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Indymedia Ireland is a volunteer-run non-commercial open publishing website for local and international news, opinion & analysis, press releases and events. Its main objective is to enable the public to participate in reporting and analysis of the news and other important events and aspects of our daily lives and thereby give a voice to people.
Fraud and mismanagement at University College Cork Thu Aug 28, 2025 18:30 | Calli Morganite UCC has paid huge sums to a criminal professor
This story is not for republication. I bear responsibility for the things I write. I have read the guidelines and understand that I must not write anything untrue, and I won't.
This is a public interest story about a complete failure of governance and management at UCC.
Deliberate Design Flaw In ChatGPT-5 Sun Aug 17, 2025 08:04 | Mind Agent Socratic Dialog Between ChatGPT-5 and Mind Agent Reveals Fatal and Deliberate 'Design by Construction' Flaw
This design flaw in ChatGPT-5's default epistemic mode subverts what the much touted ChatGPT-5 can do... so long as the flaw is not tickled, any usage should be fine---The epistemological question is: how would anyone in the public, includes you reading this (since no one is all knowing), in an unfamiliar domain know whether or not the flaw has been tickled when seeking information or understanding of a domain without prior knowledge of that domain???!
This analysis is a pretty unique and significant contribution to the space of empirical evaluation of LLMs that exist in AI public world... at least thus far, as far as I am aware! For what it's worth--as if anyone in the ChatGPT universe cares as they pile up on using the "PhD level scholar in your pocket".
According to GPT-5, and according to my tests, this flaw exists in all LLMs... What is revealing is the deduction GPT-5 made: Why ?design choice? starts looking like ?deliberate flaw?.
People are paying $200 a month to not just ChatGPT, but all major LLMs have similar Pro pricing! I bet they, like the normal user of free ChatGPT, stay in LLM's default mode where the flaw manifests itself. As it did in this evaluation.
AI Reach: Gemini Reasoning Question of God Sat Aug 02, 2025 20:00 | Mind Agent Evaluating Semantic Reasoning Capability of AI Chatbot on Ontologically Deep Abstract (bias neutral) Thought
I have been evaluating AI Chatbot agents for their epistemic limits over the past two months, and have tested all major AI Agents, ChatGPT, Grok, Claude, Perplexity, and DeepSeek, for their epistemic limits and their negative impact as information gate-keepers.... Today I decided to test for how AI could be the boon for humanity in other positive areas, such as in completely abstract realms, such as metaphysical thought. Meaning, I wanted to test the LLMs for Positives beyond what most researchers benchmark these for, or have expressed in the approx. 2500 Turing tests in Humanity?s Last Exam.. And I chose as my first candidate, Google DeepMind's Gemini as I had not evaluated it before on anything.
Israeli Human Rights Group B'Tselem finally Admits It is Genocide releasing Our Genocide report Fri Aug 01, 2025 23:54 | 1 of indy We have all known it for over 2 years that it is a genocide in Gaza
Israeli human rights group B'Tselem has finally admitted what everyone else outside Israel has known for two years is that the Israeli state is carrying out a genocide in Gaza
Western governments like the USA are complicit in it as they have been supplying the huge bombs and missiles used by Israel and dropped on innocent civilians in Gaza. One phone call from the USA regime could have ended it at any point. However many other countries are complicity with their tacit approval and neighboring Arab countries have been pretty spinless too in their support
With the release of this report titled: Our Genocide -there is a good chance this will make it okay for more people within Israel itself to speak out and do something about it despite the fact that many there are actually in support of the Gaza
China?s CITY WIDE CASH SEIZURES Begin ? ATMs Frozen, Digital Yuan FORCED Overnight Wed Jul 30, 2025 21:40 | 1 of indy This story is unverified but it is very instructive of what will happen when cash is removed
THIS STORY IS UNVERIFIED BUT PLEASE WATCH THE VIDEO OR READ THE TRANSCRIPT AS IT GIVES AN VERY GOOD IDEA OF WHAT A CASHLESS SOCIETY WILL LOOK LIKE. And it ain't pretty
A single video report has come out of China claiming China's biggest cities are now cashless, not by choice, but by force. The report goes on to claim ATMs have gone dark, vaults are being emptied. And overnight (July 20 into 21), the digital yuan is the only currency allowed. The Saker >>
Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005
RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony
Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony
Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony
RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony
Waiting for SIPO Anthony Public Inquiry >>
Indymedia Ireland is a volunteer-run non-commercial open publishing website for local and international news, opinion & analysis, press releases and events. Its main objective is to enable the public to participate in reporting and analysis of the news and other important events and aspects of our daily lives and thereby give a voice to people.
