"She criticized my organizational skills and told me that she didn’t see a passion or spark for doing research in me."
Pleading to passion are cop outs for not paying your, or providing sufficient guidance. This was squarely on the PI to begin with, by not reading the room or asking for timely feedback on workload. The the response left a culture of fear (nor one of responsibility and disclosure). Poor management as ever.
On the slow decline of universities as places of education.
"Universities aren't institutions of knowledge anymore. They're assets. They're revenue streams. If they're not generating money for the top, then they only pose a threat, and they have to be weakened and destroyed."
I really like this perspective by @pvonhellermannn. You have a deeper connection with the natural #environment near to you then you will ever have to a billionaire.
I would like to add:
Vote accordingly.
[This goes along the same line as you are close to the gutter than becoming a millionaire]
So much of the #AI industry is precariously floating on a sea of cheap labour in the global south. The curtain has been pulled back for at least one service. The wizard is not a sophisticated machine, but a merciless boss whipping people clicking frantically at consoles.
I'm in The Netherlands, and I'm speaking Dutch, my mother tongue, in day-to-day conversations. It feels... weird. Then I realized that aside 2 months in early 2020 (just before being locked in a box due to COVID) I've been abroad for 10 years now, and mostly if not exclusively speaking Dutch to family only.
So, me having to navigate a restaurant in Dutch now feels weirder than dealing with Swiss German or French. Wild.
I'm reading "Blood in the Machine" by Brian Merchant, which tells the story of the Luddites and how ultimately they lost the battle for just technological advancement.
The parallels with today's societal context are apt. Last century's social security reform clawed back some of the personal freedoms enjoyed a century earlier - with a deference in time of said freedoms (pension/retirement/work week) being key.
We're slowly reneging on retirement - there will be blood in the machine once more.
@koen_hufkens Fringe benefits are the only thing that keep private employment from being utterly exploitative. Your employer captures more of the value of your work than they pay you. In exchange they pay you when you’re old or sick and insulate you from downturns.
Without those things it makes more sense for everyone to be a sole proprietor.
The "Cloud" is someone else's computer which is always on. Economies of scale might save you some energy, but not if the cloud increases use of these resources.
"As a result, the Cloud now has a greater carbon footprint than the airline industry. A single data center can consume the equivalent electricity of 50,000 homes. At 200 terawatt hours (TWh) annually, data centers collectively devour more energy than some nation-states."