Laurie Winkless
@lauriewinkless.bsky.social
8.7K followers 1.9K following 1.7K posts
Physicist & science storyteller. 📚#1: SCIENCE AND THE CITY 📚#2: STICKY. Irish in Aotearoa New Zealand. She/her. Massive science nerd, biz owner / self-employed, enthusiastic, outspoken, equity-minded, multi-crafter #ToitūTeTiriti #FreePalestine🇵🇸
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lauriewinkless.bsky.social
I see your scrolling skills are not great. How about your reading skills? bsky.app/profile/laur...
lauriewinkless.bsky.social
In response to the (numerous) Qs:
1. I'm talking about the Irish language, not the accent
2. The formal name of the Irish language is Gaeilge
3. The alphabet has 18 letters
4. There are similarities between Gaeilge and (Scots) Gaelic, but they're not the same
4. Kids learn Irish / Gaeilge in school.
lauriewinkless.bsky.social
5. There are estimated to be ~200k fluent Irish speakers worldwide
6. It's a gorgeous, living language full of song & heart
7. There are 3 main dialects of Irish / Gaeilge
8.The language is very much tied to the land - place names give you an insight into what was there
9. I am actually Irish.
lauriewinkless.bsky.social
In response to the (numerous) Qs:
1. I'm talking about the Irish language, not the accent
2. The formal name of the Irish language is Gaeilge
3. The alphabet has 18 letters
4. There are similarities between Gaeilge and (Scots) Gaelic, but they're not the same
4. Kids learn Irish / Gaeilge in school.
lauriewinkless.bsky.social
There very much is an Irish language - it is called Gaeilge and the alphabet has 18 letters. There are some similarities between. Gaeilge and Scots Gaelic.
lauriewinkless.bsky.social
Hard agree on this
(relieved / delighted that the Hutt, Welly, Porirua all voted yes!)
taramcallister.bsky.social
Fuck all the people who voted no to Māori wards
lauriewinkless.bsky.social
I mean Gaeilge - the Irish language, which is entirely different to English
Reposted by Laurie Winkless
occasio.bsky.social
┏┓
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╱╱╭╮╲╲ GO VOTE
▔▏┗┛▕▔
╱▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔╲
CANT COMPLAIN IF YOU DONT
╱╱┏┳┓╭╮┏┳┓ ╲╲
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GOT TILL MIDDAY NZ

┏┓
┃┃╱╲
┃╱╱╲╲
╱╱╭╮╲╲ GO VOTE
▔▏┗┛▕▔
╱▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔╲
CANT COMPLAIN IF YOU DONT
╱╱┏┳┓╭╮┏┳┓ ╲╲
▔▏┗┻┛┃┃┗┻┛▕▔
GOT TILL MIDDAY #nzpol
lauriewinkless.bsky.social
Oh I love that. I suspect that's partly true, at least for some dialects. But Hiberno-English (English spoken by Irish people) is very much shaped by Gaeilge anyway, so possibly too tricky to disentangle that? Or (more likely) my ear is not sensitive enough!
lauriewinkless.bsky.social
Today was a pretty special day. I was invited back by the Physics Dept at my alma mater @tcddublin.bsky.social to give a seminar. It went really well and my two favourite Profs were there! Afterwards, we went to lunch together with the lovely third Prof who made the talk happen 😊 #physics 🧪👩‍🔬⚛️
Four people sit around a dining table in front of a grand fireplace: two men, two women. A chandelier can be seen reflected in a large mirror
lauriewinkless.bsky.social
A belated update - I ended up chatting to the two lads as we got off the train. Turns out one of them "lost" his Irish (like me) so he's been working on recovering it for the past couple of years, helped by his friend who is from a family of Gaeilgeoirí. Extremely cool.
lauriewinkless.bsky.social
Yes I'm being nosey. But hearing Irish "in the wild" feels wonderful. I'm inspired to start practising again - no one in my family speaks it fluently but by my early 20s (thanks to extracurricular activities) I got pretty close to that level. Maybe I still have more of it inside me than I realized!
lauriewinkless.bsky.social
There are two cool-looking guys in their 30s sitting across from me on the train back from Dublin. They're speaking the most gorgeous fluent Irish. I'm both envious and also kind of amazed at just how much of their conversation I can understand despite not having spoken Irish for 15+ years ☘️
Reposted by Laurie Winkless
junoryleejournalism.com
David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)
SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.
Reposted by Laurie Winkless
london.gov.uk
Thanks to London’s bold action, almost 10 million people are now breathing cleaner air.

That means fewer children will grow up with stunted lungs and fewer people will have to suffer from asthma, dementia and heart disease.
London hits clean air milestone 184 years early - ULEZ makes 'big difference'
A professor has branded the success a 'truly remarkable turnaround for the city's air quality'
www.mylondon.news
Reposted by Laurie Winkless
nature.com
BREAKING: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi “for the development of metal-organic frameworks”

Stay tuned for more.
#NobelPrize
A Nobel medal
lauriewinkless.bsky.social
Yes, same here on both of those issues! I was super proud of my parents ❤️
lauriewinkless.bsky.social
Anyway. My goal on this trip is to not have a blinding argument with my mum, so Ieft it. She's a wonderful person in many ways - we just have very different ideas and priorities.

(PS: I'm sharing this here because none of my family uses Bluesky. Forgive the self-indulgence)
lauriewinkless.bsky.social
I'd argue that the statement "I worry about the future for my grandchildren" has less power and meaning if you dismiss who your grandchildren are voting for and instead continue to vote for the parties that are inflicting the damage
a black and white photo of a woman wearing a turtleneck sweater and a dress .
Alt: a black and white photo of a woman wearing a turtleneck sweater and a dress . She shrugs dramatically
media.tenor.com
lauriewinkless.bsky.social
Irish people of that generation vote for ghosts - ideas of political parties forged in the Rising - rather than the actual politicians who are alive and working today. Policies and their influence be damned. The Party name is all that matters.
lauriewinkless.bsky.social
Foolishly suggested to my 80+ year old mother - as she loudly complained about the current Irish government - that for the next election maybe she should talk to her grandkids about who they're voting for and why, and perhaps allow that to influence who will get her vote.