Nice piece in the @irishexaminer.bsky.social here. Time for public bodies to stop supporting a social media company that facilitates production of CSAM and hate. #SpeirGorm

😱

Cops go to protests itching for violence and will provoke it if doesn't happen.

Assistant police commissioner Peter McKenna: "It was really quite precarious at times for our officers who were significantly outnumbered by the protesters and the people who wanted to act in a violent and offensive manner." #auspol #nswpol #PoliceViolence #HerzogNotWelcome

10 Years of the Open Journal of Astrophysics The visit of my former PhD student Mateja Gosenca to Maynooth last year reminded me that she was co-author of the very first paper published by the Open Journal of Astrophysics. The date of publication for that paper was 8th February 2016, i.e.…

lol

I've now received emails from three different people who think UKRI stands for "United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland". 🙄

Take Note! We're a week into teaching term here at Maynooth University and I'm taking a short break from the task of preparing notes and problem sets for the modules  I'm teaching this term.  Yesterday I came across a paper with the title Typed Versus Handwritten Lecture Notes and College Student…

I'm thinking that to save time we could set up templates for editorial discussions in the style of football crowd chants, e.g. Author response: "THE REFEREE'S A WANKER" Desk Reject: "YOU'RE SHIT AND YOU KNOW YOU ARE" etc

Are you sure it's not Cthulhu?

The Allianz Hurling League Division 4 has a couple of interesting counties (at the bottom)

I feel obliged to stand up for the "GenZ" person I know best: he reads very quickly, greatly prefers print to digital, makes notes with pencil and paper, and avoids all social media. IMHO generational generalisation aren't very useful... (I'm a Boomer, I suppose)

If I understand correctly, Keith Chegwin has lost the Portuguese Presidential Election.

"On this day 100 years ago, The Plough and the Stars by Sean O'Casey premiered at the Abbey Theatre."

The Newton is a unit of force and it seems the Emerson must be a measure of thickness. I suggest that the Newton Emerson, having the same dimensions as mechanical work, must measure the work done churning out one of these halfwitted opinion pieces. www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...

The Week in Pictures… The Quickening of the Year Rain Warnings MU Library Cat Peter Mandelson (as seen by Spitting Image) Bad News at STFC P.S. The pink flowers in the first picture in front of the daffodils are examples of Lenten Rose (Helleborus Orientalis), all parts of which plant are…

10 Years of the Open Journal of Astrophysics The visit of my former PhD student Mateja Gosenca to Maynooth last year reminded me that she was co-author of the very first paper published by the Open Journal of Astrophysics. The date of publication for that paper was 8th February 2016, i.e.…

As Editor of @ojastro.bsky.social I'm impressed by how many referee reports we get at weekends. But, folks, you should be taking your weekends off!

Sketch for “Composition II” by Vasily Kandinsky, 1909 https://botfrens.com/collections/212/contents/137333

Only today I realised that the role of investigative journalist Dorothea Frazil in the detective drama series Endeavour was played by Abigail J. Thaw, daughter of John Thaw who played the original Inspector Morse.

Bus home...

A saved penalty in #hurling is quite a rarity but that was one! It always seems like the goalie is facing a firing squad... #CORvTIP #GAA

I think it may have been raining in Rome. #ITAvSCO #SixNationsRugby

SayUncle has really gone downhill recently.

In these dark days of February, a little something to look forward to.

The Week in Pictures… The Quickening of the Year Rain Warnings MU Library Cat Peter Mandelson (as seen by Spitting Image) Bad News at STFC P.S. The pink flowers in the first picture in front of the daffodils are examples of Lenten Rose (Helleborus Orientalis), all parts of which plant are…

I do like it when students say "thank you" when they leave a lecture. It makes me feel like someone important, such as a bus driver.

Why so many stories about Ryan fucking Tubridy? www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-r...

I think Peter Mandelson's Spitting Image puppet was uncannily accurate:

Pathetic www.rte.ie/news/politic...

More of this please... ‘Silent decoupling’ under way as Elsevier talks near crunch point www.timeshighereducation.com/news/silent-...

You’re not crazy. The anti-trans movement is not organic; it was funded by pedophilic billionaires like Jeffrey Epstein who backed a network of conservatives to accuse the same people they were sexually abusing of being the real danger. @madycast.com exposes the truth in our in-depth report.

The STFC Funding Crisis – Guest Post by George Efstathiou The following guest post by George Efstathiou is a response to the current STFC funding crisis I blogged about here, and specifically to a letter by the Executive Chair of STFC, Professor Michele Dougherty. I include the letter here for…

🔊 Calling UK early career researches in astro, particle & nuclear physics. Please sign this open response to the proposed cuts at STFC ⚛️🧪🔭 "Protecting the UK's reputation as a science superpower requires not only investment, but continuity, confidence, and people" ✍️ ecr-openletter-stfc.github.io

I've updated my number from 3 to 4, with the addition of Stephen Hawking...

I do like it when students say "thank you" when they leave a lecture. It makes me feel like someone important, such as a bus driver.

Melania: The Movie From the new Private Eye, out now.

I, along with many other UKRI, STFC and RS fellows are signing this open letter on the STFC cuts. The proposed reductions will devastate UK astronomy and the researchers who make it possible. Please read, share, and, if a fellow, sign. advancedfellows-openletter-stfc.github.io/index.html #astro

Drat. I was going to watch that! www.rte.ie/sport/soccer...

George is not mincing his words here.

"We also have the absurd spectacle of deep cuts to PPAN [Particle Physics, Astronomy, & Nuclear Physics] projects running alongside a call for white papers on future space missions." Hard to propose space missions when there's little to astronomy research funded. Local agencies not ESA funds science

The STFC Funding Crisis – Guest Post by George Efstathiou The following guest post by George Efstathiou is a response to the current STFC funding crisis I blogged about here, and specifically to a letter by the Executive Chair of STFC, Professor Michele Dougherty. I include the letter here for…

I realized that a lot of the guys who have been found in the Epstein files are probably really struggling because the guy they would have gone to for advice about being discovered in the Epstein files was JEFFREY EPSTEIN

I've updated my number from 3 to 4, with the addition of Stephen Hawking...

New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "The Bispectrum of Intrinsic Alignments: II. Precision Comparison Against Dark Matter Simulations" by T. Bakx (Utrecht), Toshiki Kurita (MPA Garching), A. Eggemeier (Bonn), Nora Elisa Chisari (Utrecht) and Z. Vlah (Zagreb) doi.org/10.33232/001...

LOL, Unionists really are the weakest, most pathetic people on these Islands. Is there anything ever said by the DUP ever that isn't absolute clown shit? Responses like this mean we need to call it Derry even more.

I'm going to stick my neck out and suggest that it's unlikely #Ireland will do a Grand Slam this year. #SixNationsRugby #FRAvIRE

What’s your Epstein Number? The release of the latest batch of information relating to disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein got me thinking about the number of physicists on friendly terms with that individual and that in turn got me thinking about the Erdős Number, which I blogged…