Oh my god. INTENTIONALLY?

Yeah. The module lecturer sent her a message saying "Are you sure this is the version you're submitting?"

Her response was "Yes, unless you think it's bad?"

So that rang alarm bells. Lecturer asked me for advice on how to respond, so I suggested "Double check the images you've used, and remember there is a professional standard you need to be meeting in terms of language and content." This was duly sent.

Her response was "OK I'll redo it."

So uh. It seems she intentionally included it and thought that was a good idea. In a formal assignment.

I've been recently checking bibliography from one of our professors, and 1/3 of books references *don't exist*. Like, at all. Authors, titles, publishing houses.

I think he generated his bibliography in chatgpt, and it hallucinated the books.

He's a professor.

... report that shit

In an absolutely fascinating twist it looks like she did it intentionally

How has the start of new term been treating you? Still having ChatGPT issues?

Well, that's ongoing as it moves into investigation, but now we have brand new fun and games because one of the students has - well.

One of the first year modules is an academic skills module to teach them how to write reports, reference, research, avoid plagiarism, do basic stats, etc. They were set the task of making a video log summing up all they've learned this year, which they will then present tomorrow.

NOW

We have all heard, have we not, the stories of students who forgot to remove their notes to themselves before submission? Leaving in things like "Write some bullshit here", or naming the file "I fucking hate this assignment"? Things that were supposed to be for their eyes only, and to never reach the lecturer?

One student included a photo montage in her video.

And one of the images is a head shot of her, Snapchat filter on, with the caption,

"Uni is literally fucking me in all holes"

I AM LAUGHING. I AM LAUGHING HARD. THE MODULE LECTURER, HOWEVER, IS VERY MUCH NOT LAUGHING.

What is the Sexy Lamp Test?

It's a test in a similar vein to the Bechdel Test, designed to see at a glance how well written a character is. Coined by Kelly Sue DeConnick, iirc. Usually applied specifically to female characters, but it works for any characters who are in the token/companion role.

The test is:

If you replaced the character with a sexy lamp, would there be a difference? Would it affect the story in any way? There's still something sexy for us to look at, still an object to obtain, but does the plot have to change at all? Do we lose any important information or actions?

If not, your character has failed the Sexy Lamp Test

I have created a reconstruction using my own face:

How has the start of new term been treating you? Still having ChatGPT issues?

Well, that's ongoing as it moves into investigation, but now we have brand new fun and games because one of the students has - well.

One of the first year modules is an academic skills module to teach them how to write reports, reference, research, avoid plagiarism, do basic stats, etc. They were set the task of making a video log summing up all they've learned this year, which they will then present tomorrow.

NOW

We have all heard, have we not, the stories of students who forgot to remove their notes to themselves before submission? Leaving in things like "Write some bullshit here", or naming the file "I fucking hate this assignment"? Things that were supposed to be for their eyes only, and to never reach the lecturer?

One student included a photo montage in her video.

And one of the images is a head shot of her, Snapchat filter on, with the caption,

"Uni is literally fucking me in all holes"

I AM LAUGHING. I AM LAUGHING HARD. THE MODULE LECTURER, HOWEVER, IS VERY MUCH NOT LAUGHING.

How has the start of new term been treating you? Still having ChatGPT issues?

Well, that's ongoing as it moves into investigation, but now we have brand new fun and games because one of the students has - well.

One of the first year modules is an academic skills module to teach them how to write reports, reference, research, avoid plagiarism, do basic stats, etc. They were set the task of making a video log summing up all they've learned this year, which they will then present tomorrow.

NOW

We have all heard, have we not, the stories of students who forgot to remove their notes to themselves before submission? Leaving in things like "Write some bullshit here", or naming the file "I fucking hate this assignment"? Things that were supposed to be for their eyes only, and to never reach the lecturer?

One student included a photo montage in her video.

And one of the images is a head shot of her, Snapchat filter on, with the caption,

"Uni is literally fucking me in all holes"

I AM LAUGHING. I AM LAUGHING HARD. THE MODULE LECTURER, HOWEVER, IS VERY MUCH NOT LAUGHING.

