There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

@robotistry@sciencemastodon.com avatar

robotistry

@[email protected]

Not "Rob". Not "Robby the Robot".

Day job - Roboticist
Chair, IEEE standards development working group P2817; Secretary, IEEE standards development working group P1872.1.1; Co-chair, IEEE-RAS VAS and PEBRAS technical committees.

Side gig - Researcher with the Patient-Led Research Collaborative (PLRC)

Interests include #LongCovid, verification of autonomous systems, and science of robotics.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

glightly , to disability
@glightly@mastodon.social avatar

There as got to be a business opportunity in getting together an agency of people who come out of gov't, insurance, etc. who help folks negotiate and fill out the shitload of policing forms we're all showered with and offer their services at a price poorer people can afford.

I figure the "cannon fodder" of bureaucracies must be able to turn around, use that knowledge to help folks, and probably get more thanks and $ than they were getting as disrespected bureaucratic workers. @disability

robotistry ,
@robotistry@sciencemastodon.com avatar

@elplatt @glightly @disability And yet tax forms have a special line on them just for "here is the person who helped me with this"!

18+ manisha , to academicchatter
@manisha@neuromatch.social avatar

I thought of writing this "blog" post after reading @elduvelle's question: Are there any US universities that actually pay you to do research

Here's my understanding of the operations of most US universities that hire scientists as faculty (some of this may be applicable to universities in other parts of the world too):

  • Universities operate like companies where teaching profs are employees, educational degrees are the products being sold, and students are the customers (they pay for tuition and we all know how big of a problem is student debt thanks to these companies, err I mean universities).
  • Research Faculty are expected to teach and that's the main source of their income. Probably also why usually they aren't given the title of "Scientist" but of "Research Faculty".
  • Research Faculty pay for their research through grants. If they don't wish to take on teaching duties, they must be able to secure grants to pay for their salaries.
  • Research Faculty pay for the lab space, shared equipment, benefits, and other admin costs to the university via what are called "overheads" - this is the % cut that the university takes from each grant that a research faculty gets while being affiliated to the university.
  • This is why the bigger your grants, the happier the university will be to promote you to a "tenured" position. Also why scientists are often forced to follow grant "trends" to get the big bucks.
  • Some universities are so rich that they can afford to pay for-profit data cartels to strategically decide which sector their next hire should come from, e.g Clarivate's Research funding and analytics services
  • side note Clarivate's data is also used to decide university rankings and journal impact factors. Clarivate's scam is for out of scope for this blog but hope you see the circularity here and how the rich get richer in academia ...
  • Universities also rely on endowments, gifts, and donations from wealthy individuals and philanthropic organizations to pay for things like construction/renovation of buildings/libraries, or for paying certain research faculty who take on extra duties like the Chairs/Heads of departments. That's why you see titles like "The XYZ Chair of Neuroscience" where XYZ is usually the name of the entity that made the donation.
  • Sometimes (but not often enough), endowments/donations/gifts are made to waive tuition fees like this recent one made by a billionaire.
  • Postdocs and lab managers/techs are temporary contractors and are paid from the Research Faculty's grants. I won't be surprised if the benefits that they are offered are also derived from the grant's "overheads".
  • Universities have done a great job of marketing themselves as an ivory tower distinct from "industry" but when you look at how they operate, are they not just a part of it?
  • I'm not sure of how much of the public funding that public universities receive is allocated for research 🤔​
  • I'm sure there are more layers to this that I am missing (like how libraries operate and how Clarivate and journal subscription fees are involved there, sigh).

If you know of something that's crucial to understanding university operations or something that's mentioned here that isn't true, please share! It would be nice to collectively understand the systems we are/were/want to be a part of 🙂​

@academicchatter

18+ robotistry ,
@robotistry@sciencemastodon.com avatar

@manisha @elduvelle @academicchatter Some universities have separate tracks for "research faculty" and "teaching faculty" where the research faculty are paid through research grants and are only expected to do research and provide research experiences for students (see CMU: https://www.cmu.edu/policies/faculty/appointments-research-faculty.html) They may choose to also teach, but are not eligible for tenure.

TheConversationUS , to academicchatter
@TheConversationUS@newsie.social avatar

Peer review theoretically works to improve – weeding out mistakes and highlighting the most valuable insights.

