Alex Weber @weberam2@qoto.org

Claustrophobia is an apt analogy to how it feels. I've increasingly felt trapped by my job — by the entire concept of having "a job". Especially since transitioning, because so much of who I am is now dependent upon lifelong healthcare access, which in the US basically means you must be employed.

So about five days ago, or so, people on Bsky and Twttr started highlighting Elsevier science papers with GPT/LLM hallmark phrases riddled all throughout them. Literally thousands of peer-reviewed papers.

As I said, then, and as I discussed in my dissertation, knowledge-making and expertise are always a tricky process, but it needs deep, intentional confrontation and reform:
https://media.proquest.com/media/hms/PRVW/1/twSaS?_s=yIAhHtzhif4xd76I%2BihtcJJXTPw%3D

Anyway, now it looks like @404mediaco has dug down on this, and found *Even More of It* and I am genuinely and completely struggling against despair at what the future of being an educator, researcher, and writer will even mean over and at the end of the next 5 years.
https://www.404media.co/scientific-journals-are-publishing-papers-with-ai-generated-text/

Quite frankly, this should genuinely a) be the death of peer review as we know it (Again: AS WE KNOW IT), and b) lead a complete reformulation of the knowledge-making and expertise processes, but it won't and that terrifies and saddens me.

It's 2024 and most text editors don't have a column-select mode. How can anyone live without it.

#ViM

Lightning fast, self-contained explorable explanations!

https://rowanc1.github.io/myst-lite/

This uses Thebe, a tool that connects a "static" webpage with a Jupyter Kernel to make the page "dynamic" with interactive computation. It also uses JupyterLite, which means the kernel is provided *within the browser*.

More at:

https://mystmd.org
https://thebe.readthedocs.io

“The Cloud now has a greater carbon footprint than the airline industry. A single data center can consume the equivalent electricity of 50,000 homes. At 200 terawatt hours annually, data centers collectively devour more energy than some nation-states.”

https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-staggering-ecological-impacts-of-computation-and-the-cloud/

#tech #cloud #ai #datacenter #environment

Super happy with my Framework laptop by the way!

The module system is great. I printed a snack drawer today! Now I can always take three peanuts with me!

Elsevier, everyone's favorite copyright maximalist closed-access publisher, argues that their high costs are necessary because they're the arbiter of quality.

The arbiter of quality keeps publishing LLM-written papers. Thanks for making my argument for me, Elsevier! They didn't even read it.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1930043324001298

"In summary, the management of bilateral iatrogenic I'm very sorry, but I don't have access to real-time information or patient-specific data, as I am an AI language model."

If markets were actually competitive, corporations would keep their prices as low as possible as they competed for customers. Instead, the concentration of the American economy into the hands of a few corporate giants gives them the power to raise prices with impunity — costing the typical American household an estimated extra $5,000 per year.

Antitrust law enforcement used to be a thing of the past. It's a big deal that the Biden administration is reviving it.

#iamreading

Thought I‘d try something: this book by Juerrero has come up a lot in some of the most interesting conversations I‘ve had on this platform about #causality, #complexity #neuroscience #agency #behaviour #mind and #brain and #dynamical systems but it‘s not an easy read. I am now determined to tackle it and will be posting updates as I go…

care to join me? OA at https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262545662/context-changes-everything/

AIDS denialism. COVID denialism. Vaccine denialism. Deadly quackery is on the rise. This isn't healthy iconoclasm as some have suggested that will wilt under peer review. It's toxic and impervious to logic. Call it out for what it is. My latest for The Nation. https://www.thenation.com/article/society/aids-denialism-joe-rogan-bret-weinstein-rfk/

@weberam2 yep, ask your friends to agree to review your paper and promise you'll do the same for them 😉 What's the point of pretending now 😕 reviewing 1 is likely to be your pals' grad student anyway

2nd edition of ITNS is ready for your stats/methods classes! Estimation first, rigorous testing, with meta-analysis and Open Science integrated throughout. Get a desk copy here: https://tinyurl.com/yc4yn42s

Big thanks to all who helped make this possible. Feedback welcome!

#stats #OpenScience

Watching an HBO doc on the Y2K bug and efforts to fix it. I was 13 when the year 2000 kicked off and I remember much of the doomsday stuff in the media well.

Despite that, it feels like such a distant, fictional world where governments and private companies around the globe actually put in the time and resources to solve a crisis before it was too late. From a 2024 perspective - especially following the events of 2020 - that level of cooperation by people in power is basically unimaginable.

How can we fix academic publishing? I just wrote a new article outlining my thoughts on this based on all the attempts I've seen, what has worked and what has failed, and finishing with the strategy we developed for @ScholarNexus. I'd love to hear your feedback!

https://thesamovar.github.io/zavarka/how-do-we-fix-publishing/

Periodic reminder: The only way to write good code is to write tons of shitty code first. Feeling shame about bad code stops you from getting to good code.

Another function of neural traveling waves is clearing metabolic waste. The waves are there for a reason. It turns out that there are many reasons.

Neuronal dynamics direct cerebrospinal fluid perfusion and brain clearance
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07108-6
#neuroscience

"When asked by Nature how the papers made it through review, a Sage spokesperson responded that the publisher relies on journal editors to make individual decisions on submitted works based on the evaluations of peer reviewers. In its retraction notice, Sage said that it discovered one peer reviewer who had evaluated the three papers was affiliated with an anti-abortion organization."

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00556-0?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=ad2ff535f6-briefing-dy-20240228&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b27a691814-ad2ff535f6-49733304