Eoin O’Dell

On today's judgment on access to environmental information - with comments from me, @gavclaw.bsky.social and Emily Barritt

Screenshot of the press release. Full text in the link.

CJEU, environmental law

New judgment: Member States (in this case, Ireland) can in principle rule out anonymous requests for access to environmental information curia.europa.eu/site/jcms/d2...

About the PhD: Audits and evaluation of AI systems — and the broader context that AI systems operate in — have become central to conceptualising, quantifying, measuring and understanding the operations, failures, limitations, underlying assumptions, and downstream societal implications of AI systems. Existing AI audit and evaluation efforts are fractured, done in a siloed and ad-hoc manner, and with little deliberation and reflection around conceptual rigour and methodological validity. This PhD is for a candidate that is passionate about exploring what a conceptually cogent, methodologically sound, and well-founded AI evaluation and safety research might look like. This requires grappling with questions such as: What does it mean to represent “ground truth” in proxies, synthetic data, or computational simulation? How do we reliably measure abstract and complex phenomena? What are the epistemological or methodological implications of quantification and measurement approaches we choose to employ? Particularly, what underlying presuppositions, values, or perspectives do they entail? How do we ensure the lived experiences of impacted communities play a critical role in the development and justification of measurement metrics and proxies? Through exploration of these questions, the candidate is expected to engage with core concepts in the philosophy of science, history of science, Black feminist epistemologies, and similar schools of thought to develop an in-depth understanding of existing practices with the aim of applying it to advance shared standards and best practice in AI evaluation. The candidate is expected to integrate empirical (for example, through analysis or evaluation of existing benchmarks) or practical (for example, by executing evaluation of AI systems) components into the overall work.

are you displeased with today’s AI safety evaluation landscape and curious about what greater conceptual clarity, methodological soundness, and rigour in AI evaluation could look like? if so, consider coming to Dublin to pursue a PhD with me

apply here: aial.ie/hiring/phd-a...

pls repost

Kerry man acquitted of all charges for his humanitarian work in Greece is ‘relieved’ his ordeal is over Kerry man Sean Binder, who was facing 20 years in prison, for helping refugees in Greece, has said that he is ‘relieved’ that all charges against him have been dropped.

Kerryman Sean Binder, who was facing 20 years in prison, for helping refugees in Greece, is ‘relieved’ that all charges against him have been dropped.
The Kerry barrister and 23 others were to face trial today, but the court acquitted the volunteers of the charges
m.independent.ie/regionals/ke...

she and Webster have three days to save Orthographville and its beloved tree lighting ceremony from the machinations of OttoCorrect, an evil corporation that wants the town to pivot to video

Thread!

Great culture can save lives. Literally.

Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard

A cup of coffee

More espresso, less depresso 😌☕️.

#CoffeeLovers #CafeExplorer

Recommendation on the European Commission’s compliance with ‘Better Regulation’ rules and other procedural requirements in preparing legislative proposals that it considered to be urgent (983/2025/MAS... The three cases concern how the European Commission applied its ‘Better Regulation’ rules and other procedural requirements when preparing legislative pro...

OMNIBUS I found in breach of EU law as it departed from basic procedural guarantees such as public consultation.

This @ombudsman.europa.eu recommendation carries important implications for omnibuses to come and the whole simplification agenda www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/recommend...

#ECJHighlights
⚖️ 02/12 (J): #Jurisdiction – #AppStore antitrust 🇳🇱 (C-34/24)
⚖️ 02/12 (J): E-commerce platforms as data controllers 🇷🇴 (C-492/23)
⚖️ 04/12 (J): #Copyright – utilitarian objects 🇸🇪 🇩🇪 (C-580/23, C-795/23)

Two-time Major winner Fuzzy Zoeller dies aged 74 US golfer is the only player after the second World War to win the Masters on his first attempt

Two-time Major winner Fuzzy Zoeller dies aged 74

www.irishtimes.com/sport/golf/2...

