@alex@dair-community.social

alex

@alex@dair-community.social

Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute.

Roller derby athlete/announcer at Bay Area Derby.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡ฌโšง

Residing on unceded Lisjan (Ohlone) land. Pay your Shuumi Land Tax if you live in the East Bay. https://sogoreate-landtrust.org/

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alex, to random

Apropos of nothing this Friday: a reminder to never use Google Scholar for correct citations! They are wrong for everything except arXiv papers! And even then it's dicey! It's a shit product!

If anything, use DOIs and Zotero!

For instance, one way I assume that someone hasn't actually read Ruha Benjamin's Race After Technology, despite citing it, is that the citation is to a Social Forces review of the book, which says the publisher is Wiley, and not Polity.

alex,

@nev Looks like it pulls from crossref and associated DBs, so I think you're good.

alex,

@facorread No thank you!

alex,

@curtosis yikes

alex, to random

'Captive audiences, like refugees, children, prisoners, and low wage workers are all Zombie Trainers, unaware of the hidden tasks they perform, the new industries they're building, or the communities being harmed in the process.'

@adrienneandgp

https://www.newsweek.com/zombie-trainers-new-era-forced-labor-opinion-1896624

andrewt, to random
@andrewt@mathstodon.xyz avatar

๐ŸŽถ I am a language model and I've been trained on the internet.
๐ŸŽถ I've information half-remembered, unsourced and approximate.
๐ŸŽถ I live inside your laptop, phone and apps and even wearables
๐ŸŽถ With pushiness and arrogance that's verging on unbearable.
๐ŸŽถ I mansplain as a service if you need me to "well actually"
๐ŸŽถ And draw pictures of women with large breasts and polydactyly.
๐ŸŽถ I'll regale the room with confident elucidati-on
๐ŸŽถ And some of what I say won't even be hallucinati-on

alex,

@trochee @andrewt I think I have the right tune for this but please link me to the right one

alex,

@andrewt @trochee That's what I thought!

alex, to random

multiple times a day I think of the word "autopoiesis" and multiple times a day I forget what it means

alex, to random

One of my DMs let my Barbarian/Cleric take a level of warlock after I failed a divine intervention so hard (literally got a 1 out of 100) while in the Nine Hells, I summoned a mommy devil who made a contract with my character

alex,

(DnD changes you, this is a sentence dreamed up by the insane)

parismarx, to random
@parismarx@mastodon.online avatar

๐Ÿ† now blocked by kara swisher on twitter and threads ๐Ÿ†

alex,

@parismarx goals

alex, to random

The recent sit-ins in higher ed spaces are inspiring and creating a second wave of protest against the genocide in Gaza. They also follow a pattern of student solidarity waves, which Ellen Berrey and I have been watching for years. Itโ€™s 2015 and weโ€™re at a different Columbia...

alex,

That Monday, Tim Wolfe announced his resignation as UM System president. This brought an end to the major student protests on campus. It was followed by the resignation of Mizzou Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin.

https://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/higher_education/mu-made-sweeping-changes-at-the-top-after-the-fall-2015-protests-but-it-falls/article_7f547ef8-e3af-11e8-99a9-2b8ba6c3d6b4.html

alex,

In our dataset, based on over 550 student newspapers, we counted at least 150 protests across the country in solidarity with Mizzou. These were distributed broadly, not just those in close proximity to Missouri. As you can imagine, protesters not only stood in solidarity with protesters in Missouri, but also raised local issues around anti-Black racism, police violence, and the cops on campus.

alex,

At University of Missouri-Columbia (or Mizzou), two hours from Ferguson, MO where Mike Brown was murdered, a publicized racist attack on the student association president, Payton Head, was the precipitating event that helped to galvanize this wave of activism. They called out the adminโ€™s failure to address campus racism. Activists honed in on their demand that the president of the Missouri system, Tim Wolfe, resign.

alex,

The protest followed a common pattern--protesters raise initial demands, and then problems with the inadequate or heavy-handed response--by administration or by police--that becomes part of the protestersโ€™ demands too. The turning point in the campaign was the announcement, on Sat. Nov. 7, by Black football players on the universityโ€™s Tigers team. They were boycotting football games and practices until President Wolfe resigned.

https://www.columbiamissourian.com/sports/mizzou_football/update-black-missouri-football-players-plan-to-join-wolfe-protest-through-boycott/article_3af86734-85c4-11e5-95a7-b7f5cd4cfb9e.html

alex,

At Georgetown, for instance, 250 students, faculty, and community members gathered for a demonstration led by Black student activists, to express solidarity with students at Mizzou and and with students in South Africa. The group shared a list of demands that called on the university administration to address racism and injustice on campus, including changing the name of two campus buildings named for former university leaders who had supported slavery.

https://thehoya.com/news/solidarity-demonstrators-call-for-university-action/

alex,

These waves are common and periodic. One of the classic papers on diffusions of protests comes from Sarah Soule and her study of the shantytown as a protest tactic, protesting investments in another apartheid state: South Africa.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2580522

alex,

But Souleโ€™s sources only included a few dozen mainstream sources, and notably didnโ€™t include student newspapers. The importance of student newspapers canโ€™t be overstated, especially now that police are not willing to allow outside journalists into the Columbia encampment.

https://www.inquirer.com/columnists/attytood/columbia-student-journalists-wkcr-spectator-free-speech-rfk-jr-20240423.html

alex,

Moreover, one of the virtues of the current era is that movements can learn from each other through social media, and the national network of Students for Justice in Palestine chapters.

Significantly, the mass arrests were not a widespread feature of the 2015 movement, unlike today. This may point to the enmeshments of the donor class upset at divestment demands or the cross-ethnic coalition of students making up the majority of protesters.

alex,

Thereโ€™s a lot for students to learn here from past movements, and weโ€™re excited for students to also show us the way forward in our analyses. Special shoutout to TAHRIR Michigan, the Debt Collective, Cops Off Campus, and Abolition University, groups that inform much of our ongoing research.

alex,

In sum, students have always been at the forefront of movements, but moreover, cross-campus solidarity matters. Whatโ€™s heartening is the way that they are reinvigorating pro-Palestine action, learning from each other's struggles, and exposing common concerns across campuses.

alex,

Those concerns include: the neoliberal nature of the university and its tangle of investments in weapons manufacturers, and Big Tech; the increasing militarism within campus police departments; and huge debts incurred for capital development alongside those major endowments.

alex, to random

The @nationalnurses guidance on AI in the healthcare setting is excellent. Talk about immediately seeing through the hype!

https://www.nationalnursesunited.org/artificial-intelligence

alex,

@beep I can't wait till the recording is out.

alex,

@Qybat @nationalnurses Ugh, yes. The NHS has unfortunately gone all-in.

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