So I finished up in my tech job on Friday. Planning to open a cafe and bookshop on 1st July. There’s a lot still to do and it’s pretty intense.

It’s called Ithaca cafe, and it will be at 8/9 Bolton street, Waterford, Ireland.
#coffee #cafe #books #bookshop

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026/05/02/when-i-graduated-only-14-per-cent-of-irish-school-leavers-went-to-college-today-its-70-per-cent/

Definitely feeling this.

“If young people cannot secure jobs commensurate with their level of education, on top of the fact they are probably still living at home and can’t get homes commensurate with their expectations, their ambitions will be dashed, creating resentment.”

*And* can’t survive on “normal job” wages.

I think there’s a reckoning coming. I think my kids will have to struggle more than I did. It’s a sickening situation that seems to have no solution.

Was always against these gimmicky “coding courses” in schools, thinking that mathematics, and the standard curriculum, was a better base for <insert future technological skills> than something as specific as coding.

AI has already proven this to be true.

It also calls into question any focus on vocational goals at primary school level over and above the goal of refining the human mind and building character.
#ai #coding #curriculum

I see a lot of people eager to play down what LLMs are, using arguments like “LLMs are just … statistical models … that guess words based on … that simulate intelligence”.

I would ask them what exactly do they think humans are?

We found a way of building programs that demonstrate strong linguistic ability with emergent reasoning. Their neural networks are analogous to ours, even if the learning is completely different. Why do they assume that humans are more magical/special than this?
#AI

New pedestrian bridge coming along nicely in Waterford. It will finally link the city centre with Ferrybank properly and will also be the point where the Waterford greenway meets the Kilkenny/Wexford greenway to New Ross.
#Waterford #greenway

Apparently Mike Ryan, Epidemiologist and ex-Deputy General of the WHO (before he left following Trump defunding it), and all round no bullshit “I’ve seen things…”, defender of humanity against Ebola and famously Covid, has not ruled himself out from running for the Irish presidency! I’d vote for him in a heartbeat.

And he’d beat that clown Conor McGregor.
#IrishPresidentialElection #iepol

“'Is it life? he answered. 'I would rather be without it,' he said, for there is a queer small utility in it. You cannot eat it or drink it or smoke it in your pipe, it does not keep the rain out and it is a poor armful in the dark if you strip it and take it to bed with you after a night of porter when you are shivering with the red passion. It is a great mistake and a thing better done without, like bed-jars and foreign bacon.'”
The Third Policeman, Flann O’Brien.
#FlannOBrien

All of the Irish mastodon people are preparing diligently for the general election tomorrow, with all of their preferences worked out 15 names down the ballot, and due attention given to web policy matching tools and manifestos skimmed, etc.

In other words, this is the most untypical group of Irish people imaginable. 😂 Happy voting tomorrow!
#iepol #ge2024

"Ireland had no excess deaths during the core pandemic years of 2020-2022, the Department of Health has said, citing new research."
https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2024/0102/1424384-ireland-covid/

Well that's interesting! Apparently they are not that bad in Sweden either, where they wandered a bit down the herd immunity path. I'm sure the conspiracy nuts will make something of it.

#covid #OECD #Ireland

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2023/oct/14/if-not-now-when-questions-will-haunt-ireland-after-heartbreaking-loss

The neutral article that pretty much nails it from an Irish POV.

#rugby #RWC2023 #IRLvNZ

Irish census results are out at 11am today apparently. Annoyingly, the population of Irish cities only appears in the final results a year after the census and not in the preliminary results, so it’s been a long wait. I’m a bit of a nerd for the urban populations.
#census2022

An island on the mastodon archipelago
https://insightful-merlante.wordpress.com/2023/04/30/mastodon-home-town-social-networking-community/

A blog post about mastodon, hometown and my philosophy around hometown social networking.

Thanks to @comeetie for the visualisation. Hat tip to @darius for the aforementioned fork. Hope you don't mind me using a screen grab of our convo, @helvick.

#mastodon #hometown #community #waterford.international

My home feed to full of race, gender and motor violence this morning. Not at twitter levels, where you’re pushed to attack selected opponents, but still, pretty depressing. And then someone else was saying they get the purest dopamine from mastodon.

Scientists deliver ‘final warning’ on climate crisis: act now or it’s too late
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/20/ipcc-climate-crisis-report-delivers-final-warning-on-15c?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Roll on the #jackpot…
#theperipheral

I wonder could there be a coalition of four female leaders in the next Dail, with a female Taoiseach and Tainaiste?

McDonald, Cairns, Martin and Bacik?
#politics #ireland

@darius Is the move from Mastodon 4.0.2 to Hometown 1.1.1 reversible?

In general, is it intended to be possible to go back?

https://github.com/hometown-fork/hometown/wiki/Initial-migration

Circus Cerbolla is a good shout in Waterford for #winterval fun. Tight rope walking, trapeze, rope dancing, etc and bikers spinning around the inside of a spherical cage!
#circuscerbolla #waterford #circus

Why did I start waterford.international?

First off, I like the idea of community building. My idiosyncratic idea of a community is some kind of intersection between place and worldview. "Place" on its own is too parochial and inward looking. "Wordview" on its own is too dislocated from physical and cultural reality. So I wanted an instance for people who sit at this tense intersection.

What is the worldview? The clue is in the name of the server. It's outward looking, open and curious.

So I've been tinkering away on this mastodon instance for the past week trying to get into some kind state of readiness, preparing for the deluge* of registrations. I will follow up to this toot with some kind of statement about what I'm trying to do by setting it up.

Before that some background: I've been on and off mastodon since 2017 under my alter ego johnribbon@mastodon.social.

* Deluge is a relative term. A cup of water is a deluge for ants and baby spiders.

#introductions Hi I’m Mark. I’m a software engineer by profession and spend a lot of my free time #writing fiction and non-fiction, #reading esp sci-fi, studying #philosophy and going to the cinema or theatre when I can make it. I’m from Waterford, and I live in Waterford right now with my family, but I’ve also lived in Dublin, Perth, Berlin and London. Big coffee fan.

Places I end up in: Davey Mac’s.

I started waterford.international because why not? Could be fun.