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koalaswelcomehere.bsky.social
Neil Kazimierz Sheridan
@koalaswelcomehere.bsky.social
470 followers 1.6K following 300 posts
/protect our world/ neurosci, CS, अहिंसा , mmorpgs, maker I ❤️ elephants🐘 & octopuses🐙 ! he/him // 🌱// solarpunk //book🐛 #anticapitalism [@koalaswelcomehere@chaos.social]
pixelfed.social/koalaswelcome
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Reposted by Neil Kazimierz Sheridan
ottoenglish.bsky.social
Badenoch and Co see education only as a means to a massive income in some soul destroying career.

Devoid of imagination and the power of knowledge they view life entirely through the prism of the CV.

My advice always is to study what interests you and the rest will follow
October 8, 2025 at 7:58 AM
Reposted by Neil Kazimierz Sheridan
divyampersaud.com
419/500 💡
divyampersaud.com Dr. Divya 🇵🇸🧿 (offline) @divyampersaud.com · Sep 13
The next 38 hours for Spark Space are more crucial than ever.

We’re helping KIDS who are taking their school exams—despite the extreme danger in the area. And we need to keep the electricity on.

Let’s do it. Bold goal for this life-giving project: 0/500 chuffed.org/project/spar...
A yellow-gold square graphic. In the center is a circular photo of several people working at remote workstations with laptops and chargers. They’re in a building with lights, outlets, and cupboards. The image has an orange glow behind it. Around the image is the title, Spark Space, Gaza, decorated with illustrated plugs. The text below says, “We aim to create a safe, fully-equipped workspace with reliable electricity and fast internet, offering students and freelancers in Gaza the environment they need to continue their journey despite the hardships.” Below is the link https://chuffed.org/project/spark-space-gaza.
September 14, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Reposted by Neil Kazimierz Sheridan
scroll.in
Snakebites and snake bite fatalities in Kerala were once among the highest in India, with 123 deaths recorded in 2019 alone.

scroll.in/video/108653...

In this week's #EcoIndia, we discuss how Kerala cut snakebite deaths while boosting conservation.
Eco India: How Kerala cuts snakebite deaths while boosting conservation
Snakebites and snake bite fatalities in Kerala were once among the highest in India, with 123 deaths recorded in 2019 alone.
scroll.in
September 14, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Reposted by Neil Kazimierz Sheridan
laurahelmuth.bsky.social
Would you like some good news? A new vaccine has just been approved for protecting koalas from chlamydia, which is one of their leading causes of death.
Australia approves first vaccine to save koalas from chlamydia
A vaccine to protect Australia's koalas against chlamydia has been approved for the first time, a development that scientists believe could stop the spread of the deadly disease that has ravaged populations of the beloved endangered animal.
www.reuters.com
September 11, 2025 at 12:05 PM
Reposted by Neil Kazimierz Sheridan
sharangbiswas.bsky.social
Videos like this should be required watching for all students (and all politicians) as basic tech ethics and media literacy.

youtu.be/gKOzDU64iPA?...
Do billionaires even understand the sci-fi they’re inspired by? | The Listening Post
YouTube video by Al Jazeera English
youtu.be
September 10, 2025 at 11:41 AM
Reposted by Neil Kazimierz Sheridan
older.bsky.social
What the (other) international media are getting wrong:
#NotMakingYouClick
#ButThere'sNoPayWallSoYouMightAsWell
"Misrepresentation in international media As the movement gained global attention, many young protesters expressed dismay at how international media outlets portrayed the events. Some reports, such as Reuters, reported that Nepal's Gen Z-led protests began over the government's social media ban. Many protesters rejected this characterization, emphasizing that their fight is primarily against corruption, nepotism, and the lack of accountability in political leadership."
September 9, 2025 at 8:17 AM
Reposted by Neil Kazimierz Sheridan
olivia.science
Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece, we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to relevant work to further inform our colleagues. Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI (black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf. Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al. 2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA). Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe. Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles
September 6, 2025 at 8:13 AM
Reposted by Neil Kazimierz Sheridan
marcusjdl.bsky.social
The mainstreaming of far right discourse 2015 to 2025 in two pictures. The first is from a right wing troll that caused widespread outrage. The second is a supposedly serious journalist just asking questions
Katie Hopkins column in 2015 headline Rescue boats? I'd use gunships to stop migrants ANALYSIS Is it time for gunboats to help stop the people smugglers? With the PM's and Labour's poll numbers tanking as the latest official figures confirm the numbers of migrants and small boat crossings are increasing at a shocking rate, is it now time for a different approach? Jon Craig Chief political correspondent @joncraig
August 24, 2025 at 6:39 PM
koalaswelcomehere.bsky.social
A paddleboard on an lake island beach. Mountains surround the lake
August 31, 2025 at 12:17 PM
Reposted by Neil Kazimierz Sheridan
sinistercinemastudios.art
This is some of the hardest shit I've seen in my life
August 28, 2025 at 6:42 AM
Reposted by Neil Kazimierz Sheridan
eruditelijah.bsky.social
For examples look up:

