Alanjcostello

a cartoon of spongebob squarepants giving a thumbs up sign Alt: a cartoon of spongebob squarepants giving a thumbs up as he gets blasted by a megaphone

Me every single budget day:

STOP GIVING MILLIONS TO GREYHOUND RACING

AI Data Centers Are Sending Power Bills Soaring Wholesale electricity costs as much as 267% more than it did five years ago in areas near data centers. That’s being passed on to customers.

Not sure people realize how INSANELY DRAINING data centers will be on our planet.

If you imagine data centers as their own country, they'll rank fourth in global electricity use by 2035 — outranked only by China, India, and the U.S.

Read this in @bloomberg.com👇

www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

💯 www.irishtimes.com/politics/202...

Joswiak says “Meta alone has made more than a dozen of these requests”.
“This type of data is so sensitive that Apple itself can’t see it and we purposely engineer it that way. But under DMA rules we’re forced to hand it over to other companies no matter how they plan to use it.”

If you have people you know starting college or already in college you should get them to take heed of this

Are you.... Are you ok?.....!

Omfg

Still With Us: Formative Imperatives in the History of Material Irish Whiskey, c. 1324-1980 Whiskey is regularly discussed as a drink entwined with Irish history and society. That history, however, has usually been read as the immaterial social history of a single material commodity. It does not consider the varied, often dissimilar beverages that have been consumed as ‘whiskey’ or as ‘uisce beatha’. Even within the more recent history of the Irish whiskey industry, most of the grain recipes of Ireland’s closed distilleries have largely passed out of trade memory. This thesis examines the evolution from c.1324 to 1980 of amorphous whiskeys, indebted to their historical moments and materially responsive to their agricultural, societal, legislative, and technological surroundings. Lastly, it proposes that lost materials and practices from the past may be drawn upon to drive innovation in contemporary Irish distilling and it investigates the use of historical Irish pot still whiskey mash bills in a contemporary distillery setting. Using an historiographical approach, the research drew upon distillery day books, excise reports, government sessions, trade paraphernalia, private letters and other period sources, examined against an integrated literature review. The research unearthed diverse recipes and processes, stretching from Irish distilling’s first extant records up to the Irish pot still whiskeys of the very recent past. The subject is discussed across five chapters. The first chapter investigates the origins and early development of Irish distilling and its first attested beverages. The second chapter explores the overlapping development of Ireland’s commercial distilling industry and of material ‘whiskey’ as a product. The third chapter examines the divergence between the material beverages of the licit, industrialised whiskey industry and the illicit poitín distillers of the nineteenth century. The fourth chapter examines the evolution of ‘Irish pure pot still whiskey’ as a material beverage identity among nineteenth and twentieth-century Irish distillers. This chapter also explores the various grain recipes, or ‘mash bills’, employed to make Irish ‘pure pot still whiskey’ and compares them against the processes and materials of their column still competitors. The final chapter discusses the relevance of these old pot still mash bills to contemporary Irish distilling innovation and recent legislation. It outlines a practical experiment undertaken with Boann Distillery in Drogheda to investigate the use of lost Irish pot still mash bills in a contemporary distillery. Combining historical survey with practical experiment, this thesis both offers a significantly expanded history of Irish distilling and examines how that material heritage might inform the modern beverage’s organoleptic possibilities. It

Fionnán O'Connor's phd thesis is available now online and is packed with incredible information about the last few centuries of Irish whiskey - arrow.tudublin.ie/tfschcafdoc/7/

I’m hosting two panels at #ClimateCarnival on 30 Sept: Financing Nature at Scale (12:00) and Renewables Scaled Responsibly (15:00). Both explore how we can close the €700bn+ nature finance gap and scale clean energy with integrity + equity.

www.climatecocktailclub.org/events-1/cli...

€650k now available under the 2025 Circular Economy Innovation Grant Scheme. Up to €50k per project for SMEs, social enterprises & community groups driving reuse, repair + resource recovery. Apps open till Oct 8. #CircularEconomy #Innovation

www.gov.ie/en/departmen...

Issue 94 Refreshed, refocused, and rallying the doers—let’s get to work.

Back from summer break 💥 SDG Alpha #94 is live:

💧 €300m EIB for Uisce Éireann
⚡ Quinbrook’s Wexford grid project
☀️ Ireland’s biggest solar farm planned
🤝 Net Zero buys Century Retrofit
🚜 Hibra’s battery-electric tractor

Subscribe 👉 open.substack.com/pub/sdgalpha... #climatetech #speirgorm

Very needed. Every event that's related to climate change needs to be reported as such

Climate Change Media Masterclass series | Climate

@dcuclimate.bsky.social is running a 6-part online Climate Change Media Masterclass this autumn, helping journalists and media pros strengthen coverage of science, policy, & sustainability. Starts late Sept.

www.dcu.ie/climate/dcu-...

