Canada Post “lost” 1 billion dollars last year? How about, “it cost Canadians 1 billion dollars to have a national postal service” which works out to costing about $25 a year per person (population of Canada in 2024 = 40 million). Seems like a pretty reasonable cost to me.

The thing regular people don’t often grasp about ‘academic freedom’ is that if you don’t allow experts to research & teach in their fields of expertise, guided by their professional judgment & decades of training, you have effectively given up on the concept of knowledge & shut down your university

OpenAI's rapid rush into education has been achieved by habituating users through training programs, institutional lock-ins, strategic marketing partnerships, and third party integrations that together are helping it become infrastructural to teaching and learning. It's going to be hard to get out.

Had a shit week, but submitted a paper on an idea I had 10 years ago... progress?

We are searching for a Forest Ecophysiologist (tenure track Assistant or Associate Professor) to join the Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, University of British Columbia Faculty of Forestry. Please share! Details are here: ubc.wd10.myworkdayjobs.com/ubcfacultyjobs

Plain speaking from @thetattooedprof.bsky.social “Either we have copyright law or we don’t. Either plagiarism & the theft of intellectual property are anathema to higher education or they aren’t. We’re either modeling academic honesty & integrity to our students or we aren’t.”

You also might like SEM micrograph set - showing the different detectors. T1 = BSE heavy; T2 = ~near surface SE; T3 = very surface SE, and high contrast. From the same titanium alloy sample/area - just with the immersion lens on, and contrast well balanced etc. (These are quite small areas, 😅) 🧪🔬

One joy from my job is that I still get to do some hands on microscopy. Here we have the microstructure structure of a titanium alloy, as revealed with our new scanning electron microscope. The width of this image is the same as the width of human hair. 🔬🧪

The thing about being neurodivergent is that I Like It. What I don’t like is that the world imposes numerous taxes on me for being like this. I don’t view it as a Me problem.

One joy from my job is that I still get to do some hands on microscopy. Here we have the microstructure structure of a titanium alloy, as revealed with our new scanning electron microscope. The width of this image is the same as the width of human hair. 🔬🧪

This autism press conference is an insult to science and medicine. It is a bunch of shameless male quacks shoveling bullshit at pregnant women, families and people with autism. This is a historic embarrassment for America and it is wildly dangerous.

Sometimes it's all doom and gloom, and then you catch sunrise.

I keep telling y’all that your voice and wallet are more powerful than you think, so maybe we should stop listening to the doomers and accelerationists who think things are hopeless — because things are only hopeless if we all give up.

Whether they're blaming vaccines and Tylenol, or selling dubious "remedies," what they're really doing is promoting the perception that families (and especially mothers) can prevent and treat Autism. And thus also the perception that people with Autism and their families don't need social support.

I find the "war on neurodivergence" kind of scary and exhausting. Autism being the first one people seem to target with their blatant falsisms. Neurodivergence is often a spectrum/range of symptoms, and there can be many overlapping types of neurodivergence seen in an single individual.

I have remembered that you can mute certain phrases on BlueSky. This may be useful for others at this time...

As expected, and as history predicted. Sex and gender tests are fundamentally about keeping women *out* of sport.

Interesting article on public misconceptions about HE, including the value to the economy. And yet our govt seem happy to sit back and let it all go to shit. 🤷🏻‍♂️ www.theguardian.com/education/20...

We are very sad to announce the death of Professor Sir Peter Hirsch, FRS. Sir Peter was a great scientist, mentor, colleague and friend, and he will be much missed. www.materials.ox.ac.uk/article/prof...

Academia.edu is changing its Terms and Conditions, and they're so outrageous (AI training; signing over ownership to them etc) I closed my account today. A thread with some practical tips if you want to delete your account (5 steps):

This does not look like “impartiality”. It looks like propaganda. www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/how...

For the too numerous academics for whom a career is a performative shell game in which science comes a long last, there is no breach of values.

Hey, people who work on climate especially, you should know this is happening.

Why is this horrible for Universities? Just about everyone who isn't a citizen or green card holder already who's hired for a tenure track faculty position is hired through an H1B and then, after 3-5 years, applies for a green card. This is literally "No more foreign professors can be hired"

Me forgetting the fast ways to navigate the London underground is a sobering reminder that I haven't lived here in a while.

