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Cornelius (aka Con) Traas

@theapplefarmer.bsky.social
2K followers 2.1K following 2.1K posts

Fruit Grower. University Lecturer. Horticultural Scientist. Drinks Manufacturer (juices, cider, spirits). Sustainable Food Production Systems. Statistics hobbyist.

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Cornelius (aka Con) Traas @theapplefarmer.bsky.social · 26m
Plenty people want to do this work, but need reasonable pay for it. One of the reasons fresh fruit and veg will increase in price. www.irishtimes.com/environment/...
irishtimes.com
‘Nobody wants to work’: Why doesn’t Ireland grow more veg?
About 83% of fruit and veg consumed in the Republic is imported from overseas, report finds
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Marcas Tardigrade-17 Ó Doibhilin @marcasofadad.bsky.social · 3h
Mar a deir mo sheanmhucker @faduda.eurosky.social: Burn the servers.
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Gavin Shoebridge @kiwiev.bsky.social · 4h
Crazy how a huge Russian data centre going offline coincides with fewer concerned moms from Arkansas questioning the safety of electric cars.
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samuel mehr @mehr.nz · 10/10/2026
not everybody is gonna use this kind of thing (it's science, people should do what they want) and it's certainly a lot to get used to at first, but some of the benefits I mentioned in this thread have been transformative for my lab anyway, i like it when scientific infrastructure gets better 💜
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Cornelius (aka Con) Traas @theapplefarmer.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
There are many ways to store energy. Biomethane is not a sustainable one.
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Cornelius (aka Con) Traas @theapplefarmer.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Ah thanks Bill. We still sell many cooking apples, mostly to older generations, who seem to supply their entire families with tarts.
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Cornelius (aka Con) Traas @theapplefarmer.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Nice day for picking apples. Red Prince at The Apple Farm, near Cahir.
Picture of an overfull bin of bright red apples, with a farmhouse in the background.
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Cornelius (aka Con) Traas @theapplefarmer.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
This is ridiculous as a national strategy. Acre for acre solar PV delivers about 20 times more energy than biomethane. Why in the name of ,,, would a government promote this stuff. Source: Agriland share.google/vrn0afb48ocG...
share.google
Expressions of interest sought for €200m biomethane grant scheme
'The opening of this expression of interest process is an important milestone in delivering Ireland's National Biomethane Strategy'
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Oisín McGann @oisinmcgann.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
I don’t understand how the senior management can’t see how they’re undermining their own industry. Authors left to promote their own books, rushed editing, production work increasingly farmed out to freelancers rather than investing in staff, celebrity-written fiction, and now this gen AI shit …
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Cornelius (aka Con) Traas @theapplefarmer.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
They're lovely. Crisp, juicy, sweet but not too sugary.
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Cornelius (aka Con) Traas @theapplefarmer.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Thanks Richard
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Cornelius (aka Con) Traas @theapplefarmer.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
There's some fantastic art in the quotes to this question. Personally, I'd steal any painting owned by Musk, Dell, or other Trump sycophants, and hang it in my local pub. If I had to acquire a painting for myself, it would probably be something by Sean Scully. I find them very relaxing.
A Sean Scully painting, from his Wall of light series, with twelve roughly square sections, with each section mostly subdivided into three (but sometimes two) subsections, both horizontal and vertical; these subsections painted in different colours to each-other, but some tonally very similar to colours in other subsections. This particular painting has mostly black subsections, whitish subsections, blue-grey subsections and grey subsections.
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Cornelius (aka Con) Traas @theapplefarmer.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
uk.pcmag.com/networking/1...
uk.pcmag.com
Ukraine Reportedly Hits Russian Data Centers, Causing Internet Outages
Ukraine struck Yandex data centers in Sasovo, Ryazan region, and the Kaluga region.
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Cornelius (aka Con) Traas @theapplefarmer.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Thanks Joe and Bill
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Cornelius (aka Con) Traas @theapplefarmer.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Nice day for picking apples. Red Prince at The Apple Farm, near Cahir.
Picture of an overfull bin of bright red apples, with a farmhouse in the background.
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Cornelius (aka Con) Traas @theapplefarmer.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
"AI"
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daily dose of estragon @craigburley.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
You can try to fool other people by waving your hands around and saying “super intelligence!” but you can’t fool me, that’s a general-purpose digital computer, it executes your instruction set. I know because I’ve worked with them for 43 years
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Bruno Dies @brunodias.dev · 10/10/2026
if you have a machine that you think is so unpredictable and dangerous that what it does when you turn it on is anyone's guess and you're seriously trying to make "it was acting on its own" stick then maybe you shouldn't plug it in at all
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
It's the job of the media to scrutinize such statements and decide whether there's a story here at all (maybe the story is Anthropic researchers have fallen into a fantasy-land and brought many policymakers with them), not to just platform them. >>
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Anthropic is out with new nonsense about Claude (or the collection of models called Claude) deserving moral consideration and/or be able to feel distress, so my inbox is filling up with journos asking me to comment. I've also got a day job, so here is a brief set of public comments on this: >>
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Palm Oil Detectives | #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife @palmoildetect.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Here’s some #palmoilfree #breakfast cereal. Or simply buy yourself some #oatmeal and make porridge or #vegan granola 🥣. Boycott #Kelloggs for their sugary #palmoil-filled #ecocide in a box. Instead #BoycottPalmOil 🌴🚫 #Boycott4Wildlife @palmoildetect.bsky.social palmoildetectives.com/2021/02/11/p...