Videos by @andrewsage.bsky.social and @ourchangingclimate.bsky.social

Podcasts like
Bright Green Futures and Demand Utopia

Anthologies by @susankayequinn.bsky.social and @brightflame.bsky.social

And more like
@solarpunkstories.bsky.social and @solarpunkseed.bsky.social
August 15, 2025 at 12:41 PM
Reposted by Neil Kazimierz Sheridan
eruditelijah.bsky.social
I'm so sick of this. If you don't understand it, just say that.

Solarpunk is barely ~10 years old. Meaning we can still decide what it is, and isn't.

The idea is meant to shift focus from what can go (more) wrong with the world, towards a focus on what can go right, and how to get there.
August 15, 2025 at 12:41 PM
Reposted by Neil Kazimierz Sheridan
oliver48.bsky.social
"I wish those protesting outside refugee hotels could meet the people inside"

'I think of Hadnan (37), a calm and focused university lecturer who came here from Afghanistan, and is married to a teacher ...'
metro.co.uk/2025/08/29/w...
I wish those protesting outside refugee hotels could meet the people inside
If they spent even a few hours in the company of people like Said or Hadnan, I know their opinions would change.
metro.co.uk
August 30, 2025 at 10:43 AM
Reposted by Neil Kazimierz Sheridan
mccrum.bsky.social
This is bad
The research found that if carbon emissions continued to rise, 70% of the model runs led to collapse, while an intermediate level of emissions resulted in collapse in 37% of the models. Even in the case of low future emissions, an Amoc shutdown happened in 25% of the models. Scientists have warned previously that Amoc collapse must be avoided “at all costs”. It would shift the tropical rainfall belt on which many millions of people rely to grow their food, plunge western Europe into extreme cold winters and summer droughts, and add 50cm to already rising sea levels.
August 29, 2025 at 10:30 AM
Reposted by Neil Kazimierz Sheridan
baterfly.bsky.social
Working in total darkness, Sitaram Raul captured fruit bats leaving their roost in the ruins of a historical monument 🦇🖤

From Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2025 competition

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08...
August 27, 2025 at 9:41 AM
Reposted by Neil Kazimierz Sheridan
snowanddrugs.bsky.social
i also believe succesfully following left wing goals (everyone has their basic needs met..) would erode the cynicism people have towards futures and allowing desire for them manifest more commonly

this is the reason for this opinion btw
August 24, 2025 at 12:59 PM
Reposted by Neil Kazimierz Sheridan
wamsleylab.bsky.social
#sleeppeeps:
wamsleylab.bsky.social Erin J. Wamsley 🧠📈😴 @wamsleylab.bsky.social · Aug 22
🚨New Paper🚨

I spend a lot of time trying to control what people dream about.

Usually, we are looking at dreams of recent memory.

In this new paper, for the first time, we caused people to dream about a specific REMOTE memory from their distant past.

