Ah yes, I agree that's the mechanism. It doesn't alter the fact that they can't spell or capitalise his name correctly, even though it is a valid name of someone born *in the UK*.
[At least they didn't just anglicise it to death though!]
100%. Sometimes that will involve the private sector, sometimes it won't: whatever works. As you say, the key is to be outcomes focused. Right now we are process-focused (i.e. the primary goal is to involve the private sector).
The US just doesn't seem to want any friends at the moment. It seems really .. grumpy? That's the only word I can think of for it.
Ah right: yeah ground source is surprisingly expensive. Or maybe it's not surprising - I certainly don't know enough about the challenges. In any case it's hard to make it pay for itself, at least on small scales.
That much? Hmm. Solar should cost somewhere between 5k and 10k (they're the quotes I have seen recently).
Surely a zero percent upfront loan covering 100% of the costs is a good way forward, no? Seems quite cheap for the State too.
And still the legal system of that country can't spell, or even capitalise, his name correctly 🤷♂️ There's just such a distance to be travelled in the relations between the British and Ireland.
Oh I wanna see the data on that one! If the heating energy is the same then it seems odd to use as much energy in an A rated house - you would just be much too warm. Of course cooking/washing will not change with BER. As others have said, solar won't decrease energy usage - just carbon and price.
Wow. Have the US and Israel really lost this war that quickly?
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...
Thankfully we have a fair amount of wind and some solar insulating us to some extent. But why not get energy independence? We have that possibility, once we decide to have that ambition!
www.theguardian.com/business/202...
Does Ireland have a moral obligation to Irish immigrants (expats is such a racist term) in the middle east? So many are there to avoid paying tax in Ireland, so why do Irish taxpayers need to bail them out? I mean, we do have an obligation, but it's a curious one
www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...
I feel it's more of a US crisis or maybe a US-Israel crisis, no? Certainly leaving the US out of the framing in the headline seems a bit biased @irishtimes.com
Emmmmm ... globalised markets ... win some, lose some
Do you mean both of the US carriers? Or some Iranian drone carriers?
Not quite: Irish citizens resident in the UK are also allowed to vote: a quirk of the CTA. British citizens resident in Ireland are allowed to vote in Irish elections also.
Not really sure of the value of those provisions, but they're there.
Well now…
Yeah, sorry, I didn't express myself well. Learning to the test is fine - as long as the test is sufficiently unpredictable.
As things stand most universities do make past papers available (even when I was in college they were available). However, they are set by lecturers so it doesn't quite end up being teaching-to-the-test, but there's a lot of learning-to-the-test.
You mean past papers ought not be available?
I'm interested in knowing other folks' opinion on this: what do you think the pros and cons of universities making past exam papers available to students?
For me: one sample exam paper should be made available, but that's it. It seems to me that anything else encourages studying only to the exam
Nuclear (fission) power is *slow* to get to market. About 20 yrs ago I was in favour of Ireland exploring it, but it's too late for that now.
Nice illustration of the fact that business owners frequently don't know a lot about their market: they know enough to make profit, but that doesn't necessarily mean knowing a lot.
The next time business owners in Dublin complain about plans to make the city nicer we'll hopefully keep this in mind
I totally agree: one cannot solve a problem without clearly stating it. If no one has done that so far, then doing it is clearly a critical contribution to knowledge.
Bringing in a model for building houses that works will upset developers and landowners a lot - a tiny minority of the population. Not bringing in a working model will lose our democracy for us
www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...
Are you interested in protoplanetary disk substructures and their role in planet formation? Come to our session at the EAS meeting this year! Abstract submission is open until March 2nd! More info: eas.unige.ch/EAS_meeting/...
Reads: Most importantly, there is no AI without massive financial and ideological backing. It is therefore pointless to discuss its techniques or capabilities without asking who controls it, who benefits from it, who builds and deploys it, and what it is doing in the world. As Stafford Beer (2002) argued, the purpose of a system is what it does.
Reads: Though less explicit than Thiel’s call to replace politics with technology, major tech firms have effectively privatised core digital public goods. Platforms like Facebook, Google Search, and OpenAI’s ChatGPT operate at infrastructural scale in Ireland, shaping information, communication, and access to knowledge. Yet their algorithms remain opaque, their governance remains private, with minimal democratic accountability to the public who depend on them; effectively ceding aspects of democratic process to commercial interests. The monopolization of digital spaces has turned democracy into something the highest bidder can buy and is degrading the digital public goods themselves. As the AI industry, social media and search platforms grow more extractive and less trustworthy, they erode the foundations of democratic life: trust, dialogue, and accountability, blurring the line between truth and falsehood. An example is the deepfake video falsely showing President Catherine Connolly withdrawing from the presidential race last October, which amassed over 160,0001 Facebook views before being removed. GenAI’s non-deterministic, stochastic architecture produces plausible output without regard for accuracy or truth. This makes generative AI a societal disaster and a major threat to truth, democratic processes, information ecosystems, knowledge production, and the social fabric
Reads: For truth, democracy, and the rule of law to endure in the AI era, we need to cultivate an ecosystem of transparency and accountability. Yet governance by algorithms inherently places our digital public squares and democratic processes in the hands of those building these systems in line with their political and profit-seeking agendas. Without real mechanisms in place, talk of transparency and accountability are empty gestures. An internal Meta memo outlining plans to launch facial recognition in smart glasses “during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns”5 illustrates how those advocating for accountability are under-resourced, retaliated against, and targeted. Large tech and AI companies, despite selling promises of innovation and societal benefit, monetize and undermine the very society they claim to serve. What is needed is not just regulation, but active enforcement. Given the track record of tech giants, stricter regulation and enforcement is not “anti–freedom of speech” or anti-competitiveness. It is one of the clearest ways governments can show they serve the public interest. After all, innovation that disregards truth and democratic processes risks undermining democracy itself.
I appeared as an expert witness before the Joint Committee on AI at the Houses of Oireachtas (parliament of Ireland) to discuss "AI: truth and democracy" this morning. You can read my opening statement here: www.oireachtas.ie/en/publicati...
The whole debacle in the UK (not Epstein - specifically the fallout) seems relatively unimportant - great entertainment though!
A very eye-opening follow-up: the account owner openly admits they were posting hateful content simply to develop, and monetise, a big TikTok account bsky.app/profile/jim....
Thanks for using the image for Ireland (rather than Ireland + Britain): makes it an easier read
"Northern British cities" 😅😅😅
