While soccer is rarely televised in the U.S., the rest of the world seems to love their football.¹ A few years ago I saw part of one World Cup game at the neighborhood Irish bar; this year, I’ll have my pick of pubs, along with eager colleagues closely following the games.

With so many games to keep track of, this World Cup chart from Spanish sports daily Marca is a one-stop shop for schedule info. (Thanks Nathan)!

Twitter has made some auto-searches for the occasion, guaranteed to attract spam, along with some actual news and opinions. There’s an overall page along with a page for each game (e.g. South Africa vs. Mexico. Pages for each country (e.g. Mexico) give dates and times of upcoming matches. (Thanks Ranti and Richard for the tip.)

1. I’m amused that some Canadians apparently switch between ‘soccer’ and ‘football’ to describe the game.

I’m moving from “getting settled” to “getting down to work”. Photosharing isn’t a priority (in part because I’m shy of that kind of social networking: photos always reveal more than you think they do).

Shawn Micallef from Spacing Toronto has a lovely photoessay about Galway. I think he captures the city well. It gives a flavor of the place, from a North American perspective:

Geese at Galway Bay by Shawn Micallef

Go read/see the whole thing.

This week I’m beginning my Ph.D. in Galway, Ireland at DERI.

Things move very quickly here. Unlike a U.S. Ph.D. student, I start with an supervisor (Alexandre Passant), an academic mentor (John Breslin), and a ‘professor in discipline’ (not quite sure yet what that entails) (Stefan Decker). Before arriving, I also put in a thesis proposal, which Alex drafted and I merely tweaked:

My thesis will investigate the use of Semantic Web technologies to represent argumentative discussions in online communities—how people have discussions on blogs, wikis, etc. and how they agree, disagree. etc.—and to make these discussions machine-readable and interoperable.

Sure, you expect photos of lush green landscapes (and you might get some out of me eventually).

But first, a more practical sign that I’d arrived: