Boosted by @DataKnightmare@mastodon.xyz
I don't want screens banned in kids' classrooms. I want them to get explicit computer education. How do computers, and the internet, actually work?
Remote
sky
@scroeser@kolektiva.social
mastodon 4.6.8Researcher, teacher, and activist when I can manage it, but mostly a dorky mama covered in hummus. Living on Noongar Boodja (Noongar land in Western Australia). Incredibly enthusiastic about bicycles, including cargo bikes and slow bicycling. Μαθαίνω Ελληνικά.
1124 Followers
1434 Following
48 Posts
Joined November 22, 2022
My website:
Boosted by @welcome@friends.deko.cloud
Repeated reminder that if you're new here, following the #intro and #introduction tag (and posting your own introduction) is a good way to find people!
I've had a bit of a shit morning, but at daycare drop-off there was a parent riding their new frontloader cargo bike!
I asked how it was going and she said she loves it, and then added "I did this because of you, you know!"
Someone got pissed off with all the ads for the Mineral Council of Australia's website (thatsmining.com.au) and made this: http://thatismining.com.au/
Replying to
Actually I think it's agonisingly embarrassing that there are so many small moments when it's difficult to do the right thing in front of kids.
"Sorry, we don't have time to stop and pick up that litter someone else dropped."
"That person is sleeping there because they don't have a home, and there's not much we can do to help"
Climate change
Just walked outside to find the 4yo naked, covered in clay, and filling a bucket with water. He shouted in thrilled tones "I'M DOING SCIENCE!"
Replying to
On the one hand teaching does feel a bit like squeezing blood from a stone right now.
One the other hand one of my students asked if I did a blowout this morning, because she thought my hair looked great.
I told her that actually I just washed it and then slept on it and then woke up and immediately engaged in parenting chaos, but the validation is nice.
Replying to
@LoganFive@beige.party a friend in highschool told me I should start smoking because it looks cool "and after the first few times it doesn't even taste that bad".
It was such a spectacularly bad sell that I never took up smoking.
I booked in my Tern cargo bike to get a service because it keeps making sad "service due" messages at me, and the bike shop were able to do it immediately.
On the one hand, that is very cool and useful. On the other hand, it makes me worry for their future because every other bike shop I've been to has been booked up for weeks.
#BikeTooter
Can anyone recommend a good *academic* reading about the way that investment is fuelling the growth of AI in tech?
I've had a couple of comforting moments with other mothers recently around ANZAC Day. I'm deeply uncomfortable with the glorification of war that often comes with these commemorations. Less "war is terrible and we should do everything to avoid it", more "they bravely faced death, upright, in order to secure freedoms" (when of course the truth is much more complicated and grubby).
Yesterday I was reading a picture book they'd put out at daycare to my kid before we left. Many of the pages were quite open to interpretation, so I was trying to talk honestly.
"Here he is. They had to hide in these holes in the ground, trenches. They were muddy and there were rats. They would try to rest there and sometimes people would come and try to kill them, and other times they would be told that they had to go and try to kill other men."
"This page says 'lest we forget'. I think we should remember that powerful men all over the world decided to have a war, and they sent young men to kill each other, and it was terrible, and we should try hard not to do that again."
The other mother sitting there nodded along with me, and when I said, "Sorry, I hope I'm not being too grim" she shook her head and said something like, "no, you're right, we should tell them".
And then today I went to the ANZAC Day ceremony at my older child's school. A lot of "glory" and "faced death bravely" and "secured our freedoms". The children sang a song about how they are all the soldiers who went to war. "He is me, I am also in the jungles of Vietnam", something like that.
I was so furious and sad, and the mum sitting next to me understood and we talked about a little. Just enough that I didn't feel totally alone. She asked as we both left for work, "Are you more angry now that you're a mother? I can't compartmentalise any more. I can't believe anyone gets more conservative as they get old!"
I am so grateful to not be alone in all this.
"In France, the new Repair Bonus (Bonus Réparation) is making it cheaper for customers to mend their clothes and shoes while preserving a fading craft. Part of the country’s anti-waste law, the scheme is boosting business, attracting new customers, and showing how targeted policies can drive both sustainability and skilled trades forward." https://textileexchange.org/how-frances-anti-waste-laws-are-boosting-small-repair-shops/
Replying to
@andy We were cycling past and saw what was happening. I couldn't leave my kid alone to go intervene, so we talked it through together before getting involved.
After I explained what was happening and what I wanted to do my kid said, "Let's go do that now."