But politics and reliance on free labor are among factors that undermine the process
https://theconversation.com/peer-review-isnt-perfect-i-know-because-i-teach-others-how-to-do-it-and-ive-seen-firsthand-how-it-comes-up-short-222445
@academicchatter

robotistry ,
@robotistry@sciencemastodon.com avatar

@TheConversationUS @academicchatter
Yes, check the methods and whether the conclusions are warranted.

But at least in my field, half my reviews end up boiling down to "you need to fix the writing / get editorial help because this sentence could mean two entirely different things and I can't figure out what you're trying to do" - I can't read for methods without fixing the grammar.

pinkpenguin , to actuallyautistic
@pinkpenguin@sakurajima.moe avatar

@actuallyautistic

does anybody know a polite and societally acceptable way to phrase

"dear colleagues,
i would love to spend my lunch break with you, but if i do so my brain has to spend 30-50 minutes being a) completely overwhelmed by the amount of social context and b) severely depressed about its inability to participate in any form of group conversation.
if i am lucky this means a whole workday without a proper break, when unlucky this gets me an extra little mini meltdown in the afternoon which then renders me unable to work for several hours / the rest of the day.
love, pinkie"

robotistry ,
@robotistry@sciencemastodon.com avatar

@pinkpenguin @Nonbiner @actuallyautistic It definitely sounds like they think they're helping.

Perhaps something along these lines just as they're starting to follow would help:

"No, no, I'm sorry, please stay. There's no point in you disrupting your nice lunch together for me - I just need some alone time to prepare for the afternoon's work, and with you there I wouldn't be able to focus."

halcionandon , to disability
@halcionandon@disabled.social avatar

Do these cooler type things work at all? I have to survive another upcoming heatwave and can’t regulate my body temperature () so am risking heatstroke again.

Just humidity machines? (Humidity makes thinks even worse).

https://sotrends.com/frigus-pro-sale/

Do no have air conditioning and abuser will no allow me to have one.

@dysautonomia
@disability
@hypothyroidism
@mecfs
@multipledisabilities
@multiplesclerosis

robotistry ,
@robotistry@sciencemastodon.com avatar

@halcionandon @dysautonomia @disability @hypothyroidism @mecfs @multipledisabilities @multiplesclerosis
From my childhood

How to stay cool in an un-air-conditioned apartment:
0. keep all shades down

  1. dunk head under tap
  2. let wet hair soak cotton top while
  3. sitting next to fan
  4. drinking iced drink
  5. out of metal cup
RareBird_15 , to disability
@RareBird_15@tweesecake.social avatar

Ugh, it's been a rough, painful day. When you live with , there can be a very, very fine line between getting up and moving and pushing yourself too hard. I'm trying to figure out where that line is for me so I can start exercising a little, and yesterday I overdid it. I need to move to keep my muscles and joints from getting stiff and painful and to lose, or at least maintain, weight, but if I overdo it a little bit, I end up with all over, , and for at least a day, and possibly more depending on what I did. Yesterday, it was walking 2047 steps when my average is 1248, and dancing to one song. I'm starting to feel a little better so hoping this will only last a day. Can any other or people relate?

@disability @chronicillness

robotistry ,
@robotistry@sciencemastodon.com avatar

@RareBird_15 @disability @chronicillness I danced for 60 seconds months ago and it took days to recover. I should have stopped at 30 (and I knew it at the time!), but it was so much fun. I hate the way the fun stuff becomes effectively out of bounds because it's so hard to stop.

robotistry , to disability
@robotistry@sciencemastodon.com avatar

Deeply frustrating email from linking to a page that talks big about how they're helping people with disabilities who aren't engineers, and completely fails to address the ways people with disabilities are actively excluded from participating as engineers.

The Accessibility Statement covers ONLY web content, and their Event guidance boils down to safety from harassment.

Here's the site: https://www.ieee.org/about/diversity-index.html

@longcovid @disability

robotistry , to disability
@robotistry@sciencemastodon.com avatar

Does anyone know what happened to the Hummingbird Foundation for ME website? They had a really nice symptom severity scale that I used to point people to, but the whole website is gone now.

Does anyone know whether it would be okay if I post the scale directly in the MEPedia, since the link is broken?

@mecfs @longcovid
@disability

robotistry OP ,
@robotistry@sciencemastodon.com avatar

@tomkindlon @mecfs @longcovid @disability Is there any information anywhere, or maybe a contact chain who can tell me who I should be reaching out to? I'd like to make sure the resources she supported don't get lost to linkrot.

halcionandon , to disability
@halcionandon@disabled.social avatar

Very sick feel body is finally giving up.

