Great article by my colleagues Roja and Joel www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...

ChatUpGPT

The absolute state of the debate in autism circles. An obsession with terminological correctness . Latest thing is people saying ‘spectrum’ is inappropriate because it covers such different abilities. Which still sounds just like … a spectrum

Settling down to watch the Theroux ‘Manosphere’ documentary just to give myself a cortisol spike before bed xx

President Catherine Connolly has described the situation in the Middle East as a "deliberate assault on international law".

‘It’s international women’s day so will you let me paint your nails’ was such an audacious pitch from the 9 year old that I didn’t feel able to refuse

I too remember the earlier, woke wars. tons of spent microaggression munitions strewn about everywhere, friends crying out for God as they were slowly cancelled...look, if you weren't there, you'll never understand

How do academics who are ostensibly committed to egalitarian ideas of social organisation, try to apply those ideas to the generally hierarchical nature of their workplaces? (I.e. promotion schemes?) Would it be unfair to observe that they generally don’t try?

No disrespect to my colleague but a lot of this really just boils down to a vague idea we should transform arts and humanities education ‘to prepare students for an AI world’, when if we are being honest, nobody really understands what AI will look like in a decade www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...

Certain Euro leaders going full-on indignant and all ‘strategic autonomy’ when a self governing European territory is hypothetically threatened, but reverting to full vassalage mode when a Middle Eastern country is actually attacked, really is a classic case of:

You don’t have to preface your condemnation of the US-Israeli assault with ‘the regime is bad but’. The prohibition on use of force has nothing to do with the virtues of the state attacked. You don’t have to open with a wavering concession to the talking points of the aggressors.

A bit mad how media conventions call Iran’s allies ‘proxies’ but won’t call the Gulf autocracies American client states (or whatever)

Normalising murder of civilian leaders seems bad

The politics of the good speech apparently has its limits. More as we get it.!

Low-key apocalyptic www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

Broke: enshittification is Netflix Woke: enshittification is Twitter Bespoke: enshittification is Academia dot Edu

'Data centres will take a third of power by 2030' Ireland's government wants to make us a digital slop farm. And in the process, almost certainly miss climate targets. Very few jobs or tangible benefits, but easily wowed and awed by big tech. www.independent.ie/business/iri...

Giving a ‘Frantz Fanon Prize’ to someone who donated to Kamala ‘most lethal fighting force in the world’ Harris is actually audacious, in fairness

First shoots of wild garlic. The climate is grim in this part of the world, but at least spring arrives early.

‘Genderwashing’ is a nice way of putting it. If you want more gender (or racial) balance within the prevailing academic ethos of competition, careerism and hierarchy, that is simply not a very appealing vision of ‘equality’ www.irishtimes.com/ireland/educ...

Lightheartedly told the 8 year old I would struggle to make my book deadline. She tilted her head sympathetically and said ‘’ I have two tips’. ‘Try putting post-its on your computer - and don’t procrastinate’ ❤️❤️

Usual set of facile liberal cliches from O’Toole. You can disagree or not with Sinn Féin’s vote on Ukraine aid but he doesn’t even recognise, never mind engage with its stated position, that it supports aid but not within a framework and logic of obviously futile escalation

Becoming a Luddite with age is such a cliche, but having lost an hour to the nightmare of having two versions of OneDrive installed, I am convinced things were more efficient when I worked with a physical disc

A reminder that this famous photo was taken in 2014, during Obama's presidency.

Bought a pink wine for Valentine’s Day - lame, I know. But since it’s ‘natural’ and unfiltered, it actually looks not like a bright pink rose but like mucky river water.

Following the Winter Olympics from a perennially mild country where it almost never snows is quite surreal; the first time I tried ice skating was abroad (France) as an adult, remember little kids whizzing past pointing in amazement than adult couldn’t skate

I bring my daughter, who has a learning disability, to a fast food restaurant. The straw disintegrates a short way into the drink- she doesn’t understand any instruction not to chew it. Crazy how the supposed innovative power of capitalism can’t give us straws both biodegradable & accessible

Paws-umption of innocence applies

Do we become more accident-prone in middle age? Barely suffered an accident in my life and then within a year I have broken a toe, fractured a wrist and sprained an ankle. All, it must be admitted, very minor ailments caused by VERY funny misadventures

Randomly, I shared a communal office space with André Ventura, now the Portuguese far right leader, while we were doing PhDs in Cork 2008-2010ish. Though I didn’t know him well, he was on the surface a very affable character, as is often the way with extremists www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

This innocent-looking dried habanero- first time using it in a stew of beans, tomatoes, chocolate, vinegar - my poor wife nearly died but the way it is both fruity and yet deep, dry heat: omg

Latest instalment of the culture wars in Ireland is over the new public holiday tomorrow that honours both a Christian saint and (allegedly) the ancient pagan new year, Imbolg (I just care about the day off) * did I mention the day off tomorrow

‘Unlike his predecessors, Trump forgoes cultivated speeches delivered with a legalistic silver tongue; but the violent core of his idea of a Pax Americana is anything but new.’ newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...

The coolest Congresswoman there’s ever been.

Some people apparently consider it unreasonable to insist on keeping 8 varieties of vinegar in the kitchen??

When I look up an academic I basically just want a chronological list of their publications, but because PMC execs love shovelling money at fancy but shit software, you’re more likely now to get a set of AI-generated keywords and a graph comparing their citations in 2022 v 2023

Do US liberals not pause to think about the rest of the world when they outragedly emphasise the CITIZEN part? Let me tell you how it sounds: it sounds like you think murdering mere foreigners is not that big a deal, something you are prepared to maybe forgive a little bit of from a Democrat presdnt

AI very nicely exposes the contradictions within “conservative“ political thought. Philosophically, conservatives should be aghast at the prospective disruption of established social order and the tearing apart of the “given”. But in practice they can’t help bending the knee to tech capital

Spent the day at this beautiful stadium in my capacity as assistant manager of several 4 x 200m under 10s relay teams

Occurred to me there that whereas I tend to ask my father for DIY advice, in the future we’ll probably just ask AI. Yeah it’s more convenient, but something is lost

Saw a staff notice for ‘UniSingers’ (a choir, evidently) but for a split second I read it as ‘UniSwingers’ (one is the supposed not to judge, anyway)

Brilliant, informative article about the stakes of an ‘AI bubble’ newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...

Oh wow, another food-based moral panic, colour me shocked. Do ‘ultra-processed foods ‘ next www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Am behind with lots of bits of work so made potato dumplings; that’s how this works no

Oh gosh yeah all the violence was out of sight and you were able to just have brunch x

Section 5(1)(f) of the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1998 (as amended) makes it a criminal offence to knowingly facilitate the production or distribution of sexualised images of children. The problem here isn't the law - it's the political willingnesss to enforce it against X.

My curmudgeonly AI in higher ed opinion is that instructors should be less precious about changing the assessment format. You’re not going to win the moral battle or the detection battle. Closed book exams are imperfect but more adaptable than ppl think. For example, discussion of unseen passages

You’re very unlikely to change people’s minds or even soften their position, by discoursing with them. You’re probably as likely to harden them in their views. But trying to get a rise out of them is a perfectly respectable aim, too

A democrat president would do imperial violence with a bit more nuance and a sympathetic head-tilt, some gestures of concern. They’d keep it to drone-murdering people in southwest Asia, or something like that, letting the liberals have brunch in peace