@maegul@hachyderm.io
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

maegul

@maegul@hachyderm.io

A little bit of computing and a little bit of neuroscience.

he/him/they

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maegul, to fediverse
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

Just watched @bret 's talk about Dynamicland (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJm44LJDU44), and couldn't help but think about applications to the

They summarise their goals at the end with these ideals:

  • What if computing was like electric light which is available everywhere (whereas smartphones are like everyone carrying torches around instead)

  • What if programming was a universal literacy (to explore the ideas and problems meaningful for them)

...

1/

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

...

  • What if an OS were designed and built by communities for their own needs

  • What if complexity wasn't swept under the rug

  • What if we could build and understand complex systems together (IE, not just with email and slack channels)

And what struck me was that even for something like social media (surely simpler than general computation?) ... we're likely quite far off in general and even here on the fedi that embraces (relatively) interoperation and distribution.

2/

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

Realistically, platforms on the fedi are much closer in design to their commercial conterparts than one would hope for if your goal was community building and situating the process of digital/online community building within the community themselves.

Just as some are embracing federation with Threads ... I'm thinking that the second wave of fedi platforms (eg bonfire?) in which the big-social paradigms are undone couldn't come soon enough.

3/3

atomicpoet, to random
@atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org avatar

I feel like this is a kneejerk reaction to Biz Stone joining Mastodon’s non-profit entity.

But if you’re that worried, use the many, many other server software for the Fediverse.

I’m doing that right now.

RE: https://social.growyourown.services/users/FediTips/statuses/112344519361606488

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@atomicpoet

Maybe? Looks to me though like the increasing centralisation around mastodon the brand and platform which eventually rubs against the decentralised “admins relying on community management and donations” nature of the rest of the Fedi.

Should admins feel left behind or unheeded by the platform devs but also feel compelled to rely on mastodon the platform, moments like this, like the default mastodon.social in the app, will look like underestimated mistakes.

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@atomicpoet which is why I can’t help but question the efforts of all the people working on platform diversity. It’s not easy and the software is just the beginning. Masto have, AFAICT, aren’t their spot, even if just with consistency over time.

Meanwhile there are many disparate alternatives around. If they all care about diversity, they’d be better banding together into organisations more resilient against the tribulations of running a popular platform.

noellemitchell, to mastodon
@noellemitchell@mstdn.social avatar

Not sure how I feel about being on Mastodon after the announcement of the cofounder of Twitter Biz Stone being appointed to the board of directors on Mastodons new US nonprofit. 😅 I'm wondering how it's going to change things.

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@noellemitchell along with the threads embrace, I’d say the core mastodon team is showing itself to be more “business” like than many on the fediverse would like.

Apart from the cultural friction, there’s real friction in having a big centralised platform enjoying big brand recognition and big tech connections in a fundamentally decentralised ecosystem of instances run by admins relying on community management and donations.

jack, to random
@jack@berlin.social avatar

Bret Victor on the end of large scale public funding for research:

“If this continues, things will stagnate and everyone will say that it happened because all the low-hanging fruit has been taken, but really there’s plenty left. You just need the right kind of research environment.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJm44LJDU44

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@jack

BTW, Bret's here (and active): @bret

neuralreckoning, to academia
@neuralreckoning@neuromatch.social avatar

So oral exam at end of PhD. Good idea or just a tradition that doesn't make any sense any more? What are the good things about them? If we didn't do them, how else could we get those good things? #academia #academicchatter

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@elduvelle @lana @neuralreckoning

Somewhat of a counter ... how many PhDs will graduate having done essentially shitty science? Not because they're bad scientists or even their labs are bad, but because there's a timeline and sometimes you just have to work with what you've got (let's be real, this happens right?).

In those cases its just theatre and AFAICT a rather sad and bitter one too as it exemplifies the facade of academia that some/many PhDs encounter.

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@elduvelle @lana @neuralreckoning

My take from personal experience is that I found the emphasis on writing and oral skills condescending and wasteful.

It certainly makes sense for many science students AFAICT, but many others come to science with diverse/broad educational backgrounds and have no issues with their communication skills... the emphasis on communication can quickly become "don't worry about the science ... just write/speak well!" Always felt a bunch of confused purposes to me.

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@IanSudbery @neuralreckoning @elduvelle @lana

Well sure, it’s a nice way to write up some science. But there’s all the science too right? The knowledge, skills, experience and ideas to ground a future scientist. I’ve certainly seen PhDs where it was known that most of the work will be the write up and that the science part was mostly a wash.

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@IanSudbery @neuralreckoning @elduvelle @lana

Forcing those who didn’t publish during the PhD to compensate with a detailed account that will easily be incomplete — are PI/lab/collab or other structural issues included? — is something.

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@IanSudbery @neuralreckoning @elduvelle @lana

Seems to me, like other things, the shift of the PhD from original work to student’s lab apprenticeship is another awkwardly handled shift in the practice of science.