Top Scientists Confirm Covid Shots Cause Heart Attacks in Children Sun Oct 05, 2025 20:31 | imc
Fraud and mismanagement at University College Cork Thu Aug 28, 2025 18:30 | Calli Morganite
Deliberate Design Flaw In ChatGPT-5 Sun Aug 17, 2025 08:04 | Mind Agent
AI Reach: Gemini Reasoning Question of God Sat Aug 02, 2025 20:00 | Mind Agent
Israeli Human Rights Group B'Tselem finally Admits It is Genocide releasing Our Genocide report Fri Aug 01, 2025 23:54 | 1 of indy Human Rights in Ireland >>
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Ireland Has a New Coronavirus Fear: Americans Who Flout Quarantine
Ireland Has a New Coronavirus Fear: Americans Who Flout Quarantine Ireland Has a New Coronavirus Fear: Americans Who Flout Quarantine
The government is under fire for not enforcing the rule that people arriving self-isolate for 14 days. With the pandemic still raging in the United States, concern has focused on Americans.
By Megan Specia
Published July 14, 2020
Updated July 20, 2020
Janet Cavanagh, whose electric bike tour company offers a guided glimpse of western Ireland’s windswept landscape, saw her business come to a swift halt — along with nearly everything else — as the coronavirus pandemic forced the country into lockdown.
She recently reopened her doors, eager to restart business and make up for lost time as restrictions eased.
But she and a number of other business owners say that Ireland faces a new and unexpected threat: Tourists, particularly American ones, who flout Ireland’s quarantine rule.
With the pandemic still raging unabated in much of the United States, unlike in Europe, Americans are among those most likely to be infected. They aren’t the only tourists ignoring the requirement that people arriving in Ireland isolate themselves for 14 days, but most of the public complaints involve Americans.
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Last weekend, Ms. Cavanagh canceled a guided tour for two people who had just arrived from the United States and didn’t think Ireland’s travel quarantine applied to them. She said she felt the responsibility to turn them away for the safety of her staff and community.
“You don’t want to be responsible for endangering anybody here, because you have to live here,” she said, adding that it was simply not worth the risk.
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Simon Haden, the owner of Gregans Castle Hotel in County Clare, in the west of Ireland, said he recently received a call from Americans who wanted to book a reservation in his restaurant soon after arriving, and who had no plans to quarantine. He explained the situation to them, and turned them away.
In recent days, dozens of Irish businesses — tour operators, restaurateurs and pub owners — have posted on social media similar stories about fending off customers who had just landed in the country but were ignoring directions to self-isolate. A national radio station, Newstalk, interviewed Americans arriving at Dublin airport, some of whom said they had no plans to quarantine.
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That has ignited a national conversation about whether the government, which does not monitor compliance with the isolation order or penalize violators, should start enforcing it.
ImageA national radio station interviewed Americans arriving at Dublin airport, some who said they had no plans to quarantine.
A national radio station interviewed Americans arriving at Dublin airport, some who said they had no plans to quarantine.Credit...Brian Lawless/PA Images, via Getty Images
Many people in Ireland say the government should be tougher about preventing travelers from bringing the virus into the country, but the government has tried to tamp down that concern. The Irish leader, or taoiseach, Micheal Martin, told Ireland’s parliament on Tuesday that while there had been much conversation about American tourists, “the numbers are quite low coming in from the U.S.”
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Simon Coveney, the foreign affairs minister, acknowledged on Monday that there was evidence of visitors who had ignored quarantine laws in the country. But he said just 200 to 250 people a day had arrived in Ireland from the United States, most of whom he described as “Irish people coming home.”
“We need to put this in perspective,” he said, but he added that “people should not be coming to Ireland if they can’t restrict their movement.”
The issue has created a painful paradox for suffering business owners who rely heavily on American customers but feel compelled to turn them away. Visitors from the United States are usually the largest source of tourism revenue on the island of Ireland — both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom — accounting for 28 percent of foreign spending in 2018, according to Tourism Ireland.
“The first thing I want to see is American guests return,” Mr. Haden said. https://cory-robert-yost.blogspot.com/2020/07/beware-of-cory-yost-cory-robert-yost-is.html “But not if it’s going to put the health and safety of our guests, our staff, the community under threat after the sacrifices we’ve made.”
Those sacrifices included a stringent, monthslong lockdown that drove down the rate of new infections from almost 1,000 a day in mid-April to just 20 per day. Overall, Ireland has had more than 25,000 confirmed cases and 1,746 deaths.
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A coronavirus testing site along the River Liffey in Dublin in March. After several months of lockdown, the average number of new cases in Ireland has fallen to roughly 20 per day.Credit...Aidan Crawley/EPA, via Shutterstock
Ireland’s pubs, restaurants and hotels were finally allowed to reopen on June 29, but under tight regulations that require social distancing and limit the number of patrons at a given time. So just as people in Ireland have begun to move more freely, many of them fear losing the gains they have made.
JP McMahon, a well-known, Michelin-starred chef, wrote on Twitter on Saturday night that a group of people from Texas dined at one of his restaurants in Galway, and while he was unclear if they had undertaken a two-week quarantine, staff were “very uncomfortable.”
