In a group chat identifying mushrooms my tech bro friend went "just use AI".
What a great examle of the harm this automation does. The point of identifying something like plants or shrooms ourselves is not just in getting the answer, it's about what we learn along the way. Little details, differentiating factors, other species that look similar. And so much more.
With something like mushrooms this process of identifying (learning) is what keeps the mushroom picker alive, not just the ready answer. With the answer alone, we learn nothing. There is so much more to human decision making and processes than just the end point. To understand, we need to get there ourselves.
I would never trust an AI with my mushrooms, I would however always trust a seasoned picker who has spent a lifetime seeing all the variations that can happen. And I would still hesitate to eat something I am not myself 110% sure of.
Here is our paper! My #research shows how certain adult neurons resist activity changes.
On a macro level, this could provide a new hypothesis for why adults exhibit resistance to #learning, #anxiety, and #addiction.
A key question is why? It may not only be a negative byproduct of age but could be an evolutionary advantage to resist trauma or external influence after we've found "successful strategies" while younger.
I am learning German with Duolingo and I wonder if anybody could recommend a german gaming news site, preferably with shorter posts that I could use to improve my reading skills.
Beyond the “culture war”: How to cover #trans issues well in an election year—workshop for journalists offered by the Trans Journalists Association. Feb 7, online class, registration $35
Does anyone know where I might find free OS images that have pre-built forensic data you can investigate? Like a hack the box but for forensics? #forensics#infosec#incidentresponse#learning
Since the 1980s, Usborne has been releasing great books for learning about computers and programming. Vibrant and fun, with big letters for the young and old, the company has put a whole bunch of them online for free as PDFs. They may not be as culturally relevant, but their ability to teach remains neon bright.
I recommending "Write Your Own Adventure Programs" for the curious, it's fun simply to read!
I ended my time on Duolingo in the #NewYear, after finding out they sacked a bunch of translators and are now relying on AI to generate sentences for learning. Essentially, they are just generating the content via AI and having a limited number of translators "check the work" before putting it up into their programs.
I also noticed that, the longer I went on in my Duolingo program, the quality of the learning seemed to decrease dramatically, and after learning about the AI thing, it started to dawn on me that this could be part of the reason for that. But even if it isn't related, the fact that they are making this move toward AI only means in the future, the learning WILL decrease in quality whether we like it or not, and that's no fun at all.
So No Thanks, #Duolingo. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Twice in the last month, someone has lamented near me that they have a bunch of learned-through-experience knowledge in their head, and they don't know how to draw it out into lessons to #teach their colleagues.
This is called "tacit knowledge". And fortunately, we actually know some ways to elicit it from experts & use it to train new learners!
I've appreciated Cedric Chin's blog series on this:
Is anyone interested in giving music lessons in exchange for coding lessons?
I've been at Google/YouTube for ~10 years and I know Javascript/Typescript, Python, Ruby, HTML/CSS and some Linux/UNIX sysops (nginx, supervisord, etc). I've worked on Windows, Mac, Linux and ChromeOS.
Looking for lessons in mixing/mastering, guitar, production, and maybe piano or voice.
Online via video chat, or in person in the SF Bay Area.
We're blessed to have so many tools to use to learn #Mandarin free. It has made learning the language so much faster and easier. Here are the apps and courses I'm using to improve my Mandarin.
I asked for classrooms w/ moveable chairs, tables, stacked them. Greeted students as they arrived 1st day & told them to set up a chair. Invariably, they would set up rows & columns, & w/out intervention would sit in the same place the next time class met. Moving into a circle changed my profile from sage on stage to co-learner; also, no back row in a small circle (for larger classes, concentric circles). Since they are trained to comply, saying we're co-learners has effect #learning#pedagogy