@CarlowWeather It’s been “Summer” in Ireland for over three weeks!
If the last week of August ever feels like summer in Ireland, we call it an “Indian Summer”
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CharqShe
793 posts
Feels like summer but it’s still Spring! Finally after a long cool spring we have a few fine warm days, soak it up and enjoy it but remember the sunscreen.
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@higginsdavidw Most impressive - Claude was given the essential data but made a laughable mess. There’s hope for us all.
It did get one thing right - Vote Left, Transfer Left is a strategy which only benefits the SDs . From now on, you won’t hear it from Mary Lou or Ivana.
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Same for Dublin central, feeding actual first count vote. Hutch probably doesn't finish as strong, and the opposite for Horner.
Early stages of AI technology, but the fact it can even perform the simulation is still very impressive.
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This is how each candidate could finish (most at elimination) through the PRSTV counts.
I've fed Claude the final 2026 tally and the 2024 GE counts (to get a feel for transfer patterns)
⚠️ Obvious AI warnings apply ⚠️
David W. Higgins@higginsdavidw
Galway West I asked Claude to run 50,000 Monte Carlo simulations of the PR-STV counts, from the partial FPV tally. Ran each under 4 different sets of transfer assumptions. Seán Kyne TD
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@globalds @just_a_guy_51 @aerockrose @grok 1. Get the interviewer to write (not right) it down. Show you’re no schmuck.
2. Take the bet if you think the interviewer is a schmuck like Steve Ballmer who can’t even bluff convincingly.
3. The moment he hesitated, she should have said 59 or 61.
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@just_a_guy_51 @aerockrose @grok I think it was 60 , she guessed right and he lied to her after that point to prove his point ~ first rule ~ get them to right down the number you are supposed to guess.
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Steve Ballmer reveals the interview test Microsoft used to separate problem-solvers from gamblers:
"I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 100. First guess, I give you $5. Then $4, $3, $2, $1. After that, you pay me."
"There are far more numbers on which you lose than win."
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@LeonEmirali This is your best evidence for Biden?! He completely misunderstands the question (just ONE thing!), makes an outlandish attack on his neighbour, tries to recover his mistake, makes a creepy comment about his neighbour‘s wife. Was he trying to out-Trump the Donald?
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If the Dems picked Biden over Hilary in 2016, Trump would still just be a Fox contributor.
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@AnMailleach No, President Higgins did the same with the Planning and Development Bill 2023 which he only signed after inviting others to challenge in Court.
Article 27 may be a dead letter or only used when the President wants the Supreme Court to ring fence favoured legislation.
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Eoin O’Malley: President Connolly goes further than Higgins with comments on immigration bill independent.ie/opinion/commen…
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@danobrien20 Read to the very end
“Sally Rooney is a novelist”.
Superb Anagnorisis
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@danobrien20 Not keeping pace with the staggering rise in Government expenditure overall - 78.7% since 2016.
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Worth noting that welfare spending rose by €29 billion, or 70%, in the ten years to 2024, a period of strong economic growth and surging employment.
Dan O'Brien@danobrien20
Half of all workers in Ireland are in the position that the government takes more than they do of every extra euro they make/earn. This has been going on for 18 long years. Taxes are inevitable. Exploitative taxation is not. Made the case for tax cuts on radio yesterday - approx 2.30 hours in. goloudplayer.com/episodes/the-c…
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@beansontheearth @danobrien20 Wrong - cumulative inflation over the past 10 years is 28.4%. Almost all of that is post-pandemic.
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@danobrien20 Inflation during that period must be close to 50% . Expensive because of government failures to control the numbers of people in the cities and allowing housing demand to surge.
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@LiosGlas49 @danobrien20 No, no no no no. A thousand times No. There was neo-liberalism in the 60’s and 70’s with Fianna Fáil in power ( except 1973 - 77 with Labour in government). And Charlie Haughey as Finance Minister! Don’t be confusing us with your statistics!
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@danobrien20 Total myth that the Irish economy did not perform well until the mid 90s. The low point was 1958. During the 60s and 70s it averaged 4.5% annual growth. Just before the Pope’s visit in 1979 the Sunday Times ran a feature on Ireland headed ‘How the Irish enjoy being rich’.
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The standard narrative is that Irish economic underperformance in the 150 years to the 1990s caused continuous mass emigration. But was it the other way around? Neighbouring Britain, as the first country to industrialise and needing labour, offered huge opportunity. Across the Atlantic, the US was expanding westwards and its eastern cities were industrialising (its economy overtook Britain's in the 1870s and has been the world's biggest ever since). Was it brain/brawn drain that caused underperformance?
Dan O'Brien@danobrien20
This analysis finds that Ireland's population crash (from the Great Famine) to 1961 was the second largest in human history anywhere in the world over the past 2,000 years. Post-Columbian contact Peru to 1600 was slightly larger.
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@danobrien20 That chart is obviously wrong but already has >5,500 likes+retweets. Ireland's public infrastructure and services are not far inferior all other EU countries. Beál Bocht 2.0?
But @davidmcw is right to call out the current malaise in public infrastructure development
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Why this chart is wrong.
Five metrics are used to measure 'infrastructure and public services', as per the first image, which shows Ireland to be a total outlier.
Start with public capital spending as share of total govt expenditure. (Unfortunately) rich world governments spend only single digit percentages of total government expenditure on capital spending. As it happens, Ireland has the highest share in western Europe. The actual Eurostat data are charted in the second image.