People in northern Gaza have been forced to survive on an average of 245 calories a day - less than a can of fava beans - since January, as Israeli forces continue their military onslaught. Over 300,000 people are believed to still be trapped there, unable to leave. The miniscule amount of food represents less than 12 per cent of the recommended daily 2,100 calorie intake needed per person, calculated using demographic data considering variations by age and gender. Last week, the Israeli government told UNRWA, by far the largest aid provider in Gaza, that its convoys would no longer be allowed into the north. Oxfam’s analysis is based on the latest available data used in the recent Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis for the Gaza Strip. Oxfam also found that the total food deliveries allowed into Gaza for the entire 2.2 million population - since last October - amounted to an average of just 41 per cent of the daily calories needed per person.

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide has issued a genocide alert for the West Bank

The Lemkin Institute is horrified by the dire situation transpiring in the West Bank. During what has already been a devastating six months of conflict in Gaza, the Israeli military and far-right settlers have used the cover of war to conduct continuous attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, often leading to death and forced displacement. These attacks have been underreported in the mainstream Western press, which has also failed to tie Israel Defense Force (IDF) and settler violence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to the genocide being committed in Gaza. These processes are all part of an overwhelming push on the part of Israeli authorities to oust Palestinians from their remaining ancestral lands. In other words, Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians across Palestine.

100 year old rhododendron and the woman who planted it

Disabled trans author (me) in financial worry zone

Prynhawn da pawb

I'm making this post to keep you all updated with what is happening in my life and where I'm at currently. There's no need for panic just yet, but things are more tenuous than they were before and I hope by explaining what has happened I can keep you all in the loop regarding everything.

So, first things first - I was in A&E last month due to suffering a shock (which I would prefer not to talk about at this time). Suffice to say, this shock was so intense that it caused the knock-on effect of my body entering a state of ketoacidosis caused by involuntary starvation. You can read more about what happened to me in this reblog which I posted earlier.

The ordeal caused me to need to take anti-nausea medication for a while before I ate in order to be able to stomach anything. Thankfully I am able to eat normally again now.

However, I didn't have long to recover from this ordeal before some more bad news came my way. Due to a change in circumstances, I will need to move house at some point this year (ideally as soon as is humanly achievable, which could still be several months) into a smaller flat than the one I'm currently living in. House moves are costly and to make matters worse, more bad news this week.

It looks like I will become unemployed by the end of the month. I'm already looking for some more part-time work, with a few options lined up. But none are guaranteed unless I am successful as a candidate for these jobs.

Which means I'm going to be living on remaining student loan funds in order to pay rent (hence the need to move to a cheaper flat as soon as humanly possible - which could be several months from now. My remaining student loan is *only just* enough to be able to cover this. I'm hopeful I will be able to find part-time employment somewhere - however, the jobs I am applying for don't quite offer enough hours to fully pay for rent as it stands, therefore I'm going to be promoting my patreon for creator support purposes a bit more in order to help me get through this difficult time.

I already can't thank patrons enough for helping me afford a dental mouthguard earlier this year to protect my teeth from my bruxism. If anyone has anything to spare - even in the short term, this will go directly to keeping a roof over my head and food in my fridge. Once I'm able to move house, costs should come right down and hopefully things will be much smoother sailing. But until then, please share this post or donate to my patreon or tip me on tumblr if you are able.

Diolch yn fawr iawn i chi gyd

Luke

Photo of the beach at Aberystwyth I took yesterday for tax:

Hey umm, can we talk about how a cop killed two gay men just before Sydney Mardi Gras and they still want to put police in the fucking parade.

28/100 reasons to love 런닝맨: race-starter sukjin (requested by siwohandro)

Thank you!

Gonna look for confirmation but I've seen a claim relating to the news that the NHS is going to force GICs to hand over patient records to look for evidence of detransition, that the criteria they are going to use is if the patient has a GRC.

I dont have a solid source yet. Do not panic yet. But if true I will lose my fucking mind.

I don't have Twitter and so can't view more than the first tweet, so I don't know if this is clarified in the thread. But:

Is this in England specifically, or UK-wide? Because healthcare is a devolved issue, so is this so institutional that Westminster is forcing it through on Wales, Scotland and NI, or is this limited to England?

Gonna look for confirmation but I've seen a claim relating to the news that the NHS is going to force GICs to hand over patient records to look for evidence of detransition, that the criteria they are going to use is if the patient has a GRC.

I dont have a solid source yet. Do not panic yet. But if true I will lose my fucking mind.

"A century of gradual reforestation across the American East and Southeast has kept the region cooler than it otherwise would have become, a new study shows.