The way in which it’s the first and grounding experience of a new scientist though strikes me as vital to taking issues with the integrity and utility of the system as they inform the practice and conception of science generally.

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@IanSudbery @neuralreckoning @elduvelle @lana

In the end I'm not disagreeing with you. We we differ, IMO, is on whether what you describe is too idealistic too often such that in practice the expectation of what you describe crumbles down to the more cynical impression I describe.

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@kofanchen @IanSudbery @neuralreckoning @elduvelle @lana

Well I think many PhD graduates would consider the whole process harsh and not in a good "learning experience" way. Depends on field, university, department and lab, obviously, but that is likely the elephant in the room for this discussion IMO.

In some(/many?) fields, publishing during the PhD is felt necessary or highly sought after, so writing a normal thesis, not a thesis by publication, probably also feels harsh in those fields no?

maegul, to random
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

It’s kinds funny how in this moment of urban v rural polarisation we’ve got the generation who experienced the earlier internet finding themselves on the “rural” side of computing history with nostalgia for the equivalent of living in 50s suburbia or a rural town where nothing bad happened and you didn’t need to lock your door.

https://raccoon.zone/@tilton/112321797555766170
@tilton

thomasfuchs, to random
@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io avatar

The weirdest thing about the AI hype is the claims that computers will become sentient and human-level intelligent.

There’s zero evidence that the human brain (the only thing that we know of that is capable of human-level sentience and intelligence) works like a computer or that it could even be simulated by one.

Some neuroscience points to quantum mechanical effects being at the core of how neurons work, which basically means that we don’t have a clue how the brain really works.

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@thomasfuchs

As with economics/finance and crypto, AI is driven by the childish hubris of the tech sector to think they're above all of the other fields of expertise.

Otherwise, what strikes me is the urge to rush into an obvious ethics problem. Once the machine is near human sentient/AGI, then ethics dictates you have to be humane to it, which is not what capitalism wants from its machines (see Human History™).

fonts, to random
@fonts@sfba.social avatar

Man remember when websites were fun and punk and weird?

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@joel @fonts

I wonderful example someone shared with me recently:

https://tabitarezaire.com/

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@joel @fonts

@jensimmons if you're interested in it as an example (as you boosted the top post)

neuralreckoning, to random
@neuralreckoning@neuromatch.social avatar

So what would it take to publish a paper here on mastodon and do public peer review? Just an agreement to use a few hashtags like #Paper, and in replies things like #PeerReview, #Accept, #Revise, #Reject? Some automatically generated web and pdf output summarising the thread? Submission to something like Zenodo to give a DOI? Linking user accounts to orcid to verify identity? Only real problem I see is that even with markdown and LaTeX, Mastodon posts are not well suited for longer posts with multiple figures etc. Maybe fine for short results though?

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@neuralreckoning

I'd use groups or threadiverse communities (like sub-reddits).

One for peer review, and another for "publication" which could require a link to the peer review discussion tree .

On posting to "publication" some automated process ensues for the rest. There formatting can be richer or blog-like too, with comments/discussion trees for both stages too.

maegul, to random
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

Huh ... this feels historically ominous ...

the next chess world championship (open) will be contested by an Indian and Chinese person.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/apr/22/indian-teenager-gukesh-dommaraju-becomes-youngest-challenger-for-world-chess-title

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@bodhipaksa

just the rise of China and India as world powers

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@bodhipaksa

yep, thus the thought.

Another example is the women's chess ratings: https://ratings.fide.com/top_lists.phtml?list=women

Not anyone "west" of Ukraine in the top 10, with 4 chinese women (which IMO also says something about where western feminism is up to)

maegul, (edited ) to ghost
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

I think the and federations pose interesting questions about what platforms can and should be.

Do we actually want blogs and feeds of blogs folded into a mastodon/microblog social feed?

Do we want to read and comment on blogs on mastodon?

Do we want all the diversity of the fediverse fed into a single platform's UI and hope that it works well?

Are we worried that some choices by our platform or instance admin might hinder this process?

I'm rather skeptical.

1/

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@mikedev

hear hear!

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@mima

> all the #fediverse implementations in the first place should've been backends first and foremost.

Yep! It seems an obvious way to go if "ActivityPub" is truly a unifying protocol.

Generic backends that afford all sorts of options for anything that can be transported over the protocol, with separate front-ends/clients (or even multiple clients) to match whatever the user wants.

Then admins pick which backends they like and users which frontends.

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@aliceif @mima

Lemmy seems to be doing quite well with alternative front ends.

Checkout lemmy.world, the "Alternative UIs" section of the side bar. They're running 5 alternatives, which along with the standard makes 6 UIs for people to chose.

maegul,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@mima @aliceif

FWIW, there's currently akkomane.social, which is an akkoma backend using the mangane front-end instead of the default, and it's working quite well for me.

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