RE: https://mamot.fr/@ploum/115923251561577968

This is a great post about teaching and exams but i particularly appreciate this digression about email -

Most of my students don’t like email. … It turns out that by imposing Outlook with mandatory subscription to useless academic emails, we make sure that students hate email (Microsoft is on a mission to destroy email with the worst possible user experience).

I will never forgive the people who decided to migrate university mail servers to Outlook. This was both incompetence and malice on a terrifying level because there were enough warnings and opposition from very competent people at the time.

I couldn't believe that PC Gamer headline was a proper reflection of what was said, but... it was.
The thing which most annoys me is that they seem to believe they have a right to do a damaging thing (which they acknowledge is damaging) in the hope that they might find something impactful to do with it (which they acknowledge they haven't, yet) because there's currently a lot of hype about it, and the only time limit on this is "find something before the hype runs out".

Today's survey demographics.
"The survey is anonymous and does not ask for any personally identifying information. "

They only ask for
Age (Decade)
Race/Ethnicity
Highest Degree
Current Role (Acad/Public/Dean)
Faculty Rank y/n
Country
Carnegie
Urban/Suburb

Ben Jennings (Guardian) on the Tangerine Tyrants' (so-called) Board of Peace.

#politics #Trump

In spite of everything, birds give me hope. I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. And that also gives me hope.

ever wonder what the Bach Cello Suites sound like on mandolin?

excuse me, i'd just like to interject for a moment. what you're referring to as office 365 is in fact copilot/office 365, or as i've taken to calling it, copilot+office 365

Mei 1933, Nederland als voorzichtig neutraal land:

A woman who I follow on the fediverse just had to delete a post due to sexual harassment.

Men if you want more diversity on the Fediverse you need to speak up and call in your peers. You need to educate them and if they persist ban them. Make it clear they aren't welcome.

Otherwise you're making it clear we aren't welcome.

It shouldn't just be us doing the work

https://dotart.blog/cobbles/the-silence

#sexism

Friendly reminder that Mastodon, et al is federated, which means you almost certainly won't see every reply on a thread.

Let's say you're reading a post from "reasonable.domain". And someone from "cesspool.domain" replies to it. If your instance blocked "cesspool.domain", you won't see that reply.

This effect minimizes the appearance of harm. It can be a blessing, but it also means you won't always see the problems inherent on these platforms.

@Marloezovic Cash is king anyway. En de afhankelijk van banken houdt ook meteen afhankelijkheid van #bigtech in. Want banken passen zeer veel #appdwang toe.

Lees hier waarom appdwang ook problematisch is:

https://appdwang.nl/

Ik gebruik een #Linux telefoon (#Librem5) en kan nu niet meer alle bankhandelingen online doen.

De bank dwingt me naar de de apps die alleen verkrijgbaar zijn via Apple of Google. En die wil ik niet.

@so_treu Also apparently people need a reminder that Nazi Germany looked at the US's playbook for oppressing Black and Native American people and copied off the paper. They didn't get their methods from just anywhere.

Anil @anildash Dash's interview with the Gazette hits hard: about the massive layoffs in tech, the collusion and corruption of venture capitalists, how they pushed a fascist agenda, how big tech economically engineered themselves out of a an AI recession, and finally about whether Dash would recommend studying computer science: "It puts a pit in my stomach to say it, but no."

https://sf.gazetteer.co/theyve-pickled-each-others-brains

Kontext ist alles.

Given all the news about ICE in the past few weeks, can I kindly remind you all that RELX (owners of Elsevier & LexisNexis) is "mission-critical" to ICE.

ICE pays RELX Group and Thomson Reuters millions of dollars for the personal data it needs to fuel its big data policing program.

https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2019/ice-surveillance/

see also the book 'Data Cartels' (2022) by Sarah Lamdan.

#Elsevier #RELX #ICE #complicity

today's track of the day

Arctic Monkeys & War Child Records - Opening Night

:spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/7HXzuAd8UNJj2yCAS0NWbB #np #newmusic #music

We are thrilled to receive this €5.4M grant from Open Science NL! 🎉

Research *needs* research software. This funding allows us to give research software the attention it deserves. With this grant, we will be able to continue our Research Software Sustainability Calls and support the continuation of our successful Fellowship Programme. We'll be able to support our mission to empower researchers through innovative software.

Link to more info: https://www.openscience.nl/en/news/open-science-nl-and-the-netherlands-escience-center-join-forces-to-boost-research-software-sustainability

In Germany, due to new government subsidies for electric and hybrid vehicles, you can now buy a new Dacia Spring for €5900 (list price is €16900, minus state subsidy €6000 minus Dacia special EV discount €5000 = €5900) or a new Citroën ë-C3 for less than €9000. (The subsides are income dependent and capped at €80k yearly household income, earn more than that, no free money)

#JustSayin #GoodNews #EV #Germany

"Some are proud because they made a lot of money while cutting down a forest. Others are proud because they are planting trees that will produce the oxygen breathed by their grandchildren."

Much of the difference in approach to software is explained by the cultural difference in the definition of "succes".

https://ploum.net/2026-01-22-why-no-european-google.html