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<rant> There was a post on r/Belfast today from someone moving to Belfast looking to make a decision on where they wanted to live. As any sane person would (who doesn’t drive), they wanted to find somewhere close to public transport routes, or to decide to go further out of the city for cheaper but still be able to get into work/school/uni/college/etc. I’m moving to Belfast and trying to find somewhere to live. I don’t drive so I’m looking for places close to public transport, but I can’t seem to find any proper maps with the routes laid out. Translink’s site has some route maps which look similar to a tube map (http://www.translink.co.uk/Documents/Services/metro/Metro_schematic2.pdf[1] ), but without knowing the streets or surrounding ares I’m struggling to piece the routes together from names alone. For Dublin I can use something like http://hittheroad.ie/[2] to see the routes mapped out properly, but i can’t seem to find anything similar for Belfast. Does such a thing exist? ...

Introduction to my Critique Last month DETI announced a Consultation on their (i.e. Arlenes) Strategy to make Northern Ireland “into one of the most innovative regions with the UK”. I’m known to rant and rave about the use of the word “innovation” at the best of times, so I’ll just put that attitude on the shelf and highlight a few of what I think are the “ok” points and the decidedly questionable points in the strategy. First off as a general comment that I’d otherwise repeat over and over again going through the draft, other than the words “Northern Ireland”, and excluding some of the case-studies, this could be an innovation strategy for any region in the world. The stated “Barriers to innovation” read like they’re straight out of a Business Studies textbook, and in general, the (lengthy) exposition around this ideal of “innovation” is little more than a 34 page definition of what DETI considers innovation. (It’s a loaded word and everyone is entitled to have an opinion on what it means. I guess we know DETI’s now at least). Speaking of repeating, this does repeat itself over and over again, just take my word for it here and I won’t raise it individually… ...