I was talking to my students just the other day about what it means to offer a balanced account. It doesn't mean treating every opinion or statement as equally valuable, it means evaluating them and determining their value.

Ooh, look, you can get rid of AI summaries in Google!

I like mine!

I was once on a bus in Oxford, wearing a military blouson jacket. The chap behind me asked what it was, as he didn't recognise the insignia, so I told him it was, as far as I knew, French Foreign Legion. "Ah yes", he said, "they had the right idea, the French..."

Which lines of poetry live rent free in your head? More scouts than strangers, Ghosts who'd walked abroad Unfazed by light, to make a new beginning And make a go of it, alive and sinning Ourselves again, free willed again, Not bad

I visited "An Siopa Leabhar" in Dublin yesterday, and happened to bump into a guy who was in one of my online Irish classes. I don't think he's a regular there, and I've never been before; what are the chances?

Bhuel, táim beagánín bródúil asam.

An afternoon well spent in the sewing room.

Introduce yourself with five concerts you've seen; The Dubliners Alive in Chains Avril Lavigne Devotchka Rufus Wainwright (I like to think I've eclectic, but then everyone thinks they're eclectic, don't they?)

I thought I was being so clever but the weather is absolutely vile today and I have regrets.

SAD has got me wanting to spend all day on the sofa eating carbs and all night failing to go to bed, so not only have I ordered a SAD lamp, but I got it on local pick-up so I will have to leave the house in daylight tomorrow.

I am watching a very bad Jason Statham movie called The Beekeeper, and I have some notes. Firstly, that's not a bee suit and it would not keep bees out. The gloves are wrong too. Honey doesn't come out of a spinner that clean, and as for the hives, who stacked those? They're a mess.

Get to know your mutuals! List 10 random things you enjoy. Beekeeping Gaeilge Dressing like Miss Marple Sad boys with guitars Baking without a recipe A nice notebook Neolithic sites Angry girl singers Cosy murder mystery Malbec

This applies equally well in the UK as in the US; gotta laugh so as not to cry...

Watching #GameOfWool and I'm honestly confused; we're told these are some of UK's most talented knitters but half of seem to be pretty much beginners. Also, knitting and crochet are two separate things.

BlueSkyers, please tell me your most niche and specialist joke. Mine, which I dreamt during my PhD; Why are rhotic accents cool? They just rrrr.

Literally no-one asked for this. (I have now disabled the AI settings, but it should never have been opt out!)

I'm considering making báirín breac for the first time this weekend, but I have a dilemma; the internet seems divided on whether it should include yeast or just baking soda/powder. #speirgorm, cad a gceapann sibh?

It's Halloween, and my roses are still in bloom. It's lovely but it also feels wrong; a beautiful portent of doom.

Excellent thread here, and there are some bonus recipes in amongst the passionate condemnations!

Good thread!

It'll be interesting to see if this research holds up. At a minimum, it would be nice to have a tiny bit of balance against all the guilt-tripping aimed at mothers over every choice they ever make!

Superb.

This seems like a terrible idea. At 18, kids are mostly just about ready to start living somewhat independently, and university is a great way to give them that opportunity but with guardrails. This kid is not ready for that.

Wow! My first thought was, this is incredible, how cool. My second was "OK, but does it come in child sizes please?"

Suddenly and for no particular reason I'm interested in what happens to a political party or movement when it loses its leader vs what happens to a cult when it loses its leader.

What cruel mockery is this? I feel like Sisyphus and Tantalus in one.

While defending the luddite argument in Discord, I stumbled into this IMO succinct explanation for opposing generative AI: At every step in the process, it impoverishes us.

The reports of the death of a teenager after ChatGPT actively encouraged him to end his life, are truly horrific. ChatGPT should be frozen while it is investigated, but I am now wondering, how long until the first criminal trial with AI as the defendant? Not the company but the AI itself?

This is a great, really engaging article. I'll be sharing this with my students!

Yep; technology can help to do some tasks, but GenAI threatens to replace _thinking_ (with something that only looks like thinking). Machine learning can do brilliant things, for example in medical screening, but GenAI... well, if the bubble is about to burst, I shall be relieved.

This is my very first harvest! Just one frame, as I only got my own bees fairly recently, but I built the frame and my bees drew it out and filled it, and it is delicious; citrussy and floral. I am delighted!

A good article here, worth a read! Why AI Shouldn't Be the Future of Academia | Psychology Today www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-...

Gonna need to read this.

I love this idea! I shall have a think about how it might be scaled up for larger undergraduate classes; our cohorts are over 200, and even seminar groups can be around 40-50 students, which might make it tricky but it's a great way to engage students.

anybody else’s gyre feel wider lately

Taim ar colaiste na samhradh i Glencolmcille, ar feadh coicise. Ait sasta!

I get emails every week inviting me to seminars on how to incorporate AI into my teaching, to which the answer is a very decisive "absolutely not". You can't outsource thinking. Or if you can, you shouldn't.

definitely relevant to my interests!

Linguistics folks, do you know of a cross-linguistic pseudoword generator? I want to create (or find) a set of pseudowords which are plausible in Irish. There are plenty of lists in English, but unsurprisingly I can't find any in Irish.

Makers of instructional videos, I am begging you, splash a tiny bit of cash and hire a human to do the voice overs if you can't do them yourself. AI voice overs have an uncanny valley effect which makes it really hard to focus on the content.

I'm making a jumpsuit out of the red linen shown here, trying to choose between the other two to line the bodice and pockets. The lining shouldn't show, but still...

Everywhere is hot but my sewing room is slightly cooler, so I've spent the afternoon making the toile for a jumpsuit. The final version will be red linen. Making things makes me happy.

It's true and we should say it.

Dev psych bluesky, does anyone have an open source template for a wug test? I want to try and run an online study (in translation, not English) with both familiar and novel objects, and it would be nice not to have to do it from scratch!

Started watching Dept Q on Netflix. Not bad but somehow I expected more foul mouthed puppets and musical numbers.

What fresh hell is this?

Actual copies of my actual book!

What a lovely thread! I hived my first bees in my very own beehive (which I built myself) this week, so now I am an actual beekeeper with actual bees and it makes me happy.

Not to be all that meme, but I have a book out today.