What about doctor density? Unlike public expenditure, where I'd claim some expertise, I'm certainly not an expert in health economics. But I've spent enough time looking at the numbers over the years to know that Ireland is not an outlier in the number of doctors it has relative population. Even the OECD healthcare at a glance report that is referenced as a source shows that. The table from the report is the third image.
Finally, Ireland has almost no electrified rail. These figures seem correct, but is the energy source of your rail system indicative of the quality of overall infrastructure? I'd argue no, but that's a judgement call.
So, two of the five metrics are completely wrong and the inclusion of a third (which happens to show Ireland by far the worst performer in west Europe) is questionable.
Sinéad O’Sullivan@SineadOS1
The protests in Ireland are not about just fuel! They are about the distance between Ireland on this graph and every other modern and developed economy. Ireland is second wealthiest but gets waaaaay less than any other country for that wealth. By a golden mile. That visual gap in this graph? That’s what people are protesting. It’s a lack of infrastructure and the everyday enshittification of services, the economy, and the additional difficulty of trying to live, relative to peers in any other country. It also highlights why people don’t get uniformly listened to! - because there is no government architecture to engage meaningfully across this huge gap. That gap is a three hour drive to work in traffic, a 14 month wait for an MRI, buses that don’t arrive, trains that don’t exist, schools that have no places for your kids, houses that are unaffordable, pubs that close before midnight, €12 sandwiches, expensive fuel. People feel this gap, even if they can’t explain it precisely. And that builds into resentment, and ultimately protest. Fuel just happened to be the next thing that could be pointed to, today.
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@SineadOS1 @peter_lydon @MimCotton Are you talking about wealth or income? The distinction is crucial for Ireland which was poor for so long and which experienced huge wealth destruction from 2008 - 2012.
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@peter_lydon @MimCotton Ireland's GNI* per capita is ~€53k which translates to approximately 135 on the EU27=100 PPS index. The €53k figure and the 135 index value are the same thing
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The protests in Ireland are not about just fuel! They are about the distance between Ireland on this graph and every other modern and developed economy. Ireland is second wealthiest but gets waaaaay less than any other country for that wealth. By a golden mile.
That visual gap in this graph? That’s what people are protesting. It’s a lack of infrastructure and the everyday enshittification of services, the economy, and the additional difficulty of trying to live, relative to peers in any other country. It also highlights why people don’t get uniformly listened to! - because there is no government architecture to engage meaningfully across this huge gap.
That gap is a three hour drive to work in traffic, a 14 month wait for an MRI, buses that don’t arrive, trains that don’t exist, schools that have no places for your kids, houses that are unaffordable, pubs that close before midnight, €12 sandwiches, expensive fuel.
People feel this gap, even if they can’t explain it precisely. And that builds into resentment, and ultimately protest. Fuel just happened to be the next thing that could be pointed to, today.
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@SineadOS1 I've lived in many of these countries and visited them all. Each has its strengths and weaknesses which we could usefully study but Ireland is not a total laggard and in some areas we are among the best.
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@SineadOS1 Sorry - Ireland's public infrastructure and services are not far inferior to all other EU countries, most obviously not e.g. Bulgaria and Romania. Denmark's are at least equal to Germany's. And Sweden > France. Amazing how many here agree with you. Beál Bocht 2.0?
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@brianmlucey @robggill No, what legal right could the fuel suppliers assert? Of course the refineries / ports could get injunctions immediately but that solves nothing. The Gardai already have the legal power to break the blockades. The issue is political will.
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Quickest solution for breaking blockade at refinery/ports is for affected fuel suppliers & others to get an injunction to allow access. If protestors defy a court order, they get levied fines and machinery is impounded until they purge the contempt & allow free access.
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@nwl88444048 Since 2021, Ireland shares this information using SIS II (Schengen Information System) but passports stolen recently may not yet be entered in the system or the passports are only reported "stolen" afterwards.
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If an Irish person's passport is stolen, shouldn't that fact be entered on all our passport systems so that when some chancer tries to use it in Madrid to fly to Ireland, he's stopped there, and not in Dublin where he claims asylum costing us €122,000?
x.com/nwl88444048/st…
gript@griptmedia
You’ve heard of migrants using fake documents to claim asylum in Ireland, well, they’re also using genuine documents which have been ‘stolen’ to make the journey before saying that 'magic' word, writes FATIMA GUNNING. gript.ie/fake-documents…
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@AnMailleach So our courts must quash any decision by a State body which is inconsistent with these climate change objectives. Why did FG and FF allow the Greens to hold hostage every relevant State agency?
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@AnMailleach Every relevant body now must perform its functions in a manner consistent with a series of climate plans/strategies/frameworks and "the objective of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the effects of climate change in the State.”
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Why are courts making decisions of what is essentially public policy?
Business Post@businessposthq
Shannon LNG has been given the go-ahead to build a 600-megawatt gas power plant in Kerry, after a High Court judge said the infrastructure is needed for grid stability. businesspost.ie/legal/shannon-…
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@TeachCarraig Find composition with strong diagonals, glorious lighting and both subjects directing our attention to the splendid view. The work of a photo journalist surely ?
I love how the grey hair under his cap is echoed dogs ears 😊
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Jimmy Páidí Og on top of An Earagail, in 1957. The journalist who took the picture climbed Earagail and found Jimmy smoking his pipe with his sheepdog by his side. Jimmy was a butcher and delivered meat on his bicycle. Born in 1890, he was 67 at the time of the photo.
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@CAQSH Indeed. It's the most common typo I see along with 'Isreal'.
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How is 'Kier' trending?
IT"S KEIR. ffs
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