Mark Kennedy
@mcantwell.bsky.social
A sprinkling of astrophysics, a dash of personal thoughts, and a lot of dog photos. Lecturer at University College Cork.
I think I say this during every observing run, but a great benefit to remote observing is the excellent company.
October 31, 2025 at 11:31 PM
I think I say this during every observing run, but a great benefit to remote observing is the excellent company.
Stage is set. Here we go! #EAS2025Cork
June 22, 2025 at 2:59 PM
Stage is set. Here we go! #EAS2025Cork
@michaeltremmel.bsky.social and I have put together a guide on spots to get food/coffee/drinks in Cork next week during #EAS2025 #EAS2025Cork . Feel free to reach out to either of us for more information (or further recommendations!) @eas-meeting.bsky.social
An astrophysicsts guide to Cork
University College Cork’s Astrophysics Research Group presents AN ASTROPHYSICIST’S GUIDE TO CORK Our members, and their preferences Coffee/Bakeries/Snacks Restaurants (Dinner) Restaurants (Lunch) Pub...
docs.google.com
June 20, 2025 at 3:17 PM
@michaeltremmel.bsky.social and I have put together a guide on spots to get food/coffee/drinks in Cork next week during #EAS2025 #EAS2025Cork . Feel free to reach out to either of us for more information (or further recommendations!) @eas-meeting.bsky.social
Reposted by Mark Kennedy
More good news. The random number generator that is the university world rankings has Nottingham back in the top 100. Probably a good time to share this old piece by @astromikemerri.bsky.social
blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/physics/2018...
blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/physics/2018...
Why University League Tables are bad for you… and What’s Better - Physics
Guest post by Prof Michael Merrifield, Head of School The School of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Nottingham has just done very well in the Guardian University League Tables 2019. For reasons that will become apparent, I am not going to say how well (if you really must know, go and look it ...
blogs.nottingham.ac.uk
June 19, 2025 at 7:07 AM
More good news. The random number generator that is the university world rankings has Nottingham back in the top 100. Probably a good time to share this old piece by @astromikemerri.bsky.social
blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/physics/2018...
blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/physics/2018...
I'll make a separate thread about one of these events later. For now, details of public talks at #EAS2025Cork can be found here: eas.unige.ch/EAS_meeting/...
EAS 2025
European Astronomical Society Annual Meeting 2024
eas.unige.ch
June 17, 2025 at 7:06 AM
I'll make a separate thread about one of these events later. For now, details of public talks at #EAS2025Cork can be found here: eas.unige.ch/EAS_meeting/...
Reposted by Mark Kennedy
"But let’s be clear: this 'burnout' that secure scholars are feeling is phantom pain where their colleagues should be . . . You are suffering from the effects of intentional systemic understaffing."
A Profession, If You Can Keep It
Imagined meritocracies mean little to extractive institutions.
contingentmagazine.org
May 19, 2025 at 6:23 PM
"But let’s be clear: this 'burnout' that secure scholars are feeling is phantom pain where their colleagues should be . . . You are suffering from the effects of intentional systemic understaffing."
Reposted by Mark Kennedy
It's sad to see that the idea of academic posters is spreading to law conferences
So, it's time to share again @ivacheung.com on this topic
ivacheung.com/2017/10/acad...
So, it's time to share again @ivacheung.com on this topic
ivacheung.com/2017/10/acad...
Why academic conference posters suck - Iva Cheung
I’ve been to dozens of conference poster sessions, but I struggle to think of a single thing I’ve learned from them. I don’t think I’m alone, considering the antipathy toward academic posters I’ve not...
ivacheung.com
May 8, 2025 at 9:01 AM
It's sad to see that the idea of academic posters is spreading to law conferences
So, it's time to share again @ivacheung.com on this topic
ivacheung.com/2017/10/acad...
So, it's time to share again @ivacheung.com on this topic
ivacheung.com/2017/10/acad...
Reposted by Mark Kennedy
Re-posting and including picture showing no gender gap on low stakes in-term exams and significant negative gender gap on medium stakes in-term exams. Gender gap on the high stakes final exam is 50% larger than on the medium stakes exams.
#iTeachPhysics 🎢 #Physics ⚛️ #EduSky 🍎 #academia #HigherEd
#iTeachPhysics 🎢 #Physics ⚛️ #EduSky 🍎 #academia #HigherEd
April 30, 2025 at 10:35 PM
Re-posting and including picture showing no gender gap on low stakes in-term exams and significant negative gender gap on medium stakes in-term exams. Gender gap on the high stakes final exam is 50% larger than on the medium stakes exams.