Here’s some #palmoilfree #breakfast cereal. Or simply buy yourself some #oatmeal and make porridge or #vegan granola 🥣. Boycott #Kelloggs for their sugary #palmoil-filled #ecocide in a box. Instead #BoycottPalmOil 🌴🚫 #Boycott4Wildlife @palmoildetect https://palmoildetectives.com/2021/02/11/palm-oil-free-breakfast-cereals/
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Maggie Harrison Dupré @mharrisondupre.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Please say a cleansing prayer for the cursed algorithms over at Futurism dot com
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Gavan Reilly @gavreilly.com · 08/10/2026
If you went into a bank and asked for a loan, saying you’d put the proceeds into a savings account, they’d think you were a bit cracked. On a macro scale, that’s what Ireland is doing. This week’s column for @thejournal.ie:
jrnl.ie
€7.8 billion set aside for Ireland’s future in Budget 2027 means we're borrowing to save money
As the dust settles on the budget, isn’t it notable that Ireland is putting billions into long-term funds while borrowing money to pay the bills?
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Gerard Cunningham @faduda.eurosky.social · 09/10/2026
Grind this bollocks to dust, then salt the earth
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IrishCycle.com @irishcycle.com · 08/10/2026
Show me the money! Why do running red lights and driving down a motorway the wrong way have lower fines than high-vis on a scooter? Comment & Analysis: While road deaths and injury collisions involving motorists have spiked this year, there has been a classic moral panic against e-scooters -- and…
irishcycle.com
Show me the money! Why do running red lights and driving down a motorway the wrong way have lower fines than high-vis on a scooter?
Comment & Analysis: While road deaths and injury collisions involving motorists have spiked this year, there has been a classic moral panic against e-scooters -- and the winner is not road safety but the Government, which has been allowed to pretend that it is acting on road safety. I'm in a better position to say this than most, as I'm not exactly a fan of e-scooters.
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Liz Carolan @lizcarolan.com · 09/10/2026
Irish Gov is hosting its "International AI Summit" next week Even I was surprised by how industry heavy is it 83% of speakers are corporates, 0 independent experts, 1 union rep I'm not explicit about this in the piece -but- surely this is, at best, tone deaf? www.techpolicy.press/at-irelands-...
techpolicy.press
At Ireland’s AI Summit, Tech Industry Dominates as Civil Society Sits Out
The invitation-only summit comes as Ireland leads Digital Omnibus negotiations, raising questions about whose interests are represented, writes Liz Carolan.
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Dublin Commuters @dublincommuters.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Without fare hikes “the department would not be able to fund the expansion of public transport services” - Minister Daragh O’Brien This is false, the NTA admitted they wanted fares to be 44% of their budget, they just didn’t ask for the extra money www.thejournal.ie/budget-2027-...
thejournal.ie
'Wrong direction': Government slammed for cutting fuel prices while raising public transport fares
Labour’s transport spokesperson, Ciarán Ahern, said public transport users would be feeling “let down”.
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Anthony Moser @anthonymoser.com · 08/10/2026
it's good to see this laid out clearly, but i'm once again going to point to Peter Naur's 1985 essay "Programming as Theory Building"
The present discussion is a contribution to the understanding of what programming is. It suggests that programming properly should be regarded as an activity by which the programmers form or achieve a certain kind of insight, a theory, of the matters at hand. This suggestion is in contrast to what appears to be a more common notion, that programming should be regarded as a production of a program and certain other texts.
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Cathal Malone @cathalmalone.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
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Cornelius (aka Con) Traas @theapplefarmer.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
There's so much misinformation in that article about EV's. If particular model pictured is the one in use, it can go over 450km between charges, and can fill on about 40 minutes (not 25 hours as stated). They must be charging it using a phone charger.
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Gianmarco Soresi @gianmarcosoresi.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Man who won’t give his employees piss breaks claims many piss breaks on the horizon
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e.w. niedermeyer @niedermeyer.online · 09/10/2026
"The Cultural Revolution was a huge missed opportunity" "The Weimar Enabling Act was a huge missed opportunity" "Soviet agricultural collectivization was a huge missed opportunity" "The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand von Hapsburg was a huge missed opportunity" should I go on?
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Glonzo the Bureaucrat 🇬🇱 🌹 @snarkranger.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
I am sick and tired of seeing this shit. DOGE was not a "missed opportunity," it was an intentional effort by billionaire oligarchs to destroy the federal government's capacity to do good things for the American people.
