Notices by Dr. bicycle whisperateror (adamsteer@mapstodon.space)

PSA: whenever academia reverts to hyperbole in communication, eg:

"we used a powerful model to..."

...without saying what model - it's a red flag, meaning you should always look up the actual model and check its assumptions.

#academia

riffing further: my take on communicating science is to always aim for levelling people up.

"its too complex for [cohort]"

...do we know for sure?

As an example, avoid value statements like "powerful model". Say what the model is, what it does, explain its assumptions.

et cetera.

As well as the piece that inspired this mini rant, I read some excellent science communication today about orbits and crash clocks - leaving feeling levelled up rather than talked down at.

So it can be done!!

Another wander back to 2012 and the SIPEXII expedition. At the last sampling site (unplanned, we were stuck) - we had a visit from a Minke whale!

It decided to expand a hole that a seal made the day before - in ice about 10cm thick and not quite solidly frozen - for some room to breathe. The whale hung around for quite a while, returning to this spot to grab air.

It was .. very spectacular.

#fieldworkFriday #seaice #Antarctica

@MediaActivist @mayintoronto

I liked trello a lot then Atlassian bought it :(

I've messed around in git boards and will probably stick to that when possible in future. See:

https://forgejo.org/docs/latest/user/project/

...could grab a codeberg account and see if boards are implemented? And if they work for you?

[edit - my apologies! This won't meet all your needs I don't think. Or it might 😬 . Suffering man brain, left here in case it works]

watching an e-mail list discussion converge laboriously into a "well actually, we should not allow LLM generated things" stance, with links to others doing the same.

...so many words wasted when the answer/path/process/eventuality was already clear. It's an experiment we never needed to do.

Being an unemployed Cassandra in research and tech space is 🫩

I'd link to my story about the fallacy of technological inevitability again, but nobody reads it anyway 🙃🤷🏻♂️

Hey fedi folks. Still no long term income on the horizon. I'd very much appreciate being connected to permanent stable work...

Here's my CV: https://iamadamsteer.com/cv/

...and my tiny business: https://spatialised.net

Published scientist, capable leader, deeply experienced geospatialist, proficient budget wrangler, strategic systems thinker. Licensed drone pilot.

With years of outdoor industry related frontline customer service 🏔️❤️

In Australia, great at remote work!

#fedihire #fedihireme

@patrickcmiller file under "we told ya..."

I am so frustrated by people who push indigenous organisations to monolithic corporate geospatial systems. Doing so puts knowledge-holding about place and space at risk.

Anyone who says that it is a necessary strategic choice or needed for interoperability™️? Please, think more broadly about choices and impacts. Look harder.

Thanks.

#gischat #datasovereignty #rightsholding

(bought to you by the job search. "That role looks amazing oh they've been ESRI-washed. Again")

...I'm also frustrated at government #GIS people (often the major client of indigenous organisations) who insist on receiving contracted outputs as [insert closed proprietary format usually GDB].

This is an act of colonisation.

People signing contracts in indigenous orgs often don't have the experience or expertise to push back. And honestly it is not the problem of the (usually smaller than govt in scale) indigenous org.

As a client, insist on free and open standards.

#GISchat

@alda this is the entire job market outside of trades at the moment. In particular "oh there must be a shortage of..." part 🙃

hey fedi hive mind - has anyone made a bicycle trailer for towing a kayak/canoe? thinking 5 to 5.5m ish sea kayak or racing boat, max load around 30kg

current design thoughts lead to a BoB style hitch for even load distribution mated to something based on a two wheeled kiddo or dog trailer. Wheels at the kayak middle for balance.

main issue I see in regional australia is navigating traffic...

What have you made? what works, what doesn't?

#kayak #bicycle #bikehauling

@fletch @aral

...returned to Australia, was homeless for 10 months, unemployed for most of that time, now working manual labour to get by. Meanwhile getting notifications about how my work is cited (again), latest paper was most popular read etc...

I've heard multiple stories of people returning from international research contracts to a void, homelessness, mental illness.

Like Ireland, all of this is totally acceptable. And the sense of shame is devastating.

I asked AI to make me a map of its liminal space between exceeding planetary boundaries and the conclusion of the vast colonial project. It used @gdal 's #vectorAI driver to read the lines between, and #projAI to reproject from nuance to latitude, concept to longitude. It even wrote a whole new #vectorAI output driver! And then produced this map in the stolen style of an unknown artist from a minimalist movement late in the last century.

#30daymapchallenge day 9.

...of course, none of that process is true. And I don't know if making up a silly statement has any impact. It seems incredibly wasteful to use such a resource hungry technology making a throwaway image for an arbitrary internet game.

So I hope this map causes reflection.

Because the AI bubble *is* an intersection of our polycrisis, and any act to raise that awareness is useful.

We have one planet. Tech fetishism and fascism are killing it. It's up to us to make it a place worth living on.

It's job application weekend again with 5 weeks on the current clock. It is painful. there's nothing that really "fits" skills or location (Bendigo, Victoria, Australia). No permanent roles, all short term.

If you want to headhunt a highly trained, super experienced, skilled researcher and geospatial data analyst, who can lead teams and develop concepts from dream to strategy to reality to results, and is trusted to get remote work done - reach out! Save me and my referees a pile of effort.