#iTeachPhysics 🎢 #Physics ⚛️ #EduSky 🍎 #academia #HigherEd
#iTeachPhysics 🎢 #Physics ⚛️ #EduSky 🍎 #academia #HigherEd
Anyone who is attending #EAS2025 in Cork this June, you should look at booking your accommodation within the next week the student accommodation available through the EAS website is only on hold until then, after which it will be released to the public (and subject to price increases)!
April 25, 2025 at 10:12 AM
Anyone who is attending #EAS2025 in Cork this June, you should look at booking your accommodation within the next week the student accommodation available through the EAS website is only on hold until then, after which it will be released to the public (and subject to price increases)!
Cooking Christmas dinner using the wonderful apron my first years got me.
December 24, 2024 at 10:08 AM
Cooking Christmas dinner using the wonderful apron my first years got me.
Reposted by Mark Kennedy
🚨🚨 I'm hiring!!! 🚨🚨
Postdoc and PhD positions available to join my ERC project Exo-PEA at @tcddublin.bsky.social. The project aims to understand weather in giant extrasolar worlds ☁️⚡🪐
📆 Deadline: Jan 6th
Postdoc ad: tinyurl.com/2ufcwvxf
PhD ad: tinyurl.com/5amcea6p
Please share widely! 🔭🪐
Postdoc and PhD positions available to join my ERC project Exo-PEA at @tcddublin.bsky.social. The project aims to understand weather in giant extrasolar worlds ☁️⚡🪐
📆 Deadline: Jan 6th
Postdoc ad: tinyurl.com/2ufcwvxf
PhD ad: tinyurl.com/5amcea6p
Please share widely! 🔭🪐
tinyurl.com
December 2, 2024 at 11:08 AM
🚨🚨 I'm hiring!!! 🚨🚨
Postdoc and PhD positions available to join my ERC project Exo-PEA at @tcddublin.bsky.social. The project aims to understand weather in giant extrasolar worlds ☁️⚡🪐
📆 Deadline: Jan 6th
Postdoc ad: tinyurl.com/2ufcwvxf
PhD ad: tinyurl.com/5amcea6p
Please share widely! 🔭🪐
Postdoc and PhD positions available to join my ERC project Exo-PEA at @tcddublin.bsky.social. The project aims to understand weather in giant extrasolar worlds ☁️⚡🪐
📆 Deadline: Jan 6th
Postdoc ad: tinyurl.com/2ufcwvxf
PhD ad: tinyurl.com/5amcea6p
Please share widely! 🔭🪐
Reposted by Mark Kennedy
Just got the email that it’s time to submit proposals for sessions at EAS 2025 in Cork! We can’t wait to welcome many of you into the best city in Ireland (and of course the true capital). Im sure it’ll a great meeting and lots of interesting sessions!
mail.eventsairmail.com/ls/click?upn...
mail.eventsairmail.com/ls/click?upn...
EAS2025 Call for sessions
We hereby invite proposals from colleagues who are interested in organising a Symposium, a Special Session, or a Lunch Session at the EAS Annual Meeting 2025.
For full details: https://eas.unige.ch/E...
mail.eventsairmail.com
August 23, 2024 at 9:45 AM
Just got the email that it’s time to submit proposals for sessions at EAS 2025 in Cork! We can’t wait to welcome many of you into the best city in Ireland (and of course the true capital). Im sure it’ll a great meeting and lots of interesting sessions!
mail.eventsairmail.com/ls/click?upn...
mail.eventsairmail.com/ls/click?upn...
I'd thought about the cost of training, but I'd never thought about the cost of inference when using GPT. Just one of the many, many things I've now started thinking about because of this newsletter. Fascinating read, recommend taking 15 mins of your day to look at it.
Newsletter: Based on estimates of their burn rate and historic analyses, I hypothesize that OpenAI will collapse in the next 12-24 months unless it raises more funding than in the history of the valley and creates an entirely new form of AI.
www.wheresyoured.at/to-serve-altman/
www.wheresyoured.at/to-serve-altman/
How Does OpenAI Survive?
Throughout the last year I’ve written in detail about the rot in tech — the spuriousness of charlatans looking to accumulate money and power, the desperation of the most powerful executives to maintai...
www.wheresyoured.at
July 30, 2024 at 7:09 AM
I'd thought about the cost of training, but I'd never thought about the cost of inference when using GPT. Just one of the many, many things I've now started thinking about because of this newsletter. Fascinating read, recommend taking 15 mins of your day to look at it.
S-tier walk for the dog and baby this morning along the old rail way in Cork. Flat smooth surface for the buggy, smells for the dog, and a coffee shop/pastry for dad.
