Today the Swiss announced they don't have an agreement with Springer Nature -- swissuniversity tried to secure a deal and failed in the face of the extreme rise in publishing fees. When the game is rigged, it's better to stop playing. 🧵 to understand the drain of scientific publishing👇

Telling good science from bad – a user’s guide to navigating the scientific literature www.wiringthebrain.com/2021/08/tell...

As the capital, you kind of expect Dublin to do badly on these traffic metrics. But drivers in Galway lose the same amount of hours to traffic as those in Montreal, a city with a metro population more than 27 times that of Galway.

Imagine historians using AI

And so it begins….. The best part of Christmas online! #DuvetKnowItsChristmas

Good King Wenceslas has some good images: kings looking out, deep crisp even snow, the rich and powerful caring for the poor. We could score carols to see how many of these they mention, and produce a measure of Wenceslasness. A carol with no such similarities is Wenceslasnessless.

We were honoured to welcome MU alumna and PSI President Dr Sarah Cassidy as speaker at the final #MUPsychologyAt25 event, introduced by @maynoothuniversity.ie Prof. Eeva Leinonen and Prof. Deirdre Desmond, followed by a panel discussion with Alumna Dr Anne Kehoe and Dr Ian O’Grady.

Journal article: “the data are available on request” The data:

i cannot get my university to engage with the question “why do fascists love AI and what do you believe their goals are for universities?”

Journal article: “the data are available on request” The data:

Every time I'm in a restaurant I remember Kevin McAleer's reply to a waiter who told him the Soup Of The Day. "Where there any other contenders?" "Um, no?" "A hollow victory, then".

All research is exploratory if you’re confused enough

I'm at that stage of work where you go 'Tee hee, I can put this off until January, which is several years away. I'm so clever!'

Excited to announce a new book telling the story of mathematical approaches to studying the mind, from the origins of cognitive science to modern AI! The Laws of Thought will be published in February and is available for pre-order now.

This year, @annayahprosser.bsky.social, Tamarinde Haven, Nicki Lisa Cole, and I have tried to envision the ideal, utopian future for open qualitative research. We've had community workshops, talks, a charter, grant apps, a special issue, all to build "Qualitopia" for 2026✨ qualitopia.my.canva.site

New paper! We describe how grassroots networks can help implement and harmonize open research efforts via our experience establishing the Norwegian Reproducibility Network [email protected]. doi.org/10.7557/11.8...

🚨 Now out in Psych Science 🚨 We report an adversarial collaboration (with @donandrewmoore.bsky.social) testing whether overconfidence is genuinely a trait The paper was led by Jabin Binnendyk & Sophia Li (who is fantastic and on the job market!) Free copy here: journals.sagepub.com/eprint/7JIYS...

I was wondering why the hell Tipp TD Ryan O'Meara was suddenly pushing the digital wallet identity verification thing so I checked and of course he was one of the TDs that Meta directly lobbied about it www.lobbying.ie/return/13174...

🚨 THE FINAL EIGHT 🚨 We’ve made it to the quarter finals — only two days away from crowning a winner for Worst Person in Tech 2025. Don’t miss your chance to vote! 🗳️ Cast your ballot: twsu.forms.app/wpit2025-qf

🚀 Launched! Here’s our call for applicants to the Canada Impact+ Research Chairs Program at @westernu.ca. This is a remarkable opportunity for us to recruit outstanding scholars who are currently working internationally: www.uwo.ca/research/can...

"It must not be overlooked that junior researchers DO NOT TRUST US. We, the directors, are a big part of the problem. We made this system, we remake it every year, and we benefit from it. What can we do to credibly signal our commitment to reform a corrupt research culture?"

Man answering his phone on the train: Yes? Correct, I’m not at work (pause) I’m not going to answer that because I am not at work today. No, you’re going to have to ask someone who is. Goodbye.

