@maegul@hachyderm.io
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

maegul

@maegul@hachyderm.io

A little bit of computing and a little bit of neuroscience.

he/him/they

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noellemitchell, to mastodon
@noellemitchell@mstdn.social avatar

deleted_by_author

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    maegul,
    @maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

    @noellemitchell along with the threads embrace, I’d say the core mastodon team is showing itself to be more “business” like than many on the fediverse would like.

    Apart from the cultural friction, there’s real friction in having a big centralised platform enjoying big brand recognition and big tech connections in a fundamentally decentralised ecosystem of instances run by admins relying on community management and donations.

    neuralreckoning, to academia
    @neuralreckoning@neuromatch.social avatar

    So oral exam at end of PhD. Good idea or just a tradition that doesn't make any sense any more? What are the good things about them? If we didn't do them, how else could we get those good things? #academia #academicchatter

    maegul,
    @maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

    @elduvelle @lana @neuralreckoning

    Somewhat of a counter ... how many PhDs will graduate having done essentially shitty science? Not because they're bad scientists or even their labs are bad, but because there's a timeline and sometimes you just have to work with what you've got (let's be real, this happens right?).

    In those cases its just theatre and AFAICT a rather sad and bitter one too as it exemplifies the facade of academia that some/many PhDs encounter.

    maegul,
    @maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

    @elduvelle @lana @neuralreckoning

    My take from personal experience is that I found the emphasis on writing and oral skills condescending and wasteful.

    It certainly makes sense for many science students AFAICT, but many others come to science with diverse/broad educational backgrounds and have no issues with their communication skills... the emphasis on communication can quickly become "don't worry about the science ... just write/speak well!" Always felt a bunch of confused purposes to me.

    maegul,
    @maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

    @IanSudbery @neuralreckoning @elduvelle @lana

    Well sure, it’s a nice way to write up some science. But there’s all the science too right? The knowledge, skills, experience and ideas to ground a future scientist. I’ve certainly seen PhDs where it was known that most of the work will be the write up and that the science part was mostly a wash.

    maegul,
    @maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

    @IanSudbery @neuralreckoning @elduvelle @lana

    Forcing those who didn’t publish during the PhD to compensate with a detailed account that will easily be incomplete — are PI/lab/collab or other structural issues included? — is something.

    maegul,
    @maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

    @IanSudbery @neuralreckoning @elduvelle @lana

    Seems to me, like other things, the shift of the PhD from original work to student’s lab apprenticeship is another awkwardly handled shift in the practice of science.

    The way in which it’s the first and grounding experience of a new scientist though strikes me as vital to taking issues with the integrity and utility of the system as they inform the practice and conception of science generally.

    maegul,
    @maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

    @IanSudbery @neuralreckoning @elduvelle @lana

    In the end I'm not disagreeing with you. We we differ, IMO, is on whether what you describe is too idealistic too often such that in practice the expectation of what you describe crumbles down to the more cynical impression I describe.

    maegul,
    @maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

    @kofanchen @IanSudbery @neuralreckoning @elduvelle @lana

    Well I think many PhD graduates would consider the whole process harsh and not in a good "learning experience" way. Depends on field, university, department and lab, obviously, but that is likely the elephant in the room for this discussion IMO.

    In some(/many?) fields, publishing during the PhD is felt necessary or highly sought after, so writing a normal thesis, not a thesis by publication, probably also feels harsh in those fields no?

    thomasfuchs, to random
    @thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io avatar

    The weirdest thing about the AI hype is the claims that computers will become sentient and human-level intelligent.

    There’s zero evidence that the human brain (the only thing that we know of that is capable of human-level sentience and intelligence) works like a computer or that it could even be simulated by one.

    Some neuroscience points to quantum mechanical effects being at the core of how neurons work, which basically means that we don’t have a clue how the brain really works.

    maegul,
    @maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

    @thomasfuchs

    As with economics/finance and crypto, AI is driven by the childish hubris of the tech sector to think they're above all of the other fields of expertise.

    Otherwise, what strikes me is the urge to rush into an obvious ethics problem. Once the machine is near human sentient/AGI, then ethics dictates you have to be humane to it, which is not what capitalism wants from its machines (see Human History™).

    maegul, to random
    @maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

    It’s kinds funny how in this moment of urban v rural polarisation we’ve got the generation who experienced the earlier internet finding themselves on the “rural” side of computing history with nostalgia for the equivalent of living in 50s suburbia or a rural town where nothing bad happened and you didn’t need to lock your door.

    https://raccoon.zone/@tilton/112321797555766170
    @tilton

    fonts, to random
    @fonts@sfba.social avatar

    Man remember when websites were fun and punk and weird?

    maegul,
    @maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

    @joel @fonts

    I wonderful example someone shared with me recently:

    https://tabitarezaire.com/

    maegul,
    @maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

    @joel @fonts

    @jensimmons if you're interested in it as an example (as you boosted the top post)

    maegul, (edited ) to ghost
    @maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

    I think the and federations pose interesting questions about what platforms can and should be.

