ZingerLearns @ZingerLearns@qoto.org

Are there any #AlternativeGrading #MasteryGrading people on here? @academicchatter

A simple question for all those protestors that waste their time turning up to pride parades 🥰

2. There are about 3.5 million people who work for the federal gov't.

72% of all federal workers are "defense-related,"

That includes DoD civilians, uniformed military, and Veterans Affairs staff.

https://popular.info/p/you-get-what-you-pay-for

Let's not politicize the smoke choking most of the Northeast by talking about the root cause

Russia just committed ecocide in addition to their many war crimes

"Russia destroyed the Kakhovka dam inflicting probably Europe’s largest technological disaster in decades and putting thousands of civilians at risk. This is a heinous war crime. The only way to stop Russia, the greatest terrorist of the 21st century, is to kick it out of Ukraine”
- Ukraine's Foreign Minister

Civilians fleeing, wildlife devastated, and the Sacred Land of the Scythian Royal Barrows desecrated

Russia must pay.

When I look at the most active servers on, Mastodon isn’t dominating.

Here’s the actual breakdown of the 10 most active servers according to server type:

misskey.io (Misskey) - 3.9M posts per month
mastodon.social (Mastodon) - 1.7M posts per month
pixelfed.social (Pixelfed) - 754K posts per month
botsinspace.in (Mastodon) - 648K posts per month
mstdn.social (Mastodon) - 634K posts per month
nijimiss.moe (Misskey) - 627K posts per month
mstdn.jp (Mastodon) - 588K posts per month
misskey.gamelore.fun (Misskey) - 497K posts per month
fedibird.com (Fedibird) - 431K posts per month
misskey.cf (Misskey) - 425K posts per month

Once you expand to the next 10 more active servers:

8 are #Misskey
6 are #Mastodon
3 are #Pixelfed
2 are #PeerTube
1 is #Fedibird

What does this mean?

When we measure for activity – not accounts – Mastodon isn’t even in first place. Misskey is.

Mastodon is in 2nd place.

And other server types, like Pixelfed, aren’t doing so shabby either.

But what’s more interesting is what this all means when you also take into consideration account sign-ups.

It’s true that according to total accounts, mastodon.social is the biggest server on the Fediverse with 1,159,110 users. In comparison, misskey.io only has 183,549 accounts.

However, misskey.io is producing 2x more content than mastodon.social.

Some people wonder if this is because of spam.

As someone who actively monitors both misskey.io and mastodon.social, it actually looks like mastodon.social produces more spam. I have yet to encounter spam on misskey.io, nor have I received spam from there. I can’t say the same about mastodon.social – seeing how I received crypto spam to my inbox from there twice last month.

What’s going on?

First, I must acknowledge a fact. The Fediverse is simply more popular in Japan. When I look at the 10 most active servers on the Fediverse, 6 of them are Japanese. Yes, even the Mastodon servers.

And in Japan, it looks like Misskey is overtaking Mastodon. This is not yet true in terms of sheer account numbers, but the fastest growing servers are clearly Misskey. In terms of raw post production, though, Misskey has already overtaken Mastodon.

Something I often hear is, “So what if something’s big in Japan? Lots of bands are big in Japan too, and we don’t hear a whisper from them here in the West.”

While comparing software to music is silly, it is a mistake for Westerners to ignore the cultural impact of Japan and other Asian nations.

We live in an era where many Western kids grow up with Japanese video games, anime, and J-Pop. Many of them don’t even look at Japanese media as “foreign”. It’s simply part of their cultural rubric.

Why do I bring this up? Because while the majority of Fediverse accounts are from the West, the majority of Fediverse content is from Japan. And while there is a language barrier, it’s only a matter of time before that content finds its way out West.

But if you’re a content producer making stuff for the Fediverse, I also think it’s important to ask yourself, “What are Japanese content producers doing right?”

As it turns out, a lot. The Japanese Fediverse is less focused on technology and politics, more focused on art. And there’s a ready community willing to interact with that art.

This is not so true for the West’s version of the Fediverse. Over here, the culture is to deem art “unimportant”. There have been times when I’ve shared thoughts on video games and music, and someone came out of the woodwork to tell me I was wrong for doing this since some political thing in the USA was happening, and I was insensitive for sharing my interests.

For the Fediverse to take root in the West, it must be as much about art as it is about politics and tech.

All this said, there is a further fact that further underlies my contention: the 3rd most active server on the Fediverse is pixelfed.social, Pixelfed’s flagship server.

Why is this? Because #Pixelfed is based on images, not text. Which also means that, as a result of content filtering, it is more focused on art than politics and technology.

Interestingly, pixelfed.social is focused on English speakers. As it turns out, the desire to share art is universal – not exclusive to people who speak Japanese. Most people like art.

Don’t get me wrong, art and technology have an important effect on our daily lives. But it’s art that makes life worth living.

My takeaway: if we want the Fediverse to be as big in the West as it is in Japan, we need to share art.

@jonahbk @erinnacland @academicchatter Is there a reason, why you wanna stay in academia? It sucks in many more ways than money...

@kraweel65 @erinnacland @academicchatter

If there were professorship jobs that were reasonably attainable, and if there was grant funding that was reasonably attainable, academia could be attractive. But there are neither jobs nor research funding in Canada. To industry I will go.

"For young life scientists hoping to land a prestigious faculty job in academia, postdoctoral research is practically a requirement. Freshly minted life science PhDs who have started families or have big loans, or are Black or female, plan to pursue postdocs at lower rates than their peers"

"For decades, postdocs were seen as a [...] reliable route into a faculty job [...] The low pay and demanding hours were rewarded in the end. But for many, a postdoc is now a dead end"

@academicchatter #PhD

No one ever says "you can't be a good doctor and a good father," yet women are told they "can't be a good doctor and a good mother." @doclauravater@bird.makeup
https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/second-opinions/104809

The Forbes richest list should be renamed the fascist list.

"Follow us on Twitter" is now a declaration of fascist complicity.

I'd like to tell you some of what I am up to these days: I am writing a book about the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys trials. I had a unique vantage for more than 100 days, all told. I enjoy bringing people inside of the courtroom with me and I want to do it this time in a big way.

#nationalism

Here’s some perspective.

Americans:
•Cancel student debt!
•Cancel medical debt!
•Make insulin free!

Most of Developed World:
•What is student debt?
•What is medical debt?
•Insulin is already free!

What GOP calls “socialism”—even conservative parties in most developed nations call a “human right.”

Cool image, bro.

but

#AltText or it didn't happen.

This flew under the radar for some reason and needs more attention.

Over a week ago Turnitin admitted that their AI detection tool is much more prone to false positives in real-world usage than they originally said it would be. 4x higher.

And that "As a result of this additional testing, we’ve determined that in cases where we detect less than 20% of AI writing in a document, there is a higher incidence of false positives."

https://www.turnitin.com/blog/ai-writing-detection-update-from-turnitins-chief-product-officer

#EdTech #LLMs #AIHype

If you ever wonder how deep racism is ingrained in America's history and its culture, just remember that all it took was democratically electing a black man to the office of President to make every single Republican openly embrace fascism.