@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social
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koen_hufkens

@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social

Founder of BlueGreen Labs | addressing #climatechange through data driven methods in #ecology #remotesensing #phenology #foodsecurity

#rstats developer | maker with duct tape and a hammer | #academic omnivore | move fast and fix things

There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

  • Leonard Cohen

Personal account | #politics, #science & #foss software | he / him

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koen_hufkens, to ai
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

So much of the 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.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/amazon-abandons-ai-stores

koen_hufkens, to LateStageCapitalism
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

"Monopolist publisher objects to free dissemination of science funded through a tax evasion scheme"

It doesn't get much wilder than this I fear.

@academicchatter

https://www.science.org/content/article/bold-bid-avoid-open-access-fees-gates-foundation-says-grantees-must-post-preprints

koen_hufkens, to random
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

Business as usual and not an April fools. They found their foolish bag holders and cashed out already. How are these things even legal.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/28/reddit-shares-on-a-two-day-tumble-after-post-ipo-high.html

glynmoody, to Ukraine
@glynmoody@mastodon.social avatar

Russia will not attack Nato countries, Putin says - https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/mar/28/russia-ukraine-war-live-ukraine-destroys-drones-as-putin-rules-out-attacks-on-nato-countries?page=with:block-66052c6c8f089666f5a94f46#block-66052c6c8f089666f5a94f46 sure, just like Putin said he definitely wouldn't attack

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@glynmoody Obviously. It will be a special operation.

anna, to random
@anna@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Hi Academics,

Question: in your professional life, I'm assuming that you have some people in mind who you respect and admire, and whose behaviours you try to emulate?

I'm curious if those are mostly fellow academics, or mostly people outside of academia, or a pretty even mix? Does the set of people whose behaviours you try to emulate vary much over time?

#PostdocLife #AcademicMastodon #AcademicChatter

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@anna Outside academia mostly, or those who are in touch with the humanities (coming from the hard sciences myself). I don't think there is a point in trying to mimic behaviour - this is a recipe for running after fads and makes you vulnerable as such.

koen_hufkens, to opensource
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

So, this is how and is supposed to work, with NASA researcher re-using some of my code.

koen_hufkens, to zerowaste
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

This is why I buy second hand / used computer hardware when the use case can support it.

grows 5x faster than it can be recycled !!!

Make it last, reduce, reuse, recycle (<- only as a last resort).

https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/21/ewaste_grows/

koen_hufkens, to random
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

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.

koen_hufkens, to random
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

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, to random
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

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."

https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-staggering-ecological-impacts-of-computation-and-the-cloud/

koen_hufkens, to climate
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

"ExxonMobil is suing investors who want faster climate action"

Un F-cking believable. These are basic SLAPP techniques to stall things. Disgusting, but certainly not unexpected.

https://www.npr.org/2024/02/29/1234358133/exxon-climate-change-oil-fossil-fuels-shareholders-investors-lawsuit

jbaert, to random
@jbaert@mastodon.social avatar

Zonder verdere escalatie (het best case scenario) wordt het totaal aantal doden tegen de zomer geschat op 100 000. Honderd. Duizend.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-humanitarian-catastrophe-in-gaza-can-only-get-worse

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@jbaert Sommige mensen denken dat het geen genocide is als je het maar traag doet.

sjvn, to random
@sjvn@mastodon.social avatar

He looks pretty calm for someone burning the skin off his fingers.

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@sjvn smells like chicken tenders in here...

koen_hufkens, to random
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

Six meaningless tips for finding meaning in your science career. You actually only need one.

Don't be a haughty!

Fulfillment is an implicit quality, not something which can be measured by poor academic metrics and their dependent shitty values.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00476-z

badlogic, to random
@badlogic@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

ML bubble, I need to spend some money and figured a little desktop machine with enough GPU power to train smaller models would be a fun thing to buy.

Suggestions? Full rig specs preferred! GPU wise there aren't many options other than A6000 and 4090 RTX it seems.

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@badlogic I'm happy with Dell Precision 7920 workstations running A6000s in the lab. Tidy box, easy to maintain and upgrade (added 2x 12TB recently). Jacked it up to 256GB of RAM and was at the time still reasonably priced ~8K* if not mistaken. (comes with an Ubuntu install if desired).