    Do we actually want blogs and feeds of blogs folded into a mastodon/microblog social feed?

    Do we want to read and comment on blogs on mastodon?

    Do we want all the diversity of the fediverse fed into a single platform's UI and hope that it works well?

    Are we worried that some choices by our platform or instance admin might hinder this process?

    I'm rather skeptical.

    1/

    maegul,
    @maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

    Presuming that a platform is a suitable "master" UI for everything looks to break this utility of platforms and online "spaces".

    Moreover, mistaking that a "master platform" is possible for the promise of the fediverse may very well be dangerous if people embrace it with enthusiasm and hype to then be disappointed at how it doesn't work well and then question the value of decentralisation.

    And I think that's important because federation doesn't guarantee a good UI. Probably the opposite.

    4/

    maegul,
    @maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

    The first thing it misses, I think, is that platforms naturally develop vibes and cultures and that many naturally learn to match a particular activity and persona to a particular platform/vibe.

    Along those lines, it would completely make sense for people to be a bit silly and shitpost-y on mastodon and then more academic over on a blogging platform.

    One could even argue that this isn't just natural but healthy, where more focused vibes create more coherent interaction.

    3/

    maegul,
    @maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

    We've seen this already with the integration between the threadiverse (lemmy etc) and mastodon/microblogs.

    It basically sucks because the platforms are fundamentally incompatible despite how close the protocol brings them together.

    Incompatible platforms don't work together.

    Federation and the protocol don't change that. People will just reroute around UI friction and basically ignore whatever federation is offering if its UI sucks. The lively app+frontend development indicates the same.

    5/

    maegul, (edited )
    @maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

    Beyond having compatible UIs (which is tough if you're aiming for something relatively universal), there's then the issue of feed management.

    The more that's pumped into your feed the more you need to filter and separate it out. That's a big UI challenge fediverse platforms don't seem up to either and which is generally tough. Not to mention that separate platforms or "spaces" actually become a feature here for helping one's feed management, as annoying as all the apps can be.

    6/

    maegul,
    @maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

    So, is the promise of a diverse fediverse a pipe-dream? Are the platforms up to the challenge of integrating with all the others? Or are people happy with a single UI?

    I think it's "no" to all three. Which means something is being missed here (this is new after all).

    A similar conversation happened recently over on . It's a UI issue but at a system level and I'm not sure anyone has good solutions or is even thinking seriously about it.

    7/

    maegul,
    @maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

    I fear this betrays the web2.0 origins of the fedi and may be short-sighted.

    I don't think federating blogs into mastodon is going to be that great (hot take maybe). Too complex or confusing for many to manage and different platforms+accounts for different purposes is just natural/easy.

    So ... why federate?

    8/

    maegul,
    @maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

    I personally (and prob naively) look to the web browser's power to bring us the whole internet as an exemplar.

    I think the fedi needs to be more about clients/apps than it is currently.

    I think the magic of the fediverse's diversity doesn't materialise until it gets stitched together in the user's client ... and that we're still in an early phase of just laying out infrastructure in the cloud.

    Federation is cool, but mostly just the beginning IMO.

    9/9

    maegul,
    @maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

    @mima

    > all the implementations in the first place should've been backends first and foremost.

    Yep! It seems an obvious way to go if "ActivityPub" is truly a unifying protocol.

    Generic backends that afford all sorts of options for anything that can be transported over the protocol, with separate front-ends/clients (or even multiple clients) to match whatever the user wants.

    Then admins pick which backends they like and users which frontends.

    maegul,
    @maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

    @aliceif @mima

    Lemmy seems to be doing quite well with alternative front ends.

    Checkout lemmy.world, the "Alternative UIs" section of the side bar. They're running 5 alternatives, which along with the standard makes 6 UIs for people to chose.

    maegul,
    @maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

    @mima @aliceif

    FWIW, there's currently akkomane.social, which is an akkoma backend using the mangane front-end instead of the default, and it's working quite well for me.

    maegul, to random
    @maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

    Huh ... this feels historically ominous ...

    the next chess world championship (open) will be contested by an Indian and Chinese person.

    https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/apr/22/indian-teenager-gukesh-dommaraju-becomes-youngest-challenger-for-world-chess-title

    maegul,
    @maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

    @bodhipaksa

    yep, thus the thought.

    Another example is the women's chess ratings: https://ratings.fide.com/top_lists.phtml?list=women

    Not anyone "west" of Ukraine in the top 10, with 4 chinese women (which IMO also says something about where western feminism is up to)

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