The pioneering study of progress shows how the last 25 years of accelerated reforestation around the world might significantly pay off in the second half of the 21st century.

Using a variety of calculative methods and estimations based on satellite and temperature data from weather stations, the authors determined that forests in the eastern United States cool the land surface by 1.8 – 3.6°F annually compared to nearby grasslands and croplands, with the strongest effect seen in summer, when cooling amounts to 3.6 – 9°F.

The younger the forest, the more this cooling effect was detected, with forest trees between 20 and 40 years old offering the coolest temperatures underneath.

“The reforestation has been remarkable and we have shown this has translated into the surrounding air temperature,” Mallory Barnes, an environmental scientist at Indiana University who led the research, told The Guardian.

“Moving forward, we need to think about tree planting not just as a way to absorb carbon dioxide but also the cooling effects in adapting for climate change, to help cities be resilient against these very hot temperatures.”

The cooling of the land surface affected the air near ground level as well, with a stepwise reduction in heat linked to reductions in near-surface air temps.

“Analyses of historical land cover and air temperature trends showed that the cooling benefits of reforestation extend across the landscape,” the authors write. “Locations surrounded by reforestation were up to 1.8°F cooler than neighboring locations that did not undergo land cover change, and areas dominated by regrowing forests were associated with cooling temperature trends in much of the Eastern United States.”

By the 1930s, forest cover loss in the eastern states like the Carolinas and Mississippi had stopped, as the descendants of European settlers moved in greater and greater numbers into cities and marginal agricultural land was abandoned.

The Civilian Conservation Corps undertook large replanting efforts of forests that had been cleared, and this is believed to be what is causing the lower average temperatures observed in the study data.

However, the authors note that other causes, like more sophisticated crop irrigation and increases in airborne pollutants that block incoming sunlight, may have also contributed to the lowering of temperatures over time. They also note that tree planting might not always produce this effect, such as in the boreal zone where increases in trees are linked with increases in humidity that way raise average temperatures."

-via Good News Network, February 20, 2024

Oh my god, go ahead! I can be boring and give a more detailed wishlist for what I want it to do if you like, make it a Challenge

It did occur to me as I hit 'post', actually, that if you hadn't already come across this site you'd probably be delighted by it. The main site is Virtual Biology Lab, and it was an absolute godsend during the pandemic when we suddenly had to do online teaching and I had a Field and Lab Skills module to deliver without access to a field or a lab. GREAT for teaching the influence of animal behaviour in that field vole one, though, because you can't exactly set that up as a reliable practical experiment (ethically). There's a tadpole model on there that I use first to teach both sampling with removal and mark-recapture, but then the voles are a great follow up to show the pitfalls.

(I also show them the real life example of Ffred, a field vole who returned to my trap every day for the week of the experiment a few years back. We were marking by shaving a fur patch. By the end of the week, Ffred was fat and had a Mohawk.)

Some of the models aren't so good, mind. There's one that shows how quadrat placement affects botanical survey results, for example, but it's a bit too clunky and too visually confusing for the students to wrap their heads around fully. And there's a bee one that I haven't quite managed to interpret. But many are great and I love them very much. Great visual aids.

There's this website I like using with my students sometimes that has a bunch of simple lil virtual models on it to teach various aspects of ecology, like this one that shows how two species of bacteria compete in a petri dish to illustrate niches, and this one that shows both how to estimate field vole populations using mark-recapture but also how their trap preferences affect the results, and this much fancier one showing how barnacles are affected by sea level rise. They are simple and fun and pedagogically useful. I like them.

I also want to make one of my own to teach climate proxies; sediment cores using foraminifera and their temperature-induced spiralling shells, for example, or pollen or beetle casings or what have you. Tree rings. Ice cores. Shit like that. So, the student would have an image of a layered sediment core, the model would generate random-but-within-parameters numbers of clockwise or anti-clockwise spiral foraminifera, in each layer, boom. Past climate record generated.

THE PROBLEM: I am a fucking moron when it comes to coding. I have tried so many times. It just absolutely resists my ability to understand. It's my Achilles heel. I'm an imbecile. A cretin. A joke.

THE POSSIBLE SOLUTION: my friend Dan who knows how to code.

THE NEW PROBLEM: there has been an XKCD-style assumption about baseline knowledge