davidalexlamb.bsky.social
Scholar, writer, computer geek. Canadian autistic retired professor of Computer Science.
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377 posts
185 followers
205 following
Regular Contributor
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I think that historically Associated Press has been less biased and more objective than many other news sources, although I doubt they have been perfect.
At least, according to a media bias chart I have seen a couple of times over the last couple of years.
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Somewhat longer version in my blog:
davidalexlamb.com/2025/06/23/a...
6/6
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The value, in my opinion, is that I would write from the perspective of someone who survived, but didn’t feel like he thrived. It could be helpful if that made it more realistic than some of what I have read about university life over the years. 5/6
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I have long thought that it could be useful to young academics if I were to capture my experiences in a short book, called something like Academic Life: A Survival Guide, about what being an academic is really like. 4/6
#AcademicLife #University
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Apparently, according to some people, I turned into a fantastic undergraduate chair and curriculum coordinator, which was a lot more helpful to a lot more people than any research I would ever have done. 3/6
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I had quite a few regrets when I retired at the end of 2023, but those have mostly faded. The remaining one is that I was never so narrowly focused that the “inquire into interesting ideas” part of my mindset matched what is needed to thrive on the research side of the job. 2/6
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Well, that's an interesting thought. What sort of design features are you thinking about? It might help me figure out why I said what I did.
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Wow! I think that is hotter than I have ever had to endure.
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It seems to me that most things written by not-bigots would have a higher chance of being a better book in general.
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Ah, you were asking a question wanting a rational explanation, when my reaction was emotional. I will think about it.
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The Spheres supplements (well, pretty much a complete alternative system) for Pathfinder 1e.
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Getting anything at all done, especially these days, counts as a win.
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I remember AOC saying it was crazy that she and Biden were in the same party. From my foreign perspective, the majority of Democrats only want the votes of progressive, not their influence.
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Congratulations on getting stuff done despite the heat.
How bad is it where you are? Here by Lake Ontario I feel mildly guilty that we're cooler than most of our contacts.
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None for me, but I recall the time when my kids went out, on their own, and put up a poster of the Argonath and of a tiger where they were visible from the front landing.
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You do have people who care about you, but I definitely remember times when that was no help to me.
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It depends on what sort of human. Eliza was fooling people decades ago, and the AI researchers I knew at the time generally didn't consider it intelligent.
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Thanks for this. So many people I followed months ago for their posts on writing or their personal lives have either stopped posting or are mostly reposting depressing stuff about The Way Things Are Now.
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I will check my desktop when I get back to writing later.
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Apparently, according to some people, I turned into a fantastic undergraduate chair and curriculum coordinator, which was a lot more helpful to a lot more people than any research I would ever have done. 5/5
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I have been academically inclined for my entire life, since before even Kindergarten, but I was never so narrowly focused that the "inquire into interesting ideas" part of my mindset matched what is needed to thrive on the research side of the job.
#AcademicLife #University 4/5
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I had quite a few regrets when I retired at the end of 2023, but those have mostly faded. The remaining one is that I may never really have been suited to the academic life. 3/5
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I am not sure how long I will keep active in retirement; many drift away after a short while. But I still have several projects that might be fun to work on, and access to the library system can serve to support some that I rarely worked on while subject to Publish or Perish pressure. 2/5
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I see it on the name line of your post, along with a pumpkin.
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Definitely "too" with a k, where I grew up (Ottawa)
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Every accusation is a confession.
Or, maybe, a plan.
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Let's be clear: if 99% of people won't do the thing you're considering doing, reconsider.
Now, if 99% of people *can't* do the thing you're doing, that's another matter entirely. It just means you have a skill set.
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Shhh. We wouldn't know all this crap if they listened to us about communication security.
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And I told the grad students that they needed to be able to write the kind of articles *referenced* by Wikipedia articles.
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I taught a segment on library research in a couple of my courses, and tried to convince the students they needed to become the kind of scholar who could *write* Wikipedia articles, not just quote from them.
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I once had the privilege of listening to Ken Liu talk about the subtleties of translation, and how some readers pick books because of the translator, not the original author. I'm appalled that a review dedicated to translation issues doesn't know that.
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FYI: New study from Cornell Uni shows that the more you use ChatGPT, the stupider you get - cognitive debt accumulates. "Over four months, LLM users consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels." arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872
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Maybe he should replace St. Isidore as patron saint of the internet.
catholicism.org/patron-saint...
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We even have a Tragically Hip Way, probably the shortest street in town other than two on Queen's campus.
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My feed used to be full of lively engaging people posting about writing and their personal lives. Now they are mostly offline or reposting depressing stuff about The Way Things Are Going.
You are one of the few exceptions, regularly posting stuff that is fun to read.
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"The enemy of my enemy is my friend." At least, for a little while.