Mastodawn

spaduf Oct 23, 2023

rifflypond Oct 23, 2023

So I feel like Threads might be the same: tons of users, but nothing happening. Their aversion to "news" and dragging their feet on chronological search results is not helping that perception.

There's plenty of nice art + photography that gets cross-posted, but in terms of discourse it kinda feels like a breakout chat for Instagram users. Just people whose main community is IG-based (artists, crafters, fiction writers, lifestyle bloggers) making small talk about nothing, which is indeed "wholesome" but also quite boring.

spaduf Oct 2, 2023

Ben Werdmuller Oct 2, 2023

"Microsoft's data centers in West Des Moines, Iowa guzzled massive amounts of water last year to keep cool while training OpenAI's ChatGPT-4. [...] This happened in the midst of a more than three-year drought, further taxing a stressed water system that's been so dry this summer that nature lovers couldn't even paddle canoes in local rivers." #AI https://futurism.com/critics-microsoft-water-train-ai-drought?utm_source=werd.io&utm_campaign=mastodon&utm_channel=mastodon

Critics Furious Microsoft Is Training AI by Sucking Up Water During Drought

Some people in Iowa are mad that Microsoft used a ton of water to train AI while Iowa has been in a drought caused by climate change.

Futurism

spaduf Oct 1, 2023

DavidB 🍥Oct 1, 2023

How do you recognize an American on social media?

They'll let you know everything about themselves in their profile, usually more than you want to know, but they won't mention what country they're from (if we're lucky, we'll get state, you'd better know your American states, people)

#Murica #UnitedStates #Americans

spaduf Oct 1, 2023

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myrmepropagandist Oct 1, 2023

@JuliusGoat

If this is a recurring problem it's time to think about the acoustics of your space. Persistent infestations of musicians are often traceable too much (or too little!) reverb. Large open spaces attract the bands, insulated surfaces attract indie rock groups, often looking to found their first album. Kill one member and they will be replaced, and commemorative albums will be released. If you see completion albums? Just give up.

spaduf Sep 30, 2023

Kristin Eichhorn Sep 30, 2023

"The 'privatisation of stress' involves a shift from examining the wider conditions under which we labour to a focus on the self, and the stressed-out figure of the casualised 'neurotic academic' points not only to the personal but also the political costs of failing to resist processes that are detrimental to the health of staff and the wellbeing of the public university." #IchBinHanna https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2018/04/17/the-neurotic-academic-how-anxiety-fuels-casualised-academic-work/

The neurotic academic: how anxiety fuels casualised academic work

As higher education undergoes a process of marketisation in the UK and the activities of academic staff are increasingly measured and scrutinised, universities are suffused with anxiety. Coupled wi…

Impact of Social Sciences

spaduf Sep 30, 2023

Mattstodon 🏳️‍⚧️Sep 30, 2023

NPR publishing anti-union propaganda from Steven Rattner, a multimillionaire who owns homes in Manhattan, Martha's Vineyard, and a horse farm in upstate NY. The same guy who bailed out the auto industry wants you to think the #UAW is greedy for wanting a 32 hour work week and cites low wages in MEXICO as a reason that their wage demands are "unrealistic." Fuck this guy. #UnionStrong #fairwages #workreform

spaduf Sep 30, 2023

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦Sep 30, 2023

duuuude 😬

‘The Onion’ Looks Back On 90 Years Of Dianne Feinstein Dying

https://www.theonion.com/the-onion-looks-back-on-90-years-of-dianne-feinstein-1850887400

‘The Onion’ Looks Back On 90 Years Of Dianne Feinstein Dying

Dianne Feinstein, who served as a senator of California since 1992, died Thursday night at the age of 90. The Onion looks back at 31 years of Feinstein becoming elderly while in office.

The Onion

spaduf Sep 29, 2023

MAHanson Sep 29, 2023

The strain on scientific publishing 📄:

The publishing sector has a problem. Scientists are overwhelmed, editors are overworked, special issue invitations are constant, research paper mills, article retractions, journal delistings… JUST WHAT IS GOING ON!?

Myself, pablo, @paolocrosetto and Dan have spent the last few months investigating just that.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.15884

A thread🧵1/n

#AcademicChatter #PublishOrPerish #Elsevier #Springer #MDPI #Wiley #Frontiers #PhDAdvice #PhDChat #SciComm

The strain on scientific publishing

Scientists are increasingly overwhelmed by the volume of articles being published. Total articles indexed in Scopus and Web of Science have grown exponentially in recent years; in 2022 the article total was approximately ~47% higher than in 2016, which has outpaced the limited growth - if any - in the number of practising scientists. Thus, publication workload per scientist (writing, reviewing, editing) has increased dramatically. We define this problem as the strain on scientific publishing. To analyse this strain, we present five data-driven metrics showing publisher growth, processing times, and citation behaviours. We draw these data from web scrapes, requests for data from publishers, and material that is freely available through publisher websites. Our findings are based on millions of papers produced by leading academic publishers. We find specific groups have disproportionately grown in their articles published per year, contributing to this strain. Some publishers enabled this growth by adopting a strategy of hosting special issues, which publish articles with reduced turnaround times. Given pressures on researchers to publish or perish to be competitive for funding applications, this strain was likely amplified by these offers to publish more articles. We also observed widespread year-over-year inflation of journal impact factors coinciding with this strain, which risks confusing quality signals. Such exponential growth cannot be sustained. The metrics we define here should enable this evolving conversation to reach actionable solutions to address the strain on scientific publishing.

arXiv.org

spaduf Sep 29, 2023

Robert Sanscartier Sep 28, 2023

Youth climate activists protest potential shutdown in Kevin McCarthy’s office

Members of Sunrise Movement say House Speaker is ‘playing political games with our futures’ and must avert shutdown

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/28/young-climate-protesters-government-shutdown-kevin-mccarthy

#MassExtinction #pollution #ecology #environment #climate #ClimateStrike #USA #US

Eighteen climate activists arrested for shutdown protest in McCarthy’s office

Members of Sunrise Movement refused to vacate House speaker’s office entrance until he pledged to avert US government shutdown

The Guardian

spaduf Sep 29, 2023

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Nowhere Girl Sep 28, 2023

I don't entirely blame cis people for being ignorant of trans issues when our entire conservative-owned media complex is lying to them about it and denying trans people and medical experts the platform to tell the truth.

Calling trans people delusional and blaming us on antisemitic conspiracy theories is par for the course with fascists.

But a lot of cis people want to believe this shit so they can preserve their own narrow-minded sense of "normal" that makes them feel superior to us.