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Brendan Halpin

@bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
68 followers 6 following 743 posts

Sociologist in Limerick Mostly playing with unrealistic computer models of real world processes Emacs, Stata, Shiny & Rstats, Julia, Python Linux on the […] [bridged from mastodon.social/@bthalpin on the fediverse by fed.brid.gy ]

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/10/2026
It bugs me a little bit when people talk about the autumn clock change as if it caused the darker evenings. It's a step change that is psychologically salient, but at my latitude there's about 4h45 natural difference in the time of sunset (or rise); the DST change is adding 1h to the change in […]
mastodon.social
Original post on mastodon.social
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/10/2026
Yes, contract goes back to 2021. (see 3rd para) www.irishrail.ie/en-ie/about-us/iar…
irishrail.ie
Investment in New Trains
In order to support the expansion in rail services planned under the National Development Plan 2021 to 2030, part of Project Ireland 2040, and to cater for growing demand, Iarnród Éireann is progressing two major fleet orders.
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/10/2026
I can't help imagining that orders for battery-electric trains date back to when the Greens were in coalition. Enthusiasm for investing in public transport has evaporated since, and battery power is much too much for the current crew (fonder of LNG, obvs) […]
mastodon.social
Original post on mastodon.social
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DataKnightmare @dataknightmare.mastodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 19/10/2026
They do not give a financial fuck. They MUST give a fuck. Let's MAKE them give a fuck. thank you for coming to my TED talk.
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myrmepropagandist @futurebird.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026
They used to be called "carriage returns" because in those days they were pulled by horses.
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Reposted by Brendan Halpin
flere-imsaho 🇺🇦 @mawhrin.fedi.circumstances.run · 16/10/2026
four words that caused the implosion of the new atheism movement: > guys, don't do that #misogyny
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Reposted by Brendan Halpin
David Roberts @volts.wtf · 15/10/2026
A memo from senior insurance-industry officials warning that insurance modelers are being pressured to downplay climate in their models & that many insurers are already planning their exist from key markets. An explosive fuckup on the scale of the mortgage crisis is building.
static1.squarespace.com
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026
I've used FORTRAN very little, but remember learning a lot about debugging one day very long ago, where I spent a whole afternoon trying to understand why a DO loop was giving me a "variable not found error". What variable?? I realised hours later what the problem was: DO is spelt DO and not D0.
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Tim Bray 🇨🇦 @timbray.cosocial.ca.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026
Today is FORTRAN’s 70th birthday; its reference manual “appeared in a glossy cover, handsomely printed, with the date October 15, 1956.” softwarepreservation.computerhistor… (The actual software wasn’t released till the following year) No longer […]
cosocial.ca
Original post on cosocial.ca
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026
Whitey's on the take
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026
Gil Scott-Heron sings...
flipboard.social
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 14/10/2026
I think it's important to interact with AI in a very carefully controlled way: specifically to understand exactly how toxic and terrible it is I only get it to return text in two conditions: (a) a topic I know well and (b) a question I **already answered**. You learn v quick how bad the answers are
newrepublic.com
Does Generative AI “Work”? That’s a Misleading Question.
Generative AI works a lot like fossil fuels “work”—narrowly, intermittently, and with a lot of nasty side effects.
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Reposted by Brendan Halpin
Mathilde Larrère @mathildelarrere.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Là on tient du très bon! ( photo prise par Natasha Thierry)
Je bloque donc je suis 
René Pancarte
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026
I remember when the height of user-friendly installation of free/open-source was ./configure make sudo make install I'm doing it again.
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Quixoticgeek @quixoticgeek.v.st.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026
"why does the fridge have an internet connection?" "So it can download security updates" "Why does it need security updates?" "To protect against new vulnerabilities" "Surely if we didn't connect it to the internet, we wouldn't need that..." "Oh"
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Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Some sketchbook doodles for the cartoon below
A sketchbook page with various scratchy pen drawings of robots
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026
Sensible informative article in the IT, pointing out that crap standards in Irish apartments explain a lot of their unpopularity, while the geniuses in the Stripe-funded think-tank argue that we should further reduce the standards […]
mastodon.social
Original post on mastodon.social
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026
@donmoyn.bsky.social Yeah, but we *really* need data on this.
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Ruth Mottram @ruthmottram.eurosky.social · 12/10/2026
I would really like to see a data journalist do a deep dive on the actual statistics from the different SoMe platforms (X, Bsky, mastodon, Facebook) to see what the yandex outage has done to activity on them. I'm wildly curious about the bots and the trolls, also on a country level.
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 10/10/2026
A "Riddle of the Sands" for the 21st century: www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c317ke5… (I know, Baltic instead of SE North Sea, but...)
bbc.co.uk
Nord Stream trial: How German police followed the evidence - to Ukraine
After four years, a Ukrainian man is set to stand trial in Hamburg accused of sabotaging the Nord Stream pipelines.
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 10/10/2026
nano, they say, it'll always be there when you're setting up a linux box, and it's very lightweight. Yebbut emacs is a quick "sudo install emacs" away and you have a whole world of comfort and convenience. Doing this on a pretty elderly #RaspberryPI tonight, and would recommend it. #emacs […]
mastodon.social
Original post on mastodon.social
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/10/2026
In a university context we see names from all over the world, so it took me a little time just now (long week, late Friday pm) to realise that when I saw two different records for students both called Ular Baularufa that it wasn't a coincidence. It wasn't their name, it was their programme code […]
mastodon.social
Original post on mastodon.social
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Luke Drury @luke-drury.mastodon.dias.ie.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2026
What we call "data centres" now are very different from the data stores of several years ago - they are AI token mills and we really need to change the terminology. They are not passive repositories but vast factories generating responses to prompts. Language matters!
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2026
Apparently the first talkie was a year earlier than The Jazz Singer, premiered in Edinburgh and featured the lowland Scots dialect.
amicale.net
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2026
I taught a PC-lab earlier, where one of the examples contained a €-sign. Wandering around the room, I noticed more than one student had googled "how to enter a Euro sign"... AltGr-4, mostly (except on my laptop where inexplicably it is accent-key/=/C)
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026
2 sides of the climate debate 1: The science is clear: phase out fossil fuels ASAP. By intergovt cooperation as individual actions won't do it 2: Phasing out FFs needs a level of intergovt capacity to regulate capitalism that doesn't exist & can't be allowed to develop. Enjoy the warm weather!