Hibra Design team standing beside Ireland’s first battery-electric agricultural tractor inside a workshop. The green tractor, fitted with visible electric components and cabling, is flanked by four team members in navy polo shirts, with another seated inside the cab.

Big milestone for Irish agri-tech ⚡🚜 Cork-based Hibra Design (Accelerate Green alumni) have unveiled Ireland’s first battery-electric agricultural tractor, built for the tough conditions of our boglands.

Commissioned by BnM, it’ll debut at #Ploughing2025

www.autotrade.ie/index.php/ir...

This is deeply irresponsible from The Irish Times.

Hottest August on record, you say? No problem, we'll address the climate crisis with a fun game of swing ball...

From pandemic idea to €7m in funding: Mullingar’s Watt Footprint plans an energy revolution Energy tech firm aims to transform how businesses cut costs and emissions

Big win for Mullingar’s Watt Footprint ⚡️ Born in the pandemic, now backed with €7m funding and scaling globally with a tech-first approach to energy management. Great to see another Accelerate Green alum making waves in climate innovation.

www.irishtimes.com/business/inn...

Julia Roberts to narrate new BBC series Leonard and Hungry Paul The feel-good series follows two board-gaming friends in their thirties who meander through leafy suburban life finding solace in their quiet routines

It's true! Julia Roberts will be narrating Leonard and Hungry Paul.

She read the book when it came out and her agent got in touch to say she really liked it. But I never thought things would go this far.

Delighted.

www.bbc.com/mediacentre/...

Coastal climate action that works: seagrass, mangroves + salt marshes store “blue carbon”. Green Fridays’ latest update is a handy primer with actions + links:

🌊💙
mailchi.mp/6bfb097c042b...

#BlueCarbon #Seagrass #ClimateAction

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Accelerating Green Ambition: Influential Podcast Host and Thought Leader, Tom Raftery. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar. Join Resolve Partners as we re-launch the Accelerating Green Ambition webinar series! Find out more information about the award-winning BnM Accelerate Green Grow programme, and hear from exciting and insightful special guest speakers as we explore the innovation trends and opportunities in the climate and nature-positive sectors.

We’re back with the Accelerating Green Ambition webinar series!

🎙️ On Sept 15 @ 17:00 join myself + @tomraftery.com (Climate Confident podcast) to explore trends + opportunities in #climate & nature-positive innovation.

Free registration at us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Deep tech R&D, spun-out from Irish + UK universities, honed in the bogs of Offaly, and rapidly scaling to an EV charging station near you... 🚘🔋

No notes

This whole thread is on the nose.

a woman says it 's a fact while standing in front of an american flag ALT: a woman says it 's a fact while standing in front of an american flag

***MY COUSIN VINNY LIVE-TWEET: THE RULES***

This lecture explores the cinematic classic 'My Cousin Vinny' through the lens of English and Welsh law.

Contributions and observations are welcome, but I'm perfectly prepared to tweet the entire film to a wall of embarrassed silence.

National Broadband Plan passes milestone 400,000 premises The National Broadband Plan has passed over 400,000 rural premises out of a total of 564,000 to be hooked up under the State’s €3bn fibre scheme.

Postscript to all the National Broadband Plan hoohah — it has just passed 400,000 rural premises (out of 564,000 to be done by 2027).
Avg takeup is 35%, rising to 60% in areas it’s been around in for a while
www.independent.ie/business/tec...

While masked agents were violently attacking a delivery worker this morning, bystanders repeatedly asked to see their badge numbers but they refused.

Bystander: You guys are ruining this country, you know that, right?

Agent: Liberals already ruined it.

So I now can't buy @dublinpride.bsky.social merch or @teni.bsky.social merch or @pantibliss.bsky.social merch using #Stripe?

#speirgorm

Sorry, but I'm going to get real annoying about this.

If you're an Irish artist/creative, this survey only takes a few minutes to do.

As mentioned by Ian Fay, this is getting brigaded by far right types over on X, and we need to drown them out.

I'll set my cousins on ye

Echo this *¹⁰⁰

If you’ve an interest in climate @davidscanlon.bsky.social has SDG Alpha which is bi-weekly Irish climate newsletter but don’t know any other Irish focused newsletters