@mecfs
@longcovid
@chronicpain
@chronicillness
@disability

robotistry ,
@robotistry@sciencemastodon.com avatar

@halcionandon @mecfs @longcovid @chronicpain @chronicillness @disability Every time I get better, there's a rebound to not so good. But every time I think it's not going to get better, it does.

I wouldn't call it a miracle, but my brain lies to me about "things aren't going to get better" fairly often, so now I don't believe it.

I'm not saying it isn't bad (and I don't know how bad it is right now), just that better is an option.

tschfflr , to linguistics
@tschfflr@fediscience.org avatar

Question about in work: Where does one put the author in citations, in which THE WORK is included in the sentence, as in (a) vs (b) below?

(a) "... which you can find in Chomsky (1981)"
(b) "... which you can find in (Chomsky, 1981)"

@linguistics

robotistry ,
@robotistry@sciencemastodon.com avatar

@tschfflr @linguistics However the publisher's style guide says to or use whatever the convention in the venue is. (a) isn't bad, but I'm sure there's some venue out there that insists on (b) because whoever set their policy believes you shouldn't construct sentences that way.

I prefer citation styles like IEEE that use numbered citations and square brackets.

"which you can find in Chomsky [3]."

"References
...
[3] Chomsky, ..., 1981."

https://pitt.libguides.com/citationhelp/ieee

paul , to random
@paul@oldfriends.live avatar

I know what ableism is & educate true ableism. I also know the damage to the community that the 'ableist police Karens' do

Here I sit in a motorized wheelchair, hooked up to a feeding tube pump, with a pump in my abdomen & cath in my spinal column that delivers medication to my brain and an anti-ableist 'police' Karen came at me in a DM over a gun violence boost

When I wouldn't engage, it abused two of my HashtagGames tags with a lecture & a 'take a look at yourself' with a misquote

Feck Off.

mrs agnes brown saying feck off

robotistry ,
@robotistry@sciencemastodon.com avatar

@OutOfExile_IDR_Voice @paul @disability @disabilityjustice @MadMovementMastodon I read it as an adjective rather than a noun: referring to a person who is simultaneously a criminal and mentally ill and a drug addict and a wife abuser. It reads to me like it's meant to be a list of risk factors for violence.

Who has what disabilities is irrelevant.

The ableist part is using mental illness as shorthand for predisposed to violence.

Private
robotistry ,
@robotistry@sciencemastodon.com avatar

@krishnadeltoso @startupnews @philosophy @cogsci The field of robotics has been building learning systems for decades. While your questions highlight important topics, they haven't suddenly become more important or salient just because AI is better at language.

They are important and salient because we are doing an extraordinarily bad job at

  1. defining allowable operating modes & regimes

  2. imposing pre-deployment test and evaluation constraints
    1/

robotistry ,
@robotistry@sciencemastodon.com avatar

@krishnadeltoso @startupnews @philosophy @cogsci We have enough understanding to design the systems, but we cannot look at the performance of a given system in a given environment and predict its performance in other circumstances. Without experimental replicability, repeatability, and generalizability, our test results don't predict operational performance. We lack scientific understanding.
3/

robotistry ,
@robotistry@sciencemastodon.com avatar

@krishnadeltoso @startupnews @philosophy @cogsci We're developing the ethics alongside the development of that understanding, as well as the test, evaluation, verification, and validation techniques, but we're still at the one-off stage. Any specific problem can be solved with a robot given enough time and resources, but we can't generalize that testing or analysis to other systems or tasks.
4/

robotistry ,
@robotistry@sciencemastodon.com avatar

@krishnadeltoso @startupnews @philosophy @cogsci At this point, we can't guarantee even partial safety or functionality in the most basic sense, just like software still comes with "we take no responsibility for this working or not" disclaimers.

And if we can't say whether a system will provide the basic functionality it was designed for, how can we say whether it can adhere to any ethical or legal guidelines defined outside the design process?

/end

neilhimself , to random
@neilhimself@mastodon.social avatar

From Tumblr. I might as well post it myself...

robotistry ,
@robotistry@sciencemastodon.com avatar

@neilhimself I became an engineer because I wanted to be a wizard. The wizards always seemed to have much more interesting and fun lives than the princesses.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • random
  • lifeLocal
  • goranko
  • All magazines
    •