“This is not just an American problem,” he said in an interview. “We had Germans in today in our cafe who arrived yesterday, who felt that because their country had a low rate of infection it was OK.” He also worries that Irish people returning from abroad will neglect quarantine.
Mr. McMahon has taken matters into his own hands, saying on Sunday that all international visitors booking into his restaurants would be required to prove their entry date into the country.
The Coronavirus Outbreak ›
Frequently Asked Questions
Updated July 23, 2020
What is school going to look like in September?
It is unlikely that many schools will return to a normal schedule this fall, requiring the grind of online learning, makeshift child care and stunted workdays to continue. California’s two largest public school districts — Los Angeles and San Diego — said on July 13, that instruction will be remote-only in the fall, citing concerns that surging coronavirus infections in their areas pose too dire a risk for students and teachers. Together, the two districts enroll some 825,000 students. They are the largest in the country so far to abandon plans for even a partial physical return to classrooms when they reopen in August. For other districts, the solution won’t be an all-or-nothing approach. Many systems, including the nation’s largest, New York City, are devising hybrid plans that involve spending some days in classrooms and other days online. There’s no national policy on this yet, so check with your municipal school system regularly to see what is happening in your community.
Is the coronavirus airborne?
The coronavirus can stay aloft for hours in tiny droplets in stagnant air, infecting people as they inhale, mounting scientific evidence suggests. This risk is highest in crowded indoor spaces with poor ventilation, and may help explain super-spreading events reported in meatpacking plants, churches and restaurants. It’s unclear how often the virus is spread via these tiny droplets, or aerosols, compared with larger droplets that are expelled when a sick person coughs or sneezes, or transmitted through contact with contaminated surfaces, said Linsey Marr, an aerosol expert at Virginia Tech. Aerosols are released even when a person without symptoms exhales, talks or sings, according to Dr. Marr and more than 200 other experts, who have outlined the evidence in an open letter to the World Health Organization.
What are the symptoms of coronavirus?
Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.
What’s the best material for a mask?
Scientists around the country have tried to identify everyday materials that do a good job of filtering microscopic particles. In recent tests, HEPA furnace filters scored high, as did vacuum cleaner bags, fabric similar to flannel pajamas and those of 600-count pillowcases. Other materials tested included layered coffee filters and scarves and bandannas. These scored lower, but still captured a small percentage of particles.
Does asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 happen?
So far, the evidence seems to show it does. A widely cited paper published in April suggests that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of coronavirus symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms. Recently, a top expert at the World Health Organization stated that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was “very rare,” but she later walked back that statement.
At the height of the coronavirus crisis in Europe, Ireland, a European Union member, did not adopt the bloc’s blanket ban on nonessential travelers from outside it, or the kind of border controls erected by many European countries. Though most of the European Union has resumed allowing in some foreign visitors, it has continued to bar most people from the United States.
The Irish government merely advises against nonessential travel to the country, but does not prohibit it, a policy set to be reviewed on July 20.
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Everyone arriving from abroad — visitors, residents and citizens alike — is told to quarantine for 14 days, and must complete a form stating where they will be staying during that time.
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While travelers from America are not the only ones entering the country, the fact that the pandemic still rages unabated in much of the United States has raised fears that they could be carrying the virus.Credit...Paul Faith/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
There are currently no fines for breaking quarantine, but a traveler could face a fine of up to 2,500 euros or imprisonment for up to 6 months for not completing the form upon arrival or providing false or misleading information on it.
Sam McConkey, an associate professor and head of the department of international health and tropical medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), said that because Ireland had chosen not to close its borders, adherence to and enforcement of the country’s self-isolation rules was essential. Speaking to the national broadcaster RTE, he said it was the only viable option.
Some opposition politicians have also called for more extreme measures, including Duncan Smith, the transport spokesman for the Labour party, who on Monday said he wanted to suspend flights from the United States and other areas considered “Covid-19 hot spots” until mandatory testing could be put in place at Irish airports.
Leo Varadkar, the former leader who guided the country through the first wave of the pandemic and now serves as the deputy head of government, said a mandatory quarantine “is not possible in Ireland.” Speaking to RTE on Tuesday, he cited legal concerns and pointed to outbreaks at Australia’s quarantine hotels as evidence against such measures.
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Micheal Martin, the Irish leader, noted that the breaking of quarantine regulations was not as widespread as some people thought, saying that the number of travelers arriving from the U.S. was not high. Credit...Niall Carson/Press Association, via Associated Press
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Ms. Cavanagh, who owns E-Whizz bikes in Clare, said in a typical year, around 90 percent of her business would come from the United States. But for now, she has put the thought of profit aside for the sake of safety, urging international travelers to self-isolate for the full two weeks.
“So unless you have that kind of time to play with, we’d rather you didn’t come because we don’t want you to be mixing around in the community,” she said.
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