#cogsci
#psychscisky
🧠🟦
Experimentally Inducing Dreams of Remote Emotional Memory
Abstract. People frequently dream of recent experiences, which may reflect the consolidation of memories in the sleeping brain. Many studies demonstrate th
academic.oup.com
August 22, 2025 at 12:02 PM
Reposted by Neil Kazimierz Sheridan
localnotail.bsky.social
just walked into the kitchen to find a spider apparently eating a chunk of cat food one of my cats had dropped out of their bowl.
Not sure who was most surprised.

Do you want to see them?

(pics in next post)
August 13, 2025 at 2:09 AM
Reposted by Neil Kazimierz Sheridan
emilgustavsson.bsky.social
I'm generally for the European Union, but sometimes #EU make it really hard to be a supporter. Seems like #chatcontrol is up for debate again. This cannot be allowed to pass if we want to keep any resemblance of individual privacy. Contact your MEP:s, information available here: fightchatcontrol.eu
Meme about EU mass surveillance
August 11, 2025 at 11:27 AM
Reposted by Neil Kazimierz Sheridan
olivia.science
Likening PhD holders to a (non-functional) algorithm is a form of dehumanisation & anti-intellectualism that is a bellwether for contemporary fascism. Essentially it's a typical — if not the archetypal — first step towards fascism: to dehumanise, deskill, defund, and, ultimately, fire the academics.
metaomicsnerd.bsky.social Dr. Katharine Dickson @metaomicsnerd.bsky.social · Aug 9
What I would like to remind everyone talking about Sam Altman talking about the “PhD level intelligence” of the new ChatGPT is that Sam Altman dropped out of college so he… has no experiential construct for what grad school even is.
August 9, 2025 at 6:35 AM
Reposted by Neil Kazimierz Sheridan
gabrieldread.bsky.social
My most recent piece on Global Citizen: How Indigenous Communities Are Powering a Cleaner Future in the Amazon.

Indigenous communities are harnessing clean energy to defend the Amazon and their way of life.
www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/h...
How Indigenous Communities Are Powering a Cleaner Future in the Amazon
Indigenous-led clean energy projects are protecting the Amazon and transforming lives across Latin America.
www.globalcitizen.org
August 6, 2025 at 3:20 AM
Reposted by Neil Kazimierz Sheridan
tanzpunk.bsky.social
"It's a tragedy" that "fell like a bomb"

Without warning, PM Montenegro announces closure of the Foundation for Science & Technology (FCT), shocking the science ed community. Science, in Portugal, may now be at the mercy of corporate objectives.

(The Heritage Foundation is probably behind this.)
"É uma tragédia" que "caiu que nem uma bomba". Cientistas chocados com extinção da FCT sem aviso prévio
Decisão anunciada esta tarde pelo Governo apanhou de surpresa a comunidade cientifica, que questiona o futuro da ciência em Portugal
cnnportugal.iol.pt
August 1, 2025 at 8:58 AM
Reposted by Neil Kazimierz Sheridan
giorgiopretto.com
Unfortunately they may not see this as a problem at all.

Their vision is to have AI so pervasive in everything that 'learning to drive the forklift' is the only thing you need to learn.

You do not need to learn any math, or geography, or anything else, just how to prompt.
heinersalomon.bsky.social Heiner Salomon @heinersalomon.bsky.social · Jul 31
I am wildly paraphrasing, but the best commentary I have seen so far is this:

Bringing AI into a learning institute is like bringing a fork lift to the gym. Sure, both accomplish the task at hand better than you, but you still fail do accomplish the thing you went there for in the first place.
July 31, 2025 at 12:38 PM
Reposted by Neil Kazimierz Sheridan
loriemerson.net
"Lo—TEK Water explores sustainable, resilient, nature-based technologies, evolved by indigenous people who have built water-responsive infrastructures for generations." www.lo-tek.com
Lo—TEK Institute | Indigenous Nature-based Education
Lo—TEK Institute promotes indigenous knowledge and sustainability by offering educational resources that challenge conventional systems. Their focus is on integrating traditional ecological wisdom wit...
www.lo-tek.com
June 19, 2025 at 12:29 PM