Dr Pen

@penworks.bsky.social

181 Followers 474 Following

Malta based tech & media in society academic. UX, TEL, webdev. OS. Emeritus rocknroller. Luddite. Mostly on Masto, follow me there from here with Bridgy Fed. @DrPen.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy https://penworks.net || https://tinyurl.com/zenodo-penlister

Today I feel like making some honest remarks about academic writing. Mine (rough, but well intentioned with dare I say some good ideas, and massively improved with good PR), and everyone else's (sometimes overly formal, overly factual, and not interesting due to very small studies or minority issue focus, but dominates what gets published). The terrible publishing 'ecosystem' that now exists. The elitism, the cliques, the extortionate APC, the claim on 'quality', as if this is a single idea of what a paper should be like. The ridiculously long turnaround times. The essential input of peer review, the need to have writing shaped and reshaped. The benefit of input by others you DONT KNOW but who know the subject. But, that PR is gatekeeping, and sometimes PR is not well intentioned, it has a bone to pick, an ego or work area to protect. The total lack of support to become better academic writers. The persistent focus on publishing rate and citation count. The obvious gaming of the system by working with a team of writers, each taking turns to be lead author, writing more, shorter papers, everyone gets a citation for each of the papers. Everyone wins except the quality and reason of academic writing. The feeling of it being pointless unless you have a very significant job title. (Or any job title). It is not whether a topic is interesting, or that you are committed to it, it is only whether it gains more profile for you, or the university you work for. The impact of AI on so many aspects of academic publishing only putrefies an already failing system.
A man attacks a waymo in Los Angeles, vandalising it and throwing bits of it into the street.
The image shows my RSS Reader with the Colossal source, 3 posts, with title, short text and image if its in the feed. The Reader forms part of my personal info app jOYND, which also includes a file repo gateway, a toolkit of useful links and a quicknotes section.
A long shot of Brighton/Hove beach in the UK, with the 360 tower and the old pier in the background. The long wide pebble beach has plenty of sun bathers and swimmers on a hot sunny day, under a perfect blue sky streamed with light clouds and contrails.
can tutors please stop sending us AI generated feedback on our dissertations? I also know how to ask ChatGPT to criticize my work. If you think we can't tell that your feedback is AI generated ... we can.
chatgpt output circa 2022.
The stone wall in the studio area with morning sun lighting up various object d'art, including Tutankhamun's head wearing easy riders, vases holding reeds and dried first cone and decorative art objects, a tree trunk section painted, plastic green climbers, round baskets, a paper fan...
An astronaut standing at the edge of a swimming pool with a modern steel frame chair at their side.
quote from article highlighted: German researchers studying the reliability of such AI tools ahead of the 2025 German federal election raised significant concerns about bias and “hallucinations” – AI tools making up false information. Acknowledging the potential of the technology to increase voter informedness and party transparency, the researchers recommended adopting scientific evaluations comparable to those used in the Agency for Civic Education’s official tool to improve and institutionalize the technology.
Incredible photo of the Sistine Chapel interior with priests, royalty and the Pope.
A Chris Silverman illustration of a shadow man smoking inside a dimly lit room full of industrial revolution type machinery and warning inflammable signs and no smoking signs. Its moody.
a png icon of a boombox done in semi cartoon vector style.
Date: 27th September Time: 2pm to 5pm Location: SET Social, Red Bar This event is free, but ticketed! Please register at: lu.ma/9ddl2shi Sick of living in the dreams of prepper CEOs? Feeling doomy about spending the next AI winter in a chatbot cult? Suspicious that the healthcare implications of AlphaFold might be overshadowed by the broader corrosion of liberal democracy? Actually pretty optimistic, but would like a break from the hype?
Quote highlighted in screenshot of article in the Register. “I think the skills that should be emphasized are how do you think for yourself? How do you develop critical reasoning for solving problems? How do you develop creativity? How do you develop a learning mindset that you're going to go learn to do the next thing?”
Who’s using AI? Out of about 2,000 surveyed publishers: 45.4% said they’re using AI 52.6% said they’re not 2% were unsure
A screenshot of a student post in Facebook complaining that they have an assignment for a class that requires the use of AI. They don't want to do it, but their grade will drop too low if they don't.
A poster for the VLC video player. 6 billion diwnloads. Still no ads and extra volume.
Gaming the google meet AI note taker with fantasy nonsense introductions. This is known as Malicious Compliance.
The statement on generative AI provided by Elsevier for their peer reviewers. The statement makes it clear that no use of gen AI is acceptable and that the responsibilities associated with peer review are only attributable to humans.
