HexesofVexes
@HexesofVexes@lemmy.world
Why, a hexvex of course!
- Comment on Google criticizes Europe's plan to adopt free software 28 minutes ago:
- Shift over to open source.
- Invest 25–50% of what you currently pay for proprietary software into helping maintain and enhance open source software.
- Enjoy the economic benefits well maintained free software brings to every aspect of your digital infrastructure at no extra cost.
- Comment on ASCII characters are not pixels: a deep dive into ASCII rendering 14 hours ago:
Quality article - thanks for sharing!
I used to make (very bad) ASCII art as a hobby during my PhD (it’s good for relaxing), and a lot of the “smoothing” I learned but I think the method for good contrast would have really helped back then!
- Comment on Elon Musk Is Rolling xAI Into SpaceX—Creating the World’s Most Valuable Private Company 1 week ago:
- Comment on When you know your boss is an insane moron 1 week ago:
Funnily enough, if you actually follow “work to the job, not the clock” you get more work done, and you generally go home early.
You’re also less likely to quit, and more likely to develop and share good practice.
- Comment on Pornhub to restrict access for UK users from February 2 weeks ago:
The internet has many strange rules, one of the unwritten ones is “if little Timmy wants titties, little Timmy is going to find titties”.
No matter how you hard you try, you’re not going to stop this phenomenon. You’ll just push kids to sites that refuse to comply (usually the dodgy ones), or inhabit grey areas (a lot of streamer content counts as softcore), or they’ll get Nd a workaround (current VPN situation), or they’ll just gaslight an AI model into generating porn.
Trying to block access isn’t viable as there is always a work around, what is needed is someone sitting down with a kid to put it into context. That’s not the job of the government, that’s the job of a parent.
- Comment on Womp womp womp womp 2 weeks ago:
So, if your field appears instantly/imminently monetisable, then the private sector is an option. However, the wider benefits of your research are VERY unlikely to reach the wider public in your lifetime. Yes, you will basically be working to make someone else rich. However, this kind of grant is very likely to succeed in academic settings as universities love patents.
If you’re doing abstract or fundamental research, you’re pretty much out of luck - the private sector does not want anything to do with this. However, it’s little better in the academic sector because you have to spend almost all your time chasing grants, or teaching topics outside your expertise (i.e. the ones industry sees immediate value in) to survive.
In short, there is a lot of options to finish things (because everyone loves intellectual property as an asset), but very few to develop them (no-one likes to pay for the groundwork).
- Comment on Womp womp womp womp 2 weeks ago:
“I want to make the world a better place at no real benefit to myself”
“Ok, but only if you beg us for the money”
Modern academia in a nutshell
- Comment on They don't pay me enough for this 3 weeks ago:
Teaching people excel:
- Comment on Huh? 4 weeks ago:
Sign language bar?
- Comment on High value 4 weeks ago:
Get the new “Bagarn Bod” today with this simple trick doctors won’t tell you!
- Comment on Maybe the RAM shortage will make software less bloated? 1 month ago:
One of those little truisms folks forget is that optimising software takes a LOT longer than making something that just works.
- Comment on Transcribed text of Samantha Fulnecky's assignment, paper, and professor's comments 1 month ago:
I’m a very generous marker, generally I look for any merit and credit where I can within the scheme.
A 0 is a very strong statement saying “you produced nothing of value”, and it’s very very rare to hand out. In the case of a deduction, normally you tell them their grade pre-penalty to at least signal what was worthwhile with the aim of helping the student grow.
- Comment on Transcribed text of Samantha Fulnecky's assignment, paper, and professor's comments 1 month ago:
A personal reaction in an academic style is analytic in nature and rarely autobiographical. It links the content to the literature shaping one’s views.
The brief also specified it as critical, which at undergrad levels means exploring literature views and synthesizing rather than just vomiting a stream of consciousness unrelated to the course content.