Replying to
@phocks@bne.social I am also seeing a *lot* of comments on Meta platforms from people saying "I can't believe they're increasing tax on crypto, I'm just an everyday guy using crypto to get enough money to buy a house, poor me"
Replying to
@bakuninboys@aus.social @knowprose@mastodon.social yes, pretty much exactly me
*I open LibreOffice on my Ubuntu laptop* *hacker voice* I'm in!
I'm aware that I may sound like a utopian radical here, but I think that bombing civilians is wrong.
Replying to
@hc my kids and I have a lot of discussions about rules. How some rules are important for safety, and others are about sharing space together well, and others aren't good rules and aren't good to follow.
This thread from @tante@tldr.nettime.org makes me reflect for the millionth time about what a cooperative economy would look like.
If workers could choose what they produced and how they produced it, how many would choose to make shit that breaks instantly and pollutes their community? I'm guessing: most wouldn't.
We would choose to make things that we think of as valuable and useful, using processes that are better for workers and for our communities.
Replying to
@phocks gotta say this guy vastly overestimates how many people even know who their local mayor is in Australia
-
A win for the lovely Greens candidate in Gorton and Denton gives me hope for a politics of care and solidarity rather than fear!
-
I had a lovely lunch with my Yiayia, sitting outside and looking at the trees for a while. She seems to be doign better.
-
I rode my Urban Arrow this morning because I was taking three kids in, instead of the usual two...and it reminded me what a beautiful bike it is.
I like this story about making cargo bikes to help with flood relief in Valencia, though I suspect it was less effective than just deploying cargo bikes already on the ground: https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/german-students-cargo-bikes-aircraft-parts
Replying to
@beandreams well, while I was there talking a paddywagon arrived to take the woman away. So maybe not everyone is safe. But it seemed like having us stop helped her feel less alone for a while.
I never got brought up with the "police are your friend" idea - my parents grew up in apartheid South Africa and passed on their fear of police and understanding of them as part of repressive machinery of the state.
Replying to
@tempusfelix I do just give money when I can, I just have to remember to have cash on hand.
Replying to
@bluetea @the_roamer One thing I've found when marking essays is that there's no reliable way to tell whether someone has used software to write.
BUT in the last couple of years students have started to hand in essays where the sources cited do exist, but they don't actually match the content.
So, for example, a student will write "Facebook has implemented new moderation techniques, including algorithm-based tone analysis (Agarwal, 2024, p. 12)"
but then when I go check Agarwal, this claim does not appear. So I check a couple of sources for each essay, and if they're not checking out do a more thorough check.
If it's a problem through the essay, I put it through our academic integrity system as "falsification of data/sources", rather than as "AI".
Perhaps in the process some students learn that "AI" isn't intelligent and doesn't produce reliable work.
Replying to
@timnitGebru@dair-community.social Deeply worrying to read this line in the article: "ChatGPT loved the idea. Of course it did."
The author still seeing ChatGPT as an agent with feelings and desires.
I wake up, they're bombing civilians again. This world.
Replying to
@ASprinkleofSage@mastodon.social Control: other child inside, wearing clothes, refusing to learn any lessons from anything ever.
Replying to
@elizabethtasker@mastodon.online Ah, sorry! I thought it did have them but it's been a while since I looked at it.
Replying to
@Tuuktuuk yes, we often cycle along the same routes so even if we're in a rush one day we might stop another day and clear an area!
Replying to
@jpoesen I follow many of these hashtags to find people, and also follow #ClimateAction #compost and #BikeTooter
Just got an email with an urgent request that we confirm any research projects with people in Iran or China. I find it deeply worrying that the email asked for both at once.
Replying to
@mattsheffield@mastodon.social I think it very much depends on the spaces and timeframes involved.
I wonder how long right-wing willingness to show support for others lasts for? And whether it continues once someone steps out of line or is no longer useful?
I have definitely been in left-wing spaces where a sense of scarcity, or people's various traumas, got in the way of ongoing solidarity.
I've also been in networks where solidarity and mutual aid was a very central part of the culture.
Does anyone have access to the full text of this article on Cities:Skylines? https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-032-02076-5_12
Replying to
@notjustbikes@social.notjustbikes.com I see a lot of Australians have jumped in here, and I think it's worth mentioning the huge amount of money that Advance Australia (linked to the Atlas Network) is pumping into politics here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-26/atlas-network-mont-pelerin-society-neoliberal-think-tanks/105700628
[Edit] Oh, maybe this link is better for looking specifically at fossil fuel propaganda being spread by Advance: https://theklaxon.com.au/advance-spread-fossil-fuels-lies-before-federal-election-study/
Replying to
@elizabethtasker@mastodon.online I was looking at FourWaves for a while when considering an online conference. We didn't end up running the conference, but the staff were very helpful in talking us through it.