“What’s happening at Dalhousie, what’s happening in contract negotiations at other universities ... is that faculty are trying as best they can to raise concerns about how the quality of education has really suffered because of lack of public funding,” Robinson said. #cdnpse #nspse #KeepCanadaStrong

This is an awkward development for my alma mater 😞

Mini-scoop: After resisting pressure to strip Elon Musk of his fellowship for months, the Royal Society is meeting on 1 October to discuss his removal – following his decision to address Tommy Robinson's far-right rally on Saturday. www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-r...

Academia. edu goes down *that* hole further, and continues to highlight how academics are willing to be bought and their IP + labour distributed/sold on, with no* benefits to the individual academics *Will your bank accept "clout" as a downpayment/payment of a loan? I thought not...

at a time where folding for fascism and aligning with authoritarianism is the norm, distinguish yourself by having integrity and convictions and defending them

This is doing the rounds in my messages with colleagues, and is a very real threat to the field of microscopy 😬. Given one (published) microscope image probably costs between $100 and $10,000 (or more) to make - the lure of "oh I will just ChatGPT it" is very much there.

AI can now generate fake microscopy images that are nearly impossible to detect. A serious threat to scientific integrity—and we’re not prepared for it. Commentary in @natnano.nature.com #nanotechnology

Used to be the word "experiment" - I had to write several hundred 'lines' at school with the word written, after misspelling it in some text. I messed up the 'i' and used 'e' and 'a' on the 1st and 2nd goes. They thought I was thick, and didn't realize I was dyslexic. Now I can't write "business"…

Reached that point in travel where the main objective is complete, and now I am exhausted and would rather be at home just decompressing with my dog.

The obsession over job titles & promotion in academia continues to fascinate me. Context: Imperial College has moved from the "Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Reader, Professor" to the North American "Assistant/Associate/Full" Prof scale. There are two tiers of Associate… 1/

Excellent editorial by my friend and colleague @pracheeac.bsky.social: "Academic Publishing Has Become a Racket" www.wsj.com/opinion/acad...

Always a bit of a double edged sword - working on a talk before a conference. Finally I have to get the data into shape to tell a story, but it's all a bit rushed to do this (and stressful). Unfortunately 'the day job' kept getting in the way in the lead up.

I was talking about this with my uncle the other day. I thought Einstein was reclusive for the last few decades of his career and life. He wasn't. He was denouncing racism by teaching & speaking at Black collages and organisations. White people need to know that for his work to be understood

When we think of sexism, it's easy to think of *active* efforts to discriminate against women. But sexism also operates *passively* - like through our inaction on issues like childcare and paid family leave. In that context, return-to-office policies are sexist in consequence, even if not in design.

Hmm being asked to "verify I am adult" via my credit card or face recognition feels quite dystopian. (The new law in the UK, re social media use etc)

Two trials will be repeated endlessly despite always producing the same results: 1) Does UBI work? (yes) 2) Does AI improve productivity? (no)

The reason many of the commentators don’t like Bluesky is because the infrastructure is set up in a way that no longer benefits them. On Twitter it was always easier to gain an audience by purposefully saying things that upset people. Getting ratio-ed was a tactic. Here, that’s much harder.

This is my (slightly controversial) #DigitalFriday find this week bsky.app/profile/adze...

Wikipedia editors trying to fend off the onslaught of AI crap have crowdsourced some telltale signs of LLM-generated writing; it might be handy for editors and proofreaders generally. Thanks to @ellenrykers.com for pointing me to it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...

As the news of the REF (the UK's Research Excellence Framework) pause continues to reverberate over social media - I do worry how senior university admin will get their bonuses without another metric to hit.

This is not a strike as CBC called it. It's not a "work stoppage." It is a lockout by the board of governors who are clearly not aware of what actually makes a university work. "Mealey said the student union hasn’t had any “significant” contact with the board of governors during the dispute."

Some good news from the US.

Makes me wanna re-post my talk recording that deals with this and other related issues, so here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYuF...

I am very pleased that the #UBC Faculty Association are raising the issue of Service as a vital aspect of academic life, and undervalued in the Promotion and Tenure process www.facultyassociation.ubc.ca/bargaining/p...

enshittification | noun | when a digital platform is made worse for users, in order to increase profits