Both USAian and Canadian (this justifies my silly username)
Antifascist. Pro-people. Love me some music. Sometimes I make it. Love photos. Sometimes I take them. Love my kid. Always & forever.
Academic who likes academia as a friend.
I'm sure my employers disagree with much of what I post.
he/him or whatever, as long as it's not directly, personally insulting
Alt-text: Gimme a minute after I post before reminding me.
I sometimes obscure my employers (to protect me, not them)
| When you see a man who's broken | Pick him up and carry him |
| When you see a woman who's broken | Put her all into your arms |
| b/c we don't know where we come from | we don't know what we are |
| and you | you're no one |
| and you | you're falling |
| and you | you're traveling... at the speed of light |
My coauthor and I have spent a lot of time this year and last thinking of ways to threaten men's masculinity via surveys, as experimental manipulations that will (hopefully) show up on outcome variables. There are at least a dozen options in published studies but another of his colleagues, who does a lot of this work, had an enticing/entertaining suggestion...
A free-response answer to the question
Why are you such a little bitch?
Almost 25 years ago, I wrote a blog post with the title ‘jumping ship slowly’ about leaving Windows (XP was awful, it was mind boggling to me that Vista managed to make people nostalgic for XP). My advice remains the same:
Don’t try switching OS first. The OS is the most easily replaceable bit in the stack. Switch applications first. Most ‘Linux’ apps are cross platform. They’ll run on Windows, and the few that don’t will run in WSL2. You can switch out apps one at a time, and take the time to get comfortable with the alternatives.
Once you’re comfortable not using any Windows-only apps, changing the OS but using all of the same applications is very easy to do. Changing OS and application stack at the same time is an enormous obstacle.
I believe this is also why a lot of corporate and government Linux migrations fail: they try to change everything at the same time and that’s too steep a learning curve.
University politics (and colleague relationships, etc.) can be famously toxic and soul-destroying. One reason is clearly that we have killed (in the USA) the possibility for most faculty to move between jobs, so the people you're with are largely the people you're stuck with for 10-30 years, with predictable prison-like social dynamics.
I suspect another reason is the hypocrisy. Not everyone is a hypocrite (and it's not binary), but I'm convinced you can't be a university administrator (dean, provost, president) without some massive doses of hypocrisy. The disconnect between stated values and observed behavior is stark. I know this is true in the corporate world, too, but I think (maybe wrongly) that it's worse in academia because we are supposed to live these values. Our jobs are these values; they're not (supposed to be) tacked on like "celebrating diversity" at IBM; they're baked into what academia is. The structure is supposed to be built out of these values. The daily dominance games, lying, and social aggression, mostly coming from the top, seem more pointed and horrible. I suppose there are some churches and charities that have the same issue: your entire organization and reason for being is embodied in some moral principles, so the repeated violation of them is extra horrible.
On one hand, the idea that my smart glasses could remind me of someone's name when I see them is close to the top feature I can imagine for them; I'm terrible at remembering names on the fly. On the other, the very fucking last company on Earth I want in that loop is Facebook.
https://www.wired.com/story/meta-smart-glasses-face-recognition-nametag-connections/
BREAKING FINANCIAL NEWS: Reuters | SpaceX blocked from early US benchmark index entry as S&P reaffirms existing rules
THIS IS A HUGE VICTORY FOR INVESTORS AND YOUR RETIREMENT
"S&P Global said on Thursday it was not changing the requirements for entry into its major indices, dealing a setback to Elon Musk's SpaceX by effectively ruling out a swift entry for the world's biggest-ever IPO into the benchmark S&P 500 index."
1/
Additional fun fact: there is a special subway connecting the Capitol with many of the House and Senate office buildings, so members don't have to walk between them to go vote
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Capitol_subway_system
🎵 You can put your clothes back on
She's leaving you
No time to apologize for the things you do
Go rent a Ferrari
And sing the blues
Believe that Clapton was the second coming 🎵
(MJ Lenderman, "She's Leaving You," 2024)
David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)
852dude
Scott Hill
Mastodon Migration
Jason Lefkowitz
phoenix 🌈