@DrPen@mastodon.social
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

DrPen

@DrPen@mastodon.social

Tech society posts and shares from Dr Pen, Digital Media & Humanities academic based in Malta, from London. Late bloomer, a bit pithy.

Previously of home.social

#UserExperience #UGC
#DataSociety #DigitalSociety #SmartCities
#webdev #Fediverse #activitypub

World Citizen

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DrPen, to RSS
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

Importing feeds into Obsidian with Simple RSS!

If you want to archive your Mastodon or other app/site feed posts into Obsidian as separate post entries, I wrote a post about how to use the Simple RSS plugin to do that. I cover Mastodon and Grav RSS feeds. I've done the best I can do for now with instructions and a big thank you goes out to simple rss dev Monnier Antoine for being super helpful.

#RSS #feeds #archive #websites #blogging #mastodon #obsidian #obsidianmd

https://penworks.net/blog/importing-feeds-into-obsidian-with-simple-rss

DrPen, to ai
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

When we teach WW1 history and show photographs of men in the trenches, and no one knows if they are real or midjourney fake then we are in deep trouble. Or teach scientific principles through research papers and don't know if the text is authentic human created or response engine output, we are in deep trouble. Imagine a hundred other contexts and you understand why gen ai is such a massive problem.

glynmoody, to random
@glynmoody@mastodon.social avatar

‘You’ve got to be joking’: dismisses prospect of UK rejoining EU - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/27/peter-mandelson-dismisses-prospect-of-uk-rejoining-eu-labour he always was an overvalued idiot...

DrPen,
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

@glynmoody tbh I think he's right.

DrPen,
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

@glynmoody well I'd have to see the data I think. My general impression is no one wants to go back to more uncertainty but that doesn't mean they love brexit. In truth brexit will end up in name only, bit by bit much of what was in place when we were members will return.

Daojoan, to random
@Daojoan@mastodon.social avatar

Lately, I’ve switched from coffee to a nice, soothing cup of tea.

It sucks. 😩

DrPen,
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

@Daojoan hahaha! British tea drinker here. I'd say you're doing it wrong. I do start the day with a cafetiere made fresh coffee (x2) but after that it's several strong dark brown quite milky mugs of tea. This is known as 'brickies tea' where I come from bc it's what bricklayers (builders) drink. Stew teabag for 4 minutes minimum.

DrPen,
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

@BurningRiver @soggy_kitty Not directly, but the UK Data Protection Act adopts nearly every aspect of GDPR to allow for data portability. Eg this is especially important for fintech data but there's good support for open science and open data in the UK too. https://www.gov.uk/data-protection

DrPen, to BBC
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

The are extending their trial of using mastodon. Yey. This is very good news indeed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2024-02-extending-our-mastodon-social-media-trial

DrPen, to random
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

At risk of blowing my own trumpet, here's my work on the uni repo. Missing one paper, but otherwise a complete record of published work (so far!). Id encourage everyone to put their accepted papers on their Inst. repo, it increases visibility and is usually permitted in author license agreements.
ps I know its not a great number, but Im a late starter at this ;)

Daojoan, to random
@Daojoan@mastodon.social avatar

The truth is - while some artists will find a way to produce great work using AI, most of the output is and will continue to be superficial at best and soulless at worst. That doesn’t mean all AI art is bad. But it does mean your AI art probably is.

DrPen,
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

@Daojoan this is a very important distinction, eg anyone who has seen the work of Lanny Quarles would very likely gasp at its quality and astonishing imaginative power. But he also makes the point of releasing huge image dumps of his ideas, to demonstrate the nature of what can be generated (with <75% being vg). I haven't seen anyone else come even close to this level of quality, but one or two may exist. Nearly all of what we see is slushy trash, and interest in genart has dropped off a cliff.

ErikJonker, to archive
@ErikJonker@mastodon.social avatar

A time-capsule for webpages, i am probably the last to notice this website 😀
Very useful.
http://archive.today/

DrPen,
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

@martijnstaal @ErikJonker Harvard's perma.cc is a useful tool to prevent link rot, which is sort of relevant to this. The wayback machine trawls the web and randomly captures content, admittedly a lot, but by no means everything. I don't think you can use it to custom capture webpages but with perma.cc you can.

https://perma.cc/about

DrPen, to Futurology
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

Patterns have featured an opinion piece in their email re Mastodon for research, particularly focused on gathering data and the non equivalency of direct swap comparison between Twitter and Mastodon/Fediverse ethics and privacy. Its a useful read imho. It's open access.