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 05/10/2026
@christineburns He even looks like Lord Farquaad.
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Soraya Morvan Smith @smorvansmith.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Des parents d’élèves du lycée Montebello de Lens ont un message à faire passer et c’est une masterclass. Ce serait dommage de ne pas diffuser largement. (Via l_offensive.eco)
Tribune
«Ce que votre lycée appelle l'ordre, nous l'appelons une politique »
Des parents d'élèves et membres de l'équipe éducative du lycée Montebello, Lille.
-Le lycée de nos enfants a été fermé deux jours et la direction veut maintenant une semaine de distanciel! Une semaine de distanciel, ce n'est pas de la pédagogie, c'est de la mise à distance :
on éloigne les élèves pour ne pas avoir à les entendre. Passer en distanciel alors que les conditions d'enseignement pendant les canicules ont eté brutales, cela n'a pour objectif que de briser la grève, invisibiliser le mouvement et faire taire les lycéen nes.
Nous avons reçu deux courriers de la direction qui parle de «casseurs», d'«éléments extérieurs», et loue le «grand professionnalisme» des forces de l'ordre alors même que des personnels, des familles et des élèves ont pu être témoins ou victimes d'interventions vécues tout autrement.
Nous y lisons la gestion policière d'un conflit social.
Nous y lisons moins une information neutre qu'un récit à charge — et, derrière ce récit, un profond mépris de classe.
→Ces courriers sont des actes politiques qui se veulent neutres...
Pourtant le courrier de la direction pose une question institutionnelle. Il se présente comme une communication de la cheffe d'établissement, tout en reproduisant longuement le communiqué d'un syndicat ou groupe de représentants de personnels de direction. Une ligne de corps y est ainsi présentée aux familles comme la parole de l'école. Or la parole institutionnelle de la proviseure et l'expression syndicale d'une responsable du SNPDEN-UNSA ne relèvent pas du même registre, quand bien même elle relaie une remontrance des représentants des chefs d'établissement. La neutralité du service public impose précisément de ne pas les confondre.
Il ne s'agit pas d'interdire à une responsable syndicale de s'exprimer. Il s'agit de demander que cette expression soit clairement identifiée comme telle et ne bénéficie pas, par la signature de la proviseure, de l'autorité attachée à la fonction de cheffe d'établissement.Ce que la direction appelle l'ordre n'est donc pas neutre. L'ordre scolaire n'est jamais seulement une question de portes ouvertes, de couloirs calmes et de cours maintenus.
Il détermine qui peut parler, qui doit se taire, quelles colères sont reconnues comme légitimes et lesquelles sont immédiatement criminalisées.
Nous refusons un lycée qui apprend aux jeunes que la citoyenneté consiste à accepter les décisions prises sans elles et eux. Nous refusons une école qui répond à une crise sociale par des violences policières, des menaces de plaintes et des leçons de comportement.
Nous refusons que la sécurité serve de paravent à la disqualification politique.
« Casseurs » et « éléments extérieurs » ne décrivent rien, ils trient. Ces mots séparent les «bons» élèves des autres, et la colère devient délinquance. Or on sait qui ces mots désignent d'ordinaire : les jeunes des quartiers populaires, souvent racisé es, dont on parle comme d'une menace venue du dehors alors qu'ils sont nos enfants, nos voisin es, les élèves de cette école.
Ce n'est pas un hasard de vocabulaire, c'est un regard social. Ce n'est pas une crise de la jeunesse, c'est la facture de l'austérité scolaire.
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Colin McMillen @colin-mcmillen.piaille.fr.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2026
Oh, it was Ethernet's birthday three days ago, 46 years apparently
Picture of a printed docuement: 
The Ethernet - A local area network - Data link layer and physical layer specifications
Then the logos of Digital, Intel, Xerox
Version 1.0
September 30, 1980
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2026
@mawhrin But rather tickled by Lidl the Opera mastodon.social/@bthalpin/109795736…
mastodon.social
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2026
@mawhrin I was always very confused by ToysЯus
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2026
I've done it again: held on to a bike computer long enough to fill up the screen. 9,999.9km. Downside: it's stuck on 9999.9 and the 2nd button no longer works so I can't reset it.
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026
Ridiculous maybe, but no laughing matter. #LOL
Torso of a man in shirt and tie, wearing an Orange Order sash with LOL (Loyal Orange Lodge) on one side and the lodge number on the other
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Community Energy Ireland @community-energy-ireland.mastodon.ie.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026
Benefits of Ireland’s solar boom should not go only to the big energy firms - Sadhbh O'Neill in The Irish Times www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026/09/…
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026
Hooded vs carrion crow distribution www.reddit.com/r/crows/comments/1ws…
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/09/2026
Really amusing the both Irish and British pols and polcors are simultaneously agonising about the triple lock, but completely failing to connect. #mastodaoine
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Donncha Ó Caoimh @donncha.mastodon.ie.ap.brid.gy · 28/09/2026
BOI doesn’t confirm your email address FYI – if you open a Bank of Ireland account, please ensure you give them the correct email address or private correspondence will be sent to someone else. Luckily, BOI is off the hook: This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and […]
mastodon.ie
Original post on mastodon.ie
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Ambivalent Dictator For Life @pikesley.mastodon.me.uk.ap.brid.gy · 26/09/2026
"Local Models! Open Weights! Plastics Recycling Is Real!"
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 25/09/2026
The US is a hostile entity. They have joined X's appeal of their €120m fine with the explicit position that the EU has no role in regulating US tech giants. Oligarchs and kleptocrats trying to rule the whole world. In Le Monde: "Nous ne tolérerons pas que la Commission européenne outrepasse […]
mastodon.social
Original post on mastodon.social
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Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
There's this really odd pattern with Bari Weiss, JD Vance, Richard Hanania etc, where they rise to prominence because their main skill is cultivating the friendship of wealthy patrons, but it's impossible to figure out how they do it because they constantly exude a pungent strain of anti-charisma.
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/09/2026
RE: flipboard.social/@newsguyusa/117321… "Shoot me now!"
flipboard.social
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/09/2026
Previous example: I've written a library to do X in Y so I ask "how to do X in Y?". Result: long clear correct and informative answer re how to do X in Y with a different (better documented) library. I specify my library by name: long detailed answer where the only correct statement is the […]
mastodon.social
Original post on mastodon.social
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/09/2026
LLMs are extraordinarily good at understanding what an answer would look like.
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/09/2026
AI disappointment: I'm asking a v specific tech qn (how to style SRC blocks in #emacs org-mode output). Normal search drowns me in general docs, relevant but without the answer. I try AI & Wow!! It understands *exactly* what I'm asking, and provides a detailed clear answer, right on the money […]
mastodon.social
Original post on mastodon.social
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TFI Local Link Tipperary @locallinktipperary.mastodon.ie.ap.brid.gy · 18/09/2026
TFI Local Link door-to-door services are semi-flexible routes that connect rural areas and towns with convenient collection and drop-off right from your home. 🏡 Want to find out which routes are available in your area? Simply call our office with your Eircode […] [Original post on mastodon.ie]
Local Link Tipperary logo
Door-to-door Services
Our door-to-door services are open to everyone
but pre-booking is essential