256GB (boot) + 8TB + 2x12TB; 256GB RAM; 48GB A6000 GPU; Dual Xeon 40 threads

[* with educational discount]

koen_hufkens, to foss
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

Goes to the heart. A call for less / simpler code.

https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/12/drowning_in_code/

koen_hufkens, to random
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

The AMOC (and other tipping points) are a true "fuck around and find out" moment for climate change policy IMO.

We have missed most climate change opportunities, therefore closing mitigation and adaptation options even for slow moving climate change.

There is little indication that tipping point warnings will instill a new found urgency.

upol, to academia
@upol@hci.social avatar

CS PhD programs: if a student isn't "producing" from the first semester, don't be so swift to count them out.

Transformative work takes proper incubation, support, and guidance.

Provide these instead of trying to kick them out.

Academia is a marathon, not a sprint.

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@upol This requires mentorship and investing in people. We can't have that, can we.

koen_hufkens, to random
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

People ask me to "pick my brain", a lot. A lack of response after setting my hourly rate reminds me of the Handyman's invoice.

You don't pay for the time the call takes, you pay for the experience that I bring to resolve your issue on short notice - when you are in a pinch. Being your personal help desk, and skipping any mental labour of experience, comes at a cost.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/know-where-man/

Daojoan, to random
@Daojoan@mastodon.social avatar

Modern work:

you get a message in Slack with a link to the Confluence doc to prep for the meeting on Zoom, where you take notes in Notion, and track project progress on Monday and then update the Trello and you get to the end of the week and instead of doing fucking anything you've just moved bits of information around in 17 different databases and each one costs $15 a month per user...

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@Daojoan David Graeber turns in his grave

ml, to academicchatter
@ml@ecoevo.social avatar

We're so used to this, but I would like academics to take a moment and look at how much of the official and unofficial discussion around university is about despair, imposter syndrome, stress, harassment, etc.

What I often see in these discussions, especially the official ones, is discussion of coping mechanisms and "self-care".

What I rarely see in these discussions is questioning why we've built an education system that treats people this way in exchange for this education. @academicchatter

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@ml @academicchatter

Reasons:

  • quick personal career profit (prestige)
  • ignorance and lack of management training
  • poor incentives
  • hazing / survival bias attitude
  • ...

The reason things don't change is not because it is hard, but mostly because it is perceived to not pay off. So people are treated as cannon fodder on behalf of research projects. Students shouldn't be "coddled", but as an educator you do have a duty of care.

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@ml @academicchatter You could just "supervise" and don't teach - just tell people what to do (be a boss). But this debases the requirement of getting additional -education- of a PhD degree. If people want a boss they will get a job elsewhere, and probably be paid better as well.

You pay and treat people well to retain talent, not for doing "the job". You can act that way but you will pay for it with churn and a bad reputation. Happy people are creative productive people.

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@StephanieMoore @NeptuneCaffeine @ml @academicchatter Exactly, and this goes for all aspects. You can leave people to sort it out (sink or swim) or you can just put in a good word or (re)direct them. This takes little effort and goes a long way.

CarlisleRainey, to random
@CarlisleRainey@sciences.social avatar

How data-sharing habits have changed in political science since 1995.

These data show a massive shift in norms, requirements, and infrastructure, but also how much room we have to improve.

GitHub Gist w/ {gganimate} code: https://gist.github.com/carlislerainey/b87600c3314e1829a10b43d0c4617762

Preprint on OSF: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/a5yxe

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@CarlisleRainey Would be curious to put this against faculty turnover over time. How much attrition has there been over time. I.e. do people change practices or do they just retire.

koen_hufkens, to Futurology
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

A recent study highlights the decline in disruptive science. I think most of this is due to the intellectual poverty of a mindset of current day .

It is well documented that poor people suffer from a scarcity mindset, which erodes core cognitive functions. This mindset clouds decisions, prioritizing small short-term gains over long-term larger profits by affecting planning ability. The same applies to creativity.

@academicchatter

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04577-5

koen_hufkens,
@koen_hufkens@mastodon.social avatar

@FantasticalEconomics @benfell @Runyan50 @academicchatter I draw parallels, this isn't peer reviewed people. I write on my morning commute or when traveling in general. These are observations I make, which might (or might not) merit attention.

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