Shifting your research from X to Mastodon? Here’s what you need to know.
Roel Roscam Abbing, Robert W. Gehl
https://www.cell.com/patterns/fulltext/S2666-3899(23)00323-9

Daojoan, to random
@Daojoan@mastodon.social avatar

Some mfers never bricked the family PC downloading software on limewire and it shows

DrPen,
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

@Daojoan where's the laugh hysterically emoji!

philipncohen, to random
@philipncohen@mastodon.social avatar

If you are a feminist who thinks sexism is a scourge and was a truly terrible, unwatchable movie I want you to know you're not alone.

DrPen,
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

@Alon @philipncohen the doll? If so, +1 that.

DrPen, to random
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

Take a moment to marvel at the DBpedia Linked Open Data cloud.

https://lod-cloud.net/

DrPen, to fediverse
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

Creating a city for all of us: a role for the Fediverse in archiving civic urban memory. A preprint on SocArxiv of my paper (Trevor Norris co author) on how the Fediverse could help to create instances of urban civic memory archives using place-name/geocoded posts and instance cache archiving. technically a laymans view (me!), but feedback on technical or other aspects gratefully received :)

https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/te2ms

DrPen, to fediverse
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

Do people know about the Zotero group, the 'Fediverse Observatory'? Its a long list of relevant information and sources that mention Fediverse related stuff. Check it out.

https://www.zotero.org/groups/4861035/fediverse_observatory/items/LFCK293Q/library

DrPen,
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

@shreddy_scientist @nossaquesapao I shared the academic Internet archive recently, which is pretty good. A JabRef dev commented on adding it to the JabRef search resources. I need to start using JabRef to help begin the move away from Google scholar but that's very difficult to do as an academic.

DrPen, to ai
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

Well hey. I didn't expect my post about Aaron Swartz to get so popular but it's so good to see how many ppl are touched and angry and emotional about what happened. How much we care and what ppl do to share his life and what he stood for.

We must modernise copyright law and deal with digital content in more realistic and fair ways. I mean, we are at the watershed. That's a whole other ballpark. Check this paper out.

https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4523551

DrPen,
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

@Jigsaw_You they're 3 copyright lawyer/academics. It seems to do a thorough job of describing just how complicated this is.

DrPen,
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

@Jigsaw_You Copyright always hinges on the purpose and context of use. Its VERY complicated in the case of different generative data harvesting. Thats the reason for this document, to make this clearer to everyone. If it was a simple "you took my work, you should pay me!", then every takedown and every legal case to sue/incarcerate people who torrent etc would be entirely justified. Hence, the case of Sci-Hub isnt clear, bc ppl use research work for more research, not financial gain.

DrPen,
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

@Jigsaw_You this is what new legislation is partly attempting to deal with (eg EU AI act). Transparency of process is obv really significant, but we need to understand what is being discussed. The Lee et al. paper really helps to understand for us who are not data scientists.

DrPen,
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

@Jigsaw_You When I referred to transparency legislation I wasnt referring to the AI copyright pdf. This is how copyright law applies to different stages of the AI LLM supply chain (in USA). Its not 'research' as such, its an explainer of how it appears to work from a legal perspective. Transparency of LLM/ML techniques is attempting to be dealt with by territorial legislation policy, for example in the EU AI Act.

https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/the-act/

https://www.ceps.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/AI-Presentation-CEPS-Webinar-L.-Sioli-23.4.21.pdf?

DrPen, to Pubtips
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

Today I will be posting thoughts about Aaron Swartz, who died on this day in 2013. The academic community should be much more aware of him, and challenge the massive problem of academic publishing that we are all part of. Let's make it our mission to tell people about Aaron and what he stood for.

Aaron's Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz

EU_Commission, to random
@EU_Commission@social.network.europa.eu avatar

The wait is finally over. From 2024, USB-C will be the common standard for electronic devices in the EU – and we have already seen the impact!

It means
🔌The same charger for all phones, tablets and cameras
⚡ Harmonised fast-charging technology
🔄Reduced e-waste

One charger to rule them all.

Now, a reality.

Learn more about the here: https://europa.eu/!hwjj3G

DrPen,
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

@EU_Commission unfortunately it doesnt mean one charger to fit them all. As many will already know, OS are VERY fussy about chargers, this is not only about the plug to connect them. I have several 'fast' chargers, for 2 dif android USB-C phones. They dont work interoperably, if at all.

DrPen, to fediverse
@DrPen@mastodon.social avatar

yes yes yes. Ive been saying this for at least a year or more and am writing about this again in my current paper. Im 100% behind this. My new theme is promoting the idea of civic learning networks that are based on decentralised federated instance models that also integrate with the open social web.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/10/17/1081194/how-to-fix-the-internet-online-discourse/

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