Smooth surface! The things I care about on a walk have changed over the last two months 😅
Smooth surface! The things I care about on a walk have changed over the last two months 😅
July 28, 2024 at 10:25 AM
S-tier walk for the dog and baby this morning along the old rail way in Cork. Flat smooth surface for the buggy, smells for the dog, and a coffee shop/pastry for dad.
Smooth surface! The things I care about on a walk have changed over the last two months 😅
Smooth surface! The things I care about on a walk have changed over the last two months 😅
Reposted by Mark Kennedy
An extra long newsletter today, because things have been about as wacky in crypto as everywhere else. Featured: Coinbase’s Stand With Crypto Alliance fudges the numbers, a (former) industry CEO has a meltdown, and an exchange suffers a nine-figure hack.
www.citationneeded.news/issue-62/
www.citationneeded.news/issue-62/
Issue 62 – Grassroots
Coinbase’s Stand With Crypto Alliance fudges the numbers, a (former) crypto industry CEO has a meltdown, and another exchange suffers a nine-figure hack.
www.citationneeded.news
July 24, 2024 at 12:42 AM
An extra long newsletter today, because things have been about as wacky in crypto as everywhere else. Featured: Coinbase’s Stand With Crypto Alliance fudges the numbers, a (former) industry CEO has a meltdown, and an exchange suffers a nine-figure hack.
www.citationneeded.news/issue-62/
www.citationneeded.news/issue-62/
Most days I forget how beautiful the campus I work on can be. Today is not one of those days.
July 17, 2024 at 2:17 PM
Most days I forget how beautiful the campus I work on can be. Today is not one of those days.
Wonderful paper by PhD student Bidisha Sen at NTNU. She led the analysis of optical data of a "spider" pulsar system: arxiv.org/abs/2407.10800. These are binary systems with a neutron star that's ablating a nearby companion star - this behaviour gives them their "spider" name. 🔭🧵
The Orbit and Companion of PSR J1622-0315: Variable Asymmetry and...
The companion to PSR J1622-0315, one of the most compact known redback millisecond pulsars, shows extremely low irradiation despite its short orbital period. We model this system to determine the...
arxiv.org
July 16, 2024 at 10:06 AM
Wonderful paper by PhD student Bidisha Sen at NTNU. She led the analysis of optical data of a "spider" pulsar system: arxiv.org/abs/2407.10800. These are binary systems with a neutron star that's ablating a nearby companion star - this behaviour gives them their "spider" name. 🔭🧵
Feel like it would be wrong to not comment on how bad the weather's been this Summer regularly. Not saying anything would be like waking up every day for a month to find your body is 5 degrees colder than it should be and just pretending it's fine.
July 9, 2024 at 3:20 PM
Feel like it would be wrong to not comment on how bad the weather's been this Summer regularly. Not saying anything would be like waking up every day for a month to find your body is 5 degrees colder than it should be and just pretending it's fine.
Evidence that there has been one morning this summer where it's actually felt like summer in Ireland.
July 7, 2024 at 7:47 AM
Evidence that there has been one morning this summer where it's actually felt like summer in Ireland.
The 2024 edition of the Irish National Astronomy Meeting will take place in Galway on August 29-30. If you've never been before, it's a great opportunity to meet the wider astronomy community working on the island of Ireland. astro.universityofgalway.ie/astro/inam-2...
INAM 2024 - University of Galway
astro.universityofgalway.ie
May 2, 2024 at 2:21 PM
The 2024 edition of the Irish National Astronomy Meeting will take place in Galway on August 29-30. If you've never been before, it's a great opportunity to meet the wider astronomy community working on the island of Ireland. astro.universityofgalway.ie/astro/inam-2...
All of the talk of the upcoming eclipse is making me think back to the 2019 one from La Silla in Chile. Totality is really something special.
April 6, 2024 at 9:36 AM
All of the talk of the upcoming eclipse is making me think back to the 2019 one from La Silla in Chile. Totality is really something special.
Interesting article about worries over the water supply for greater Dublin. Not a fair image (as it's necessary for people to live), but the first word that comes to mind when I think of pumping water from opposite side of the country to the capital is "parasitic".
Water supply in Dublin is on a knife edge
The fact that people in the greater Dublin region were asked to conserve water during January just gone, in the middle of the winter, at the height of the rainy season, highlights the extent to which ...
www.rte.ie
April 3, 2024 at 7:24 AM
Interesting article about worries over the water supply for greater Dublin. Not a fair image (as it's necessary for people to live), but the first word that comes to mind when I think of pumping water from opposite side of the country to the capital is "parasitic".