A screenshot saying "your membership has ended, Pen", from Google One.
a screenshot of my mastodon account showing my 600 follower count. Yippee! Mastodon is where the coolest ppl are.
Following on from my radical candour post about resigning if I was a teacher being asked to use AI in (aka automate and standardise) every aspect of teaching practice, I wonder if I was a parent of school age children, would I join the growing happy band of home schoolers who remove their children from state or even public/private schools? This would mean of course that only privileged parents (for whatever reason) would be able to do that. That would leave the great unwashed hoi-poloi to suffer with no power to fight back or complain, the march of standardised 'average' approaches to L&T. 'Machine say' being the only operative that is significant. Much of this argument is not (only) about AI, it's about not caring who or what teaches ordinary children from ordinary backgrounds. Its about feeding the edtech industry with billions of $$%££€€ to repay on their stakeholder investment promises. Luckily, many schools in the developing world still don't have stable electrical power and in the end its that that will save them from this horror extractive capitalism.
OpenAI identity verification screen with "Begin verifying" button.
A screenshot of a socmed post saying Ai has limitless thirst for water and energy but its a trade off we should make for crap Gen AI content. It is satire.
A photo of an almost empty glass of water, some Trebor mints, a clementine and a full packet of dark chocolate McVities digestive biscuits.
A screenshot of a popular Mastodon post saying: Let's play a game. Don't say PowerPoint presentation, say slidedeck Don't say Word, say text document Don't say Photoshop, say image editing Don't say Excel, say spreadsheet Don't say... Language is important. When corporate companies own the names of the tasks or the digital items you create, you have become a cog in their branding machine. #bigtech #DataSociety #academicchatter
a screenshot of Zoom T&Cs saying you sign away all rights for it to use in any way it chooses including generated data.
It looks like Zelensky refused to pay „protection“ money to the US. From what I understand, Trump's deal means: - Give up Russian-occupied territory. - Return occupied land back to Russia. - Give up 50% of the minerals to the US. This is the worst imaginable outcome. The US wants to profit from the war and let Europe deal alone with the problems and costs.
Google maps showing Gulf of Mexico with 'Gulf of America' in brackets
A screenshot of Google maps showing the Gulf of Mexico, with 'Gulf of America' shown in brackets
Paul Klee. Around the Fish. 1926 The Nazis described Paul Klee’s work as "insane childish scrawling." In 1933, the 54-year-old former professor at the Bauhaus, an influential art school founded in Weimar in 1919, was highly established and represented in most German museums and internationally. Yet the Nazi authorities dismissed Klee from his teaching position in Düsseldorf in 1933, and he returned to Switzerland. Eventually more than 130 works by Klee were removed from German museums, including Around the Fish from the Gemäldegalerie in Dresden. When MoMA purchased the painting alongside works by André Derain, Henri Matisse, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner in 1939, MoMA director Alfred H. Barr, Jr., announced, "The only good thing about the exile of such fine works of art from one country is the consequent enrichment of other lands where cultural freedom still exists."
Screenshot showing 13th century cystersian monk numbers system. Their system meant that any number from 1 to 9,999 could be written using a single symbol. The symbols look like variations of single straight virtical lines with angular or square lines attached.
Google, a brief history 2004: Don’t be evil 2018: OK, be evil but at least don’t kill people 2025: Fuck it, kill people
a screenshot of a post on the fediverse, comparing different social media responses to the current coup in the USA. "Social media by level of average user's resistance: Facebook: "Guess I heard something but my grandson says it's fine." X: : racist bot tries to sell you NFTs: LinkedIN: "Join my webinar on realigning corporate priorities to achieve synergies and maximize shareholder value." Bluesky: "everything is terrible and we're all going to die... but what can you do" Fediverse: I'M JUST GONNA PERSONALLY MIRROR THE CDCs WEBSITE SO PEOPLE CAN KEEP USING IT."
A hello social media card, with two social media account addresses, one from Bluesky and one from Mastodon using the bridgy fed. The background image shows a very blue sky with a colourful hot air balloon.
A screenshot listing all the US government agencies that would be banned by the Libertarian party in 1980. Backed by the Koch Brothers.
Screenshot of Tokimeki on desktop showing multiple column feeds. In my old role of elearning czar, I used to bark on about 3rd party tech that was useful. So, with that hat on, I will be making short videos for how to set this up as a phone app and a desktop installed browser client - its like Tweedeck.
The famous image of Saffiyah Khan facing off a English Defence League neanderthal, with an English Bobby looking on
A photo INSIDE the FBI training centre Quantico, with a man pairing over the DEI wall mural.
Its bot Scotty!
screenshot of horrible genai clipart saying 'get ai savvy'