Seeing not one, but two school winter shows today. Pray for me

That academic hiring grievance article doing the rounds: look, there are simply very few jobs and lots of people, relatively speaking, who could be hired. I was precarious for nine (!) years. And now Britain, at least, is trying to solve the issue by having most universities go bankrupt.

Modern academic publishing part II: Sage has now blocked my (university) IP address because I have had a tab open for >4 hours since my license does not allow downloading. I now have to write my colleagues an email so that I can read papers that they are already paying an annual fee of ~100K€ for.

Just a shocking missed opportunity that this paper (a) develops a Bayesian approach to network community detection, tested on (b) Sampson’s Monastery Data—which is about conflict amongst a group of monks—but (c) is somehow *not* titled “Updating Your Prior”. www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~teh/researc...

Microsoft word now automatically suggesting I paste in some random alphanumeric codes in comments. Just great AI integration here. Really, well done 👍

2025 has been a helluva year. Unfortunately so was 2024, 2022, 2021, 2020…

bsky.app/profile/did:... Periodic reminder that there is an #IrishResearch feed on bluesky #speirGorm It picks up hashtags like #irishResearch #LoveIrishResearch and #ResearchIreland

I have to say, this really captures the mood of 2025 youtu.be/MG38kB6p7Mc?...

We're delighted to welcome TWO new diamond-OA PCI RR-friendly journals Registered Reports in Linguistics, ed. by @scoretta.bsky.social ky.social & @jess-hampton.bsky.social + Replication Research @r2journal.bsky.social ed. by @aufdroeseler.bsky.social & team rr.peercommunityin.org/about/pci_rr...

Join us tomorrow, 16th December at 6.30pm as we host our final event of our 25th anniversary year. #MUPsychologyAt25 @PsychSocIreland @MaynoothUni Ticket details below 👇

🚨 The UK government just published a breakdown of the responses to its consultation on AI & copyright: - 95% of respondents want AI companies to pay for their training data (made up of 88% saying strengthen copyright law, & 7% saying leave it as is) 🧵 1/2

Psychologists, what are your favorite (open) data sets for teaching multilevel modelling? I have a lot of observational examples, would love a therapy RCT with varying effects for therapists or some such.

Wtf. I just carefully read this entire interview with Frances Allen, only to find out at the end that it wasn’t really an interview with her, but was AI generated. “Vox Meditantis” and “Bob Lynn” have lied to me and I will not read their words again.

Grand Canal Greenway from Adamstown to Hazelhatch is now fully open

Any legal experts here? Should people be allowed to say “what’s the craicaroony?” in public?

Two victims of previous school shootings — Mia Tretta, who was shot in the stomach in 2019 at Saugus High School, and Zoe Weissman, who survived the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School — are now at Brown. Gun violence is out of control in this country.

They say in any organization 5% of people create 95% of the problems. In teaching, that sort of tracks. But at this time of year, when some students take the time to send thoughtful notes about your course, I'm reminded that indeed most are just terrific: curious, motivated, and a pleasure to teach.

#speirgorm if you are in the Clonliffe Road area please keep an eye out for our lovely former foster boy Ernie

Very sad that I felt I had no choice but to resign from The Infinite Monkey Cage - a victory for the transphobes and other bigots - I did it because so much of the media has chosen to believe the kind and empathetic people are a fiction - they are real and so often unrepresented.

📌 ciaraioch.com is now taking Christmas orders for prints, cards, and vouchers - each archival-quality print on heavy art paper is made in Ireland, ships internationally in eco-friendly packaging with discount tracked postage, and comes with a FREE card and treats for every customer 🎁 #SpéirGorm

First year selling my art at Christmas without the Other site, where most of my sales came from, as well as losing US orders to new tariffs, so it'll be a tough one - I put huge work into every order, so even if you can't buy, shares help get them in front of eyes. GRMA! www.ciaraioch.com/artprints

You can do this right now: Think of a person who wrote a paper you love, whose work influenced or helped you, or has made your professional life better. Search up their email address. Shoot them a quick email of thanks. It means so, so much. This is a rough time of year, share some joy.

Quite a good set of questions.