Mike MacFerrin

As my PhD comes to a close, I am looking for work! I’d love to continue in research and education, but I am also a skilled program coordinator, policy analysts/writer, & facilitator. Happy to share my CV & chat. Let me know if something crosses your desk that you think I’d be a good fit for!

No, a LOT of them think that. Science may be one of the most social forms of knowledge production we have. Arguably it’s at least as social as creative writing. Actual scientists will tell you this. Yet, millions of people think they can do science alone with an LLM.

I know this is a textbook, not a journal article, which makes it even more egregious that *no one* bothered to verify until after it printed.

In related news: the Springer Nature company operates at a >27% margin and more than half-a-billion $$ of annual profit after expenses. 🙃

“We used the bullshit generator to make up some bullshit and then were shocked to find it’s actually bullshit” will be a recurring headline until this behavior has professional consequences.

Journals need to make “check every citation to make sure it’s real” be a standard pre-review step, to start.

Building something new is possible. Never forget that.

Aside from Cuomo being a creep who shall never see office again, I love that the phrase:

“…used ChatGPT to…”

has become synonymous with

“…is lazy and doesn’t have a clue what they’re actually doing.”

Hot damn.
You know what doesn’t work (at all) to reduce violence? More police.

What does work? Investing in communities. This is what cities (and states, and the country, but start w cities) need to all be doing.

A standard white toilet, bowl. On top of the lid are two TP rolls on their side so you can see the tubes, they look like eyes. Sticking obliquely out of the closed lid is a partially squished TP tube, looking like a tongue sticking out of the curve of the bowl. The whole image looks like

My daughter cleaned the bathroom today and left this.

That was my thought too. He likely has a whole pile of monkey-cartoon NFTs worth pennies now that he still won’t shut up about.

CU Boulder revokes John Eastman’s speaking, outreach duties University of Colorado Boulder visiting Professor John Eastman will no longer perform outreach or speak as a representative of the Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization, according to …

For context, this was the exact “right-wing affirmative action” position at CU Boulder that insurrection-justifier John Eastman was holding when the Jan 6th riots went down and he came under indictment (eventually losing his law license). They never fired him. www.coloradodaily.com/2021/01/21/c...

They fired the people answering calls for help. Hundreds of them. During the crisis.

I really hope you’re on the mend, and that PT won’t be too terribly painful.

I can personally confirm one needn’t be a “professional” cyclist to do that from a bike. 🤕😁

OOOF. I feel ya.

I have basically the same plate + 8 screws in mine (same left shoulder).

Luckily it’s titanium and doesn’t really set off the detectors. My belt buckle sets them off more often.

Agreed that all the viable solutions matter. (Sorry, not tryna make that sound like an “all lives matter” thing, not my intent.) A/C is one of those solutions. People straight-up die in extreme heat waves.

The new asphalt seems (?) fine but seems not tested at scale yet. So far it’s an experiment.

So, y’know what? I came into this thread far too hard. And snarky. For that, I apologize.

And I see where you’re coming from. I have concerns over the either-or thinking, and the fact that temps are getting hotter regardless of tree cover, but I don’t wanna be arguing against better greener cities.

I’m all for planting trees, 100%.

But thinking “plant more trees” is the primary solution to this specific problem is just magical thinking.

You weren’t really “talking about solutions” though, you were just doing that annoying online thing of “give pithy overly-simplified answers as if they’re solutions regardless whether they’d actually work for people in a given context.”

And yet back where people are living, they’re dying of heat.

Yes everyone will go install some mature trees post-haste. Totally works everywhere.

“We must use the bullshit generator to anchor shared truth.”

That’s the thing though. No.

Not with a ten foot pole.

Persecuted for being LGBTQ+ in Trump country, they now have a chance to start over someplace new Keshet and the Hebrew Free Loan Society are fighting persecution by offering loans to those who need to flee,

Jewish orgs Keshet and the Hebrew Free Loan Association are giving out interest-free loans to LGBTQ+ folks who need to re-locate but can’t afford it. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE JEWISH.

“The idea that people were having to pick up and flee their homes was something that resonated Jewishly.”

this is precisely why the technofascists who own OpenAI, and the other ‘AI’ companies are pushing LLMs into every level of education: it’s not only profitable, it’s about controlling an entire generation’s capacity to think.
And why educators should resist as hard as we can.

I'm working on an article about NOAA research and looking to speak with more people knowledgeable in this space about the proposed 2026 budget. My messages are open or you can email me at colleenhagerty@proton.me

Random white guy staring frustratingly into the camera. No caption but it’s the photo from the Onion article titled “Devastating: the worst person you know just made a really great point.”

I was hoping this would be the first response in the thread. Thank you for stepping up to do the thing. Your service is appreciated. 🫡

Paraphrase: “You have to check with multiple other knowledgeable sources each and every time to make sure the AI isn’t just bullshitting you.”

It’s far more valuable & effective to cut out the perpetually-bullshitting middle man in the end.

There‘a tons of guys with these stunted arguments wrapped in slightly-condescending platitudes. It completely fails at the very 1st complicated/nuanced question where real context or expertise are needed.

If you want it to “teach” you basics that 1000 online tutorials already exist to teach, sure.

The AI doesn’t know what it’s doing though, and can’t explain it. It gives you a statistical auto-complete of text sounding something like an answer based solely on how others have responded to similar prompts.

This whole notion of “the AI will teach me this knowledge” is fundamentally flawed.

Come what may, I will bet on us, every time, because there is no other bet worth placing. I am all in, fam. I will never stop looking for openings and aiming at them. I will never stop reaching for people and saying, “Take my hand. We can do this.” Because we are worth it.