Ireland ranked highly for implementation of European court judgments Ireland has been highly ranked in a new report for its implementation of judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

Ireland has been highly ranked in a new report for its implementation of judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

New plan to allow customers to cancel mobile and broadband contracts penalty free if providers hike prices Automatic broadband, mobile or TV price hikes may become a thing of the past as the Government gets ready to introduce a law that would allow people to cancel their contracts if prices go up.

New plan to allow customers to cancel mobile and broadband contracts penalty free if providers hike prices www.independent.ie/irish-news/n...

X’s new user-location feature finds Maga accounts based in Thailand, Nigeria and Bangladesh Online sleuths found users posting about US politics in various countries, prompting scrutiny over accounts

X’s new user-location feature finds Maga accounts based in Thailand, Nigeria and Bangladesh;
via @irishtimes.com
www.irishtimes.com/world/us/202...

We're delighted to be announcing our interdisciplinary first event - In 2026 we will be hosting the @law-and-humanities.bsky.social Roundtable in Dublin on Friday 19 June 2026 at @tcddublin.bsky.social

Gotthardt Kuehl - In the Coffeehouse 1915

“If you want to know how a model will behave, the only way of doing it is to run it,” Mensch also suggested. “You do need to have some empirical testing, what’s happening. Knowing the input data that has been used for training is not going to tell you whether your model is going to behave well in [a healthcare use-case], for instance. You don’t really care about what’s in the training data. You do care about the empirical behaviour of the model. So you don’t need knowledge of the training data. And if you had knowledge of the training data, it wouldn’t even teach you whether the model is going to behave well or not. So this is why I’m saying it’s neither necessary nor sufficient.”

flat out lies. these tech ceos take regulators and the masses for fools

Me too. But my reason is incompetence. I find it so difficult to navigate College’s online claims system that I simply don’t travel anymore. I could just about manage the old paper system, but the online one defeats me

Agree. My interest was first drawn to law&lit coming from literary theory and interpretive communities as of way of engaging postmodern ideas in a legal context. I think there’s huge potential in the discipline to explore big ideas. I think that’s why I find it very exciting to work in!

I think the Mandy Patinkin arc in series 8 of The Good Fight might be an example?

Art Detectives, Vermeer forgeries, and the slaveship Zong - my new blogpost www.cearta.ie/2025/11/art-...

Rudy press conference at 4 seasons total landscaping

HAPPY FOUR SEASONS TOTAL LANDSCAPING DAY TO ALL WHO CELEBRATE

Say a prayer, light a candle, make an offering or just hold May McGee in your thoughts for a moment tonight. Her action against the Irish state led to overturning of the ban on contraception in 1973 & huge social change thereafter. Deaf since birth, her tenacity & determination should be remembered

Had to pause for a moment to confirm this wasn’t mine, and it wasn’t, on the grounds that a middle draft title wasn’t quite that, the penultimate draft was thesis.final.FINAL.v3.2.ABSOLUTELYFINAL.FurtherRevised.pdf and the final was simply thesis.pdf immediately followed by thesis.corrected.pdf

I’ve read lots of academic books that would have needed no flaps, so this would have warned me off them in advance. Excellent idea

#BookSky💙📚
#Books
My happy place.

Art deco is the kind of lovely heritage only a heathen would disrespect, but we continue to do so Centenary of interwar design style is a reminder of what we’ll lose if we let its gems decay

Art deco is the kind of lovely heritage only a heathen would disrespect, but we continue to do so

France has survived revolutions and wars: its crisis now is deep, but not terminal | David A Bell From the raid on the Louvre to the spectacle of Sarkozy in jail, it is tempting to think France is on a downward spiral. But history tells the tale of its resilience, says historian David A Bell

France has survived revolutions and wars: its crisis now is deep, but not terminal | David A Bell

OpenAI Ordered To Unmask ChatGPT User Behind 2 Prompts First known warrant of its kind reveals the government can ask OpenAI to provide identifying information on anyone who enters specific prompts.

Another reminder that your ChatGPT conversations, even single prompts, can be read and used against you. www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...