Call the Local Link Tipperary office on
0504-39310 with your Eircode.

Pre-book your seat the day before travel
(before 4pm). Fares are affordable and
Free Travel Passes are accepted.

The Local Link team will arrange your
journey with the driver who will pick you
up & drop you off at your door.

After a few weeks of using the service,
you can register for weekly pick-ups,
if you like.
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/09/2026
blue like button red like fire fruit flies like bananas
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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/09/2026
Perversely, Trump is doing rather a lot to speed up the clean energy transition. See also the Straits of Hormuz. www.ctvnews.ca/world/article/as-the…
ctvnews.ca
As the U.S. starves it of oil, Cuba is pulling off one of the fastest solar revolutions on the planet — with China’s help
Cuba is struggling with devastating nationwide blackouts as the United States’ effective oil blockade strangles fuel supplies. But this crisis may also be accelerating a China-backed clean energy revolution that’s been quietly unfolding in the Caribbean nation.
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myrmepropagandist @futurebird.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 16/09/2026
I’m still kind of mad about HTML email tbh. That was the beginning of the end.
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Bruce Lawson ✅ ♫ ♿ ✌️♂️✊ @brucelawson.vivaldi.net.ap.brid.gy · 15/09/2026
RE: mas.to/@FantasticalEconomics/117271… The most plausible explanation for the sudden Broligarch panic about "A.I." I've seen.
mas.to
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