e.g.  "thirty-three and a third".
11. Ask if we eat Corned Beef and Cabbage, not really, its an Irish American Slum food not actually Irish. OK if you pay for it we will probably eat it though.
12. Pour a pint of Guinness wrong, some things cannot be forgiven.
13. Say anything bad about Notre Dame, we may not know anything about American colleges or sports but we all love the Fighting Irish. 
14. Assume we love drinking, well actually that one is kind of true.
15. Assume we love potatoes, hmm well actually that one is kind of true as well.
16. And finally not buying your round of drinks in the pub, that sin will follow your family for generations.