- Comment on Transcribed text of Samantha Fulnecky's assignment, paper, and professor's comments 1 month ago:
No academic sources Use of first person throughout Academic writing conventions not present More a reflection than reaction
Sorry but unless this is a foundation student they’re getting a 35.
- Comment on The crossover you've been waiting for 1 month ago:
What a terrible day to be literate.
- Comment on Oh boy, rejoin 1 month ago:
Interesting - time to go poke one of the politics lecturers and see what ramifications they had.
To the average person on the street their lack would likely mean little, though I’ll miss the interesting coin designs of the pound.
- Comment on Oh boy, rejoin 1 month ago:
I hear this point a fair bit, could you elaborate more on these special treatments (I know about opting out of the euro, but that’s about it).
- Comment on Word. 1 month ago:
LaTeX supremacy has entered that chat
- Comment on Absolutely nothing 2 months ago:
[✓] Realised I understand nothing
[✓] Time for this planet to die
Definitely check out.
- Comment on Criminal court ditches American software giant– Can Dutch universities do without Microsoft? 2 months ago:
I think there is another alternative to plain government spending, and that’s inter-university cooperation.
It’s pushing FOSS options for education on the comp sci departments, and collaborating to make it work there.
It’s is then gating every advance behind a “non-commercial, education only” license a bunch of law departments glue together.
From there, it’s universities actively allocating staff workload to help maintain key FOSS infrastructure.
From there you’ve laid the foundation on which things can be built.
- Comment on People in the UK Watching the The world using the internet 2 months ago:
Yep, because it was never about protecting the children ;)
- Comment on People in the UK Watching the The world using the internet 2 months ago:
I COMPLETELY AGREE - THIS ALL MAKES PERFECT SENSE.
- Comment on Criminal court ditches American software giant– Can Dutch universities do without Microsoft? 2 months ago:
Yes and no; the main issues are:
initial disruption (e.g. ditching teams is harder than it looks, you also need to retrain all your IT staff)
User training (most staff can barely use Microsoft products - even light terminal use is seen as magic)
Industry demand (your average CEO conflates “computer competent” with “can you use ms office?”)
Functionality loss (mostly in easy document collab and cloud storage)
Existing 3rd party software contracts (yeah, DRM software hates Linux, also most are locked into azure)
Accountability (if OneDrive gets hacked, Microsoft pays out (i.e. no-one pays), if your cloud server gets hacked you pay out)
I’ve scratched the surface there, there are a lot more issues. The truth is that universities need to take this step, however the barriers are just too high during the perpetual crisis academia currently exists in - it would mean years of disruption they simply cannot afford.
- Comment on People in the UK Watching the The world using the internet 2 months ago:
Imgur blocking is a bit of a pain - half the mods in steam are missing images in their description.
The online safety act also means we get to submit ID to view anything construed as “adult”. Very “av you got a loiscencse for that” these days without a VPN.
- Comment on Labcoat! 2 months ago:
And here we see Professor Moonmoon about to espouse his latest theories on goodboi theory.
- Comment on Stupid sexy raft 2 months ago:
Scientific reproduction, as in reproduction of a study XD
- Comment on Stupid sexy raft 2 months ago:
Scientific reproduction, not sexual reproduction XD
- Comment on Stupid sexy raft 2 months ago:
So, hear me out here, there is a huge reproduction crisis out there. In theory, you could try to replicate this study without the researcher being an asshole and see if it still works out and this would be a valuable line of research that could technically get funded.
I’m going to need a decent ship, some volunteers, and a 101 day supply of daiquiris.
- Comment on UK government set to make support for asylum seekers ‘discretionary’ 2 months ago:
The UK approach to illegal entry is already nuts - they isolate people, teach them helplessness, and pay a fortune to do it.
- Comment on And now I'm reminded I have two of these to repair. 2 months ago:
How GLaDOS would hurt us now: Portal 2 turns 15 next year.
