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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.
Trump hosts former head of Syrian Al-Qaeda Al-Jolani to the White House Tue Nov 11, 2025 22:01 | imc
Rip The Chicken Tree - 1800s - 2025 Tue Nov 04, 2025 03:40 | Mark
Study of 1.7 Million Children: Heart Damage Only Found in Covid-Vaxxed Kids Sat Nov 01, 2025 00:44 | imc
The Golden Haro Fri Oct 31, 2025 12:39 | Paul Ryan
Top Scientists Confirm Covid Shots Cause Heart Attacks in Children Sun Oct 05, 2025 21:31 | imc Human Rights in Ireland >>
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Gerard McKeown wins Belfast Performance Poetry Cup
 antrim |
arts and media |
news report
 Wednesday April 11, 2007 19:17 by Anthony Wisener - Belfastpoets anthony_wisener at yahoo dot com
Ballymena born writer Gerard McKeown has won The New Belfast PerformancePoetry Cup, after competing in an intensive slam contest, which featured competitors from all over Ulster. The poetry slam, which took place on 2 April at Belfast's Black Box Theatre, was sponsored by New Belfast Community Arts Initiative. McKeown won the cup with two poems The Beautiful Goth and The Dreams of the Middle Class Poservs The Reality of Cool Punk.
Slam is a form of poetry contest, which originated in America in the 1980s, where a panel of judges rate the poets on their poetic and performative abilities. The poets are narrowed down and then play off against each other in a final.
McKeown is one of a number of Irish writers gaining prestige in the growing artform of Performance Poetry. Their is a strong, ancient oral tradition of poetry and story telling in Ireland," McKeown says, "which I feel the modern performance poetry scene continues."
Gerard started writing poetry as a teenager but admits it was mostly standard teenage fare. "The problem was that I was mostly copying poetry that I was reading, rather than what came naturally. Every so often I'd write something funny just to show my mates
for a laugh, that's really where the root of what I do now lies."
McKeown's first experiences of performance poetry came in 2004 at the Arcadia Cafe in Belfast. "I'd went intending to read the more traditional poetry I had, but when I heard the other poets read I knew where my funny stuff belonged." From this McKeown began his connection with the performance poetry collective the belfastpoets.
McKeown had studied literature at the Cumbria Institute of the Arts where he had studied the work of the American poet John Berryman. "His writing helped me form own voice. I realised that anything could be the basis for a poem, his imagery was so dark and his references obscure, but there was something very tangible and fresh about them as well." He later discovered the Glasgow poet Tom Leonard and realised that Leonard's use of a Glaswegian dialect was something that
could be applied to his own writing. "I think the Northern Irish slang is very rich, especially in Ballymena, there had been a great tradition in Ulster with the Weaver Poets using everyday language, which I felt was something worth applying to modern day poetry."
McKeown also studied drama at University and now found he could use this to his advantage. "I had a knack with comedy and I knew how to work a stage. It fitted in nicely with performance poetry and gave me confidence to develop an act where I would have banter with the audience and not just read poem after poem uninterrupted."
Some critics of performance poetry have accused it of dumbing down the art of poetry. McKeown disagrees with this: "Performance poetry is concerned with trying to communicate with people in an entertaining way. Poetry is concerned with the sound of words as well as their meaning, performance poetry does not try to intellectually best its audience with complicated language. It largely prefers patterns of everyday speech, while at the same time utilising the sonic qualities of tonality and volume. The nature of it means that it benefits from incorporating other stage based arts such as theatre or stand-up."
McKeown's win now means that he is part of the Ulster Performance
Poetry team that will compete in the All-Ireland slam in McHugh's, Belfast on the
11th May. Here's one of the poems that put him on the team:
The Beautiful Goth
I saw a beautiful goth in Botanic Gardens the other day
her hair was raven tresses
which framed a pale face of porcelain skin
but on it was etched pain,
a pout of raspberry refrained from talking
no words could sum up the pain
on her pretty painted face.
And while I understood this
I had to ask myself
If this girl is so pretty,
then why is she wearing so much make-up?
Perhaps she is hiding an ugly face?
Is it a human face?
Or is it the face of a lizardman's daughter?
Lizardmen come from outerspace
and have been trying to enslave the human race.
They are in government, in entertainment,
in all walks of life.
They could be at your job,
they could be your dog,
because lizardmen can take many forms!
They have been here for centuries!
They built the pyramids
and killed both the Kennedys
I know that they did!
they show up at your door
knock you to the floor
and try to eat your brains!
They ate my friend's brains!
And made it look like a burglary
BECAUSE LIZARDMEN ARE SMART!
BUT THEY WON'T GET ME!
BECAUSE I SLEEP WITH A GUN!
Copyrightof the poem The Beautiful Goth belongs to Gerard McKeown and is reproduced here with his permission.
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Comments (4 of 4)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4Congrats on winning the Belfast poetry slam. Below - at the link - is an article I wrote for Poetry Ireland News about the poetry scene here in Galway, where poetry slams are now an important, and very vibrant part of the scene.
Best wishes,
Kevin Higgins
Congratulations! Though I haven't seen Gerard perform in 18 months it's great to hear he's doing so well with his performances. I'll be at McHugh's on the 11th ... can't wait.
I've had a lot of feedback about this article so here are a few more links to Gerard's work
Caption: Video Id: 5nCrxPGrP88 Type: Youtube Video
Embedded video Youtube Video
Caption: Video Id: 9lNHl9FOGPc Type: Youtube Video
Embedded video Youtube Video
I just found this old article about me. I've a new website up if anyone who visits here would like to visit it.
http://www.gerardmckeown.co.uk.