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Pete Brown @petebrownbeer.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
The gall of these people. The biggest brewer of cask ale in the world have done absolutely NOTHING to support cask ale in recent years, and then they say they need to close the brewery because volumes are down so much. Vandalism, pure and simple. www.foodmanufacture.co.uk/Article/2026...
foodmanufacture.co.uk
Marston’s brewery to close as cask volumes nosedive
Carlsberg Britvic has announced it is proposing to close the Marston’s Brewery in Burton-upon-Trent amid dwindling cask ale volumes.
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Dr Neutopia @oceanclub.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Irish tech journalists when a CEO tells them they're going to hire up to 100 jobs but don't specify the minimum or the timeframe or how many they will silently get rid of via PIPs/etc in interim.
static.klipy.com
Adam Driver: We Don't Need All The Details
Alt: Adam Driver: We Don't Need All The Details
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e.w. niedermeyer @niedermeyer.online · 09/10/2026
just to emphasize what's happening here: BMW (a company that used slave labor under the Nazis) refused to provide an official vehicle to the ultra right-wing AfD party, which is now asking Elon Musk to provide a Tesla instead Tesla literally becoming the Nazi car brand
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Not Here Not Anywhere @nhna.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
The Government's planned LNG terminal is bad for County Clare and for all of us New film explores impacts LNG import and export has on communities in the US and Europe Ennis 11/10 6:30pm: www.eventbrite.com/e/gaslit-spe... Dublin 14/10 6:00pm: www.eventbrite.com/e/gaslit-spe...
eventbrite.com
Gaslit Speakers Tour - West of Ireland
Join us in Ennis for the Irish Premiere of the award-winning Greenpeace documentary
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Bruno Dies @brunodias.dev · 08/10/2026
weren't there a bunch of people on here crowing about how openAI was profitable and people talking about how the economics of it are sustainable actually, etc? lotta uninspected wallets out there
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Tim Bale @timbale.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
🤣👏 @mrjohncrace.bsky.social
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Butlerian Jihadist of House Dornick @shimminykricket.blacksky.app · 08/10/2026
Harvard just dropped a study AI productivity in software engineering and it found the average increase in productivity from using Claude code is.....zero and for exactly the reasons you'd think fion.ac/jellyfish.pdf
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Dublin Inquirer @dublininquirer.com · 07/10/2026
To counter AI, an illustrator in Balbriggan offers to draw posters for barter. Lauren Fernandes noticed menus and flyers all over with the same sterile look, and thought: what if she could help out small businesses which can't afford creative work, usually?
dublininquirer.com
To counter AI, an illustrator in Balbriggan offers to draw posters for barter
Lauren Fernandes noticed menus and flyers all over with the same sterile look, and thought: what if she could help out small businesses which can't afford creative work, usually?
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Cornelius (aka Con) Traas @theapplefarmer.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Far right MEP's from Ireland.
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Save Our Bride Otters @saveourbrideotters.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Blackpool Village exists because of the River Bride - it is a visual and audible reminder of Blackpool’s past. What an utter shame that it does not feature in Cork City Council’s vision of Blackpool’s future. Illustration from Blackpool Village Core Concept Design and Implementation Strategy. #cork
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Cornelius (aka Con) Traas @theapplefarmer.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Seems like "ai" is lying again. At least one version of this is wrong, or possibly both. www.newscientist.com/article/2592...
newscientist.com
OpenAI mistranslated mathematics into code for its Navier-Stokes proof | New Scientist
When OpenAI announced its surprise solution to the Navier-Stokes problem, it produced one proof for humans and one for computers – however, they don't match
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Cornelius (aka Con) Traas @theapplefarmer.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Even Ecosia. Big exhale.
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Aidan O’Brien @aidanobrien.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
It appears that the US government pressured the Canadian and Lithuanian governments (as well as the EEAS) to pull their support and representives from the @disinfo.eu conference in Vilnius. This decision happened at the absolute last minute.
The EU disinfo lab 2026 sponsors. Three names have been tapped over CU you can see the Canada sign has been tapped over.
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Fintan Kelly @fintankelly.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
If we could get endangered wildlife to run around a race track they'd have a better chance at getting support from this government.
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Thomas Duffy @taesaveslives.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Forever chemicals shouldn't be in the food supply but this is bordering on misinformation from the Irish Times yet again. Headline implies the regulator found these forever chemicals in Irish cereals. It didn't, an activist group known for doing private testing that don't met regulatory #speirgorm
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Truthout @truthout.org · 07/10/2026
Thousands of Cornell University students protested on campus on Monday, demanding accountability for the mishandling of the 2024 rape case that has come under national spotlight. According to a 2025 survey, 35% of undergraduate women at Cornell reported experiencing sexual assault at the university.
truthout.org
Thousands of Cornell Students Protest for Accountability in Rape Case
In a 2025 survey, 35 percent of undergraduate women reported experiencing sexual assault during their time at Cornell.
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Alex Curran @alexcurran95.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Apiary (Czech) was actually useful for devs. Got acquired by Oracle and quietly killed because it was way better than every equivalent American tool. Same happened to Ukrainian-made Maxymiser. Noticing a pattern yet? Btw, it accelerated with Indianification of Silicon Valley.
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